Some Useful Ubuntu Commands

Here’s a useful guide for some IT people that are getting into Linux, and more specifically Ubuntu.

Basically, it’s a reference for Windows users to do Linux-type commands. I’ll be adding to this post as time goes on.

Shell Commands

sudo -i set the command shell to have root privileges

Networking Commands

ifconfig shows network information (ipconfig in Windows)

ifdown eth0 && ifup eth0 restart your network adapter and get new IP address

ifconfig eth0 192.168.99.14 netmask 255.255.255.0 up change your IP address

route add default gw 192.168.99.254 set the default gateway

System Commands

init 0 shutdown

init 6 reboot

dmesg print diagnostic messages from the kernel

Disk tools

df Show a summary of disk usage

du Show a directory tree space usage (some nice modifiers in this 🙂 )

tune2fs Allows you to modify disk and filesystem settings. Useful for removing reserved disk space on ext filesystems.

Services

invoke-rc.d service restart Start / Stop a service

update-rc.d service defaults 99 Add service to startup scripts

Flash

sudo dpkg-reconfigure flashplugin-installer Reinstall Adobe Flash

Other

uname -a and cat /etc/issue to know what version and distro of Linux you are running

Converting FLVs to playable video

Downloading FLV videos can be a nuisance, as there are few regular players that they work on.

In Linux, there are various ways to convert FLV files to other formats. I’m hoping to build up a collection of commands and comment on the quality of the result.

Hopefully others will find it useful.

FFMpeg

<code>ffmpeg -i video.flv -ab 56 -ar 22050 -b 500 -s 320x240 test.mpg</code>
<code>ffmpeg -i video.flv -ab 128 -ar 22050 song.mp3</code>

If you know any more drop me a line…