Directory and file commands (in Linux)

Note: Some of these commands must be entered as root (administrator).

~

The tilde  is used to move to the users home directory, while in any other directory.

cd

cd can be used to change the directory you are in.

To go to the mnt directory, type:

cd /mnt

To move up a directory, such as going from /home/user to /home, type:

cd ..

ls

ls is used to list the directory contents.

To list the contents of some-directory with minimal information, type:

ls /some-directory

To list the contents of some-directory with detailed information, type:

ls -laF /some-directory

du

du can be used to view disk usage, e.g. list directories and sizes.

To view disk space usage of some-directory, type:

du -h /some-directory

df

df can be used to display the amount of available disk space.

To display the available free space of all filesytems, type:

df -h

cat

cat can be used to print (via the terminal) the contents of a file.

To display the contents of fstab, type:

cat /etc/fstab

mkdir

mkdir can be used to create a directory.

To make a directory called some-directory, type:

mkdir some-directory

cp

cp is used to copy a file.

To copy some-file as some-file-backup, type:

cp some-file some-file-backup

To copy some-directory and all it's contents to another-directory, type:

cp -r /some-directory /another-directory

mv

mv is used to move or rename a file or directory.

To move some-file from directory to another-directory, type:

mv /directory/some-file /another-directory/some-file

rm

rm is used to remove (delete) a file.

To remove some-file, type:

rm some-file

To remove some-directory, and all it's contents, type:

rm -r some-directory

rmdir

rmdir is used to remove (delete) an empty directory.

To remove some-directory, type:

rmdir some-directory

touch

touch is used to create a file (if file already exists, the timestamp is updated).

To create the file some-file, type:

touch some-file

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