Unit 3 路 Linux^2 路 Lesson 31 of 34
Work harder, not smarter, wait...
Tab, history, and other shortcuts
At this point you've typed a lot of commands, and your fingers are probably tired. Good news, Linux has your back.
Tab completion
Start typing a file name or command and press Tab. Linux will finish it for you.
If there's more than one match, press Tab twice and it'll show you all the options. This also saves you from typos, which is huge.
history
history shows a numbered list of the commands you've run recently.
[user@linux]$ history
It's just output like anything else, so you can pipe it into grep to find that one command from last week:
[user@linux]$ history | grep nano
Shortcuts you'll use constantly
馃毃
Ctrl+Cis the big one. If something is stuck or spamming your screen,Ctrl+Cis your emergency exit.
Try it
Whoever used this account before you was careless. They typed a flag (cyber{...}) right into the terminal once, then kept going for hundreds of commands. The terminal remembers all of them.
Scrolling with the up arrow is technically an option. It's a bad option.
There's also a program called spam in your home folder. It does exactly what it sounds like.
Live Linux terminal
This lesson comes with a real Ubuntu machine that runs in your browser, so you type every command yourself. Create a free account to do this part.
Do this lesson for real
With a free account you get the terminal, the challenges and the checks that go with every lesson in Intro to Linux, and your progress is saved as you go. CyberAcad is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so there is nothing to pay.