A Minimal Set of UNIX Commands

The following is a very small but useful subset of UNIX operating system commands. Throughout, fname stands for the name of a file.

exit  Logs you off the system: ALWAYS log off before leaving!
passwd  Lets you change your password.
man command name   HELP: explains command name (like man rm ).
ls   Lists file names.
less fname   Displays fname on screen, one page at a time.
laser fname   Prints fname on the laser printer.
draft fname   Prints fname on the dot matrix printer.
rm fname   Removes fname, erasing it forever.
cp fname1 fname2   Copies fname1 to fname2
mv fname1 fname2   Moves (renames) fname1 to fname2
emacs fname   Starts the EMACS text editor, editing fname (can be new file)
pico fname   Starts the PICO text editor, editing fname (can be new file). The PINE email program uses pico to edit messages, so it may be familiar.
sas fname   Executes SAS commands in fname.sas, yielding fname.log and (if no errors) fname.lst
ps   Shows active processes.
kill -9 #   Kills process (job) number # : Sometimes you must do this when you can't log off because there are stopped jobs.