Hints and tricks¶

This section contains some hints that might make working with Linux easier.

Tab auto-complete¶

If you press TAB on the keyboard after starting to type a command or a file, it will auto-complete if no other matches or else suggest possible matches.

Short-cuts on the CLI¶

CTRL-SOMEKEY refers to pressing down the CTRL key and then another key while continuing to hold down CTRL.

Examples:

• CTRL-a: Go to the beginning of the line
• CTRL-e: Go to the end of the line
• CTRL-l: Clear the terminal
• TAB: Auto-complete (i.e. start write a command or file name and then press TAB to auto-complete as far as possible
• ARROW-UP: Pressing the arrow-up key repeatedly will let you cycle through recent commands
• CTRL-r: you will get a prompt to write text to search in the list of recent commands. The list is saved in .bash_history in your $HOME. On some systems it might be called .bash.history

Finding help¶

You can often get more info on the usage of a Linux command. This includes options and flags. Depending on the setup of your system either or both of the following should succeed:

• COMMAND --help
• man COMMAND

where COMMAND is the Linux command you want information about, like ls, mkdir, gcc, etc.

Misc¶

• Type clear to clear the terminal
• Type history to see a list of the recent commands used in the terminal
  • You can change the number of saved commands by setting the environment variable HISTSIZE in your .bashrc file in your home directory.
  • Example: Open .bashrc with nano. Somewhere (at the end for instance) add: export HISTSIZE=NUMBER where NUMBER is the number of commands to save, for instance 500.