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Linux Commands

The document provides an overview of Linux command usage, including the structure of commands, options, and arguments. It explains the difference between absolute and relative paths, file naming conventions, and common command modifiers. Additionally, it lists frequently used Linux commands for file handling, process management, resource locating, user management, and utilities.

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Raghavendra Gupta
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
4 views

Linux Commands

The document provides an overview of Linux command usage, including the structure of commands, options, and arguments. It explains the difference between absolute and relative paths, file naming conventions, and common command modifiers. Additionally, it lists frequently used Linux commands for file handling, process management, resource locating, user management, and utilities.

Uploaded by

Raghavendra Gupta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Linux Command Usage

• Linux is traditionally used as a command line


operated OS. Even today when lot many GUIs are
available, the Linux pro’s prefer to use the
command line.
• The Linux commands are typed on a terminal
window.
Finder=>Application=>Utilities=>Terminal
• The command prompt will be displayed as
[someone]$
Linux Command Structure
• A Linux command consists of 3 parts –
Command name, Options, Arguments
E.g. [someone~]$command-name -optA -optB
arg1 arg2
• Command name – case sensitive, special commands
start with a dot ( .)
• Each option is prefixed with a dash (-), the
option, most of the times, is a single letter,
but sometimes two or more letters.
• Arguments depend on the command, usually
file/directory names or sometimes strings or
numbers also.
Command line Options and Arguments
• No spaces within the command name or option or
argument. No space between the dash(-) and the
option name
• There must be at least one space between each
individual component of the command viz.
command, options and arguments
• Some special arguments :
• . (a dot): specifies current directory
• .. (two dots without space) : parent of current
directory
• stdin : standard input i.e. keyboard treated as file
• stdout : standard output i.e. the display screen of
the computer treated as file
• stderr : standard error output device usually screen
Relative and Absolute path
• Path is the position of the file (or directory)
in the file system
• The path can be either absolute or relatie.
• Absolute path starts from root directory (/)
all the way up to the file that you want to
access.
• Relative path starts from your current
directory. So relative path changes depending
on what is your present current directory.
• Dot (.) and dot dot (..) are used to specify
current and parent directory respectively in
the path.
File Name
• File name is Linux must ve less than 256
characters.
• Combination of letter, number or some special
symbols (a hyphen, underscore, dot etc)
allowed. Metacharacters (the symbols which have
special meaning) like $,*,? Etc are not
allowed.
• File can be prefixed with full path name.
Command Structure (Continued)
• The commands can be optionally suffixed by any
of the following modifiers –
• & (the Ampersand symbol): this will run the command
in background and the control will immediately
return to the terinal window without waiting for the
command to be over.
• > (the greater than symbol): this will re-direct the
output of the command to a specified file
• < (the less than symbol): this will take input to
the command from a specified file (instead of
keyboard)
• | (the vertical bar): this will redirect output of
the command to another command specified after |
Some Command Examples
• A few example commands given below –
(details we will cover in next session)
• ls : lists files in a directory
• cat : prints file on display screen
• cd : change current directory
• pwd : print current working directory
• rm file : delete specified file
• rmdir dir : remove (delete) directory
• cp file1 file2 : copy file1 to file2
• mv file1 file2 : rename file1 to file2
Most commonly used Linux commands
• File handling
• ls : lists files in a directory
• cat / head / tail : prints file on display screen.
Head and tail will print first 10 and last 10 lines
respectively
• more filename : same as cat but user controlled
scroll.
• cd : change current directory
• pwd : print current working directory
• rm file : delete specified file
• rmdir dir : remove (delete) directory
• cp file1 file2 : copy file1 to file2
• mv file1 file2 : rename file1 to file2
• touch file : change time stamp of a file or create a
new empty file (if it is not existing)
4
Most commonly used Linux commands
• Process handling
• ps : process status
• kill -9 : kill a process
• Locating resources
• whereis <command or file>: find location of acommand
(or any other resource) in the directory structure
• whatis <command> : brief information about command
• man <command> : detailed manual entry of command.
• User management
• who : identify who is currently logged in on the
system
• whoami : identify user id of self
• passwd : change password

5
Most commonly used Linux commands
• Tools/Utilities
• bc : basic calculator
• grep string filename : search a string in file(s)
• sed : stream editor (modifies a string in files)
• date : print / set date and time of the system
• cal : calendar
• Disk related
• du : report disk usage in the system
• df : report file usage

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