Essential Tools

Create, copy, move, and remove files and directories. Inspect file metadata with stat, identify types with file, and locate files with find.

Display file contents with cat/head/tail, count lines with wc, compare files with diff, and transform text with sort and cut.

Redirect stdout/stderr with >, >>, 2>, and &>. Chain commands with pipes (|) and split output with tee.

Search file contents with grep -i/-r/-E, use basic and extended regular expressions, and find files by name or type with find.

Create hard links and symbolic links with ln. Archive and compress with tar -czf/-xzf/-tjf.

Look up command help with man and --help. Locate binaries with which and check system info with uname.