Terminal Most Usefull Commands

Navigation & File Management

pwd

Print the current working directory.

ls

List directory contents (commonly used with -a for hidden and -l for details).

cd

Change directory.

mkdir

Create a new directory.

rmdir

only removes empty directories. Correct as written.

touch

Create an empty file (or update a timestamp).

cp

Copy files or directories (-r for recursive folder copying).

mv

Move or rename files and directories.

rm

Remove files or directories (-r to remove folders with contents).

ln

Create file links (use -s to create soft/symbolic shortcuts).

file

Determine the type of data inside a file.

find

Search for files by name, type, or attributes across directories.

Viewing & Editing Text

cat

Output file contents directly to the screen.

less

View text files interactively one page at a time.

head

Display only the first few lines of a file.

tail

Display only the last few lines of a file.

nano

Open a simple, built-in terminal text editor.

vim

Open an advanced terminal text editor.

shred

Securely overwrite and delete a file so it cannot be recovered.

zip / unzip

Compress files into an archive, or extract an existing archive.

Text Processing & Redirection

echo

Print text to the console, or write it to a file using redirects (>).

grep

Search for a specific word or text pattern within files or outputs.

sort

Sort lines of text alphabetically.

uniq

Filter out duplicate lines from text output.

awk

Extract specific columns or patterns of data from text streams.

cmp

Compare two files to see if and where they differ.

diff

Compare two files to see the exact content differences.

tee

Send command output to both the screen and a file simultaneously.

Users & Permissions

sudo

Execute a command with root/administrative privileges.

su

Switch to another user account.

whoami

Tell you your current logged-in username.

adduser / useradd

Create a new user account on the system.

passwd

Change a user's password.

chmod

Change file permissions (e.g., +x to make a script executable).

chown

Change the owner of a file or directory.

finger

Inspect the details of another user account.

System Information & Monitoring

date

Print the current time and date.

cal / ncal

Display a quick calendar in the terminal.

uname

Display system hardware and kernel information (-a for all details).

neofetch

Display pretty system specifications alongside a stylized OS logo.

free

Check available and used system memory (RAM).

df

Check available disk space (use -h for human-readable format).

history

View a list of your previously entered terminal commands.

printenv

List all environment variables for the shell session.

Process & Service Management

ps

View running processes (commonly used with -aux).

top

View a live-updating list of resource-heavy processes.

htop

A prettier, more interactive alternative to top.

kill

Force a process to stop using its Process ID (PID).

pkill

Force a process to stop using its name (no PID required).

systemctl

Start, stop, restart, or check the status of system background services.

service

The older command equivalent to systemctl on legacy Linux machines.

Networking

ssh

Connect remotely to another machine securely.

ip address

Show network interfaces and IPs (modern replacement for ifconfig).

ifconfig

Show network interfaces and IPs (older utility).

ping

Send packets to a website or IP to check if it is online.

traceroute

Trace the network hops taken to reach a remote host.

netstat

View open ports and active connections.

ss

The modern, faster replacement for checking network statistics.

resolvectl status

Check the system's current DNS settings.

wget

Download files directly from the internet via URL.

curl

Transfer data from or to a server (great for downloading or API calls).

System Operations & Help

apt / yum

Package managers used to install, update, or remove software.

ufw

Uncomplicated Firewall; used to easily open or block network ports.

iptables

Advanced firewall utility that ufw is built upon.

reboot

Restart the system immediately.

shutdown

Turn off the system (e.g., shutdown -h now).

man

Open the comprehensive manual page for a command.

whatis

Print a fast, one-line summary of what a command does.

which

Find the exact path where a command's binary is stored.

whereis

Locate the binary, source code, and manual page for a command.

type

Tell you if a command is a built-in function, alias, or external binary.

alias / unalias

Create custom shortcut commands, or remove them.

bc

A basic terminal calculator.

clear

Wipe the terminal screen clean of previous output.

exit

Close the terminal window or end a remote SSH session.