Basic commands

To open Terminal

Press Alt+F2 and type gnome-terminal and press Run button.

File and directory commands

1. Print working directory

pwd

2. List files in current directory

ls

3. Copy

cp foo bar

to make an exact copy of foo and name it bar. foo will be unchanged.

4. Move

mv foo bar

will rename the file foo to bar

mv foo ~/Desktop

will move the file foo to your Desktop directory but will not rename it.

5. Remove

rm foo

deletes the file foo from the current directory.

6. Make directory

mkdir music

will create a directory named music in the current directory.

Reference: Ubuntu 8.10 Help Center Basic commands