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Print every Nth line
Sometimes commands give you too much feedback. Perhaps 1/100th might be enough. If so, every() is for you. $ my_verbose_command | every 100 will print every 100th line of output. Specifically, it will print lines 100, 200, 300, etc If you use a negative argument it will print the *first* of a block, $ my_verbose_command | every -100 It will print lines 1, 101, 201, 301, etc The function wraps up this useful sed snippet: $ ... | sed -n '0~100p' don't print anything by default $ sed -n starting at line 0, then every hundred lines ( ~100 ) print. $ '0~100p' There's also some bash magic to test if the number is negative: we want character 0, length 1, of variable N. $ ${N:0:1} If it *is* negative, strip off the first character ${N:1} is character 1 onwards (second actual character).

Watch the progress of 'dd'
Only slightly different than previous commands. The benefit is that your "watch" should die when the dd command has completed. (Of course this would depend on /proc being available)

Create a mirror of a local folder, on a remote server
Create a exact mirror of the local folder "/root/files", on remote server 'remote_server' using SSH command (listening on port 22) (all files & folders on destination server/folder will be deleted)

need ascii art pictures for you readme text ?
Require boxes and / or cowsay packages. After input boxes -d dog , type your text and then press ctrl + d . Same goes for cowsay .

Count number of files in a directory

A function to find the newest file in a directory

display a smiling smiley if the command succeeded and a sad smiley if the command failed
you could save the code between if and fi to a shell script named smiley.sh with the first argument as and then do a smiley.sh to see if the command succeeded. a bit needless but who cares ;)

Determine whether a CPU has 64 bit capability or not
Check if you have 64bit by looking for "lm" in cpuinfo. lm stands for "long mem". This can also be used without being root.

Turns red the stderr output
Reference: http://stackoverflow.com/a/4455706

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)
swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"


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