this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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    I thought it'd be a pain but installing programs through the terminal is actually so nice, I never would have expected it

    top 50 comments
    sorted by: hot top controversial new old
    [–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 92 points 1 day ago (12 children)
    • tab completion works in more places than you might expect
    • ctrl-a/ctrl-e for start/end of line
    • ctrl-u to clear the command you’ve typed so far but store it into a temporary pastebuffer
    • ctrl-y to paste the ctrl-u’d command
    • ctrl-w to delete by word (I prefer binding to alt-backspace though)
    • ctrl-r to search your command history
    • alt-b/alt-f to move cursor back/forwards by word
    • !! is shorthand for the previous run command; handy for sudo !!
    • !$ is the last argument of the previous command; useful more often than you’d think
    • which foo tells you where the foo program is located
    • ls -la
    • cd without any args takes you to your home dir
    • cd - takes you to your previous dir
    • ~ is a shorthand for your home dir
    [–] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 10 minutes ago

    What's the shortcut for scrolling the terminal?

    [–] hamsda@lemm.ee 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

    Saved! Thank you so much.

    I've used Linux full-time since late 2020 and I never knew about ctrl+y and ctrl+u.

    I'd also like to contribute some knowledge.

    aliases

    You can put these into your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc or whatever shell you use.

    ###
    ### ls aliases
    ###
    # ls = colors
    alias ls='ls --color=auto'
    
    # ll = ls + human readable file sizes
    alias ll='ls -lh --color=auto'
    
    # lla = ll + show hidden files and folders
    alias lla='ls -lah --color=auto'
    
    ###
    ### other aliases
    ###
    # set color for different commands
    alias diff='diff --color=auto'
    alias grep='grep --color=auto'
    alias ip='ip --color=auto'
    
    # my favourite way of navigating to a far-off folder
    # this scans my home folder and presents me with a list of
    #    fuzzy-searchable folders
    #    you need fzf and fd installed for this alias to work
    alias cdd='cd "$(sudo fd -t d . ${HOME} | fzf)"'
    

    recommendations

    ncdu - a shell-based tool to analyze disk usage, think GNOME's baobab or KDE's filelight but in the terminal

    zellij - tmux but easy and with nice colors

    atuin - shell history but good, fuzzy-searchable. If you still have the basic shell history (when pressing ctrl+r), I cannot recommend this enough.

    ranger - a terminal file-browser (does everything I need and way more)

    [–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 5 points 17 hours ago

    Saving this! Absolutely gold, thanks for writing it up. You're what makes the Linux community cool. ❀️

    tab completion works in more places than you might expect

    I've found tab to be such a nice "please give me a hint" button.

    • Bonus tip : Sometimes you won't get auto complete because there's too many possibilities and the computer can't be certain which one you want. Hitting tab multiple times will show the possibilities, so you can type in enough characters to remove ambiguity, hit tab again, and boom auto complete!

    ...That was a terribly convoluted explanation I'm sorry. Just try hitting tab multiple times for fun if you're stuck it's kinda handy. Lol

    [–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

    If you’re looking for a full list of these kind of navigation shortcuts, they all come from readline so read the man page for that. Or just look up the basic navigation of emacs which is what readline is mimicking.

    [–] kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

    A neat thing is that a lot of command line programs use readline. So learning and configuring it will also be useful in for example the Python REPL and calc.

    Here are some neat configuration options you can put in ~/.inputrc

    set completion-ignore-case on
    set show-all-if-ambiguous on
    set completion-prefix-display-length 9
    set blink-matching-paren on
    set mark-symlinked-directories on
    

    And if you are a sensible person who is used to vim

    set editing-mode vi
    set show-mode-in-prompt on
    
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    [–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

    i like leaving top on all day just to watch it.

    [–] MissyBee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

    you've seen top, get ready for btop

    [–] GiveOver@feddit.uk 3 points 1 hour ago

    I'm the htopopotamus, my processes are bottomless

    i'm definitely ready to btop

    [–] Hawke@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    If you or someone you know wants a taste of that experience on Windows, try out winget or chocolatey.

    i'd also recommend scoop. when i had windows before i switched, i preferred it to winget or chocolately.

    [–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 8 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

    As an administrator, powershell is an essential tool these days. There are tunables that Microsoft simply only exposes via powershell even in their cloud Microsoft 365 environments. Just last month I had to rely on Powershell to trim previous versions on SharePoint, and 2 weeks ago I had to use Powershell to adjust a parameter on Exchange.

    But also being able to pop a Powershell session and quickly apply a registry fix or run a diagnostic command or even just install a piece of software without disrupting a user's work is absolutely brilliant (plus saves a call when I can just email back and say "I've pushed it remotely, reboot and it should be sorted now")

    [–] eodur@lemmy.world 9 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

    Every time I use Powershell it makes me love bash even more

    [–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 4 points 19 hours ago

    Yeah Powershell has way more weird limitations than Bash but it's way better than using cmd.exe

    [–] Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

    Great news, you can install powershell as your linux shell!

    [–] martinb@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
    [–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

    I actually had to do that due to something preventing me from upgrading to Powershell 7 on my workstation. Adapted my script for Linux and ran it in Powershell in Linux

    [–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

    Haha this feels like the software version of using like 3 different daisy-chained adaptors. Nice solve!

    [–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 1 points 17 hours ago

    Oh the best part is it was all to fix a problem on Microsoft SharePoint. Not even on-prem SharePoint!

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    [–] Hawke@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago

    As a sometimes Windows admin, I completely agree. Plus so many things that become simple one-liners instead of taking forever farting around in a GUI tool where a little misclick screws up everything and documentation requires 27 pages of giant screenshots.

    [–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

    if I could copy pasta with ctrl-c and ctrl-v in terminal, then 90% of my hatred of the command line would evaporate instantly.

    [–] alsimoneau@lemmy.ca 21 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

    middle mouse click is like magic, but CTRL-SHIFT-C/V usually works

    [–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 7 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

    I don't want to pasta with middle click. I want to scroll with middle click. I want to pasta with ctrl-v.

    [–] kattfisk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 hour ago

    Then change the keyboard shortcuts of your terminal so that it does that. If you can't, then switch to a terminal that lets you change the keyboard shortcuts.

    [–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 7 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

    I don't want to pasta with middle click. I want to scroll with middle click. I want to pasta with ctrl-v.

    🍝🀌🀌🀌

    Lol jokes aside, like they said above just add a shift and you're good. Ctrl+shift+c and Ctrl+shift+v a'cut'a a'nna pasta jus'sa fine! Muah!

    [–] ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago

    Has someone not made this a thing for the terminal?

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    [–] it_depends_man@lemmy.world 153 points 1 day ago (14 children)

    Also, updates.

    "hey computer! Update!"

    "Sure thing, here is a list of 57 packages I will update, y/n?"

    "y"

    "ok... done!"

    πŸ‘Œ

    [–] uniquethrowagay@feddit.org 1 points 17 minutes ago (1 children)

    It's not a big deal via terminal but for me and probably the average user, a decent update UI is superior. I want my computer to remind me like once a week and then update with one or two clicks. Updating via terminal does not appeal to me.

    [–] jj4211@lemmy.world 1 points 2 minutes ago

    And this happens too. I get a little tray icon saying 'do updates' and I tap that and all my applications whether fwupd (firmware), flatpak or rpm updates are there and I click 'go', including the most recent nvidia drivers. In my case, KDE 'discover' does this for me. I'm so lazy as to not want to bother running the three terminal commands (dnf, fwupdmgr, and flatpak).

    Meanwhile, under windows, I do that, but then it doesn't do my firmware, so my hardware vendor has their own updater (which also suggests driver updates that Microsoft does not suggest), but if I use those then I still miss out on decent nvidia drivers, I need to go to nvidia to get those updates. And pretty much every application is then independently telling me time to update something or another in a never ending parade of 'update me now' icons in the tray.

    Meanwhile it can be greatly mitigated in Windows by opening up a terminal and doing a winget update. Except it keeps offering up this one Office update that hangs with a blank terminal in my screen, and it still misses half the stuff..

    [–] reactionality@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

    Getting me silenced by the mob of mods is just what a dirty Linux user would do.

    Removed Comment: Windows has winget upgrade --all. Fucking cultists.

    [–] jj4211@lemmy.world 1 points 31 seconds ago

    Though it doesn't work fully, and as it works it's spewing windows on my screen, because so much of the windows ecosystem doesn't believe in headless operation.

    [–] pennomi@lemmy.world 120 points 1 day ago (20 children)

    But how do Linux users handle the crippling loneliness of their operating system not pestering them with ads on every update? How else can you know if your computer loves you? Where is the warmth of the corporate embrace?

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    [–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

    plus it makes you feel like a hacker for a few seconds

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    [–] yesman@lemmy.world 100 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    The Windows terminal has some very good commands. 'ssh username@server' can log you right into a Linux machine!

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    [–] Shanmugha@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

    Niw you are doomed and there is no going back. Welcome to the gang;)

    [–] kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    Just wait until you find the fun TUI utilities, ill share a few:

    • Shell: Fish (has powerful auto-complete, very fast, written in rust)
    • Montior: Btop (monitors all system resources and processes)
    • Fetch: Fastfetch (perfect for showing off on !unixporn@lemmy.world, for !unixsocks@lemmy.blahaj.zone Hyfetch is reccomnded)
    • Brower: BrowSH (its a browser in your terminal)
    • Text Editor: Vim (the best text editor, remeber to use esc + : + q to close or wq to write close vim. However when you open vim you can never quit)
    • File manager: Ranger (if cd + ls is too inconvenient)
    • Games (yes you can even play games in the terminal): 2048, Chess-TUI, NSnake, and Micro Tetris

    More cool TUI tools

    [–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

    next step to full on conversion is making your own dotfiles repo :)

    Then get an old librebooted Thinkpad X230 with Arch GNU/Linux (and remind eveyone it's GNU + Linux) :3

    [–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

    I have to check out some of these!

    As for the browser, how does it display sites? Does it display images/video/play audio or is it mostly for just the text based stuff? How about ads/adblockers?

    [–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

    My guess is it works like Lynx.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_(web_browser)

    You mainly get basic text formatting with some colors. It's kinda neat. I imagine text heavy sites like Wikipedia (or Lemmy instances! Maybe other Fediverse stuff?) would be decent with it.

    You can open media with external applications it says though.

    Also hey, it's not running all that fancy privacy-killing JavaScript! :D

    In some situations I imagine it's fantastic for making your browsing look like you're working on something important, if you have a problem with nosy shoulder-surfers.

    [–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 16 hours ago

    Thanks, I'll definitely have to try these, they look neat!

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