Appendix B A Comparison Of Common Dos And Linux Commands - Red Hat LINUX 7.2 Manual

A Comparison of Common DOS and Linux Commands
B A Comparison of Common DOS and
Linux Commands
Many Linux commands typed at a shell prompt are similar to the commands you would type in
MS-DOS. In fact, some commands are identical.
This appendix provides common commands used at the MS-DOS prompt in Windows 9x and their
counterparts in Linux. Basic examples of how the command are used at the Linux shell prompt are
also provided. Note that these commands usually have a number of options. To learn more about each
command, read its associated man page (for example, type man ls at the shell prompt to read about
the ls command).
Table B–1 Similar Commands
Command's
Purpose
Copies files
Moves files
Lists files
Clears screen
Closes prompt
window
Displays or sets date
Deletes files
"Echoes" output on
the screen
Edits files with simple
text editor
Compares the
contents of files
1 Pico is a simple text editor; other editors you can use in place of Pico include Emacs and vi.
MS-DOS Linux
copy cp
move mv
dir ls
cls clear
exit exit
date date
rm
del
echo echo
1
edit pico
fc diff
Basic Linux Example
cp thisfile.txt /home/ thisdi-
rectory
mv thisfile.txt /home/ thisdi-
rectory
ls
clear
exit
date
rm thisfile.txt
echo this message
pico thisfile.txt
diff file1 file2
193