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flip faster and more precisely through commands saved in history
flip shell history with PG UP/PG DOWN like with arrows. just type ss and PG UP and see all ssh commands, type ls and PG DOWN - see all ls commands. need to uncomment two options in /etc/inputrc: "\e[5~": history-search-backward "\e[6~": history-search-forward hack found: http://broddlit.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/making-the-bash-history-a-better-place/

convert ascii string to hex
Even adds a newline.

ls -hog --> a more compact ls -l
I often deal with long file names and the 'ls -l' command leaves very little room for file names. An alternative is to use the -h -o and -g flags (or together, -hog). * The -h flag produces human-readable file size (e.g. 91K instead of 92728) * The -o suppresses the owner column * The -g suppresses the group column Since I use to alias ll='ls -l', I now do alias ll='ls -hog'

Alias HEAD for automatic smart output
Run the alias command, then issue $ps aux | head and resize your terminal window (putty/console/hyperterm/xterm/etc) then issue the same command and you'll understand. $ ${LINES:-`tput lines 2>/dev/null||echo -n 12`} Insructs the shell that if LINES is not set or null to use the output from `tput lines` ( ncurses based terminal access ) to get the number of lines in your terminal. But furthermore, in case that doesn't work either, it will default to using the deafault of 12 (-2 = 10). The default for HEAD is to output the first 10 lines, this alias changes the default to output the first x lines instead, where x is the number of lines currently displayed on your terminal - 2. The -2 is there so that the top line displayed is the command you ran that used HEAD, ie the prompt. Depending on whether your PS1 and/or PROMPT_COMMAND output more than 1 line (mine is 3) you will want to increase from -2. So with my prompt being the following, I need -7, or - 5 if I only want to display the commandline at the top. ( https://www.askapache.com/linux/bash-power-prompt/ ) 275MB/748MB [7995:7993 - 0:186] 06:26:49 Thu Apr 08 [askapache@n1-backbone5:/dev/pts/0 +1] ~ $ In most shells the LINES variable is created automatically at login and updated when the terminal is resized (28 linux, 23/20 others for SIGWINCH) to contain the number of vertical lines that can fit in your terminal window. Because the alias doesn't hard-code the current LINES but relys on the $LINES variable, this is a dynamic alias that will always work on a tty device.

list files recursively by size

Create a directory and cd into it
This creates a bash function `take` that you can call with the name of the directory as the first parameter. Add the function to ~/.bashrc to have it available anytime.

remove hostname from known_hosts

this toggles mute on the Master channel of an alsa soundcard

setup a tunnel from destination machine port 80 to localhost 2001, via a second (hub) machine.
this is handy when the hubmachine is the only machine that can connect to the destination machine (allowed on ip by firewall) and you want to access it from your laptop.

how to find the active X (X11/xorg) username and DISPLAY variable
Requires consolekit (works in e.g. Ubuntu). Here x11-display is DISPLAY


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