Linux Commands for Beginners (Part 1)

Welcome Linux-fanatics, In this post I will be showing you some basic Linux commands which are very important & used very frequently. This post will be very useful for those users who are new to Linux CLI & have just moved from Windows.

Linux commands

$ pwd                                            shows us the present working directory ,

$ cd                                                is used to change directory. It is used with number of options, some of important ones are mentioned below:-

• $ cd -                                     move one directory back
• $ cd ..                                    change from child directory to parent directory.
• $ cd --                                   move back to previous working directory
• $ cd ~                                    move to home directory from anywhere

$ ls                                                  lists files/folders i.e. shows all the files & directories. It also has a number of useful options, some are listed below:-

• $ ls –l                                    shows all files/folders with size, modified date & time along with owner & permissions of the files/folder
• $ ls –a                                    shows all hidden files (hidden files start with “.”)
• $ ls –lH                                 shows all files/folders in human readable format
• $ ls –lS                                  will sort the files as per their size
• $ ls –I                                    will show inode number

$ touch                                          is used to create an empty file

$ rm                                                is used to remove a file

$ cp                                                 is used to create a copy of file.  Syntax for command “ cp source destination”

$ mv                                               is used to move a file from its location. Its syntax is same as cp command. It can also be used to rename a file, just place original name in place of source & desired name in place of destination.

$ mkdir                                         is used to create a directory

$ rmdir                                         is use d to remove an empty directory. To delete a directory with all its content use “rm –rf directory_name” (use wisely , data removed is permanent)

$ file                                               shows file name along with file-type

$ cat                                               short for “concatenate” , shows content of files. It has a number for functionalities

• $ cat file1 file2                 read multiple files
• $ cat >filename               creates a file & wait for user to write content in file. Once       done press CTRL+D to save file
• $ cat file1 > file2              redirects file1 content to file2. Multiple files can be redirected. Can also be used to clone a whole drive (cat /dev/sda1  /dev/sdb2)

$ more                                            lets you scroll the output of a command

$ less                                               more powerful version of more command .

$ tail                                               displays last few lines of file. It can be used with –n option to show n last number of lines

$ head                                            displays first few lines of a file. It also can be used with –n option.

$ history                                       shows history of all commands executed. History command with a number n, will show last n commands in history

That’s it guys for now. Also read my Basic Bash Shell commands part 2 post with some more basic but important Linux commands.

Also, don’t forget to leave your valuable feedback/queries down below.