Your First Commands

Let's learn the most essential commands you'll use every day.

date — Current date and time

date

whoami — Who are you?

whoami

hostname — Machine name

hostname

uname — System information

uname -a

The -a flag means "all information".

uptime — How long has the system been running?

uptime

clear — Clear the terminal

clear

Or press Ctrl+L as a shortcut.

Getting Help

Most commands print a short guide with --help, and man opens the full manual (press q to leave it):

ls --help
date --help
man ls

💡 A few commands are built into the shell itself and work differently — echo --help just prints --help. For those, ask the shell: help echo.