10 Basic Shell Commands
An introduction to the command line
Why Get Familiar with the Command Line?
Why Get Familiar with the Command Line?
The world runs on headless computers.
Why Get Familiar with the Command Line?
Headless Computers
- Have no monitor
- Have no keyboard or mouse
- Live in racks, not on desks
- Often do not have GUI software
GUI: Graphical User Interface
If you can use the command line, you can...
Use & customize your own VPS droplet
Power administrate on any hosting account
Quickly accomplish many tasks
Troubleshoot more effectively
Use GIT and other workflow products
And if you just start learning a little bit now, you will get better at *NIX environments almost as if by accident.
*NIX: Unix based OS's, like Mac OSX and Linux.
So let's do it
Open your terminal window
Here are 10 shell commands to try & learn
pwd
Print Working Directory.
Where am I?
ls
List.
View the current directory's contents.
Try ls -lah for more detail.
cd [go_to]
Change Directory.
Let's move.
touch [filename]
Touch a file.
Create a blank file with this name.
mv [current] [new]
Move.
Move or rename a file.
cp [existing] [new]
Copy.
Copies a file.
mkdir [dir_name]
MakeDir.
Make a new folder (directory).
chmod [options] [file]
ChangeMode.
Alter the permissions on a file or dir.
cat [user@host] [file]
Concatenate.
Concatenate files.
Can also be used to read the contents of a file, or save new files.
tail [file] [opts]
Tail.
Read the last lines of a file.
Great for looking at recent log entries.
Now start using them!
Choose the command line for looking at logs, or renaming files, or adjusting permissions.
What Next?
- Get the command line going in your workflow
- Use these slides for your own presentation
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