I've been using Linux for 6 months now and have yet to figure out one very simple thing.

When I use, say the cat command, all the data whizzes by on the screen until the end and then I get the familiar blinking cursor after my user name.

The question is: how do I get back to the beginning of all this data to start reading?

I've tried the up arrow, home, page up, backspace, tab, and ctrl b,
all with no luck. This also applies to anytime I'm at the command line and I've typed in enough stuff so I can't see where I started.

How do I get back to the beginning?

use "less" instead of "cat" or shift+pgup/pgdn on most terminals, including a basic console.

That worked.

Thanks

also, you can always |more (pipe it to more) or just use more to read it. it's the same as less, more or less hahahahaha...

more filename
cat filename | more
less more

you get the idea

And if you're a GUI fan, you could try this:
cat filename | gless

cat filename | less
will work too

and also use Shift +pageup or Shift+pagedown if the file is not very big.

I believe it is | less at the end of a command, so

cat | less

should work. I would look into buying a quick refference type book about linux.

cat | less wouldn't work unless cat was given something to pipe to less. You could have cat | less < filename, but that's just making things silly

cats, pipes, less something. Cool, this is definitely a geek talk thread Or a high school bully chat, but I prefer the geek talk

Cool

Of course, there's always

cat <filename> | sed | less

although

less <filename>

is briefer.