Unleash the full potential of your Linux system with this expert-curated collection of essential commands, advanced techniques, and professional workflow tips.
List directory contents
ls -lah
💡 Pro Tip: Add alias ll='ls -alF' to .bashrc
Search for files
find / -name '*.conf'
Advanced file sync
rsync -avz source/ user@remote:dest/
💡 Pro Tip: Great for backups and migrations
Create links
ln -s /path/file linkname
Archive files
tar -czf archive.tar.gz folder/
Create an empty file or update the timestamp
touch file.txt
Interactive process viewer
htop
💡 Pro Tip: F2 to configure display
Systemd logs viewer
journalctl -u nginx --since '1h ago'
List open files
lsof -i :80
Kernel ring buffer
Show how long the system has been running
uptime
Display memory usage
free -m
Show disk space usage
df -h
Display running processes
top
Pattern search
grep -rin 'error' /var/log
Text processing
awk '{sum+=$1} END{print sum}' data.txt
JSON processor
curl api | jq '.data[].name'
Unique entries
cat log | sort | uniq -c
Remove sections from each line of files
cut -d ' ' -f 1 file.txt
Merge lines of files
paste file1.txt file2.txt
Count lines, words, and characters in files
wc -l file.txt
Secure shell
ssh -i ~/.ssh/key.pem user@host
💡 Pro Tip: Use ssh-copy-id for key auth
Network sniffer
tcpdump -i eth0 port 80
DNS lookup
dig +short example.com A
Network stats
netstat -tulpn
Download files from the web
wget https://example.com/file.zip
Transfer data from or to a server
curl -LO https://example.com/file.zip
Signal processes
kill -9 1234
💡 Pro Tip: Use kill -l to list signals
Run persistent
nohup ./script.sh &
Schedule tasks
💡 Pro Tip: Use crontab -e to edit jobs
Service management
systemctl restart nginx
Combine commands with && or || operators:
make && make install || echo 'Build failed'
Reuse commands efficiently:
Create shortcuts in ~/.bashrc:
alias update='sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade'
Ready to become a terminal wizard?