[LINUX HOW-TO] Usefull terminal commands !

For many years i've been fidling around learning
ubuntu/linux and came around quite a good deal of usefull
commands. I wanted to make a register of my most used terminal commands
when fidling with problems in ubuntu/xbmc

IMPORTANT: Linux is CaSe sensitive so if a you e.g type in
the command Df -h nothing will happen because
the command is df - h with lower case characters. The same
applies to directories and files.

A nice general guide to the linux bash world:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=3...ostcount=1

How to get into the linux terminal ?
U can do this 2 ways. The first is by using your local
keyboard and tv directly. If you have xbmc on the screen
you cant press CTRL ALT F2 to open a bash window
To get back to xbmc you can hit CTRL ALT F7

The way i prefer to do it is by logging into my linux box remotely
from my windows laptop. Both your xbmc box and laptop must be on the same subnet to get it working:
Download putty, it's a small free SSH/Telnet client
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtat...nload.html
Get the version that matches your windows build

When installed open putty.exe and type in your xbmc box ip adress
and port 22. Save it for later use by hitting the save button (create a name for the connection in the saved session field first)

Load your XBMC saved session by double clicking it from the list
You should now be greeted with a terminal window asking you for a password


General info commands
(does not change anything and should be harmless)

Check Disk Space:

Check what linux distro you are using:

Check what linux kernel you have:

Get info about a package installed:

List all usb devices connected:

To generaly test your sound using aplay:

More Speaker Testing:

List your soundcard device:

List out all hardware detected:

Get all boot-time kernel logging for a system:

Same as above but also with timestamps:

To see what version of nvidia drivers installed:

Basic terminal commands:

To run a command with superusers privileges:
where "command" is any command you might want to run
with elevated priviliges

If you need to do extensive work as root you can do the following:
This way you keep your current users bash config and history

Or you can change to root user all together:

Be warned though, running commands inside a terminal
with root privileges is a fast way to fubar your system !!

More info about sudo:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

To return to your current users home directory from anywhere:

To list content of a folder:

To navigate to a folder:
This will take you to the X11 folder inside the etc folder

Edit files:
This will open xorg.conf for editing. To close nano without
changing anything hit CTRL X

To create new file:
Your home dir is located under /home/"your username"
On a standard xbmc live install if you logon in the terminal as user xbmc your homedir is /home/xbmc
In my examples i use /home/xbmc

This will create a text file called mytestfile.txt under your home dir.
Type in something in the file and hit CTRL X and nano will now ask
if you want to save changes - select Y and ENTER
The file is now saved.

To delete a file:

To create a directory:
Will create "testdir" in your home directory.

To remove a directory and all files subdirs:

To start/stop a program:

Another way to force a program to shutdown is by using the kill command:

To check your wired network info:

To check your wireless network info:

To scan wireless networks:

To restart the network:
If you made changes to your network config you need
to restart networking services. It will also renew your dhcp leases

Turning Network interfaces on/off
Sometimes when troubleshooting it can be handy to quickly take network interfaces up/down
to reinitialize the interface
Usually your wired network adapter will be "eth0" and your wirelss netowrk adapter will be "wlan0"
You can use the iwconfig to get a valid list.

To shutdown your linux box:
or

To reboot your linux box:

Usefull commands:
Warning these commands can change your system
so do not run them unless you need to. Use it as a refference only !

To update/upgrade your installed packages:
This will upgrade all packgages to latest version. Sometime
this can break functionallity so be carefull !

To update/upgrade specific package:
This will check of you have the latest version
and if there is a newer version it will ask you if you want to upgrade.

To uninstall a package:

To completely remove a package and all dependencies:
This will also remove all dependencies and might seriously break functionality !

Another way to remove packages can be:
Can be handy if something remains from an uninstall.

To free up disk space and get rid of left behind packages:
This will clean up temporary files and should not be dangerous to use.

To search for a package:
This will give you all available packages that contains the word "XBMC"

To fix broken installs/packages:
This will try to fix broken packages in your system.

To upgrade your current linux distro to a newer version:
This is a dangerous command and can break your install so do be carefull
and make backups of anything imporant. I have done this a few times
with no problems, however this is not always possible depending on your config/setup


Okay this is what i currently remember from my head, i will ad more
if i see something is forgotten. And as always any input to my list
is welcome ! Also please report if you find something you don't like
or if you have any commands you think should be here

In this section i will add usefull tips & tricks to make your xbmc life a little easier:

Tip1: (thanks to forum user MacUsers !)
Create a auto restart command for xbmc:

First of all make sure you have proper rights to perform the command:
Then create a xbmc-restart command:
Make it executable:

sudo nano mkdir /home/testdir

there is one nano too much

HeHe, indeed you are right, fixed !

I would add also:
aplay
dmesg
lspci

Good idea, i added them

For a keyboard less setup, restart XBMC with this:
For the convenience, create a file, as root user, with name something like: xbmc-restart in the "/usr/local/bin" and make it executable.
NOTE, the single quote [' ...'] in the printf line, otherwise it will not work. Then just use (as whatever user): to restart xbmc when it keeps you hanging on at the black screen. Cheers!!

Thanks for the tip MacUsers, i found it very useful so i have added
it to the Tips section !

why on EARTH are you advertising running commands that deletes a file in your home directory as the super user?

also last time i checked, /home is nobody's home directory

@The-Boxhead

Many thank's for your 'tips and tricks' when using Linux, I'm sure many of these commands will be invaluable to some of our users.

To follow up a little on what spiff was saying, most of your commands are 'abusing' the use of "sudo" especially when creating and editing files in your home directory (which would usually be /home/myusername/) then you as their owner already don't require super user privileges to delete. I think the reason your having to use sudo, is because your trying to add and delete files from the parent folder of your home directory, i.e. /home/

Generally speaking, this isn't a good place to be saving files, its a bit like saving directly to C:\Documents and Settings instead of C:\Documents and Settings\Malard

Could I ask that you up date your posts taking on board these thoughts?

Also, I'm sure other linux users far more knowledgeable than myself will be able to offer some improvements or ideas of other commands that people might find useful!

Thanks