Raspberry pi Cheat Sheet

Unix cheat sheet.

See https://ss64.com/bash/ for a more comprehensive listing.

pwd
Display the name of the current working directory.
ls
List the content of the current directory.
ls [path]
List the content of the specified directory.
ls -l
List the content of the current directory with additional information.
ls -a
List all files including hidden files beginning with ‘.’ (i.e. dotfiles).
cd [path]
Change the current directory to [path].
cd ..
Change to parent directory (note the space between ‘cd’ and ‘..’).
cd /
Change to root directory (note the space between ‘cd’ and ‘/’).
cd ~
Change to home directory (determined by $HOME environment variable).
mkdir [name]
Create the directory [name] in the current working directory.
rmdir [name]
Remove the empty directory [name] from the current working directory.
rm [name]
Remove the specified file.
rm *
Remove all the files from the current working directory.
rm -r *
Remove all the files and directories from the current working directory.
cp [from] [to]
Copy a file from source [from] to destination [to].
cp -r [from] [to]
Copy everything including directories from source [from] to destination [to].
mv [from] [to]
Move a file from source [from] to destination [to].
mv -r [from] [to]
Move everything including directories from source [from] to destination [to].
find
Search for files matching certain patterns.
sudo [command]
Superuser do. Execute [command] with elevated privileges. Allows you to do things you are not entitled to. Common examples include:
​sudo raspi-config
Launch the Raspberry Pi configuration tool.
sudo reboot
Safely restart your system.
sudo shutdown -h now
Safely shutdown your system now.
sudo apt-get ​install [package]
Install a package.
sudo apt-get update
Update the list of packages without installing anything.
sudo apt-get upgrade
Upgrade the installed packages to the versions obtained with ‘apt-get update’
sudo ​chown pi:root [name]
Change the owner of [name] to ‘pi’ and set the group to ‘root’.
sudo su
Become Superuser for more than one command.
sudo ku
Undocumented.
cat [name]
Show the contents of a file.
head [name]
Show the beginning of a file.
tail [name]
Show the end of a file.
chmod [who][+,-,=][permissions] [name]
Change the permissions for a file.
chmod u+x [name]
Add execute permission for the owner of the file. Run the file with ./filename
chmod 777 [name]
Allow every user to read, write and execute the file [name].
tar -cvzf [name] [path]
Create compressed file [name] from the contents in [path].
tar -xvzf [name]
Extract the contents of a compressed file.
wget [uri]
Download a file from the Internet.
man [command]
Show the manual page for a command.
man man
View the manual page of the ‘man’ command.
grep ‘string’ [name]
Search inside one or more files for occurrences of ‘string’.