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show framebuffer console modes to use in grub vga option
look at /boot/grub/menu.lst for somethig like: ## additional options to use with the default boot option, but not with the ## alternatives ## e.g. defoptions=vga=791 resume=/dev/hda5 ## defoptions=vga=795 # defoptions=vga=873 ## altoption boot targets option ## multiple altoptions lines are allowed ## e.g. altoptions=(extra menu suffix) extra boot options ## altoptions=(recovery) single # altoptions=(verbose mode) vga=775 debug # altoptions=(console mode) vga=ask # altoptions=(graphic mode) quiet splash # altoptions=(recovery mode) single vga=(decimal value) is framebuffer mode

Create a temporary file
To create directory, use: $ tempdir=$(/bin/mktemp -d)

Mount a temporary ram partition
For FreeBSD

Recall last argument of previous command
!$ recalls the last argument of the previous command. This is very useful when you have to operate several operations on the same file for example.

Wait for file to stop changing
Here's a way to wait for a file (a download, a logfile, etc) to stop changing, then do something. As written it will just return to the prompt, but you could add a "; echo DONE" or whatever at the end. This just compares the full output of "ls" every 10 seconds, and keeps going as long as that output has changed since the last interval. If the file is being appended to, the size will change, and if it's being modified without growing, the timestamp from the "--full-time" option will have changed. The output of just "ls -l" isn't sufficient since by default it doesn't show seconds, just minutes. Waiting for a file to stop changing is not a very elegant or reliable way to measure that some process is finished - if you know the process ID there are much better ways. This method will also give a false positive if the changes to the target file are delayed longer than the sleep interval for any reason (network timeouts, etc). But sometimes the process that is writing the file doesn't exit, rather it continues on doing something else, so this approach can be useful if you understand its limitations.

Compare prices in euro of the HTC Desire on all the european websites of Expansys.
You think Expansys in all these countries will sell the HTC Desire for the same price? Well, you'll be surprised. Most of them will be sold at 499.99 EUR but the cheapest can be found in Germany and the most expensive, in Belgium.

Write comments to your history.
A null operation with the name 'comment', allowing comments to be written to HISTFILE. Prepending '#' to a command will *not* write the command to the history file, although it will be available for the current session, thus '#' is not useful for keeping track of comments past the current session.

Download all images from a 4chan thread
Useful for ripping wallpaper from 4chan.org/wg

Check your unread Gmail from the command line
notice what happens when there is more than one unread message in a thread... also people please dont hardcode the password when you use curl. Leave it out and curl will ask you when it runs. Please...?

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


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