Basic linux commands everyone should know!

Here are a few simple linux commands that should make life a bit easier for you. Please everyone, add anything you think would be useful!

You may want to read the computer office's introduction to Unix booklet .

A really useful guide to bash scripting.

• cd

The 'change directory' command

cd
cd ~ 
cd /home/username

These all take you to your home directory

cd ../..

This takes you up two levels of the directory tree

cd newdir

This takes you into the directory called newdir

cd ~/Documents

This takes you into you Documents folder (actually located at /home/username/Documents)

cd ~csw34

This takes you into the home directory of user csw34

cd /sharedscratch/username

This takes you to your sharedscratch directory (only on clusters)

• cp

cp file1 file2 newdir/

Copies file1 and file2 to the directory newdir

cp -r newdir /home/csw34

Recursively copies the directory newdir and all its subdirectories to csw34's home directory.

WARNING: you can overwrite files using cp i.e. if in the first example file2 already exists, you will replace its contents with those of file1!

For information on copying files between machines see the guide for scp linked from the Wales Group page.

• mv

mv oldfilename newfilename

This effectively renames the file oldfilename to newfilename

mv test ../

This moves the file test one level up the directory tree.

WARNING: you can overwrite files using mv just like when you use cp so be careful!

• mkdir

mkdir newdir newdir2

This will create two new directories, newdir and newdir2

mkdir -p newdir/newdir2

This will create newdir and newdir/newdir2, even if the former doesn't exist.

• xxdiff

xxdiff file1 file2

Much clearer than regular diff (graphical output).

• svn

The subversion version control program. Detailed info is available on the SVN Page

• find

Can do so much, in a somewhat idiosyncratic manner! See this guide.