terminal

Create An Awesome Command Line Calculator

8:00AM The How-To Geek | When you spend as much time at the terminal as I do, having a calculator at your fingertips can be a really useful feature, and the Command-Line Fu website tells us how to create one easily. More »

Use Zsync To Upgrade An Ubuntu Installation Image

2:00AM Kevin Purdy | Windows/Mac/Linux: For the first few days after a new Linux release, grabbing an install image can be tough going. Not so if you’ve already got an alpha, beta or RC copy—use zsync to grab the necessary updated bits. More »

Learn To Compile Software From Source Code

8:00AM Adam Pash | Normally, installing a new application is no more difficult than double-clicking an installer and hitting Next a few times. For those very rare occasions when an app’s source code is all that’s available, Wired details how to compile it yourself. More »

Shut Down Your Windows PC Remotely From Linux

2:00AM The How-To Geek | If you’ve ever wanted to remotely reboot a Windows box from your Linux machine, the Command-Line Fu web site has you covered with the quick and easy command to use. More »

Move Files Without Breaking Stuff

4:00AM The How-To Geek | Linux or Mac OS X only: The Command-Line Fu web site writes up a quick-and-dirty trick to move files and create a symlink in a single command—so you can move files without breaking anything. More »

Find A Future Date From The Shell

8:30AM The How-To Geek | Have you ever needed the exact date a certain number of days in the future? The Command-Line Fu site shows how to use the date command to calculate future (and past) dates. More »

Use A Different Colour For The Root Shell Prompt

7:00AM The How-To Geek | Linux only: Reader Chris writes in with an excellent tip that changes the prompt to red when using the root account from the terminal—as a reminder to be more careful. More »

MinTTY Gives Cygwin A Native Windows Interface

6:00AM Gina Trapani | Windows only: If you need your Unix command line on a Windows PC, chances are you use a terminal emulator like Cygwin—and if you do, you want to check out MinTTY. The MinTTY terminal window for Cygwin puts a native Windows interface on Cygwin which offers more keyboard shortcuts and colours and styles. Check out the difference between Cygwin and MinTTY side-by-side in the thumbnail above. Using MinTTY you can turn on window transparency, set your font, and colours, copy and paste output by just selecting it with your mouse, and scroll up using the Shift+arrow key combination. (Once it’s installed, right-click on the MinTTY window and choose Options to customise it’s look and keyboard shortcuts.) Here’s what the full MinTTY window with transparency turned on looks like. More »

Display a List Of Just Subdirectories

6:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | Linux, Mac, or Windows with Cygwin: If you have ever wanted to show a list of subdirectories underneath the current directory while at the terminal prompt, there’s a simple command that can help. Simply run the following command from the bash terminal prompt, which filters the file listing to only show folders: ls -l | grep ^d Since typing that whole command every time you want to show a list of directories might get a little tiring, you can use the alias feature to assign it to something you can more easily remember: alias lsd="ls -l | grep ^d" Now when you type “lsd” at the prompt, you will see a list containing only the directories, which can be very useful when you are trying to navigate through a messy set of folders. For more on using the command prompt, check out our top 10 command line tools, get your own drop-down Yakuake terminal, or learn to use cron from the command line. More »

Make Apt-Get Always Run As Root

6:00AM Lifehacker US Edition | Linux only: If you have ever tried to use the apt-get command to install software but received an error because you forgot sudo, the Command-line Fu site has a quick but useful tip for you. The tip is one of those really simple, but extremely useful time-savers that might have just passed you by otherwise—instead of constantly typing “sudo” before each of the apt-get commands, simply use the alias function to add it there automatically: alias apt-get='sudo apt-get' To make this change persistent across sessions, you will want to add this line to your ~/.bashrc file. Experienced readers will note that you can always use the sudo !! command to run the last typed command as root whenever you forget the “sudo” the first time. Don’t forget to check out our top 10 command line tools, 10 handy bash aliases, or you can learn how to use grep. Always run apt-get as root [Command-line Fu] More »