Arch Linux is a popular Linux distribution known for its simplicity and flexibility. It’s a Linux distribution that updates on a rolling basis, so users are required to keep up to date. Hence, operating Arch Linux is challenging for complete beginners. In this cheat sheet, I will provide quick and useful commands that will help both new and experienced users alike while working in Arch Linux.
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Arch Linux Commands List
Like, other Linux distros Arch Linux has various commands to perform different tasks. Using these commands, a user can interact with the operating system, manage packages and files, connect with network and so on. The below lists contain commands of different categories available in Arch Linux.
System Management
System commands in Arch Linux include tools for managing packages, monitoring system performance, controlling system services, and accessing system logs. Frequently used commands of this type are listed below:
Package management is crucial for any Linux distribution to employ it for the desired purpose. In Arch Linux, package management commands are used to install, remove, and update software packages, dependencies, and libraries. Below are the most useful package management commands of Arch Linux. Using commands of this section one can create, copy, move and delete files and directories. Here is a short list of file management commands available in Arch Linux. There are lot of commands in Arch Linux that are designed for managing and troubleshooting network-related issues. These commands allow users to configure network settings, check connectivity and diagnose connectivity problems. User management commands are used to create, modify and delete users and groups. Some frequently used user management commands are as follows: Arch Linux has multiple commands to create, manage and extract files and directories from compressed archives. The most useful commands of this type are listed below: There are many other Arch Linux commands that don’t fit into a specific category or have multiple usages. Learning these commands will definitely save the time and effort of a user. In conclusion, the Arch Linux cheat sheet covers a variety of commands, including package management, system configuration, networking and others. By following the commands outlined in the cheat sheet, users can easily customize their Arch Linux system and perform necessary tasks.Commands
Description
systemctl
Manage system services
journalctl
Query and view system logs
hostnamectl
Set or view the hostname of the system
timedatectl
Set or view the system time and time zone
hwclock
Display or set the hardware clock
shutdown
Shut down or reboot the system
reboot
Reboot the system
lsblk
Display information about block devices
dmidecode
Display information about the system’s hardware components
hwinfo
Display detailed information about the system’s hardware components
lshw
Display detailed information about the system’s hardware components
lspcmcia
Display information about PCMCIA devices
lsdev
Display information about all devices on the system
lsmod
Display information about loaded kernel modules
modprobe
Add or remove kernel modules
dmesg
Displays bootup messages
systemd-analyze
Analyze and display system boot-up performance
systemd-nspawn
Create and manage containers
docker
Create and manage containers
podman
Alternative to docker that manages containers and images
sync
Flush file system buffers to disk
uptime
Display system uptime and load averages
free
Display information about system memory usage
chroot
Change the root directory of a process
cron
Schedule periodic tasks
at
Schedule one-time tasks
crontab
Manage cron jobs for a user
smartctl
monitoring and controlling the SMART attributes of hard drives and SSDs
history
Display a list of previously executed commands
ltrace
Trace library calls
strace
Trace and analyze system calls and signals made by a process
valgrind
Debug and profile programs
gdb
Debug programs
pidof
Find the process ID of a running program
pgrep
Find the process ID of a running program based on its name or other criteria
pkill
Send a signal to a running process based on its name or other criteria
Package Management
Commands
Description
pacman
Install, remove, upgrade and manage packages
yay
AUR helper used to install packages from the Arch User Repository
flatpak
Install and manage applications in flatpak format
snap
Install and manage applications in snap format
makepkg
Create and manage Arch Linux packages
File Management
Commands
Description
ls
Display list of files and directories
cd
Change the current working directory
rm
Remove files and directories
cp
Copy files and directories
mv
Move files and directories
nano
Simple text editor
vi
A more advanced text editor
chmod
Change file permissions
chown
Change file ownerships
cat
Concatenate and display files
less
Show files one page at a time
head
By default display first ten lines of a file
tail
Display the last lines of a file
wc
Counts the number of lines, words and characters in a file
sort
Sort lines of text
uniq
Remove duplicate lines of text
cut
Extract columns of text from a file
paste
Merge lines of text from different files
sed
Perform text transformations on a file
awk
Manipulate and analyze text data
diff
Compare two files and directories
patch
Apply changes to a file or directory
alias
Create custom command shortcut
which
Display the location of a command
locate
Quickly find files and directories on the system
updatedb
Update the locate database
lsof
List open files and their associated processes
ps
Display information about running processes
kill
Send a signal to a process
renice
Change the priority of a process
nice
Start a process with specific priority
dd
Copy and convert data between files and devices
fdisk
Create and manage disk partitions
mkfs
Create a file system on a disk partition
mount
Mount file systems
umount
Unmount file systems
fsck
Check and repair file systems
blkid
Display information about block devices
hdparm
Configure hard disk device parameters
lspci
Display information about PCI devices
lsusb
Display information about USB devices
tree
Displays directory structure in a tree format
ln
Create links between files and directories
mkdir
Create directories
rmdir
Remove empty directories
touch
Update the modification and access time of a file or create a new empty file
file
Determine the type of file
hexdump
Display the contents of a file in hexadecimal format
md5sum
Calculate the MD5 checksum of a file
cpio
Create and extract cpio archives
sftp
Transfer files securely over SSH
sha256sum
Calculate the SHA-256 checksum of a file
find
Search files and directories
df
View Disk space usage
du
Estimates file space usage
grep
Search for text within files
ack
Seach and process text files
ripgrep
Search and process text files
top
Display real-time information about system resource usage
htop
An interactive process viewer and system monitor, similar to top but with more features and customizability
screen
Run multiple shell sessions or programs within a single terminal window or across multiple terminals
fuser
Identify which processes are using a specific file or directory
realpath
Display the absolute path of a file or directory
truncate
Shrink or extend the size of a file
stat
Display file or file system status
Network Management
Commands
Description
ip
Display and manage network
ping
Tests connectivity of a host
netstat
Display information about network connections, routing tables, and network interfaces
wget
Download files from the internet
curl
Transfer data from or to a server
ssh
Establish a secure shell connection to a remote server
scp
Securely copy files between servers
rsync
Synchronize files and directories between servers
tcpdump
Capture and analyze network traffic
nmap
Perform network exploration and security auditing
arp
Display and modify the ARP table
ss
Display information about network connections
iwconfig
Display and configure wireless network interfaces
ifconfig
Configure network interfaces
route
View and modify routing table
traceroute
Traces the route of a host
dig
Retrieve DNS records of a domain
host
Obtains information about a domain name or IP address
iptables
Configure Linux firewall
ipset
Manage ip sets
ssh-keygen
Generate and manage SSH keys
ssh-copy-id
Copy SSH keys to a remote server
byobu
Terminal multiplexer and session manager that includes additional features
cifs-utils
Mount and manage CIFS
mtr
Continuously monitors network connections and their quality
tig
Text-based interface for Git that provides a visual representation of Git branches, commit history, and changes
nmon
Display real-time system and hardware statistics, including CPU usage, disk I/O, and network traffic
hping3
Packet crafting and testing tool that can send various types of network packets
arp-scan
Discover hosts and network devices by sending ARP packets, and display their MAC and IP addresses
gparted
A graphical partition editor that allows to create, resize, move, and copy disk partitions
sshfs
Mount a remote file system over SSH protocol
slurm
A network load blancer and cluster management tool
jshon
Parse, manipulate and analyze JSON data in shell scripts
xdg-open
Open files or URLs with the default application configured in the system
ranger
A file manager and directory browser that supports various features like previews, bookmarks, and plugin integration
ddrescue
copy data from one file or block device to another
ytop
Display real-time information about system resourses
vnstat
Monitor network traffic and record and display bandwidth usage of interfaces
nc
Establish and manage network connections
iftop
Monitor network traffic in real-time
nethogs
Shows bandwidth usage by process
User and Group Management
Commands
Description
tmux
Manage multiple terminal sessions
whois
Query WHOIS databases
w
Display information about currently logged-in users
last
Display information about previous logins
glances
System monitoring tool with a web interface
iotop
Monitor input/output usage by processes and storage devices
uname
Display information about the system’s kernel and operating system version.
Compression and Archiving
Commands
Description
zip
Create and manipulate ZIP archive files
tar
Archive and compress files
unzip
Extract files from ZIP archives
bzip2
Compress and decompress files using the bzip2 algorithm
gzip
Compress and decompress files using the gzip algorithm
xz
Compress and decompress files using the xz algorithm
openssl
Manage digital certificates and perform encryption and decryption operations
ncdu
Analyze disk usage in a directory tree
7z
Extract files from 7z archives
e
Monitor the progress of data transfer between two processes
fdupes
Find and remove duplicate files in a directory tree, and can compare files
p7zip
Compress and decompress files and directories in various archive formats, including 7z, zip, tar, and gzip
qpdf
Manipulate and transform PDF files
Miscellaneous
Commands
Description
youtube-dl
Download videos and audio from various sources
newsboat
Fetch and display news articles from various sources
pandoc
Convert documents between various markup and document formats
mpd
Plays audio files from a local or remote directory
sshuttle
Tunnels all network traffic through an SSH connection, and can bypass various network restrictions and firewalls
feh
Supports various image formats and can display them in a slideshow or as a background wallpaper
mutt
A command-line email client
pine
command-line email client with a more traditional interface
elinks
Web browser with more advanced features than Lynx
lynx
A text-based web browser
strings
Extract human-readable strings from binary files
gpg
Encrypt and decrypt files and messages using public-key cryptography
sqlite3
a command-line tool for managing SQLite databases, and can create, modify, and query tables and records in a file-based database system
Conclusion