Basic Linux Commands

List of Basic Linux Commands

Hello guys, I would like to share with you list of some Linux basic commands that might be of help to beginners.

Note: Add a sudo before writing the command, which will give you root access and higher privileges. Or it is called the super user. This is similar to the “Admin” access in Windows.

Append text to a file

echo “content” >>

Overwrite a file’s content

echo “content” >

Redirect (append) standard output to a file

ls -la >>

View resources being used on your system

top

View who is logged on

who

View used and available disk space

df -h

Clear a command line screen

clear

Start a service

service start

Stop a service

service stop

Restart a service

service restart

View the content of a file

cat

View the last 10 lines of a file’s content

tail -10

View the first 10 lines of a file’s content

head -10

Force termination of a process

kill -9 pid

Delete an empty directory

rmdir

Create an empty file

touch

Change the password of an user

passwd

View a snapshot of the currently running processes

ps x

Compress a file in .tar.gz

tar czf compressed.tar.gz

Compress a file in .tar

tar cf compressed.tar

Decompress a .gz file

gunzip

Decompress a .tar file

tar xf

Change directory

cd

Update the package lists from the repositories

apt-get update

Install a new package

apt-get install

Completely remove an installed package

apt-get –purge autoremove

Update an already installed package

apt-get update && apt-get install

Get the current directory

pwd

View active connections

netstat -an

List directory content

ls -la

List block devices by their assigned name

lsblk

Get md5 checksum of a file

md5sum

View information about the machine name

uname -a

View history of executed commands in terminal

history

Clear recent hostory of executed commands

history -c

Create a new directory

mkdir

Change file permissions

chmod

Change the owner and group of a folder

chown www-data:www-data /var/directory

Change the owner and group of a folder recursively

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/directory

Remove a file

rm -f

Remove a folder (and files) recursively

rm -rf

Get current date and time

date

Copy a file from one location to another

cp

Move a file from one location to another

mv

Rename a file

mv

Let me know if this helps! Send your comments below 🙂