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Substitute an already running command
eg: Already running cmd $sleep 120 Substitution cmd $c=$(pgrep sleep) && sleep 5 && kill $c

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.

Get your outgoing IP address
Instead of opening your browser, googling "whatismyip"... Also useful for scripts. dig can be found in the dnsutils package.

Change every instance of OLD to NEW in file FILE
Very quick way to change a word in a file. I use it all the time to change variable names in my PHP scripts (sed -i 's/$oldvar/$newvar/g' index.php)

Find biggest 10 files in current and subdirectories and sort by file size

Update grub menu.lst
Remove all commented lines Remove all blank lines Show the menu Up the delay so you have enough time to select a kernel Remove the quiet so you can watch the entire boot Add a rootdelay for san attached storage booting

Convert records in columns to csv

Check reverse DNS
I'm just a simple programmer. I find dig too verbose. host tells me alias(es) and IP address in a quick to grok format with nothing special to remember for input parameters. With thanks to http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-test-or-check-reverse-dns/

move you up one directory quickly
Alias a single character 'b' to move to parent directory. Put it into your .bashrc or .profile file. Using "cd .." is one of the most repetitive sequence of characters you'll in the command line. Bring it down to two keys 'b' and 'enter'. It stands for "back" Also useful to have multiple: alias b='cd ../' alias bb='cd ../../' alias bbb='cd ../../../' alias bbbb='cd ../../../../'

Monitor memory fine-grained usage (e.g. firefox)
Sometimes top/htop don't give the fine-grained detail on memory usage you might need. Sum up the exact memory types you want


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