1. Eric Shook Department of Geography Kent State University
Basic Commands
Eric Shook
Department of Geography
Kent State University

2. Commands – Changing and making directories
cd directoryname
Change the current working directory to 'directoryname' (Note: this is relative to the current working directory)
cd /home/eshook/directoryname
Change the current working directory to /home/eshook/directoryname
mkdir directoryname
Make a new directory in the current working directory named 'directoryname'
mkdir /home/eshook/directoryname
Make a new directory in /home/eshook named 'directoryname'
pwd
Print the current working directory to the command-line (e.g., /home/eshook/directoryname)

3. Commands – Home directory
cd ~
Change the current working directory to your home directory, which will be /home/<username>
mkdir ~/assignments
Make a new directory in your home directory named 'assignments', which will be /home/<username>/assignments

4. Commands – Navigating directories..
Parent directory .
Current working directory /
Root
../adifferentdirectory
Sister directory
../..
Grandparent directory
./adifferentdirectory/anotherdirectory/../..

5. Commands – Listing files and directoriesls
List contents of current working directory
ls -a
List all contents (including hidden files denoted with a .<something>) of current working directory
ls directoryname
List all contents in the directory named 'directoryname' (Note: This is relative to the current working directory
ls ..
List all contents of the parent directory (Note: This is relative to the current working directory
ls /home/eshook
List all contents of /home/eshook (Note: This is absolute and not relative to the working directory)

6. Commands – Copying files
cp originalfile newfile
Copy the file 'originalfile' in the current working directory to 'newfile' in the current working directory. Two copies of the files remain.
cp /home/eshook/originalfile newfile
Copy the file located in /home/eshook to newfile in the current working directory
cp ~/originalfile newfile
Copy the file located in my home directory to newfile in the current working directory

7. Commands – Moving files
mv originalfile newfile
Move the file 'originalfile' in the current working directory to 'newfile' in the current working directory. Only one copy of the file remains.
mv originalfile directoryname/originalfile
Move the file 'originalfile' in the current working directory to the directory named 'directoryname'
mv originalfile ../anotherdirectory/originalfile
Move the file 'originalfile' in the current working directory to a sister directory

8. Commands - Removing files and directories
rm filename.txt
Delete (remove) the file named 'filename.txt' in the current working directory
rm directoryname/filename.txt
Remove the file in 'directoryname' named 'filename.txt'
rmdir directoryname
Remove the directory named 'directoryname' in the current working directory
rmdir /home/eshook/directoryname
Remove the directory named 'directoryname' in the directory /home/eshook

9. Commands - Removing files and directories
WARNING! WARNING WARNING!
There is no recycling can or 'unrm' or 'undelete'
BE CAREFUL OR YOU CAN DELETE YOUR HOMEWORK OR PROJECT!
rm filename.txt
Delete (remove) the file named 'filename.txt' in the current working directory
rm directoryname/filename.txt
Remove the file in 'directoryname' named 'filename.txt'
rmdir directoryname
Remove the directory named 'directoryname' in the current working directory
rmdir /home/eshook/directoryname
Remove the directory named 'directoryname' in the directory /home/eshook

10. Commands – saving time
<Tab> will autocomplete a command or filename
<Tab><Tab> will list the set of commands or filenames if multiple choices are available
<Up> the up arrow can be used to iterate over previous commands you have typed
history – the history command will list the most recent commands you have typed (over a thousand)