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Linux

48 cheat sheets

Linux#

Essential Linux reference — bash, systemd, SSH, networking, and more.

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grep — Pattern Search

Search files and streams using fixed strings, extended regex, or PCRE. Covers all major flags, context, recursive search, and pipeline patterns.

May 25, 2026
grep regex search text-processing cli pipes web-researched

ripgrep (rg) — Fast Recursive Search

Modern grep replacement written in Rust. Respects .gitignore, searches hidden files optionally, supports PCRE2, and is significantly faster on large codebases.

May 25, 2026
ripgrep rg grep search text-processing cli rust web-researched

fd — Fast File Finder

Modern find replacement written in Rust. Simpler syntax, respects .gitignore, supports regex and glob patterns, parallel execution, and coloured output.

May 25, 2026
fd find files search cli rust web-researched

find — File Search

POSIX file finder with powerful expression-based filters for name, type, size, time, permissions, and ownership. Covers exec actions, pruning, and real-world recipes.

Apr 24, 2026
find files search cli posix filesystem

sed — Stream Editor

Non-interactive text transformation. Substitution, deletion, insertion, address ranges, in-place editing, and multi-line patterns with practical recipes.

May 25, 2026
sed stream-editor text-processing regex cli scripting web-researched

tar — Archive & Compress

Bundle directory trees into a single archive file with optional compression. Covers create/extract/list, gzip/bzip2/xz formats, exclusions, transforms, and incremental backups.

May 25, 2026
tar cli archives compression backup web-researched

vim — Modal Text Editor

Bram Moolenaar's modal editor. Covers modes, verb-noun grammar, text objects, registers, marks, windows, search-and-replace, quickfix, macros, configuration, and a high-value baseline .vimrc.

May 25, 2026
vim editor productivity cli terminal web-researched

awk / gawk — Text Processing

Pattern-action language for structured text. Field splitting, built-in variables, arithmetic, string functions, arrays, BEGIN/END blocks, and practical data-processing recipes.

May 25, 2026
awk gawk text-processing cli scripting data web-researched

rsync — Fast Incremental File Sync

Copy and synchronise files locally or over SSH using a delta-transfer algorithm that only sends changed parts. Covers archive mode, deletion, filtering, progress, and snapshot backups.

May 25, 2026
rsync cli networking sync backup web-researched

cut, paste & join — Column Tools

Extract columns by delimiter or byte position (cut), merge files column-wise (paste), and join on a common key field (join). Essential for tab/CSV/field-delimited data.

May 25, 2026
cut paste join text-processing cli csv columns web-researched

tmux — Terminal Multiplexer

Run multiple persistent terminal sessions, windows, and panes inside one shell. Covers the session/window/pane mental model, default keybindings, copy-mode, and a minimal tmux.conf.

May 25, 2026
tmux cli terminal productivity web-researched

sort, uniq & wc — Counting & Ordering

Sort lines (numerically, by field, human-readable sizes), deduplicate with uniq, count lines/words/bytes with wc, and number lines with nl. With real-world pipeline recipes.

Apr 24, 2026
sort uniq wc nl text-processing cli data

tr & xargs — Transform and Execute

Translate, squeeze, and delete characters with tr. Build and execute command lines from stdin with xargs. Includes parallel execution, NUL safety, and pipeline recipes.

Apr 24, 2026
tr xargs text-processing cli parallel pipes

permissions — chmod, chown, umask, ACLs

POSIX file permissions on Linux. Covers symbolic and octal chmod, ownership with chown, the meaning of r/w/x for files vs. directories, setuid/setgid/sticky bits, umask, ACLs, capabilities, and immutable attributes.

May 25, 2026
permissions chmod chown umask acl capabilities sysadmin security cli web-researched

cron — Scheduled Jobs

Time-based job scheduler on Unix. Covers crontab syntax, user vs. system crontabs, environment quirks, logging, anacron, and the modern systemd timer alternative.

May 25, 2026
cron scheduling sysadmin cli automation web-researched

df, du & duf — Disk Usage

Check filesystem free space (df), measure directory sizes (du), and view a colourful disk overview (duf). Covers all key flags, human-readable output, modern alternatives (dust, gdu, ncdu), and common sysadmin recipes.

May 25, 2026
df du duf dust ncdu gdu disk filesystem storage cli web-researched

bat — Better cat

A cat clone with syntax highlighting, Git integration, line numbers, paging, and diff support. Drop-in replacement with many quality-of-life improvements for viewing files in the terminal.

May 25, 2026
bat cat syntax-highlighting cli pager rust web-researched

eza / exa — Modern ls

A modern ls replacement with colour coding, Git status, icons, tree view, and rich metadata. eza is the actively maintained fork of the original exa project.

May 25, 2026
eza exa ls files cli rust git web-researched

jq — JSON Processor

Slice, filter, map, and transform JSON data from the command line. Covers all essential filters, built-in functions, select, map, reduce, streaming, jq 1.7/1.8 additions, and real-world API response processing.

May 25, 2026
jq json data cli api scripting web-researched

curl — HTTP Client

Transfer data with URLs. Covers HTTP methods, headers, authentication, forms, TLS, cookies, proxies, timeouts, parallel downloads, and a comprehensive recipe collection.

May 25, 2026
curl http api networking cli rest download web-researched

wget — File Downloader

Non-interactive network downloader. Covers single and batch downloads, recursive mirroring, authentication, resuming, rate limiting, and site archiving.

May 25, 2026
wget http download networking cli mirror wgetrc wget2 scraping cookies web-researched

ps, ss & netstat — Processes & Sockets

Inspect running processes (ps), list network connections and listening ports (ss / netstat). Covers output formats, filtering, process trees, and socket state analysis.

May 25, 2026
ps netstat ss processes networking sockets cli sysadmin web-researched

lsof & ss — Open Files and Sockets

Diagnose what's holding a port, which files a process has open, and the state of every TCP/UDP socket using lsof and the modern iproute2 ss utility.

May 25, 2026
lsof ss lsfd sockets networking processes debug cli sysadmin web-researched

make — Build Automation

Practical Makefile patterns: targets, prerequisites, automatic variables, pattern rules, parallel builds, and a working lint/test/build/clean workflow for any project.

May 25, 2026
make build automation scripting cli web-researched

ip — iproute2 Networking

Modern replacement for ifconfig, route, and arp. Inspect and configure interfaces, addresses, routes, neighbour tables, and network namespaces with the iproute2 ip command.

May 25, 2026
ip iproute2 networking sysadmin cli routing web-researched

Bash — Shell Scripting Reference

Comprehensive Bash scripting reference covering variables, parameter expansion, control flow, functions, arrays, string manipulation, arithmetic, traps, process substitution, and the Bash 5.3 in-shell command substitution forms.

May 25, 2026
bash shell scripting cli web-researched

git — Version Control

Complete Git reference. Setup, staging, committing, branching, merging, rebasing, stashing, remotes, tags, log inspection, undoing mistakes, submodules, and power-user aliases.

May 25, 2026
git version-control cli branching workflow devops web-researched

nano — Friendly Terminal Text Editor

GNU's small, on-screen-hinted terminal text editor — the default modal-free alternative to vi/emacs that you can drive without ever learning a command vocabulary.

May 26, 2026
nano editor cli text terminal configuration web-researched

gh — GitHub CLI

Complete GitHub CLI reference. Auth, configuration, repos, issues, pull requests, releases, Actions, attestations, projects, models, rulesets, caches, secrets, gists, search, API, extensions, and codespaces.

May 25, 2026
gh github cli git devops workflow pull-requests actions attestation projects models copilot web-researched

fish — Friendly Interactive Shell

Comprehensive fish shell reference covering syntax, variables, functions, abbreviations, completions, config files, path management, prompt customization, Fisher plugins, fish 4.x features (Rust rewrite), and migration from bash/zsh.

May 25, 2026
fish shell terminal cli scripting zsh bash prompt functions config web-researched

ImageMagick — Image Manipulation

Comprehensive ImageMagick 7 reference covering magick, identify, mogrify, composite, montage, format conversion, resize, crop, rotate, color adjustments, effects, drawing, text, PDF operations, policy.xml hardening, and batch processing.

May 25, 2026
imagemagick magick convert mogrify images batch resize crop cli graphics pdf web-researched

SoX — Swiss Army Knife of Audio

Comprehensive SoX reference covering file info, format conversion, synthesis, playback, recording, combining, effects (trim, reverb, compand, rate, pitch, tempo, noise gate), batch processing, spectrograms, and piping.

May 25, 2026
sox audio wav mp3 flac conversion effects synthesis recording cli sound batch web-researched

FFmpeg — Multimedia Processing

Comprehensive FFmpeg reference covering transcoding, container conversion, scaling, filters, audio, subtitles, streaming, batch processing, and ffplay — with NVIDIA NVENC/NVDEC/CUDA alternatives, Vulkan compute codecs, VVC/H.266 decoding, and the FFmpeg 8.0 Whisper filter.

May 25, 2026
ffmpeg video audio transcoding nvenc nvdec cuda vulkan hevc h264 av1 vvc h266 hls rtmp ffplay gpu whisper cli web-researched

ffprobe — Media Stream Inspection

Comprehensive ffprobe reference for inspecting media files — formats, streams, frames, packets, chapters, metadata — with output formats (default, json, csv, xml, flat, ini), select_streams, show_entries, and one-liners for duration, fps, codec, resolution, and bitrate.

May 25, 2026
ffprobe ffmpeg video audio metadata json jq streams codec bitrate fps cli web-researched

dig — DNS Lookup Toolkit

Query DNS records of any type from any resolver — A, AAAA, MX, TXT, NS, SOA, SRV, CAA — with formatted output, reverse lookups, and full delegation tracing.

May 25, 2026
dig dns networking cli debug web-researched

gpg — OpenPGP Encryption & Signing

Practical GnuPG cheat sheet — generate keys, sign and verify files, encrypt for a recipient, sign git commits and tags, and manage trust without the bureaucracy.

May 25, 2026
gpg security crypto signing encryption cli web-researched

shellcheck — Shell Script Linter

Catch quoting bugs, missing checks, and POSIX portability mistakes in shell scripts. Covers every flag, severity levels, inline directives, CI/pre-commit integration, and the most common rules.

May 25, 2026
shellcheck shell scripting linting bash cli tooling web-researched

fzf — Fuzzy Finder

Interactive fuzzy finder for the terminal. Covers key bindings, shell integration, previews with bat and tree, multi-select, popup/tmux mode, --listen IPC, and pipelines with git, kill, and vim.

May 25, 2026
fzf cli search productivity fuzzy pipes web-researched

journalctl — systemd Journal Query

Query and follow systemd's structured journal. Covers unit filters, time ranges, priority levels, boot logs, namespaces, invocations, output formats, persistence, configuration, and disk-vacuum.

May 25, 2026
journalctl cli sysadmin logs systemd observability web-researched

htop — Interactive Process Viewer

Interactive process and resource monitor for the terminal. Covers function keys, sorting, filtering, signal sending, tree view, threads, and how to read load averages and memory correctly. Compares with top, btop, and bottom.

May 25, 2026
htop cli sysadmin monitoring processes web-researched

qsv — CSV Toolkit

Comprehensive reference for qsv: count, headers, stats, moarstats, select, search, sort, dedup, frequency, join, sqlp, luau, apply, schema, validate, sample, split, MCP server, and more — with examples and outputs.

May 25, 2026
qsv csv cli data rust polars xsv tabular mcp web-researched

apt-get Package Management

Debian and Ubuntu package management — update, install, remove, upgrade, and maintain packages with apt-get.

May 25, 2026
apt debian ubuntu packages package-management dpkg sources ppa gpg sysadmin web-researched

aria2c Download Utility

Fast, multi-protocol download utility supporting HTTP(S), FTP, SFTP, BitTorrent, and Metalink with resumption and parallel connections.

May 25, 2026
aria2c download http ftp torrent networking cli web-researched

Bash Redirection & Pipes

stdin, stdout, stderr redirection operators and pipeline patterns in bash.

May 24, 2026
bash shell redirection pipes file-descriptors heredoc process-substitution tee fifo

PCRE — Perl Compatible Regular Expressions

PCRE2 syntax reference — character classes, quantifiers, anchors, groups, lookarounds, backreferences, flags, and advanced features used in grep, sed, nginx, PHP, and dozens of other tools.

May 25, 2026
pcre regex grep linux cli patterns web-researched

SSH Tunnels & Port Forwarding

Local, remote, and dynamic SSH tunnels — port forwarding, SOCKS proxies, jump hosts, ssh_config directives, agent forwarding, autossh persistence, post-quantum key exchange, and operational recipes.

May 25, 2026
ssh networking tunnels security socks proxy bastion autossh ssh-agent post-quantum web-researched

systemd Unit Files

Writing, enabling, and managing systemd service, timer, and socket units.

May 25, 2026
systemd linux services daemons timers sockets sandboxing sysadmin web-researched

xidel Web Scraping & Data Extraction

Extract data from HTML, XML, and JSON using XPath, CSS selectors, pattern matching, and JSONiq from the command line.

May 25, 2026
xidel webscraping xpath html xml json data-extraction cli web-researched