Beginner’s Guide
If you’re just beginning to work on a Linux system, the abundance of commands might prove daunting. To help orient you, the following lists present a sampling of commands on various topics.
Communication
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ftp |
File Transfer Protocol. |
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login |
Sign on. |
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rlogin |
Sign on to remote system. |
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rsh |
Run shell or single command on remote system (not particularly secure). |
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ssh |
Run shell or single command on remote system (secure). |
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talk |
Exchange messages interactively with other terminals. |
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telnet |
Connect to another system. |
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tftp |
Trivial File Transfer Protocol. |
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uudecode |
Decode file prepared for mailing by uuencode. |
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uuencode |
Encode file containing binary characters for mailing. |
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vacation |
Respond to mail automatically. |
Comparisons
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cmp |
Compare two files, byte by byte. |
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comm |
Compare items in two sorted files. |
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diff |
Compare two files, line by line. |
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diff3 |
Compare three files. |
File Management
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cat |
Concatenate files or display them. |
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chfn |
Change user information for finger, email, etc. |
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cksum |
Compute checksum. |
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chmod |
Change access modes on files. |
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chsh |
Change login shell. |
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cp |
Copy files. |
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csplit |
Split a file into pieces with a specific size or at specific locations. |
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dd |
Copy files in raw disk form. |
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file |
Determine a file’s type. |
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head |
Show the first few lines of a file. |
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less |
Display files by screenful. |
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ln |
Create filename aliases. |
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ls |
List files or directories. |
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merge |
Merge changes from different ... |