The 5-Minute Essential Shell Tutorial
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14 years ago 1122 |
Alright, far too often (especially in the IRC channels) there is a time where even the most beginner of users are faced with the terminal. It has many names: terminal, shell, console, "command prompt" even as a carryover from those familiar with Windows. Many people are frightened by it for some reason or another, so this tutorial will attempt to provide you the most basic of commands to enable navigation and basic system actions from the comfort of your keyboard.
Let's get started shall we? Since everyone's Mint version can be different, I'm not going to detail how to actually open the terminal. I'll assume you can find it in the menu or by right-clicking in the desktop.
Facts:
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You can do almost anything in a terminal which you would also do from a GUI interface.
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Most commands were designed first to work in the terminal, then a GUI put on top of them. That's why some GUI's may feel clunky - they were an afterthought at times.
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The default location for your terminal to open from the menu is in your home folder, also known as ~
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Your current directory can be noted by the . operator. Most commands when they act on the current folder selection, operate on .
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Commands, locations, and files are case sensitive. /home is not the same as /HOME or /Home.
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Use the tab key to complete file names. If you have a long driver titled, for example,
driver-128947232jaseu.sh, simply type driand it will fill in the rest, provided you don't have 2 names starting with "dri" and if you do, add another character to make it "driv" and try again.
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Almost any command can be read about in full using the manpage or by typing -h or --help after writing the initial command. This syntax is either man command_name, command_name -h, or command_name --help.
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To get even more information, you can use info. A command can be searched for by using info command_name. For most of these commands which are part of the coreutils package, one can find info as well using info coreutils command_name invocation where command_name is replaced by the command searched for.
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Almost any command can also explicitly display what is happening. This is done usually by the -v or --verbose
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You can specify multiple command flags to a command at a time to get more information (see the ls -al example below.)
- Command names are not always obtuse - due to space limitations in the old days of Unix they were shortened, and the conventions stuck.
Commands:
cd -> Used to navigate the directories. You can move to any location by path.
- cd This will move you back to your home, same as cd ~
- cd .. This will take you back exactly one directory. Starting in /home/justin/Desktop, cd .. will put me into /home/justin. This can be expanded upon, cd ../../ from the Desktop location instead will move me 2 back, from my Desktop to /home.
- cd foldername/ This will move you forward to the given folder in your current folder. Take note of the missing prefix / it is an important omission. if I am in /home/justin and I want to get to Desktop, I must type cd Desktop/ without the / before Desktop. Typing / before it places us in the root of file system, which is incorrect.
- cd /some/other/path This will take you to the specified folder path, supposing it exists as typed exactly. Don't forget your tab completion!
ls -> Used to list folder contents. You can view many kinds of file and folder attributes.
- ls By itself, ls will simply list all your files in the current folder. From fact #4, this literally does ls .
- ls -l Provides a longer listing format including owners, permissions, size, and date modified.
- ls -a Displays hidden files and folders as well as the normal listing.
- ls -al Combine options to display both hidden files and in the long format.
- ls -h Show file sizes in human readable format (K, M, Gbyte) filesizes instead of bytes. Often used in conjuction with the -l flag.
- You can view files in directories you are not even in. If I am in /home/justin/Desktop, and I want to view a file in /home/justin, I can do ls ../ list files one directory back (and not have to go back to do so.)
cp -> Copy files
- cp file /path/to/folder Copies specified file to the given path.
- cp -r folder /path/to/folder Copies recursively the contents of the folder to another folder.
- cp *.extension /path/to/folder Copies files matching the given extension to the new folder. To copy all .doc files, it becomes cp *.doc /path/to/folder and the folder must exist.
- cp name* /path/to/folder Copies all files starting with 'name' to the given folder. To copy all files starting with example, it becomes cp example* /path/to/folder and the folder must exist.
mv -> Move files
- The syntax of mv is similar to the example above with cp exempt for example #2. mv does not take the -r flag since moving a folder also moves its contents. The syntax is not exact in all instances, but works with the above examples. Consult your manpages for more details.
rm -> Remove files
- For all intents and purposes, removing files via rm is permanent. It does not use the Trash bin. Use with caution and make sure you are deleting explicitly what you want, not what you think you want. If you decide to get fancy with your delete commands, it's probably going to come back to bite you.
- rm file Remove the specified file from the system.
- rm -r folder Remove the specified folder from the system
- rm -rf folder Removes the specified folder forcefully from the system. This command can severely break your configuration if used incorrectly as it will not prompt you if something critical is being deleted. If you have to use this, chances are something more is broken or there was a mistake made. This should only be used as an absolute last resort method and is not recommended.
nano -> full command line text editor
- One can edit files using nano in a terminal to do quick and dirty files all the way up to full configurations. It's handy, but keep in mind it handles plain text files and programming files, things like MS Word documents will not open properly!
- If a file is owned by root, it is not editable as a normal user. nano must be prefixed with sudo in order to save changes. Otherwise, it will open in read-only mode.
- nano newfile.whatever Nano creates a new file of the specified name and opens it for editing.
- nano existing_file Nano opens the existing file for editing.
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From inside nano
- Save file using the ctrl+o key combination, and either change the name or press entier to keep the same name. This will save the file.
- Exit nano by using ctrl+x key combination. If you have unsaved changes, it will ask if you want to save.
mkdir -> Create directories
- mkdir folder_name Creates the folder with the specified name
- mkdir -p /path/to/folder/name Creates each folder as necessary. To create folder /home/justin/newfolder/2ndfolder, and only /home/justin exists, using mkdir -p will make both directories newfolder and 2ndfolder.
ps -> List processes
- ps aux List all processes in detail running on the system, including user, Process ID (PID), and name of process. Using this, one can view their process list and if necessary, kill unnecessary or stalled processes.
kill / killall / xkill -> Kill offending processes.
- kill PID PID is a number referencing the offending process. One should obtain the PID from a command like ps aux. If a process refuses to die, one can alternatively specify kill -9 PID which should terminate the process by any means, even uncleanly or if it will mess up the system.
- killall program Killall kills *by name* all instances of said program. If there are for example 3 firefox sessions open, killall firefox will do just that; kill all firefox sessions. kill would simply take the specified PID of the offending firefox process you wish to kill, and kill that one only.
- xkill is a GUI way to click and kill windows. Typing in xkill should present a skull-and-crossbones icon, and the next window clicked on will be killed.
Pipes -> The most useful thing you will learn in *NIX. Redirecting output of a program to anothers input.
- Pipes are represented by the ' straight bar ' otherwise known as the ' | ' key.
- It is a rarely used key in Windows, it is often found on the backslash key.
- They are used to link commands together. Pipes take the output of one command and route it to be used as input for a second command chained together.
- Consult more online resources with information about pipes and their use as there are volumes.
> and >> redirectors -> Send output to a file instead of the terminal.
- > is used to *overwrite* currently existing files contents and replace with the output from the new command.
- >> is used to *append* information to currently existing files. This is useful for logging.
- Example: ps aux > processes.log Sends the output of ps aux to the file processes.log for viewing the command output in a text editor and overwrites the current contents of the file.
tee -> Send output to both a file and the terminal
- tee is used in conjunction with a ' | ' in order to take the command output and send it elsewhere. This is useful if there are errors which fly by the screen before you can read them, this way whatever goes on the screen is also captured to a file.
- Example: dmesg | tee boot.txt would run the command dmesg which shows the initial boot info, and the ' | ' sends the output of dmesg to tee, which then does its job by sending it to the terminal and to the log file boot.txt.
File Execution -> So you want to execute files or programs from the terminal? Make sure it's marked executable. If not, see Quick Tip #4 below.
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Need to execute a file in the current directory after it is marked executable? The ./ operator can execute the file as a normal user provided you do not need root rights. ./ literally means "in the current directory" so it does not work on files outside of the present directory.
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Need to execute a file not in the current directory? You must pass the path to the proper executing program. If it is a python program, it's python /path/to/file and if it is a shell file, it is sh /path/to/file as an example. There are of course other programs, but these will be the most common for beginners.
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Need to execute a file with root rights because you received operation not permitted? Prefix the command with sudo. Thus, from the above example, sudo python /path/to/file will execute the script with root rights.
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Need to execute a GUI program from the terminal? Simply type the program name (case sensitive!) and it will launch. This will render the current terminal unusable. Closing the terminal while the program is open will kill the program. A better way is to background the program, using program_name & and then typing the word exit at the terminal to close it and keep the process running.
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Need to run a GUI program with root rights from the terminal? Prefix it with gksudo or gksu and not sudo. Using sudo to launch GUI applications is a bad habit and should be avoided.
- Do not, do *not* use sudo simply because something receives "Operation not permitted." Keep in mind what you are doing as you can absolutely *destroy* systems by running commands in the wrong place with root rights. This point cannot be emphasized enough. Make sure your files come from reputable sources.
Quick tips:
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Lost yourself in a directory? Not sure where you are? Type pwd to print working directory.
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Want to calculate your disk space quickly? df -h can give you a quick checkup.
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Want to calculate the size of a folder or file quickly? du -cksh target_name can do exactly that. Want to calculate the size of the current folder? du -cksh .
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Need to mark a file executable? chmod +x filename can do that. Next time you see a file you need to execute and it is not marked executable, now you know how to fix it.
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Want to mount an iso like Daemon-Tools on Windows? Linux has this functionality built in. Simply create a directory somewhere, say /home/justin/isomount, and issue the command mount -o loop /path/to/myisofile.iso /home/justin/isomount and the contents will be mounted inside that folder.
- Run a command before, you need to re-run it, but you can't really remember what it was exactly? Type history into the terminal and it will print out your command history. Want to clear your history? history -c will wipe the information.
Comments
Very much appreciated!
Nicely done thankyou
Nice for a Noob.
Thank you! This is very generous of your time and effort to put this quick tutorial together.
thanks!
That's great. Thanks!
Thank you.
Very good tutorial for beginners. Thank you for sharing.
Good.. Mantap...
Such a very nice tutorial thanks !!
Such a nice tutorial, in 'save file in nano' section it says 'entier' instead of enter, please correct it, thanks. #LinuxMintRocks
Great tutorial!!
good info I haven't been able to find - thanks!
Wow! This really cleared up allot of confusion and brought allot of fractured info all together for me. and I've only gotten up to rm.
This is invaluable resource.
Thanks a ton!
thanks, great explanation
thanks man.... :D
I'm sill learning, thanks, in favs
thanks bro
This is great, thank you :)
A large set of clearly defined basic/new user commands. The tutorial has been added to my favorites, as there are some differences sometimes between distributions.
Good info, difficult to remember if you don't use it often enough. It's very handy. Thanks
I've been using Linux for just over 6 months and use the command line where I can and have found this to be a great reference - thanks! However, when not getting the gksu/gksudo to work I discovered (after some research) it's been removed by Debian/Ubuntu. Maybe this should be removed from the tutorial as well.
Once a command is entered can it be undone?
Thank you, this is very helpful.
Thankyou!!!
thanks alot. i will keep it handy! got anything on setting up file server.
thank you :)
Thanks for this tutorial. Useful for a refresher.
Thank you for the tutorial. I found it helpful
Great info many thanks
Before I decided to make the switch to Linux, I researched shell tutorials. Most were much more information than was helpful to a new user. This is what I was looking for, a crash course of sorts. thanks
Thx! It´s very useful!
This is great, thank you!!
thank you for your tutorial
i just know how to use rm mv today
I tried TAB to fill in the rest of the file name. It doesn't work.
Very nice overview of absolutely essential terminal commands. A great reference and starting point
Thanks alot
Thanks for taking the time to write this
Thank you so much for this very valuable reference. This will be helpful to all concerned and is a great contribution.
it,s really awesome and help me a lot..
Very useful! Thank you!
Thanks!!
thank you
thanks for writing these!
Thanks, easy to understand for a newbie.
Excellent! Thanks !
useful!
hmmmm, back to the DOS commands (and Apple) formats! This is totally new for me except 30 yrs or so ago when I had to use one of the earlier Apple PCs.
important knowledge..thanks
very nice,thanks
excellent tutorial
Great post! Much appreciated.
nice to get reminded..
Reminds me of my DOS days on my Tandy 1000
Thanks
Awesome primer - much appreciated.
Thanks. It could be the best universal entry point to the Nix terminal IMHO.
Muito útil, obrigado!
very helful, thanks!
its very helpful.
very helpful tutorial for beginner like me thanks !
Very helpful!
I am a newbie so this helped a lot
Very helpful tutorial; will also make great quick-reference on my bookmark bar, thanks! For those needing more hands-on, in-depth explanations & practice exercises, check out your local community college. Many of them are now offering classes in Linux at reasonable prices. I start in Jan2016, $54. Alumni praise the class for turning even the most illiterate newborn newbies into computer savvy users. This tutorial will make a great cheat sheet :)
For those who want to learn more, I really like this detailed, and easy-to-understand e-book: http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxcommand/files/TLCL/13.07/TLCL-13.07.pdf/download. It's the Linux Command Line by William Shots, 537 pages of easily accessible information, organised by theme.
Good beginner info. Has helped me understand some terminal commands and some basic usages many thanks.
Thanks, but I need info on how to change initial logon password, not the subsequent admin user password. I changed the latter, thinking I was doing both at the same time--now I have two passwords to deal with, not just one. I think I need to change the password using GRUB???.
Very useful, thank you!
Very useful for reference, thank you.
Thanks! A very good tutorial for someone who has limited experience mucking about " behind the GUI. I had to look up some things, like "man page", which apparently is NOT a sexist term. :_)
A suggestion for improvement.
Add some examples for readers to try.
A suggestion for clarity.
In the section about pipes, comment 2. "It is a rarely used key in Windows, it is often found on the backslash key." I scratched my head here for a while. I was trying to relate the second half of the sentence to the first half, and I could not make sense of what were actually two unrelated comments. Better as two sentences.
Thanks, nice and concise.
I noticed some folks may be taking the title too literally, maybe should consider it an introduction rather than tutorial.
The author has provided a nice, easy to find reference that is much appreciated.
Thank you so much for this tuto. I'm new on Linux and I'm surprised to understand quickly basics things.
While I can see the work that has gone into this, i have to agree with paravasta. As a real newbie to Linux who has never used anything other than GUI programs before, I just don't know how to run packages that have not had a GUI written for them. I was hoping that this tutorial would be the answer, but it assumes a level of knowledge above a base beginner. I appreciate Linux was not written for Windows XP exiles, but generally i have found Linux Mint perfect other then when I want to go "off piste". Can anyone point me to a real intro tutorial to Terminal?
Very essential!
Very handy. A great refresher for those of us who only dabble in Linux. Thank you.
super
enlightening!
Thanks for the tutorial, good starting point.
Good job!
Thanks
I already knew most of this stuff...love the article though. There were a few commands I had forgotten.
To be honest, I didn't do this stuff in windows with any luck I won't have to do too much of it with Mint. But hey learning is growing.
For shell scripts I use "$PWD" instead of "." and "$HOME" instead of "~". That saved me a lot of troubles.
very helpful, thanks.
Thanks for the info & time given
Perfect tutorial for a linux newbie. Thanks alot.
Useful information, bookmarked for reference.
Very helpful.
Really excellent. Thanks Justin. Hope you are still getting our comments after 3 years.
Thanks Justin, it's always good to start at the beginning.
Using Mint 16, #3 du-cksh, etc. did not seem to work on my terminal
Great! Well resumed and direct.
Reminds me of the time when I had hair on my head and used the DOS on floppies! :)
Makes a great Quick Reference for the newbie. Thanks
Thank you extremely useful.
Thanks for the tutorial!
I started on Win 3.1 & remember using the command line frequently, but it's been a couple of decades since then. This is a great intro to the terminal. Thanks!
Thanks
Very helpful for us oldies, thank you.
Thank you very much for this tutorial.
very helpful for a beginner like me , thank you !
Short and Sweet.
Excellent tutorial! Thank you!
Taking it very slow so that it can marinate.
I'm new to linux and I am pleased to find such quality tutorials. Thanks.
Great tutorial!
If you are new to linux, then this is for you.
If you are experienced, then this is a nice refresher.
Great for Terminal Noobs
Thanks for a very good starting document for beginners.
The pipe key \" | \" is often used in Windows, but only in the command line
such as TYPE <
I guess it's the same in Linux, only in Terminal emulator.
Handy writing, although it could be updated as mentioned earlyer in the comments.
There's quite a few usefull tips in the comment that deserve a spot in the howto.
I'm lucky to have a Dos os background, from wich i reconize quite a few commands :D
But still, one is never to old to learn new tricks :)
simple and instructive,THANKS
Thanks
I never completely understood your article the first time. Will study it again. Thank you. Susan
Very good tutorial for newcomers to linux and to linux mint who don't understand how to interact with the terminal.
thanks, good tutorial, starting to enjoy using terminal
I notice that the article has not been edited for 3 years. It would be helpful if someone who is well versed in Linux could take the suggestions that have been made and write an article for those that need the absolute basics. Looking back in the comments it is obvious that there is a great need for this. Those that have come from an O/S (Operating System) that uses a GUI (Graphical User Interface) have no concept of a command line structure. Many do not know even the most basic abbreviations. I would do it myself, but I do not have the knowledge to do this.
Many who have read this piece state that they are just as confused as before they read it. For experienced Linux users it is difficult to remember how little newcomers really know and how much help they need.
I agree with korpu as someone like myself, an absolute newby, needs very basic help. (even the font confused me: at the explanation of ls it took me 10 minutes to figure out what the l was. was it a 1, was it an I, was it an |?) However the article did help a lot but I am old and was exposed to DOS. I imagine someone who has never seen command lines before would be really confused. Many of us coming from years of Windows need the absolute basics. What does bash mean? I know from DOS that cd means change directory, but something as simple as knowing that can make a huge difference. This is not to say that that I don't appreciate what the article says. My thanks to the author, because it did help me immensely.
It's not basic enough for beginners. It would help to tell where it is, what it can do for me (not abstract benefits, concrete result that I can't get other way), how I can do what. In start Menu > Terminal, the black window opens, shows username@computer name and $. Now what? And what and why should I do? Action-result information, not abstract concepts, please. Why so, see "How to "help" someone to use computer" (http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/190). Appreciate the effort, though.
Splendid! I am now a yellow belt in sudo.
Thank you :)
Nice! Every new GNU/Linux user should have this on their fridge.
Well, This is EXCELLENT! Thank you Justin!
http://webdarek.tumblr.com/
Protecting files / folders from unwanted deletion is very important security on the tasklist of Unix Administrators. On Linux boxes you can use the chattr command and that works ine on all my Ubuntu based servers.
Let’s give you some examples how chattr work under Linux:
To make a folder undeletable, run:
sudo chattr +i -R foldername
After that, you can’t delete, rename or do anything with this folder. But if you don’t need this folder anymore or you’ve got to apply some changes to it run:
sudo chattr -i -R foldername
To make a file undeletable, run:
sudo chattr +i filename
To be able to change or delete the file, run:
sudo chattr -i filename
I have a long road ahead of me!
i still read it for 23th time but i cant understood very good ... sorry ...
They are mostly needed commands thanks..
good and nice introduction of shell command ...
good write text ...
Justin-
Agreed, rm -rf some_folder is dangerous business for the newbe. Then again, so is sudo -i but at least you only have to enter your password once for the entire interactive root shell session, and you can then execute all sudo commands to follow unprompted. Good when you need to be root for more than a single command.
Also add:
sudo apt-get install some_pkg
Good, but add:
find
which
echo $PATH
PATH=${PATH}:/Path_to_add
sudo -i
mount | grep tmpfs
Most of this is way above my skill level. I just hope that I can use he operating system
good
Great tutorial.
Congratulations
i know that some command are simmilar to DOS command but Linux is different and we must understand the basic first :D
Thanks. Did never hear nano or killall. Well, will continue to use Windoze for work (unfortunately) but am starting now Maya for personal use.
Compliments for the good work.
**PROPS AND A SUGGESTION***
Very nice tutorial! My command-line experience goes back to DOS 2.0 and I still find myself inadvertently typing "dir" instaead of "ls", and, being new to Linux still have a heckuva lot to learn about the basics. The pipe "|" is a sublimely powerful tool that should have its own tutorial;- whoever invented that deserves to be rich and happy.
The occasional bit (no pun intended) of dry developer humor in the shell really lightens things up too. Developer humor? How about the "less" command doing more than the "more" command. Just like the old saying "less is more", except in this case, less is more than more... Monty Python couldn't have thought of a better name for the command.
Also, I still get a chuckle when I run "sudo apt-get moo".
ANYWAY, I *do* have a suggestion here that may help the (really) green newbies a bit, RE: The tutorial fact 11. "Command names are not always obtuse - due to space limitations in the old days of Unix they were shortened, and the conventions stuck."
My suggestion is to mention the word (or words) that the command abbreviation was derived form. Surely most people can figure out that "cp" is short for "copy" and "mv" for "move", but it may not be immediately obvious that "ls" is short for "list" and "cd" for "change directory". YES, a little thought will make many commands' abbreviations apparent, but once beyond the very basic ones seeing them in print right after the abbreviation will make them easier to not just figure out but to remember, i.e. cat (Concatenate).
The command line is much more useful if people REMEMBER the commands. :-)
Help me a lot.. thx..
thanks
Sweet! now if I could just find the terminal command for clicking "like" on FB....
Still I am getting nothing...................
Awesome. terminal is very daunting for noobies but this is rather helpful.
i prefer terminal than gui
terminal is faster
The only thing that annoys me every time is that "mv" cannot move folders, or rather move folders recursively (meaning it doesn't take the -r option). Annoying. GUI is much better in this respect. Quick CTRL+X and CTRL+V.
Thanks
Thank You all for this work and help. I just switched to this os and due to the the fact that I was sick with window's os and the problems that always pop up I joined the Linux Community. Since I have been on windows crack since win 3.1 this is simalar to the old dos and makes sence. Mint is amaizing and thanks for a better OS
A really good overview for somebody like me, who has only used the terminal so far to input commands, without knowing what they actually mean and how they inter-relate.
I have started to use it alongside other learning media eg.YouTube.
Good foundation material.
Really good tutorial. In a world where so many linux/unix tutorials give you a keyword and just tell you to look up the man page, its great to see one that cuts straight through to the more commonly used basics to give users the confidence in the terminal environment to explore further for themselves.
Great :)
Light and clear. Thanks. Jacques. Happy new year !
Great tutorial for an old newbie like me.
mekanik7777
i feel so dumb, i just dont get all these terms and ways to use the "shell". why isnt it just in regular language, is there a more of a beginner tutorial, sorry im from the usa, we have crummy schools
DON'T BLAME THE SCHOOLS FOR YOUR EDUCATION PAL. YOU WERE THE ONE THAT HAD TO LEARN THE STUFF
i feel so dumb, i just dont get all these terms and ways to use the "shell". why isnt it just in regular language, is there a more of a beginner tutorial, sorry im from the usa, we have crummy schools
Great tutorial! I only wish I could have seen it when I was starting.
I think one nice thing to add could be whenever typing your password (for example after sudo some_command), no characters appear for security reasons.
That is probably the one question I get asked more than anything. Again, great tutorial!
I have to say Mint tutorial is most user friendly to newbies I've ever seen. Thanks! \o/
Good ice-breaker for the terminal noob
Awesome down and dirty primer on the terminal, man.
This is a good straightforeward tutorial,but whenever i try to use a terminal I can put in a command but everything freezes when I attempt to type in my p/word. So it hasn't really helped with my particular problem.
Apart from that, BRILLIANT.
Good information for people to have.
Under "Commands", in the "cd" section, you say that typing .. takes you back. People might think this means "back where I was a minute ago" - that's the usual meaning of "back". Probably this should be changed to "up" instead. "Up" sounds strange, but at least it isn't wrong.
Looks like a great place to start. I've been playing around with Mint for a while but it's time to get serious about Linux and this is cool since I'm used to knowing my way around a command prompt in windows.
Awesome tut :) lots of commands wow thank you
非常好的教程。
Good tutorial! Thanks!
Thanks. Great tutorial
very nice tutorial!
I'll be back I'm sure ,what I needed to get started.
Good stuff here for this noob!
If you write a book, I will buy it definitely
great tutorial in a nutshell!!
#A tutorial that demonstrates lreal life examples would be highly appreciated.
I do not understand what can actually be achieved by an avarege user like me who knows very little about computing.
Thank you for the conscie explanation.
It took me more then 5 minutes and I will consult it many more times. Great start for me.
Just what I am looking for
Great for beginners like me.
Excellent! *****
Clear, useful, well done.
Boss thank you!
Very good tutorial> Just what I was needing. A few possible typo's, but still clear and concise.
Is this a typo?;
The syntax of mv is similar to the example above with cp exempt for example #2. Should EXEMPT be EXCEPT?
Great tutorial... Covers the basics and kick starts the old grey-cells into wanting to know more!
Good, but please add something like this to the 'rm' command:
"Make sure you are deleting exactly what you want, by testing the file selection using the 'ls' command with the same file selection criteria."
I figured out this stategy in 1993(Microsoft DOS) when I accidentally typed 'del c:\*.*' instead of del a:\*.* at my bosses main work computer and it took all of the rest of a long lunchtime to fix it, finishing just before he got back. I was clearing my full floppy before copying a single file. I won't forget the hour of high stress and potential loss of reputation, access privleges and pay from that mistake.
Nice tutorial... Helps a lot
Nice tutorial... Helps a lot
Nice tutorial... Helps a lot
Sed and Grep are important. Grep can be used with other programs to search. Use Grep on Search Terms: grep searchTerm $(find . -name "*.ext") . Use itself to find in files of this directory: grep -r --include="*.ext" searchTerm
Thank you for these tips. Now I'm going to use pipes more extensively.
Very good tutorial!
really helpful
Help to be able to have a source of information you can use to make a cheat sheet.
Awesome! Thanks
useful, thanks
Thanks this will come in handy
Very good, thank you very much for this Tutorial.
Thanks. Very Helpful...
Nice
Great job! Very helpful for a beginner
Very good.
great tutorials for novice
Great... Thanks
terimakasih
Good for a start but a lot of newbies will still be confused - not necessarily by the article but words like promote/demote when voting - today people use like/not like whether we like it or not! And I speak as a wrinklie.
waow, good share..
as a beginner, good for me..
Great help! Thank you!
Thank you very much for this tutorial
Nice and handy, but still rtfm :) I know one guy, who can really benefit from this. best
Thanks a lot for your tutorial.
its help me alot
This is just great. I just installed Mint 12 LXDE, and love it so far. Never liked the theatrics of Windows.
I have not typed a command since I used Wang UNIX systems mearly two decades ago, so it's great to get back into the fun.
The tutorial is wonderful. Nice to know things under the flash is still intuitive and useful! Thanks!
This is great for a new user like me :) thank you
thanks, this is very helpful.
Unix is a beast, but you almost made me smile. Thanks very much. Long live VMS!
I have learned a great deal about Linux history, how to load opperating systems, how to coexist with windows and how to recover from some disasters. Now I want to become a Linux user and this is a great start. Thanks for thinking of the newbies!
can these commands dependent on which version of Mint someone is using?
Just went threw this list. Great stuff. Thanks for taking the time to upload it.
thanks man.. god bless..
very useful
Great place to start. Thanks.
Thank you very much!
Thanks really helpful .
Nice share, very helpful for me..
Very nice, well-written tutorial.
hi . Can I translate it into Chinese and post it on my blog?
this is very useful! thank you.
This post is great for the shell commands in a terminal window. Wishing that i had read them as these are of great use to new users. May be i shall not keep going in circles. Many Thaks
Thanks, just what I needed
Poderia atualizar para o novo mint
It could bring up to date for new mint
Woopsie! Misplaced closing double quote...
Suggested edit:
"... directory somewhere, say /home/justin/isomount, and issue the command
mount -o loop /path/to/myisofile.iso /home/justin/isomount" <---HERE
and the contents will be mounted inside that folder. I added blank lines,
Should be:
Suggested edit:
"... directory somewhere, say /home/justin/isomount, and issue the command
mount -o loop /path/to/myisofile.iso /home/justin/isomount
and the contents will be mounted inside that folder." I added blank lines,
(et cetera).
Sorry!
(OK with me if the @moderator fixes my original post and deletes this.)
Would be very nice to have a Preview function in this software. Also desirable would be a time-limited (half hour?) ability to edit your message after posting, and enable the Insert key.
Best, [nb]
Oh, dear. I just spent about half an hour typing a moderately-long comment, then hit Promote (before "Add comment"), and lost everything. Should have known better. Only an expert could dig through RAM and (maybe) find what I'd typed. Second time will omit and be more concise:
Anyhow: I've come across various explanations of [bash] and the CLI, but usually abandoned them part way through. This is, imho, excellent writing, as many others have said. (I didn't read most comments, just scanned).
A few thoughts: If you ever do [rm -rf], do seriously consider clearing history [history -c] as soon as you can, so you won't do {up arrow} Enter.
I'm still mostly mystified by loop mounting. Your example is helpful, but there's a quite-unfortunate line break just where a newbie doesn't really know whether to type a space or not.
Suggested edit:
"... directory somewhere, say /home/justin/isomount, and issue the command
mount -o loop /path/to/myisofile.iso /home/justin/isomount"
and the contents will be mounted inside that folder. I added blank lines, because line endings will differ once this is posted*. It's better to have a too-short line precede an important command (or other input [text]) than to risk embedding a {newline} within a command (or URL).
*Old-timers will recall a need to hit Enter at the end of every line; this was before automatic line wrap and flowed format became common.
This collection is good enough to merit translation (as in Wikipedia). (Care to make a Wikipedia article out of this? That way, volunteers will translate!)
Best regards,
[nb]
midnight hacker in 1960
Clear enough but please add these commands:
1. uname
2. whoami
3. which
4. su
5. passwd
etc.. there are tons of basic commands. need to be updated.
very useful for cli newbies like me.
Thanks for the info, both old and new!
Nice first introduction. thx
Merci beaucoup c'est très clair !
Thanks this was a great refresher....
Thank you very much for all the details.
Cheers mate.
thank you =) nice tut.
clear enough for newbie, i like this.
Excellent resource for beginners. I'll share it on twitter :)
THANKS....
Excelente para quem está começando a trabalhar com linux
About turning this tutorial into a PDF file, I have (Under Libreoffice Writer) a facility whereby when I use my Epson Printer to Print the document under Libreoffice (you just copy and paste it into a blank document, name it then go to print) you get the choice of printing to file, actually print, or turn it into a PDF form - which is great! Linuxfanatik
I have several 'guides' to the CLI (Command Line Interface) Console or Terminal using various Bash or Shell Scripts, but the one above is the most clear and useful one! I used to do admin with Unix some forty years ago, when I worked for Plessey PLC, but when you move onto something else you tend to forget familiar scripts and texts, and anyway, Unix has moved on from Bell Associates and Berkeley University in California and improved since BSD and Solaris came out. I miss Solaris as a Free unix system since Oracle took it over - who can afford to pay the prices Oracle want to charge when your retired? I will be happy to see other Tutorials by Justin, like Clem , he's got a great following and knows a lot that we can all use in Linux Mint.Linuxfanatik
Thanks
It's nice
Thanks, very nice intro
This is a very good intro to the command line. I just started studying for the LPI level 1 exam, and this is very much the first stuff you learn. Great job.
Thank you! From a newbie...
Very much needed for those who are new to Linux.
refrigerator: n. L., a device which, if you look inside it, you should find a cold beer.
this is great it had helped me to built knowledge a lot thank u!
I made a pdf of this in response to a couple of comments but don't know where to put it to link to so here is another option. The whole of this can be copied by selecting the text using the mouse in the same way that you would in a text editor or word processor then use the normal copy command (Ctrl C ) or right click and select copy. The text can then be pasted into any editor or word processor of your choice using either Ctrl V or the paste command from the edit menu. Once the text has been pasted it can be printed or saved.
really thank you. very helpful info for me.
nice one got to know commands which i was not aware..
Great for beginners, I think a PDF file would be a good idea.
B nice to have 'Print out' button on these pages.
Very nice tutorial! Most of these commands I already knew, but it's a great resource for beginners.
very helpful info for me as a newbie as i hope to learn more. wont forget to say; it was hard to read and practice
What would be nice here is to wrap this all up and have a download-able PDF
Excellent information
Good
Very good for newbies.
@peterdoug - http://tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/
The entire http://tldp.org is awesome, it stands for;
The Linux Documentation Project
Here's a good jumping off point also - http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/categories.html
Great! Thanks :)
Very helopful. I shall be refering back here a lot as I go...
all this was needed, it takes time to learn this. thank you. Most excellent!
Useful indeed. Thankyou.
Very good tutorial. great starting point for newbies. Thanks
As a newbie to Mint and, by extension Linux, it's handy to have easy-to-follow tips and guides. This is one such resource. Well done.
And to add to all this great tutorial, my favorite is typing xman in terminal to show manual browser in GUI. I've been using this since Red Hat 9 and SuSE 9 (I think).
Unknown by most you can find and install from the menu as well as any terminal "it's awsome" great thinking.
Hi,
Very helpful.
I would like to see a link to a similarly helpful article that explains the Linux file system as it is so different from Windows.
That would help me get my head around the terminal.
Newbie to Linux, who's used UNIX, DOS, Windows (95-XP) to do work.
Many thanks
Really helpful for me... very good tutorial.
Many Thanks, man!
Nice article...
great tutorial
mysoomro: Thanks for the comment. :) You don't fear the command line, you always keep in mind that just because something doesn't work, don't prefix it with sudo by force of habit. Becoming accustomed to a prompt or denial of an action due to improper rights to the system is no reason for negligence.
Please don't change the meaning by taking only a snippet of the intended comment. Fearing the command line and not realizing consequences of quick actions are two different things. That is the intention of the warning.
I've seen several instances of people who state "It didn't work, so I used sudo" only to cause damage to the system (such as a mass chown -R or something involving local Xorg files.) The goal is to bring this thought to the forefront of the mind when using things that have such impacts. It should not be any different for a personal computer than a mail cluster which hosts 25000 mailboxes - good habits make for proper execution.
Great tutorial. Really helpful for starting up. Thanks.
But I have a question. Do we really don't have to fear command line? You first said don't be afraid, then in bold face font, you warned that, : we can *destroy* systems by running commands in the wrong place with root rights .
Great introduction to Bash. Nobody should fear the command line!
This is great and well worth taking the time and effort to really read and learn what the commands and the extension on the actual end of the command does, in the terminal. and what effects it has on the system when you use them. Its really a must for me and one shall highly recommend this tutorial to others. Thank You So So Much.
Need more info on the bash shell? Check out the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
Really helpful for me, since i install Linux a few days ago.
Thanks man!
Very well written and to the point. Great set of basic/new user commands clearly defined to get folks on the good foot. Well done, thank you.
very good tutorial.
Excellent tutorial for beginners, and nice article for anyone on Linux.
I know a lot of this commands, but I refresh my knowledge.
Thanks.
very much needed....thanks for your time and effort
Nice introduction, though maybe you could mention that 'mv' is also used to rename files?
Also, neat tip: "cd -" alternates between the directory you're in now and your previous location
Somewhere I have already read about that :-)
Good article on the basic shell commands.
Great, I knew most of this but the information is great and just to review is always a bonus. Thanks a lot.
Very gread , good tutorial!
Great tutorial.
Turned it into a pdf and saved it my wife wanted to learn more so now she has a pdf of it.
Thanks again
All I can say is THANK YOU !!!
Many thanks! Very good tutorial!
A good information for beginner on how to start using the terminal. Nice tutorial, thanks!
Awesome! Thanks!
very useful..
Nice One... This help those who transfer from windows like me.. Thank you so much..
Great tutorial, but two things are missing to make it complete:
- Quick tip #6 should mention the use of the arrow up/down keys to load used commands
- It should be mentioned that your password is 'invisible' when typing it in. this is quite unusual and very confusing for beginners.
Nice! Good intro to terminal. Great starting point for a seasoned MS user making the transition to Linux.
thank you!
Nice tutorial...well done...;-)
@jhpassarelli, this guide is named "The 5-Minute Essential Shell Tutorial", not "The 5-Minute GUI Tutorial"
There is a GUI way to mount ISO images... just right click an ISO amage and select "Open With Archive Mounter". That's all there is to it!
Nice and quick for newbies and a reminder for the likes of me, almost stuck in the GUI world.
thanks nice and easy to understand for a noob like myself command lines normally scare me but your tutorial definitely takes the edge off ;)
This is the first time I use Linux and this tutorials is really helpful. I spent a lot of time just trying to understand some of the terms used in the forum and articles. There should be more tutorials like this to help more people like me migrating to Linux. A glossary of the technical words use in Linux will be most welcome.
Thank Justin, I just used the Terminal to remove openoffice.org and install libreoffice. Keep up the tutorials!
I am a newbie to linux, I like this tutorial. I was long trapped with the Vendor M5 WIND0z, shopkeeper GATE.Linux is For me.OPEN SOURCE ROCKZZ.
Its funny how the terminal at first glance can scare ya, then you read a tutorial like this and see how relatively simple the commands really are. Thanks a million for this tutorial.
I just switch to Linux from windows (Downloaded Julia x64). I was a pretty good windows user and have a lot to learn about Linux. The basic Terminal commands are something new to me since I was used to MSDOS promt. Thanks for posting this.
Thank you for this quick guide. Absolutely a must have in the linux communities as a whole :).
Thanks!! It's really helpfull
Very helpful for the uninitiated! :)
thnx
Thanx
just using this linux mint 10..thanks..i'll try this..^^
Everything is in here!
Beginners will thank you for this :)
Thanx for the tip with gksudo!
Very useful to beginners...
Lots of good information.
Beginner friendly and pretty awesome indeed! Thanks :D
very useful for the beginners... :)
I Like it.
I need to download a WIFI driver for Linuxmint 9, that is inside Windows 7, and learn how to make it operate! Can some help me by Chatting in Yahoo Messenger, or by Email,mwh2222@yahoo.com, I am Morris Hunt, mwh2222 in Yahoo Messenger!
Very nice summary
Thanks
Great tips for someone thats as brain dead as I seem to be at times!
Thanks much! :)
Very good first tutorial for the beginners. Great work.
thx
Useful also to older noobs coming back to *nix after an 18-year absence.
Thanks for taking the time to write this tutorial. Really helped out a linux noob.
I like the idea of a quick how-to ... Of course the "man" command will be the most effective to learn the actual use of the commands.
Printed to PDF so I can have something to share with other while in an off-line environment. Nicely done.
very nice ... i learned some new trix
If all tutorials were this well done, there'd be a whole lot more people digging in deeper. I wanna learn, this doesn't scare me off... :)
Good noobe article
Awesome article, Justin. Good work
Erika
Truly MINTy fresh now I can be a hero in a half shell ! I have been putting it off but you've removed some of that initial aversion .
most useful for newcomers and people like me, used to just c&p terminal commands from googled tips pages. Thanks for providing some light and clear explanations.
Great Work, very good tutorial. Thanks :)
As a beginner I think I've 2 read this many times.. :D
Tincotts Having used Linux for 6 or more years, Ive always worried about
using the terminal, even though familiar (once!) with the old Dos notation. I feel far more confident now in attempting to try my hand. Very grateful for the info.
For someone who was raised on the old DOS command environment, this was most helpful. Amazing how old habits seem to just hang out in the memory banks and when in terminal the urge to use them just comes crashing forward. Nice quick overview and very helpful.
********
good work. thanks.
Awesome article, justin. Good work. :D
the shell never goes out of style, thanks for making it easier for us
Very helpful, thanks a lot!
Very nice. Thanks
good
Good article, Justin.
Two things, though, Page Down and Q.
Remember as a newboy to Linux how easy it is to get baffled. For example, after using the command "man application-name" or "info application-name" such as "info gnome-terminal" some of the information will be shown. It would be useful to explain in the tutorial (1) how to see the rest of the info by repeatedly pressing the Down Arrow on the keyboard or by one click on Page Down and (2) more importantly, how to escape from this info and return to your home at ~$: by pressing the Q key (for quit). I guess that many inexperienced users can only escape from their current page by closing the terminal altogether and then opening it up again to start something new.
Also some new users may worry that the processes will continue after closing the terminal, so It's also worth mentioning at the beginning that that closing the terminal by typing "exit" ("exit" and then "exit" to close down root, then user) or by clicking the cross in the top right corner will kill the processes that you have been running in the terminal, either as root or as user. As an introduction, how to open and close an application (and how to escape from some its processes) is always a good start.
It's all very useful stuff, your article can then move from the most basic to the semi-skilled. Thanks for caring.
Very well done, i was looking in another places and is a bunch of commands that is not easy to learn at first look. So this is nice and usefull, Suhana point me to the right direction. Thanks Mint Community!
Great info, thanks for posting.
seen tons of new folks asking for pointers to a page with beginning tutorials to the linux shell. this one is laid out right here for you, just don't skip sections. very nice :]
very nice intro to the shell Justin!!
good job !!!!!!!thanks
Really liked it, I'm a complet n00b to linux, but been playing with MS Command Prompt since monkey years, and love that I can do it again, weird, huh?
Really good one, been using different Linux distributions on and off but never really learned too much about shell scripts and such.
This is great!
Thanks! I know some of the basics, but stuff about (gk)sudo and iso mounting was very helpful.
Hi, Man!
I was thinking about a tutorial on shell script, which we haven't here yet, and I found this one. It's very good! So I think you could write the next Shell Tutorial, this time teaching people how to save the commands to a .sh file, writing the shebang, making it executable, and so on. It is amazing that a process like this is almost unknown outside linux world, and I for one had been using it a lot earlier if someone taught me how easy and useful it can be.
Thanks for caring!
Thank you everyone for the positive votes, it is greatly appreciated! If there is anything one thinks should be added, please post. Thanks.
Good start Justin.
This is a sorely needed start for those users that "just don't quite get it" but I am afraid that there are many others that still wouldn't be bothered.
I for one appreciate the effort that you have put into this. Kudos.
@dbpatankar - Agreed, I'm still on the fence about that actually. Abuse of rm -rf just like any others can have drastic consequences. I'll add it with warnings.
Great start....... congrats!
may be 'rm -rf folder' will also be useful.
Since no user will like to confirm descending in each folder.
This is probably incomplete at the current time, but your thoughts are appreciated. Please let me know. Thank you.