Commonly used commands and options are listed and you should aware the following formats:
Bold indicates what you type in terminal
Italic indicates what you supply
To display a command description from the Unix manual:
man command
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Managing Directories
pwd display the present working directory
cd dir changing work directory to dir
cd changing to your home directory
mkdir create directory called dir
rmdir remove directory called dir
Directories Abreviations
~ home directory
. current working directory
.. parent directory (one level up)
Managing Files
ls list contents of working directory
ls dir list contents of the directory dir
ls file list file if it exits in working directory
ls -l list more information on director contents
ls -a list all files including the hidden files
lp file print file
lpstat display printer status
cp file1 file2 copy file1 to file2
cp file1 file2 copy file1 to directory dir
mv file1 file2 move (rename) file1 to file2
mv file1 file2 move file1 to directory dir
rm file remove file
rm -i file ask for confirmation before removing file
cat file display contents of file
more file display ocntents of file, one screen at a time
chmod code file change permission status for a file
chmod code dir change permission status for a dir
chown owner file change owner of a file
chgrp group file change group of a file
spell file checking spelling in a file
Managing Jobs
jobs list your jobs by job number
job & start your job in the background
bg job bring job to background
fg job bring job to foreground
< ctrl-c > stop current job
< ctrl-z > stop current job
System Information
who list users logged onto the system
who am i display your login ID
finger user display information on user
passwd change password
date display current date and time information
df -k display the disk informatin
du summaize the disk usage
h display a list of your most recent commands
Utilities
sort file sort file
grep pattern file find lines in a file matching a character pattern
wc file count lines, words & characters in file
uniq file1 file2 delete the repeated lines in file1
and write new version to file2
diff file1 file2 compare two files and diplay the differences
head -n file display first n lines of file
tail -n file display last n lines of file
alias name command
create a temporary name for a Unix command
unalias name remove an alias
Special Characters
* match any character
< redirect standard input
> redirect standard output
>> append output to exitsting file
| send output of first command to input of second command
& put job in background