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show installed but unused linux headers, image, or modules
will show: installed linux headers, image, or modules: /^ii/!d avoiding current kernel: /'"$(uname -r | sed "s/\(.*\)-\([^0-9]\+\)/\1/")"'/d only application names: s/^[^ ]* [^ ]* \([^ ]*\).*/\1/ avoiding stuff without a version number: /[0-9]/!d

copy working directory and compress it on-the-fly while showing progress
What happens here is we tell tar to create "-c" an archive of all files in current dir "." (recursively) and output the data to stdout "-f -". Next we specify the size "-s" to pv of all files in current dir. The "du -sb . | awk ?{print $1}?" returns number of bytes in current dir, and it gets fed as "-s" parameter to pv. Next we gzip the whole content and output the result to out.tgz file. This way "pv" knows how much data is still left to be processed and shows us that it will take yet another 4 mins 49 secs to finish. Credit: Peteris Krumins http://www.catonmat.net/blog/unix-utilities-pipe-viewer/

Calculate days on which Friday the 13th occurs (inspired from the work of the user justsomeguy)
Friday is the 5th day of the week, monday is the 1st. Output may be affected by locale.

Is it a terminal?
Oddly, the isatty(3) glibc C call doesn't have a direct analogue as a command 'isatty(1)'. All is not lost as you can use test(1). For example, your script might be run from a tty or from a GUI menu item but it needs to get user-input or give feedback. Now your script can test STDIN with 'isatty 0' or STDOUT with 'isatty 1' and use xmessage(1) if the tty is not available. The other way to test for this is with 'tty -s' - but that's only for STDIN.

Start a HTTP server which serves Python docs
I use this command to start a local Python document server over HTTP port 8888.

Create subversion undo point
Allows you to save progress without committing. To revert to an undo point, svn revert then apply the undo point with patch. $ svn revert -R . && patch -p0 < .undo/2009-03-27_08:08:11rev57 Similar: http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/373/archive-all-files-containing-local-changes-svn

Scan a document to PDF
Adjust the --resolution and --mode as required (if these options are available for your scanner). The size options (-x, -y, -imageheight, -imagewidth) are for US letter paper. For A4, I think the command would be: $scanimage -p --resolution 250 --mode Gray -x 210 -y 297 | pnmtops -imageheight 11.7 -imagewidth 8.3 | ps2pdf - output.pdf

Disconnect a wireless client on an atheros-based access point
This command will disconnect the user whose mac was specified from the current list of clients from the wireless network when the network card is working in access point mode. Works on atheros-based access points which use the madwifi driver (not sure, but don't think it will work on access points which are not atheros-based, as it uses the atheros's iwpriv extensions). It will not prevent the user from reconnecting to the network, but may force the user to roam to another AP, with stronger signal.

Backup all mysql databases to individual files on a remote server
It grabs all the database names granted for the $MYSQLUSER and gzip them to a remote host via SSH.

List all symbolic links in current directory
Many competing commands to do this, but since most people want a Long list with Human readable files sizes and want to see All files (including hidden (.*) files) this one wins on simplicity and usefulness. Plus grep is just as, if not more portable than sed or awk, and is more widely understood. :)


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