LQ Poll: What's your favorite Linux terminal trick?

usernameok · 10-03-2019, 01:53 PM

not a trick but usefull for recall complex commands

$ crtl + r

or

$ history | grep

Pastychomper · 10-04-2019, 04:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by username_11011

... And, I type out whatever command followed by a semi colon. Then, I type myself a text message and start the job. Then (of course) detach from screen and (knowing me) detach from whatever remote machine I'm attached to. And when the job stops, I get a text message.

I've used a less advanced (and more local) method to tell me when a job was done. Start job, type ctrl+g, and do something else in the same room. When the job finishes, the shell gets around to echoing the typed character, and beeps.

Doesn't work everywhere, though - some systems (like my laptop) send the sound to a disabled/missing PC speaker.

WideOpenSkies · 10-04-2019, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by usernameok

not a trick but usefull for recall complex commands

$ crtl + r

or

$ history | grep

I didn't know about ctrl + r. That's amazing! Thanks.

porphyry5 · 10-05-2019, 01:56 PM

I use a dummy file to create a convenient break point in long jobs involving multiple repeat processes, eg

Code:

>~/q

for a running process that may have the form

Code:

for a in *.tiff; do
...
if [ -f ~/q ]; then break; fi
done
rm ~/q

ondoho · 10-07-2019, 09:29 AM

I just found out that 'pidof' has the option to omit (-o) the pid of the process calling pidof (%PPID) - in other words, I can use sth like this:

Code:

pidof -x -o %PPID "${0##*/}" && echo "I'm already running. Exiting." && exit 1

in a script that should not run several instances of itself at the same time.

Free_Ze · 10-17-2019, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeremy

The official LQ poll series continues. This time we want to know: What's your favorite Linux terminal trick?

--jeremy

Ctrl-L to quickly clear the screen.

codetonic · 10-18-2020, 11:17 PM

When I was a sysadmin, a bunch of us went to lunch. As the waitress asked each person what they wanted, they would answer with the main dish, the waitress would ask what side to go with it, they would answer, the waitress asked what drink, they would answer. All the way around the table, same questions to each sysadmin. When she got to me, I took a deep breath and gave her the entire order in one shot. After she left, one of the other sysadmins turned to me and said, "You like to use the command line semi-colon, don't you."

Ourck19 · 10-19-2020, 12:23 AM

poweroff !!!
Best & nice day
Fred.

Septuagerian · 10-19-2020, 01:46 AM

watch -n 2 sensors. Will come back later to learn new stuff from y'all. 😎

Rocdufer · 10-19-2020, 01:56 AM

In Debian, I always add this line in /etc/default/keyboard

XKBOPTIONS="caps:none"

Caps Lock key causes me to make typing mistakes. This nullification is something I have no idea how to achieve in Windows.

amrs · 10-19-2020, 02:18 AM

How about this:

Code:

% got a light?
got: No match.

Note the % prompt, this needs csh (or tcsh). Long ago there was list of this kind of shell funnies but I don't it have any more.

resolv_25 · 10-19-2020, 02:27 AM

I think that I've found somewhere basic idea, easy password generator from the shell.
This goes to the ~/.bashrc on the Ubuntu or Debian:

Code:

# password generator:
genpasswd() {
   local l=$1
       [ "$l" == "" ] && l=16
       tr -dc A-Za-z0-9*-+!#,.=_ < /dev/urandom | head -c ${l} | xargs
}

Enter in shell:
$ source ~/.bashrc

Then generate your password with:

Code:

$ genpasswd 
zkFwuXnlrF=HwL,9

For a longer password, give a length number as a parameter:

Code:

$ genpasswd 24
BV+7CmX*2wZzXN#,8.Z0fO3*

Move out special characters and leave only A-Za-z0-9 if you want or need only letters and numbers.

And yes, I also love to have history formatted to see exact time when something has been executed, having in the same ~/.bashrc:

Code:

HISTTIMEFORMAT="%d.%m.%y %T "

LinWinux · 10-19-2020, 02:33 AM

For newbies ...
(which I still consider myself to be as well)
Would have been awesome if the poll should have included definitions of the submitted commands, which might actually evoke some interest in the terminal for those who never or hardly ever use it. At my age I'm not interested in learning volumes of terminal commands and the more complex inner working of Linux, but I am interested in using that occasional useful snippet and learning about some of the things that might pertain strictly to the extent of my involvement with Linux.
Been using it full time 7 days per week since 2009, after 18 years with Windows.
Finding myself only going to the terminal about 1% of the time (if that).

.

PeterGrootswagers · 10-19-2020, 02:35 AM

sudo make install

linpi · 10-19-2020, 03:06 AM

find . -name "*.php" | xargs grep 'search-string'

or find path -name "*.extension" | xargs grep 'search-string'