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Basic Linux Commands

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Learn basic commands for Linux, a free

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What Is Linux?

Linux is an operating system's kernel. You might have

heard of UNIX. Well, Linux is a UNIX clone. But it was

actually created by Linus Torvalds from Scratch. Linux

is free and open-source, that means that you can

simply change anything in Linux and redistribute it in

your own name! There are several Linux Distributions,

commonly called “distros†.

Ubuntu Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Linux Mint

Debian

Fedora

Linux is Mainly used in servers. About 90% of the

internet is powered by Linux servers. This is because

Linux is fast, secure, and free! The main problem of

using Windows servers are their cost. This is solved by

using Linux servers. The OS that runs in about 80% of

the smartphones in the world, Android, is also made

from the Linux kernel. Most of the viruses in the world

run on Windows, but not on Linux!

Linux Shell or “Terminalâ€

So, basically, a shell is a program that receives

commands from the user and gives it to the OS to

process, and it shows the output. Linux's shell is its

main part. Its distros come in GUI (graphical user

interface), but basically, Linux has a CLI (command line

interface). In this tutorial, we are going to cover the

basic commands that we use in the shell of Linux.

To open the terminal, press Ctrl+Alt+T in Ubuntu, or

press Alt+F2, type in gnome-terminal, and press enter.

In Raspberry Pi, type in lxterminal. There is also a GUI

way of taking it, but this is better!

Linux Commands

Basic Commands

1. pwd — When you first open the terminal, you are in

the home directory of your user. To know which

directory you are in, you can use the “pwdâ€

command. It gives us the absolute path, which means

the path that starts from the root. The root is the base

of the Linux file system. It is denoted by a forward

slash( / ). The user directory is usually something like

"/home/username".

2. ls — Use the "ls" command to know what files are

in the directory you are in. You can see all the hidden

files by using the command “ls -a†.

3. cd — Use the "cd" command to go to a directory.

For example, if you are in the home folder, and you

want to go to the downloads folder, then you can type

in “cd Downloads†. Remember, this command

is case sensitive, and you have to type in the name of

the folder exactly as it is. But there is a problem with

these commands. Imagine you have a folder named

“Raspberry Pi†. In this case, when you type in

“cd Raspberry Pi†, the shell will take the

second argument of the command as a different one,

so you will get an error saying that the directory does

not exist. Here, you can use a backward slash. That is,

you can use “cd Raspberry\ Pi†in this case.

Spaces are denoted like this: If you just type

“cd†and press enter, it takes you to the home

directory. To go back from a folder to the folder before

that, you can type “cd ..†. The two dots

represent back.

4. mkdir & rmdir — Use the mkdir command when

you need to create a folder or a directory. For example,

if you want to make a directory called “DIY†,

then you can type “mkdir DIY†. Remember, as

told before, if you want to create a directory named

“DIY Hacking†, then you can type “mkdir

DIY\ Hacking†. Use rmdir to delete a directory. But

rmdir can only be used to delete an empty directory.

To delete a directory containing files, use rm.

5. rm i Use the rm command to delete files and

directories. Use "rm -r" to delete just the directory. It

deletes both the folder and the files it contains when

using only the rm command.

6. touch — The touch command is used to create a

file. It can be anything, from an empty txt file to an

empty zip file. For example, “touch new.txt†.

7. man & --help — To know more about a command

and how to use it, use the man command. It shows the

manual pages of the command. For example, “man

cd†shows the manual pages of the cd command.

Typing in the command name and the argument helps

it show which ways the command can be used (e.g.,

cd –help).

8. cp — Use the cp command to copy files through

the command line. It takes two arguments: The first is

the location of the file to be copied, the second is

where to copy.

9. mv — Use the mv command to move files through

the command line. We can also use the mv command

to rename a file. For example, if we want to rename the

file “text†to “new†, we can use “mv

text new†. It takes the two arguments, just like the

cp command.

10. locate — The locate command is used to locate a

file in a Linux system, just like the search command in

Windows. This command is useful when you don't

know where a file is saved or the actual name of the

file. Using the -i argument with the command helps to

ignore the case (it doesn't matter if it is uppercase or

lowercase). So, if you want a file that has the word

“hello†, it gives the list of all the files in your

Linux system containing the word "hello" when you

type in “locate -i hello†. If you remember two

words, you can separate them using an asterisk (*).

For example, to locate a file containing the words

"hello" and "this", you can use the command

“locate -i *hello*this†.

Intermediate Commands

1. echo — The "echo" command helps us move some

data, usually text into a file. For example, if you want to

create a new text file or add to an already made text

file, you just need to type in, “echo hello, my name

is alok >> new.txt†. You do not need to separate

the spaces by using the backward slash here, because

we put in two triangular brackets when we finish what

we need to write.

2. cat — Use the cat command to display the

contents of a file. It is usually used to easily view

programs.

3. nano, vi, jed — nano and vi are already installed

text editors in the Linux command line. The nano

command is a good text editor that denotes keywords

with color and can recognize most languages. And vi is

simpler than nano. You can create a new file or modify

a file using this editor. For example, if you need to

make a new file named "check.txt", you can create it

by using the command “nano check.txt†. You

can save your files after editing by using the sequence

Ctrl+X, then Y (or N for no). In my experience, using

nano for HTML editing doesn't seem as good, because

of its color, so I recommend jed text editor. We will

come to installing packages soon.

4. sudo — A widely used command in the Linux

command line, sudo stands for "SuperUser Do". So, if

you want any command to be done with administrative

or root privileges, you can use the sudo command. For

example, if you want to edit a file like viz. alsa-

base.conf, which needs root permissions, you can use

the command – sudo nano alsa-base.conf. You can

enter the root command line using the command

“sudo bash†, then type in your user password.

You can also use the command “su†to do this,

but you need to set a root password before that. For

that, you can use the command “sudo

passwd†(not misspelled, it is passwd). Then type

in the new root password.

5. df — Use the df command to see the available disk

space in each of the partitions in your system. You can

just type in df in the command line and you can see

each mounted partition and their used/available space

in % and in KBs. If you want it shown in megabytes,

you can use the command “df -m†.

6. du — Use du to know the disk usage of a file in

your system. If you want to know the disk usage for a

particular folder or file in Linux, you can type in the

command df and the name of the folder or file. For

example, if you want to know the disk space used by

the documents folder in Linux, you can use the

command “du Documents†. You can also use

the command “ls -lah†to view the file sizes of

all the files in a folder.

7. tar — Use tar to work with tarballs (or files

compressed in a tarball archive) in the Linux command

line. It has a long list of uses. It can be used to

compress and uncompress different types of tar

archives like .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2,etc. It works on the

basis of the arguments given to it. For example, "tar -

cvf" for creating a .tar archive, -xvf to untar a tar

archive, -tvf to list the contents of the archive, etc.

Since it is a wide topic, here are some examples of tar

commands.

8. zip, unzip — Use zip to compress files into a zip

archive, and unzip to extract files from a zip archive.

9. uname — Use uname to show the information

about the system your Linux distro is running. Using

the command “uname -a†prints most of the

information about the system. This prints the kernel

release date, version, processor type, etc.

10. apt-get — Use apt to work with packages in the

Linux command line. Use apt-get to install packages.

This requires root privileges, so use the sudo

command with it. For example, if you want to install

the text editor jed (as I mentioned earlier), we can type

in the command “sudo apt-get install jed†.

Similarly, any packages can be installed like this. It is

good to update your repository each time you try to

install a new package. You can do that by typing

“sudo apt-get update†. You can upgrade the

system by typing “sudo apt-get upgrade†. We

can also upgrade the distro by typing “sudo apt-

get dist-upgrade†. The command “apt-cache

search†is used to search for a package. If you

want to search for one, you can type in “apt-cache

search jed†(this doesn't require root).

11. chmod — Use chmod to make a file executable

and to change the permissions granted to it in Linux.

Imagine you have a python code named numbers.py

in your computer. You'll need to run “python

numbers.py†every time you need to run it. Instead

of that, when you make it executable, you'll just need

to run “numbers.py†in the terminal to run the

file. To make a file executable, you can use the

command “chmod +x numbers.py†in this

case. You can use “chmod 755 numbers.pyâ€

to give it root permissions or “sudo chmod +x

numbers.py†for root executable. Here is some

more information about the chmod command.

12. hostname — Use hostname to know your name

in your host or network. Basically, it displays your

hostname and IP address. Just typing

“hostname†gives the output. Typing in

“hostname -I†gives you your IP address in

your network.

nayso@Alok-Aspire:~/Desktop$hostname
Alok-Aspire
nayso@Alok-Aspire:~/Desktop$hostname-I
192.168.1.36

13. ping — Use ping to check your connection to a

server. Wikipedia says, "Ping is a computer network

administration software utility used to test the

reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol (IPo

network". Simply, when you type in, for example,

“ping google.com†, it checks if it can connect

to the server and come back. It measures this round-

trip time and gives you the details about it. The use of

this command for simple users like us is to check your

internet connection. If it pings the Google server (in

this case), you can confirm that your internet

connection is active!

Tips and Tricks for Using Linux Command

You can use the clear command to clear the

terminal if it gets filled up with too many

commands.

TAB can be used to fill up in terminal. For

example, You just need to type “cd Docâ€

and then TAB and the terminal fills the rest up

and makes it “cd Documents†.

Ctrl+C can be used to stop any command in

terminal safely. If it doesn't stop with that, then

Ctrl+Z can be used to force stop it.

You can exit from the terminal by using the exit

command.

You can power off or reboot the computer by

using the command sudo halt and sudo reboot.

Once you've mastered the Linux commands for

beginners, you can move onto these Useful

Intermediate Linux Commands.

Author
Alok Naushad
I love working with a Raspberry Pi and
Arduino! A Linux Programmer, also an
Android Developer. Love Making things!

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