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

ondoho · 03-28-2022, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Debian6to11

I do not use the commands frequently and I am VERY careful when I mess with any files.

The problem is that they have the same name as the original ones whilst doing something significantly different.
This will cause problems down the line, unless your sudo password timeout is 0.

josephj · 03-28-2022, 03:29 PM

ondoho - completely agree with your approach, but your alias hides the very useful scp command.

Another reason not to rename/modify existing commands is two-fold. These commands become habit and if you ever use another system you are likely to use them expecting the modified behavior and you may be unpleasantly surprised. This is best illustrated by an alias for rm that adds the -i flag. Typing rm on the other system will just remove the files without the expected prompt.

The other side of this, is that if you ever let someone else use your system, they will see unexpected behavior when they issue modified commands. Even if you don't allow anyone access, if you are asking for help with a problem and show someone else what you did, they will not be aware of the modified behaviors and may misinterpret what you are showing them.

ondoho · 03-29-2022, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by josephj

ondoho - completely agree with your approach, but your alias hides the very useful scp command.

I never said that that's my approach!
I just wanted to point out that there might be a better way to do this, with a quick suggestion.
I overlooked that by that scp would be masked. I edited the post in question.

rclark · 03-29-2022, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Most old UNIX hands will likely ctrl-d out rather than closing the terminal window through any other means.

Thanks. I tried that last night and it works great. Never thought to try <ctrl><d> as 'exit' always worked in Windows and Linux. <ctrl><d> doesn't work in Windows... You just get a ^D displayed there at the prompt.

boughtonp · 03-29-2022, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rclark

<ctrl><d> doesn't work in Windows... You just get a ^D displayed there at the prompt.

Ctrl-D works as described in Bash - even on Windows (as provided by MINGW64 / Git for Windows).

If you're using a version of Bash (not cmd.exe or PowerShell) where it doesn't behave as documented, raise it as a bug.

Cabbie001 · 03-29-2022, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rclark

Thanks. I tried that last night and it works great. Never thought to try <ctrl><d> as 'exit' always worked in Windows and Linux. <ctrl><d> doesn't work in Windows... You just get a ^D displayed there at the prompt.

Doesn't work in Windows... Are we caring about this? lol

rclark · 03-30-2022, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Windoze ... Are we caring about this? lol

Well, no

. At work I work in Windows land, at home I am Windows free and only run Linux (do have Win 7 installed in a VM for a special use case). Have been for years. So have a foot in both worlds. The ^D was just an observation

. That said, I don't work with 'bash' in Windows. I do use mingw and mingw64 C compilers for one of our SCADA applications.

cprasky · 10-13-2022, 01:45 PM

Code:

#!/usr/bin/bash
# vh: two-line script to view only hidden files
# and directories in $HOME

cd $HOME
ls -lhA |awk '{print $9}' |ls -l $(awk '/^\./ {print}') |less

metaed · 10-13-2022, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cprasky

Code:

ls -lhA |awk '{print $9}' |ls -l $(awk '/^\./ {print}')

You might be looking for:

Code:

ls -lhd .[!.]* ..?*

cprasky · 10-13-2022, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by metaed

You might be looking for:

Code:

ls -lhd .[!.]* ..?*

Well, thank you for that, it is almost what I was looking for. I will probably just pop that as an alias into my .bashrc, without the -d flag and get rid of the script.

fraxflax · 02-14-2023, 06:56 AM

cat ~root/.bash_login

Code:

test -n "$PS1" -a -x "`which zsh`" && {
    echo Replacing bash Interactive Login shell with zsh
    exec zsh --interactive --login
}

:-D

... I like to have the root user default to bash on my various machines but running interactively (also as root) I, for various reasons ( https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ml#post6176723 ), always use zsh ... sure often as simple as

Code:

ssh -t root@host.domain.my zsh -l

but with this "trick" in .bash_login I can just ssh root@host and also works when logging in on the console as root :-)

fraxflax · 05-04-2023, 09:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shruggy

True, but read in Zsh has a similar option -k for this. And also option -q that is well-suited for the case described by Cabbie001 in #230.

absolutely, and it's nice ... for '#!/bin/zsh' scripts :-)

I'm not criticizing, all I'm trying to say is that if one uses shell-specific (non-Posix) features, remember to indicate that in you script instead of by default prefixing all shell scripts '#!/bin/sh' (which is not that uncommonly seen in bash-specific scripts)

felipeabrao · 01-18-2024, 07:11 AM

The use of "up-arrow" to show previous commands.

rnturn · 01-21-2024, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by usernameok

not a trick but usefull for recall complex commands

$ crtl + r

or

$ history | grep

I've used that via an alias (fih = find in history = "history | grep -i") for some time:

Code:

$ fih <somecommand>

wmstrome · 01-21-2024, 08:27 PM

[QUOTE=greencedar;5995646]I enjoy:

[CODE]~$ sl

Well, it is cute, but not of any practical use.