Four tweaks for .bashrc

Tweak #1

To enable arrow keys to search history for the ending of a half-typed line.

  bind '"\e[A": history-search-backward' bind '"\e[B": history-search-forward' 

Usage: Type something in terminal that you know is the beginning of a long command line that you occasionally need. Arrow keys up and down should complete it.

Tweak #2

Alert in OSD when a process ends.

alias alert='notify-send --urgency=low -i "$([ $? = 0 ] && echo terminal || echo error)" "$(history|tail -n1|sed -e '\''s/^\s*[0-9]\+\s*//;s/[;&|]\s*alert$//'\'')"'

Usage: cmd; alert where ‘cmd’ is an arbitrary command that performs a process, e.g. wget.

Tweak #3

An archive extractor without installing another program.

ext () {   if [ -f $1 ] ; then     case $1 in       *.tar.bz2)   tar xjf $1   ;;       *.tar.gz)    tar xzf $1   ;;       *.bz2)       bunzip2 $1   ;;       *.rar)       unrar x $1     ;;       *.gz)        gunzip $1    ;;       *.tar)       tar xf $1    ;;       *.tbz2)      tar xjf $1   ;;       *.tgz)       tar xzf $1   ;;       *.zip)       unzip $1     ;;       *.Z)         uncompress $1;;       *.7z)        7z x $1      ;;       *)           echo "'$1' cannot be extracted via ext()" ;;     esac   else     echo "'$1' is not a valid file"   fi } 

Usage: ext <file>

Tweak #4

Colors for man pages, Gentoo style.

  man() {         env \                 LESS_TERMCAP_mb=$(printf "\e[1;31m") \                 LESS_TERMCAP_md=$(printf "\e[1;31m") \                 LESS_TERMCAP_me=$(printf "\e[0m") \                 LESS_TERMCAP_se=$(printf "\e[0m") \                 LESS_TERMCAP_so=$(printf "\e[1;44;33m") \                 LESS_TERMCAP_ue=$(printf "\e[0m") \                 LESS_TERMCAP_us=$(printf "\e[1;32m") \                         man "$@" } 

Usage: Open a man page and notice the difference.

Less is the viewer and Nano is the editor

On GNU/Linux, a highly useful command for beginners is man. It means “manual” and it’s the documentation and tutorial that comes with the installed operating system.

About man pages

Man pages are accessed by typing man cmd where ‘cmd’ is a command that the user wants to know more about. For example try man cp.

A command that does not exist will result in this:

~$ man cmd No manual entry for cmd 

Unfortunately, not all commands and programs have man pages. Some are missing, because they are not installed in the operating system. (In this case, read about them online.) Some are missing, because they were never written. (In this case, cmd --help sometimes works. Or online search again.)

About ‘less’

Linux man(ual) pages are not big news actually. What may be more of a news is that the page viewer that is opened by man is actually a text file viewer that is called ‘less’. So, ‘man’ opens up ‘less’ a certain way.

Normally, when the idea is to view any text file, keep it open, and scroll around in it, it’s best to type less filename. A bigger introduction is available at man less, but some of the highlights of ‘less’ are as follows:

  • Move around with arrow keys, PgUp, PgDown, Space, Home and End.
  • By default, it wraps long lines rather than truncates them, just like all viewers and browsers should do, in my opinion.
  • Search with /. Find next with n and find previous with Shift+n.
  • Shift+f goes to the end of file and keeps reading it. This is highly useful when piping a file that is being written, to always see its end. For example sudo tcpdump > file | less file and in ‘less’ Shift+f.
  • Enable line numbers in the file with the -N option, i.e. less -N file.
  • Open the editor with v.
  • An overview of the keybinds under h.

Not all these features work when you have ‘man’ open rather than ‘less’, but for example v for editor (which indeed doesn’t work in ‘man’) is a great feature. Normally, one would not want to change the file by mistake, so it makes sense to open it in a viewer like ‘less’, but when the need for editing arises, ‘less’ conveniently redirects there when you press v.

About ‘nano’

The standard editor in Linux is ‘vi’, which happens to be my least favourite editor. The only thing I want to know about it is how to get out of it. For beginners, ‘nano’ is much more convenient, because it has a helpful commands list at the bottom by default.

nano demo screenshot

To enable ‘nano’ over ‘vi’ in the system, put in your .xinitrc or .bashrc (better – in both) the following line:

export EDITOR=/usr/bin/nano

This should be all for most purposes. Usually ‘nano’ comes preinstalled, so nothing to worry about.

Keybinds in ‘nano’

Nano does not use the same keybinds and shortcuts as ‘less’, but this is not a bad thing, because it makes sense to keep the editor function apart from viewer function. On the other hand, ‘nano’ meaningfully uses a bunch of shortcuts similar to bash readline function, such as Ctrl+a “to the beginning of the line” and Ctrl+e “to the end of the line”. Some other shortcuts, somewhat or totally different from bash readline function,* include:

  • Ctrl+w to search. Alt+w to repeat last search. Alt+r to find-and-replace.
  • Ctrl+k to cut the entire line and store it for pasting.
  • Ctrl+u to paste what’s stored.
  • Uninterrupted consecutive cuts are all stored-as-one, e.g. three times Ctrl+k cuts three lines below each other and then Ctrl+u restores them all. This enables moving consecutive paragraphs around in the file conveniently. Note however that when the cursor is moved between cuts, the sequence of cuts starts over.
  • Ctrl+r to open the system file list, enabling to pick a text file to add into the currently open buffer.
  • Ctrl+o to save the file either with the current or a different filename. In this state, Ctrl+t opens the system file list to pick a file to replace (save as).

* See man bash and search for “readline notation”.

Further configuration of ‘nano’

Nano uses the .nanorc file for further configuration. An example of it is located at /etc/nanorc or thereabouts. My ~/.nanorc looks as follows.

  # by default, 'nano' justifies lines to terminal width # which only makes sense when used in 'mutt'; to disable set nowrap set softwrap  # to gain a line for editing, to smoothen scrolling  # and to enable some minimal mousing set morespace set smooth set wordbounds set mouse  # when familiar enough with the keybinds, uncomment # set nohelp 

More advanced hints for ‘nano’ and .nanorc can be found at /etc/nanorc and man nano. And here’s a link to the tutorial that got me started with ‘nano’ a few years ago http://www.tuxradar.com/content/text-editing-nano-made-easy