#Usage: watch timeinsecond "command" Show Sample Output

This is a more accurate way to watch the progress of a dd process. The $DDPID=$! is needed so that you don't get the PID of the sleep. The sleep 1 is needed because in my testing at least, if you run kill -USR1 against dd too quickly, it will kill it off instead of display the status. So you need to wait a second, probably so that it can configure itself to trap the USR1 signal. Show Sample Output

Will track your mouse and save it to a file. You can use gnuplot to graph it: gnuplot -persist <(echo "unset key;unset border;unset yzeroaxis;unset xtics;unset ytics;unset ztics;plot './mouse-tracking' with points lt 1 pt 6 ps variable")

Need to have rc iso pre-downloaded before running command.

I like much more the perl solution, but without using perl. It launches a backgroup process that will kill the command if it lasts too much. A bigger function: check_with_timeout() { [ "$DEBUG" ] && set -x COMMAND=$1 TIMEOUT=$2 RET=0 # Launch command in backgroup [ ! "$DEBUG" ] && exec 6>&2 # Link file descriptor #6 with stderr. [ ! "$DEBUG" ] && exec 2> /dev/null # Send stderr to null (avoid the Terminated messages) $COMMAND 2>&1 >/dev/null & COMMAND_PID=$! [ "$DEBUG" ] && echo "Background command pid $COMMAND_PID, parent pid $$" # Timer that will kill the command if timesout sleep $TIMEOUT && ps -p $COMMAND_PID -o pid,ppid |grep $$ | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kill & KILLER_PID=$! [ "$DEBUG" ] && echo "Killer command pid $KILLER_PID, parent pid $$" wait $COMMAND_PID RET=$? # Kill the killer timer [ "$DEBUG" ] && ps -e -o pid,ppid |grep $KILLER_PID | awk '{print $1}' | xargs echo "Killing processes: " ps -e -o pid,ppid |grep -v PID | grep $KILLER_PID | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kill wait sleep 1 [ ! "$DEBUG" ] && exec 2>&6 6>&- # Restore stderr and close file descriptor #6. return $RET }

[ 2000 -ge "$(free -m | awk '/buffers.cache:/ {print $4}')" ] returns true if less than 2000 MB of RAM are available, so adjust this number to your needs. [ $(echo "$(uptime | awk '{print $10}' | sed -e 's/,$//' -e 's/,/./') >= $(grep -c ^processor /proc/cpuinfo)" | bc) -eq 1 ] returns true if the current machine load is at least equal to the number of CPUs. If either of the tests returns true we wait 10 seconds and check again. If both tests return false, i.e. 2GB are available and machine load falls below number of CPUs, we start our command and save it's output in a text file. The ( ( ... ) & ) construct lets the command run in background even if we log out. See http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/3115/ .

Turn your terminal into digital clock. Show Sample Output

Gives not only date but also some interesting status about the System Show Sample Output

This takes a webcam picture every everytime the mouse is moved (waits 10 seconds between checking for movement) and stores the picture wherever you want it. Ideas: Use in conjunction with a dropbox type application to see who is using your computer Use /dev/input/mice if /dev/input/mouse* doesn't work Use the bones of this to make a simple screensaver

pvl 'link1' 'link2' 'link3' Play Youtube, Vimeo, etc links without visual elements. Great for music videos when you just want the audio. You can control mplayer with this! Hit Ctrl-C twice to exit (if you're playing multiple files)

See man vmstat for information about the statistics. This does the same thing without the timestamp: vmstat 5 Show Sample Output

Chronic Bash function: chronic 3600 time # Print the time in your shell every hour chronic 60 updatedb > /dev/null # update slocate every minute Note: use 'jobs' to list background tasks and fg/bg to take control of them.

Uses logger in a while loop to log memory statistics frequently into the local syslog server.

Sleep 5h and plays the song as a wake up alarm

The following command will clone usb stick inside /dev/sdc to /dev/sdd Double check you got the correct usb sticks (origional-clone)with fdisk -l.

This ran on a ubuntu box using espeak for speaking text with the bash shell. On a mac you should use 'say'. Also you can change your alarm interval and your snooze interval which are currently 8 hours and 1 minute. I would run this via cron yet it's easier to disable if you run it as a command like this :P Show Sample Output

when using Gnome or KDE, you will have a hard time getting a screenshot of something like a login screen, or any other screen that occurs before the desktop environment is up and monitoring the printscreen key. (this probably applies for other DEs as well, but I haven't used them) What this command is meant to do is take a screenshot of an X window using a command you can run from your virtual terminals (actual text terminals, not just an emulator) To do this: Press CTRL+ALT+F1 to go to a virtual (text) terminal once your login window comes up Login to the virtual terminal and enter the command (you'll have to type it in) You should now have a file called screenshot.png in your home directory with your screenshot in it. For those of you who are new to the virtual terminal thing, you can use CTRL+ALT+F7 to get back to your regular GUI From http://www.gnome.org

In general, this is actually not better than the "scrot -d4" command I'm listing it as an alternative to, so please don't vote it down for that. I'm adding this command because xwd (X window dumper) comes with X11, so it is already installed on your machine, whereas scrot probably is not. I've found xwd handy on boxen that I don't want to (or am not allowed to) install packages on. NOTE: The dd junk for renaming the file is completely optional. I just did that for fun and because it's interesting that xwd embeds the window title in its metadata. I probably should have just parsed the output from file(1) instead of cutting it out with dd(1), but this was more fun and less error prone. NOTE2: Many programs don't know what to do with an xwd format image file. You can convert it to something normal using NetPBM's xwdtopnm(1) or ImageMagick's convert(1). For example, this would work: "xwd | convert fd:0 foo.jpg". Of course, if you have ImageMagick already installed, you'd probably use import(1) instead of xwd. NOTE3: Xwd files can be viewed using the X Window UnDumper: "xwud <foo.xwd". ImageMagick and The GIMP can also read .xwd files. Strangely, eog(1) cannot. NOTE4: The sleep is not strictly necessary, I put it in there so that one has time to raise the window above any others before clicking on it. Show Sample Output

enable each bash completion that you have installed at your system, that's very nice ;)

using seq inside a subshell instead of a bash sequence to create increments. Show Sample Output

Create a progress dialog with custom title and text using zenity. Show Sample Output

Adjust "sleep X" to your needs. *NOTE: First sleep is required because bash doesn't have a "post-test" syntax (do XXX while). Show Sample Output

There is no need for variables. I also added sleep to reduce cpu usage, however I didn't test it.