Bash cheat sheet: Top 25 commands and creating custom commands
Being well-versed in the Bourne Again SHell (Bash Shell) as a developer or Linux user can significantly boost productivity. The Bash Shell is a Swiss Army knife of great features with deceptively simple commands, and it can provide far more flexible options for organizing and streamlining your workflow.
The Bash Shell is the most widely used command-line interface (CLI) available. Bash is a Unix shell and command language that is the default login shell for the majority of Linux distributions. It provides users with a set of tools for managing tasks on a Linux system.
Linux is an open-source operating system that is widely used in the tech industry. One of the key advantages of Linux is its command-line interface, which provides users with direct access to the underlying system and allows them to execute commands and scripts using a shell such as Bash. Bash commands perform a wide range of tasks, such as:
- Creating, moving, renaming, and deleting files and directories
- Comparing and merging files
- Editing and manipulating text within files
- Compressing and decompressing files
- Scheduling tasks to run automatically
- Networking and remote access
The advantage of using Bash commands to navigate Linux lies in its flexibility and versatility. Linux is an open-source OS, and provides users with control over the underlying system. This allows the users to customize and configure it to their specific needs.
By allowing users to tailor their environment to their specific needs, Bash and Linux enable a high level of personalization and efficiency. Some examples of possible customizations and configurations include aliases (custom shortcuts for frequently used commands or groups of commands), custom shell scripts to automate repetitive tasks, and options to fine-tune your environment variables to control the behavior of various applications running on your system.
This adaptability extends to Bash commands, which can be customized using bash scripts and command-line utilities. Linux offers a steady environment for executing Bash commands, ensuring that they can be ran consistently. This is especially vital in production environments where seamless automation and repeatability are a must.
In the following sections, we’ll introduce the most popular Bash commands, what they do, and how to extend them with options. Later on in this article, you’ll learn how to create your own custom commands (aliases), allowing you to create shortcuts for a single command or a group of commands.
When it comes down to it, if you don’t know the command line, you’re not using your computer to its full potential.
Check out the rest of this bash cheat sheet to get even more familiar with the command line concepts!