Linux Tools

Linux Tools for Beginners

Command Line

    apropos – search the manual page names and descriptions

    clear – clear the terminal screen

    echo – display a line of text

    help – list of shell commands

    history – track input from the user a line at a time

    info – read the info documents

    man – interface to the on-line reference manuals

    scrot – command line screen capture utility

    whatis – display one-line manual page descriptions

File and Directory Management

    alias – define or display aliases

    cd – change the current directory

    chown – change file owner and group

    cp – copy files and directories

    dd – convert and copy a file

    dir – list directory contents

    file – determine file type

    git – fast, scalable, distributed revision control system

    ls – list directory contents

    mkdir – make directories

    mv – move (rename) files

    pwd – print working directory

    rm – remove files or directories

    scp – secure copy

    touch – change file timestamps

File Editing

    awk – pattern scanning and text processing language

    cut – remove sections from each line of files

    expand – convert tabs to spaces

    geany – a small and lightweight IDE  (Raspberry Pi)

    gzip – compress or expand files

    nano – Nano's ANOther editor, an enhanced free Pico clone

    scratch – easy to use interactive programming environment  (Raspberry Pi)

    sed – stream editor

    tar – manipulate tape archives

    vim – Vi IMproved, a programmers text editor

File Transfer

    curl – transfer a URL

    wget – non-interactive download of files

File Viewing

    cat – concatenate and print files

    diff – compare 2 files line by line

    find – search for files in a directory hierarchy

    grep – print lines that match patterns

    head – output the first part of files

    less – opposite of more

    more – page through text one screenful at a time

    open and possibly create a file

    tail – output the last part of files

    wc – word counts, and line and byte counts

    zgrep – search compressed files

Math Functions

    bc – basic calculator

    dc – RPN “Desktop Calculator”

    log – natural logarithmic function

    mathematica – open the app (Raspberry Pi)

    sin – sine function

Network Config

    ifconfig – configure network interface parameters

    ss – utility to investigate sockets

    ssh – OpenSSH SSH client (remote login program)

Network Monitoring

    ping – send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts

    nc – arbitrary TCP and UDP connections and listens

    netstat – show network status

    traceroute – print the route packets take to network host

Package Management

    apt-get – APT package handling utility

    apt – APT package handling utility

    dnf – Fedora, successor to YUM

    dpkg – package manager for Debian

    homebrew – for macOS or Linux

    rpm – Red Hat and CentOS

    snap – for Ubuntu

    yum – Yellowdog Updater Modified (Fedora)

    zypper – for OpenSUSE

Process Management

    bg – run a job/process in the background

    fg – run a job/process in the foreground

    halt – halt, power-off or reboot the machine

    htop – human readable table of processes

    jobs – list all jobs; active, stopped, or otherwise

    kill – terminate or signal a process

    killall – kill processes by name

    ps – process status

    pstree – display a tree of processes

    reboot – halt, power-off or reboot the machine

    shutdown – halt, power-off or reboot the machine

    sudo – execute a command as another user

tmux – terminal multiplexer

    top – table of processes

System Info

    arch – Print machine hardware name (architecture)

    date – print or set the system date and time

    df – display free disk space

    du – display disk usage statistics

    fc-list – list available fonts  (Raspberry Pi)

    free – display amount of free and used memory in the system

    hostname – show or set the system's host name

    lsblk – list block devices

    lscpu – list information about the CPU architecture

    lshw – list hardware

    lsusb – list USB devices

    time – get time in seconds

    uname – print operating system name

    uptime – print up time and load

User and Group Management

    groupadd – create a new group

    groupdel – delete a group

    groups – show group memberships

    id – return user identity

    passwd – modify a user's password

    useradd – create a new user or update default new user info

    userdel – delete a user account and related files

    usermod – modify a user account

    who – print effective user ID

    whoami – print the user name