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Find files with the same names in several directories.
cat file1 file2 file3|sort|uniq -d finds the same lines in several files, especially in files with lists of files.

Convert a string to

list block devices
Shows all block devices in a tree with descruptions of what they are.

Rename files in batch

On screen display of a command.
This is very useful if you need to show someone some text from a distance. (Like someone standing over your shoulder...) I'd recommend aliasing it to something like: alias osd_cat="osd_cat -o 400 -s 8 -c blue -d 60 -f -*-bitstream\ vera\ sans-*-*-*--200-*-*-*-*-*-*-*" xosd is the utility that provides osd_cat.

Empty a file
The downside of output redirection is that you need permissions. So something like $ > file won't play nicely w/ sudo. You'd need to do something like $ bash -c '> file' instead, you could go w/ $ sudo truncate -s0 file

print the name of each package APT knows [matching a prefix]
In this case, linux- is the prefix; simply running $apt-cache pkgnames would list every package APT knows about. The default APT config assumes -g, --generate; to use the cache as/is, you could similarly run: $apt-cache --no-generate pkgnames [prefix] Adding --all-names, like so: $apt-cache --no-generate --all-names pkgnames [prefix] would print all the packages APT knows about, using the cache as/is, including virtual packages and missing dependencies. This command was shamelessly stolen from the apt-cache(8) man-page.

Check if *hardware* is 32bit or 64bit
This command tell you if your hardware is 32 or 64 bits even if you install a 32bits OS on a 64 bits hardware. If your distro don't support the -q switch, try doing : $ grep &>/dev/null '\' /proc/cpuinfo && echo 64 bits || echo 32 bits

Rip a CD/DVD to ISO format.
An easy method to generate ISOs from CD/DVD media.

Write on the console without being registered
just use a space to prevent commands from being recorded in bash's history on most systems


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