Command-Line keyboard shortcuts

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kethd
Posts: 451
Joined: Thu 20 Oct 2005, 12:54
Location: Boston MA USA

Command-Line keyboard shortcuts

#1 Post by kethd »

When you are entering commands at #, there are some shortcuts that make things a lot easier...

The shell keeps a history buffer of your previous commands. Just use the up-arrow cursor key to access them line by line. When you find one you like, change it if you want, then hit Enter.

And you don't have to actually type long file names. Just type the first few letters, and then hit TAB. If there is only one file with that name, the rest of it will auto-complete. If there are more than one match, it will beep. Hit Tab again, and it will give you a list of the matches. (But, there does not seem to be any way to select one of them! Anyone know a secret shortcut to do this?) It will let you type more, to narrow down the choices, and you can keep trying Tab.

Also, you can use wild-card matches in many places. Let's say you have a few files with long names, all starting with pup. You want to process one, without typing the whole name. You can give a command like:
# md5sum pup*iso
and since there is only one file that matches that pattern, it will go ahead and do it.

(The Tab auto-complete feature in Puppy does work, but does not seem as powerful as some of the features you might read about for other versions of Linux.)

sveitserosten :)
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu 27 Oct 2005, 17:36
Location: Switzerland

#2 Post by sveitserosten :) »

This is a very helpful instruction - but it should be posted in the beginners section as discussed here:;
http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=4396

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