The Linux community and a career in open source 11
CISA describes a memorable kind of strong password called a passphrase. What is it made of?CISA, Use Strong Passwords
Debian keeps three releases in active maintenance. On which one does active development happen, the one that is always called sid?Debian, Debian Releases
The free software definition numbers four freedoms. Which one is the freedom to run the program however you like and for whatever purpose?GNU Project, What is Free Software?, The four essential freedoms
From which document was the Open Source Definition originally derived?Open Source Initiative, The Open Source Definition
How often does an Ubuntu LTS release come out, and how long is its standard security maintenance?Canonical, Ubuntu release cycle, LTS releases
MariaDB Server was first designed as a drop-in replacement for which program?MariaDB Foundation, About MariaDB Server
What does apt-get install do that installing one package file by hand does not?apt-get(8), DESCRIPTION, install
What does copyleft require of modified and extended versions of a program?GNU Project, What is Copyleft?
Which open source application is made for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring?GIMP, About GIMP, Introduction
You downloaded the single file viewer.deb to a Debian system. Which command installs that file?dpkg(1), COMMANDS
You must give a talk with slides and want an open source tool. Which LibreOffice program is the one for presentations?The Document Foundation, LibreOffice, One suite. Six tools
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Finding your way on a Linux system 13
A directory holds report1.txt, report2.txt and report10.txt. Which names does the pattern report?.txt match?glob(7), DESCRIPTION
A directory holds the files .bashrc and notes.txt. Which command lists both?ls(1), DESCRIPTION
A manual page is open in the pager less. What do you type to search forward for the word mount?less(1), COMMANDS
The directory old still holds two files. What does rmdir old do?rmdir(1), DESCRIPTION
In which directory does the file system hierarchy put documentation about installed programs, such as README files?hier(7), DESCRIPTION
The name passwd has a manual page for the command and another for the file /etc/passwd. Which command opens the page about the file format?man(1), DESCRIPTION
The variable USER holds ana. What does echo "Files of $USER" print?Bash Reference Manual, 3.1.2.3 Double Quotes
What does cp need before it will copy a directory together with everything in it?cp(1), DESCRIPTION
What does the command history 5 show in Bash?Bash Reference Manual, 9.2 Bash History Builtins
What does the shell variable PATH hold?Bash Reference Manual, 5.1 Bourne Shell Variables
You are somewhere deep in /var/log and type cd with nothing after it. Where do you end up?Bash Reference Manual, 4.1 Bourne Shell Builtins
You type mkdir notes ; cd notes on one line. How does the shell run the two commands?Bash Reference Manual, 3.2.4 Lists of Commands
Your working directory is /home/ana/docs. Which directory does the relative path ../pics name?path_resolution(7), DESCRIPTION
The power of the command line 14
A script is started as ./greet.sh Ana Ben. Inside the script, what does $2 hold?Bash Reference Manual, 3.4.1 Positional Parameters
By shell convention, which exit status tells the caller that a command succeeded?Bash Reference Manual, 3.7.5 Exit Status
The fields of /etc/passwd are separated by colons. Which command prints only the first field of each line?cut(1), DESCRIPTION
The file log.txt already has lines in it. Which command adds the output of date to the end and keeps what is there?Bash Reference Manual, 3.6.2 Redirecting Output and 3.6.3 Appending Redirected Output
How many times does echo run in this loop? for f in a.txt b.txt c.txt; do echo $f; doneBash Reference Manual, 3.2.5.1 Looping Constructs
In vi command mode, which key starts inserting text before the cursor?vi(1p), EXTENDED DESCRIPTION, Insert Before Cursor
sort puts the line 10 before the line 9. Which option makes it compare the lines as numbers?sort(1), DESCRIPTION
Which command makes a gzip-compressed archive named docs.tar.gz from the directory docs?tar(1), DESCRIPTION
Which grep option makes the pattern error also match Error and ERROR?grep(1), OPTIONS
Which line gives the shell variable city the value Oslo?Bash Reference Manual, 3.4 Shell Parameters
Which of these lines does grep "c.t" print?GNU Grep manual, 3.1 Fundamental Structure
Which tar operation takes the files out of an archive?tar(1), DESCRIPTION
You run bzip2 notes.txt. What is the compressed file called?bzip2(1), DESCRIPTION
You wrote backup.sh and want to start it as ./backup.sh. What does the file need first?Bash Reference Manual, 3.8 Shell Scripts
The Linux operating system 12
A company needs an Ubuntu version for servers that will run for years. Which kind of release does Canonical point production use to?Canonical, Ubuntu release cycle, Interim releases
How is the five-year life cycle of a Debian stable release divided?Debian, Debian Releases, Release life cycle
In /etc/resolv.conf, which keyword is followed by the address of a DNS server to ask?resolv.conf(5), DESCRIPTION
ps gives one snapshot of the running processes. Which program keeps the list on screen and updates it?ps(1), DESCRIPTION
Under the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, which directory holds the configuration files of this one host?Filesystem Hierarchy Standard 3.0, section 3.7
What does the device name /dev/sdb2 stand for?sd(4), CONFIGURATION
What is /proc?proc(5), DESCRIPTION
Which command shows how many processors the machine has and what architecture they are?lscpu(1), NAME
Which command shows the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses assigned to the network interfaces?ip-address(8), DESCRIPTION
Which device name stands for the whole first SCSI or SATA disk, not one of its partitions?Linux kernel documentation, Linux allocated devices, 8 block
Which small utility looks a name up in DNS and prints its IP address, for example for www.example.org?host(1), DESCRIPTION
You typed ps with no options and saw only two processes. Why so few?ps(1), DESCRIPTION
Security and file permissions 10
A permitted user runs one command as root, as far as the security policy on the machine allows it. Which program does that?sudo(8), DESCRIPTION
The administrator runs groupadd editors. Which file gains the entry for the new group?groupadd(8), DESCRIPTION
On a directory, what does the x permission allow?chmod(1), DESCRIPTION
root runs chown ana report.txt. What changes?chown(1), DESCRIPTION
What does a symbolic link contain?symlink(7), DESCRIPTION
What does chmod go-w plan.txt do?chmod(1), DESCRIPTION
Which command prints your user ID, your group ID and the groups you belong to?id(1), NAME
Which useradd option creates a system account, with an ID from the range kept for system users?useradd(8), OPTIONS
Who may change the password of the account ana with the passwd command?passwd(1), DESCRIPTION
Why may every user read the file /etc/passwd?passwd(5), DESCRIPTION
How this list was compiled: Own questions, written to the five topics and the objective weights of the Linux Essentials exam 010-160, objectives version 1.6, as the Linux Professional Institute publishes them at https://www.lpi.org/our-certifications/exam-010-objectives/ (read 2026-10-09; the certificate's page is https://www.lpi.org/our-certifications/linux-essentials-overview/). Facts were read on 2026-10-09 in public texts: the Linux man-pages collection at man7.org, manual pages at manpages.debian.org, the Bash Reference Manual and the GNU Grep manual, the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard 3.0, the Linux kernel documentation, the GNU Project's pages on free software and copyleft, the Open Source Definition, and the Debian, Ubuntu, GIMP, MariaDB, LibreOffice and CISA pages named in the questions. Each question names the page and section it was written from and links to it. Licence: Own work. Every question, wrong choice and explanation was written for this site from the public texts named in each question. Nothing is copied or reworded from an LPI exam, a sample or released question, LPI's learning materials or another practice product.
How it works
An unofficial Linux Essentials practice test: 60 of our own questions, sorted by the five topics the Linux Professional Institute publishes for exam 010-160. This site is not affiliated with the Linux Professional Institute, and nothing here is taken from the real exam.
Read the full guide
What the Linux Essentials exam asks
LPI's objectives for exam 010-160, version 1.6, read on October 9, 2026, give each objective a weight. Summed by topic: the Linux community and a career in open source 7, finding your way on a Linux system 9, the power of the command line 9, the Linux operating system 8, and security and file permissions 7.
Who it is for, and what is left out
The objectives describe someone new to Linux who probably just uses a system that others mostly manage, so nothing here asks you to run a service. Raspberry Pi, Android and browser privacy settings are not asked.
Double quotes still expand $NAME. Single quotes keep every character literal, the dollar sign included.
In a file name pattern, ? stands for exactly one character and * for any string, the empty string included.
chown with an owner alone leaves the group as it was. Write owner:group to change both.
Questions and answers
How many questions are on the LPI Linux Essentials exam?
40 questions in 60 minutes, by LPI's objectives page for exam 010-160. Exam mode on this page draws 40 of our 60 questions against a 60-minute clock and gives your percent right for each topic.
What is the passing score for Linux Essentials?
LPI's FAQ page says every LPI exam is scored from 200 to 800 and passed at 500. That is not a percent, so a result here shows your percent right in each topic and no pass or fail.
Does the Linux Essentials certificate expire?
LPI's overview page gives its validity period as lifetime and lists no prerequisites. The current version of the objectives is 1.6, exam code 010-160.
Is this LPI Linux Essentials practice test free?
Yes. Every question, every explanation with its source link and the timed exam mode are free, with no sign-up.