It’s 58 Linux commands on one page, grouped by what you’re actually trying to do instead of listed alphabetically. Files and text, users and permissions, packages, processes, networking, and file transfer, each with a one-line description you can read in passing.
Is it a free download? Yes. Drop your email below and it lands in your inbox. No payment, no card.
Why These Linux Commands Are Grouped, Not Alphabetical
An alphabetical list puts apt next to apropos and nowhere near dpkg, snap, or pip, the other package managers you’d actually be choosing between. That’s the problem with most Linux commands cheat sheets. They’re sorted for the file system, not for your brain.
This one groups by task instead. Need to change who owns a file? chmod and chown sit next to useradd, usermod, and sudo, because permission problems and user problems are usually the same problem. Need to check what’s using the network? ss, netstat, lsof, and ip sit together, because that’s the order you’d actually run them in while troubleshooting.
The Linux Command Most People Learn Wrong
su and sudo get used like they’re interchangeable. They’re not. sudo runs one command as another user, usually root, and logs which user did it. su switches your whole session to that user until you exit, and by default that user is root, with no per-command log.
On a shared server, that difference is the entire reason an incident review can or can’t tell you who ran what. Worth remembering.
Terminal, Shell and Command Line: What the Words Actually Mean
Three terms get used interchangeably in every Linux commands tutorial, and mixing them up is harmless until you’re googling an error and don’t know which word to search for.
The terminal is the window. It’s just a text box that sends what you type somewhere and prints what comes back, the same role a phone’s screen plays for a call. The shell is the program actually reading your input and running it, bash on most distros, zsh on newer Ubuntu releases and macOS. The command line is the broader idea: interacting with a computer by typing text instead of clicking. Every command on this sheet is a command-line instruction, typed into a terminal, interpreted by a shell.
What’s Inside: The Full Linux Commands List by Group
- Files and text, 21 commands:
ls,cd,cat,mkdir,touch,tree,mv,cp,nano,find,locate,grep,sed,awk, and the rest of the text pipeline (head,tail,sort,cut,tr,column,wc) - Users, groups and permissions, 10 commands:
sudo,su,useradd,userdel,usermod,addgroup,delgroup,passwd,chmod,chown - Package management, 6 commands:
apt,aptitude,dpkg,snap,pip,gem, covering Debian, Snap, Python and Ruby in one table - Processes and sessions, 9 commands:
ps,who,env,jobs,bg,fg,kill,systemctl,journalctl - Networking, 4 commands:
ifconfig,ip,netstat,ss, the Linux side of the same layers covered in our OSI Model Cheat Sheet PDF. Want the next layer up, VLANs and bridges built on top of these same interfaces? Proxmox Homelab Networking: VLANs, Bridges and Bonds walks through it on real hardware. - File transfer, 3 commands:
curl,wget,python3 -m http.server - Devices and version control, 5 commands:
lsblk,lsusb,lspci,lsof,git - Print ready, one page: built for A4 and US Letter, double-sided, so it sits next to your keyboard instead of living in a browser tab
Want to see six of these run back to back in a real setup? Wazuh SIEM Home Lab: How to Install It With Docker uses apt, curl, and docker in that exact order to get a working SIEM up in an afternoon.
Basic Linux Commands to Learn First
Fifty-eight commands in one sitting is too many to hold at once, so here’s the honest order. Start with the five you’ll type before any other: ls, cd, cat, mkdir, and cp. Those get you moving around and looking at things, which is 80% of what a beginner actually does in week one.
Next, sudo, chmod, and find cover almost every “why won’t this work” moment: wrong permissions, wrong user, or you can’t find the file in the first place. After that, ps and kill for when something’s stuck, and apt (or your distro’s equivalent) for installing anything else you need along the way.
Everything past that, sed, awk, systemctl, the networking group, is genuinely useful but not urgent on day one. Learn it when a real task forces you to, not before.
Go deeper
These 58 commands get you into the terminal. The labs teach you what to build there.
The DevOps Certification Workbook: 42 hands-on labs across 280 pages where you put Linux to work with Docker, Jenkins, Terraform and Kubernetes.
Start the DevOps Labs →Who It’s For
- Anyone starting Linux from zero who needs the 58 commands that cover 90% of daily work, not a 300-command manual. Setting up a machine to actually run these on? Home Lab Setup for Network Engineers walks through the hardware and VM options.
- CompTIA Linux+ or Security+ candidates who need the CLI half of the exam automatic. Headed toward SOC work after that? Our Wazuh SIEM Workbook picks up right where the permissions and process commands here leave off.
- Windows admins picking up Linux for a new role, who know what they want to do but not yet what it’s called in Linux.
- Anyone about to start our DevOps Workbook who wants the command reference open in a second tab.
It’s a lookup table, not a course. There’s no shell scripting, no piping chains explained, no sed/awk syntax beyond what the command does. If you want that depth, our 280-page DevOps Workbook goes further.
Already comfortable with the commands and want to test yourself out loud? The Free DevOps Interview Questions PDF runs 180 Q&As across the same toolchain, Linux administration included.
