you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 59 points 1 year ago (26 children)

What the fuck!? How am I only learning this now, after years of linux as daily driver?!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 26 child comments
  • [–] 42 points 1 year ago (17 children)

    Shit is usually a pain in the ass. The challenge is divining how much of a pain in the ass something has to be that someone else might have made a solution for it.

    I didn't know you could ctrl+shift+c to copy in the terminal until a month ago when my linux n00b wife said "there has to be a better way to do this. I've been right clicking to copy for 10 years.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 17 child comments
  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    most DE's have a thing where you can paste highlighted text using the middle mouse button

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    you can also just use ctrl + insert for copy and shift + insert for paste.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I used to have shift insert in my muscle memory from Windows, but since my job has used a Mac since 2020 it's fallen out. I never knew Ctrl insert was copy, that's nifty! Another tool in the arsenal. It will be useful when copy in select isn't set and I don't know how to set it up lol.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [+] -6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Ctrl+c to copy, Ctrl+v to paste, Ctrl+z to undo last change (chain it multiple times to reverse time) hopes this helps, ctrl+tab also changes applications on macos and Linux to my knowledge. If you know anymore let's put them together

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    You're getting downvotes because Ctrl+C doesn't work in the terminal. That sends the kill command to the currently running application. You need the shift to tell the terminal program that you're trying to copy.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Congratulations! I remember where I was when I first learned it (in a noisy server room at the back of a machine shop).

    Now pair it with FZF for fuzzy finding -- it's surprisingly easy to set up, just following any guide. It's insanely useful. I find myself even doing things like typing:

    $ xinput --disable $(xinput --list | grep -i touchpad | grep 'id=[0-9]\+' -o | cut -d= -f2)  # Disable synaptic touchpad trackpad pointer
    

    commands with these like comments on the ends as sort of "tags" so I can ctrl+r search for them later. Yes, I know I could just use a named function, but this is like the step just before that--before I know if I'll be issuing the same command all the time, or just for the next couple weeks. (This one was from when I was resting my notebook on my laptop.)

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    As usual, that's documented (we can RTFM).

    Before trying ctrl-s, you may want to disable software flow control: run stty -ixon & add it to your initialization files. Otherwise, you'll pause terminal output. ctrl-q resumes terminal output.

    stty reveals terminal special characters

    $ stty -a
    ⁝
    intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>; eol2 = <undef>; swtch = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R; werase = ^W; lnext = ^V; discard = ^O; …
    ⁝
    

    These special characters/keys often perform special functions. To illustrate

    • ctrl-d on empty input typically exits/logs out of interactive terminal applications (including shells)
    • ctrl-u discards input (useful for inputs like password prompts that don't echo input back)
    • ctrl-v inputs next character literally (such as tab)
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Just checking, because I learnt to type before I worked this out, and because surely someone reading doesn't know: press tab. Bash will fill in file names from your current directory.

    E.g. say you have files fred1file, fred2file, jim.

    Type f then press tab, it will fill to "fred". Then press 2 and press tab again and it will fill the full "fred2file".

    Have a play, it works in heaps of situations.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Bash will also do autocomplete for cli programs that have autocomplete functionality. Try typing:

    git r<tab><tab>

    you'll see options for all the git commands that start with r. Often cli commands will have autocompletion for long (double dash) options.

    If you want to see all the commands that have auto complete available, look in:

    /usr/share/bash-completion/completions/

    There's a few other locations they can live, notably:

    /etc/bash_completion.d/ ~/.bash_completion ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/

    I don't know if there are more or if there is any variation per distro.

    You can also write your own bash completions. They can get pretty smart and context sensitive.

    Pretty good beginning tutorial:

    https://iridakos.com/programming/2018/03/01/bash-programmable-completion-tutorial

    edit - I should've mentioned that this isn't native to bash, it requires installation of bash-completion. But bash-completion is installed by default in many distros.

  • source
  • parent