Linux Commands in more detail

Here we will provide more details on commands needed to copy, move, see contents, edit and delete files (and directories). Note that a directory is a type of file that contains information about its contents, which may be a mixture of other directories (subdirectories) and ordinary files.

Most of the commands take different options and arguments. For example, earlier in this guide we used "cp" command with two arguments.

To get complete information about a command, you can use "man" command (“man” stands for manual). You can even use this command on itself: “man man” will provide information about man command. The "man" command will list only one page of the manual at a time. To navigate between pages, use PgDn, PgUp and arrow keys. Alternatively, you can use Space, 'b' and Enter keys. To search for a term, type '/', term and hit Enter. E.g., to find examples in the manual for man command, type '/examples' within the manual. The search is case-insensitive. To close manual, use 'q' key.

Some programs may not have a man page available, but they may have ‘--help’ option to list help information about the program/command. This information is usually shorter than the one in the manual. For example, issue “man --help” or “man -h” to get condensed information about arguments and options of the man command.

pwd and ls

mkdir and cd

Creating, editing and displaying files

cp, mv, rm