2. cd command
To navigate through the Linux files and directories, use the cd command. It requires either the full path or the name of the directory, depending on the current working directory that you’re in.
Let’s say you’re in /home/username/Documents and you want to go to Photos, a subdirectory of Documents. To do so, simply type the following command: cd Photos.
Another scenario is if you want to switch to a completely new directory, for example,/home/username/Movies. In this case, you have to type cd followed by the directory’s absolute path: cd /home/username/Movies.
There are some shortcuts to help you navigate quickly:
- cd .. (with two dots) to move one directory up
- cd to go straight to the home folder
- cd- (with a hyphen) to move to your previous directory
On a side note, Linux’s shell is case sensitive. So, you have to type the name’s directory exactly as it is.
3. ls command
The ls command is used to view the contents of a directory. By default, this command will display the contents of your current working directory.
If you want to see the content of other directories, type ls and then the directory’s path. For example, enter ls /home/username/Documents to view the content of Documents.
There are variations you can use with the ls command:
- ls -R will list all the files in the sub-directories as well
- ls -a will show the hidden files
- ls -al will list the files and directories with detailed information like the permissions, size, owner, etc.
4. cat command
cat (short for concatenate) is one of the most frequently used commands in Linux. It is used to list the contents of a file on the standard output (sdout). To run this command, type cat followed by the file’s name and its extension. For instance: cat file.txt.
Here are other ways to use the cat command:
- cat > filename creates a new file
- cat filename1 filename2>filename3 joins two files (1 and 2) and stores the output of them in a new file (3)
- to convert a file to upper or lower case use, cat filename | tr a-z A-Z >output.txt
5. cp command
Use the cp command to copy files from the current directory to a different directory. For instance, the command cp scenery.jpg /home/username/Pictures would create a copy of scenery.jpg (from your current directory) into the Pictures directory.
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