Linux is an open source operating system that has been available since the mid 1990’s and powers multiple devices from home appliances to smartphones. Linux is comprised of various different distributions such as Ubuntu, CentOS and Linux Mint. Each distro has it’s own take on the desktop and overall user environment for home PC use, however when utilizing Linux for a server you’ll primarily utilize the terminal or shell interface. Like all operating systems Linux has a plethora of different commands that can be utilized from within the shell or terminal interface.
In this article we will list off some of the most common commands with a brief explanation as to what they do, without further ado let’s get started!
What are some common Linux commands?
| Command | Description | Example |
| ls | List directory contents | ls or ls -lah |
| cd | Change directory | cd /home |
| pwd | Print your current working directory | pwd |
| top | Displays the resources currently being used on your system like a task manager | top -c |
| df | Display disk space | df -h |
| du | Show how much disk space a file is taking up | du /home |
| find | Searches for files with a given pattern | find filename |
| less | View a file’s contents in a pager format one page at a time | cat filename | less |
| clear | Clears the terminal screen | clear |
| chown | Change ownership of a file | chown username:group filename |
| chmod | Change permissions of a file or files | chmod 644 /home/filename |
| cat | Display the contents of a file usually on the monitor | cat filename |
| grep | Isolate a specific pattern from a file or output | cat filename | grep pattern |
| man | Opens up the manual to display helpful information for a specified command | man nameofcommand |
| mkdir | Creates a new directory | mkdir newfolder |
| touch | Creates a new file | touch newfile |
| w | Display who is logged in and what they are up to | w |
| kill | Kills a specified process | kill -9 pid |
| mv | Move or rename files/directories | mv oldfile newfile |