40+ essential and practical commands of Debian | Linux Commands Cheat Sheet

Here, we’ve listed over 40 essential and practical commands for Debian-based Linux terminals. This post is designed to help those who are learning Linux or anyone who may have forgotten a command.

• linux system commands

• shutdown -h now : turn off

• shutdown -r now : restart

• date

• lshw : hardware information

• hwinfo : hardware information

• systemctl [status , start , restart , stop] service : manage services

• sudo command1 && command2 : execute administrative command

• uptime

• useradd [username] : create a new account

• passwd [username] : add or change password

• userdel [username] : remove a user

• linux package management by apt

• apt search [package] : finde package by name

• apt install [package] : installing a package

• apt remove [package] : remove a package

• apt update : update package repository (etc/apt/sources.list)

• apt upgrade : update packages

• apt autoremove : remove useless dependencies

• linux package management by dpkg

• dpkg -i [package.deb] : install package

• dpkg -r [package] : remove package

• dpkg -s [package] : search package

• dpkg –l : list of installed packages

• installing linux programs from source code

• wget http://some-url.com/download/some-program.zip : file download by url

• unzip some-program.zip

• cd some-program

• ./configure

• make

• make install

• linux directory / file commands

• cd [path,directory] : change directory

• cd .. : moves a directory up

• cp [source] [destination] : copy file

• ls [directory,path] : list files

• file [name] : checks a file type

• mkdir [dir1] : make directory

• pwd : print the current directory path

• rm -f [dir1] : deletes files from a directory

• rmdir [name] : delete empty directories

• mv [existing] [new] : move a file or folder

• zip [file1.zip] [file2] : compresses one or multiple files

• unzip [file1.zip] : extract a compressed file

• rar [file] : make rar file

• unrar [file.rar] : extract a rar file

• nano [file] : text editor

• mousepad [file] : text editor

• find [path] [options] expression : search your current directory

• chmod : change the permissions of files or directory

• chown [options] newowner:newgroup file1 file2 : change the ownership of files/directories

• linux network commands

• ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 : set ip

• ifdown eth0 : disable the network card

• ifup eth0 : enable the network card

• iwconfig eth1 : wireless card details

• nslookup www.example.com : convert domain to IP and vice versa

• netstat : network status

• traceroute  destination : route used to connect

• ping  destination