Common Commands
This page was last updated on October 12, 2013.
Note that these are all single-line commands, even if they wrap on your screen. If you select them by highlighting them and pasting them into your terminal window or a text editor, the resulting paste will be a single line.
Also note that any command with sudo in it requires your password.
| TASK | COMMAND |
| Add a message to the System Log (/var/log/sys.log). |
logger your message here
|
| Check disk free space. |
df -h
|
| Check hard drive for bad blocks. |
badblocks
|
| Convert all Windows ASCII CR characters in a file to newlines. |
tr '\r' '\n' desinationfile
|
| Copy a file. |
cp filename /path/to/destination
|
| Copy a folder. |
cp foldername /path/to/destination
|
| Create an empty file. |
touch file
|
| Display BIOS information. |
sudo dmidecode
|
| Display configuration file for file system mounting. |
cat /etc/fstab
|
| Display CPU information. |
cat /proc/cpuinfo
|
| Display CPU load, swapping, and I/O. |
vmstat
|
| Display current directory. |
pwd
|
| Display currently mounted file systems. |
cat /etc/mtab
|
| Display current RAM and swap use. |
free
|
| Display Daylight Savings Times. |
zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2013
|
| Display directories in current directory sorted by size. |
du -k --max-depth=1 | sort -n
|
| Display directory contents. |
ls
|
| Display directory contents as a list. |
ls -l
|
| Display directory contents as a list by age. |
ls -ltr
|
| Display directory contents as a list by size. |
ls -lSr
|
| Display directory contents including hidden files. |
ls -al
|
| Display directory size. |
du -sh /path/to/directory
|
| Display dynamic CPU, network load, etc. |
ksysguard
|
| Display dynamic RAM and CPU information. |
top
|
| Display groups. |
cat /etc/group
|
| Display groups user is in. |
groups username
|
| Display kernel and operating system information. |
uname -a
|
| Display kernel messages shown while booting. |
cat /var/log/kern.log
|
| Display last few lines of system log dynamically. |
tail -f /var/log/syslog
|
| Display libraries a program depends on. |
ldd /path/to/program/executable/file
|
| Display man page not in path. |
man /path/to/manpage
|
| Display my computer’s name. |
hostname
|
| Display my hardware as an HTML file. |
sudo lshw -html > filename.html
|
| Display my kernel version. |
uname -r
|
| Display my user and group ID and groups I belong to. |
id
|
| Display my username. |
whoami
|
| Display my Linux Distribution. |
cat /etc/lsb-release
|
| Display my Linux Distribution. |
cat /etc/*release
|
| Display my Linux Distribution. |
lsb_release -a
|
| Display network interface information. |
ifconfig
|
| Display package version and dependencies. |
dpkg -s packagename
|
| Display partition tables. |
sudo fdisk -l
|
| Display routing table using numerical addresses. |
route -n
|
| Display routing table using numerical addresses. |
netstat -rn
|
| Display static RAM information. |
cat /proc/meminfo
|
| Display subdirectories of current directory. |
find -type d -ls
|
| Display subdirectories of specified directory. |
find /path/to/parent/directory -type d -ls
|
| Display where a package is installed. |
dpkg -L packagename
|
| Display who’s logged in and when they logged in. |
who
|
| Display who’s logged in and what they’re doing. |
w
|
| Download a web page. |
wget URL
|
| Find drives on the computer. |
sudo lshw -class disk
|
| Find the device location of NTFS partitions. |
sudo fdisk -l | grep NTFS | awk '{print $1}'
|
| Get the UUID of a drive or drives. |
sudo blkid
|
| Identify my video card. |
lspci -nn | grep VGA
|
| List all usb devices. |
lsusb
|
| List commands that are currently running. |
ps -ef
|
| List currently loaded kernel modules. |
lsmod
|
| List devices on the pci bus. |
sudo lspci -vv > filename.txt
|
| List files that are currently open. |
lsof | less
|
| List login history. |
last
|
| Make a directory. |
mkdir directoryname.
|
| Move a file. |
mv filename /path/to/destination
|
| Move a folder. |
mv foldername /path/to/destination
|
| Output of a command to stdout and also to .txt file. |
commandname | tee file.txt
|
| Ping $host to see if it’s alive on the network. |
ping hostname
|
| Reconfigure Xorg or create a new xorg.conf file. |
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
|
| Read ‘x’ from keyboard (this is for scripting). |
read x
|
| Release my IP. |
sudo dhclient -r eth0
|
| Remove all Windows ASCII CR characters from a file. |
tr -d '\r' destinationfile
|
| Rename a file. |
mv filename newfilename
|
| Rename a folder. |
mv foldername newfoldername
|
| Rename all files in current directory, changing spaces to underscores. |
rename 's/ /_/g' *
|
| Rename all files in current directory to lower case. |
for i in `ls -1`; do file1=`echo $i | tr [A-Z] [a-z]`; mv $i $file1 2>/dev/null; done
|
| Rename all files in current directory to upper case. |
for i in `ls -1`; do file1=`echo $i | tr [a-z] [A-Z]`; mv $i $file1 2>/dev/null; done
|
| Renew my IP. |
sudo dhclient eth0
|
| Restart the computer. |
sudo shutdown -r now
|
| Restart the computer. |
sudo reboot
|
| Restart the network. |
sudo service network-manager restart
|
| Restart the X server (also accepts gdm and kdm). |
sudo restart lightdm
|
| Run a command with low priority. |
nice commandname
|
| Save kernel messages shown while booting to .txt file. |
dmesg > filename.txt
|
| Shut down the computer. |
shutdown -h now
|
| Sort files numerically. |
sort -n
|
| Start the X server. |
startx -- :1
|
| Stop the X server (also accepts gdm and kdm). |
sudo service lightdm stop
|
| Time a command. |
time commandname
|
| Update the locate database. |
sudo updatedb
|
| Upgrade a package. |
dpkg -i packagename
|
Obligatory Happy Ending
And they all lived happily ever after. The end.
Little Girl's Mostly Linux Blog 
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