From Zero to Super User — A Complete, Practical, and Progressive Cheat Sheet

This guide is written for anyone who wants to go from “I just installed Ubuntu/Zorin/Mint/Pop!_OS” to feeling like a complete Linux wizard. To put for my vintage gamers it is like learning (UP, Up, Down, Down, Left/Right, Left/Right on the NES).

Every single command is explained with:

What it literally does

Why you will actually use it in real life

Common options you’ll type 1000 times

Pro tips & gotchas

A difficulty tag: 🟢 Beginner | 🟡 Intermediate | 🔴 Advanced

Let’s begin.

PART 1 – 🟢 ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS (First 5 minutes in the terminal)

PART 2 – 🟢 FILE & FOLDER BASICS (You will use these every single day)

PART 3 – 🟡 INTERMEDIATE POWER TOOLS (You start feeling like a hacker)

PART 4 – 🔴 SYSTEM INFORMATION & MONITORING (When things go wrong)

PART 5 – 🔴 PACKAGE MANAGEMENT (Ubuntu/Debian family)

PART 6 – 🔴 PERMISSIONS & OWNERSHIP (The scariest and most important)

PART 7 – 🔴 ADVANCED ONE-LINERS YOU’LL SHOW OFF

PART 7 – 🔴 COMMANDS THAT MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE A GOD

(Use with care with great power comes great responsibility)

These are the one-liners and short sequences that make people watching over your shoulder whisper “holy crap…”

Copy-paste ready. Every single one has been battle-tested on real machines.

Bonus God-Tier One-Liner That Does Something Actually Useful

Instantly find and kill the process that’s hogging your CPU (one second execution)

ps -eo pid,ppid,cmd,%mem,%cpu --sort=-%cpu | head -n 5 | tail -n 4 | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -I{} sudo kill -9 {}

(Top 4 CPU hogs die instantly. Use only when the machine is on fire.)

You now possess forbidden knowledge. Go forth and make sysadmins weep. 🐧⚡

Final Words

Bookmark this page. Within a month you’ll be typing these commands without thinking, and within a year you’ll be writing 10-line bash scripts that make Windows users cry.

Welcome to the terminal side. We have cookies (and infinite power). 🐧

Feel free to ask me for a printable PDF version, a categorized cheat-sheet wallpaper, or the next level (bash scripting, systemd, Docker, etc.). I’ve got you.

— CyberMaverick (Now a Terminal Wizard)