This is the second article in this series, and brings eight additional tips for working faster with the shell. Here is the first article of the series, containing 10 tips.

Here are 10 Bash tips which should make working in a terminal faster and more productive.

We've seen how to check Gmail using the terminal (shell) in Linux and Mac but how about sending emails from a shell?

This is actually pretty easy, here's what you have to do:

1. locate

How to use:

locate file_name

Example:

locate xorg.conf

Will return this:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf
/usr/share/man/man5/xorg.conf.5.gz
/var/lib/x11/xorg.conf.md5sum

This is the third article in the Bash tips series, you can find the other two here and here.

Among the commands: Find removed (deleted) files still in use via /proc, On-the-fly unrar movie in .rar archive and play it, does also work on part archives, List programs with open ports and connections, Manually pause/unpause an application (process), etc.

CMus (C* Music Player) is an ncurses-based audio player that runs in a shell, with no need for an X server which is very configurable with Vi-like commands, multiple views and keyboard shortcuts. It supports various audio formats, including Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3, WAV, AAC or WMA.

This article is a continuation to my other Bash-related post, 6 Bash Productivity Tips. Since that article gathered many useful comments and I bumped into several more over the net, here are 5 more tips and tricks.

1. Use !!
Typing !! followed by Enter will bring back and execute the last command (same as Ctrl+P followed by Enter).

2. Use Emacs-like shortcuts

Ever logged on via SSH to a machine and started a long running process and then realize that you need to shutdown your laptop and take it with you? Ever accidentally get get disconnected from an SSH session and lose hours of work? Ever started a command that's going to take longer than you expected and you want to do some other things while you're waiting?

Konsole: This is a powerful and full-featured terminal included by default in KDE. It features desktop transparency, background images, profiles, tabs, notifications and plenty schemes to choose from.

Always wanted to learn using a shell more deeply? Maybe “fish“, the “friendly interactive shell” is the right kickoff for you.

Just the other day we were having a discussion on using the root shell in Ubuntu.  Now, remember, the root user account is disabled with no assigned password on a default Ubuntu system so administrative tasks need to be done using the sudo command.  For nearly all of the administration you would need sudo will be adequate.  There are occasionally those fringe cases where you might require a root shell.  Below I have a few alternatives and then, if you must, the correct way of opening a root shell.

Many companies offer LAMP hosting, but some of the cheaper LAMP providers do not allow SSH access, reserving that feature for higher-paying customers. Without SSH you may think you'll have trouble executing commands on the hosted server. Not so -- PHP Shell allows execution of some commands without having SSH access to the LAMP server.

Maybe most of the readers of this blog do already know about shell scripts, and maybe they know even more than me (which is not difficult), but for those who does not know about it, I will write a little about shell scripts. A shell script is a sequence of commands -For those coming from DOS is like a .bat file- this command will execute in the sequence they are entered, unless loops, if, do, for, or any other commands like those are used.