Stop memorizing two sets of commands—these 7 work on Windows and Linux

Stop memorizing two sets of commands—these 7 work on Windows and Linux Credit: Dibakar Ghosh | How-To Geek By  David Delony Published May 30, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT David has been lifelong fan of technology who loves putting his passion into words. A journalist by training, he discovered the power of Unix-like operating systems when learning how to edit video on macOS, back when it was still called Mac OS X, in the mid-2000s. A lover of retrocomputing, he appreciates the vast history of Unix that Linux continues today. David holds a BA in communication from California State University, East Bay. His writing has appeared in Techopedia, TMCnet , The Motley Fool blog network, and HTG's sister publication MUO , among others. Sign in to your How-To Geek account Add Us On follow Follow followed Followed Like Like Thread Log in Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different: Show me the facts Explain it like I’m 5 Give me a lighthearted recap If you want to use the Linux command line after using PowerShell or vice versa, you'll find many commands are the same between the two. From file management to networking , you can find many commands in common. cd Change directories The "cd" command , for "change directory," isn't particularly exciting, either in Linux or Windows. It just does its job, which is to change the working directory, or the directory that you're currently in. On Linux, you can supply the cd command with the absolute or relative pathname you want to go to. Suppose you wanted to go to the /usr/share/doc directory, you'd type: cd /usr/share/doc If you were in your home directory and wanted to go to the docs directory that was a subdirectory of your home directory, you would type: cd docs You can go up a subdirectory relative to the current working directory by adding using ".." (two periods) as the argument: cd .. You can go to your home directory by just using the cd command by itself. The cd command in PowerShell is similar.