Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@uysalserkan
Last active September 18, 2020 13:36
Show Gist options
  • Save uysalserkan/88a3609199472105970f3134c226605d to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save uysalserkan/88a3609199472105970f3134c226605d to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Basic Linux Commands Cheat-Sheet

This list includes a bunch of different commands that are useful to know when working with Linux. Not all of these commands are covered in the videos, so feel free to investigate them on your own.

Managing files and directories

cd directory: changes the current working directory to the specified one

pwd: prints the current working directory

ls: lists the contents of the current directory

ls directory: lists the contents of the received directory

ls -l: lists the additional information for the contents of the directory

ls -a: lists all files, including those hidden

ls -la: applies both the -l and the -a flags

mkdir directory: creates the directory with the received name

rmdir directory: deletes the directory with the received name (if empty)

cp old_name new_name: copies old_name into new_name

mv old_name new_name: moves old_name into new_name

touch file_name: creates an empty file or updates the modified time if it exists

chmod modifiers files: changes the permissions for the files according to the provided modifiers; we've seen +x to make the file executable

chown user files: changes the owner of the files to the given user

chgrp group files: changes the group of the files to the given group

Operating with the content of files

cat file: shows the content of the file through standard output

wc file: counts the amount of characters, words, and lines in the given file; can also count the same values of whatever it receives via stdin

file file: prints the type of the given file, as recognized by the operating system

head file: shows the first 10 lines of the given file

tail file: shows the last 10 lines of the given file

less file: scrolls through the contents of the given file (press "q" to quit)

sort file: sorts the lines of the file alphabetically

cut -dseparator -ffields file: for each line in the given file, splits the line according to the given separator and prints the given fields (starting from 1)

Additional commands

echo "message": prints the message to standard output

date: prints the current date

who: prints the list of users currently logged into the computer

man command: shows the manual page of the given command; manual pages contain a lot of information explaining how to use each command (press "q" to quit)

uptime: shows how long the computer has been running

free: shows the amount of unused memory on the current system

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment