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/user

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/user/Documents)

cd ~csw34

This takes you into the home directory of user csw34

cd /sharedscratch/user

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!

• 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.