Command Line Reference (cmdline)
- Introduction to the commands.
- Help and list available commands.
- List the files in a directory.
- Moving around directories.
- Copy files.
- Create a new directory.
- Remove files or directories.
- View the files.
- Edit files in ncurses mode.
- Cat - Edit a line of commands.
- Navigate the web.
- Chat on IRC channels.
- Download files.
- List the available partitions.
- Mount a partition, cdrom or USB key.
- Halt the system or Reboot.
Introduction to the commands
This document is intended as a quick reference for using commands on SliTaz via
a Linux terminal or a graphical terminal (xterm). There are many GNU/Linux commands
for file handling, system maintenance or network management. You can also browse
the web, chat on IRC, download files, edit scripts or even play games in text mode.
Note it is necessary to operate as root to assemble the hard drive or cdrom.
You can use the command su
to become system administrator.
Help and list available commands
Most GNU/Linux system commands have an option for providing information on
their use. For support on the use of a command it is necessary to type the
command followed by the --help
option. Example using the
cp
command to copy files:
$ cp --help
To list all the commands available on the system, you can simply press the
Tab button on the left of the keyboard twice. For commands provided by the
Busybox utility you can type busybox --help
.
List the files in a directory
To list the files and folders contained in a directory, you can use the
ls
command. For all options remember to use the --help
flag. To simply list the files in the current directory:
$ ls
List all the files using the -al
option:
$ ls -al
List a directory:
$ ls /home/slitaz
Moving around directories
To browse to the files you can use the cd
command:
$ cd /usr/share/doc Back to the parent directory: $ cd ..
To go into the directory of the user (root = /root):
$ cd Or : $ cd ~ Or : $ cd $HOME
Copy files
The cp
command copies files or folders. The example copies the
info.txt file in the current directory into the Documents directory:
$ cp info.txt Documents/
Copy a whole directory. Here the command copies the Templates directory into /home/hacker:
$ cp -a Templates /home/hacker
Create a new directory
This command will create a new directory. The following command creates a
directory called Projects. It will be created in the directory /home of the
current user or in the directory which one is in. Note you can display
your current working directory with the pwd
command:
$ mkdir Projects
Creation of a directory named script-1.0 in the Projects folder:
$ mkdir Projects/script-1.0
You can also create a directory tree with the -p
parents option:
$ mkdir -p one/two/three/four
Delete files or directories
The command rm
lets you delete a file. Let's remove the
file work.txt which is in the current directory:
$ rm work.txt
The command rm
has several options. To delete a directory and
it's contents, we use the -rf
option.
Example:
$ rm -rf /home/hacker/Templates
Note you can also use the -i
option to remove files or directories and their contents interactively:
$ rm -ir /home/hacker/Templates
View files
To read the contents of a file or script, you can use the
less
, more
or cat
commands, or the web
browser Retawq. Examples with a README file, essential.txt, and
script.sh:
$ less -EM essential.txt or : $ more README or : $ cat /path/to/script.sh
Display a text or html file with the web browser Retawq:
$ retawq /usr/share/doc/index.html
Edit files
Editing text files, scripts, configuration files etc, can be done easily using the text editor GNU Nano in a console or graphical terminal. Example with a file bookmarks.html (<Ctrl+X> to quit and save):
$ nano Public/bookmarks.html
Cat
You can use the cat
command to create various text files. EOF signifies
End Of File, this is where the file ends. Example with a file packages.list, this
removes the current contents of the file and lets you add some new text:
$ cat > packages.list << "EOF" The text... and more text EOF
To append to the following text file, put two greater than signs
(>>) after cat
, example:
$ cat >> packages.list << "EOF" The text... EOF
Navigate the web
Surf the web quickly and simply with the 'retawq' text-mode web browser. Note that you can also use the local browser. You can then navigate easily with the arrows on your keyboard - links are colored blue and can be followed by pressing <ENTER>:
$ retawq http://www.slitaz.org/en or : $ retawq http://localhost/
Talk on IRC
To discuss and transfer files via the many IRC servers available, SliTaz provides Rhapsody. The IRC client is simple, fast and lightweight, providing a pleasant, easy to handle ncurses configuration menu. To start the application from a terminal connecting to server (irc.toile-libre.org) and joining #slitaz:
$ rhapsody /connect irc.freenode.net /join #slitaz
Download files
To download various file formats on the internet, you have the wget
command. To grab a simple html page, the contents of a folder or an entire
website:
$ wget http://www.slitaz.org/en/doc/handbook/
List the available partitions
To list the partitions on an internal or external hard drive, you can use
cat
to display the contents of /proc/partitions
or use the fdisk
utility with the -l
option
meaning list. You can then mount the individual partition(s)
that you want to use:
$ cat /proc/partitions or : # fdisk -l
Mount a partition, CD or USB drive
To mount a local partition in the SliTaz filesystem, we recommend you use
the /mnt directory. Example creating the necessary directory and mounting
the hda6
partition of the first local hard drive on /mnt/hda6:
# mkdir -p /mnt/hda6 # mount -t ext3 /dev/hda6 /mnt/hda6
SliTaz functions in RAM, you can mount the same cdrom or remove it to mount another (/dev/cdrom is a link on the first cdrom drive). Note that a cdrom is a removable medium and should be mounted on /media:
# mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
To mount a USB or flash drive you must specify the proper filesystem.
Normally a USB key is formatted in FAT32 which can be read from GNU/Linux
and Windows operating systems. On a GNU/Linux system is it generally
recognized as the sda1 device - we now prepare a link sda1
on
flash
to facilitate the task. Note it is also a removable medium
and should be mounted on /media:
# mount -t vfat /dev/flash /media/flash
Turn off the system or restart
To stop or restart SliTaz, you can use the halt
or reboot
commands or the <Ctrl+Alt+Delete> key combination which enables a
system reboot. In case of any problems you can use the -f
option signifing forced:
# halt To restart : # reboot Or : # reboot -f