Terminal for Beginners

When we listen to the word linux, the first thing that come to our mind is the terminal and the so called “not understandable commands”. Thinking of this only, we generally lose the interest and we remained devoid from the privileges of the operating system 'LINUX'. In this blog I have tried to break the myth about terminal and introduce to you to not so difficult commands of terminal.

The commands that are followed are very simple and you could do wonders with that.

For this I assume that LINUX is installed to your desktop or notebook and you know how to open the terminal. But if you still find it difficult, try this Application>>Accessories>>Terminal.

A window like this pops out and hey you guessed it right, it is the 'terminal'

ls

// it displays the contents of folder which you are in

ls -l

// it displays the contents with their details

cd FOLDERNAME

// to move up one directory

cd ..

// to drop down to one directory

cd ~

// takes you to home directory

cd /

// takes you to the root directory

mkdir FOLDERNAME

// to make a folder

rmdir FOLDERNAME

// to remove a folder (but make sure the folder is empty)

touch FILENAME

// creates a file

gedit FILENAME

// creates a file and opens in gedit (text editor)

cp ORIGINALFILE NEWFILE

// copy the contents of the file

mv SOURCE DESTINATION

// to change the location of file

sudo

// to give normal user privilege to run a command as super user

apt-get

// to install,remove,update softwares

clear

// clears the terminal screen

pwd

// displays the full of directory you currently in

chmod

// change the permission on files that are in the subdirectories of directory you are currently in

reboot

// reboots the system

exit

// to exit from terminal

these are the basic commands and could be combined together to perform more efficiently. Hope this lesson removes some fear out of your mind.