One of the great things about Linux, OS X, and other operating systems that are UNIX based is that you can use a lot of the same command prompt commands to do a lot of interesting stuff. Here are 10 of the most useful commands that you can use whether you're in a Linux terminal, OS X terminal, etc. Most of them will work straight out of the box, but some like apt-get, yum, etc. will only work with specific distributions or add-ons for operating systems that don't normally support the command.

Change Directory (cd)

This command is used to change your current directory, this command will accept both absolute and relative paths as below example (consider you are in your home directory):

cd /home/bob/Desktop

Or

cd Desktop

Move (mv)

This command is used to move a file to a different location or rename it as the below example:

Moving:

mv /home/bob/test /home/bob/Desktop/test

Renaming:

mv /home/bob/test /home/bob/test2

List (ls)

The ls command is used to list the folders and file inside a directory, most people use this command with the -a & -l options, -a will display hidden files and -l for long listing format, the below output is for the ls -al command:

drwx------ 4 501 502 4096 Mar 21 10:39 .
drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root 4096 Oct 1 11:10 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 501 502 18 Dec 2 2011 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 501 502 176 Dec 2 2011 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 501 502 124 Dec 2 2011 .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 501 502 500 Jan 23 2007 .emacs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Mar 21 10:39 file
drwxr-xr-x 2 501 502 4096 Nov 12 2010 .gnome2
drwxr-xr-x 4 501 502 4096 Jan 24 2012 .mozilla

Make Directory (mkdir)

This command is used to create a directory as the below example:

mkdir /home/bob/newfolder

Remove directory (rm)

This command is used to remove files and directories, to remove directories that contains files or folder you need to a add -r &-f options, the -r for recursive and -f for force as below:

rm -rf /home/bob/folder

Super user do (sudo) & Switch user (su)

The sudo command is used to run commands as the root user and the su command is used to change user as the below commands:

sudo service httpd restart //restart the service as root
su bob //switch the current user to bob

apt-get & yum

apt-get and yum commands are used to install or update packages, apt-get is used in Debian based distributions like Ubuntu and Mint, yum is used in the Redhat based distributions like Fedora and CentOS, they are used as the below example:

apt-get install Package-Name
yum install Package-Name

World Wide Web and get (wget)

This command is used to download files from http or ftp servers, you can resume a downloading file using -c option as the below example:

wget http://path-to-the-file //download a file
wget -c http://path-to-the-file //resume a download file

top

The top command provides a real-time view of the running system or server, the below is sample of the output of this command:

OW2, the international open source community for infrastructure software, and Mandriva, the company that gave the world one of the most popular Linux distributions, announce today that Mandriva has joined the OW2 Consortium as a Corporate Member to leverage its global community and outreach as Mandriva embarks on a renewed enterprise strategy.

Mandriva has recently gone through a reorganization and is currently redefining its strategy. While the well-known Mandriva Linux operating system is being returned to the open source community via a non-profit foundation called the Mandriva Linux Foundation, the company is repositioning its commercial operations on the corporate market including enterprises, government organizations and educational institutions. It provides tools that are simple to use and install while offering an advanced open source solution to manage heterogeneous IT infrastructure. As a natural complement to this strategic shift, Mandriva SA is looking to the OW2 Consortium as a support for the redeployment of its international strategy specifically in Europe and Brazil.

“Mandriva Linux only provides the best of open source software solutions. Because of this, we understand the importance of actively participating within the community and in helping to spur open source innovation,” said Mandriva CEO Jean-Manuel Croset.“We view OW2 as one of the most respected communities to ensure ongoing freedom of action, and encourage continued collaboration and advances in open source.”

Based in Paris, Mandriva is fully committed to free and open source software. As part of its commitment to the open source community, Mandriva develops, maintains and distributes free products including: Mandriva Linux 2011, a simple, open and innovative desktop Linux distribution, Enterprise Server 5.2, a simple, high-performance, accessible Linux server, Mandriva Directory Server (MDS), an easy-to-use LDAP directory management solution, and Pulse 2, a powerful IT infrastructure management system quick to install.

Emcraft Systems, a leading provider of Linux solutions for microcontrollers, is pleased to announce immediate availability of a system-on-module (SOM) based on the Freescale Kinetis K70 MCU.

This SOM incorporates a 150 MHz Kinetis K70 MCU from Freescale Semiconductor, as well as 64 MBytes of LPDRAM, 128 MBytes of NAND Flash, and an Ethernet PHY. It is small in size (50x37 mm) and comes pre-loaded with U-Boot and uClinux.

The K70 SOM is specifically designed to make it easy, quick, and cost-effective for embedded system designers to start using the Kinetis K70 device and uClinux software in their applications.

“I’m excited to see uClinux running on Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 based microcontrollers,” said Kent Meyer, cofounder and Managing Director at Emcraft Systems, LLC. “Many embedded system developers recognize the cost- and time-to-market benefits of using embedded Linux. With our system-on-modules product line, we extend those benefits into the hardware design domain. System-on-modules take away the complexity of designing a core embedded system, allowing hardware designers to focus on the specific requirements of their application.”

The Linux BSP and software development environment that are bundled with the K70 SOM are provided in full source code and royalty-free.

The K70 System-on-Module is priced at $49 in 500-unit quantities. Further information on this module can be found at http://www.emcraft.com/freescale-kinetis-k70-som.