bash
A long, example-heavy cheat sheet of common bash and Unix commands and shell scripting basics.Idnan/bash-guide
- Stars
- 12.5k
- Forks
- 1k
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- —
- Last update
- 2.2 years ago
- Type
- Learning resource
No commits in over a year — check for forks or alternatives before adopting.
What it is
This is a written guide to the bash shell, the command-line program used on many Linux and macOS systems. It walks through everyday commands like listing, copying, searching and compressing files, then moves into basic scripting topics such as variables, loops, functions and pipes. Each command comes with a short explanation and sample output.
- Look up how to list hidden files with ls -la or search text with grep
- Learn how to combine commands with pipes
- Practice writing a small shell script using variables and loops
- Use awk to pull fields out of a colon-separated file like /etc/passwd
Great for
- Beginners who want to learn common terminal commands by example
- People who prefer quick reference pages to long courses
- Someone who needs a refresher on file and text commands like grep, sed or awk
Not ideal for
- Readers looking for advanced scripting patterns, since the README covers basics and short tricks only (the README is truncated, so later sections may differ)
- Windows users without a bash environment, because the examples assume a Unix-like shell
- People who need up-to-date coverage, since the last push was in August 2024
How to get it
- 1
Read it online
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Idnan/bash-guide - 2
Run it
- Open the repository page at https://github.com/Idnan/bash-guide
- Read the table of contents and pick a section such as Basic Operations
- Open a terminal and try each example command on a test folder
- Move on to Basic Shell Programming when comfortable
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Try each example in a throwaway directory so deletes like rm -r cannot harm real files
- Use the table of contents to jump between file, text and programming sections
- Pair the guide with the man pages, for example whatis and which, to read deeper documentation
Downloads
Strengths
- Clear, short sections with runnable examples for each command
- Free and MIT licensed, so it can be read and reused openly
- Large community interest, with over 12,000 stars on GitHub
Trade-offs
- Appears to be a single README rather than a structured course, and the README here is truncated
- Some examples reflect a specific author's machine (macOS paths, xampp), so outputs may differ on your system
- Little detail on advanced debugging or multi-threading in the visible text
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.