*nix

Some useful commands

# Free memory (2.2G/7.6G)
free -h | awk '/^Mem:/ {print $3 "/" $2}'

# Top 10 memory intensive processes
ps axch -o cmd:15,%mem --sort=-%mem | sed 10q

# Top 10 CPU intensive processes
ps axch -o cmd:15,%cpu --sort=-%cpu | sed 10q

# Does your terminal emulator support _italics_?
echo -e "\e[3m foo \e[23m"

# `dd` command usage to burn an iso to a flash drive
dd if=Downloads/archlinux-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdb status=progress

# Display the SSID of connected network
nmcli -t -f active,ssid dev wifi | egrep '^yes' | cut -d\' -f2

# Colormap in terminal
msgcat --color=test

# Set a random wallpaper from r/earthporn
wget -O - -q reddit.com/r/earthporn.json | jq '.data.children[] | .data.url' | sed 1q | xargs feh --bg-fill

# Browse memes from r/memes
wget -O - -q reddit.com/r/memes.json | jq '.data.children[] | .data.url' | xargs feh

# See your most run commands
history | awk '{print $2}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | sed 10q

# Runs `command1` 1 out of 10 times
[ $[$RANDOM % 10] = 0 ] && command1 || command2
[ $[$RANDOM % 10] = 0 ] && cmatrix || clear # will run `cmatrix` 1 out of 10 times you execute this command

# Find out which shell you are on
echo $0 # or one of these
echo $SHELL
pstree $$
cat /proc/$$/cmdline
ps -p $$
ps -p $$ -oargs=
ps -p $$ -ocomm=

# Count number of lines in a file
cat <file> | wc -l # or one of these
cat <file> | nl -ba
grep -c ".*" <file>
sed -n '$=' <file>
awk 'END{print NR}' <file>
cat -n <file> | tail -n 1 | cut -f1

# Find your IP address
# Private IP
hostname -I # or one of these
ip addr
ifconfig
# Public IP
curl ipinfo.io # or one of these
curl -s https://icanhazip.com
wget -qO- https://checkip.amazonaws.com
host myip.opendns.com resolver1.opendns.com | grep "myip.opendns.com has" | awk '{print $4}'
dig +short myip.opendns.com @resolver1.opendns.com

# Find all mp4 files and merge them to output.mp4
find *.mp4 | sed 's:\ :\\\ :g'| sed 's/^/file /' > list.txt; ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt -c copy output.mp4; rm list.txt

• Find and replace all occurences of a string/pattern in text files in a directory recursively [*]

  find /home/<username>/ -type f | xargs sed -i  's/<old>/<new>/g'
  

Map Caps Lock to Ctrl and vice versa

• Moving The Ctrl Key - EmacsWiki
• Remap Caps Lock - WikiWikiWeb

# On Debian
vim /etc/default/keyboard
# Change the line that reads `XKBOPTIONS=""` to `XKBOPTIONS="ctrl:swapcaps"`
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh console-setup

Patching suckless tools

# For tarballs
patch -p1 < path/to/patch.diff

# For git repositories
git apply path/to/patch.diff

Change username and usergroup

[*]

1. Drop into a tty (Ctrl + Alt + F3).
2. Login with username and password.
3. Set a password for root account:

   sudo passwd root
   

4. Log out:

   exit
   

5. Login with root account.
6. Change the username and home folder:

   usermod -l <new_username> -d /home/<new_username> -m <old_username>
   

7. Change the group name:

   groupmod -n <new_group> <old_group>
   

8. Lock the root account.
9. Log out.
10. Exit tty.

Connect to Wi-Fi network with nmcli

nmcli dev wifi # Show available access points
nmcli dev wifi connect <access_point> password <password> # Connect

Connect to a hidden Wi-Fi network with nmcli

nmcli c add type wifi con-name <connect name> ifname wlp1s0 ssid <SSID>
nmcli con modify <connect name> wifi-sec.key-mgmt wpa-psk
nmcli con modify <connect name> wifi-sec.psk <password>
nmcli con up <connect name>

Change MAC address with macchanger

sudo service network-manager stop
sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
sudo macchanger -r wlan0
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo service network-manager start

Desktop entry template

[*, *]

Example:

# ~/.local/share/applications/firefox_dev.desktop
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Firefox Developer
GenericName=Firefox Developer Edition
Exec=/opt/firefox_dev/firefox/firefox
Terminal=false
Icon=/opt/firefox_dev/firefox/browser/chrome/icons/default/default128.png
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Network;X-Developer;
Comment=Firefox Developer Edition Web Browser.

Redirection

Standard I/O streams:

Redirecting input <

stdin usually takes input from the keyboard.

$ command < file.txt # Executing `command` with `file.txt` as the source of input

The output of one command can be redirected as the input for another with the | (pipe) character.

$ echo 'one two three' | tr a-z A-Z
ONE TWO THREE

Using here document and here string with << and <<< respectively:

$ tr a-z A-Z << END_TEXT
one two three
uno dos tres
END_TEXT
ONE TWO THREE
UNO DOS TRES

$ tr a-z A-Z <<< "one two three"
ONE TWO THREE

Redirecting output >

Unless redirected, stdout shows its output to the terminal.

$ command > file.txt # Redirect output of `command` to `file.txt`
# This will clobber (overwrite) any existing data in `file.txt`

# To avoid clobbering, use `>>`
$ command >> file.txt
# This will append the output to the end of `file.txt`

Clobbering can be disabled by set -o noclobber [*]. If this is enabled but you want to temporary turn off noclobber for a single operation, use >|. To re-enable, use set +o noclobber.

Redirecting error 2>

Unless redirected, stderr shows the error messages to the terminal.

$ command 2> file.txt # Redirect errors from `command` to `file.txt`
$ command 2>> file.txt # Avoid clobbering

# To redirect stdout and stderr to the same file, use `2>&1`
$ command 2>&1 file.txt

$ ls | xargs du -sk 2> /dev/null
# Redirecting stderr to the `/dev/null` device

File-system permissions

Modes

Permissions

Useful programs

tr

Translate or delete characters.

> echo 'reddit' | tr 'a-z' 'A-Z' # Change case from lowercase to uppercase
> echo 'reddit' | tr [:lower:] [:upper:] # Equivalent to above
REDDIT

tee

Read from standard input and write to both standard output and one or more files.

# This will write the JSON response to `response.json` as well as stdout
> curl https://api.github.com/repos/google/zx | tee response.json
{
  "id": 364474335,
  "name": "zx",
  "full_name": "google/zx",
  "visibility": "public",
  "forks": 469,
  "owner": {
    "login": "google",
    "id": 1342004,
    ...
  ...
}
> cat response.json
{
  "id": 364474335,
  "name": "zx",
  "full_name": "google/zx",
  "visibility": "public",
  "forks": 469,
  "owner": {
    "login": "google",
    "id": 1342004,
    ...
  ...
}

# Useful options
# -a, --append: Append to the given file(s), do not overwrite

cut

Remove sections from each line of files.

> cut -f 5 main.tsv # Output the fifth field from `main.tsv`

# Custom delimiter
> cut -d ":" -f 3- main.txt # Output the third through the last field from `main.txt`; Use `:` as delimiter
> cut -d "," -f 2,3 ratings.csv # Output only the 2nd and 3rd fields from `ratings.csv`; Use `,` as delimiter
> cut -d, -f 2,3 ratings.csv # Equivalent to above

> echo "This is an example." | cut -c3- # Output the third through the last character of the input
is is an example.

> cut -c1-20 <file> # Output the first through the 20th character of _each line_ of file

seq

Print a sequence of numbers.

> seq 3 # Generate numbers upto 3
1
2
3

> seq -s " | " 7 # Use custom separator (default: `\n`)
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

> seq -s " " 10 14 # Generate numbers from 10 upto 14
10 11 12 13 14

> seq -s " " 10 2 14 # Skip every other number
10 12 14

> seq -s " " 10 -2 6 # Going backwards
10 8 6

> seq -w 7 12 # Equalize width by padding with leading zeroes
07
08
09
10
11
12

> echo {0..9} # Alternative to `seq`
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

split

# Generates files named `xaa`, `xab`, `xac`, etc
split file # Split `file` into 1000-line files
split -l 10 file # Split `file` into 10-line files (except the last line)
split -n 5 file # Split `file`, each split with equal size (except the last line)
split -b 512 file # Split `file` with 512 bytes in each split (except the last line) (512k for kilbobytes, 512m for megabytes)
split -C 512 file # Split `file` with at most 512 bytes in each split without breaking lines

csplit

# Generates files named `xx00`, `xx01`, `xx02`, etc and prints size of each split in bytes to stdout
csplit file 5 23 # Split a file at lines 5 and 23
csplit file 5 {*} # Split a file every 5 lines (this will fail if the total number of lines is not divisible by 5)
csplit -k file 5 {*} # Split a file every 5 lines, ignoring exact-division error
csplit file 5 -f prefix # Split a file at line 5 and use a custom prefix for the output files
csplit file /regex/ # Split a file at a line matching a regular expression

System monitoring

• ps: Report a snapshot of the current processes.
  • ps aux | grep nginx: Search for "nginx" in ps output.
• htop: Interactive process viewer.
• top: Display running processes.
• cat /proc/loadavg: Load average.
• uptime: Tell how long the system has been running.
• w: See who is logged on and what they are doing.
• acpi: Shows battery status and other ACPI information.
• upower: Battery information.
• pidof [program]: Find the process ID of a running program.

System info

• lsb_release -a: Print distribution-specific information.
• cat /etc/*release
• uname -a: Print system information.
• cat /etc/fstab: Static file system information.

Networking

• vim /etc/resolv.conf: Change DNS server.
• ip: Show/Manipulate routing, network devices, interfaces and tunnels.
  • ip addr: Display IP addresses and property information.
• ss: Investigate sockets.
• dig: DNS lookup utility.

Misc

• man [program]: View man pages for programs.
• apropos: Search the manual page names and descriptions.
• [program] --help/-h
• true: Do nothing, successfully.
• false: Do nothing, unsuccessfully.
• test: Check file types and compare values.
• cat
• tac
• less
• echo
• bc: An arbitrary precision calculator language.
• head <file>: Output the first 10 lines of file.
  • head -N <file>: Output the first N lines of file.
  • cat <file> | sed Nq: Output the first N lines of file.
• tail <file>: Output the last 10 lines of file.
• rm: Remove files or directories.
  • rm -f !(test.txt): Remove all files in the directory except test.txt.
• ls
  • ls -d */: List directories only.
• date: Print or set the system date and time.
  • date +%s: Unix timestamp.
• time: Run programs and summarize system resource usage.
• cal: Displays a calendar.
• cd: Change working directory.
  • cd -: Change to previous working directory.
  • cd ~-: Same thing as cd - without echoing the path.
• pwd: Print name of current/working directory.
• passwd: Change user password.
• alias: List and create aliases.
• mkdir -p folder/{sub1,sub2}/{sub1,sub2,sub3}: Make directories/subdirectories quickly.
• chsh: Change login shell.
• fdisk: Disk partition utility.
• cfdisk: Disk partition utility.
• dd: Convert or copy a file, create bootable USBs from ISOs. use cautiously. can destroy data irreversibly. To monitor the progress of an operation, add the status=progress option to the command.
• wc: Print newline, word and byte counts for files.
  • ls ~/docs | wc -l: Print the number of files/folders in ~/docs.
• history: Show history.
  • <space>man man: Don't add man man command to history.
  • fc: Fix a long command that you messed up.
  • !666: Run 666th command in history.
  • !!:s/start/status: Replace start in previous command with status.
  • !-n: Refer to the command n lines back.
  • !-1 / !!: Refer to the previous command.
  • sudo !!: Run previous command but append sudo at the beginning.
  • [program] !!: Run previous command using [program].
• lsusb: List USB devices.
• lsblk: List information about block devices.
• env / printenv: List all environmental variables.
• free: Display amount of free and used memory in the system.
• df: Report file system disk space usage.
• du: Estimate file space usage.
  • du -sh dir/: Check size of dir/ on disk.
• fc-list: List available fonts.
• timedatectl: Control the system time and date.
  • cat /etc/timezone: (On Debian) Print current timezone.
• xprop: Property displayer for X.
• shred: Overwrite the specified file(s) repeatedly, in order to make it harder for even very expensive hardware probing to recover the data.
• mount: Mount a filesystem.
• clear: Clear the terminal screen.
• file: Determine file type.
• basename: Given a pathname, returns the basename of a file or directory.
• tree: List contents of directories in a tree-like format.
• xev: Print contents of X events.
• yes: Output a string repeatedly until killed.
• column: Columnate lists.
• shuf file.txt - Get random lines from file.txt.
• man ascii: ASCII character set encoded in octal, decimal, and hexadecimal.
• stat - Display file or file system status.
• dirs / pushd / popd - Display/Manipulate the directory stack.

Easter eggs

• calendar -f /usr/share/calendar/calendar.lotr -A 365

Misc

• Drop into a tty (tty3): Ctrl + Alt + F3
• Move between different ttys: Alt + Left/Right
• Mod keys:
  • Mod1: Left Alt
  • Mod3: Right Alt
  • Mod4: Super/Windows