Hi.. I have been using linux exlusively for about a month and I completely love it!

My newbie question is the following:

I would like to know how I can make a "shortcut" for long things. Here is an example of what I'm after. To connect to my computer upstairs I type "ssh -l username 192.168.x.x" everytime I want to connect. Coundn't I do something so that when I typed "upstairs" it would connect me. I know there is a way, but I have no clue on how to find this information.

Do I need to write a simple shell script for this? can you show me an example of how I might do this? Will making an alias work? How?

Google and man pages have gotten me this far, but now I am lost. I am sure your answer will open a whole new world of linux computing for me!

thanks,
drfrankie

Alias it is, nice work. Open (or create) a file in your home directory called .bashrc with your favorite text editor (in my example, I'll use vim):
vim ~/.bashrc
Add the lines:
alias upstairs="ssh -l username 1.2.3.4"

Save and exit (with vim it's: SHIFT + ZZ)

Now you will have to "source" the file:
source ~/.bashrc
And the alias is set. There are threads on how to setup your system to "source" your bashrc file, so I won't go into that.

Cool

Works perfectly.. Thanks alot!