How do I use a sudo command line to copy a folder into the system files?

Specifically, my "themes" folder has been corrupted (my fault), and I need to replace the entire folder with a backup that I made.

I will add a finalized answer once I can.

3 Answers

It would go something like this:

sudo cp -r /path-to-backup/themes /usr/share/

cp is the copying command

-r is there for recursiveness

Passing the command to execute to sudo without any additional arguments will execute it as root.

sudo cp ...

A very elegant form is using -a option, it will recurse as -r, but will keep all attributes of the files, particularly permissions, and symlinks underreferenced:

sudo cp -a /path-to-backup/themes /usr/share/

In another words, "When performing the copy, attempt to preserve as much of the original file structure, attributes, and associated metadata as possible." (citation source)