51 most used Linux commands

51 most used Linux commands every developer must know

tldr:

🦋 1. pwd

🔸Stands for : print work directory e.g. if you are at your home directory then it will print something like /home/

🦋 2. time

🔸time command in Ubuntu will not actually show you current date or time 🔸It actually run programs and summarize system resource usage

🦋 3. date

🔸 This command will show you the current date and time of your system (including timezone). 🔸Print the date, in the format - Tue Aug 16 17:03:52 CDT 1977

🦋 4. ls

🔸It presents to you the contents of a particular directory – both files and directories 🔸You will use this command alongside pwd to navigate your ways inside the mighty Unix filesystem

🦋 5. wget

🔸You can use wget command to download things from Internet or other connected networks 🔸 It is a The non-interactive network downloader

🦋 6. mkdir

🔸It lets you create folders anywhere you like in your Linux system – given you have got the necessary permission

🦋 7. rmdir

🔸It allows you to delete specific folders from your system without any hassles

🦋 8. lsblk

🔸This handy terminal command will present you with a tree structure of your block devices and is used heavily by professional users

🦋 9. chown

🔸chown is used to change owner of a file or directory (or further more) 🔸It enables users to change the ownership of a file or directory 🔸Require root privileges to run

🦋 10. chmod

🔸Use to change or modify the access permissions of system files or objects 🔸Require root privileges to run

🦋 11. df

🔸Show the storage used/free on your the storage drives connected to your system 🔸Used widely by system administrators to monitor and analyze real-time server or network-oriented systems

🦋 12. uname

🔸A command for obtaining system information like name, version, and other system-specific details 🔸You can quickly check your OS and kernel version with this command and can know for sure the instruction length of your machine.

🦋 13. ps

🔸It will allow you to visualize what processes are currently run by your machine 🔸It’s a very elegant yet flexible mean to analyze system resources and will enable you to manipulate system processes natively through the terminal

🦋 14. kill

🔸It is a powerful way to stop processes that are stuck due to resource constraints

🦋 15. fdisk

🔸It is used to manipulate (add, remove, delete, change) partition of your system 🔸NOTE: Don’t use this command unless you are sure about the consequences

🦋 16. cal

🔸This will show calender in the terminal 🔸I love this command for its simplicity

🦋 17. man

🔸Simply apend command with man or type executes man e.g. man mkdir 🔸This will show you the documentation of mkdir command 🔸Use man with any other command to know

🦋 18. service

🔸It is the de-facto command to invoke system-wide services from the terminal 🔸A powerful Linux terminal command for manipulating the system 🔸you can leverage this command for running any System V init script directly from the terminal window

🦋 19. free

🔸 The command “free” displays the amount of free and used memory in the complete system. 🔸 Syntax: free

🦋 20. w

🔸It displays the detailed information about the users who are logged in the system currently 🔸Syntax: w

🦋 21. cat

🔸It is a reverse of the command “tac” 🔸It is used to display each line of the file starting from the first row and finishing on its last row 🔸Syntax: cat file_name

🦋 22. grep

🔸Used to search for a text in the specified file/folder 🔸Example: grep “Are” B

🦋 23. shutdown

🔸 It shutdown your system 🔸 It is here for empowering your Linux terminal commands skills to a whole new level 🔸Just don’t type it now while reading this post!

🦋 24. zip

🔸It is used to compress one or more files and store them in a new file with zip extension 🔸 Syntax: zip new_zip_file_name.zip

🦋 25. touch

🔸It used for creating a valid empty file 🔸Create files on the go in your terminal

🦋 26. whereis

🔸It displays the path where the package for specific built-in Linux command locates 🔸Syntax: whereis command_name

🦋 27. head

🔸It prints the top N rows of data of the given input or file 🔸By default, it prints first 10 lines 🔸Syntax: head -n File_name

🦋 28. tail

🔸It prints the last N rows of data of the given input or file 🔸By default, it prints last 10 lines 🔸Syntax: tail -n File_name

🦋 29. cp

🔸It is used to copy data from a source file to the destination file 🔸Syntax: cp source_file_name destination_file_name

🦋 30. mv

🔸Short for a move 🔸 it’s a supplement to the cut operation you perform in the GUI 🔸you can use the mv command to move either single or multiple files from one location to another

🦋 31. comm

🔸You can use comm to compare two files for common and distinct lines 🔸This is an essential tool for many that need to process large amounts of files on the terminal

🦋 32. ln

🔸It is one of the handiest Linux commands for creating symbolic links to some specific file 🔸You can use this tiny yet flexible command to produce multiple instances of a symbolic link to a particular file or directory on your disk space

🦋 33. cmp

🔸If you want to compare two files and print the result to the standard output stream 🔸This, alongside the comm command, is one of the most used Linux commands by users that process large volumes of text files on a regular basis

🦋 34. dd

🔸dd — convert and copy a file 🔸Used to copy and convert files from one type to another

🦋 35. alias

🔸It let replace a word by another string in files directly from the terminal 🔸You can customize the shell and manipulate the environment variables

🦋 36. fortune

🔸This is one of my most favorite funny Linux commands 🔸It shows out of the blue poignant, inspirational, or silly phrases that will definitely make you laugh out loud

🦋 37. history

🔸Give you the history of your terminal 🔸It lets you do precisely this

🦋 38. yes

🔸Okay, you want some real funny Linux commands to try right now 🔸Just open up a terminal type in yes, then some texts of your choosing and press enter 🔸 Pretty sure it’s among those terminal commands you will never forget ever since.

🦋 39. echo

🔸 The command “echo” used to display any expression that is passed as an argument. 🔸Syntax: echo expression_to_be_displayed

🦋 40. banner

🔸It is one of those funny Linux commands that will empower you to create your own personalized such banners 🔸Just enter this command mixed with some texts in the terminal to get a feel. 🔸I personally really like this command

🦋 41. rev

🔸This is another funny terminal command for veteran Linux users 🔸It will take your input text and write them to the standard output, reversing each character

🦋 42. iptables

🔸It invokes a terminal utility that lets system admins control the incoming and outgoing internet traffic on a particular host machine 🔸Most used Linux commands sysadmins to define authentic traffics & for blacklisting suspicious requests

🦋 43. cURL

🔸cURL is a very powerful network tool that makes transferring files over a network 🔸This is one of those Linux commands designed to work without user interaction

🦋 44. find

🔸It is one of the most used Linux commands to search for files from the terminal 🔸This compelling yet flexible terminal command allows users to search for files based on certain criteria such as file permissions, ownership, modification date, size, etc.

🦋 45. which

🔸It is useful if all you are trying to search are executable files 🔸This handy little terminal command takes specific parameters and searches for binary files in the $PATH system environment variable

🦋 46. sed

🔸Used to manipulate each line of a file or stream by replacing specified parts 🔸Used to deal with large volumes of text data and need to change them on the go

🦋 47. clear

🔸The clear command is handy to clear out your existing terminal screen

🦋 48. sort

🔸The sort command is quite compelling at the things it does. 🔸Whenever you find the need to sort out a file in an alphabetical or reverse manner, utilize this command

🦋 49. sudo

🔸It lets non-privileged users access and modify files that require low-level permissions 🔸Often you will use this command to access root from your regular user account

🦋 50. uptime

🔸It provides information about how long the system has been running in one line 🔸Result for this command includes the current time, the time duration system has been running for, the number of users who are currently logged on, and the system load averages

🦋 51. whatis

🔸It traverses a set of databases with short descriptions provided by the user and prints out system commands that match them

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