11 Little‑Known Linux Terminal Tricks to Supercharge Your Workflow

I have been using Linux for ten years, and in this article I share a collection of command‑line shortcuts, tools, and tricks that can dramatically improve your productivity.

1. Everyday Command‑Line Shortcuts

CTRL+U – delete everything before the cursor

CTRL+K – delete from the cursor to the end of the line

CTRL+Y – paste the previously cut text

CTRL+E – move the cursor to the end of the line

CTRL+A – move the cursor to the beginning of the line

ALT+F – jump forward to the next word

ALT+B – jump back to the previous word

ALT+Backspace – delete the previous word

CTRL+W – cut the word before the cursor

Shift+Insert – paste text into the terminal

These shortcuts let you edit commands quickly, for example correcting a typo in sudo apt‑get intall programname by moving the cursor with ALT+B and inserting the missing "s".

2. Re‑run the Last Command with sudo

If you forget to prepend sudo and get a "permission denied" error, you can simply type sudo !! to execute the previous command with root privileges. For instance, after typing apt‑get install ranger, running sudo !! expands to sudo apt‑get install ranger.

3. Pause a Job and Return It to the Foreground

Press CTRL+Z to suspend the current foreground job, which returns you to the shell prompt. When you are ready, type fg to resume the job. This is handy when editing a file with nano and you need to run a quick command without exiting the editor.

4. Keep a Command Running After Logout with nohup

When connected via SSH, prepend nohup to a long‑running command so it continues after you disconnect. Example:

nohup wget http://mirror.is.co.za/mirrors/linuxmint.com/iso/stable/17.1/linuxmint-17.1-cinnamon-64bit.iso &

5. Schedule a Command at a Specific Time with at

Use at followed by a time specification, then enter the command at the at> prompt. Example:

at 10:38 PM Fri

at> cowsay 'hello'

at> CTRL+D

This schedules cowsay 'hello' to run at the given time.

6. Tweak man Pages

Make man output more colorful by setting a pager: export PAGER=most Adjust line width: export MANWIDTH=80 Open a man page in a web browser (if $BROWSER is set):

man -H <command>

7. Manage Processes with htop

Install htop and run it with htop. It provides an interactive, color‑coded view of processes, similar to a graphical task manager, and lets you sort, filter, or kill processes directly.

8. Browse Files with ranger

After installing, start the file manager by typing ranger. It displays a two‑pane view where the left/right arrows navigate up and down the directory tree.

9. Cancel a Pending Shutdown

If a shutdown has been scheduled, abort it with: shutdown -c Or kill the shutdown process:

pkill shutdown

10. Quickly Kill a Hung Application

Run xkill and click the offending window to terminate it. For a completely frozen system, use the magic SysRq sequence REISUB (hold Alt+SysRq and press the keys in order) to reboot safely without using the power button.

11. Download YouTube Videos

Install youtube‑dl from your package manager and download a video with: youtube-dl <url> -o <filename> Copy the video URL from the YouTube share dialog and paste it into the terminal (Shift+Insert works for pasting).

Conclusion

I hope you find at least one of these eleven tips surprising—"I didn’t know you could do that!"—and that they make your Linux workflow smoother.