Just as in a real manual, the documentation is meant to help refine a particular question about the command. Users who are new to UNIX and are not familiar with man syntax may find the man pages difficult to understand. Basic UNIX commands Return to TOP UNIX brevity UNIX is notorious for having very brief and difficult to remember commands. Most basic UNIX commands are two or three characters long and they often seem to have no relationship to the command's function. Almost all UNIX commands can be appended or edited by a switch.
Switches allow certain refinements and customization to each command.
Most UNIX switches are used by adding '-' and the letter of the switch. Listing files Probably the first important command to learn in a new operating system is the command which lists the files and directories. In UNIX, this command is ls for list files. If more than one switch is used, the switches may combined. Copying files The UNIX copy command is cp .