Linux Users

1.3k points · 149 comments · view on lemmy.world

149 Comments

TabbsTheBat@pawb.social · 89 pts · 324d (5 replies)

I've been using ctrl + R more now :3.. though I definitely used to ↑↑↑↑↑↑↑

I_Am_Jacks_____@sh.itjust.works · 39 pts · 324d (2 replies)

check out fzf (install fzf and add (assuming bash) eval "$(fzf --bash)" to your .bashrc) Makes ctrl+r a superpower

aquovie@lemmy.cafe · 5 pts · 324d

It's awesome until you want to put the cursor in a specific spot of a previous command.

$ rm -f delete-me.txt
ctrl-r "me", ctrl-b, ctrl-k
$ rm -f delete

But I still use fzf because while I used to do the above, fzf offered more advantage that made switching worth it.

TabbsTheBat@pawb.social · 3 pts · 324d

I'll try it if I don't forget it by the next time I have access to my PC lol :3

tyler@programming.dev · 21 pts · 324d

Ctrl + r with fzf and you’ll never go back.

sbeak@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 322d

Woah Ctrl R looks super cool, never knew that I could do that before…

lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com · 55 pts · 324d (3 replies)
AmidFuror@fedia.io · 16 pts · 324d (2 replies)

To use ctrl-r I have to remember something about the command. To use up arrow I just have to know about how many commands ago I used it.

silasmariner@programming.dev · 8 pts · 324d

Not if you have fzf you don't: https://github.com/junegunn/fzf

Like an interactive fuzzy finding history. It's sick.

Auli@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 323d

So how well you know which command it is of you won't recognize it when you see it..

B_DL@lemmynsfw.com · 48 pts · 324d (5 replies)

I knew there was an

ls

In there somewhere

teletext@reddthat.com · 9 pts · 324d
[ removed ]
inktvip@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 324d (2 replies)

ls .. enter ↑ enter ↑ enter

ulterno@programming.dev · 1 pts · 323d (1 reply)

You may consider using watch ls

lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network · 1 pts · 317d

I do like that, thanks a lot ulterno!

emb@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 324d

Now I don't have to type that in again. Phew!

iamdefinitelyoverthirteen@lemmy.world · 43 pts · 324d (4 replies)

...until you press up one too many times and enter the same command but with a typo. Again.

AmidFuror@fedia.io · 10 pts · 324d

Been there, done that.

laserjet@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 323d (2 replies)

There is an option you can set in .zshrc or .bashrc which only includes lines that exit 0 (success)

antimidas@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 323d (1 reply)

Infuriatingly that would omit things like unit test runners from the history in case they don't pass. As a developer I tend to re-run failed commands quite often, not sure how widely that applies, though.

ulterno@programming.dev · 1 pts · 323d

Oh, stuff like git diff and git log will end up being omitted pretty often.
And a lot of times, the commands that end with piping into less

Auli@lemmy.ca · 38 pts · 323d (1 reply)

Ctrl R

sol6_vi@lemmy.makearmy.io · 0 pts · 322d

holy fucking shit 🤌💪🤯❤️💯

aeharding@vger.social · 34 pts · 324d (5 replies)

The number of people who don’t reverse-I-search is too damn high

derpgon@programming.dev · 26 pts · 324d

CTRL+R for those unitiated

Everyday0764@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 324d

reverse-i-search + fzf = <3

ulterno@programming.dev · 0 pts · 323d (2 replies)

It was quite a while before I realised that was possible.
Then not long after starting to use it, that I got fed up and just started opening up the history file and searching in it.

dropcase@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 323d (1 reply)

why not history | grep -i and the search term?

even if there are several, you can use ! and the command's line number to run it again

ulterno@programming.dev · 1 pts · 323d

history is shell dependent.

mvirts@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 324d (5 replies)

^r

veni_vedi_veni@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 324d (1 reply)

and whenever you forget to sudo: sudo !!

Gumus@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 324d
bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 324d (2 replies)

Ctrl-r, l ctrl-r, ctrl-r, ctrl-r, ctrl-r, ctrl-r, ctrl-r, ctrl-r, ctrl-r. To get ls.

2910000@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 324d (1 reply)

No way! I didn't know you could cycle through the results like that... awesome!

bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 324d

It’s basically emacs incremental search.

Mad_Punda@feddit.org · 16 pts · 324d

I’ve probably done that for ls

killeronthecorner@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 324d

O(n) access, very efficient.

No, I do not care to share the value of n

yggstyle@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 324d (1 reply)

taptaptaptap.... taptaptaptap.... taptaptaptap taptaptaptap taptaptaptap

.... taptaptaptap

... tap ...

... shit I was on a different user when I typed it.

iamdefinitelyoverthirteen@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 324d

Or "shit, I did in tmux last time so I could close the terminal window."

salacious_coaster@infosec.pub · 12 pts · 324d (11 replies)

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1168/

drkt@scribe.disroot.org · 9 pts · 324d (3 replies)

tar -xvf

but only because I had to look it up twice so now my brain has committed it to memory
I don't even know what it does

nutcase2690@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 324d

i just use unar (unarchive) nowadays, since that works with all file formats iirc

bitchkat@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 324d

Extract a tarball with verbose output from the specified file.

And learn how to use the 'z' option

jbrains@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 323d

You don't even need the hyphen!

Mind = blown.

Hammerheart@programming.dev · 7 pts · 323d

tar --help

probable_possum@leminal.space · 3 pts · 324d (4 replies)

tar - h

IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz · 13 pts · 324d (3 replies)

Unfortunately that's not valid.

$ tar -h
tar: You must specify one of the '-Acdtrux', '--delete' or '--test-label' options
Try 'tar --help' or 'tar --usage' for more information.

From man-page:

-h, --dereference follow symlinks; archive and dump the files they point to

probable_possum@leminal.space · 12 pts · 324d (2 replies)

Damn.

titanicx@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 324d (1 reply)

Thanks, we all died.

probable_possum@leminal.space · 6 pts · 324d

:)

psud@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 322d

tar -jcvf archive.tbz ~/stuff/*

Of course I don't know the bomb had bzip2 on it.. I wonder if we can start with ls to see if there's anything to tar or untar

ezekielmudd@reddthat.com · 11 pts · 324d (7 replies)

Or, just type the command “history”, find the index number of the desired command, then type “! ”, then .

frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 12 pts · 324d

That's way more mental effort than pressing up a bunch of times.

eager_eagle@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 324d (3 replies)

or Ctrl+R then search? I don't know why some people still bother with history tbh.

merc@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 324d (1 reply)

Because you can pipe history to grep.

snowe@programming.dev · 3 pts · 324d

with fzf you get better grep with fuzzy search

Sabata11792@ani.social · 2 pts · 324d

This is going to save me so much time pressing the up arrow.

irish_link@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 324d

Holy cow!! I didn’t know that. I have been using history > history.txt to find “that one command for that one thing” I only need once every other month or so. Thanks, now I can just do that.

lemmyng@piefed.ca · 2 pts · 324d

Ctrl-R if you know part of the command.

pcouy@lemmy.pierre-couy.fr · 9 pts · 324d (1 reply)

https://github.com/atuinsh/atuin is a great tool to manage and search your shell history. I especially enjoy it being able to search commands based on the working directory I was in when I ran them.

It also has more features (which I don't use) to manage dotfiles and sync shell history across hosts/devices.

nameisnotimportant@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 324d

I was going to talk about it too ! Even though I'm on fish (which helps a lot with history search) atuin really changed my habits and made my life easier !

freewheel@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 324d (2 replies)

Substring completion on ZSH. Type in a small part of the command you want to find and then press up.

entwine@programming.dev · 7 pts · 324d (1 reply)

bash supports this feature too btw

freewheel@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 324d

Added to my mental toolbox, thanks!

Edgarallenpwn@midwest.social · 9 pts · 323d

I typed it once, I'm not typing it again

flyingSock@feddit.org · 8 pts · 324d

also when they see this post

alecsargent@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 324d (1 reply)

I always go past it because I go way to fast.

nous@programming.dev · 4 pts · 324d

I have more then once gave up on pressing up, hit ctrl + c to reset only to see the command I wanted briefly flash up as I am hitting ctrl + c

SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org · 7 pts · 324d (2 replies)

In fish, you can enter part of the command, and then press up to search for it. It's kinda awesome.

rozodru@piefed.social · 5 pts · 324d

yeah I ONLY just recently switched to fish after using zsh and oh my zsh for so long - pretty much since first starting linux cause I once saw someone using it on unixporn and I thought "that's cool"

when I switched to NixOS zsh with all the plugins was a total slog. switched to fish and it just HAS everything that zsh/oh my zsh and the various plugins had but baked in.

so yeah in Fish it's just starting to type something and hoping it's still in the history.

RedSnt@feddit.dk · 2 pts · 322d

That's what I do in bash except for pressing up it's ctrl+r. FZF does the fuzzy finding for me. It's so convenient.

baltakatei@sopuli.xyz · 7 pts · 324d (4 replies)

$ history | grep 'gre[p]' | less -S

mbp@lemmy.sdf.org · 4 pts · 324d (2 replies)

Does fuck all when you can't remember even a piece of the command lol

baltakatei@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 322d

That's when you start spamming Page Up/Down, Home, End, and / to search within less. Usually seeing various commands jogs my memory, especially when they are grep commands searching for one I use often enough to be useful but infrequently enough to not remember off the top of my head.

Auli@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 323d

Then how well you know which command it is when scrolling. At that point it's googleing how do I move a file or whatever your looking for.

FourThirteen@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 323d

This is the answer

UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 324d

fish has "directory-aware" autocomplete with inlay hints and a fantastic history command. I do not suffer from such weakness

Hammerheart@programming.dev · 7 pts · 323d (9 replies)

cat ~/.bash_history | grep

echindod@programming.dev · 16 pts · 323d (8 replies)

Useless use of cat?

disobey2623@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 323d (5 replies)

You saying I can just skip cat in that command and it works?

x00z@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 323d (1 reply)

history | grep 'cat'

ulterno@programming.dev · 0 pts · 323d

My output was empty for that command.

Guess why?
Because history only gives the last few lines in my system.

neox_@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 323d (2 replies)
grep ~/.bash_history
disobey2623@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 323d (1 reply)

How did I not know this. Thank you!

oozynozh@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 323d

it's grep STRING FILE to be precise

or awk '/STRING/′ FILE if you prefer that for some reason

Hammerheart@programming.dev · 2 pts · 322d (1 reply)

Yes, it was meant to be a self deprecating admission that I have used this unnecessarily verbose command.

echindod@programming.dev · 2 pts · 322d

Ah. Well. I can not be blameless on this. I also probably use cat unnecessarily still. But less so with grep these days. I'm getting better... I swear!

deacon@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 324d (7 replies)

Wow this is really validating for me to read. I’ve been using Linux for a few years but I’m definitely not a computer expert and am intimidated by the command line.

I’ve always felt like googling every command and arrowing up to find an old entry rather than just googling it again marked me as a fake Linux user, not a real one.

cm0002@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 324d (3 replies)

Lol don't feel bad, I can do advanced crazy shit with Linux like pivoting the running OS into RAM so I can unmount the boot drive to do whatever without ever rebooting

But I still [Web Search] commands a shit ton of the time LMAO

corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 324d (2 replies)

Ok. Show me the pivot trick. I usually mess with the boot disk through a reboot, but it's been a while (resized the root to clear space for a part) and it was not without anxiety. Interactive work while the host is up is way better.

cm0002@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 324d (1 reply)

Here's an overview https://lemmy.world/comment/11542288 though I never did get around to writing up an actual tutorial lol

corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 323d

So you build a chroot in a ramdisk, restart everything active in there and then run the pivot-root that I've seen in the middle of every boot I've ever watched. And that's it?

It's got a back-out in every stage too, maybe. Fantastic. I'll add that to the list for Science Projects I need to do.

Thanks!

zarkanian@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 324d

You can use Ctrl-R and Ctrl-Shift-R to search through your history instead of having to push up a bajillion times.

titanicx@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 324d

I think that actually makes you a real Linux user...

Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 323d
[ removed ]
desmosthenes@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 324d
remon@ani.social · 6 pts · 323d

You have to be a linux user to use the console now?

merc@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 324d (12 replies)

Too many people still use Bash.

humorlessrepost@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 324d

I like zsh on mac because pretty colors

Leonardo_da_Vinci@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 324d (10 replies)

Too many distributions still ship with Bash.

rtxn@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 323d

In the real world, the only thing better than perfect is standardized.

merc@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 324d (8 replies)

Yeah, true. But, it's easy to change.

Bash is the Internet Explorer of shells. It's great for installing a more useful shell.

laserjet@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 8 pts · 323d (1 reply)

That's super unkind and incorrect. IE was a trash software that was widely available because MS was trying to extend their monopoly into new areas.

Even if it's not your taste, bash is a mature, stable FLOSS package with wide community support. The reason it is so common is due to it's positive attributes, not because there is a plot to make it the only choice available to you.

calcopiritus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 323d

Bash might be better than IE. But I think we can agree that it is no longer a good shell.

Its syntax is awful, and lacks many features that other shells have.

It is only so widely used because it is a de facto standard. If bash was created today, barely no one would us it.

pivot_root@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 323d (1 reply)

That's not true. Internet Explorer was fucking useless for scripting together things, unlike bash.

laserjet@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 323d

Internet Explorer shell expansion always trips me up.

Croquette@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 323d (3 replies)

What shell do you recommend?

merc@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 323d (2 replies)

I like zsh, but some people say great things about fish.

Auli@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 323d (1 reply)

My problem with those is bash is always there and just works.

merc@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 323d

Yes, just like Internet Explorer.

It's good to know how to do things in bash, since you're going to encounter it pretty often. But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't customize your shell on the machine(s) you use most often. Why stick with the default when there are better options? You're just hobbling yourself.

iAvicenna@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 324d

history | grep then !cmd no

RedSnt@feddit.dk · 5 pts · 322d

I write part of the command then ctrl+r. Using FZF mind you. Such a great utility.

Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 324d (4 replies)

grep | history [search term]

Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 324d (3 replies)
[ removed ]
Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 324d

Oops, but yes that's what I meant.

A_norny_mousse@feddit.org · 3 pts · 324d

alias hf='history|grep'

Gobo@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 324d

I do this all the time for that one long command I use monthly like for cert renewals.

nullPointer@programming.dev · 4 pts · 324d

zsh tab completion also looks through history wich is pretty nice.

dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 322d

Fish once again undefeated. If I want to find that weird image magick command I used earlier with foo.png in it I just type foo.png, hit up and its usually the first one. It doesnt matter where foo.png occurs in the command, fish will find it.

janAkali@lemmy.sdf.org · 4 pts · 323d (5 replies)
  • zsh-autosuggestions
  • history | fzf
  • alias cat="bat --plain --theme=gruvbox-dark"
zarkanian@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 323d (4 replies)

Aliasing cat or any other ubiquitous shell utility to a replacement is a mistake. Garuda did this, and it was driving me crazy why cat was giving me errors. Turns out that they had aliased bat to cat, and since bat is a different program, it didn't work in exactly the same way, and an update had introduced some unexpected behavior.

Drop-in replacements are dumb. Just learn to use a different command.

janAkali@lemmy.sdf.org · 3 pts · 322d (3 replies)

I think it's ok to add this in a personal .zshrc, not on a distro level:

If it breaks something - I'd probably know why and can easily fix it by removing alias/calling cat directly.

Also, scripts almost always use bash or sh in shebang, not zsh. So it only triggers if I type cat in terminal.

crater2150@feddit.org · 2 pts · 322d

Also, even zsh scripts don't read your .zshrc by default.

psud@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 322d (1 reply)

It's better to learn the new command, then it still works when you use a different machine that doesn't have your alias

janAkali@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 320d

If you are me, there is no brain space for remembering new commands. I can already barely hold on to few dozens that I use often. And occasionally when I need "that one that does that niche thing... how was it?" program - I just sit there sifting through logs for couple minutes.

Today it was od (tbh it's od almost half the time; not really the best name to memorize (I really need to make a note or something, so I stop forgetting it, lol))

Also, for this reason I went to great lengths to keep my ~/.zsh_history protected from being randomly deleted/overwritten by mistake, as it happened a couple of times. Currently it's sitting at around 30_000 lines, oldest command is 2 years old.

MashedTech@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 323d (2 replies)

I just use mcfly

xoggy@programming.dev · 1 pts · 323d (1 reply)

Not sure I understand the point of mcfly. zsh and fish have this functionality built in, where pressing Up with a command partially typed will give auto-completions to that partial match.

MashedTech@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 322d

Yeah. I also use auto-completions for that. McFly does fuzzy finding and because it's a different separate db, for me it works better across many sessions to find commands I had just recently used in another session.

Tiberus@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 324d (8 replies)

I accidentally found out one day that I could use a wildcard operator in the terminal instead of a full file or folder name due to always doing this.

cd Pho* or cd /documents/Pho*

Will for example open my "Photo Examples" folder in the working directory or based on the path

merc@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 324d (2 replies)

With ZSH there's something called "path-completion" that makes that even easier.

Say you want to go to "/usr/local/share/fonts" but that's too much to type out, you can instead type "cd /u/l/s/f" and hit tab. If every path element is unambiguous it will just expand it to "/usr/local/share/fonts". In this case though, "/u/l/" can expand to "/usr/local" or "/usr/lib" so when you hit tab it moves the cursor to just after the "l" to indicate it needs you to distinguish between "/usr/local/" and "/usr/lib". If you just type "o" and hit tab again, it will know that there's only one match for "/usr/lo" and expand that to "/usr/local/" Then there's only one match for "s" which is "share", and only one match for "f" which is "fonts".

That avoids the danger of executing a command with an asterisk wildcard.

snowe@programming.dev · 1 pts · 324d (1 reply)

works in fish shell as well.

merc@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 324d
[ removed ]
TheOakTree@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 324d

This only works until you grow an addiction to making pho at home and start documenting your progress.

cd "Pho Recipes and Pictures"

JasonDJ@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 324d (1 reply)

You can use || between two commands as well. If the first command returns exit code != 0, the second command will run.

I.e. which ansible || pip install ansible.

merc@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 324d

Or && for if you only want the second command to run if the first command succeeded.

DarkAri@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 324d (1 reply)

cd /

sudo rm -rf *

Basically the Linux version of deleting system32 but idk I'm not a super Linux nerd yet.

bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 324d

The fun thing is that you can create a file named "-rf *" and hope an admin tried to delete it!

clashorcrashman@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 324d

...Yeah, you got me.

T156@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 324d (2 replies)

Being able to just enter a partial command, and hit [up] to jump to prior commands that started in the same way in zsh is a godsend.

Entitle9294@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 324d

If you ever have to go back to bash, it supports it as well. In my bashrc:

bind '"\C-p":history-search-backward'

That's ctrl-p, but I'm sure the up arrow is possible too.

bss03@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 323d

I use vim keybindings and have ESC,/ to do a reverse command search.

titanicx@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 324d

I'm in this picture, and I didn't like it....

wewbull@feddit.uk · 3 pts · 324d (4 replies)

The one people see me doing that gets a "huh?" Is:

~$ !find
find -type f -name '*blah*' -print0 | xargs -0 gzip
~$

"Wait! What did you do?" "Oh. Do you not know about bang?"

UpperBroccoli@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 324d (1 reply)

I love the excitement of using !?

Did I remember correctly what command sequence I last used that pattern with? Will my data be gone? Will I send a vulgar email to my boss? Who knows, let's find out!

wewbull@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 323d

That's why you can add ":p" to the end just to print it.

merc@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 324d (1 reply)

I don't understand people who have the confidence to just blindly run the last matching command like that. Like, are you 100% sure that the last time you ran find was that one, not the one that piped to xargs rm?

At least with zsh you can tab to complete the !find and verify it's what you want before running it. And, AFAIK by default, the shell option hist_verify is set, so if you do just type !find and hit enter, it doesn't run the command, it loads the command into the editing buffer so you can look it over first. Maybe I just have a weak memory, but I really appreciate the footgun prevention. At worst I have to hit enter twice. At best, I save myself a lot of grief.

wewbull@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 323d

Normally the use case is

  • Constructed a long command, but it didn't work for some reason.
  • I go fix the reason it didn't work
  • I do the first thing again

It's in my recent memory, but maybe there's been 10 or so commands of me fixing stuff in-between.

stealth_cookies@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 324d (1 reply)

This is why I like atuin, I can just press up and start typing part of the command and it will likely find it in my history.

merc@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 324d

You could already do that with just "Ctrl-R" but without atuin redrawing your screen.

RustyNova@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 324d

Oh come on! I at least type the beginning so that it filters the history

Laser@feddit.org · 2 pts · 324d

Linux Recall

Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 323d
[ removed ]
Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org · 2 pts · 324d

I wish this wasn't so painfully true.

Quexotic@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 324d

Featherpad, copy, paste. Extra work, but you get a work log