Almost all of the Linux commands below will function the same way in the bash shell that is used by your OS X Terminal.app

Most Frequently Used Linux Commands

To get detailed help of these command, including the options available and how to use them, use

man command_name

or

help command_name

manipulating files/directories

cd - change the current directory

ls - list directory contents

mkdir - make directories

mv - move (rename) files/directories

rm - remove files/directories

cp - copy files/directories

touch - change file timestamps.

chmod - change file access permissions

rsync - faster, flexible replacement for rcp (remote file copy)

scp - secure copy (remote file copy program)

working with text files

cat - concatenate files and print on the standard output

head - output the first part of files

tail - output the last part of files

wc - print the number of newlines, words, and bytes in files

more - a filter for paging through text one screenful at a time

less - a program similar to more, but more powerful (and user friendly)

grep - print lines matching a pattern

diff - find differences between two files

gvim (vi) - The GUI version of vim - a text editor that is upwards compatible to Vi.

sed - a stream editor used to perform basic text transformations

awk - pattern scanning and processing language

working with processes

ps - report a snapshot of the current processes

top - display Linux tasks

bg - resume the suspended job in the background, as if it had been started with & (useful after you suspend a command with Ctrl-z)

kill - terminate a process

exit - cause the shell to exit

getting useful information

man - format and display the manual pages

help - display helpful information about builtin commands

date - print or set the system date and time

locate - find files by name

find - search for files in a directory hierarchy

who - show who is logged on

pwd - print name of current/working directory

du - estimate file space usage

df - report filesystem disk space usage

which - shows the full path of (shell) commands

history - display the command history list with line numbers

others

echo - display a line of text

source - read and execute commands from a file

alias - prints the list of aliases or define new aliases

gimp - an image manipulation and paint program

ssh - a program for logging into a remote machine and for executing commands on a remote machine

mount/umount - mount and unmount filesystems

passwd - update a user's authentication tokens (password)

nohup - run a command immune to hangups, with output to a non-tty

rdesktop - Remote Desktop Protocol client (connects to windows computers)

export - export supplied names (variables) to the environment of subsequently executed commands

crontab - maintain crontab files for individual users (used to execute commands at scheduled time)