List of Commands Used

I got interested in learning Debian Linux while running my own company, when we wanted to start our own file server. Visit my company's website here at www.dreamarvel.com

Below lists the commands used by me for my Linux system (This will be updated from time to time):

command [options] ------> Explaination

• Explaination of the options

cat file_name ------> types out the contents of the file

ls [-a, -l] [pathnames]------> Similar to 'dir' in dos, it will list out the files in a directory/path

lspci [-v -vv] ------> Lists all PCI devices

• -v - be verbose, list details of the devices
• -vv - be very verbose, list more details of the devices

lsusb [-v] ------> Lists all USB devices

• -v - be verbose, lists details

df [-h] ------> Shows information about the file system (How much space is used in a partition)

shutdown [-h, -r] now------> Shuts down the computer

• (-h means the system will power off when the shutdown process is completed) 
• (-r means the computer will reboot after the shutdown process is completed)
• ('now' - is a time element which tells the computer when to shutdown, specify 'now' to begin the shutdown process immediately) 

mount -t iso9660 /dev/sr0 /media/cdrom1 ------> Mounts an external usb DVD drive. Can mount on "/media/cdrom" to fool apt-get install to think that the media is in the CDROM drive. (www.aboutdebian.com uses disks to install their packages and it wants to use the internal cdrom drive to install, while I'm using the external DVD drive to install)

umount /media/cdrom1 ------> UnMounts the external usb DVD drive (to remove the disk)

apt-cdrom -m -d=/media/cdrom1 add ------> indexes the packages from the external usb DVD drive

ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx ------> pings the IP address. It will keep on pinging so you need to press CTRL+C to stop.

ifconfig [Interface] [up/down]------> similar to ipconfig in windows, to see your network information.

• Interface examples are eth0, eth1
• (up - to activate the network interface)
• (down - to deactivate the network interface)
• ifconfig eth0 up - to activate network interface "eth0"
• ifconfig eth0 - view information about network eth0

fdisk -l ------> Lists the partitions of the system

cfdisk /dev/hdb ------> Opens the cfdisk program to edit the partition of disk "hdb" (HDD of Primary Slave in the IDE)

apt-get Install "Package_Name" ------> apt-get can be used to install, remove, purge packages.

find [pathname] -name [expression] ------> finds a files with "expression" in the file name. The use wildcards is allowed

dpkg [--list] ------> The main package management program with many options

• --list ------> this will show the status of all packages installed in the system