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write the output of a command to /var/log/user.log... each line will contain $USER, making this easy to grep for.
This command is useful if you want to copy the output of a series of commands to a file, for example if you want to pastebin the output from 'uname -a', 'lspci -vvv' and 'lsmod' for video driver trouble-shooting on your favorite Linux forum. 'log' takes all the following arguments as a command to execute, with STDOUT sent to /var/log/user.log. The command is echoed to the log before it is executed. The advantages of using logger (as opposed to appending output from commands to a file) are 1) commands are always appended to the logs... you don't have to worry about clobbering your log file accidentally by using '>' rather than '>>' 2) logs are automatically cleaned up by logrotate. The following functions allow you to mark the start and end of a section of /var/log/user.log. $ startlog() { export LOGMARK=$(date +%Y.%m.%d_%H:%M:%S); echo "$LOGMARK.START" | logger -t $USER; } then $ endlog() { echo "$LOGMARK.END" | logger -t $USER; } printlog will print all lines between $LOGMARK.START and $LOGMARK.END, removing everything that is prepended to each line by logger. $ printlog() { sudo sed -n -e "/$LOGMARK.START/,/$LOGMARK.END/p" /var/log/user.log| sed "s/.*$USER: //"; } The following command should dump just about all the information that you could possibly want about your linux configuration into the clipboard. $ startlog; for cmd in 'uname -a' 'cat /etc/issue' 'dmesg' 'lsusb' 'lspci' 'sudo lshw' 'lsmod'; do log $cmd; done; endlog; printlog | xsel --clipboard This is ready for a trip to http://pastebin.com/, and you don't have to worry about leaving temporary files lying around cluttering up $HOME. Caveats: I'm sure that startlog, endlog, and printlog could use some cleanup and error checking... there are unchecked dependencies between printlog and endlog, as well as between endlog and startlog. It might be useful for 'log' to send stderr to logger as well.

Colorful man
That command installs "most" and make this command as the default man reader. The "most" works like "less" (the current man reader), but it render colors for manpages and may do more things. Read "man most". You can see a preview here: http://www.dicas-l.com.br/dicas-l/20090718.php

Prepend a text to a file.
Using the sed -i (inline), you can replace the beginning of the first line of a file without redirecting the output to a temporary location.

Show File System Hierarchy
Curious about differences between /bin, /usr/bin, and /usr/local/bin? What should be in the /sbin dir? Try this command to find out. Tested against Red Hat & OS X

Pause Current Thread
Hold ctrl and press z to pause the current thread. Run $fg to resume it.

Switch to the previous branch used in git(1)
Very useful if you keep switching between the same two branches all the time.

Convert CSV to JSON
Replace 'csv_file.csv' with your filename.

Adding formatting to an xml document for easier reading
Sometimes you're trying to read through an xml file to determine whats wrong with it and a tool had removed all the linebreaks. xmllint will go ahead and make it pretty for you.

A random password generator

Get full directory path of a script regardless of where it is run from
Also resolves symlinks, showing the full path of the link target


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