Ten Handy Bash Aliases for Linux Users

TechRepublic’s 10 Things blog posts 10 shortcut ideas for Linux users (and Terminal-friendly OS X hackers) to make the terminal a friendlier, faster place to work. To use them, open up the .bashrc file found in your home directory and add lines in the following manner:

Alias NICKNAME='full command here'

Replace “NICKNAME” with a quick-type command, and put the full command in quotes. One example offered up by TechRepublic is a command to open up a file you regularly edit, like your /etc/apt/sources.list repository list, with a single command:

For instance, when I used Enlightenment E16 (I now use E17), I was frequently editing the menu file ~/e16/menus/user_apps. Instead of constantly opening up a terminal and entering nano ~/.e16/menus/user_apps, I used an alias that allowed me to type emenu and start editing. I used this alias:

alias emenu='aterm nano -e ~/.e16/menus/user_apps'

Now, I just enter the command emenu (or I can enter that in the run command dialog) to open up this file in an editor.

Users of GNOME-based distributions like Ubuntu might want to switch gedit in place of nano -e for an easier-to-grasp graphical editor. Got your own bash shortcuts you put in every new Linux install? Share them in the comments.