18 Commands That Will Change The Way You Use Linux Forever
Ғылым және технология
When it comes to using Linux, there's usually a few ways to accomplish a task. Here are eighteen commands that will change the way you use Linux forever. Whether you're a Linux newbie or a seasoned SysAdmin, you'll find this video helpful. Presented by @LearnLinuxTV
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:38 Navigating Directories
2:02 Clearing the Terminal
3:48 Navigating Directories with a Different Tool
5:45 Minimizing an App
7:36 Restoring an App
8:44 Repeating the Last Command with sudo
10:03 Review the Command History
11:28 A Better Way to Run Previous Commands
13:21 Making Previous History Search Even Better With Timestamps
17:07 Take the Blue Pill
19:17 Adjust Font Size
20:17 Clearing a Line
20:51 Moving to the Front of the Line
21:10 Moving to the End of the Line
22:03 Chaining Commands Together
25:49 Tailing Files
26:41 Truncating Files
28:03 Using the Column Command
29:13 Conclusion
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Пікірлер: 776
I am a 78 yr old retired field tech from a Mirosoft and Novell background. With Microsoft shenanigans, I decided to move to Linux, it's been a steep learning curve but I enjoy it. This is the first time I've seen one of your vids. I think its great that you are teaching these tricks! Thank you so much. I'll be subscribing.
@AlazTetik
2 жыл бұрын
You spot the right place to learn more about Linux!
@Wkudbe
2 жыл бұрын
🙏
@patrickvanrinsvelt4466
2 жыл бұрын
Scotty, same here with the Windows requirements. My boy's laptop has been running KDE Neon for 2 years now with no issue. I just moved the work laptop to KDE as a test with their new release. The 3-4 work PCs get moved in 6 months. We are web devs so most of our stuff is out in the cloud already. Libre Office, GIMP, Bootstrap Studio are our desktop apps. I tested many distros and KDE Neon, built on Ubuntu, is beautiful, solid and fast. One of the old work/test PCs is a dual core, 2GB of memory and runs Neon just fine.
@TheExard3k
2 жыл бұрын
dont forget to check out his channel learnlinuxTV. I learned a lot myself and feel confident in using Linux now, which is great and fun
@PaulFWatts
2 жыл бұрын
@@patrickvanrinsvelt4466 Thanks for the tip re Boostrap Studio. As I'm more of a back-end developer this is great for doing a quick front-end without having to become an expert on the front-end.
25+ years of command line advanced usage but with your video I learned about column -t and the history time variable
summary of the commands: 1. `cd -` : back to the last directory we've been to. 2. `ctrl+l`: clear screen 3. `reset`: clear on steroids - resets terminal session 4. `pushd /var` + few other `cd` commands + `popd`: commands that allow you to work with directory stack and change the current working directory 5. `vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config` + ctrl+fz : isn't closing, but minimizing the window to the back ground `fg` : bring back the window to the front. 6. `apt update`: would fail - cuz we fogot sudo `sudo !!` : would run the last command as sudo 7. 8. run command that already been run - `history`, choose a number of command and run it `!102` -> the 102 command from the history would run again 9.HISTTIMEFORMAT="%Y-%m-%d %T" `history` would should the history commands by the format. another way to add the format, is add it to the `~/.bashrc` file with `vim` or `nano` commands. 10.cmatrix -> let you look cool + ctrl c to escape 11.adjust font `shift +` or `shift -`, `reset` command would reset the font size 12. `ctrl a` - start of the line `ctrl e` - end of the line 13.chainning commands -> `ls -l; echo "hello" ` or -> `ls -l && echo "hello" ` && - would stop when meets an error ; - would pop up an error and keep on running the second/next command 14. `tail` / `head` commands to see top or bottom of a file. 15. truncate (be cautious while using this one - its risky) it allows to change the size of a very large files (like log files) for example `truncate -s ` == truncate -s 0 hello.txt to empty the hello.txt file 16. `mount | column -t` : make sure all the output shows in columns any verbose and messy command output would look better using `| column -t`
@bidenisasnake9932
2 жыл бұрын
17: shut down and use the phone instead.
@sisayfekadu8158
Жыл бұрын
5. Not ctrl+fz, rather ctrl+z
@poweredbyfruit
Жыл бұрын
Thanks for saving me the time
@alap1983
Жыл бұрын
THIS must be a pinned comment
@salvadorestrella8
Жыл бұрын
`ctrl u` to clear the current prompt line
I use the "watch" command a lot for ad hoc progress monitoring. Also, to get to the home directory you only need to type "cd" no need for "cd ~". Cheers!
@jgm113
2 жыл бұрын
Or just ~
@twice4846
2 жыл бұрын
@@jgm113 no
@jgm113
2 жыл бұрын
@@twice4846 YES
@mootal2202
2 жыл бұрын
@Jack Warner Not right. Cd taskes you to the Home directory for current user.
@wheeI
2 жыл бұрын
'cd' instead of 'cd ~' might me a bashism, not sure
7:50 after ctrl + Z, the process is frozen, but you can type “bg” to make it continue running in the background. I use this all the time when e.g. I start some NodeJS service interactively, to see the messages, and then ctrl + Z, bg, enter, to turn it into a background process (and you can even exit the shell and it’s fine, it will continue running).
@kendarr
2 жыл бұрын
This is really cool.
@banjohead66
2 жыл бұрын
Also after Ctrl-Z, the command "jobs" will list out all backgrounded jobs with an index value to the left of each. If you wanted to bring the backgrounded job with the index value of "2" to the foreground, you may do so with the command "fg 2".
@moormanjean5636
2 жыл бұрын
@@banjohead66 or with just "% 2"
@TheEmrobe
2 жыл бұрын
"(and you can even exit the shell and it’s fine, it will continue running)" This is technically not true (in most cases). If your shell is killed, it will kill the process attached to it by SIGHUP. You can get around this by using 'disown' or 'nohup'.
@samieb4712
2 жыл бұрын
THATS what bg does ?? oh man that's useful lmao
Good stuff! I learned a couple things! Regarding history, one other trick I do all the time is to re-execute the last command starting with a certain string. For example, !sudo will execute the last command in the history that started with "sudo". If you're not sure what that command is and want to see it before you execute it, you can type : !sudo :p The :p means preview the command but don't actually execute it (but it will add it to the history as if you had executed that command). If it's what you wanted to do, you can then just type !! and it will execute that command. And another trick I do all the time because of my clumsy typing is to quickly fix a typo and execute the previous command in one step using the caret ^ symbol. For example, if I type : sudp some really long intricate command I will get the error that sudp does not exist - oops, I meant to type sudo. All I have to do is type : ^sudp^sudo and it will reissue my previous command, replacing the first instance of "sudp" with "sudo". If you wanted to be really lazy, you could also type : ^p^o and it just replaces the first occurrence of "p" with "o"
@g.t.3482
2 жыл бұрын
Wow! 👌
@rakemup
2 жыл бұрын
Is there a way to delete a line from the history file? i.e. "del !999" to remove line 999 from history
@OCKev
2 жыл бұрын
@@rakemup Good question, not that I know of.
@geoffjball
2 жыл бұрын
@@rakemup `history -d linenumber` should do it if you’re in bash. In ZSH I believe you need to exit the shell and then edit it out of ~/.zsh_history.
@jagadhiswarreddy3661
2 жыл бұрын
@@rakemup @Geoff Ball but your del command will be printed in history if you use del!999
CTRL U does remove the text on the line, if you are at the end of the line. What it is actually doing is removing from your cursor to the BEGINNING of the line. If you are in the middle of the line, it will remove everything BEFORE the cursor. Also, if you are in the middle of the line and type CTRL K, it will remove everything from the cursor to the END of the line. If you do CTRL A CTRL K, it is the same as CTRL U as you are going to the beginning and removing text to the end of the line. truncate was a new command for me (I've used 'cat /dev/null > filetoempty') and I learned about column, too! Cool video!
One the subject of pushing things in the background with crtl+z, there is wonderful tool called "screen". It's a terminal session that always runs in the background once started, even when you logout of the system. You can simply detach and re-attach whenever you need. It's a relic of times when terminal connections were not super reliable, like over dial up. In case of a connection drop, one could just re-login, re-attach screen and continue as if nothing happened.
@mikebrooker8800
2 жыл бұрын
tmux is another
@jeisonsanchez4842
2 жыл бұрын
I used to use “screen” to maintain a session of the BitchX irc client.
@shobhitnirala5328
2 жыл бұрын
screen discont.. in redhat 8 :(
@shajidkhan9288
Жыл бұрын
9
1) the " truncate" command to clean the content of a file is pointless. If you want to delete the content of a file you " could" do with echo "" > /file_path/filename, but you can even skip the echo command. Just issue "> /file_path/filename" without the echo works and its much faster. 2) Ok mentioning ctrl +a and ctrl +e , but actually the keys "home" and "end" on your keyboard actually do the same. ( i use those) 3) A command i really like but is quite unkonwn is "tac" ( is like cat in reverse), and it's a "cat" command that reads a file bottom-up. Its quite usefull then you want to read a log file without knowwing how many lines to include. as example: tac /var/log/messages | more you read the logs starting with the most recent line and you can keep going backwards until you find what you are looking for.
@JasonSFuller
2 жыл бұрын
Came here to mention your #1 and #2. Faster than typing out "truncate." Bonus tip: When you're 5 servers deep in SSH sessions, use +D (on an empty line) instead of typing "exit" to end a session.
along with 'ctrl a' and 'ctrl e', I use 'alt b' and 'alt f' for jumping backward and forward by word. This always helps if I need to jump to the middle of a very long command. 'alt leftarrow' and 'alt rightarrow' works similarly tooo. Also by the way all the linux short cuts also works with youtube video as well. Try it :) j - takes you 10 seconds backwards k - pause l - takes you 10 seconds forwards uparrow and downarrow increases volume f - fullscreen c - captions on (if available) m - for mute there are many shortcuts for youtube as well.
@toddtroll2220
2 жыл бұрын
Or set your shell in vi mode by using "set -o vi" and then use most of vim's movement commands after pressing Esc.
@iceman8075
2 жыл бұрын
Those are emacs shortcuts. They work everywhere.
@mstorgaardnielsen
2 жыл бұрын
I use ctrl-k ctrl-y kill/yank often
@rosarioagro1699
2 жыл бұрын
you can see each frame of the paused video by pressing (actually these are comma and dot)
@dimaj1
2 жыл бұрын
I am not sure if this is my shell/terminal app config, but pressing Esc followed by Backspace deletes from cursor position until beginning of word. I use it extensively in combination with alt+b
use tail -F instead of -f (same as --follow plus nice --retry) It makes tail reading consistent the file even though the file rotates and a new file (with the same name of course) has been created
@6bOemH2gKz
2 жыл бұрын
try "less +F"
Running a previous command is much easier when you can type the start of the command then press up/down arrow to find all matching commands. So just like MATLAB or other languages. This can be done by creating the file ".inputrc" in your home directory. Populate the file with the lines: " "\e[A":history-search-backward " and: " "\e[B":history-search-forward " - do ignore the outside quotes. Now after you restart the shell you will get up/down arrows that search your command history.
@maharajahdann
2 жыл бұрын
I love you
Thanks 🙏 for the video. I learned 3 Linux commands from it. pushd / popd / truncate Ctrl + w delete word by word.
I just appreciate you record and upload this in 4k so the text is so crisp, this makes me happy.
I like to use ESC followed by . (period) This key combination will insert the last argument of the previous command at the cursor position. This is very useful when you've entered a long filename at the end of a command (which is common) and now you want to apply another command to that same file. You can keep pressing ESC, period to access the last argument of previous commands.
@volanahu5916
Жыл бұрын
Alt + '.' does this too
@gregorychatelier2950
16 күн бұрын
You can use !$ for substituing the last argument of the previous command
As usual, great video for beginners. 👍! Keep it up.
Awesome video the column command and history navigation was especially helpful thanks again.
I have two that I have found to be very useful. - If you have a large amount of work, and you just need it to go away you can type: exit - If you need to create a large amount of work for somebody else to get them off your back on why you are not doing anything you can SSH into a server and type: shutdown -h now
@tuckertucker1
2 жыл бұрын
The laugh factory called... you've been fired.
@gblargg
2 жыл бұрын
And if you need a day of work: sudo rm -rf /, or alternately, sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda
Jay, many thanks for a wonderful set of tips. Like many I have a grab bag of commands that I have picked up the the years to make life easier. These 18 little gems are fantastic. Many thanks. My favourite is CTRL Z and then return with fg. The number of times I have been in vi and need to quickly jump out and in, sometimes I'm to lazy to start another terminal session, this little trick solves that problem.
Thanks for another great video. One small side note, the "ctrl+u" will ((at least on my "Pop-OS 21-04")) indeed work as You demonstrated. How ever what it "really does" is "deletes" all the entered text to the left of the cursor. So if the cursor is "at the end" of the line it will indeed "delete the full line", but if the cursor instead is at the start it will do nothing. And of course if You have the cursor "somewhere in the middle" it will just "delete" the text to the left of the cursor Just thought I'd mention that (possibly petty) detail :) Best regards.
This just might be the single greatest video I've ever watched in KZread.
Awesome content, like always. Thank you for not forgetting the beginners like me.
Great video! I have been using Linux for 3 years and come from a Windows admin background but this old dog still managed to learn some new tricks.
Thanks for doing this! I've been using Linux off and on for over 20 years and thought I knew my way around pretty well, and I learned a ton!
Exrtremely useful! Thanks so much. Always learn a lot from your videos!
Thank you Jay (+ Linode for sponsoring things). Love these things.
I use curly brackets a lot, they allow for neat rename and other things. mv my_{first,second} And it will rename my_first to my_second. To understand a command expansion better, prepend the line with echo, and add more to the brackets, to see what happened before the line was executed.
Love your work Jay. You are an excellent presenter. Thank you.
Very useful tips! Thanks, Jay!
Love these tips! Adding to your Ctrl + shortcuts, I often use Ctrl + W to erase the whole "word" left of the cursor. (Delimiters for what counts as a "word" is set in a file, I forget where; also affects what gets selected when you double-click on text.) After many years fooling around / learning in bash, I only recently started putting those ".." to good use, to backup and reenter a path tree at a different point. e.g. I'm in /etc/ssl/certs and want to get to /etc/snmp I used to type 'cd ..' 'cd ..' 'cd snmp' But now just use 'cd ../../snmp'
I love this channel im so grateful for it. Thanks for making me better.
Good video, lots of useful things here, only a few things I feel need pointing out/including along with similar topics. Not sure if this will have been said but where Ctrl+Z is being mentioned using the word "background" would be confusing terminology (this point will become clear very soon), Ctrl+Z as the terminal returns is stopping the process, `fg` will foreground it but typing `bg` will actually then allow it to remain running without its output being displayed, similar to running with `&` when initially running the command, thereby actually running in the background, background jobs will still be killed when the terminal is closed and can be viewed using the command `jobs -l` and resumed by running `fg %X` where X is the number listed in square brackets by `jobs -l`. I personally use this for copy operations I don't need to monitor but will take a couple of hours, whilst working on other things. Where && is used to mean run command only if success || can be used to run only if failure. `tail -f | grep ` also works on all systems I've used which can be very useful if you have busy log files and only certain things you want to see (or not see if you include the -v flag of grep).
Really great video. I knew a lot of the stuff from years ago, but you also still showed a few more things that I didn't even know was possible.
Nice video! There's some good stuff in here I've not seen, like logging timestamps for commands in the history. 6:14 "^Z doesn't work with nano, I don't know why" Yeah, this one hit me a few times on some systems. Turns out, nano actually intercepts it depending on the configuration. If you want it to work, you can run nano with the -z option, or you can add 'set suspend' to your ~/.nanorc file.
Thanks, many good tips! I agree that You can go long way doing things inefficiently by routine. It is well worth taking time to learn an adequate set of tools for the job. Problem is that the possibilities available are sort of overwhelming, so tutorials like this are really valuable. 👍
Ok, one minute in, and already the first tip blew my mind and made the video worth a like
Again, some tips I din't know about after using Linux as my daily OS for 15 years! Thanks. :)
@estudiordl
2 жыл бұрын
Same! Awesome tutorial! 😁
@polliluiz
2 жыл бұрын
Same here.
Just made my beginner life lot easier in linux!❤️🔥
you simply have one of the most concise, eloquent and knowledge impacting channel. thank you, sir!
cd - and column are game changers thanks for sharing Another one I like which isn't mentioned here is the alias command (written into the .rc file for persistence is a huge time saver for example alias dist-update="sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade-distro" Will run those commands every time you type dist-update into the terminal
Actually a bit surprised at how much useful new stuff I got out of this, I've been a linux user for 10-11 years.Thanks.
Superb! Very informative and crystal clear 👍
Gosh, a couple reminders here. Things I've learned but never used enough to remember. One thing I think you could have included in the last section (column) was holding ALT while click+dragging can allow you to highlight (and copy) just the contents of a single column or multiple columns (without highlighting the entire line). This trick has been a life saver for me when I have a bunch of columns and I don't want to spend 15 seconds writing out a command to extract just the one column.
I didn't knew most of this tricks, some of them are super useful. Many thanks
One of the most illuminating vids I've seen for ages!
Very good video on the command line. I'm 75 and grew up with UNIX while working with Bell Labs and developing software using C. I've been to a number of Unix Administration schools while working at Western Electric including Unix Internals. Back then there was no GUI and it was all command line interface on the terminal. I still have vi highly ingrained in me and today only use Ubuntu Linux. I really enjoyed your video and picked up a lot of new tips and some that shucked the old cobwebs into remembering. Thanks for the very well done video.
Not sure whether someone else mentioned that, but instead of tail -f I use less and press Shift-f to follow a file for some time. If something jumps to my attention, I can Ctrl-Z out of the follow mode, and go back to that line. You can also search with / for some particular errors, and they will be highlighted in follow mode, or use &search-string to just show the matching lines for your regex search in there.
Great demo. Just started using the OS. Very helpful.
Some I knew, some more I didn't. Thanks for adding to my toolbox.
Finally some really helpful shell video! Great channel, great content! Very useful practical tips/tricks
"History | less" and the "!#" are a timesaver!!!! Can't forget "ctrl+c" or "ctrl+z" when stuck,.. lol Thank you for all the work and time you put into these videos!
I haven't seen much on this channel so maybe you already covered this but mastering the 'screen' command is a must have skill if you are doing any remote work on linux systems. It just takes one DC during a long task to make you appreciate the value of running long tasks in a dedicated screen so that you don't have to start over.
@alpheusmadsen8485
Жыл бұрын
I would throw in "tmux" as an option, too! It's a "modern" version of screen, but both allow you to do amazing things, above and beyond running tasks even when your connection is cut (which is the reason I was introduced to "screen" in the first place). Theoretically, I'd use tmux on my local machine and screen on a remote terminal, but in practice, I haven't done much remote work in recent years, so I mostly just use tmux.
Very useful. Thanks for your time creating this video.
column is a great tip. ive been using linux for years and i didnt known it. thanks. btw i really like you clean and clear style. its very easy to watch
Excellent collection and many thanks for showing us!
Awesome video, always looking for more stuff to learn to use the terminal. One day I might actually be able to call myself a "power user". Thanks heaps, extremely helpful.
My best youtube recommended video so far
Awesome! Can't believe I didn't know even a half of this tricks.
Great video. I learned a bunch. new subscriber. video length and content was perfect.
I hate to say this but many of the tutorials out there, the folks talking are hard to understand. I know that sounds bad, but it's a real issue either way. I greatly appreciate that you are in depth and easy to listen/hear. Thank you very much.
I haven't finished watching the video but I'm constantly exclaiming 'Ohh!' and 'Ahhh!'. Thank you.
This cooler than I was expecting
Excellent! Works really well on my MAcBook and various Linux VM's
I learnt CTRL+u today. I used to do CTRL+a and then CTRL+k. Good tip. Thanks!
Good nerdin' on ya! I got learnt about Ctrl-L
wow! Where have you been all my life! Thank you!
Thanks for the great video. That cmatrix command and F11 is really cool! And of course all your other tips.
Thank you and appreciate your input to this world!
I love all of you vids. Thanks for your work!
Great overview indeed! Didn't know about column utility. Btw. Ctrl-U does only delete from cursor position to the left. Ctrl-K kills from cursor to the right...
@xrafter
2 жыл бұрын
Is this EMacs key-bindings?
@milosdedecek8107
2 жыл бұрын
@@xrafter not really. These are standard bash. You may 'set -o emacs' to get emacs bindings.
@WallaceLearnEngish
2 жыл бұрын
Ctrl+U/K/W are actually cutted and you can paste it by Ctrl+Y
@smokeonthewater5287
2 жыл бұрын
control+k also deletes a full line in nano, which is often useful after locating a line with control+dash
@mickaelo466
2 жыл бұрын
@@WallaceLearnEngish yes the pasting part is the most useful
Thanks for those tips. I've actually learnt some new tricks.
Great job! Thanks for sharing! Almost everything was mew for me.
Thank you for these valuable, time-tested tips and tricks!
wow thank you so much!! Im still a novice in linux and only need to use it to rsync/wget stuff on webservers. i am half way through your video and i absolutly love what you are teaching here.. this is so much fun!!
Thanks for your shortcuts, it's really really Helpful for 🙋.
This is a very good video, it's a great time saving refresher with simple explanations
Learned a few things today, thank you 😊
I don't know how useful it would be everyone, but one of the CLI tricks I do is install lsd (ls deluxe) and then alias ls to lsd in my shell's rc which which replaces ls to lsd. This gives me a more colorful listing output than the default ls command. I find it useful for times when I'm in the middle of project and it's late at night and I'm tired and hungry and that's when seeing the traditional output all starts to blur together from fatigue. The lsd output is in the same format as traditional ls, but has more color coding and if you have the right fonts enabled, will display little icons for the files and directories right withing the terminal session for you. It helps me out when things blurring together and it also looks cool so it's something I recommend people look at as they learn the terminal a bit more.
@minecraftchest1
2 жыл бұрын
I'll have to give it a look.
@ingokrispin3482
Жыл бұрын
If you like "lsd" you'll might want to take a look at "exa". It's very similar but even more powerful, and it's in most distributions' repos.
@gwgux
Жыл бұрын
@@ingokrispin3482 Thanks, I'm looking into it now! ;)
Hi, fortunate for me i found this video at the beginning of my journey with linux ... very nice video, thank you :D
Very Helpful! Thank You! :-)
It's very clear, even to a person who is learning english. Very thanks, new subscriptor from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Cheers!
The Ctrl-R is something I was thinking should exist... I am so glad that it does exist!
Finally learning some new stuff. Thanks!
This is fantastic Jay, subscribed
Definitely learned some new stuff. Thank you!!
I loved all of these tricks, just my level, thanks.
One of my all time favorite Linux video.
column -t is the new help for me. Thanks!
very helpful! definitely increased my productivity! thank you very much
instead of using "tail -f filename" I like using "less filename" and then shift+F, to force feed and update output as the file being updated. The advantage is that if I see something I need to troubleshoot or to go up and search for a keyword that draw my attention, I can do so right away while inside the "less" command. Even better I can do "less filename" search for the keyword, then do "shift+f" and if the keyword does show up while its feeding the content to the screen it will be immediately highlighted .
Enjoyed that! And now I‘m exploring the difference between using ; or && or |
Great video! Lots of great tips and tricks! Thank you.
Love Your videos. this one tho was surprisingly one of my favorites , because I learned much more than I expected :) thankx much
Sudo Awesome! :D I learn a lot from you. thanks a million :)
good video mate and very fair to add the timestamps !
on the last item of piping output into column -t, I find that very long lines of text that line wrap are confusing to read so I additionally pipe output into less -S where -S option turns off line wrapping. If producing text with embedded terminal escape codes for setting colors on text strings, then can use -R with less command as it will then interpret those escape codes and text will be displayed with intended colors applied. So this allows for making some rather spiffy output that draws attention to headers, use red for errors and green for success, etc
Here is the comment you asked for. LOL But yes, this was helpful. Thanks
Great, great, great content. Learned a lot in a little time. Thanks.
Great content, thank you very much!
In this last half hour I have learned more strait and to the point as well as very usefull stuff that was lacking in my scope of knowledge. Yet it did take me longer to get through it. I just had to try this stuff along the way. It really filled in some gaps as to dealing with the file system. I will find this information very usefull for my projects. My THANKS.