MS-DOS to Linux commands
From Tech-Wiki
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 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