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Explained: 9 useful Linux commands everyone should use!

blogs.howtogeek.com — Just switched from Windows or still a bit scared about the command line? You shouldn't be! The command line is a very powerful, fast and intuitive tool to get things done without clicking buttons and navigating through windows. In this article we're going over 9 must know linux terminal commands.

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  • RoboDonut, on 09/09/2008, -22/+89Should be "9 useful Linux commands that everyone already knows!"
    • neasteflorin, on 09/09/2008, -4/+43Not everyone knows these commands, and remember that this tutorial is aimed at the Linux newbies, help them get started.
      • TunaFishGangsta, on 09/10/2008, -26/+1I think that what RoboDonut is saying is that if you don't know these Linux commands then you should probably stick to MS Windows so that Bill G. can have more money to give away to poor people.
      • Lythium, on 09/10/2008, -5/+12TunaFish, people like you are *exactly* why Linux isn't going to catch on among the casual user any time soon. If ever.
      • evildemonic, on 09/10/2008, -6/+5"TunaFish, people like you are *exactly* why Linux isn't going to catch on among the casual user any time soon. If ever."

        ...seconded

        What a cynical *****.
      • xsquirrel378x, on 09/10/2008, -17/+7@ lythium & evildemonic - who gives a flying *****? you guys act like PC users are retarded sensitive little babies that need their asses wiped. I remember when free unix-like systems was for people INTERESTED in it, hobbyists, do it yourself-ers, computer science majors.
        You ***** noobs turn this ***** into a gay cult "oh how will ever get new users now with your guys bad attitudes."
        WHO ***** CARES?
      • nedzeve, on 09/10/2008, -0/+10It's a REALLY BAD tutorial for newbies if that's the case.
      • evildemonic, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1"you guys act like PC users are retarded sensitive little babies that need their asses wiped."

        I do? Please quote something I said that would have lead you to that conclusion. Don't forget to take your meds you ***** nutjob.

        Guess who else is a cynical *****...
    • johndavidjack, on 09/09/2008, -12/+1I'd laugh if as a joke the author wrote about the wonders of rm -rf / or dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 (or whatever the root partition is)...
      • kd420, on 09/10/2008, -2/+8It wouldn't be funny, because someone would probably try it (even you posting it might lead to that) and wipe their system. You probably didn't mean it in a bad way, but imagine if your whole computer was wiped (imagine you were a newbie with everything on 1 partition). *Shudders at the thought*
      • johndavidjack, on 09/10/2008, -2/+4I didn't mean that maliciously, but I see your point...

        But come on, have a heart (errr, lack of one...) for once.
      • theaceoffire, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1I always had mixed feelings on this.

        Telling people to (Or even joking that they should) use those commands, or delete system files, or to damage their system, these are bad ideas, and it is mean to take advantage of their gullibility for our amusement...

        On the other hand, this is sort of natural selection... People who delete the Windows Folder, who put their computer in water to cool it down, who stuff up the air holes to prevent dust, etc... they have lost their computer due to hard work, not just an unfair prank.
      • mrBitch, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2Please note, the following command is DESTRUCTIVE and MAY wipe all your data.

        Linux Russian Roulette :

        # [ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo "You live"

        (you must be root, in order to ensure that the gun will fire).
    • nomadbea, on 09/10/2008, -2/+3Agreed. I learned more new things after an hour of sitting in front of the command line than reading about stuff I've already uncovered.
      • mroberts, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3My Shell Tutorial:

        $ ls /usr/bin
        $ man "insert command here"

        and learn!
    • klitzbtc, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3Dugg for using Linux rather than the cornering Debian/Ubuntu malarkey most people use.

      Thanks neasteflorin
    • cesclaveria, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3I use linux literally for a living, know my way around the command line better than I know my house, and I didn't knew about cal until now, so, see, this lists are helpful even if you know most of the stuff.
    • MindTrigger, on 09/10/2008, -2/+4This is the kind of douchy attitude that helps keep people away from linux.
    • fluxion, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2i guess for the vast majority of users who dont really touch the command-line these might be new.

      `cal` at least was a new one for me. might be useful for those "what day is the 24th?" questions

      edit: ahh, should replied to cesclaveria. glad i wasnt the only one
  • brisbin33, on 09/09/2008, -2/+42i agree with RoboDonut, most people on digg hanging out in the "linux" category already know these; but it's really refreshing to see a "here's why you should be happy to use the terminal" article, rather than the typical "don't be scared, you don't need that crazy terminal thing in modern distributions!" article.

    when i got into linux i _loved_ the idea that you can control your entire computer (and in a much more powerful way) from a simple textual input, and i hate it when people downplay it's value simply to entice a newbie into switching. the terminal is a killer tool that should be embraced, mastered, and showcased; not shamed into oblivion because it's "scary hacker stuff" to a prospective convert.
    • D14BL0, on 09/09/2008, -2/+8Not everybody in /linux_unix/ is a Linux guru. I read it from time to time just to see what the news is with Linux. I don't use it, myself, nor am I familiar with the commands. So something like this is useful to others.
  • neasteflorin, on 09/09/2008, -2/+37This article is clearly aimed at the linux newbies who don't know these basic commands. The old time linux veterans may bury this - but I think it's important to educate new users about the terminal, because Linux is so much more powerful than Windows, and it would really be a shame to let them live just in the GUI garden.
    • DteK, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1but it seems to be what they want. Especially the Ubuntu newbies. They cringe at the word "terminal". I dont use Ubuntu but it seems that Ubuntu is sort of enabling this behavior by trying to dumd down the OS to make it "User Friendly"
      • ben1sm4, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3I would have to disagree. I am a Ubuntu noob, and I find that most of the time the GUI just doesn't behave like I think it should. That could totally be because I am retarded, but I am still not afraid of the command line. I like little lists like this that I can bookmark and go back to later. I don't have a lot of time to do the research I would like to, and I know about the Ubuntu documentation, but sometimes I just need a simple right in my face command to try.
    • fritzek, on 09/10/2008, -2/+2But most of these commands are more than 30 years old. I don't see a reason why not to bury it. Who can't google "linux basic commands"?
      It's like an article about "how to use computer mouse". Sure, there are still newbies who have trouble with that, but would it hit the front page?
    • skiloup, on 09/10/2008, -0/+0Agree.

      There is already a large crowd that loves their GUI all the while ignoring the power of their terminal. They're called OSX users.
      • mrBitch, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1And the real beauty of OSX, is that you can choose to stay in the easy-to-use Aqua GUI interface, or you can peel away the onion layers to the bare metal beauty and power of the POSIX compliant OS beneath.
  • RightHand, on 09/09/2008, -5/+9Go, Linux, go.

    I ask my son, the genius, whenever I've a problem.
    • knight666, on 09/10/2008, -0/+9I hope one day MY son can explain how easy the holo-terminal works and what a breeze it is to just upload to the Consience.
      • CrazedLeper, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Oh, methinks that's not Linux you're using. Also, Linux doesn't have an "anal" interface.
      • arobicha, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Give me a week, a willing woman, and a few bottles of lube, and I could make one for you... It would vastly simplify the problem if the woman already knew how to use linux...
  • johndavidjack, on 09/09/2008, -6/+10Hey, it's nice to help "newbies" into linux, and I think it's important. But this should never make the front page, especially on a site that has been devoted to tech news (pre-election 2008 anyway)...

    This isn't ground-breaking, or interesting at all, to say the least.

    How about "9 useful Solaris commands everyone should use"...
    • smotpoker, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3"How about "9 useful Solaris commands everyone should use"..."
      They would all be almost identical ;). Technically this and similar tutorials should read "x useful shell commands" since most of the basic ones are portable between *nixes
      • balliamo, on 09/10/2008, -0/+0edit
      • johndavidjack, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Well, I guess in terms of the commands in this article yes, but I'd say with the way that Sun loves to over-architect all of their special OS commands, it would be quite a journey for anyone switching from linux to solaris. There's got to be over 1000 solaris commands that have a function prefix, then adm as the suffix...

        devfsadm, bootadm, zoneadm, svcadm, cryptoadm, etc, etc, not to mention a lot of the commands also have a configuration/debug helper command...
  • dooooo, on 09/10/2008, -5/+10It would have been a good article If It didn't include distro-specific commands .

    Imagine a new (let's say) Mandriva user waiting for the first wonder to happen :
    $ sudo apt-get install vlc

    "What the f*** is wrong with the system" he would shout .
    • n0ia, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3I would agree, except for the fact that the title of the actual article is "Newbies: 9 Ubuntu & Debian commands you should know", so it makes it very clear that it is Debian specific.
      • 4321234, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3We'll blame neasteflorin, k?
        Digg headline="Explained: 9 useful Linux commands everyone should use!"
    • nedzeve, on 09/10/2008, -2/+6Yes, but who uses Mandriva?
  • enantiodromia, on 09/10/2008, -9/+29"Just switched from Windows or still a bit scared about the command line? You shouldn't be!"

    WORST. ADVICE. EVER.

    if you are not terrified of the command line, you aren't using it right.
    • Vegiemaster, on 09/10/2008, -0/+10Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!

      I've had to reformat more than a few times in my earlier days of Linux. : P
      • Dubbsacc, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3It's like the Carls Jr. burgers of OSes...
    • kingmanic, on 09/10/2008, -8/+1su root
      password:
      rm -rf /
      • edrodgers731, on 09/10/2008, -2/+0Descend into /bin? [Y/N]...

        Should be backslash rm -rf / for most distributions these days that alias rm to rm -i by default.

        :(
      • trogdoor, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1@edrodgers

        Try this and tell me what happens

        touch ReallyImportantFile
        rm -if ReallyImportantFile

        Hint: -f means to force removal, bypassing any prompts
      • edrodgers731, on 09/11/2008, -0/+0Just goes to show that the rm -i alias gets pulled out of my builds immediately! Didn't know that.

        I've always liked this one:

        while 1:
        do
        mkdir adir
        cd adir
        touch afile
        done

        Evil that is. I wonder if rm has been fixed to go down far enough to fix that.
    • n0ia, on 09/10/2008, -0/+4Even though I've been running Linux for ~10 years, I'm not terrified of the command line, cause I know important things like " --help", "man ", and the power of Google, in the event that I can't figure it out on my own. But even when I first started I wasn't scared of it. Just know that sometimes the fix is just a reinstall away.
    • SteveMax, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2"worst advice ever" was where he explained how to install from source. He uses "su" before ./configure and make, and doesn't exit the root shell. This could lead to the newbie making some very, very painful mistake.

      Besides, you should use the package manager anyway. Use checkinstall instead of make install whenever possible.
      • mroberts, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2I haven't used "make" since my Slackware days!

        Mmm... Good times...
    • ism70605, on 09/10/2008, -1/+1Those who use the CLI at an expert-level typically use scripts to do anything that could be harmful with a simple typp. For example: Remove would be a simple script that would move deleted files to another directory for confirmation before truly deleting the files. And the files would be purged with with another command; I use takeoutgarbage, for example. I am extra safe, and I do not fear the command line. However, for a newbie this is a completely different matter; I doubt they would be using it "correctly" in my definition.
      • sjaxso, on 09/11/2008, -0/+4You made a typo with 'typo'

        That's a win in my book. Well done Sir/Ma'am.
      • TeamBaldwin, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1"For example: Remove would be a simple script that would move deleted files to another directory for confirmation before truly deleting the files. And the files would be purged with with another command;"

        Why not just set an alias for rm to be "rm -i"? Then you're always prompted before deleting.
    • Waterrat, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1 I don't use the command line much.
      In reality,one of my favorite ways tom,say find something is this:
      ALT F2.
  • freezerburn666, on 09/10/2008, -10/+2good for n00bs
    • Lythium, on 09/10/2008, -1/+5Newbies =/= n00bs.
      • freezerburn666, on 09/10/2008, -6/+1holy ***** christ.
      • freezerburn666, on 09/10/2008, -6/+1you know what, ***** you. burring me for ***** semantics. obviously i'm not as big of a ***** nerd as you i guess because i don't know the difference between a n00b and a ***** newb.

        it doesn't change the fact that these commands are useful for people new to debian linux systems. i thought linux was cool except for douches like you step in with your big ***** knowitall *****. eat a dick.
  • medfreak, on 09/10/2008, -5/+23"The command line is a very powerful, fast and intuitive tool to get things done without clicking buttons and navigating through windows"

    Clicking two buttons on a mouse and pointing your hand around is supposed to be harder than using two hands and mashing tens of buttons on your keyboard memorizing in the process all sorts of commands and making sure you didn't commit a single spelling mistake?

    Powerful? Perhaps. Fast and intuitive? No way.
    • santasing, on 09/10/2008, -0/+9That's not why CLI is better than GUI.

      Its the ability to pipe commands that makes CLI much better. So, instead of waving my hands and pushing buttons for 10 different tasks, I could get it all done in 1 line.

      Of course it depends on the app. A GUI is obviously better for browsing but for grep-ing through files, a CLI is much better.
      • medfreak, on 09/10/2008, -3/+1That is called a script. You can do that regardless of what sort of interface you use, GUI or CLI.
      • Giga, on 09/10/2008, -2/+2And it is much quicker to write a script using CLI than it is to write a GUI to do the same thing.
      • santasing, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2Yes it is. I regularly search through log files looking for specific output. My script runs through it in under a second and dumps the results to a text file. I do this maybe 10 times a day, every day.

        I don't think staring at nice clickable tree-structure log will do me any good.
    • n0ia, on 09/10/2008, -4/+5Spoken like a true Windows user.
      You actually have 10 fingers mashing tens of buttons, rather than one hand moving a mouse and two (sometimes three) fingers clicking buttons.

      Do me a favor and tell me how much disk space you have on every drive on your windows PC. Go ahead and click on "My Computer", then once that's opened up, click on the drive. I guarantee I can type "df -h" from a command line before you can get "My Computer" opened. And that will actually give me the hard drive space for ALL of my drives that are mounted.
      • diemunkiesdie, on 09/10/2008, -3/+4First of all, it takes milliseconds to open "My Computer", I don't know why you are acting like it takes years. Also, since I have all my stuff in detail view, I can see the space usage on all my drives immediately. Looks like I only have to double-click once, while you have to open a command line, type 5 characters (the space is a character) and then hit the enter key. Looks like I got you beat in both speed and efficiency!

        Why do people like you always try to show how "cool" and "elite" you are just because you use Linux? I prefer using my Windows partition over my Ubuntu partition because everything just works, I have no reason to go around proselytizing to everyone like you guys do. If anything, I am better than you because I can use both while you limit yourself to one, how's that for choice?
      • Dubbsacc, on 09/10/2008, -5/+3So you're suggesting that "My Computer" doesn't list all the drive space on all my drives? I'd say you've never used Windows then, because My Computer displays all drives, with Free Space and Total columns.

        Not only that, but it displays the Total and Free Space of all my networked drives too.

        Not to mention that I didn't have to do command lines and edit /etc/fstab just so that I can see my other NTFS hard drive, which should have been auto mounted in the first place, much like Windows does. Now you're going to come back at me with "Well Windows only supports a couple file systems and Linux supports almost all of them, so I'll let it slide". Whatever, it shouldn't be that hard for the Linux installer to recognize these partitions and auto mount them.
      • n0ia, on 09/10/2008, -3/+3First of all, did I say I only use Linux? Cause I'm pretty sure I didn't. Unfortunately I work in an environment where Windows is the primary OS. But my OS of choice is Linux.

        And actually, I wasn't the one who started this discussion. Somebody else was trying to make Linux sound so slow and hard to use, when in fact it isn't. And now YOU'RE trying to show how cool and elite you are by saying you've got your view in detail view.

        I prefer to use my Linux partition because it just works. And I really don't see how I'm trying to proselytize anyone by my comment, but hey, generalizations are awesome.

        And just to finish this off... I can create a bash script which takes all of 10 seconds that I could use to perform said command for me and name it a single character, so I've still got you beat. Don't say that writing a bash script is cheating, because it's just as much work as going to your folder view and choosing "detail" since that's not the default view anyway.
      • medfreak, on 09/10/2008, -6/+2I have ubuntu 8.04 installed on my PC... so much for your "true windows user" theory. Secondly, I am saying the COMMAND LINE is probably slower and less intuitive than a lot of GUI apps out there. Linux is not defined by simply being a CLI, in fact the latest distros are relying heavily on GUI.

        Finally, I could display anything I like on my task bar, whether it was Ram space, hardware temperature, download progression, disk space or anything else. I would have you beat by simply looking at my screen, if you wanna use the "script" excuse.
      • n0ia, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2@Dubbsacc: You're correct, I made a generalization about what view every user has, and I apologize. For the average user though, having "detail view" and network drives and drives of various partitions is a rare thing. Again, my fault completely.

        @medfreak: Ok, so my judgement was a little off. I mistook your comment as someone who wouldn't try Linux in a million years just because of the horror stories they've heard. And while you could display anything you like on your task bar, Linux has similar applications/widgets that will do the same thing, so I guess all-in-all, this entire discussion is moot.
      • medfreak, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2Again, you seem, for some reason, to confuse LINUX and CLI... my original comment was directed at CLI...
      • n0ia, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Yea, I guess the fact that it's an article about Linux and the command line I would associate any comments regarding the command line to Linux.
      • edrodgers731, on 09/10/2008, -1/+2OK now lets try this to see which is faster:

        What is listening on what ports?

        lsof -i

        Memory and swap usage?

        free

        What CPU capabilities do I have? Can I run VMware with hardware acceleration?

        cat /proc/cpuinfo

        Log in as someone else without logging out:

        su - [someone else]

        Create a big empty file to test the remote server's network connection:

        dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile bs=1 count=0 seek=1G

        Take a bunch of files and strip out lines with a single field if they start with "a" and not "A" and dump them neatly into a new file that contains only the phone numbers:

        grep "Phone Number:" a* | awk '{print $3}' > newlist

        Wait a minute.. This isn't fair. We are doing things that 99.999% of windows users can't even do if they had all day to google.

        Not to be overly mean about this, but Windows is extremely limiting. If all you do is play around on Facebook all day, fine. But people that use computers to actually compute need more power and flexibility.

        I run Windows at work to access my Linux servers that I administer, and I use a Mac at home. Windows can only suit a user. Mac can support users and scientists. UNIX is only for scientists.

        If you are using the wrong OS, I don't care. Just don't bash it because you can't use it. They all have their valid place in the world.
      • Dubbsacc, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1@n0ia

        No problem, I didn't realize myself that "Advanced" view under "My Computer" was not the default view, so technically you were correct as well.

        My apologies on the mounting rant, I just had a frustrating experience when I was trying to get my NTFS partitions to auto mount in Hardy.
      • n0ia, on 09/11/2008, -0/+0@Dubbsacc

        No biggie. I personally use the list view when I'm in Windows, cause quite frankly, I usually don't care about all the details. And drive space was a poor example anyway.

        I somewhat know how you feel about mounting, though I haven't had to mount an NTFS drive in a while. Have you checked out the ntfs-3g utility for Linux? If you haven't, it may be the solution to your problem.
      • mrBitch, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1@edrodgers RE: " Not to be overly mean about this, but Windows is extremely limiting. If all you do is play around on Facebook all day, fine. But people that use computers to actually compute need more power and flexibility.

        I run Windows at work to access my Linux servers that I administer, and I use a Mac at home. Windows can only suit a user. Mac can support users and scientists. UNIX is only for scientists.

        If you are using the wrong OS, I don't care. Just don't bash it because you can't use it. "

        +1 to you, good sir, well said.
    • nedzeve, on 09/10/2008, -2/+5"Fast and intuitive?"

      Sure. I find typing the name of my application more efficient than navigating 3 or layers of "start" menu.

      "Powerful?"

      Absolutely. Once you master those simple commands, they can be tied together in simple to build scripts that save you time and open up endless possibilities.
      • JQP123, on 09/10/2008, -1/+6"Sure. I find typing the name of my application more efficient than navigating 3 or layers of "start" menu."

        Typing the name is quick and easy.

        Finding out precisely what "name" to type ... not so quick and easy.

        Unless you just happen to know the name, it's much more efficient to simply navigate those 3 menu layers.


    • ohmysac, on 09/11/2008, -1/+2open main menu *click* wait, find the program you want *click* wait, find the right tab, *click*, find the right buttons *click*, hit the button to close the window *click*

      -OR-

      type a few words in a terminal and press enter
    • knopper67, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2"...and making sure you didn't commit a single spelling mistake?"

      Press tab and it autocompletes the command.
      Not exactly a fix, but it helps.
  • saranagati, on 09/10/2008, -4/+3I had to bury it for one because do we really need a digg article for the most basic of unix commands? And second (the one that really made me bury it) because it tells you to su prior to running ./configure and make.
    • Lythium, on 09/10/2008, -1/+5You totally missed the "Just switched from Windows?" part of that article, didn't you....
      • saranagati, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1hehe, guess so i usually don't read the commentary on most of these top N lists and just look at what made the top N
    • sjaxso, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1I've been using Linux on and off for ten years and I learned something that iId somehow missed.

      Share the love, man. Nobody made you read it.
  • xsquirrel378x, on 09/10/2008, -7/+4buried for blogspam and first grade commands
  • Lythium, on 09/10/2008, -4/+26Sudo make me a sandwich.
  • mizike, on 09/10/2008, -1/+7I love how both the current time and the current month are "cool statistics".
    • cgibbo, on 09/10/2008, -7/+2AWESOMEE!!!! HAY Windows buddies, check out this awesome LINUX command I can run!! Can you see the current month in w1nd0z3??? I didn't think so!
    • Acglaphotis, on 09/10/2008, -0/+4Linux users (myself included) often lose track of time...
  • NeoSporin, on 09/10/2008, -13/+4Look how technologically capable my brain is, I run linux durr dee durr
  • mrhuhk, on 09/10/2008, -9/+5My cat buried this article because it is a *****' turd.
    • tacmen, on 09/10/2008, -3/+1I have to digg you! It's not because I agree with you, but because this is the funniest thing I have ever read on Digg.
      • Acglaphotis, on 09/10/2008, -0/+4You haven't been here for very long.
  • balliamo, on 09/10/2008, -2/+0"man man" and you are fine
  • ivanmarsh, on 09/10/2008, -2/+2Probably should have explained sudo since it uses sudo in the examples and the way sudo is being used isn't going to work out of the box for most distros.
  • santasing, on 09/10/2008, -0/+6Nice article. At least it tells you something. Not like those flamebaits that go "20 reasons to switch from X to Y"
  • demonstar55, on 09/10/2008, -2/+1"Stefan Neagu is the author of the Tux Geek Blog where he discusses network security, linux and other issues regarding the tech world. He's a student, an amateur C# programmer and photoshopper. " - lol
    • trpnblies7, on 09/10/2008, -1/+1I believe the author actually means, "He's a student, an amateur C# programmer and enhances images using Adobe® Photoshop® software."
  • tramblings, on 09/10/2008, -4/+2I question including the sudo apt-get install prior to cd, pwd and basic navigation. Next time why don't you start with rm -rf instead?

    That's a pretty random array of commands.
  • dondara, on 09/10/2008, -3/+6Wow, that was horrible. apt is a distro specific app. If anybody really wants to know the cli, get the O'Reilly book "*nix in a nutshell". It's a book of all the man pages. This guy sounds like he just learned this stuff.
  • quisph, on 09/10/2008, -2/+12"The command line is a very powerful, fast and intuitive tool to get things done"

    Powerful, yes. Fast, usually. Intuitive, my ass.

    And this article is not helping matters by including commands like "shutdown [-h] [-r] now" without explaining what the brackets mean, and that you're not actually supposed to type them.

    Also, what's up with the condescending tone of the article? Does the author think that all Linux newbies are in grade school?
    • 0x1B, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3I came here to say the same thing. I've been using Unix for almost 20 years now, and the one thing I can say about the CLI is that it's anything but intuitive. I'm still learning new things, even after all these years. Hell, I still need to occasionally look at the find(1) man page to make sure what I want is what I think I need. That old saying holds true: "Unix is very user-friendly. It's just very selective about who its friends are."

      I also found the tone annoying.
    • jclin, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Exactly, but it's simpler than that..... forget the brackets, what I want to know is this: What's intuitive about a blinking cursor?
  • seandfeeney, on 09/10/2008, -1/+4what no sudo apt-get moo ????
  • psychotron, on 09/10/2008, -6/+6What is the command to install Windows or OS X?
  • Raingwc, on 09/10/2008, -1/+2I recommend df -h helps make it more readable. takes the bytes and shows them as mb.
    • murugeshappu, on 09/11/2008, -0/+0i thought it will show in GB. am i wrong?
  • Kenzan, on 09/10/2008, -3/+4Can you hear that sound, people?
    It's the sound of Revolution.

    GO UNIX! (and the zillions of flavors thereof)
    • anillop, on 09/10/2008, -1/+2This supposed revolution has been happening for 10 years now and linux is still just for hobby users and servers.
      • Kenzan, on 09/10/2008, -1/+4Mainly fear, ignorance and unwillingness to learn, grow, and evolve has kept most folks from experiencing the joys of Linux.
        That's why the Ubuntu project is so awesome.
  • nedzeve, on 09/10/2008, -1/+4FTA:

    apt-get
    pwd
    cd
    ls
    mkdir
    cp
    mv
    rm
    date
    cal
    uptime
    whoami
    whereis
    df
    shutdown
    man

    That's more than 9, but they clumped many together, and didn't count other ones they explained.
  • trollick, on 09/10/2008, -1/+3I just tried "date". WOW!
    • edrodgers731, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2Even Windows can do that one! :)
  • aserer511, on 09/10/2008, -0/+7is intsalling in linux THIS easy? "sudo apt-get install application-of-your-choice"
    does that require self-compiling, or will that do it all for you?
    • neasteflorin, on 09/10/2008, -0/+9Yep, that easy if you know how what's the name of the app and it's in the database(repository).
      • skyshock1, on 09/10/2008, -0/+4and if you don't....

        apt-cache search {searchTerm}

        And of it's already on the system, but you can't remember what it's called....

        man -k {searchTerm}
    • 0x1B, on 09/10/2008, -2/+9Yeah, it's that easy. There's no compiling, because the packages are already built for you and sitting in a thing called a "repository". You're merely pulling them down from there and installing them locally. As an added bonus, the apt package manager will also check dependencies for you. So if you want to install soem program called 'foo', and it requires another called 'bar' (which may in turn require who knows how many other packages or libraries or whateer), it'll figure it all out and fetch what it needs. And it'll give you the option of saying "no thanks, that's too much stuff, don't think I'll install" if you don't want it installed after all. (Though removal is pretty simple as well.)

      As far as the package name, you can find that out via the package manager as well. For example, say you wanted to install a game emulator your buddy was mentioning, and the only thing you recall is that it had the word 'atari' in the name. No sweat finding out what you need:

      # apt-cache search atari
      atari-fdisk-cross - Partition editor for Atari (running on non-Atari)
      circuslinux - The clowns are trying to pop balloons to score points!
      madbomber - A Kaboom! clone
      tcs - Character set translator.
      atari800 - Atari emulator for svgalib/X/curses
      stella - Atari 2600 Emulator for X windows
      xmess-x - X binaries for Multi-Emulator Super System

      So the 'atari800' package was the emulator you wanted. No problem installing it:

      # apt-get update
      # apt-get install atari800

      So you type that and you're on your way. The first command updates the package database, makes sure that you'll get the most current stuff. The second does the install. (That's done as the root user for clarity's sake. You can tell it's the root account because it has the '#' symbol at the beginning of the prompt.)

      If you prefer a GUI, there's an app called Synaptic that's available. It's pretty easy to use. See here for more: https://help.ubuntu.com/7.04/add-applications/C/ad ...

      As someone who has had to perform such mind-numbingly boring tasks as compile and install things such as KDE and ImageMagick (w/ the GD stuff) from source on older Unix machines, I can assure you that package managers make life very easy.
      • swab, on 09/10/2008, -1/+3Why would anyone bury this well thought out and informative post?
  • Skooma714, on 09/10/2008, -3/+5"Congratulations! Since you're now a linux hacker..."

    Hey guys I learned "cd" and "dir" am I Windows hax0r now?
    • zspas, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1no u r HakerZ :)))
    • ICLW, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2nope.

      if you knew dir /w THEN you would be a hacker ;)
    • edrodgers731, on 09/10/2008, -1/+0That's about the standard, yeah. You are ready to bypass any Windows security now!
  • rollerboy, on 09/10/2008, -0/+10"whoami" command just shows your name, it doesn't answer the question philosophically.
  • skyshock1, on 09/10/2008, -0/+4SCREEN.

  • Khabi, on 09/10/2008, -0/+3"cp Folder /user/home -r"

    Anyone else find it odd that he puts the -r at the end of the command?
    • 0x1B, on 09/10/2008, -0/+1Yeah, i thought that was weird. i think he read the comments here that said "Uh, guy, you need that recursive flag..." and then merely added it at the end. Not that it's harmful or anything in this case, but it's not standard practice. If you have two really, really long paths, it's much clearer to have all the flags after the command.

      Though with some commands, you need the flags in the right place. If he had to tack on options for another example, like tar, then he'd be in trouble.
  • zspas, on 09/10/2008, -6/+2I don't like Linux...
    but.. all about linux i can fid for example here:
    http://km.cinemapower.ru/showthread.php?p=3013

  • ohplease, on 09/10/2008, -3/+8"Just switched from Windows or still a bit scared about the command line? You shouldn't be! The command line is a very powerful, fast and intuitive tool to get things done without clicking buttons and navigating through windows."


    Intuitive! just like DOS 2.1!

    I hope one day we can all return to the all powerful A:> prompt and discard these pointless GUIs.

    • edrodgers731, on 09/10/2008, -2/+2What we really need is a computer interface that just has two big buttons: (GO) and (STOP)

      That way everyone can use the computer!

      The only intuitive interface is the nipple. The rest we have to learn.
  • Oversoul, on 09/10/2008, -2/+0OMG! I tried: "How much time did I spend at the computer uptime", and I've been at my computer for more than a year! Thanks to this article of helpful *nix commands I can prove to the world that the LHC has altered time-space!
  • MadHarvey, on 09/10/2008, -1/+14If you are going to educate new users about the command line, you should start by explaining the Unix philosophy:

    1. Everything in Unix is represented as a file in the directory structure.
    2. Great command line tools, are small, razor sharp, and do one thing to files really, really ***** well.
    3. These small tools can be chained together to do amazingly complex things to files. And, because everything is a file, that means you can do virtually anything to your system.
    -----------------------------------
    Then you should explain that the TAB key will auto-complete directory and command names for you in most shells. It is simply amazing how many guides forget to mention this. The TAB key is your new best friend.
    -----------------------------------
    Then you should explain |, , &, &&, etc.
    -----------------------------------
    Then, and ONLY THEN, should you get into specific commands starting with
    'man'

    So many new Linux users are turned off from the shell because they think its all about memorizing command syntax, and typing in ungodly long sequences (ala no tab key).

    But, when you explain the underlying concepts and the Unix philosophy, and it 'clicks', you have a life long Unix shell user on your hands.
    • sjaxso, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3It was nine years before I discovered the TAB completion, by accident. Seriously.
  • ZerawBanned, on 09/10/2008, -2/+2Dugg for "[Number] Linux [stuff] everyone should use!" pattern.
  • auralvance, on 09/10/2008, -8/+3Is anyone else ***** sick of these "OMG cool linux tricks you should know!" articles? This is one of the worst ones I've seen yet!

    COOL NEW TRICK!===> sudo rm -rf /

    Will work on your linux install, garaunteed!
  • brenthals, on 09/10/2008, -2/+5READY
    10. PRINT "HELLO DIGG"
    20. GOTO 10
    RUN
  • h0tpot, on 09/10/2008, -2/+0I think this is the most helpful Linux newbie article I have read in a long time. Most are extremely intimidating. Dugg for simplicity.
  • jimbo92107, on 09/10/2008, -3/+2How about calling the article, "Three Strikes and Yer Out...Here's Nine from Linux!"

    Question: What do people really want from computers?
    Hint: It ain't "Bad command or file name," and it ain't "sudo apt-get [some more half-baked crap]."
    • edrodgers731, on 09/10/2008, -1/+1You mean: "What do people (that don't care about computers) really want from computers?"

      I don't really care about those people.
  • mkokes, on 09/10/2008, -1/+3Behold the power of ls
  • kossy, on 09/10/2008, -1/+2that was lame
  • AncientPC, on 09/10/2008, -0/+2One command I found really useful while learning the command line is `apropos ` (or the equivalent `man -k `). Sometimes I wanted to do something but didn't know the correct command to man page, which is where apropos comes in.
  • Kamujin, on 09/10/2008, -3/+3buried for calling the CLI "intutative"

    Please
    • fuzzlog, on 09/10/2008, -2/+2Where did it say intutative? Can't find that word in the article.
      • Kamujin, on 09/11/2008, -1/+2Are you serious?

        "Just switched from Windows or still a bit scared about the command line? You shouldn't be! The command line is a very powerful, fast and intuitive tool to get things done without clicking buttons and navigating through windows. In this article we're going over 9 must know linux terminal commands."
      • fuzzlog, on 09/11/2008, -1/+1Sorry dude, I thought you were picking on the mispelled word 'intutative' as you pointed out.

        As for CLI being INTUITIVE not intutative, it does become second nature once you get the hang of it. When you learn the commands you need, you just think faster using commands that take you straight to the results you need than having to click through buttons and widgets. And I am very serious about that.
  • kayfouroh, on 09/10/2008, -2/+3Debian only, buried as inaccurate.

    Ubuntu is not the only distribution around.
  • Clbull, on 09/10/2008, -3/+1Everyone says that Ubuntu is supposed to be much user friendlier than many other Linux distribtions but it still requires you at times to install programs through the command line. When I briefly used Ubuntu, I didn't find it good at all for installing programs. Sometimes the Synaptic Package Manager didn't work when installing a program then I'd either have to A) use the "sudo apt-get" command correctly or B) Find the binaries for the program and compile them.

    No offence but Ubuntu isn't that much more user friendly than any other linux distribution. Also, this "top 9 ubuntu & debian commands" are just basic commands which would definitely be for the absolute newbies who haven't even touched a command prompt or terminal before. Even if thats the case then you can get help from the Ubuntu Forums.
    • trogdoor, on 09/10/2008, -1/+2Synaptic is simply a front end to apt, I don't see how a package could fail to install with one but work with the other.
  • Viriatus2, on 09/10/2008, -3/+2Command line? Please, this is the year 2008... Who the ***** wants to learn technology from the 70's?
    • zmigliozzi, on 09/11/2008, -1/+4People who actually use computers for more than digg/email/myspace/facebook.
      • Viriatus2, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1to do what? play games? Or recompile the kernel?
      • zmigliozzi, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2I don't know, manage a network and everything that is on it. Learn how an Operating System really works.
      • Viriatus2, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1i don't want to learn, my time is precious. I just want to use a computer to do useful things...
      • coldkill3r, on 09/13/2008, -0/+1Using the CLI for managing critical systems and servers for top companies and your favorite websites isn't important?
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