MS-DOS to Linux commands

Quick-reference mapping between familiar MS-DOS commands and broadly equivalent Linux shell commands.

Command comparison

Many Linux commands typed at a shell prompt are similar to the commands you would type in MS-DOS. In fact, some commands are identical.

Command's Purpose	MS-DOS	Linux	Example
Lists files	dir	ls	ls -la
Copies files	copy	cp	cp file.txt /home/directory
Moves files	move	mv	mv file.txt /home/directory
Renames a file	ren	mv	mv thisfile.txt thatfile.txt
Deletes files	del	rm	rm file.txt
Deletes folders	rd	rm -rf	rm -rf /home/directory
Changes directories with a relative path	cd ..	cd ..	cd ..
Changes directories with a specified path (absolute path)	cd pathname	cd pathname	cd /home/directory
Creates a directory	md	mkdir	mkdir directory
Shows your location in the file system	cd	pwd	pwd
Shows contents of a file	type	cat	cat file.txt
Finds a string in a file	find	grep	grep abc file.txt
Compares the contents of files	fc	diff	diff file1 file2
Screens through a file	more	less	less file.txt
Clears screen	cls	clear	clear
Closes prompt window	exit	exit	exit
Displays or sets date	date	date	date
Displays the time	time	date	date
"Echoes" output on the screen	echo	echo	echo this message
Edits files with simple text editor	edit	pico	pico file.txt
Formats a thumbdrive	format D:	mke2fs (or mformat)	/sbin/mke2fs /dev/usb0
Compress files	arj	tar/gzip	tar zcvf /home/directory
Displays command help	command /?	command --help	ls --help (or man ls)
Shows amount of RAM and use	mem	free	free
Ping a host	ping	ping	ping 8.8.8.8
Shows network connections	netstat	netstat	netstat -na
Shows IP address	ipconfig	ifconfig	ifconfig

Additional Linux commands

Additional essential Linux commands, with no equivalent in MS-DOS are listed below:

df: Display disk space usage
find: Search for files and directories within a directory hierarchy
tail: Display the last lines of log files
chmod: Change file permissions
chown: Change file owner and group
sudo/su: Execute a command as the superuser
apt-get/yum/dnf: Package management commands for installing packages
ps: Display information about active processes
kill: Terminate processes
crontab: Schedule tasks

Useful equivalencies to be aware of:

autoexec.bat: /etc/rc.local
Pipe | works the same: cat file.txt | grep abc
C:\Users: /home
Registry: /etc
DLLs: /lib

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Linux commands are not always exact DOS equivalents

Treat the table as a quick orientation guide. Options, permissions, path handling and filesystem behaviour can differ significantly between DOS/Windows and Linux.

See also

• Linux