To find a program not on this list (and there are hundreds), try the man program with the -k option followed by a keyword, for example,
man -k tape
to find all on-line manual entries that refer to programs that work with tapes.
Terminal control characters for C-shell (csh)
| ^h, backspace |
erase previously typed character |
| ^u |
erase entire line of input so far typed |
| ^d |
end-of-input for programs reading from terminal |
| ^s |
suspend writing to terminal (freezes terminal) |
| ^q |
continue writing to terminal |
| ^z |
suspend currently running job; restart with bg or fg |
| ^c |
kill currently running program and allow clean-up before exiting |
| ^\ |
emergency kill of currently running program with no chance of cleanup |
Also see a list of special characters that should not be used in filenames.
Login and authentication
| login |
access computer; start interactive session |
| logout |
disconnect terminal session |
| passwd |
change local login password; you must set a strong password that is not easily guessed |
| kinit |
obtain kerberos ticket for connections to other kerberized computers |
| kdestroy |
destroy kerberos tickets (authorizations) |
Information
| date |
show date and time |
| history |
list of previously executed commands |
| man |
show online documentation by program name |
| info |
online documentation for GNU programs |
| w, who |
who is on the system and what they are doing |
| whoami |
who is logged onto this terminal |
| top |
show system stats and top CPU using processes |
| uptime |
show one line summary of system status |
File management
| cat |
combine files |
| cp |
copy files |
| ls |
list files in a directory and their attributes |
| mv |
change file name or directory location |
| rm |
remove files |
| ln |
create another link (name) to a file |
| chmod |
set file permissions |
| crypt |
encode/decode a file with a private key |
| gzip, gunzip |
compress/decompress a file |
| find |
find files that match specific criteria |
Display contents of files
| cat |
copy files to display device |
| more |
show text file on display terminal with paging control |
| head |
show first few lines of a file(s) |
| tail |
show last few lines of a file; or reverse line order |
| vi |
full-featured screen editor for modifying text files |
| pico |
simple screen editor for modifying text files |
| grep |
display lines that match a pattern |
| lpr |
send file to printer |
| pr |
format file with page headers, multiple columns, etc. |
| diff |
compare two files and show differences |
| cmp |
compare two binary files and report if different |
| comm |
compare two files; show common or unique lines |
| od |
display binary files as eqivalent octal/hex codes |
| strings |
show printable text embedded in binary files |
| file |
examine file(s) and guess type: text, data, program, etc. |
| wc |
count characters, words, and lines in a file |
Directories
| cd |
change to new directory |
| mkdir |
create new directory |
| rmdir |
remove empty directory (you must remove files first) |
| mv |
change name of directory |
| pwd |
show current directory |
Disks
| df |
summarize free space on disk filesystems |
| du |
show disk space used by files or directories |
Special character handling for C-shell (See man csh)
| * |
match any characters in a file name |
| ~user |
shorthand for home directory of user |
| $name |
substitute value of variable name |
| \ |
turn off special meaning of character that follows |
| ‘ |
in pairs, quote string with special chars, except ! |
| “ |
in pairs, quote string with special chars, except !, $ |
| ` |
in pairs, substitute output from enclosed command |
Controlling program execution for C-shell (See man csh)
| & |
run job in background |
| ^c |
kill job in foreground |
| ^z |
suspend job in foreground |
| fg |
restart suspended job in foreground |
| bg |
run suspended job in background |
| ; |
delimit commands on same line |
| () |
group commands on same line |
| ! |
re-run earlier commands from history list |
| jobs |
list current jobs |
| ps |
show process information |
| kill |
kill background job or previous process |
| nice |
run program at lower priority |
| at |
run program at a later time |
| crontab |
run program at specified intervals |
| limit |
see or set resource limits for programs |
| alias |
create alias name for program (normally used in .login file) |
| sh, csh |
execute command file |
Controlling program input/output for C-shell (See man csh)
| | |
pipe output to input |
| > |
redirect output to a storage file |
| < |
redirect input from a storage file |
| >> |
append redirected output to a storage file |
| tee |
copy input to both file and next program in pipe |
| script |
make file record of all terminal activity |
Email and communication
| msgs |
read system bulletin board messages |
| mailx |
send/read email; can be run by other programs to send exisiting files via email |
uuencode
uudecode |
encode/decode a binary file for transmission via email |
| rn |
read USENET news groups |
Editors and formatting utilities
| sed |
programmable text editor for data streams |
| vi |
full-featured editor for character terminals |
| emacs |
GNU emacs editor for character terminals |
| xemacs |
GNU emacs editor for X Window terminals |
| pico |
very simple text editor |
| fmt |
fill and break lines to make all same length |
| fold |
break long lines to specified length |
X Window client programs (output to X terminal or server)
| xterm |
provide login shell window |
| xauth |
manipulate authorization files |
| xload |
show system load |
| xman |
full screen online manual viewer |
| xemacs |
GNU emacs editor |
| gv |
interface to contol gs to display PostScript or PDF files on screen |
| xdvi |
display DVI files on X Window (screen preview) |
| gnuplot |
interactive data plotting on screen |
TeX typesetting system
| tex |
process TeX files to DVI (device independent) output |
| latex |
process LaTeX files to DVI |
| dvips |
print DVI files on Postscript laser printer |
| xdvi |
display DVI files on X Window (screen preview) |
| latex2html |
translate LaTeX files to HTML (for web pages) |
Printing (BSD based)
| lpr |
send file to print queue |
| lpq |
examine status of files in print queue |
| lprm |
remove a file from print queue |
| enscript |
convert text files to PostScript format for printing |
Interpreted languages and data manipulation utilities
| sed |
programmable text editor for data streams |
| awk |
pattern scanning and processing language |
| perl |
Practical Extraction and Report Language |
| sort |
sort or merge lines in a file(s) by specified fields |
| tr |
translate characters |
| cut |
cut out columns from a file |
| paste |
paste columns into a file |
| dd |
copy data between devices; reblock; convert EBCDIC |
Graphics and mapping
| gnuplot |
interactive data plotting; outputs to PostScript or X Window |
| gs |
“ghostscript” converter displays PostScript files on X Window displays or other devices |
Networking/communications
| ssh |
remote login/command execution; encrypted |
| scp |
remote non-interactive file copy; encrypted |
| sftp |
remote interactive file copy; encrypted |
| telnet |
remote network login; plain text password – not recommended |
| ftp |
network file transfer program; plain text password – not recommended |
| host |
find IP address for given host name, or vice versa |
| lynx |
web browser for character based (text-only) terminals |
| gzip, gunzip |
compress/decompress a file |
| tar |
combine multiple files/dirs into single archive |
uuencode
uudecode |
encode/decode a binary file for transmission via email |
Compilers, interpreters and programming tools
| csh |
command language interpreter (C-shell scripts) |
| ksh |
command language interpreter (Korn-shell scripts) |
| sh |
command language interpreter (Borne-shell scripts) |
| f77 |
Fortran 77 compiler |
| f2c |
convert fortran source code to C source code |
| gcc |
GNU C compiler |
| g++ |
GNU C++ compiler |
| dbx |
command-line symbolic debugger for compiled C or Fortran |
| make |
recompile programs from modified source |
| cflow |
generate C flow graph |
Programming libraries (see man library_name)
| lapack |
Fortran 77 routines for numerical linear algebra (supersedes LINPACK and EISPACK) |
| X |
routines to interface with X window system (no man page — get the X Toolkit book) |
| dbm |
database routines |
| xdr |
library routines for external data representation |
| netcdf |
routines for machine independent data representation |
Tape manipulation and archiving
| mt |
manipulate tape drive and position tape |
| dd |
unformatted tape read and write; file conversion |
| tar |
archive disk files on tape or disk |
| ltf |
read/write ANSI standard label tapes |
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