Linuxcommands
Linuxcommands
Linuxcommands
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.
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.
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.
7. mkdir command
Use mkdir command to make a new directory — if you type mkdir Music it will create a
directory called Music.
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.
As an example, find /home/ -name notes.txt command will search for a file called notes.txt
within the home directory and its subdirectories.
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.
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.
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.
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:
To remove a user is very similar to adding a new user. To delete the users account type,
userdel UserName
Use the clear command to clean out the terminal if it is getting cluttered with too many past
commands.
Try the TAB button to autofill what you are typing. For example, if you need to type
Documents, begin to type a command (let’s go with cd Docu, then hit the TAB key) and the
terminal will fill in the rest, showing you cd Documents.
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.