Working with the Terminal
General Commands
• clear Clears previously run commands and text from the terminal screen
• date Prints the current date
• find / -name filename.txt Searches the whole system for filename.txt and
outputs a list of all directories that contains the file
• nano example.txt Opens the file example.txt in the Linux text editor Nano
• raspi-config Opens the configuration settings menu
• reboot Reboots immediately
• shutdown -h now Shutdown immediately
• shutdown -h 01:30 Shutdown at 1:30 am
File and Directory
Commands
• pwd Print working directory; shows the current directory path
• cd /abc/xyz Changes the current directory to the /abc/xyz directory
• cd .. Navigate up a directory
• cd ~ Navigate to the home/user directory
• ls -l List all the files in the current directory and their properties
• mkdir new_directory_name Creates a new directory called
new_directory_name inside the current directory
• mv filename.txt /home/pi/Downloads/ Moves the filename.txt file
inside the /home/pi/Downloads folder
File and Directory
Commands
• touch example.txt Creates a new empty file called example.txt in the
current directory
• rm filename.txt Deletes filename.txt
• rmdir directory_name Deletes the directory called directory_name (only
if it is empty)
• rm -rf directory_name Deletes the directory called directory_name and
all it's containing files and subdirectories
• scp filename.txt username@10.0.0.106:/some/path/file.txt Copies
filename.ext over SSH. The file is copied to a machine with IP Address
10.0.0.106 to the /some/path/file.txt path. This action is performed on
behalf of the user, username.
Networking commands
• ifconfig Check the status of the wireless connection you
are using (to see if wlan0 has acquired an IP Address)
• iwconfig Check which network the wireless adapter is
using
• ping Tests connectivity between two devices that are
connected on a network
• wget http://www.website.com/file.txt Downloads the
file located at http://www.website.com/file.txt
System information
commands
• cat /proc/meminfo Show details about your memory
• df -h Shows information about the available disk space
• df / Shows how much free disk space is available
• dpkg --get-selections Shows all of your installed packages
• dpkg --get-selections | grep XXX Shows all of the
installed packages that are related to XXX
• hostname -I Shows the IP Address of your Raspberry Pi
Shortcuts
• up and down arrow Cycle through previously typed
commands
• tab key Peforms an auto-complete of name of a file or
directory you are currently typing
• Ctrl + c Quit a currently running process
• Ctrl + d Exit a host session
• !! Repeat the last command executed