Most people are familiar with rebooting their Linux system with a few clicks of the mouse, but not everyone is as familiar with rebooting a Linux system from the command line. It may seem daunting, but learning; how to reboot Linux with a command can be an invaluable skill.
Imagine suddenly, the system goes down or GUI not responding. Now, you need to get it back up and running quickly. Knowing how to reboot the Linux system from the command line can save the day. In this guide, we will discuss how to reboot a Linux system with a command, so let’s begin.
Difference Between Rebooting and Restarting
Understanding the difference between rebooting and restarting is important when learning how to reboot a Linux system from the command line.
Rebooting is the process of shutting down the system and then starting it up again. Restarting is the process of shutting down the system and then starting it up again without shutting it down.
Rebooting is more thorough because it ends all ongoing activities or tasks on the computer. Restarting is less thorough because it leaves any running processes and unfinished tasks in place.
How to Reboot Linux System with Command
Linux is an open-source operating system widely used for various purposes, including servers, desktops, and embedded systems. As with any operating system, it is essential to know how to reboot Linux when necessary.
To reboot a Linux system with a terminal command, you must first open the terminal. The terminal is a command-line interface that allows you to interact with the Linux system using text commands. You can open the terminal by pressing “Ctrl + Alt + T” or check our guide on; how to open a Terminal on Ubuntu Linux.
Here is a list of ways you can use to reboot your Linux system with the Terminal:
1. Reboot Command
The straightforward method to reboot a Linux system is by using the reboot command. For that, open the terminal and run the following command:
sudo rebootThe command will reboot the system immediately. It is recommended to use this command only when necessary, as it does not provide any warning or prompt.
2. Shutdown Command
You can also use the “Shutdown” command to reboot your Linux system. For that, run the below command:
sudo shutdown -r nowThe command will shut down the system and immediately reboot it. The -r option specifies that the system should reboot after shutting down, and the now option specifies that the shutdown should happen immediately.
3. INIT command
You can also use the init command. It is the first process executed by the kernel during the booting of a system. To reboot your system using the init command run the following terminal command:
sudo init 6It is a legacy command that is used to reboot the system. In Linux, the init 6 command gracefully reboots the system running all the Kernel shutdown scripts first, before rebooting.
The reboot command does a very quick reboot. It doesn’t execute any kill scripts, but just unmounts filesystems and restarts the system.
Note:- sudo init 6 is not commonly used on modern Linux distributions.
4. Reboot Linux System with systemctl
You can also reboot your Linux system using the “systemctl” command. For that, run the following command on the Terminal:
sudo systemctl rebootThe command will reboot the system using the systemd service manager, the default system manager on many modern Linux distributions.
The above-mentioned four commands can reboot any Linux system.
Note:- It is important that rebooting a Linux system will close all running applications and processes, so save any unsaved work before initiating a reboot.
Conclusion
That’s it; this is how you can reboot a Linux system with a terminal command. Learning; how to reboot Linux with a command line can be a valuable skill. With practice, anyone can learn how to use the terminal to reboot the Linux system.
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