The most important Linux commands: cheat sheet

In short: An overview of the commands needed most in daily use. With man command or command --help you get the instructions at any time. To try them: Trying out Linux or the “Linux in the browser” tool on the tools page.

Navigation and files

Command	Purpose
pwd	show current folder
ls -la	contents with details and hidden files
cd folder, cd .., cd ~	change, up, home
mkdir -p a/b	create folder
cp a b, cp -r folder target	copy
mv a b	move/rename
rm file, rm -r folder	delete (no recycle bin!)
touch file	empty file/timestamp
find . -name "*.txt"	search files
du -sh folder, df -h	size, free space

Reading files

cat, less (scroll, q quits), head -n 5, tail -f log (read live), wc -l (count lines), sort, uniq. Searching and replacing: grep, sed and awk.

Permissions and users

chmod +x file, chown user file, sudo command, whoami, id. Background: Users, groups and file permissions.

System and processes

uname -a, uptime, free -h, top, ps aux, kill PID, systemctl status service, journalctl -u service. See Processes and signals and systemd.

Packages

Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade, apt install package. Fedora: dnf install. Arch: pacman -S. See Package management on Linux.

Network

ip a, ping host, ss -tulpn, curl url, ssh user@host, scp file user@host:. See Networking on Linux.

Terminal shortcuts

Tab completes, ↑ last command, Ctrl+R search history, Ctrl+C cancel, Ctrl+L clear, Ctrl+D exit.

Careful

rm -rf and commands with sudo act immediately and without asking. Better to read twice, especially for commands from the internet.

See also: Writing shell scripts, Bash