About the guide

This guide is intended for people who are starting to use the Linux terminal. The Linux terminal is a command-line interface that provides access to the operating system through commands. It is widely used by developers, system administrators, and people who want to automate tasks.

Accessing the Terminal

Before you start using the commands, you need to open the terminal. The terminal can be opened from the Applications menu or by using the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + Alt + T in many distributions).

Navigating the file system

One of the most common tasks in the terminal is to navigate the file system. The ls (list) command displays all the files and directories within the current directory:

ls

To switch to another directory, use the cd (change directory) command, followed by the directory name:

cd directory_name

To go back to the previous directory, use the cd .. command:

cd ..

Creating and deleting files and directories

To create a new directory, use the mkdir (make directory) command, followed by the directory name:

mkdir directory_name

To delete a directory, use the rmdir (remove directory) command, followed by the directory name:

rmdir directory_name

To create a new file, use the touch command, followed by the file name:

touch file_name

To delete a file, use the rm (remove) command, followed by the file name:

Viewing the content of a file

To view the content of a file, use the cat command, followed by the file name:

cat file_name

Searching for files and folders

To search for files and directories, use the find command, followed by the file or directory name and the path to be searched:

find file_name path