Linux Commands

Here is a list of basic linux commands. This list of linux commands is not complete as there are many more linux commands available. However, it should make a good start for a beginner or intermediate linux administrator / linux user.

A

§  alias - create names or abbreviations for commands

§  apropos - search the manual page names and descriptions

§  at [man page] - queue, examine or delete jobs for later execution

B

§  bc [man page] - An arbitrary precision calculator language

C

§  cal - displays a calendar

§  cat [man page] - concatenate files and print on the standard output

§  cd - change directory

§  chgrp [man page] - change group ownership

§  chmod [man page] - change file access permissions

§  cksum [man page] - checksum and count the bytes in a file

§  cp [man page] - copy files and directories

§  csplit [man page] - split a file into sections determined by context lines

D

§  date [man page] - print or set the system date and time

§  dd [man page] - convert and copy a file

§  du [man page] - estimate file space usage

E

§  egrep [man page] - print lines matching a pattern

§  export - set an environment variable

F

§  fgrep [man page] - print lines matching a pattern

§  find [man page] - search for files in a directory hierarchy

§  fold [man page] - wrap each input line to fit in specified width

G

§  grep [man page] - print lines matching a pattern

H

§  head [man page] - output the first part of files

J

§  join [man page] - join lines of two files on a common field

L

§  logrotate [man page] - rotates, compresses, and mails system logs

§  ls [man page] - list directory contents

M

§  mkdir [man page] - make directories

§  mv [man page] - move (rename) files

§  mount [man page] - mount a file system

N

§  nl [man page] - number lines of files

O

§  od [man page] - dump files in octal and other formats

P

§  pwd [man page] - print name of current/working directory

R

§  rgrep [man page] - print lines matching a pattern

§  rm [man page] - remove files or directories

S

§  scp - secure copy (remote file copy program)

§  ssh - OpenSSH SSH client (remote login program)

T

§  tail [man page] - output the last part of files

§  tar [man page] - The GNU version of the tar archiving utility

§  tee [man page] - read from standard input and write to standard output and files

§  time [man page] - run programs and summarize system resource usage

§  touch [man page] - change file timestamps

V

§  vim - Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor

W

§  watch [man page] - execute a program periodically, showing output fullscreen

§  wc [man page] - print newline, word, and byte counts for each file

§  whoami [man page] - print effective userid

Y

·  yes [man page] - output a string repeatedly until killed