If you’re new to Linux, don’t worry! There are a few essential commands that can make your journey a lot easier. Commands like ‘ls’ help you see what’s in a directory, ‘cd’ allows you to move into different folders, and ‘pwd’ tells you where you currently are.
To manage files, ‘mkdir’ is used to make new folders, ‘touch’ can create new files, and ‘rm’ helps you delete them. For the system itself, ‘whoami’ tells you your user name, ‘sudo’ lets you perform actions with extra privileges, and ‘reboot’ and ‘poweroff’ are used to restart and shut down the computer. Remember, learning to use the Linux terminal is a bit like learning a new language – it might feel strange at first, but with time and practice, it’ll become second nature.
Linux Commands For Any distro
File System Navigation
- ls List all the files in a directory
- ls -l List all files and their details (owner, mtime, size, etc)
- ls -a List all the files in a directory (including hidden files)
- pwd Show the present working directory
- cd Change directory to some other location
- file View the type of any file
View, Create, Edit, and Delete Files and Directories
- mkdir Create a new directory
- touch Create a new, empty file, or update the modified time of an existing one
- cat > file Create a new file with the text you type after
- cat file View the contents of a file
- grep View the contents of a file that match a pattern
- nano file Open a file (or create new one) in nano text editor
- vim file Open a file (or create new one) in vim text editor
- rm or rmdir Remove a file or empty directory
- rm -r Remove a directory that isn’t empty
- mv Move or rename a file or directory
- cp Copy a file or directory
- rsync Synchronize the changes of one directory to another
Search for Files and Directories
- locate Quickly find a file or directory that has been cached
- find Seach for a file or directory based on name and other parameters
Basic Administration Commands
- whoami See which user you are currently logged in as
- sudo Execute a command with root permissions
- sudo apt install Install a package on Debian based systems
- sudo dnf install Install a package on Red Hat based systems
- sudo apt remove Remove a package on Debian based systems
- sudo dnf remove Remove a package on Red Hat based systems
- reboot Reboot the system
- poweroff Shut down the system
Hard Drive and Storage Commands
- df or df -h See the current storage usage of mounted partitions
- sudo fdisk -l See information for all attached storage devices
- du See disk usage of a directory’s contents
- tree View the directory structure for a path
- mount and umount Mount and unmount a storage device or ISO file
Compression Commands
- tar cf my_dir.tar my_dir Create an uncompressed tar archive
- tar cfz my_dir.tar my_dir Create a tar archive with gzip compression
- gzip file Compress a file with gzip compression
- tar xf file Extract the contents of any type of tar archive
- gunzip file.gz Decompress a file that has gzip compression
Networking Commands
- ip a Show IP address and other information for all active interfaces
- ip r Show IP address of default gateway
- cat /etc/resolv.conf See what DNS servers your system is configured to use
- ping Send a ping request to a network device
- traceroute Trace the network path taken to a device
- ssh Login to a remote device with SSH
File Permissions and Ownership
- chmod Change the file permissions for a file or directory
- chown Change the owner of a file or directory
- chgrp Change the group of a file or directory
User Management Commands
- useradd Low level utility for adding new user accounts
- adduser High level utility for adding new user accounts
- deluser Delete a user account
- usermod Modify a user account
- groupadd Create a new group
- delgroup Delete a group
System Resource Management Commands
- free -m See how much memory is in use and free
- top See a list of processes and their resource usage
- htop A more human readable and interactive version of top
- nice Start a new process with a specified priority
- renice Change the nice value of a currently running process
- ps aux OR ps -ef View all of the currently running processes
- kill or killall Terminate a process
- kill -9 or killall -9 Terminate a process with SIGKILL signal
- bg Send a task to the background
- fg Bring a task to the foreground
Environment Variable Commands
- printenv or printenv variable_name List all environment variables on a Linux system, or a specific one
- whereis and which Find where a command in PATH is located
- export MY_SITE=“linuxconfig.org” Set a temporary environment variable (just an example, but use the same syntax)
- echo $VARIABLE Display the value of a variable
- unset Remove a variable
Kernel Information and Module Management
- uname -a Output detailed information about your kernel version and architecture
- lsmod Find what modules are currently loaded
- modinfo module_name Get information about any particular module
- modprobe –remove module_name Remove a module
- modprobe module_name Load a module into the kernel
Hardware Information Commands
- lspci See general information about host bridge, VGA controller, ethernet controller, USB controller, SATA controller, etc.
- dmidecode See some information about BIOS, motherboard, chassis, etc.
- cat /proc/cpuinfo Retrieve processor type, socket, speed, configured flags, etc.
- x86info or x86info -a See information about the CPU
- cat /proc/meminfo See detailed information about system RAM
- lshw List all hardware components and see their configuration details
- lshw -C memory -short Detect number of RAM slots used, speed, and size
- hwinfo List details for all hardware, including their device files and configuration options
- biosdecode Get some general information about your system’s BIOS
- dmidecode -s bios-vendor Retrieve the name of your BIOS vendor with this simple command
- lsusb Get a list of USB devices plugged into your system
- ls -la /dev/disk/by-id/usb-* Retrieve a list of USB device files
- hdparm -I /dev/sdx Get information about your hard drive’s make, model, serial number, firmware version, and configuration
- hdparm -tT /dev/sdx Show the speed of an installed hard drive – including cached reads and buffered disk reads
- wodim –devices Locate CD or DVD device file