Linux Basic Commands

  1. Contents of a file: ls
  2. Content list with long format: ls -l or ls -l -h human readable or concat the both ls -lh.
  3. Change directory: cd DirectoryName
  4. Move to the upper directory: cd ..
  5. Switch to previous directory : cd -
  6. Change to home directory: cd ~
  7. Go to full path: cd /Home/Documents/Pitctures/MyPictures
  8. Tilde (~) for home directory : MyPc:~/Documents$ cd ~/Videos
  9. Clear screen: clear
  10. Show different drives in the computer (List block devices): lsblk
  11. Opening a file in the text editor :
# open in nano
nano filename

#open in xed editor
xed filename
  1. Root directory: cd /
  2. Press Tab to autocomlete.
  3. Create a directory : mkdir blah
  4. Remove a directory : rmdir blah
  5. Creating a blank file : touch something.txt 14.1. Creating multiple files at once: touch f1.txt f2.txt f3.txt f4.md f5.md
  6. Printing something in terminal : echo hello
  7. Create a file with text: echo "blah blah" > blah.txt
  8. Show contents of a file: cat blah.txt
  9. Copy file : cp /source/filename.ext destination/filename.ext
# note: I am currently in the `Desktop` directory
# copy `blah.txt` from `Desktop` to `Documents` directory

cp blah.txt ~/Documents/blah2.txt

# copy `blah.txt` from `Desktop` to `Documents` directory with changed filename

cp blah.txt ~/Documents/blah2.txt 

# it will copy `blah.txt from `Desktop` to `Documents` directory with changed file name `blah2.txt`

  1. Copy all files (. allfiles.allextensions): cp *.* ~/Documents

  2. Copy a whole directory to another directory: cp -r blah blah2

    It will copy blah directory along will all the files and subdirectories to blah2 directory

  3. Move a file: mv ~/Desktop/blah.txt ~/Documents/blah.txt

  4. Rename a file: mv ~/Documents/blah.txt ~/Documents/blah-blah.txt

  5. Remove file: rm filename.extension

  6. Remove a directory and all the content inside it: rm -rf {directory-name}

  7. Remove all txt files: rm *.txt

  8. Unzip a file: unzip filename.zip

  9. Install an application (in debian based distros): sudo apt install {application-name}. Make sure to run sudo apt update command before installing anything.

  10. Remove an application : sudo apt remove {application-name}

  11. Command help : cp --help. Will give help about copy command.

  12. Or using a man command: man cp. Will give detailed manual of cp command

  13. Stats of a file or directory: man somefile.txt or man my-directory

  14. cat error.log | sort | unique: takes content of the error.log, sort them, remove duplicates and show them.

  15. Print linux username: whoami

  16. User id : id -u. Root has id 0.

  17. Print current directory: pwd

  18. Search some text(blah) in some file(blah.txt): grep blah blah.txt

  19. Exit from a terminal: exit

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