Linux Command Basics(ls and pwd)

[super3boy]

Many people have wrote text tutorials for the site so I am going to do the same. Currently I am using Xandros which is a sub of Debian.

If you don't have a linux operating system grab yourself a live cd here: http://slax.hosting4p.com/download.php

I after your in your distro you have to get into command line. This will vary from distro to distro so I recommend you google it if you don't know where it is.

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Lets get started for my EEE pc I just hit atl+ctrl+t and the terminal pops up. Your screen should look somewhat like this:

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Now the first command we are going to try is "ls" so just type in ls and press enter. After you do this you should be presented with something like this:

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ls basically list any directories or files in your current directory, which brings us to out next command pwd. This prints out the current directory like so:

console3.png (11.08 KiB) Viewed 10793 times

Well thats it for this tutorial. See you in the next one.

[Roswell]

I'll add onto that a bit:

ls is more or less useless without a few other handy commands. For one, ls has a few flags you can use, the most helpful of which being

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ls -a

This will show all of the files is the current directory, including hidden ones. Nextly, there is cd, which is used to (you guessed it) change directory.

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cd mydir

can be used to change directory to mydir, which

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cd ..

can be used to switch to the parent directory (in any operating system, .. means "one directory higher").

[nilamo]

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ls -l

shows all files and directories within the current directory, along with the owner and permissions.

more cd fun...

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cd /

Change to root.

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cd ~

Change to your home directory. This is probably /home/yourname

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mkdir foo

makes a directory, called 'foo', within your current directory.

For more fun, look into rm, chmod, chown, pidof, and kill. Maybe even nano/vim/joe for text editing.

[super3boy]

Looks like we all know a little linux here. I am going to try to do a tutorial everyday.

[Brent]

Looks like we all know a little linux here. I am going to try to do a tutorial everyday.

Some linux commands work in cmd too. Except for ls (which is dir in cmd) and pwd (I don't know if there is a command equal to that in cmd) on those listed above.

[nilamo]

dir also works with a lot of linux distros, but it's limited to just listing files.

[super3boy]

Which is better? Linux or windows command line.

[Roswell]

Linux.

[super3boy]

I agree.

[nilamo]

I installed Cygwin just because I didn't like cmd. On the plus side, I make use of wget pretty regularly.