There are a number of utilities in Linux which you can use to read a file.
Some of these are:
1. gedit (its a text editor for GNOME, like a note pad in windows)
example : $ gedit your_fileName
2. cat (concatenate files and print on the standard output)
example: $ cat your_fileName //It will print the containts of the file onto the terminal itself.
3. vi or vim
example : $ vi your_fineName.