TLDR
Enter a command. For example: cwebp, php yii, git format patch.

Most used Linux/OSx/Unix/BSD commands

The TOP most used *nix commands with tldr cheat sheets. Every user should know.

File system, directories

  • pwd — print name of current working directory.
  • ls — list directory contents.
  • cd — change the current working directory.
  • mkdir — create a directory.
  • rm — remove files or directories.
  • rmdir — removes a directory.
  • cp — copy files and directories.
  • mv — move or rename files and directories.
  • df — dives an overview of the filesystem disk space usage.
  • du — disk usage: estimate and summarize file and directory space usage.
  • mount (umount) — provides access to an entire filesystem in one directory.
  • chmod — change the access permissions of a file or directory.
  • chown — change user and group ownership of files and directories.

Files

  • vim (vi) — text editor.
  • nano — text editor.
  • cat — creates, prints and concatenates files.
  • touch — creates and changes a file access and modification times.
  • emacs (emacsclient) — the extensible, customizable, self-documenting, real-time display editor.
  • less — open a file for interactive reading, allowing scrolling and search.
  • tail (head) — display the last (first) part of a file.
  • hexdump — an ASCII, decimal, hexadecimal, octal dump.
  • xxd — create a hexadecimal representation (hexdump) from a binary file, or vice-versa.
  • cp — copy files and directories.
  • mv — move or rename files and directories.
  • find — find files or directories under the given directory tree, recursively.
  • locate (linux), locate (osx) — find filenames quickly.
  • grep — find patterns in files using regular expressions.
  • tar — archiving utility.
  • gzip — compress/uncompress files with gzip compression (LZ77).
  • zip (unzip) — package and compress/uncompress files with zip format.
  • chmod — change the access permissions of a file or directory.
  • chown — change user and group ownership of files and directories.
  • wc — count lines, words, and bytes.

Administration, user, process, system, session

  • whoami — print the username associated with the current effective user ID.
  • tty — returns terminal name.
  • uname — print details about the current machine and the operating system running on it.
  • sudo (su) — executes a single command as the superuser or another user (switch shell to another user).
  • useradd (userdel) — create (remove) a user.
  • chmod — change the access permissions of a file or directory.
  • chown — change user and group ownership of files and directories.
  • passwd — change a user's password.
  • exit — exit the shell.
  • shutdown (linux), shutdown(osx) — shutdown and reboot the system.
  • top (linux), top (osx) — display dynamic real-time information about running processes.
  • ps — information about running processes.
  • kill (killall) — sends a signal to a process, usually related to stopping the process.
  • passwd — change a user's password.
  • free — display amount of free and used memory in the system.

Packages, programms, applications, apps

  • apt (apt-get, dpkg) — package management utility for Debian based distributions (f.e. Ubuntu).
  • dnf — package management utility for RHEL, Fedora, and CentOS (replaces yum).
  • brew — package manager for macOS and Linux.
  • pacman — Arch Linux package manager utility.
  • pip — Python package manager.
  • npm — JavaScript and Node.js package manager.
  • env — show the environment or run a program in a modified environment.

Network, internet

  • ping — ping host (send ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts).
  • traceroute — print the route packets trace to network host.
  • wget — download files from the Web. Supports HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP.
  • curl — transfers data from or to a server.
  • host — lookup Domain Name Server.
  • nslookup — query name server(s) for various domain records.
  • whois — command-line client for the WHOIS (RFC 3912) protocol.
  • dig — DNS lookup utility.
  • ssh — Secure Shell is a protocol used to securely log onto remote systems.
  • scp — secure copy files between hosts using Secure Copy Protocol over SSH.
  • telnet — connect to a specified port of a host using the telnet protocol.
  • ftp (sftp) — tools to interact with a server via File Transfer Protocol.
  • firefox — a free and open source web browser.
  • chromium — open-source web browser principally developed and maintained by Google.
  • lynx — command-line web browser.
  • netstat — displays network-related information such as open connections, open socket ports, etc.
  • ifconfig — network interface configurator.
  • ip — show / manipulate routing, devices, policy routing and tunnels.
  • nc — Netcat is a versatile utility for working with TCP or UDP data.

Programming

  • git (git *) — distributed version control system.
  • gcc (g++) — the GNU preprocessor, compiler (assembler), and linker for C, C++, and other languages.
  • gdb — the GNU Debugger.
  • clang (clang++) — compiler for C, C++, Objective-C, and other source files.
  • python — Python language interpreter.
  • java (javac) — Java Application Launcher (Java Application Compiler).
  • go — tool for managing go source code.
  • julia — Julia language tools.
  • perl — the Perl 5 language interpreter.
  • awk — a versatile programming language for working on files.
  • make — task runner for targets described in Makefile.
  • crontab — schedule cron jobs to run on a time interval for the current user.
  • env — show the environment or run a program in a modified environment.

Help

  • man — format and display manual pages.
  • whatis (linux), whatis (osx) — display one-line descriptions from manual pages.
  • tldr — displays simple help pages for command-line tools, from the tldr-pages project.
  • which — locate a program in the user's path.

Other tools

  • echo — print given arguments.
  • history — command-line history.
  • clear — clears the screen of the terminal.
  • youtube-dl (yt-dlp) — download videos from YouTube and other websites.
  • ffmpeg — video tools.
  • cal — prints calendar information, with the current day highlighted.
  • bc (dc) — an arbitrary precision calculator language.
  • alias (unalias) — creates (removes) aliases - words that are replaced by a command string.
  • uptime — tell how long the system has been running and other information.
 

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