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I just start using Unix and terminal, and find myself constantly typing searches for individual unix command references. I'm wondering if you guys had any specific sites that you use for most of your reference that I could just bookmark and search. Figure it could possibly save some time.


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8 Answers 8

I always just Google for

man whatever

and the first hit is almost always the appropriate manual page.

Why don't use just use the man on your machine? –  Pascal Thivent Sep 20 '09 at 22:44
'apropos' is a more effective alternative IMO... –  Richard Marquez Sep 21 '09 at 3:08

Check out commandlinefu


Linux Man Pages online is a great reference. TLDP.org is also excellent, not only do they list the commands but many examples on how to use them.


I myself use these 2 sites:



but you must notice that when you want use these site you must have a little knowledge about command to find it easily. –  Am1rr3zA Sep 20 '09 at 23:31

This site is a decent command line reference for Linux, Mac OS X, PowerShell, Windows XP, SQL Server, and Oracle:



This is very comprehensive: Unix/Linux command overview


An easy and fast solution solution to get information about a command is to use the local information.

man <command>

And if you don't know the command the command, you could search for it using

man -f <keyword>

or it's equivalent

whatis <keyword>

This website covers a pretty good range. It's a bit slow, and maybe too gentle, but good for starting from scratch: http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Teaching/Unix/

For sed, I like this one: http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/Sed.html

(The rest of his site has lots more: http://www.grymoire.com/Unix/)

For find, here's a start: http://content.hccfl.edu/pollock/Unix/FindCmd.htm

It's a dead-tree thing, but I also highly recommend The Linux Phrasebook by Scott Granneman.