Basic Linux Commands for beginners

Hey Guys, I guess everyone knows about the the LINUX operation system because of its unique features and many other things like security etc. But I guess you all dont know that the LINUX operating system is mostly used by commands. You have to type in commands to access any file or to open any program.

So, today I m providing the very basic Linux commands so you dint face any problem in using LINUX for the first time.

Here you go.

mkdir – make directories
Usage: mkdir [OPTION] DIRECTORY…
eg. mkdir lhn

ls – list directory contents
Usage: ls [OPTION]… [FILE]…
eg. ls, ls ­l, ls lhn

cd – changes directories
Usage: cd [DIRECTORY]
eg. cd lhn

pwd ­- print name of current working directory
Usage: pwd

vim – Vi Improved, a programmers text editor
Usage: vim [OPTION] [file]…
eg. vim lhn.txt

cp – copy files and directories
Usage: cp [OPTION]… SOURCE DEST
eg. cp sample.txt sample_copy.txt

cp sample_copy.txt target_dir
mv – move (rename) files
Usage: mv [OPTION]… SOURCE DEST
eg. mv source.txt target_dir

mv old.txt new.txt
rm ­ remove files or directories
Usage: rm [OPTION]… FILE…
eg. rm file1.txt , rm ­rf some_dir

find – search for files in a directory hierarchy
Usage: find [OPTION] [path] [pattern]
eg. find file1.txt, find ­name file1.txt
history – prints recently used commands

Usage: history
cat – concatenate files and print on the standard output
Usage: cat [OPTION] [FILE]…
eg. cat file1.txt file2.txt
cat ­n file1.txt

echo – display a line of text
Usage: echo [OPTION] [string] …
eg. echo I love India

echo $HOME
grep ­- print lines matching a pattern
Usage: grep [OPTION] PATTERN [FILE]…
eg. grep ­i apple sample.txt

wc ­- print the number of newlines, words, and bytes in files
Usage: wc [OPTION]… [FILE]…
eg. wc file1.txt

wc ­L file1.txt
sort – sort lines of text files
Usage: sort [OPTION]… [FILE]…
eg. sort file1.txt

sort ­r file1.txt
tar – to archive a file
Usage: tar [OPTION] DEST SOURCE
eg. tar ­cvf /home/archive.tar /home/original

tar ­xvf /home/archive.tar
kill – to kill a process(using signal mechanism)
Usage: kill [OPTION] pid
eg. kill ­9 2275

ps – report a snapshot of the current processes
Usage: ps [OPTION]
eg. ps, ps ­el

who – show who is logged on
Usage: who [OPTION]
eg. who , who ­b , who ­q

passwd – update a user’s authentication tokens(s)
Usage: passwd [OPTION]
eg. passwd

su – change user ID or become super­user
Usage: su [OPTION] [LOGIN]
eg. su remo, su

chown – change file owner and group
Usage: chown [OPTION]… OWNER[:[GROUP]] FILE…
eg. chown remo myfile.txt

chmod – change file access permissions
Usage: chmod [OPTION] [MODE] [FILE]
eg. chmod 744 calculate.sh

zip – package and compress (archive) files
Usage: zip [OPTION] DEST SOURSE

eg. zip original.zip original
unzip – list, test and extract compressed files in a ZIP archive
Usage: unzip filename
eg. unzip original.zi

ssh – SSH client (remote login program)
“ssh is a program for logging into a remote machine and for
executing commands on a remote machine”
Usage: ssh [options] [user]@hostname
eg. ssh ­X guest@10.105.11.20

scp – secure copy (remote file copy program)
“scp copies files between hosts on a network”
Usage: scp [options] [[user]@host1:file1] [[user]@host2:file2]
eg. scp file1.txt guest@10.105.11.20:~/Desktop/

fdisk – partition manipulator
eg. sudo fdisk ­l

mount – mount a file system
Usage: mount ­t type device dir
eg. mount /dev/sda5 /media/target

umount – unmount file systems
Usage: umount [OPTIONS] dir | device…
eg. umount /media/target

du – estimate file space usage
Usage: du [OPTION]… [FILE]…
eg. du

df – report filesystem disk space usage
Usage: df [OPTION]… [FILE]…
eg. df

quota – display disk usage and limits
Usage: quota [OPTION]
eg. quota ­v

reboot – reboot the system
Usage: reboot [OPTION]
eg. reboot

poweroff – power off the system
Usage: poweroff [OPTION]
eg. poweroff

kate – KDE Advanced Text Editor
Usage: kate [options][file(s)]
eg. kate file1.txt file2.txt

vim – Vi Improved, a programmers text editor
Usage: vim [OPTION] [file]…
eg. vi hello.c

gedit ­ A text Editor. Used to create and edit files.
Usage: gedit [OPTION] [FILE]…
eg. gedit

bg – make a foreground process to run in background
Usage: type ‘ctrl+z’ and then ‘bg ‘
fg – to make background process as foreground process
Usage: fg [jobid]
jobs – displays the names and ids of background jobs
Usage: jobs
sed ­ stream editor for filtering and transforming text
Usage: sed [OPTION] [input­file]…
eg. sed ‘s/love/hate/g’ loveletter.txt

awk ­ pattern scanning and processing language
eg. awk ­F: ‘{ print $1 }’ sample_awk.txt

find ­ search for files in a directory hierarchy
Usage: find [OPTION] [path] [pattern]
eg. find ­name file1.txt

locate – find or locate a file
Usage: locate [OPTION]… FILE…
eg. locate file1.txt

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