Ubuntu Forums - View Single Post

locke.dragon · 11:05 AM

Since I'm a noob myself and don't know much about the inner workings of the terminal, I won't shed any light on that subject. But, I would like to share some interesting and useful terminal code I've found. This code was only tested on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, but it will also work on most Mac OSX computers and should work on all Ubuntu releases.

I plan on updating when I find something new.

If you have any others, please post them!

Entertainment

Watch Star Wars

Code:

 
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

Chat with a bot

Code:

 
telnet the-funk.net 7000

Custom ascii text

Code:

banner

See how long your machine has been running

Code:

uptime

To see the arbitrary precision calculator (7^500 is interesting! That's 7 to the 500th power)

Code:

bc

Must enter below code to use the next few

Code:

sudo apt-get install cowsay

See your fortune

Code:

fortune

Use cowsay (replace “message” with your own text in single quotes)

Code:

cowsay 'message'

Cowsay your Amarok lyrics

Code:

dcop amarok player lyrics | cowsay

Must enter below code to use the next few

Code:

sudo apt-get emacs21

--------------------------------------------------

To play 'snake'

Code:

emacs21

Once emacs21 opens, hit...

Quote:

Esc>>”X”

Type in...

Code:

snake

--------------------------------------------------

To play 'tetris'

Code:

emacs21

Once emacs21 opens, hit...

Quote:

Esc>>”X”

Type in...

Code:

tetris

--------------------------------------------------

Useful

Show some computer stats

Code:

lspci

Access a dictionary through terminal (must have a working internet connection)
Note: Replace 'word' with whatever you'd like to search for (without quotes)

Code:

curl dict://dict.org/d:word

Check system temperature and battery charge

Code:

 
acpi -t

See a list of all running processes

Code:

ps aux

View the current time, date, and year

Code:

date

Show a simple calendar

Code:

cal

See what programs are running with the path names

Code:

ps -aux

See your current IP address

Code:

ifconfig -a

See what your system is doing at startup

Code:

dmesg

Show information about the computer users

Code:

finger -l

Show current Ubuntu version

Code:

cat /etc/issue

System Recovery

Backup xorg.conf

Code:

 
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf_backup

Replace current xorg.conf with a previously made backup

Code:

 
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf_backup /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Delete auto xorg.conf backups

Code:

 
sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf.2007*

Use nano to edit xorg.conf (works in “terminal-only” mode)

Code:

 
sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Keyboard Shortcuts

Terminal keyboard shortcut for paste

Quote:

Ctrl>>Shift>>Alt>>”V”

Or...

Quote:

Shift>>Insert

Advanced Users Only
Open up a file browser with all privileges

Code:

gksudo nautilus

Edit color options (advanced users only)

Code:

gedit .gtkrc-2.0

Give a .sh file executable priveledges

Code:

chmod +x <file name>