This article is need of a clean-up. You can help out Linux Wiki by re-organizing parts of the article, checking grammar and spelling, and doing other helpful things to correct the article. Use the edit button on the page.

bash is short for Bourne Again SHell. It is one of the common Unix shells and the default shell for Linux. It is a simple programming language with choices, loops, function definitions making it suitable for various automated operating system tasks.

Example basic commands

command	meaning
apropos topic	you need a command, but don't have a name and therefore want to list all commands who have topic in their description
cd path	change current directory to path
cd ..	change current directory to parent directory
ls	list all files in current directory
ls *.u8	list all files matching pattern '*.u8' in current directory, for example 'log.u8', 'trash.u8', 'old.u8'
man topic	you know the name of a command, but not how to use it and therefore want to examine its manual
mv name.txt newname.log	move the file named name.txt to newname.log
rm trash.txt	remove the file named trash.txt

Links

Interwiki

• Debian wiki - details some of the basic commands

External Links

• Official website
• http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_learning_the_shell.php is an excellent tutorial for beginners.
• Linux Tutorial is another good tutorial for learning Bash.