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prints the parameter you used on the previous command

Gentoo: Get the size of all installed packets, sorted
On a Gentoo system, this command will tell you which packets you have installed and sort them by how much space they consume. Good for finding out space-hogs when tidying up disk space.

apt-get upgrade with bandwidth limit
in Debian-based systems apt-get could be limited to the specified bandwidth in kilobytes using the apt configuration options(man 5 apt.conf, man apt-get). I'd quote man 5 apt.conf: "The used bandwidth can be limited with Acquire::http::Dl-Limit which accepts integer values in kilobyte. The default value is 0 which deactivates the limit and tries uses as much as possible of the bandwidth..." "HTTPS URIs. Cache-control, Timeout, AllowRedirect, Dl-Limit and proxy options are the same as for http..."

Display the tree of all instance of a particular process

Set laptop display brightness
Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

regex for turning a URL into a real hyperlink (i.e. for posting somewhere that accepts basic html)
This should work with anything://url.whatever etc etc ;)

List files
Shortcut to list files in the current path.

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"

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. :)

Run the last command as root
Useful when you forget to use sudo for a command. "!!" grabs the last run command.


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