The topic I’ve used Linux for 18 years, but these 5 terminal tricks still surprise me is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
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The terminal is an integral part of the Linux experience, and it used to be even more important than it is now. Despite two decades of use, there are some Linux terminal shortcuts that consistently impress me because of just how useful they can be. These are 5 Linux tricks that will make mundane, tedious jobs much easier.
When I first started using Linux, I’d almost always type one command, wait for it to run, then run the next command if everything went well. That is fine, but there is a better way to approach the problem: use the && symbol.
Wrap Linux Bash conditional tests in [[ and ]] and get access to regexes and more.
Let’s say I have two commands that I want to run, A and B, and I’ll only run the second (B) command if A works properly.
Normally, I’d just type both commands. Alternatively, I could run:
That allows me to combine two commands into one line with the specific condition that B will only run if A worked. The other symbol you can use to combine commands, the semicolon, doesn’t care if the first command executed properly—it’ll charge ahead regardless.
It doesn’t come up every day, but I’ve found that I use it pretty frequently when I’m writing simple scripts. It is also great if I’m passing along instructions for someone to try, and I want to be sure things run correctly and in a specific order.
&& isn’t limited to just two commands—you can use it as many times as you want, though I’d recommend against creating anything too long. After a while, it becomes difficult to read.
Oftentimes you’ll need to reenter the command you just typed. Instead of retyping it in its entirety, all you need to do is type !! to run it again.
You can also combine it with other commands. So, if you ran a command that actually needed sudo, but you forgot it the first time, all you’d need to do is type sudo !!. If you wanted to output the result of the command to a file, you could run !! > output.txt.
It is a great quality of life improvement, but one I sometimes forget to use.
Most of the commands you’ll run in the terminal will be almost instantaneous, but every once in a while, you’ll run a command that will take a while.
Instead of tying up your terminal until the task is complete, you can press Ctrl+Z to temporarily suspend the task. Then, run bg in the terminal to resume the job in the background.
If you have multiple tasks suspended in the background, you can run jobs to see each individual job’s ID, and then use that to move a specific job to the background. for example, if I suspend two jobs to the background, then I’d run bg %2 to activate the second job in the background. If I wanted to bring it back to the foreground, I’d run fg %2.
You can also type the process name, though the numbers are usually faster and easier.
Typing the same command over and over again, especially if it is long, can become tedious quickly. That is where aliases come in.
An alias allows you to assign a shorter name to a different command, or to change what you enter to run a specific command.
for example, I often want to get a detailed view of the contents of a folder, but I don’t want to type ls -lah over and over again. Instead, I can just alias ll to run that command instead. The command would be:
Then, any time I type ll, ls -lah will actually execute instead.
ll is often already aliased to ls -l, but I prefer additional information in a human-readable format.
I’ve created my own turnkey distro for hosting game servers, and I’ll usually package a handful of aliases that make it easier to check on the status of the firewall, systemctl, and a few other things. Aliases are designed to make your life easier, so don’t be afraid to experiment.
It is tempting to alias rm so that you don’t accidentally delete anything, but I strongly recommend against it. If you get used to rm being aliased to something with a prompt—or to a move command that works like a trash bin—then you’re eventually going to make a critical mistake on a system that doesn’t have that alias. You’re better off using a separate program, like trash-cli, instead.
If you spend any time working with a command-line interface, you’ll find yourself typing cd a lot. My favorite overlooked cd command is:
cd – will automatically switch you back to the previous directory you were working in. So, for example, if I were in “/home/folder1/minecraft” and used cd to change to “/etc/,” running cd – would take me directly back to “/home/folder1/minecraft.” If I ran it again, it’d take me back to “/etc/.”
Any time you need to flip back and forth between two folders, and you don’t have a terminal multiplexer, cd – is a good way to save yourself a lot of typing.
None of these tricks are particularly spectacular or strange, but they don’t have to be—they’re simple and they work. Whether you’re a beginner just learning to use the terminal for the first time or a long-term user that missed them, they’re well worth committing to memory—they’ll save you time in the long run.
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