Introduction To Basic Terminal Commands For Linux

In this tutorial you will learn to use Linux terminal. You will learn to navigate on the terminal, learn to create and remove file and much more. Most of this commands also works on Mac Os X and Powershell on windows.

Basically you are reading this tutorial because you are new to linux or want to learn using terminal to navigate. Before you get started you must have linux installed or running virtually on your computer. I would recommend downloading fedora or ubuntu.

This are some of commands you must remember which will help you to use terminal more easily.

ls - it will list all files and folder in your current directory

ls -l it will give detailt listing of all files and folders

ls -a it will list all files and folder in your current directory including hidden files (files and folders that begin with period)

pwd will print your working directory or simply your current directory

cd - cd stands for change directory. we use cd follow by path address to navigate ro that folder.

Eg: cd Desktop will make desktop as my current directory.

cd / will make root as you current directory

cd ~ will make home as your current directory

Typing cd alone is same as cd ~ and it will make home as your current directory

cd .. will make parent directory i.e directory above your current directory

cd ../../ will take you two folder up

mkdir - we use mkdir follow by path or folder name to create a directory

Eg mkdir car will create directory car in your current directory

to create folder recursively i.e folder inside folder inside folder we use -p flag

Eg mkdir -p vehicles/car/truck will create directory vehicles in your current directory which have car inside it and car has directory truck in it.

touch - we use touch follow by file name to create empty file.

rmdir - we use rmdir follow by path to to remove any directory. This will not work if folder you are trying to remove has something in it.

rm -r  to remove file recursively which can not be removed by rmdir

rm - We use this command to remove files.