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You Don't Need GUI

Join the community on Spectrum

δΈ­ζ–‡η‰ˆθ―·ηœ‹θΏ™ι‡Œ

It's for noobs :)

Graphical user interfaces are super friendly to computer users. They were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs).

Xerox Star 8010 workstations

However, they often require more resources, are less powerful and hard to automate via scripting.

As a computer expert, we want to be more efficient and do our jobs better. We know that command words may not be easily discoverable or mnemonic, so we try to list some common tasks that you might be tempted to do in GUI.

Quick links

  1. copy a file
  2. duplicate a file
  3. copy a directory
  4. duplicate a directory
  5. move a file
  6. rename a file
  7. move a directory
  8. rename a directory
  9. merge directories
  10. create a new file
  11. create a new directory
  12. show file/directory size
  13. show file/directory info
  14. open a file with the default program
  15. open a file in any application
  16. zip a directory
  17. unzip a directory
  18. peek files in a zip file
  19. remove a file
  20. remove a directory
  21. remove all files of certain criteria
  22. list directory contents
  23. tree view a directory and its subdirectories
  24. find a stale file
  25. show a calendar
  26. find a future date
  27. use a calculator
  28. force quit a program
  29. check server response
  30. view content of a file
  31. search for a text in a file
  32. search in all files in current working directory, quickly (entire disk in less than 15 minutes)
  33. view an image
  34. show disk size
  35. check cpu usage, processes and RAM
  36. know whether your computer is under load, and whether it's due to memory or CPU
  37. poweroff or reboot your computer
  38. locate USB drives
  39. unmount USB drives
  40. format USB drives
  41. check USB format
  42. run command on all files of a directory
  43. check network connectivity to a remote address and port
  44. check DNS config of a domain
  45. check the ownership and registration of a domain
  46. Quick tips
  47. Hotkeys
  48. I can't remember these cryptic commands

copy a file

STOP DRAG AND DROPPING A FILE, OR CMD/CTRL + C, CMD/CTRL + V A FILE πŸ‘Ž

Copy readme.txt to the documents directory

$ cp readme.txt documents/

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

duplicate a file

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND DUPLICATE A FILE πŸ‘Ž

$ cp readme.txt readme.bak.txt

More advanced:

$ cp readme{,.bak}.txt
# Note: learn how the {} works with touch foo{1,2,3}.txt and see what happens.

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

copy a directory

STOP DRAG AND DROPPING A DIRECTORY, OR CMD/CTRL + C, CMD/CTRL + V A DIRECTORY πŸ‘Ž

Copy myMusic directory to the myMedia directory

$ cp -a myMusic myMedia/
# or
$ cp -a myMusic/ myMedia/myMusic/

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

duplicate a directory

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND DUPLICATE A DIRECTORY πŸ‘Ž

$ cp -a myMusic/ myMedia/
# or if `myMedia` folder doesn't exist
$ cp -a myMusic myMedia/

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

move a file

STOP DRAG AND DROPPING A FILE, OR CMD/CTRL + X, CMD/CTRL + V A FILE πŸ‘Ž

$ mv readme.txt documents/

Always use a trailing slash when moving files, for this reason.

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

rename a file

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND RENAME A FILE πŸ‘Ž

$ mv readme.txt README.md

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

move a directory

STOP DRAG AND DROPPING A DIRECTORY, OR CMD/CTRL + X, CMD/CTRL + V A DIRECTORY πŸ‘Ž

$ mv myMedia myMusic/
# or
$ mv myMedia/ myMusic/myMedia

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

rename a directory

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND RENAME A DIRECTORY πŸ‘Ž

$ mv myMedia/ myMusic/

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

merge directories

STOP DRAG AND DROPPING TO MERGE DIRECTORIES πŸ‘Ž

$ rsync -a /images/ /images2/	# note: may over-write files with the same name, so be careful!

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

create a new file

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND CREATE A NEW FILE πŸ‘Ž

$ touch 'new file'    # updates the file's access and modification timestamp if it already exists
# or
$ > 'new file'        # note: erases the content if it already exists

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

create a new directory

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND CREATE A NEW DIRECTORY πŸ‘Ž

$ mkdir 'untitled folder'
# or
$ mkdir -p 'path/may/not/exist/untitled folder'

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show file/directory size

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND SHOW FILE/directory INFO πŸ‘Ž

$ du -sh node_modules/

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show file/directory info

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND SHOW FILE/DIRECTORY INFO πŸ‘Ž

$ stat -x readme.md   # on macOS
$ stat readme.md      # on Linux

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

open a file with the default program

STOP DOUBLE CLICKING ON A FILE πŸ‘Ž

$ xdg-open file   # on Linux
$ open file       # on MacOS
$ start file      # on Windows

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open a file in any application

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND OPEN WITH πŸ‘Ž

$ open -a appName file

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zip a directory

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND COMPRESS DIRECTORY πŸ‘Ž

$ zip -r archive_name.zip folder_to_compress

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

unzip a directory

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND UNCOMPRESS DIRECTORY πŸ‘Ž

$ unzip archive_name.zip

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

decompress files of any format

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND UNCOMPRESS DIRECTORY πŸ‘Ž

$ unar archive_name.zip
$ unar archive_name.7z
$ unar archive_name.rar
$ unar archive_name.ISO
$ unar archive_name.tar.gz

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

peek files in a zip file

STOP USING WinRAR πŸ‘Ž

$ zipinfo archive_name.zip
# or
$ unzip -l archive_name.zip

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

peek files in a compress file of any format

STOP USING WinRAR πŸ‘Ž

$ lsar -l archive_name.zip
$ lsar -l archive_name.7z
$ lsar -l archive_name.ISO
$ lsar -l archive_name.rar
$ lsar -l archive_name.tar.gz

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

remove a file

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND DELETE A FILE PERMANENTLY πŸ‘Ž

$ rm my_useless_file

IMPORTANT: The rm command deletes my_useless_file permanently, which is equivalent to move my_useless_file to Recycle Bin and hit Empty Recycle Bin.

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

remove a directory

STOP RIGHT CLICKING AND DELETE A DIRECTORY PERMANENTLY πŸ‘Ž

$ rm -r my_useless_folder

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

remove all files of certain criteria

$ find . -name "*.bak" -type f -delete

IMPORTANT: run find . -name "*.bak" -type f first to see exactly which files you will remove.

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

list directory contents

STOP OPENING YOUR FINDER OR FILE EXPLORER πŸ‘Ž

$ ls my_folder        # Simple
$ ls -la my_folder    # -l: show in list format. -a: show all files, including hidden. -la combines those options.
$ ls -alrth my_folder # -r: reverse output. -t: sort by time (modified). -h: output human-readable sizes.

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

tree view a directory and its subdirectories

STOP OPENING YOUR FINDER OR FILE EXPLORER πŸ‘Ž

$ tree                                                        # on Linux
$ find . -print | sed -e 's;[^/]*/;|____;g;s;____|; |;g'      # on MacOS
# Note: install homebrew (https://brew.sh) to be able to use (some) Linux utilities such as tree.
# brew install tree

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

find a stale file

STOP USING YOUR FILE EXPLORER TO FIND A FILE πŸ‘Ž

Find all files modified more than 5 days ago

$ find my_folder -mtime +5

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

show a calendar

STOP LOOKING UP WHAT THIS MONTH LOOKS LIKE BY CALENDAR WIDGETS πŸ‘Ž

Display a text calendar

$ cal

Display selected month and year calendar

$ cal 11 2018

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

find a future date

STOP USING WEBAPPS TO CALCULATE FUTURE DATES πŸ‘Ž

What is today's date?

$ date +%m/%d/%Y

What about a week from now?

$ date -d "+7 days"                                           # on Linux
$ date -j -v+7d                                               # on MacOS

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

use a calculator

STOP USING CALCULATOR WIDGET πŸ‘Ž

$ bc -l

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

force quit a program

STOP CTRL + ALT + DELETE and choose the program to kill πŸ‘Ž

$ killall -9 program_name

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

check server response

STOP OPENING A BROWSER πŸ‘Ž

$ curl -i umair.surge.sh
# curl's -i (--include) option includes HTTP response headers in its output.

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

view content of a file

STOP DOUBLE CLICKING A FILE πŸ‘Ž

$ cat apps/settings.py
# if the file is too big to fit on one page, you can use a 'pager' (less) which shows you one page at a time.
$ less apps/settings.py

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

search for a text in a file

STOP CMD/CTRL + F IN A FILE πŸ‘Ž

$ grep -i "Query" file.txt

grep

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search in all files in current working directory, quickly (entire disk in less than 15 minutes)

STOP CMD/CTRL + F IN A DIRECTORY πŸ‘Ž

$ ripgrep -i "Query"
# brew install ripgrep

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

view an image

STOP USING PREVIEW πŸ‘Ž

$ imgcat image.png
# Note: requires iTerm2 terminal.

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

show disk size

STOP RIGHT CLICKING DISK ICON OR OPENING DISK UTILITY πŸ‘Ž

$ df -h

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

check cpu usage, processes and RAM

STOP OPENING YOUR ACTIVITY MONITOR OR TASK MANAGER πŸ‘Ž

$ top

if you want some more details:

$ htop

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

know whether your computer is under load, and whether it's due to memory or CPU

$ glances
# brew install glances

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

poweroff or reboot your computer

This can be useful when you're patching a server that is accessed via SSH and you don't have a GUI.

# poweroff
$ sudo shutdown -h now
# reboot
$ sudo shutdown -r now

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

locate USB drives

$ df

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

unmount USB drives

$ sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

format USB drives

# FAT32
$ sudo mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1
# NTFS
$ sudo mkfs.ntfs /dev/sdb1
# exFAT
$ sudo mkfs.exfat /dev/sdb1

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

check USB format

$ sudo fsck /dev/sdb1

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

run command on all files of a directory

STOP CLICKING THE FILES ONE BY ONE πŸ‘Ž

$ for FILE in *; do echo $FILE; done

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

check network connectivity to a remote address and port

STOP USING NETWORK UTILITY

$ nc -vz www.google.com 443
$ nc -vz 1.1.1.1 53

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

check DNS config of a domain

STOP USING NETWORK UTILITY

$ dig www.google.com

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

check the ownership and registration of a domain

STOP USING NETWORK UTILITY AND THE WEBSITE OF DOMAIN REGISTRATION PROVIDERS

$ whois www.google.com

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

Quick tips

CLI tips

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

Hotkeys

Hotkey Description
Ctrl+A Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl+E Go to the end of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl+L Clears the Screen, similar to the clear command
Ctrl+U Clears the line before the cursor position. If you are at the end of the line, clears the entire line.
Ctrl+H Same as backspace
Ctrl+R Lets you search through previously used commands
Ctrl+C Kill whatever you are running
Ctrl+D Exit the current shell
Ctrl+Z Puts whatever you are running into a suspended background process. fg restores it.
Ctrl+W Delete the word before the cursor
Ctrl+K Clear the line after the cursor
Ctrl+T Swap the last two characters before the cursor
Ctrl+F Move cursor forward one character
Ctrl+B Move cursor backward one character
Esc+T Swap the last two words before the cursor
Alt+T Same as Esc + T
Alt+F Move cursor forward one word on the current line
Alt+B Move cursor backward one word on the current line
Esc+F Same as Alt + F
Esc+B Same as Alt + B
Alt+. Paste the last word of the most recently command
Tab Auto-complete files and directory names
Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό

I can't remember these cryptic commands

You can always google or man the commands you are not familiar with. Or, checkout tldr, a collection of simplified and community-driven man pages.

Go to table of contents πŸ”Ό