Skip to content

Supp - 2. Unix Shell Basics

Objectives 😶‍🌫️

  • Navigate your file system using the command line.
  • Quick recap on commands used in routine tasks such copy, move, remove.

It is expected that you are already familiar with using the basics of the Unix Shell. As a quick refresher, some frequently used commands are listed below.

For more information about a command, use the Unix man (manual) command. For example, to get more information about the mkdir command, type:

man mkdir

Key commands for navigating around the filesystem are:

  • ls - list the contents of the current directory
  • ls -l - list the contents of the current directory in more detail
  • pwd - show the location of the current directory
  • cd DIR - change directory to directory DIR (DIR must be in your current directory - you should see its name when you type ls OR you need to specify either a full or relative path to DIR)
  • cd - - change back to the last directory you were in
  • cd (also cd ~/) - change to your home directory
  • cd .. - change to the directory one level above

Other useful commands:

  • mv - move files or directories
  • cp - copy files or directories
  • rm - delete files or directories
  • mkdir - create a new directory
  • cat - concatenate and print text files to screen
  • more - show contents of text files on screen
  • less - cooler version of more. Allows searching (use /)
  • tree - tree view of directory structure
  • head - view lines from the start of a file
  • tail - view lines from the end of a file
  • grep - find patterns within files

Back to homepage