The Linux Command Line

Chapter 3. Exploring the System

Now that we know how to move around the filesystem, it’s time for a guided tour of our Linux system. Before we start, however, we’re going to learn some more commands that will be useful along the way:

• ls—List directory contents.

• file—Determine file type.

• less—View file contents.

More Fun with ls

ls is probably the most used command and for good reason. With it, we can see directory contents and determine a variety of important file and directory attributes. As we have seen, we can simply enter ls to see a list of files and subdirectories contained in the current working directory:

[me@linuxbox ˜]$ ls
Desktop  Documents  Music  Pictures  Public  Templates  Videos

Besides the current working directory, we can specify the directory ...