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Basic Linux Commands
for Beginners
March 21, 2018 by Alok Naushad
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Learn basic commands for Linux, a free
and open-source operating system that
you can make changes to and
redistribute.
PROJECT
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
Line
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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Categories
Cloud Computing IoT
Security / Identification
Tags
linux Open-source operating system
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