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Terminal Escape Code Zen - Strace and Tput
Depending on the TERM, the terminfo version, ncurses version, etc.. you may be using a varied assortment of terminal escape codes. With this command you can easily find out exactly what is going on.. This is terminal escape zen! $ ( 2>&2 strace -f -F -e write -s 1000 sh -c 'echo -e "initc\nis2\ncnorm\nrmso\nsgr0" | tput -S' 2>&1 ) | grep -o '"\\[^"]*"' --color=always "\33]4;%p1%d;rgb:%p2%{255}%*%{1000}%/%2.2X/%p3%{255}%*%{1000}%/%2.2X/%p4%{255}%*%{1000}%/%2.2X\33\\\33[!p\33[?3;4l\33[4l\33>\33[?12l\33[?25h\33[27m\33(B\33[m" Lets say you want to find out what you need to echo in order to get the text to blink.. $ echo -e "`tput blink`This will blink`tput sgr0` This wont" Now you can use this function instead of calling tput (tput is much smarter for portable code because it works differently depending on the current TERM, and tput -T anyterm works too.) to turn that echo into a much faster executing code. tput queries files, opens files, etc.. but echo is very strait and narrow. So now you can do this: $ echo -e "\33[5mThis will blink\33(B\33[m This wont" More at http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html

Copy an element from the previous command
You can specify a range via '-'.

Launch a VirtualBox virtual machine
You can use this on your session login.

See system users

print crontab entries for all the users that actually have a crontab
This is how I list the crontab for all the users on a given system that actually have a crontab. You could wrap it with a function block and place it in your .profile or .bashrc for quick access. There's prolly a simpler way to do this. Discuss.

Find artist and title of a music cd, UPC code given (first result only)
I like curl better than wget, I just think that curl -s is a lot simpler than wget ... see I forget what you even have to do to get wget to pipe it's output Anyway, all in one sed command as "requested"

df without line wrap on long FS name
-P uses the POSIX output format, which makes information on each file system always printed on exactly one line. "column -t" makes a table from the input.

Perform a C-style loop in Bash.
Print 0 through 99, each on a separate line.

open path with your default GNOME program
Another step to bring cli and gui closer together: gnome-open It opens a path with the default (gui) application for its mime type. I would recommend a shorter alias like alias o=gnome-open More examples: $ gnome-open . [opens the current folder in nautilus / your default file browser] $ gnome-open some.pdf [opens some.pdf in evince / your default pdf viewer] $ gnome-open trash:// [opens the trash with nautilus] $ gnome-open http://www.commandlinefu.com [opens commandlinefu in your default webbrowser]

Make all GUI stuff show up on the display connected to the computer (when you're logged in via SSH)
If you have multiple displays or monitors the DISPLAY environment variable will tell X where to send the output. This is very handy for setting up a mediacenter at home. You can plugin the computer to the TV and then ssh to the computer and set the DISPLAY as above, then run your program and it will show up on the TV.


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