Some UNIX/Linux Command Line Shortcuts

Ryan — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 05:33:35 +0000

I have to look this up so many times that I figured I should just blog about it and have it in one easy-to-find place. =)

Text/cursor control:

`Alt-B / Alt-F`	Move the cursor backward/forward one word
`Ctrl-W / Alt-D`	Delete one word to the left/right
`Ctrl-A / Ctrl-E`	Move the cursor to the beginning/end of the line
`Ctrl-U / Ctrl-K`	Erase line to the left/right

History control:

`!!`	Repeat last command run
`!-5`	Re-run the 5th to last line in the history (`!-1` is equivalent to `!!`)
`!str`	Re-run the last run command that began with str
`!str:n`	The nth argument for the last run command that began with str
`!$`	The last argument for last run command

(There are many more history control commands, but I don’t need to use them as frequently. See the last two references for them.)

Other useful shortcuts:

`Ctrl-S / Ctrl-Q`	Turn off/on output to the screen (useful if you accidentally press `Ctrl-S` like I do all the time, or if you have a lot of output streaming to your screen)
`Alt-F2`	(GNOME/KDE) Display the Run Application dialog

Also, I learned something new today while fixing up the CSS for the site. Margins can overlap. =O

When Brains Fly » shortcuts