Here is a list of basic Linux commands (For more information about
the command, type man "Name of the command":
1. pwd command
Use the pwd command to find out the path of the current working
directory (folder) you're in. The command will return an absolute
(full) path, which is basically a path of all the directories that
starts with a forward slash (/). An example of an absolute path is
/home/username.
2. cd command
To navigate through the Linux files and directories, use the cd
command. It requires either the full path or the name of the
directory, depending on the current working directory that you're in.
Let's say you're in /home/username/Documents and you want to go to
Photos, a subdirectory of Documents. To do so, simply type the
following command: cd Photos.
Another scenario is if you want to switch to a completely new
directory, for example,/home/username/Movies. In this case, you have
to type cd followed by the directory's absolute path: cd
/home/username/Movies.
There are some shortcuts to help you navigate quickly:
cd .. (with two dots) to move one directory up cd to go straight
to the home folder cd- (with a hyphen) to move to your previous
directory
On a side note, Linux's shell is case sensitive. So, you have to type
the name's directory exactly as it is.
3. ls command
The ls command is used to view the contents of a directory. By
default, this command will display the contents of your current
working directory.
If you want to see the content of other directories, type ls and then
the directory's path. For example, enter ls /home/username/Documents
to view the content of Documents.
There are variations you can use with the ls command:
ls -R will list all the files in the sub-directories as well ls -a
will show the hidden files ls -al will list the files and
directories with detailed information like the permissions, size,
owner, etc.
4. cat command
cat (short for concatenate) is one of the most frequently used
commands in Linux. It is used to list the contents of a file on the
standard output (sdout). To run this command, type cat followed by the
file's name and its extension. For instance: cat file.txt.
Here are other ways to use the cat command:
cat > filename creates a new file cat filename1
filename2>filename3 joins two files (1 and 2) and stores the
output of them in a new file (3) to convert a file to upper or
lower case use, cat filename | tr a-z A-Z >output.txt
5. cp command
Use the cp command to copy files from the current directory to a
different directory. For instance, the command cp scenery.jpg
/home/username/Pictures would create a copy of scenery.jpg (from your
current directory) into the Pictures directory.
6. mv command
The primary use of the mv command is to move files, although it can
also be used to rename files.
The arguments in mv are similar to the cp command. You need to type
mv, the file's name, and the destination's directory. For example: mv
file.txt /home/username/Documents.
To rename files, the Linux command is mv oldname.ext newname.ext
7. mkdir command
Use mkdir command to make a new directory. if you type mkdir Music it
will create a directory called Music.
There are extra mkdir commands as well:
To generate a new directory inside another directory, use this
Linux basic command mkdir Music/Newfile use the p (parents) option
to create a directory in between two existing directories. For
example, mkdir -p Music/2020/Newfile will create the new "2020"
file.
8. rmdir command
If you need to delete a directory, use the rmdir command. However,
rmdir only allows you to delete empty directories.
9. rm command
The rm command is used to delete directories and the contents within
them. If you only want to delete the directory - as an alternative to
rmdir - use rm -r.
Note: Be very careful with this command and double-check which
directory you are in. This will delete everything and there is no
undo.
10. touch command
The touch command allows you to create a blank new file through the
Linux command line. As an example, enter touch
/home/username/Documents/Web.html to create an HTML file entitled Web
under the Documents directory.
11. locate command
You can use this command to locate a file, just like the search
command in Windows. What's more, using the -i argument along with this
command will make it case-insensitive, so you can search for a file
even if you don't remember its exact name.
To search for a file that contains two or more words, use an asterisk
(*). For example, locate -i school*note command will search for any
file that contains the word "school" and "note", whether it is
uppercase or lowercase.
12. find command
Similar to the locate command, using find also searches for files and
directories. The difference is, you use the find command to locate
files within a given directory.
As an example, find /home/ -name notes.txt command will search for a
file called notes.txt within the home directory and its
subdirectories.
Other variations when using the find are:
To find files in the current directory use, find . -name notes.txt
To look for directories use, / -type d -name notes. txt
13. grep command
Another basic Linux command that is undoubtedly helpful for everyday
use is grep. It lets you search through all the text in a given file.
To illustrate, grep blue notepad.txt will search for the word blue in
the notepad file. Lines that contain the searched word will be
displayed fully.
14. sudo command
Short for â "SuperUser Do", this command enables you to perform tasks
that require administrative or root permissions. However, it is not
advisable to use this command for daily use because it might be easy
for an error to occur if you did something wrong.
15. df command
Use df command to get a report on the system's disk space usage, shown
in percentage and KBs. If you want to see the report in megabytes,
type df -m.
16. du command
If you want to check how much space a file or a directory takes, the
du (Disk Usage) command is the answer. However, the disk usage summary
will show disk block numbers instead of the usual size format. If you
want to see it in bytes, kilobytes, and megabytes, add the -h argument
to the command line.
17. head command
The head command is used to view the first lines of any text file. By
default, it will show the first ten lines, but you can change this
number to your liking. For example, if you only want to show the first
five lines, type head -n 5 filename.ext.
18. tail command
This one has a similar function to the head command, but instead of
showing the first lines, the tail command will display the last ten
lines of a text file. For example, tail -n filename.ext.
19. diff command
Short for difference, the diff command compares the contents of two
files line by line. After analyzing the files, it will output the
lines that do not match. Programmers often use this command when they
need to make program alterations instead of rewriting the entire
source code.
The simplest form of this command is diff file1.ext file2.ext 20. tar
command
The tar command is the most used command to archive multiple files
into a tarball — a common Linux file format that is similar to zip
format, with compression being optional.
This command is quite complex with a long list of functions such as
adding new files into an existing archive, listing the content of an
archive, extracting the content from an archive, and many more. Check
out some practical examples to know more about other functions.
21. chmod command
chmod is another Linux command, used to change the read, write, and
execute permissions of files and directories. As this command is
rather complicated, you can read the full tutorial in order to execute
it properly.
22. chown command
In Linux, all files are owned by a specific user. The chown command
enables you to change or transfer the ownership of a file to the
specified username. For instance, chown linuxuser2 file.ext will make
linuxuser2 as the owner of the file.ext.
23. jobs command
jobs command will display all current jobs along with their
statuses. A job is basically a process that is started by the shell.
24. kill command
If you have an unresponsive program, you can terminate it manually by
using the kill command. It will send a certain signal to the
misbehaving app and instructs the app to terminate itself.
There is a total of sixty-four signals that you can use, but people
usually only use two signals:
SIGTERM (15) — requests a program to stop running and gives it
some time to save all of its progress. If you don't specify the
signal when entering the kill command, this signal will be used.
SIGKILL (9) — forces programs to stop immediately. Unsaved
progress will be lost.
Besides knowing the signals, you also need to know the process
identification number (PID) of the program you want to kill. If you
don't know the PID, simply run the command ps ux.
After knowing what signal you want to use and the PID of the program,
enter the following syntax:
kill [signal option] PID.
25. ping command
Use the ping command to check your connectivity status to a
server. For example, by simply entering ping google.com, the command
will check whether you're able to connect to Google and also measure
the response time.
26. wget command
The Linux command line is super useful -you can even download files
from the internet with the help of the wget command. To do so, simply
type wget followed by the download link.
27. uname command
The uname command, short for Unix Name, will print detailed
information about your Linux system like the machine name, operating
system, kernel, and so on.
28. top command
As a terminal equivalent to Task Manager in Windows, the top command
will display a list of running processes and how much CPU each process
uses. It's very useful to monitor system resource usage, especially
knowing which process needs to be terminated because it consumes too
many resources.
29. history command
When you've been using Linux for a certain period of time, you'll
quickly notice that you can run hundreds of commands every day. As
such, running history command is particularly useful if you want to
review the commands you've entered before.
30. man command
Confused about the function of certain Linux commands? Don't worry,
you can easily learn how to use them right from Linux's shell by using
the man command. For instance, entering man tail will show the manual
instruction of the tail command.
31. echo command
This command is used to move some data into a file. For example, if
you want to add the text, “Hello, my name is John” into a file called
name.txt, you would type echo Hello, my name is John >> name.txt
32. zip, unzip command
Use the zip command to compress your files into a zip archive, and use
the unzip command to extract the zipped files from a zip archive.
33. hostname command
If you want to know the name of your host/network simply type
hostname. Adding a -I to the end will display the IP address of your
network.
Ctrl+C and Ctrl+Z are used to stop any command that is currently
working. Ctrl+C will stop and terminate the command, while Ctrl+Z will
simply pause the command.
If you accidental freeze your terminal by using Ctrl+S, simply undo
this with the unfreeze Ctrl+Q.
Ctrl+A moves you to the beginning of the line while Ctrl+E moves you
to the end.
You can run multiple commands in one single command by using the “;”
to separate them. For example Command1; Command2; Command3. Or use &&
if you only want the next command to run when the first one is
successful.
To Sum Up
Basic Linux commands help users execute tasks easily and
effectively. It might take a while to remember some of the basic
commands, but nothing is impossible with lots of practice.
In the end, knowing and mastering these basic Linux commands will be
undoubtedly beneficial for you. Good luck!