The empty file /forcefsck causes the file system check fsck to be run next time you boot up, after which it will be removed. This works too: sudo >/forcefsck

Useful mainly for debugging or troubleshooting an application or system, such as X11, Apache, Bind, DHCP and others. Another useful switch that can be combined with -mmin, -mtime and so forth is -daystart. For example, to find files that were modified in the /etc directory only yesterday: sudo find /etc -daystart -mtime 1 -type f

You have an external USB drive or key. Apply this command (using the file path of anything on your device) and it will simulate the unplug of this device. If you just want the port, just type : echo $(sudo lshw -businfo | grep -B 1 -m 1 $(df "/path/to/file" | tail -1 | awk '{print $1}' | cut -c 6-8) | head -n 1 | awk '{print $1}' | cut -c 5- | tr ":" "-") Show Sample Output

cat? dd? RTFM

Show the number of failed tries of login per account. If the user does not exist it is marked with *. Show Sample Output

This will limit the average amount of CPU it consumes. Show Sample Output

This command utilizes 'pv' to show dd's progress. Notes on use with dd: -- dd block size (bs=...) is a widely debated command-line switch and should usually be between 1024 and 4096. You won't see much performance improvements beyond 4096, but regardless of the block size, dd will transfer every bit of data. -- pv's switch, '-s' should be as close to the size of the data source as possible. -- dd's out file, 'of=...' can be anything as the data within that file are the same regardless of the filename / extension. Show Sample Output

In my example, the mount point is /media/mpdr1 and the FS is /dev/sdd1 /mountpoint-path = /media/mpdr1 filesystem=/dev/sdd1 Why this command ? Well, in fact, with some external devices I used to face some issues : during data transfer from the device to the internal drive, some errors occurred and the device was unmounted and remounted again in a different folder. In such situations, the command mountpoint gave a positive result even if the FS wasn't properly mounted, that's why I added the df part. And if the device is not properly mounted, the command tries to unmount, to create the folder (if it exists already it will also work) and finally mount the FS on the given mount point. Show Sample Output

Create a temporary file that acts as swap space. In this example it's a 1GB file at the root of the file system. This additional capacity is added to the existing swap space. Show Sample Output

This command starts screen with 'htop', 'nethogs' and 'iotop' in split-screen. You have to have these three commands (of course) and specify the interface for nethogs - mine is wlan0, I could have acquired the interface from the default route extending the command but this way is simpler. htop is a wonderful top replacement with many interactive commands and configuration options. nethogs is a program which tells which processes are using the most bandwidth. iotop tells which processes are using the most I/O. The command creates a temporary "screenrc" file which it uses for doing the triple-monitoring. You can see several examples of screenrc files here: http://www.softpanorama.org/Utilities/Screen/screenrc_examples.shtml

Limits the usage of bandwidth by apt-get, in the example the command will use 30Kb/s ;) It should work for most apt-get actions (install, update, upgrade, dist-upgrade, etc.)

To install a theme use: sudo firefox -install-global-theme /path/to/theme You can get the .xpi or .jar file from the versions history on the add-on/theme page. NOTE: may not work in your system (Debian-based is an example).

By default sudo 'remembers' password for a few minutes, so that you do not need to re-enter password for a series of sudo commands that might follow within a short time duration. However, sometime you might want sudo to instantly 'forget' the password. (Next sudo command will need you to reenter the password) Credit: I first learned this while listening to one of the 'tuxradar' podcast. Show Sample Output

This will create an exact duplicate image of your hard drive that you can then restore by simply reversing the "if" & "of" locations. sudo dd if=/media/disk/backup/sda.backup of=/dev/sda Alternatively, you can use an SSH connection to do your backups: dd if=/dev/sda | ssh user@ssh.server.com dd of=~/backup/sda.backup

View all files opened by a user in specified directory. The +D option makes lsof search all sub-directories to complete depth, while ignoring symbolic links.

This will give you the Dell Service tag number associated with your machine. Incredibly useful when you need that number for tech support or downloads. Show Sample Output

This command lets you see and scroll through all of the strings that are stored in the RAM at any given time. Press space bar to scroll through to see more pages (or use the arrow keys etc). Sometimes if you don't save that file that you were working on or want to get back something you closed it can be found floating around in here! The awk command only shows lines that are longer than 20 characters (to avoid seeing lots of junk that probably isn't "human readable"). If you want to dump the whole thing to a file replace the final '| less' with '> memorydump'. This is great for searching through many times (and with the added bonus that it doesn't overwrite any memory...). Here's a neat example to show up conversations that were had in pidgin (will probably work after it has been closed)... sudo cat /proc/kcore | strings | grep '([0-9]\{2\}:[0-9]\{2\}:[0-9]\{2\})' (depending on sudo settings it might be best to run sudo su first to get to a # prompt)

This will view the console and assumes the screen is 80 characters wide. Use /dev/vcs2 for the next virtual console.. etc. Show Sample Output

from http://maysayadkaba.blogspot.com/2008/08/linux-check-ram-speed-and-type.html Show Sample Output

Ever since the switch to pulseaudio, Ubuntu users including myself have found themselves with no sound intermittently. To fix this, just use this command and restarts firefox or mplayer or whatever.

Purge all configuration files of removed packages Show Sample Output