Top 92 Linux / Shell Scripting Interview Questions & Answers (2026)

01 What is Linux? 02 What is the Linux kernel? 03 What is a shell in Linux? 04 What is the difference between Linux and Unix? 05 How do you list files and directories in Linux? 06 How do you change directory in Linux? 07 How do you display the current working directory? 08 How do you create a new directory? 09 How do you remove a file in Linux? 10 How do you copy a file in Linux? 11 How do you move or rename a file in Linux? 12 How do you view the contents of a file? 13 What is the difference between absolute and relative paths? 14 How do you display the manual for a command? 15 What is the root directory in Linux? 16 What is the home directory? 17 How do you create a new file in Linux? 18 What is the difference between / and ~ in Linux? 19 How do you check disk usage in Linux? 20 How do you check memory usage in Linux? 21 How do you view running processes in Linux? 22 How do you kill a process in Linux? 23 What are file permissions in Linux? 24 How do you change file permissions? 25 What does chmod 755 mean? 26 What is the difference between chmod and chown? 27 How do you find a file in Linux? 28 How do you search for text within files? 29 What is a symbolic link? 30 How do you create a symbolic link? 31 What is the difference between a hard link and a soft link? 32 How do you display the last few lines of a file? 33 How do you display the first few lines of a file? 34 What is a shell script? 35 How do you run a shell script? 36 What is the shebang line? 37 How do you make a script executable? 38 What are environment variables? 39 How do you display environment variables? 40 What is the purpose of the PATH variable? 41 What does the echo command do? 42 How do you use the history command? 43 What is the difference between single quotes and double quotes in bash? 44 How do you use wildcards (globbing) in Linux?

01 What is piping in Linux? 02 What is I/O redirection in Linux? 03 What is the difference between > and >> in shell redirection? 04 What are stdin, stdout, and stderr? 05 How do you use grep effectively? 06 What are regular expressions and how are they used in Linux? 07 How do you use sed for text processing? 08 How do you use awk for text processing? 09 What is a daemon in Linux? 10 What are file descriptors in Linux? 11 How do you schedule jobs with cron? 12 How do you set up SSH key authentication? 13 How does rsync work and when do you use it? 14 What are subshells in bash? 15 How do you pass arguments to a shell script? 16 What are special variables in bash? 17 How do you use arrays in bash? 18 How do you write conditional statements in bash? 19 How do you write loops in bash? 20 What is the difference between [ ] and [[ ]] in bash? 21 How do you handle errors in shell scripts? 22 What is the exit status of a command? 23 How do you define and use functions in bash? 24 What is command substitution in bash? 25 How do you use the xargs command? 26 What is the tr command used for? 27 How do you use the cut command? 28 What is the difference between fg, bg, and & in bash? 29 How do you use find with -exec? 30 What is the difference between source and executing a script? 31 How do you debug a shell script?

01 What is a named pipe (FIFO) in Linux? 02 How do Linux signals work? 03 What is process substitution in bash? 04 How do you use trap in shell scripting? 05 What is the difference between login and non-login shells? 06 How does the Linux boot process work? 07 What is systemd and how do you use it? 08 What is the /proc filesystem? 09 How do you write robust, production-grade shell scripts? 10 What is the difference between bash and POSIX sh scripting? 11 How do you implement file locking in shell scripts? 12 How do you use associative arrays in bash? 13 What are here documents and here strings in bash? 14 How do you use strace and ltrace for debugging in Linux? 15 What are Linux capabilities? 16 How do you use brace expansion and parameter expansion in bash? 17 What is the significance of IFS in bash?