Linux Commands List (193+ Commands with Examples)

Change the current working directory

Copy files and directories

Create hard and symbolic links between files

List directory contents and file information

Create new directories

Move or rename files and directories

Remove files and directories permanently

Create empty files or update file timestamps

Pattern scanning and text processing language

Concatenate and display file contents

Compare two files byte by byte

Format text into columns for clean output

Compare two sorted files line by line

Remove sections from each line of files

Compare files line by line

Search text using patterns (regular expressions)

Output the first part of files

View file contents with scrolling and search

View file contents one screen at a time

Number lines of files

Merge lines of files side by side

Reverse characters in each line of a file

Stream editor for filtering and transforming text

Sort lines of text files

Concatenate and print files in reverse (last line first)

Output the last part of files

Read from stdin and write to stdout and files

Translate or delete characters

Report or filter out repeated lines

Print newline, word, and byte counts for files

Build and execute command lines from standard input

Determine the type of a file

Search for files and directories in a directory hierarchy

Find files by name using a pre-built database

Display detailed file or filesystem status

List directory contents in a tree-like format

Locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command

Show the full path of shell commands

Change group ownership of files

Change file and directory permissions

Change file owner and group

Get file access control lists

Set file access control lists for fine-grained permissions

Set default file creation permissions

Add a user to the system (interactive, Debian-based)

Change user password expiry information

Create a new group

Print group memberships for a user

Print user and group IDs

Show listing of last logged in users

Change user password

Switch user or become superuser

Execute a command as another user (typically root)

Create a new user account

Delete a user account

Modify a user account

Safely edit the sudoers file

Show who is logged in and what they are doing

Print the current username

Resume a suspended job in the background

Bring a background job to the foreground

Interactive process viewer with color and mouse support

Display status of background jobs in current shell

Send signals to processes (terminate, stop, continue)

Kill processes by name

Run a command with modified scheduling priority

Run a command immune to hangups (keeps running after logout)

Look up processes based on name and attributes

Send signals to processes based on name and attributes

Report a snapshot of current running processes

Display processes as a tree showing parent-child relationships

Alter priority of running processes

Terminal multiplexer for persistent sessions

Terminal multiplexer with session management

Display real-time system resource usage and processes

Print machine hardware architecture

Display a calendar in the terminal

Run command or shell with a different root directory

Display or set the system date and time

Print kernel ring buffer messages

Display amount of free and used memory

Show or set the system hostname

List information about block devices (disks)

Display CPU architecture information

List detailed hardware configuration

List all PCI devices

List USB devices

Print the number of processing units available

Print system information (kernel, OS, architecture)

Show how long the system has been running

Locate/print block device attributes

Convert and copy data at block level

Report filesystem disk space usage

Estimate file and directory space usage

Partition table manipulator for Linux

Check and repair a Linux filesystem

Build a filesystem on a device partition

Mount a filesystem

Interactive disk usage analyzer with ncurses interface

Unmount a filesystem

Manipulate the ARP cache

Transfer data from or to a server using various protocols

DNS lookup utility for querying name servers

Display or change ethernet device settings

DNS lookup utility (simple)

Configure or display network interface parameters (legacy)

Show and manipulate network interfaces, routing, and tunnels

Show and manipulate the routing table

Combine ping and traceroute in a single network diagnostic tool

Networking utility for reading/writing across network connections

Print network connections, routing tables, and stats (legacy)

Network exploration tool and security scanner

Query DNS name servers interactively

Send ICMP echo requests to test network connectivity

Show socket statistics (modern replacement for netstat)

Show listening TCP/UDP ports with process info

Capture and analyze network traffic

Trace the route packets take to a network host

Download files from the web (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP)

Fast and versatile file synchronization tool

Securely copy files between hosts over SSH

Secure File Transfer Protocol (interactive)

Securely connect to remote servers

Install your SSH public key on a remote server

Generate SSH key pairs for authentication

Package manager for Debian-based distributions

Low-level package handling for Debian systems

Package manager for RPM-based distributions (Fedora, RHEL 8+)

Debian package manager for .deb files

Install and manage Flatpak applications

Install Python packages from PyPI

RPM Package Manager for .rpm files

Install and manage snap packages

Package manager for older RPM-based systems (legacy)

Control system hostname

Query and display systemd journal logs

Control the systemd login manager

Run a System V init script (legacy service management)

Control the systemd system and service manager

Analyze system boot-up performance

Control system time and date settings

Compress files using Burrows-Wheeler block sorting

Decompress .gz files

Compress files using Lempel-Ziv coding

Archive files using tape archive format

Extract files from ZIP archives

Compress files using LZMA2 algorithm (best compression)

View contents of compressed files without decompressing

Package and compress files into ZIP archives

Create command shortcuts

Strip directory and suffix from filenames

Strip last component from a file path

Display a line of text to the terminal

Display or set environment variables

Set environment variables for child processes

Evaluate expressions (arithmetic, string, comparison)

Display or manipulate command history

Print all or specific environment variables

Format and print data with precise control

Read a line of input from standard input

Print a sequence of numbers

Delay for a specified amount of time

Execute commands from a file in the current shell

Evaluate conditional expressions for scripting

Show how a command name is interpreted by the shell

Wait for background processes to finish

Output a string repeatedly until killed

Schedule a one-time command to run at a specific time

Schedule recurring tasks with cron

Send messages to the system log

Rotate, compress, and manage log files

Execute a program periodically and show output

Lets Encrypt client for obtaining SSL/TLS certificates

Fail2ban client to manage ban rules

firewalld command line client (RHEL/CentOS)

GNU Privacy Guard - encrypt and sign data

Configure Linux kernel packet filtering firewall rules

Compute and verify MD5 message digests

nftables command line tool (modern firewall)

OpenSSL command line tool for cryptography and SSL/TLS

Compute and verify SHA-256 message digests

Securely overwrite and optionally delete files

Uncomplicated Firewall - easy iptables management

Identify processes using files or sockets

Report CPU and I/O statistics

Monitor I/O usage by processes in real time

List open files and the processes that opened them

Collect, report, and save system activity information

Trace system calls and signals of a process

Set or retrieve CPU affinity of a process

Measure command execution time

Run a command with a time limit

Report virtual memory statistics