Simple Commands
Linux has six virtual consoles and one GUI console.
1. To switch between the text consoles, press
Ctrl+Alt+F1
Ctrl+Alt+F2
Ctrl+Alt+F3
Ctrl+Alt+F4
Ctrl+Alt+F5
Ctrl+Alt+F6,
To switch to GUI console, press
Ctrl+Alt+F7

2. To shut down the system, type “halt” in the command line and press enter.

3. date: To view and change current date and time.
• date (<+): to view current system date and time. • date –s mm/dd/yy : to change date
• date –s hh:mm:ss : to change time
• date –s ‘mm/dd/yy hh:mm:ss’ : to change both
• cal (<+) : to view calendar of the current month and year
• cal 2004 (<+) : to view calendar of the year 2004
• cal 7 2003 (<+) : to view calendar of July 2003
4. To pause
more or
less
press (<+) to scroll one line at a time. press ‘spacebar’ to scroll one page at a time.
5. To quit press q (<+)
6. To cancel a command, press ctrl+c (<+)
7. To clear screen clear (<+) Getting Help
• For quick help --help (<+)
• For detailed help man (<+)
• Help files are also available in the directory /usr/share/doc/
• Or we may also check the site http://www.tldp.org for linux documentation project. File and Directory Commands

Directory Commands
NOTE: .
: represents current directory .
. : represents parent directory /
: represents root directory
~ : represents home directory
1. pwd (<+)
Displays the full pathname for the current directory.
2. ls (<+)
Displays the list of files in the current directory.
ls /directory name (<+) Displays the contents of the specified directory.

This command various options to use. Some of them are as follows:
ls –l: Lists file in long format.
Filenames are displayed along with their mode, number of links, owner, size, modification date and time.
ls –t: Lists in order of last modification time
ls –a: Lists all entries along with hidden files ls –u Lists in order of last access time

3. mkdir (<+)
This command is used to create a new directory of specified name.
4. cd (<+)
This command is used to change from working directory to any other directory specified.
5. rmdir (<+)
This command removes or deletes the specified directory. The specified directory must be empty.