Basic Linux Commands For Linux Terminal Beginners - PCsteps

04/08/2017 Basic Linux Commands for Linux Terminal Beginners | PCsteps.
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Basic Linux Commands

for Linux Terminal
Beginners
May 26, 2017
Author: Angelos Kyritsis
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(10 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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If you run a Linux distribution, and you are only using the
GUI, you are missing out. The Linux terminal is an
extremely powerful tool that goes well beyond the GUI.
Writing commands might seem scary for a beginner, but
https://www.pcsteps.com/5010-basic-linux-commands-terminal/ 1/19
04/08/2017 Basic Linux Commands for Linux Terminal Beginners | PCsteps.com
you will soon get the hang of it. In this guide, you will find
the most important Linux commands, to use the terminal
like a pro.
We have prepared this guide on Linux Mint 18.1 and

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
S e a r cThe
h basic Linux commands, however, are universal, and
they should work on any past and future distribution.
They will even work with non-Linux operating systems
based on Unix, such as FreeBSD, or the macOS / OS X
terminal.
Table of Contents [show]
Important information
about the Linux terminal
There is not a single Linux distribution, as far as we know,
that doesn't have a terminal of some kind. On the
contrary, there are a few distributions that don't have a
GUI by default, and everything is done on the command
line.
To open a terminal quickly from the GUI, the shortcut

Ctrl+Alt+T will work on most distributions and desktop
environments.
This is the basic anatomy of most Linux commands:
[sudo] command [optional switch] [file or

directory path]
Search
Using sudo will run any command with administrative
rights. Most Linux commands that have to deal with
system files and installation/uninstallation of programs
demand sudo.
The linux commands

are case-sensitive
It is important to remember that everything written in the
terminal is case-sensitive. When the command is "sudo",
neither "Sudo", "SUDO", nor "sUdO" will work.
Most Linux commands are lowercase, but there are

capitalized switches, such as "chown -R".
The file and directory names are also case-sensitive.

"File1" and "file1" are different files, even if they are in the
same directory.
Beware of spaces
Spacing is equally important. "chown-R" will only return
an error. If we want to create/access/delete a file or
directory that has a space in the filename, we can either

put the whole filename inside quotation marks...
S e a r c...or
h "escape" the space using the backslash "\".
If we did neither, the particular mkdir command, which

creates directories, would create two directories, "Folder"
and "Name". Other Linux commands would just fail.
Finding previous Linux

commands
Pressing the Up keyboard key will cycle through the last
Linux commands we successfully used, in order. No
failed commands will show here.
We can also use the history command to see all the

Linux commands we have ever used on the terminal.
The invisible password

When we are asked for our password, e.g. after we used

"sudo", as we type the password nothing will show on
screen, no stars or dots or anything. We just type the
password and press Enter.
Search
If you want to change the default behavior and have stars

appear while typing your password, check out our guide:
Show Stars when Typing the Linux

Password at the Terminal
(4
votes, average:
5.00 out of 5)
When we
enterour Linux
password at the
terminal,
nothing will
show as we are
Use Tab to autocomplete

The Tab button on the keyboard is a huge time saver on
Linux commands, as it will automatically fill in the names
of files and directories.
If we want to delete a file named

"whydidIgivethisfilesuchalongname", we just need to type
"rm w" and pressing Tab will automatically complete the
rest of the filename.
If there are more than files that begin with the same
letters, e.g. "whydidIgivethisfilesuchalongname" and
"whydidIeatsomuch", pressing Tab on "rm w" will

autocomplete the common "whydidI".
Search
We then need to type an additional character - "g" or "e",

in the example - and press again Tab for the
autocompletion to resume.
Copying and pasting Linux

commands
To copy or paste on the terminal, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V won't
work.
Instead, we must use Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V. Or we

can right click and use the commands from the context
menu.
Wildcards
While using Linux commands, the characters "?" and "*"
are wildcards.
"?" will replace any single character. So, if we have two

files names test1file and test2file, we can delete them
both with "rm test?file". But this won't delete test12file.
Search
"*" will replace any string of characters. "rm test*file" will
delete test1file, test12file, testBLABLABLAfile. It will also
delete any other filename that begins with "test-" and
ends in "-file", including testfile.
It is obvious that we must be extremely careful when

combining deletion commands with wildcards. "rm *" will
delete every file in the current directory, and it won't use
Trash.
Extra information about

Linux commands
We can learn more about any of the Linux commands
with [command] --help and man [command].
[command] --help will show the usage of the command,

and the available options and switches.
Search
man [command] will show the command's manual, which
is an extended version of the --help output.
However, not all Linux commands have a manual or a --

help option.
Basic Linux commands

for the terminal
In this list, we haven't included every possible command,
just the Linux commands that would be more useful to a
Linux beginner. In the future, we will create a separate
guide with advanced Linux commands.
Basic navigation
These Linux commands will help us navigate to particular

directories and search for files.
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ls - list all the contents of Web Designworking directory
the current
Make sure you read ls --help because there are many
options on how to show the directory contents.
Search
cd [directory] - change directory
pwd - print the full path of the current working

directory. It stands for "Print Working Directory"
find [file or directory] - look for a particular file or

directory inside the current working directory
We can use it with wildcards, such as find *.png
locate [file or directory] - look for a specific file or

directory everywhere on the filesystem, and return all
paths that contain it.
We can use it with wildcards, such as locate *.png
Directory access shortcuts
When we want to navigate to a particular directory or

access a specific file, it's handy to keep in mind the
following shortcuts.
"~" represents our personal /home directory, e.g. cd ~

and cd ~/Documents
Search
".." represents the parent directory, i.e. the directory
that contains the one we currently are. If we are at
/home/test/public and type cd .. it will take us to
/home/test/
We can also use the full path to change to a particular

directory, e.g. cd /home/test/public/. The Tab button
can help us every step of the way to autocomplete the
directories.
What to do with commands that

return too many results
If we run "ls" on a directory with 1,000 files, or we use
"locate *.png" on a disk with lots of png pictures, we will
get too many results.
In this case, we can use a pipe with the vertical bar "|"
symbol (accessible with "Shift + \" ) and more or less.
With locate *.png | more we will get the results page by

page, and we can reveal the next pages by pressing
space. We quit by pressing "q".
Search
With locate *.png | less we will still get the first page of
results, but navigate up and down with the arrow keys.
Again, we quit with "q".
File and Directory Handling

This is how to create, delete, and search for files and
directories.
mkdir [directory name] - create a new directory

We can include the full path to the directory, to create
it anywhere on the disk, e.g. mkdir ~/public/dir1
If we create a directory with sudo mkdir, we won't be
able to create files or directories inside without
administrative rights.
touch [file name] - create an empty file

It is especially useful with the "echo" command, which
you will find in the next section of the guide.
If the file already exists, touch won't erase its contents,
it will just change the last access time to the current
time.
Search
cp [file1] [file2] - copy file1 and create a new file named
file2. The equivalent of Copy -> Paste.
To copy directories and their contents, we need to use
cp -r [dir1] [dir2].
We can include the full paths for both files or
directories to copy and paste from different parts of
the disk, e.g. cp ~/file1 ~/public/file2.
mv [/dir1/file1] [/dir2/file1] - move file1 from dir1 to dir2.

The equivalent of Cut -> Paste.
mv will work the same for directories, without needing
an extra switch.
The mv command is also the only way to rename a
file/directory using Linux commands. We just type mv
file1 file2 to rename file1 to file2.
rm [file] - delete a file

To delete a directory and all its contents, we need to
use rm -r [dir].
The rm command will immediately remove any
files/directories, without using Trash. So, be careful,
especially if you are using wildcards.
The sudo rm will remove system files and folders.
ln -s [file] [link] - create a symbolic link for a file or

folder
A symbolic link is a more powerful version of a
shortcut we create on Windows. There are some

differences that we will cover in a different guide.
zip [archive.zip] [file] - creates a zipped folder that

contains a compressed file.
Using wildcards, we can compress everything in a
directory with zip archive.zip *.
Search
unzip [archive.zip] - unzips a compressed folder.

By default, unzip will extract all the files in the working
directory.
tar -cf [archive.tar] [file] - creates a compressed folder

that contains a compressed file, using a different
algorithm than zip.
Using wildcards, we can compress everything in a
directory with tar -cf archive.tar *.
tar -xf [archive.tar] - decompresses a .tar archive.

By default tar -xf will extract all the files in the working
directory. With tar -zxf [archive.tar.gz] we can extract
tar.gz archives
gzip [file] - replaces the file with a .gz archive

containing the file.
Both zip and tar retain the original file but gzip will only
leave the .gz archive, and remove the original file.
gzip -d [archive.gz] - decompresses a .gz archive.

By default gzip -d will extract all the files in the working
directory.
unrar e [archive.rar] - decompresses a .rar archive.

Most distributions don't have rar preinstalled to create
a .rar archive, and can only install it as a trial version,

which needs a paid registration. We will find unrar
preinstalled on almost all distributions, however, to
decompress .rar archives.
Search
File content
Creating and deleting files and directories is fine. But
what if we want to access the file content at the Linux
Terminal?
echo "text" > [file.txt] - creates a file that includes

whatever "text" we wrote with the command
Echo just prints the "text" on the screen. Using the
redirection character ">" the result of echo is
redirected to the file.txt
Caution! If the file.txt already exists, the echo "text" >
file.txt will overwrite it, deleting all of its previous
content.
echo "text" >> [file.txt] - appends the "text" at the end

of the file.txt content
This is a safer way of running echo. If the file.txt file
exists, echo "text" >> file.txt will just add the "text" at
the bottom of the file's content, without overwriting the
previous content.
The > file.txt and >> file.txt parts of the command can
be used with all Linux commands that print a result
onscreen, such as ls, locate, etc. This will redirect or

append the result to a file.
cat [text file] - display all the contents of a text file at

the terminal.
For large files, we can use cat [text file] | more and cat
[text file] | less, the same way we pipe the output of ls
Search
or locate.
We can also use head [text file] to only show the first
ten lines, and tail [text file] to display the last ten lines.
grep "pattern" [file] - search for a particular text

pattern inside a text document. If the pattern is found,
the command prints the line containing the pattern on
the terminal.
We can also search for a pattern in all the files in a
directory, by using grep -r "pattern" [dir].
nano [text file] - nano is a relatively user-friendly

terminal text editor. We can also run nano with no
parameters, to create a new text file.
Just remember that the commands on the bottom all
work with Ctrl, e.g. we press Ctrl+X to exit, Ctrl+G to
get help, etc.
sort [text file] - will print the lines of text files sorted.
wc [text file] - will do a word count for a text file,

printing the numbers of newlines, words, and bytes, in
this order.
Search Are you looking for other

Linux commands?
If you want to know more about one of the Linux
commands we mentioned or are curious about another
Linux command, leave us a comment.
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About Angelos Kyritsis

Angelos Kyritsis is the Editor-In-Chief of
PCsteps.gr, which is the #1 Computer
Hardware site in Greece.
He loves good beer, having more RAM on his PC that he

will ever, ever need, and writing for a living.
He has also published a novel, but it would be, quite

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Basic Linux Commands

(10 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

We have prepared this guide on Linux Mint 18.1 and

Table of Contents [show]

To open a terminal quickly from the GUI, the shortcut

This is the basic anatomy of most Linux commands:

[sudo] command [optional switch] [file or

The linux commands

Most Linux commands are lowercase, but there are

The file and directory names are also case-sensitive.

directory that has a space in the filename, we can either

If we did neither, the particular mkdir command, which

Finding previous Linux

We can also use the history command to see all the

The invisible password

When we are asked for our password, e.g. after we used

If you want to change the default behavior and have stars

Show Stars when Typing the Linux

Use Tab to autocomplete

If we want to delete a file named

"whydidIeatsomuch", pressing Tab on "rm w" will

We then need to type an additional character - "g" or "e",

Copying and pasting Linux

Instead, we must use Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V. Or we

"?" will replace any single character. So, if we have two

It is obvious that we must be extremely careful when

Extra information about

[command] --help will show the usage of the command,

However, not all Linux commands have a manual or a --

Basic Linux commands

These Linux commands will help us navigate to particular

Free Apps Awesome Sites Gaming

cd [directory] - change directory

pwd - print the full path of the current working

find [file or directory] - look for a particular file or

locate [file or directory] - look for a specific file or

Directory access shortcuts

When we want to navigate to a particular directory or

"~" represents our personal /home directory, e.g. cd ~

We can also use the full path to change to a particular

What to do with commands that

With locate *.png | more we will get the results page by

File and Directory Handling

mkdir [directory name] - create a new directory

touch [file name] - create an empty file

mv [/dir1/file1] [/dir2/file1] - move file1 from dir1 to dir2.

rm [file] - delete a file

ln -s [file] [link] - create a symbolic link for a file or

shortcut we create on Windows. There are some

zip [archive.zip] [file] - creates a zipped folder that

unzip [archive.zip] - unzips a compressed folder.

tar -cf [archive.tar] [file] - creates a compressed folder

tar -xf [archive.tar] - decompresses a .tar archive.

gzip [file] - replaces the file with a .gz archive

gzip -d [archive.gz] - decompresses a .gz archive.

unrar e [archive.rar] - decompresses a .rar archive.