Essential Linux Commands Guide

Introduction

Linux commands are powerful tools for operating Linux-based systems. This page explains essential Linux commands and their arguments. Commands are organized by category, with basic usage and common arguments for each command.

Commands by Category

File Operations

Commands for creating, deleting, moving, and copying files and directories.

Key commands: ls, cd, mkdir, rm, cp, mv, touch, etc.

View File Operation Commands in Detail

Text Processing

Commands for displaying, searching, editing, and processing text files.

Key commands: cat, grep, sed, awk, head/tail, sort, uniq, wc, etc.

View Text Processing Commands in Detail

System Information

Commands for displaying system information.

Key commands: uname, hostname, df, du, free, lscpu, lsblk, lsusb, uptime, etc.

View System Information Commands in Detail

Networking

Commands for checking, configuring, and diagnosing network connections.

Key commands: ping, ifconfig, ip, netstat, ss, wget, curl, traceroute, nslookup/dig, etc.

View Network Commands in Detail

Process Management

Commands for displaying, monitoring, and controlling processes.

Key commands: ps, top, htop, kill, killall, nice/renice, nohup, bg/fg, etc.

View Process Management Commands in Detail

Permission Management

Commands for managing file and directory ownership and permissions.

Key commands: chmod, chown, chgrp, umask, getfacl/setfacl, sudo, etc.

View Permission Management Commands in Detail

Archive

Commands for compressing, decompressing, and archiving files.

Key commands: tar, gzip/gunzip, bzip2/bunzip2, xz, zip/unzip, 7z, zcat/zless, etc.

View Archive Commands in Detail

Search

Commands for searching files, directories, and text content.

Key commands: find, locate, which, whereis, grep, ack/ag, etc.

View Search Commands in Detail