How to run TeX from the command line interface in Linux

You're right: latex filename.tex and the other above command are means to run a flavor of TeX from the command line.

They don't really require parameters, but you could also have a look at the configuration of GUI software like Texmaker, or type in the command line latex --help to show the complete list of available options. For example, the option -interaction=nonstopmode makes latex not stopping on every error...

These programs run in a single shot: they will not take action. For that, in Linux, you could write a Makefile that will arrange the required compilation steps, as shown here or here.

For the manual, you could try man latex, but I don't think that it is a good answer or question. The above commands run Latex/Pdflatex/... the same ways that a GUI editor will do.