10 Actually Useful Linux Commands You Probably Don't Know

You know ls, cd, and grep. Everyone does. The commands here are different — they’re the ones that, once you try them, make you wonder how you lived without them. Every entry replaces a built-in tool or solves a problem the standard tools leave unsolved.

The Commands

ncdu — Interactive disk usage analyzer that scans your filesystem and presents a navigable, sorted view of space consumption. Arrow keys to browse, d to delete. Replaces du -sh * with something you can actually explore.

fzf — Fuzzy finder that pipes any list (files, processes, Git branches, command history) into an interactive search. Start typing and it narrows results instantly. Pipe it with Ctrl+R for reverse search through command history — it’s transformative.

# Search through all files recursively, open selection in vim
vim $(fzf)

bat — cat with syntax highlighting, line numbers, and Git integration. Shows a +/- gutter for modified lines when viewing tracked files. Works with pipes too — bat file.rs | head still gets highlighting.

bat --style=numbers,changes script.py

ripgrep / rg — grep replacement that respects .gitignore, ignores binary files, and searches 10-100x faster. Recursive by default. Smart case sensitivity — only cases when the pattern has uppercase.

# Search all Rust files for async fn, ignoring .gitignore patterns
rg "async fn" --type rust

fd — find replacement with intuitive syntax. fd pattern instead of find -name 'pattern'. Respects .gitignore, supports regex, and colorizes output by default.

# Find CSV files modified in the last week
fd --extension csv --changed-within 1week

tmux — Terminal multiplexer that manages multiple shell sessions in one window, keeps processes running when disconnected, and splits panes into grids. Essential for remote servers: start a long task, disconnect, reconnect later and it’s still running.

tmux new -s build-session   # Create named session
# Ctrl+b d to detach
tmux attach -t build-session # Reattach later

jq — sed for JSON. Parses, filters, and transforms JSON from the command line. Indispensable for working with any API output.

curl api.github.com/repos/curl/curl | jq '.stargazers_count'

htop/btop — Interactive process viewer that’s immediately better than top. Color-coded, sort by any column, kill processes with a single key. btop adds GPU monitoring and mouse support.

htop
# Navigate with arrow keys, F9 to kill, F6 to sort

duf — Disk usage with clean, colorized tables. Better than df in every way — shows mount points, usage percentages, and available space in a human-readable format with automatic unit scaling.

duf
# Outputs a table of all mounted filesystems with usage

tldr — Simplified man pages with practical examples. When man is an information firehose, tldr gives you the 5 most common use cases. Community-maintained and significantly faster to read.

tldr tar
# Shows: extract, create, list, append with actual examples