More Linux goodness

Here are a list of useful commands to get you up and running – this is not exhaustive.

Command	Description
apropos	Finds manuals for given keywords and lists commands e.g. apropos sort
info	Finds help for a given keyword e.g. info sort
man	Displays the manual pages for a given command e.g. man sort
whatis	Provides a description of a command (requires full name of the command) e.g. whatis sort
alias	Abbreviates a long command e.g. alias ls=’ls –color=auto’
unalias	Removes abbreviation
type	Displays type and location of a command e.g. type sort
cd	Change directory e.g. cd ~
cp	Copy files e.g. cp original copiedfile
ln	Creates symbolic link/shortcut e.g. ln -s original linkedfile
chmod	Changes file mode using [u,g,a] [+,-] [r,w,x] e.g. chmod g+w original
chown	Changes file owner. To change user:group to root for a file named original e.g. chown root:root original
ls	List files -F, -l, -a are all useful flags
mkdir	Make directory e.g. mkdir newdirectory
rmdir	Remove directory
mv	Move file/rename a file e.g. mv original newdirctory/newfile
rm	Remove files
touch	Update timestamp of a file or create one if it doesn’t exist. This is useful if a settings file needs to be kept whilst all other files in a directory older than a certain date are to be deleted
find	Find files with specific name etc e.g. find ~ -name original
locate	Find files recorded in a system database
whereis	Find executables e.g. whereis sort
which	Finds files in the PATH environment directories e.g. which sort
cat	Display or concatenate files
diff	Compares the difference between files e.g. diff file1 file2
expand	Converts tabs to spaces in a text file
file	Returns the file type e.g. file original
grep	Powerful way to search for regular expressions
less	Displays text file contents
sort	Sorts lines in a file
split	Splits a file into multiple files e.g. to split a file every 2 lines use ‘split -l 2 original’ and to recombine use ‘cat part.?? > bigfile.tar’
tac	Reverses a file, line by line e.g. tac original
tail	Show the end lines of a file e.g. tail original
wc	Word count for a file returning lines, words, characters e.g. wc -l testfile

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