Here are some basic linux commands. Some are
well known and some aren't.
These work on my Mandrake 8.1 system.

xkill Kills a running program
exit Exits the terminal
reboot Reboots the system
halt Shutsdown the computer
startx Starts xwindows from terminal
man man(command)shows help files
info info(command) shows help files
--help (command)--help shows help files
su Allow you to login as Super User

ls "Lists" the contents of the directory
pwd Displays "present working directory"
cd cd (name) change directory TO:(name)
mkdir mkdir (name) Makes new directory
rmdir rmdir (name) Removes directory
clear Clears the terminal window

date Displays current date and time
cal Displays a calander
uptime Displays time since last reboot
df Displays the disk usage on partitions
du Displays disk usage of directory

id Displays your identification to system
groups Displays groups of current user
ulimit -a Displays users limits
uname Displays name of machine logged into
who Displays "who" is logged on the system
w Similar to "who"

wall Sends message to all logged in users
top Displays cpu processes memory etc
ps Displays current running processes

----------------------
RPM's Mandrake and RedHat

Check if installed already
rpm -q

To Install the rpm
rpm -ih

To Update a program using an rpm
rpm -Uvh

Many of the commands listed above have
options that can be added to change the
output of that command. To see what they are
do a : man (command) and it will show you the
options.

The command line is hard to learn to use at
first ..... really hard for us converted MS$
users :) but it is worth the effort.

To start a program "like Opera" type the name
at the command prompt:
$ opera

There are many file commands that I didn't
list due to the complexity of them. Read up
on them and you can harness the power of your
computer from the command line!