Common Linux terminal commands
This notebook lists common commands used on the Linux terminal.
Right-click
Jupyter’s terminals work with Shift + Right-click
. This is
important when you want to paste something copied earlier.
For sftp
If you are inside of
sftp>
prompt, the usual commands are executed on the remote machine and the ones in parentheses are executed on local machine.The commands which are not succeeded by parentheses cannot be executed locally (with
l
as a prefix) fromsftp>
prompt.To run any command from inside of the
sftp>
prompt, precede it with a!
. You can do it for the ones that work withl
as a prefix too.
Try out the commands on the following terminal:
from IPython.display import IFrame
your_gitlab_username = "mdrpanwar" # change this to your username
IFrame(
"https://hub.besos.uvic.ca/user/" + your_gitlab_username + "/terminals/3",
width=1200,
height=250,
)
pwd (or lpwd)
Usage:
pwd
Used to get the current working directory(CWD). We will use the term CWD time and again. It means the directory your terminal is in right now. All commands are executed inside this directory.
ls (or lls)
Usage:
ls
‘lists’ out the directories and files in the CWD [Hidden directories/files are not shown.]
Use
ls -a
to list out even the hidden directories/files.
mkdir (or lmkdir)
Usage:
mkdir dir_name
To make a directory named
dir_name
in the CWD.
cd (or lcd)
Usage:
cd dir_name
‘Changes CWD’ to the directory named
dir_name
. Heredir_name
must be a directory residing inside the current working directory or a path starting within CWD.Every directory in linux contains
.
and..
, which refers to thecurrent working directory
andparent of current working directory
respectively.Use
cd ..
to navigate to the parent of the CWD.Consider the following directory structure:
parent
inparent
inchild
simple.out
a.out
b.out
inchild1
incurrentdir
c.out
inparent2
Examples (from inside of
parent/inparent/inchild1
):cd ../inparent/inchild
cd incurrentdir
rm
Usage:
rm filename_1 filename_2 ... filename_n
To delete the files named
filename_1
,filename_2
, ….,filename_n
from the CWD.To delete a directory, use
rm -r dir_name
wheredir_name
is a directory residing in CWD or a path to a diretory.Instead of being name of files in CWD,
filename_i
can also be a path to a file.Examples (from inside of
parent/inparent/inchild
):rm simple.out
rm a.out b.out
rm ../inchild1/c.out
mv
Usage:
mv filename_1 filename_2 ... filename_n dir_name
To move
filename_1
,filename_2
, ….,filename_n
to directorydir_name
.Instead of being name of file in CWD,
filename_i
can also be a path to a file.Instead of being name of directory in CWD,
dir_name
can also be a path to a directory.Examples (from inside of
parent/inparent/inchild1
):mv c.out incurrentdir
mv ../inchild/a.out ../../inparent2
cp
Usage:
cp filename_1 filename_2 ... filename_n dir_name
To copy
filename_1
,filename_2
, ….,filename_n
todir_name
directory.To copy a directory
dir_name1
into directorydir_name2
, usecp -r dir_name1 dir_name2
wheredir_name1
anddir_name2
are directories residing in CWD or paths to directories..Instead of being name of file in CWD,
filename_i
can also be a path to a file.Instead of being name of directory in CWD,
dir_name
can also be a path to a directory.Examples (from inside of
parent/inparent/inchild1
):cp c.out incurrentdir
cp ../inchild/a.out ../../inparent2
top
Usage:
top
Lists out all the running processes with the resourses being used by each process.
The output is similar to that of
Task Manager
on Windows.