This article deals with command line interface(CLI) rather than graphical user interface(GUI).If you want to learn the basic commands to operate on your terminal then , you should definately go through this article and learn these commands.
First , you should understand , what is the meaning of a command: A command is a software program that when executed on the CLI performs an action on the computer. When you type in a command, a process is run by the operating system that can read input, manipulate data and produce output.
List of commands:
Most of the commands follows a generic syntax
command [options…] [arguments…]
The 'ls' Commands:
to display list of files present in current directory
ls
common options:
'-l:To display more information about each of the files listed:
ls -l
'-a' : This option will list hidden files too.
ls -a
- To print results in reverse order alphabetical order use:
ls -r
- To sort files by timestamp:
ls -lt
- To sort files by size use:
ls -l -S
The 'man' Command:
man command is used to display the user manual of any command that we can run on the terminal.
man ls
you can exit the user manual by typing q and hit enter.
The 'cd' Commands:
To change from one directory/folder to another use:
cd [directory name]
To move to home directory use:
cd ~
To toggle between current directory and previous directory use:
cd -
To move to previous directory use:
cd ..
The 'mkdir' Command:
To create a directory use:
mkdir dir1
The 'mv' Command:
To move or To rename a file use :
mv file1.txt file2.txt
The 'cp' Command:
To copy a directory named source_directory and all its contents into another directory named destination_directory, you would use:
cp -r source_directory destination_directory
The 'pwd' Command:
To print working directory use:
pwd
The 'rm' Command:
To remove a file, you would simply type rm followed by the name of the file you want to delete:
rm filename.txt
To remove a directory and all its contents recursively, you would use the '-r' option:
rm -r directory_name
The 'touch' Command:
To create an empty file use:
touch filename
The 'cat' Command:
To display the content of a file use:
cat filename
The 'chmod' Command:
This command is used to change the permissions (read, write, execute) of files and directories :
To give read, write, and execute permissions to the owner of a file (user), read and execute permissions to the group (group), and read-only permissions to others use:
chmod u+rwx,g+rx,o+r filename
To recursively change the permissions of a directory and its contents use:
chmod -R 755 directory_name
There are a lot more commands which you can learn and practice .