Welcome to our guide on the top 20+1 Linux commands! Whether you're new to Linux or have been using it for a while, these commands are super handy. I will show you how to use them step by step. So, let's get started!

1. sudo

Here sudo means superuser do. Whenever we try to do something sensitive, for example, creating or deleting a new user account, installing new software, or maybe modifying system configurations, we need to use sudo at the very beginning of our command. After that, it will ask for the user's password to get permission to do the task. This is kind of similar to the Run as Administrator on Windows.

2. sudo apt-get install vlc

We use this command to install something. Here I am installing the VLC media player. Notice that I have used sudo at the beginning. Because to install something on Ubuntu, we have to run commands with Administrative Privileges.

Without sudo:

With sudo:

3. dpkg --list

In Windows, if we want to see all the installed programs at once, we usually go to the Control Panel > Programs. In Ubuntu, we can do the same thing using the command dpkg-list. After running the command, we will get a long list of all installed packages of our system.

4. sudo apt-get remove vlc

Now If we want to remove an application (VLC for this example), we can use this command udo apt-get remove <package name>. Here in <package name> we have to mention the specific package that we want to remove. To know the correct package name, we can use the command dpkg --list to get a list of all the installed packages. Using this command will remove the vlc package but all its configuration files will still be there in the PC.

5. sudo apt-get purge vlc

If we want to remove a software completely from our PC along with its configuration files, we have to use purge instead of remove. That’s it! Super easy.

6. date

The date command is simple but very powerful. It is basically used to display or set the system date and time. We can display the date time according to our desired format. We just just have to mention it properly.

7. df

This command displays a table with details for each file system. It shows the device or file system name, total size, used space, available space for new files, the percentage of space used, and the mount point or directory where the file system is accessed. This helps users quickly understand how much space is remaining on their storage.

8. uname -a

The uname -a command provides detailed system information. It displays information about the system kernel, network node hostname, kernel release, kernel version, machine hardware architecture, and the operating system.

9. top

The top command in Ubuntu is similar to the Windows Task Manager. It provides a real-time overview of system resource usage and a list of running processes.

10. uptime

The uptime command is useful for quickly checking how long a system has been running and its current load status.

11. ls

The screenshot below shows the folders that I have inside my Home directory. We can to the same thing use the command line using the ls command.

The ls command shows a list of the files and directories in a directory.

The ls command has various options, allowing you to customize the output based on your requirements. For example, if we run the ls -l command, it displays information such as file permissions, owner, group, size, and modification time. In ls -l, l means long format.

12. cd

In normal user interface, to go inside a folder, we double click on the folder. In CLI we use this cd command to do the same. For example, if we want to go the directory Desktop, we have to use the command cd Desktop.

Here cd means Change Directory. cd .. will take you the the previous directory.

13. pwd

pwd means Print Working Directory. This literally prints the current working directory, which is the directory our shell is currently in.

14. cp

The cp command is another powerful command that helps to copy a file and paste it to another directory. The screenshot below shows how we can copy a file file.txt from folder A to folder B.

15. mv

mv command is used to move a file from one directory to another. Here is an example:

In the example above, I move the file.txt file from folder B to folder C.

16. rm

It is a simple command that is used to remove a file from a directory.

17. mkdir

This command is used to create a directory. Below, I have create another folder D using the command mkdir D. Here mkdir means Make Directory.

18. rmdir

rmdir is used to remove a directory. Here I have removed the directory D.

19. cat

The cat <file name> command shows the content inside the file. We have to replace the <file name> with our desired file name. In this case, it’s file.txt.

20. touch

This command is used to create a new file. Suppose, we want to create a new file file2.txt inside the folder A. To do that, we have to run the following command:

Bonus. cmatrix

This is my personal favorite. To use this command, first, we have to install cmatrix. To do that, we have to run the command sudo apt-get install cmatrix.

After the installation, if we run the command cmatrix, some magic will happen :)