Linux Tutorial - Part 3

Linux Basic Fundamentals Guide and Tutorial

Welcome to the Land of Linux's tutorials and guides. In part 3 of our free tutorial we will look at some of the most popular commands for working with files.

We will look at the many ways of searching for a file on a Linux system, how to compare files for differences using the "diff" and "sdiff commands. We will also cover how to sort the contents of files into numerical and alphabetical order. How to remove duplicate entries from files. How to join files together, how to split files into smaller files.

An introduction to working with "Hard" and "Soft" links (symbolic links). How to edit files using "awk", "gawk" and "SED".

We will look at the many ways compression can be used with files and directories. An introduction to using tar, cpio, gzip, gunzip, bzip2 and compress commands.

In this section, we will cover file permissions. We will look at ways to assign the permissions "read", "write" and "execute" to files and directories using "umask" and "chmod". An explanation of SUID, SGID and "sticky bits".

Searching for files with the find command

The find command is a very powerful tool that is used for searching for files on your Linux system. Find command examples.

Grep command examples

The grep command is a powerful pattern matching tool that can search for files or strings of text within files.

Xargs

Linux xargs tutorial, Use the output from one command and then execute another command against that output using xargs.

Comparing Files with diff

Compare the contents of files using "diff" and "sdiff" commands. Basic diff command examples.

How to sort files.

Sort command, sorting files numerically, alphabetically. Sort on specified fields, remove any duplicates.

Finding duplpicates with uniq command

Remove or display adjacent duplicate entries within a file.

Counting Words, lines and characters

WC command - How to count words, lines, characters within a specified file.

Cut and Paste

Cut command, Paste command examples.

Joining files with join command

How to use the join command to join two files with a matching fields together.

Splitting Files

Split command examples. Split larger files into smaller files using the split command.

Formatting text with fmt

Use the fmt command to carry out simple text formatting. Fmt command examples.

Convert Spaces to Tabs

Expand and unexpand command examples. How to convert spaces into Tabs and Tabs into spaces.

Hard and Soft Links

Working with Soft links and Hard Links. Symbolic links explained.

File Permissions

Understanding file permissions on Linux. Setting Permissions with chmod, chown, chgrp, Umasks, SUID, SGID, Sticky Bits

awk and gawk command examples

Process files with awk and gawk. Use awk to manipulate files and text fields with ease. Create simple awk scripts.

sed command examples

Modify text from input streams and commands. Extract information from files with SED. Sed command examples.

translate command examples

How to use the tr command to translate text in a given file. Translate characters from lower to upper case. Make global changes on files.

Tar command examples

How to use the tar archiving command.

gzip and gunzip command examples

How to use gzip and gunzip compression utility.

bzip2 and compress command examples

How to use bzip2 and compress compression utilities.

Z Commands

Learn about Linux Z Commands. Working with compressed files using, zcat, zgrep, zdiff, zmore and znew commands.

Linux stat command

Display file and filesystem information with the stat command. Sat command examples.

debugfs command

Display Linux file creation date (crtime) using debugfs.