Linux Commands - Overview and Examples

The command line is one of the most powerful features of Linux. There exists a sea of Linux command line tools, allowing you to do almost everything you can think of doing on your Linux PC. However, this usually creates a problem: with so many commands available to use, you don't know where and how to start learning them, especially when you are a beginner. 

If you are facing this issue, and are looking for an easy way to start off your command line journey in Linux, you've come to the correct place, in this article, we will introduce you to a host of popular and useful Linux commands. The article is organized in a way that you will quickly learn what each command does through an easy-to-understand example. To learn more about a command, click on the 'More...' link at the end of its explanation.

Adduser/Addgroup

The adduser and addgroup commands lets you add a new user and group to a system, respectively. Here's an example for adduser:

$ sudo adduser testuser
Adding user `testuser' ...
Adding new group `testuser' (1003) ...
Adding new user `testuser' (1003) with group `testuser' ...
Creating home directory `/home/testuser' ...
Copying files from `/etc/skel' ...
Enter new UNIX password:

Read more:

Apropos

The apropos command is used to quickly search the names and descriptions of all available man pages. Examples: Search for all man pages for the postfix program:

$ apropos postfix

Read more:

Aspell

The aspell command lets you perform a spell check on a text file. Example to run a spell check on the text file test.txt:

$ aspell -c test.txt

Have a look at this tutorial for an in-depth introduction to the aspell command:

Ar

The ar command allows you to create, modify, or extract archives. Example on how to list files from 'test.a' archive:

$ ar t test.a

Read more:

Arch

The arch command is used to print the machine's architecture. For example:

$ arch
i686

Not sure what 'i686' means? Head here.

Basename

The basename command allows you to strip off components from filenames that aren't required. For Example:

basename NAME [SUFFIX]
basename OPTION... NAME...

More examples of basename command:

Bzip2

The bzip2 command is used to create compressed file archives in bzip2 format. Bzip2 has a better compression ratio than zip or gzip format.

$ bzip2 list.txt list1.txt list2.txt

More Examples:

Other commands to work with archive files in bzip2 format are bzcmp, bzdiff, bzmore, bzless, and bzgrep which are explained in this tutorial:

Cal/Ncal

The cal and ncal commands display a calendar in the output.

$ cal
March 2017 
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 
1 2 3 4 
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 
26 27 28 29 30 31
$ ncal
March 2017 
Su 5 12 19 26 
Mo 6 13 20 27 
Tu 7 14 21 28 
We 1 8 15 22 29 
Th 2 9 16 23 30 
Fr 3 10 17 24 31 
Sa 4 11 18 25

More examples of the cal and ncal commands:

Cat

The cat command allows you to concatenate files, or data provided on standard input, and print it on the standard output. In layman's terms, the command prints the information provided to it, whether through stdin or in the form of a file.

$ cat test.txt
Hello...how are you?

More CAT command examples:

Cd

The cd command is used to change user's present working directory.

$ cd /home/himanshu/

More CD command examples:

Chattr

The chattr command is used to list and edit extended filesystem attributes for files and folders like the immutable attribute. This example shows how to make a file immutable so that no Linux user, not even the root user, can edit or remove it without removing the immutable attribute first.

$ chattr +i /path/somefile.txt

The immutable attribute is removed with:

$ chattr -i /path/somefile.txt

More examples for the chattr command are shown in this tutorial:

Chgrp

The chgrp command allows you to change the group ownership of a file. The command expects new group name as its first argument and the name of file (whose group is being changed) as second argument.

$ chgrp howtoforge test.txt

More: Linux Chgrp Command for Beginners (5 Examples)

Chmod

The chmod command lets you change access permissions for a file. For example, if you have a binary file (say helloWorld), and you want to make it executable, you can run the following command:

chmod +x helloWorld

More: Linux chmod command tutorial for beginners

Chown

The chown command allows you to change the ownership and group of a file. For example, to change the owner of a file test.txt to root, as well as set its group as root, execute the following command: 

chown root:root test.txt

More: Linux Chown Command Tutorial for Beginners (7 Examples)

Cksum

The cksum command prints the CRC checksum and byte count for the input file. 

$ cksum test.txt
3741370333 20 test.txt

Not sure what checksum is? Head here.

More about the Chksum command: Linux cksum command explained for beginners (with examples)

Clear

The clear command is used to clear the terminal screen.

$ clear

More: Linux clear command tutorial for beginners (3 examples)

Cmp

The cmp command is used to perform byte-by-byte comparison of two files.

$ cmp file1 file2
file1 file2 differ: byte 1, line 1

More CMP command examples:

Comm

The comm command is used to compare two sorted files line-by-line. For example, if 'file1' contains numbers 1-5 and 'file2' contains number 4-8, here's what the 'comm' command produces in this case:

$ comm file1 file2
1
2
3
                     4
                     5
         6
         7
         8

Cp

The cp command is used for copying files and directories.

$ cp test.txt /home//himanshu/Desktop/

More: Linux cp command tutorial for beginners (8 examples)

Cpulimit

Cpulimit is a tool which limits the CPU usage of a process (expressed in percentage, not in CPU time). It is useful to control batch jobs when you don't want them to eat too many CPU cycles. The goal of cpulimit is to prevent a process from running for more than a specified time ratio. 

$  cpulimit -l 30 dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null &

More: How to limit CPU usage with CPULimit on Ubuntu Linux

Csh

The csh command is used to switch between Linux user shells. To switch from your default shell (probably /bin/bash) to /bin/sh, use this command:

$ chsh -s /bin/sh

More: Linux chsh Command Tutorial for Beginners (5 Examples)

Csplit

The csplit command lets you split a file into sections determined by context lines. For example, to split a file into two where the first part contains 'n-1' lines and the second contains the rest, use the following command:

$ csplit file1 [n]

The two parts are saved as files with names 'xx00' and 'xx01', respectively.

More: Linux Csplit Command Explained for Beginners (6 Examples)

Curl

The curl command is used to download files from the internet by HTTP or HTTPS. Example to fetch an Ubuntu torrent file and save it as test.torrent in the current directory:

$ curl http://releases.ubuntu.com/18.04/ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso.torrent > test.torrent

See here for more examples with useful curl command line options:

Date

The date command can be used to print (or even set) the system date and time.

$ date
Tue Feb 28 17:14:57 IST 2017

More: Linux Date Command Tutorial for Beginners (8 Examples)

Dd

The dd command copies a file, converting and formatting it according to the operands. For example, the following command creates an image of /dev/sda partition.

dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/dev-sda-part.img

More: Linux dd command explained for beginners (8 examples)

Df

The df command displays the file system disk space usage in output.

$ df /dev/sda1
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used     Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1  74985616  48138832 23014620  68%     /

More: Linux df Command Tutorial for Beginners (8 Examples)

Diff

The diff command lets you compare two files line by line.

$ diff file1 file2

Diff3

The diff3 command, as the name suggests, allows you to compare three files line by line.

$ diff3 file1 file2 file3

Dig

The dig command is used to query DNS servers and to resolve DNS records. Example to get the IP address and information about the name servers of the domain example.com:

$ dig example.com

More examples on how to resolve domain names and DNS records with the dig command:

Dir

The dir command lists directory contents. For example:

$ dir
test1 test2 test.7z test.zip

More: Linux dir command for beginners (10 examples)

Dirname

The dirname command strips last component from a file name/path. In layman's terms, you can think of it as a tool that, for example, removes file name from the file's absolute path.

$ dirname /home/himanshu/file1
/home/himanshu

More: Linux dirname command explained for beginners (4 examples)

Dmesg

The dmesg command lets you print or control the kernel ring buffer. Following is its syntax:

dmesg [options]

More: Linux dmesg Command Tutorial for Beginners (5 Examples)

Dmidecode

The dmidecode command prints a system's DMI (aka SMBIOS) table contents in a human-readable format.

$ sudo dmidecode
# dmidecode 2.12
SMBIOS 2.6 present.
50 structures occupying 2056 bytes.
Table at 0x000FCCA0.
Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes
BIOS Information
Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
Version: 080015 
Release Date: 08/22/2011
...
...
...

Dpkg

The dpkg tool is basically a package manager for Debian/Debian-based systems. Following is its syntax:

dpkg ACTIONS

OR

dpkg [options] filename

More: Linux dpkg Command Tutorial for Beginners (8 Examples)

Du

The du command displays disk usage of files present in a directory as well as its sub-directories.

$ du /home/himanshu/Desktop/
92 /home/himanshu/Desktop/Downloads/meld/meld/ui
88 /home/himanshu/Desktop/Downloads/meld/meld/vc
56 /home/himanshu/Desktop/Downloads/meld/meld/matchers
12 /home/himanshu/Desktop/Downloads/meld/meld/__pycache__
688 /home/himanshu/Desktop/Downloads/meld/meld
16 /home/himanshu/Desktop/Downloads/meld/bin
328 /home/himanshu/Desktop/Downloads/meld/data/ui
52 /home/himanshu/Desktop/Downloads/meld/data/icons/svg

More: Linux du Command Tutorial for Beginners (10 Examples)

Echo

The echo command displays whatever input text is given to it.

$ echo hello hi
hello hi

More: Linux echo Command Tutorial for Beginners (5 Examples)

Ed

ed is a line-oriented text editor. 

$ ed

Eject

The eject command lets you eject removable media (typically, a CD ROM or floppy disk)

$ eject

Env

The env command not only displays the current environment but also lets you edit it.

$ env

More: Linux env Command Tutorial For Beginners (5 Examples)

Exit

The exit command causes the shell to exit.

$ exit

More: Linux exit Command Explained for Beginners (With Examples)

Expand

The expand command converts tabs present in the input file(s) into spaces and writes the file contents to standard output.

$ expand file1

More: Linux expand Command Tutorial For Beginners (with Examples)

Expr

The expr command evaluates expressions. For example:

$ expr 1 + 2
3

More: Linux expr command tutorial for beginners (with examples)

Factor

The factor command prints the prime factors of the input number.

$ factor 135
135: 3 3 3 5

More: Linux factor command tutorial for beginners (with examples)

Fgrep

The fgrep command is equivalent to the grep command when executed with the -F command line option. The tool is also known as fixed or fast grep as it doesn't treat regular expression metacharacters as special, processing the information as a simple string instead.

For example, if you want to search for dot (.) in a file, and don't want to grep to interpret it as a wildcard character, use fgrep in the following way:

$ fgrep "." [file-name]

More: Linux fgrep Command Tutorial for Beginners (with Examples)

Find

The find command lets you search for files in a directory as well as its sub-directories.

$ find test*
test
test1
test2
test.7z
test.c
test.txt

More examples of the Linux Find command:

Fmt

fmt is a simple optimal text formatter. It reformats each paragraph in the file passed to it and writes the file contents to standard output.

$ fmt file1

More: Linux fmt command - usage and examples

Fold

The fold command wraps each input line to fit in specified width.

$ fold -w 10
Hi my name is himanshu Arora
Hi my name
is himans
hu Arora

More: Linux fold command tutorial for beginners (with examples)

Free

The free command displays the amount of free and used memory in the system.

$ free
       total           used  free   shared buffers cached
Mem:   1800032       1355288 444744 79440   9068   216236
-/+ buffers/cache: 1129984 670048
Swap:  1832956      995076  837880

Git

The git command or git version control system has been developed by Linux Torvalds. It is currently the most popular software version control system which replaced the older SVN system. GIT is e.g. used at GitHub. Example of how to make a new git repository with the name 'Mytest' in the current directory:

$ git init Mytest

More on git command and how to connect it to GitHub can be found here:

Grep

The grep command searches for a specified pattern in a file (or files) and displays in output lines containing that pattern.

$ grep Hello test.txt
Hello...how are you?

More tutorials and examples for the Linux Grep command:

Groups

The groups command displays the name of groups a user is a part of.

$ groups himanshu
himanshu : himanshu adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin sambashare

Read more:

Gzip

The gzip command compresses the input file, replacing the file itself with one having a .gz extension.

$ gzip file1

More: Linux Gzip Command Tutorial for Beginners (7 Examples)

Gunzip

Files compressed with gzip command can be restored to their original form using the gunzip command.

$ gunzip file1.gz

Gunzip command examples in detail.

The head command displays the first 10 lines of the file to the standard output

$ head CHANGELOG.txt 
BEEBEEP (Secure Lan Messanger)
BeeBEEP 
2.0.4
- Some GUI improvements (new icons, file sharing tree load faster)
- Always Beep on new message arrived (option)
- Favorite users (right click on user and enable star button) is on top of the list
- improved group usability
- Offline users can be removed from list (right click on an offline user in list and then remove)
- Clear all files shared (option)
- Load minimized at startup (option)

See here for more examples of the Linux head command.

Hostname

The hostname command not only displays the system's hostname, but lets them set it as well.

$ hostname
himanshu-desktop

Read more:

History

The history command is used to display the history of commands that you typed in on the shell. It can be used to record and replay commands too. To view the command history, run:

$ history

See here for details on how to use history and how to record and replay commands.

Id

The id command prints user and group information for the current user or specified username.

$ id himanshu
uid=1000(himanshu) gid=1000(himanshu) groups=1000(himanshu),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),46(plugdev),108(lpadmin),124(sambashare)

Read more:

Ifconfig

The ifconfig command gives you the ability to configure network interfaces. Of course, you can also fetch information related to network interfaces with this tool. Following is its syntax:

ifconfig [-v] [-a] [-s] [interface]
ifconfig [-v] interface [aftype] options | address ...

More: Linux ifconfig Command Tutorial for Beginners (7 Examples)

Join

The join command allows you to join lines of two files on a common field (default is first).

join [OPTION]... FILE1 FILE2

Want to learn more about this command? Head here.

Kill

The kill command, as the name suggests, helps the user kill a process by sending the TERM signal to it.

$ kill [process-id]

Five examples that show how to use the Linux kill command.

Killall

The killall command lets you kill a process by name. Unlike kill - which requires ID of the process to be killed - killall just requires the name of the process.

$ killall nautilus

Linux killall command examples.

Last

The last command shows listing of last logged in users.

$ last
himanshu pts/11 :0 Thu Mar 2 09:46 still logged in 
himanshu pts/1 :0 Thu Mar 2 09:46 still logged in 
himanshu :0 :0 Thu Mar 2 09:42 still logged in 
reboot system boot 4.4.0-62-generic Thu Mar 2 09:41 - 10:36 (00:54) 
himanshu pts/14 :0 Wed Mar 1 15:17 - 15:52 (00:35) 
himanshu pts/13 :0 Wed Mar 1 14:40 - down (08:06)

Read more:

Ldd

The ldd command displays in output dependencies of a shared library.

$ ldd /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libcrypt-2.19.so
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xb77df000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0xb75da000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x80088000)

Examples on how to use the ldd command.

Ln

The ln command is used for creating links between files. For example, the following command would create a link named 'lnk' to a file with the name 'test.txt':

$ ln test.txt lnk

More examples on Linux ln command.

Less

The less command in Linux is a powerful tool used primarily for viewing the contents of a text file, one page (or screen) at a time:

$ less filename.txt

More examples on Linux less command.

Locate

The locate command helps a user find a file by name.

$ locate [file-name]

Read more:

Logname

The logname command prints the user-name of the current user.

$ logname
himanshu

Read more:

Look

The look command in Linux displays lines beginning with a given string. Following is its syntax:

$ look [-bdf] [-t termchar] string [file ...]

More:

Ls

The ls command lists contents of a directory in output.

$ ls progress
capture.png hlist.o progress progress.h sizes.c
hlist.c LICENSE progress.1 progress.o sizes.h
hlist.h Makefile progress.c README.md sizes.o

More examples of the LS command:

Lshw

The lshw command extracts and displays detailed information on the hardware configuration of the machine.

$ sudo lshw
[sudo] password for himanshu: 
himanshu-desktop 
description: Desktop Computer
product: To Be Filled By O.E.M. (To Be Filled By O.E.M.)
vendor: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
serial: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
width: 32 bits
capabilities: smbios-2.6 dmi-2.6 smp-1.4 smp
...
...
..

Read more:

Lscpu

The lscpu command displays in the output system's CPU architecture information (such as the number of CPUs, threads, cores, sockets, and more).

$ lscpu
Architecture: i686
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 1
On-line CPU(s) list: 0
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 1
Socket(s): 1
Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD
CPU family: 16
Model: 6
Stepping: 3
CPU MHz: 2800.234
BogoMIPS: 5600.46
Virtualization: AMD-V
L1d cache: 64K
L1i cache: 64K
L2 cache: 1024K

Read more:

Lsof

The lsof command displays information (on stdout) related to files opened by processes. Files can be of any type, including regular files, directories, block special files, character special files, executing text references, libraries, and stream/network files.

lsof

Read more:

Man

man lets you access reference manuals for commands, programs/utilities, as well as functions.

$ man ls

Read more:

Md5sum

The md5sum command lets you print or check MD5 (128-bit) checksums.

$ md5sum test.txt
ac34b1f34803a6691ff8b732bb97fbba test.txt

Examples on how to use the Linux md5sum command and some more in the tutorial Linux md5sum command tutorial for beginners (5 examples).

Mkdir

The mkdir command lets you create directories.

$ mkdir [dir-name]

More examples for the mkdir command.

Mkfifo

The mkfifo command is used to create named pipes.

$ mkfifo [pipe-name]

More

more is basically a filter for paging through text one screenful at a time.

$ cat [large-file] | more

Examples:

Mv

The mv command lets you either move a file from one directory to another, or rename it.

$ mv test.txt /home/himanshu/Desktop/ 

More mv command examples.

Nano

The nano command in Linux launches the 'nano' editor. The editor is designed to emulate the features and user-friendliness of the UW Pico text editor.

$ nano

or

$ nano [file-name]

More about the Nano Editor:

Netstat

The netstat command lets you print network connections, routing tables, interface statistics, masquerade connections, and multicast memberships. Example:

netstat [OPTIONS]

More: Linux netstat Command Tutorial for Beginners (8 Examples)

Nice

The nice command lets you run a program with modified scheduling priority.

$ nice -n[niceness-value] [program]
$ nice -n15 vim

Read more:

Nl

The nl command writes the contents of a file to output and prepends each line with a line number.

$ nl file1
1 Hi
2 How are you
3 Bye

Read more:

Nm

The nm command is used to display symbols from object files.

$ nm test
0804a020 B __bss_start
0804841d T compare
0804a020 b completed.6591
0804a018 D __data_start
0804a018 W data_start
08048360 t deregister_tm_clones
080483d0 t __do_global_dtors_aux
08049f0c t __do_global_dtors_aux_fini_array_entry
0804a01c D __dso_handle
08049f14 d _DYNAMIC
0804a020 D _edata
0804a024 B _end
080484e4 T _fini
080484f8 R _fp_hw
080483f0 t frame_dummy
...
...
...

Read more:

Nproc

The nproc command displays the number of processing units available to the current process.

$ nproc
1

More examples:

Od

The od command lets you dump files in octal as well as some other formats.

$ od /bin/ls
0000000 042577 043114 000401 000001 000000 000000 000000 000000
0000020 000002 000003 000001 000000 140101 004004 000064 000000
0000040 122104 000001 000000 000000 000064 000040 000011 000050
0000060 000034 000033 000006 000000 000064 000000 100064 004004
0000100 100064 004004 000440 000000 000440 000000 000005 000000
0000120 000004 000000 000003 000000 000524 000000 100524 004004
...
...
...

Passwd

The passwd command is used for changing passwords for user accounts.

$ passwd himanshu
Changing password for himanshu.
(current) UNIX password:

Paste

The paste command lets you merge lines of files. For example, if 'file1' contains the following lines:

$ cat file1
Hi
My name is
Himanshu
Arora
I 
Am
a 
Linux researcher
and tutorial 
writer

Then the following 'paste' command will join all the lines of the file:

$ paste -s file1
Hi My name is Himanshu Arora I Am a Linux researcher and tutorial writer

More examples of paste command.

Pidof

The pidof command gives you the process ID of a running program/process.

$ pidof nautilus
2714

Ping

The ping command is used to check whether or not a system is up and responding. It sends ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to network hosts.

$ ping howtoforge.com
PING howtoforge.com (104.24.0.68) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 104.24.0.68: icmp_seq=1 ttl=58 time=47.3 ms
64 bytes from 104.24.0.68: icmp_seq=2 ttl=58 time=51.9 ms
64 bytes from 104.24.0.68: icmp_seq=3 ttl=58 time=57.4 ms

More: Linux ping Command Tutorial for Beginners (8 Examples)

Ps

The ps command displays information (in the form of a snapshot) about the currently active processes.

$ ps
PID TTY TIME CMD
4537 pts/1 00:00:00 bash
20592 pts/1 00:00:00 ps

Pstree

The pstree command produces information about running processes in the form of a tree.

$ pstree
init???ModemManager???2*[{ModemManager}]
??NetworkManager???dhclient
? ??dnsmasq
? ??3*[{NetworkManager}]
??accounts-daemon???2*[{accounts-daemon}]
??acpid
??atop

Pwd

The pwd command displays the name of the current/working directory.

$ pwd
/home/himanshu

More Examples:

Rm

The rm command lets you remove files and/or directories.

$ rm [file-name]

Detailed examples for the Linux rm command.

Rmdir

The rmdir command allows you to delete empty directories.

$ rmdir [dir-name]

Examples on Linux rmdir command.

Scp

The scp command lets you securely copy files between systems on a network.

$ scp [name-and-path-of-file-to-transfer] [user]@[host]:[dest-path]

Screen

The screen command helps you to keep a terminal session open even when your SSH connection is interrupted.

$ screen

Detailed examples can be found here: Linux screen Command: Keep Processes Running Despite a Dropped Connection

Sdiff

The sdiff command lets you perform a side-by-side merge of differences between two files.

$ sdiff file1 file2

Examples:

Sed

sed is basically a  stream editor that allows users to perform basic text transformations on an input stream (a file or input from a pipeline).

$ echo "Welcome to Howtoforge" | sed -e 's/Howtoforge/HowtoForge/g'
Welcome to HowtoForge

Seq

The seq commands prints numbers from FIRST to LAST, in steps of INCREMENT. For example, if FIRST is 1, LAST is 10, and INCREMENT is 2, then here's the output this command produces:

$ seq 1 2 10
1
3
5
7
9

Examples of how to use the Linux seq command.

Sha1sum

The sha1sum command is used to print or check SHA1 (160-bit) checksums.

$ sha1sum test.txt
955e48dfc9256866b3e5138fcea5ea0406105e68 test.txt

Read more: Linux sha1sum Command Tutorial for Beginners (with Examples)

Shutdown

The shutdown command lets the user shut the system in a safe way.

$ shutdown

More examples:

Size

The size command lists the section sizes as well as the total size for an object or archive file.

$ size test
text data bss dec hex filename
1204 280 4 1488 5d0 test

Examples for Linux size command.

Sleep

The sleep command lets the user specify a delay for a specified amount of time. You can use it to delay an operation like:

$ sleep 10; shutdown

Sort

The sort command lets you sort lines of text files. For example, if 'file2' contains the following names:

$ cat file2
zeus
kyan
sam
adam

Then running the sort command produces the following output:

$ sort file2
adam
kyan
sam
zeus

Split

The split command, as the name suggests, splits a file into fixed-size pieces. By default, files with names like xaa, xab, and xac are produced.

$ split [file-name]

Ssh

ssh is basically OpenSSH SSH client. It provides secure encrypted communication between two untrusted hosts over an insecure network.

$ ssh [user-name]@[remote-server]

Ssh-keygen

The ssh-keygen command is used to create a private/public key pair for SSH. Example of how to create an SSH key pair with 4096 bit:

$ ssh-keygen -o -b 4096 -t rsa

An in-depth explanation on how to use the ssh-keygen command can be found here:

Stat

The stat command displays the status related to a file or a file system.

$ stat test.txt
File: ‘test.txt’
Size: 20 Blocks: 8 IO Block: 4096 regular file
Device: 801h/2049d Inode: 284762 Links: 2
Access: (0664/-rw-rw-r--) Uid: ( 0/ root) Gid: ( 0/ root)
Access: 2017-03-03 12:41:27.791206947 +0530
Modify: 2017-02-28 16:05:15.952472926 +0530
Change: 2017-03-02 11:10:00.028548636 +0530
Birth: -

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Strings

The strings command displays in output printable character sequences that are at least 4 characters long. It is used to search for printable text (strings) in binary files. For example, when a binary executable 'test' was passed as an argument to this command, the following output was produced:

$ strings test
/lib/ld-linux.so.2
libc.so.6
_IO_stdin_used
puts
__libc_start_main
__gmon_start__
GLIBC_2.0
PTRh
QVhI
[^_]
EQUAL 
;*2$"
GCC: (Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.3) 4.8.4
....
....
....

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Su

The su command lets you change user identity. Mostly, this command is used to become root or superuser.

$ su [user-name]

Sudo

The sudo command lets a permitted user run a command as another user (usually root or superuser).

$ sudo [command]

Sum

The sum command prints checksum and block count for each input file.

$ sum readme.txt
45252 5

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Tac

The tac command prints input files in reverse. Functionality-wise, it does the reverse of what the cat command does.

$ cat file2
zeus
kyan
sam
adam
$ tac file2
adam
sam
kyan
zeus

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Tail

The tail command displays in the output the last 10 lines of a file.

$ tail [file-name]

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Talk

The talk command lets users talk with each other.

$ talk [user-name]

Tar

tar is an archiving utility that lets you create as well as extract archive files. For example, to create archive.tar from files 'foo' and 'bar', use the following command:

$ tar -cf archive.tar foo bar

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Tee

The tee command reads from standard input and writes to standard output as well as files.

$ uname | tee file2
Linux
$ cat file2
Linux

Examples of Linux tee command.

Test

The test command checks file types and compare values. For example, you can use it in the following way:

$ test 7 -gt 5 && echo "true"
true

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Time

The time command is used to summarize the system resource usage of a program. For example:

$ time ping google.com
PING google.com (216.58.220.206) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from del01s08-in-f14.1e100.net (216.58.220.206): icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=44.2 ms
^C
--- google.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 44.288/44.288/44.288/0.000 ms
real 0m0.676s
user 0m0.000s
sys 0m0.000s

Top

The top command gives a dynamic real-time view of a running system (in terms of its processes). For example:

$ top

More: Linux top Command Tutorial for Beginners (8 Examples)

Touch

The touch command lets you change file timestamps (the access and modification times). When the name of a non-existent file is passed as an argument, that file gets created.

$ touch [file-name]

More examples of Linux touch command.

Tr

The tr command can be used to translate/squeeze/delete characters. For example, here's how you can use it to convert lowercase characters to uppercase:

$ echo 'howtoforge' | tr "[:lower:]" "[:upper:]"
HOWTOFORGE

Tty

The tty command prints the filename of the terminal connected to standard input.

$ tty
/dev/pts/10

More: Linux tty Command Tutorial for Beginners (with Examples)

Uname

The uname command prints certain system information.

$ uname -a
Linux himanshu-desktop 4.4.0-62-generic #83~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jan 18 18:10:26 UTC 2017 i686 athlon i686 GNU/Linux

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Unexpand

The unexpand command lets you convert spaces into tabs. Example:

unexpand [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Read More: Linux unexpand Command Explained for Beginners (with Examples)

Uniq

The Uniq command is used to report or omit repeated lines. For example, if 'file2' contains the following data:

$ cat file2
Welcome to HowtoForge
Welcome to HowtoForge
A Linux tutorial website
Thanks

Then you can use the uniq command to omit the repeated line.

$ uniq file2
Welcome to HowtoForge
A Linux tutorial website
Thanks

Read more: Linux Uniq Command Tutorial for Beginners (10 examples)

Unexpand

The unexpand command converts spaces present in the input file(s) into tabs and writes the file contents to standard output.

$ unexpand file1

Uptime

The uptime command tells how long the system has been running.

$ uptime
15:59:59 up 6:20, 4 users, load average: 0.81, 0.92, 0.82

Here are some examples of Linux uptime command usage.

Users

The users command displays in the output the usernames of users currently logged in to the current host.

$ users
himanshu himanshu himanshu himanshu

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Vdir

The vdir command lists information about the contents of a directory (the current directory by default).

$ vdir
total 1088
-rw-rw-r-- 1 himanshu himanshu 4850 May 20 2015 test_backup.pdf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 himanshu himanshu 2082 May 28 2015 test-filled.pdf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 himanshu himanshu 7101 May 28 2015 test.pdf 

Vim

vim is basically a text/programming editor. The name 'vim' stands for Vi IMproved as the editor is upwards compatible with the Vi editor.

$ vim [file-name]

Take a look here for a tutorial that shows editing files with vim on the command line explained in detail.

W

The w command displays information about the users currently on the machine and their processes.

$ w
16:18:07 up 6:39, 4 users, load average: 0.07, 0.32, 0.53
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
himanshu :0 :0 09:39 ?xdm? 1:08m 0.25s init --user
himanshu pts/0 :0 09:41 6:36m 0.84s 7.84s gnome-terminal
himanshu pts/10 :0 14:51 0.00s 0.16s 0.00s w
himanshu pts/11 :0 15:41 35:19 0.05s 0.05s bash

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Wall

The wall command lets you write and send a message to other users that are currently logged in.

$ wall [your-message]

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Watch

The watch command can be used to monitor a program's output. It runs the program repeatedly, displaying its output and errors. For example:

$ watch date

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Wc

The wc command prints newline, word, and byte counts for a file.

$ wc test.txt
0 3 20 test.txt

Read more about the Linux wc command.

Wget

The wget command line tool in Linux lets you perform a non-interactive download of files from the Web.

Here's how you can use it:

wget [URL]

Read more about the wget command here.

Whatis

The whatis command displays single-line manual page descriptions.

$ whatis mkdir
mkdir (1) - make directories
mkdir (2) - create a directory
mkdir (1posix) - make directories

Which

The which command basically lets you locate a command - the file and the path of the file that gets executed. For example:

$ which date
/bin/date

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Who

The who command shows who is logged on.

$ who
himanshu :0 2017-03-03 09:39 (:0)
himanshu pts/0 2017-03-03 09:41 (:0)
himanshu pts/10 2017-03-03 14:51 (:0)
himanshu pts/11 2017-03-03 15:41 (:0)

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Whereis

The whereis command shows in output locations of the binary, source, and manual page files for a command.

$ whereis ls
ls: /bin/ls /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1posix.gz /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1.gz

Some Linux whereis command examples.

Whoami

The whoami command prints the effective userid of the current user.

$ whoami
himanshu

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Xargs

The xargs command builds and executes command lines from standard input. In layman's terms, it reads items from stdin and executes a command passed to it as an argument. For example, here's how you can use xargs to find the word "Linux" in the files whose names are passed to it as input.

$ xargs grep "Linux"
file1
file2
file3
file1:Linux researcher
file2:A Linux tutorial website
file3:Linux is opensource

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Yes

The Yes command outputs a string repeatedly until killed.

$ yes [string]

More examples for Linux Yes Command.

Zcat

The zcat command is used to display the content of gzip-compressed files. Example of how to display the content of the gzip compressed text file test.txt.gz:

$ zcat test2.txt.gz

More useful zcat examples can be found here:

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