Introduction
coreutils (or GNU Core Utilities) is a collection of CLI tools, created by the GNU project, for Linux. Some of them are also available on MacOS or even Windows via special integrations. They are foundation of your terminal experience. You probably know commands like ls, cd, cat, mkdir... according to the Wikipedia page, they are over 100 commands in coreutils !
This guide will help you discover and teach you ways to learn them progressively, in addition to presenting delightful alternatives to some of them. Ever wanted to have ls with colors ? Its alternative eza is here !
Most common commands
If you want to learn more commands, we recommend you start with these most used commands below, from top to bottom.
| Command | Goal | Example |
|---|---|---|
ls |
List files and folders | ls -la to list all files in list modes, including hidden ones |
cat |
Show one or more files one after the other (concat files) | cat test.txt to show content of this file.cat *.md to show all Markdown files in the current folder |
cd |
Change directory to another one | cd /tmp to change the current directory to /tmp |
mkdir |
Make directory | mkdir images Create a new folder named images |
| TODO | TODO | Contribute more commands here ! This is an easy way to contribute. Add rm, mv, grep, touch, xargs, head, tail, less, cut, ... |