Useful commands

By Astrea, 19 January, 2024

Useful Terminal commands
Just to make life easier when using the terminal in Linux.

Print Working Directory.

pwd will display your current directory ei. /home/username

Concatenate.
Can be used to show you the content of a file.
cat filename

Concatenates the contents of the specified file to the end of a new file.
cat file > newfile

pres ctl + d when you are done.

Copy

copy filename.txt to Documents folder.

cp filename.txt /home/username/Documents

-r directory1 directory2

copies the directory directory1 and all of its contents to a new directory named directory2 in the current directory.

Move files or rename them.
mv filename.txt /home/username/Documents
This will move filename.txt to Documents.

mv directory1 directory2

Moves the directory directory1 to a new directory named directory2 in the current directory.

Make Directory.
The mkdir command is a essential tool for organizing your files and directories.

Create new directories in the current directory.

mkdir mydirectory

Creates 3 directories in the current directory ( Documents , images, videos )

mkdir documents images videos

Creates a new directory named mydirectory with two subdirectories named subdir1 and subdir2

mkdir -p mydirectory/subdir1/subdir2

Remove Directory(use with caution).

Remove the empty directory named mydirectory in the current directory.
rmdir mydirectory
Remove the empty directory subdirectory1 within the directory1 directory
rmdir -p directory1/subdirectory1

Directory.

dir Lists the contents of the current directory.

The dir command is a good alternative to the ls command, which is the more common command for listing directory contents in Linux. The dir command produces a more readable output than the ls command, especially when displaying long filenames and file permissions.

Change Directory
cd ~/Documents
changes directory to Documents

cd /home/user/Documents/Project - Changes to the Project directory in the Documents directory.

cd .. - Changes to the parent directory of the current directory.

Change to the previous directory.
cd -

Global Regular Expression Print.
The grep command is a powerful tool for finding text patterns in files. It is a versatile command that can be used for a variety of tasks, and it is an essential tool for any Linux user.

grep "Hello, world!" filename.txt
Searches for the exact phrase "Hello, world!" in the file filename.txt
grep -r "error" /path/to/directory
Searches for the text "error" in all files in the directory named /path/to/directory and its subdirectories.

clear
The clear command is a useful tool for keeping your terminal organized and preventing clutter. It can be used to start a new session, clear up after a complex command, or simply make the terminal look more appealing.

Touch
touch filename.txt - Creates an empty file named filename.txt in the current directory.

Chown - Change ownership of files and directories. Allows you to set the owner and group for files and directories.
Sudo chown your_username:Your_group /dir/folder_or_filename

ln - Symbolic link is a type of file that points to another file or directory. Useful when setting up Web servers or FTP servers. To create a symbolic link named shortcut that points to a directory
ln -s /path/to/directory shortcut

To remove a symbolic link, you can use the unlink command or rm.

unlink shortscut
rm shortcut

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