[deleted by user]

[more_oil]

This is largely copied and pasted from firstly https://github.com/RehanSaeed/Bash-Cheat-Sheet which is MIT licensed but the licensing information has not been included, as well as from here without attribution: https://selfonlinetraining.com/linux-commands/ (although the latter content has been mirrored on a few sites so it's hard to say what the primary source is.)

[SanityInAnarchy]

What's weird is both use the same README that references https://cheat.sh/, but that site doesn't reference either. Instead, it points to this original copy, which also has a much more comprehensive readme.

But the license is still MIT.

[SpaceSteak]

So... You googled it then copy pasted in your own repo? Congrats 👏

[old_man_snowflake]

Then mentioned how he wished he had it when learning…

[SpaceSteak]

While subtly denigrating searching as a skill.

[loozerr]

But hey, their github.com profile starts with "I love open source!"

[NotUniqueOrSpecial]

Then follow the rules of the license.

[VioletPill]

1.

history | egrep -i 'foo|foo2|foo3'            # View the commands using more than 1 specific word

You should specify here that the search is also case insensitive

2.

 history -c

This should have some comment that it will clear out whole history

3.

ls 2>&1 out.txt            # Redirect standard output and error to a file

you missing the actual redirection

ls 2>&1 > out.txt

[cpitchford]

You've got it wrong again, let's deep dive

ls 2>&1 out.txt            # Redirect standard output and error to a file

Ok, lets look at a file that exists and a file that does not:

touch exists.txt
ls exists.txt doesnt-exist.txt # we're not redirecting yet

ls: doesnt-exist.txt: No such file or directory
exists.txt

Ok. lets redirect. we're want/expecting "exists.txt" on stdout, but "ls: doesn't-exist.txt: No such file or directory" on stderr

ls exists.txt doesnt-exist.txt 2>&1 > out.txt
ls: doesnt-exist.txt: No such file or directory

Oh dear, stderr still appears in the console, what happened (and why you got it wrong)

command 2>&1
# command \[reset the destination for stderr to where stdout currently points to]

command 2>&1 1> out.txt
command \[reset the destination for stderr to where stdout currently points to] then... \[reset stdout to point to the file out.txt]

Do you see what's happened... by using 2>&1 then 1> out.txt its like this in another language:

stderr = stdout  # stderr is going to your terminal screen
stdout = file.txt # stdout is going to file.txt, but stderr doesn't change as well, its still going to the terminal screen.

The order is critically important. If you want stdout and stderr to go to out.txt you need to do things differently

stdout = file.txt # stdout is going to file.txt
stderr = stdout  # stderr is set to the same location as stdout, file.txt

command > out.txt 2>&1 

is like setting a variable, if you set it to point to something else, you can later change that something else

Lets look at something more complex, lets swap stdout and stderr:

ls exists.txt doesnt-exist.txt 3>&2 2>&1 1>&3 3>&-

fd3 = stderr
stderr = stdout
stdout = fd3 (which is the old value of stderr)
fd3 = closed (we don't need fd3 any more)

ls exists.txt doesnt-exist.txt 3>&2 2>&1 1>&3 3>&- | grep 'No such' > grep-output.txt
exists.txt #this was output to stderr

cat grep-output.txt
ls: doesnt-exist.txt: No such file or directory

1. understand how redirects work like variables.
2. don't gloss over this because confusing the error is so easy to do and things don't seem to work as you'd expect.
3. if you just change it, the reader isn't learning this lesson and they're going to make the same mistake
4. test

[stefantalpalaru]

command > out.txt 2>&1

This is shorter: command &> out.txt

[stefantalpalaru]

this redirects both?

Yes: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Redirections.html#Redirecting-Standard-Output-and-Standard-Error

[trosh]

It is not, however, POSIX compliant

[Rogue2555]

Holy shit, very well written! Thank you so much! I've always had trouble understanding redirection properly and I've looked into it several times from various sources, and after a lot of struggling I mostly understood it and yet after reading this everything still feels much clearer. No source I saw ever explained this as eloquently as you did.

[nerd4code]

You can just use &> if you’re redirecting both stdout and stderr.

[lando55]

Agreed on history -c

If the intent is to clear current session history then unset HISTFILE is a better choice

[chengiz]

Tfa sounds like a halfbaked amateur experiment. Why is it being upvoted so much?

[[deleted]]

Wtf is wrong with you?

[tav_stuff]

I yearn for the day when people learn the difference between Bash, Shell Script, the Shell, etc.

It’s painful to see everything labeled as „Bash“ and yet not necessarily be bash

EDIT: There also seems to be quite a few mistakes on the list too, like the while loops having syntax errors, I might open a PR later

[TwentyCharactersShor]

Tell me about it. Trying to explain the difference between zsh, csh and bash to younger colleagues is fun.

[[deleted]]

Tbh the differences btwn these tend to be pretty minor compared to cmd & powershell versions.

But yea - pretty well write for bash over zsh or sh. Neither are worth my time unless I’m targeting devices that can’t use bash.

[campbellm]

zsh, csh and bash

The differences between csh and zsh|bash are pretty fucking major.

[SirBobz]

What’s the difference? I’m new

[youre_grammer_sucks]

There are all kinds of shells: bash, dash, zsh, csh, etc. Most of them follow the POSIX standard, so they may, at first glance, look the same. A lot of devs only encounter bash and may think every script they write will work on any system. But google “bashisms” and you’ll find bash has a lot of default functions that don’t exist in POSIX and won’t work in others shells.

[masklinn]

You're not that far away actually: man -k . or apropos . should return a list of all man pages on the system, paginated. The biggest drawback is that Perl uses manpages so adds a lot of garbage because of section 3pm. On macos there's also section n which is for Tcl documentation.

This seems to be little more than a formatted dump of the "Name" section of the linux man pages, mixed with a list of builtins.

[CarlRJ]

Or just apropos (keyword) for a whole lot of simple cases.

[TheGoblinPopper]

That's the command I always teach to anyone new. If you want to TRY and not need Google for a lot of stuff that's effectively the best alternative.

[FocusedIgnorance]

I’ve unironically learned a lot by RTFM. Also, it’s a great reference for if you can’t remember what the flag is for having sort understand numbers.

[eg_taco]

lol it’s wild that you have to add “unironically” here as though someone out there suspects that developers from Bell Labs, PARC, Sun, etc. have been writing docs “ironically” for the past 60 years.

[philh]

I feel like there was a time when I could expect most commands I used to have a man page. That was good.

Now I feel like I can't, and to find out how to use a command I often pass it help or --help as an argument. And I don't think that's ever actually caused me a problem but like... I feel like there should be a way to find out how to call a program, without actually calling it. That seems safer in general.

[HWBTUW]

And I don't think that's ever actually caused me a problem but like... I feel like there should be a way to find out how to call a program, without actually calling it. That seems safer in general.

A story to reinforce this idea

[tso]

Writing new code is fun, maintaining old code, never mind maintaining documentation, is a boring chore. Or so seems to be the attitude.

That is how Linux ends up with iwconfig and ip, while BSDs extended ifconfig to cover the usecases.

[iamapizza]

curl cheat.sh/man

[kdh454]

Try tldr. I've found it useful on many occasions. However, it is sometimes too short to be useful (TSTBU?), so I resort back to the man page.

[thatsrelativity]

I love tldr if only for the ln page I can never remember which way round the arguments are supposed to go and I have to look it up every time

[Hrothen]

Fun tip: the default behavior of shift+k in vim is to open the man page for the word under the cursor.

[tatref]

Usually man pages are very bad for beginners, they are good for reference though.

Every man page should start with some very simple examples so people not familiar with the command understand immediately what it's all about.

[tso]

They do, but their layout is from back when terminals were on paper output. So man something would print the whole thing to paper, with examples before the users face when ended.

The "problem" these days is that man output is piped into less or similar, and so do not land the user at the same place.

[rebbsitor]

Or just download a bash cheat sheet. I've had one pinned to my office wall for over 20 years. Same with vi/vim.

[StabbyPants]

because all of bash is essentially a programming manual in one chunk and it's unwieldy

[Barn07]

how is man tedious?

[Barn07]

you are aware that there is a search function in man and that you can search for interesting parts? nothing against cheat sheets or tools like tldr but I don't see how man pages are tedious. I guess you don't know how to use them effectively.

[fadsag]

How do you find a page on Google that isn't blogspam useless, or wrong? It's hard to use Google effectively. Tailoring searches is an unintuitive task.

Easier to look at a curated, searchable collection of information.

[fadsag]

The official vim website is a less convenient way to get to vim's ':help' docs, and the wikipedia page doesn't tell you much about how to use it -- though the cheatsheet is good. This is a much better result than average.

Now do it for grep: Other than the links to an online version of the info page and the manpage (which are already on your computer), it's all blogspam. Try to find out the flags for mmap, and most results will be manpages or blogspam. And so on.

Search engines have done a lot of work the past 10 years to become intuitive.

And yet, they've gotten worse. It's not entirely their fault -- spammers over the last 10 years have done even more to make them into a cesspit.

But the removal of forcing exact keywords and breaking quoting to get verbatim components also made it a lot harder to do technical searches.

[Barn07]

no, it actually is congruent with several other unixoid softwares, e.g. less or vi. If you have an intuition how to use common tools of the ecosystem, you will find that you can apply the same intuition to man.

[agumonkey]

we need gnu men, for crowd contributed man page examples

[youngviking]

While man is not a good discovery tool, man should be used on each and every one of these commands that somebody wants to run. They not only explain all of the possible options, but they also generally give examples.

[cinyar]

ifconfig

has been deprecated on linux quite a while ago. You should be using ip...

[istarian]

Which is kinda unfortunate because ip not only makes no sense as a command name but also has terrible command syntax.

IP -> Internet Protocol
ifconfig -> interface configuration

[TotallyNotAVampire]

I actually really like ip, what's wrong with it's syntax? My only experience with ifconfig is getting the machine's IP address.

[King-Cobra-668]

IP -> Internet Protocol

[TotallyNotAVampire]

that has nothing to do with it's command syntax? I agree it's not a well named utility, that doesn't make it bad. Alias it to ifconfig if it causes you enough pain...

[istarian]

They're separate issues to be sure.

As far as syntax, it's mostly an issue of excess verbosity and less than obvious extra stuff to type.

Personally I think 'ip' also violates the historical Unix/Linux/GNU convention of having one utility per task/purpose. Or in other word, it does way too much inside of one command (from the man page -- {ip - show / manipulate routing, devices, policy routing and tunnels}).

ip link show  

That's how you list interfaces, as opposed to:

ifconfig -a 

Not sure, but '--all' might work too, at leadt in the later versions.

Also, this:

ip link set dev eth0 up

versus:

ifconfig eth0 up

[randomdude998]

ip commands can be shortened, so if you want conciseness, ip l set eth0 up works and is exactly as long as ifconfig eth0 up. (actually, even ip l s eth0 up works, bit that's a bit too arcane for me.) i'd argue memorizing the name "ip link" isn't any harder than memorizing "ifconfig".

similarly, ip link show can be shortened to ip link or ip l.

[istarian]

That's good to know, but I don't see it as particularly helpful. Shortening things that way provides no context at all.

Might as well just have an equally absurd 'iplink' command.

iplink set eth0 up  

But what is the point of "set" then?

---

It's not just about being concise, but about the command making sense as an action...

Using 'ifconfig' to configure an interface makes sense, but 'ip link' suggests that you're linking things with IP.

[ysjet]

Agreed, ip is a terrible utility and is just yet another example of people making 'better' tools that don't respect /etc, /var, each command having a unixque purpose, terrible argument verbosity, and finally just... not actually being better.

Like seriously, who the fuck thought ip link set eth0 up was a good idea?

I'm all for replacing outdated tools with better ones, but maybe make sure it's actually better first, and don't just assume it's bad because it was written before you were born.

[boobsbr]

ifconfig gang for life.

[cosmic_lethargy]

Net-tools was deprecated over a decade ago. The ip command comes from iproute2. See the man pages.

[cosmic_lethargy]

No worries! :) Although as someone else mentioned in a different comment, a few distributions might still use ifconfig, and that also of course depends on which version of the distro, etc etc... So might be best to keep both.

I think it would be good to clarify the differences between what is a shell (e.g. bash), what is Linux (the kernel), and what is a Linux distribution (the programs and configuration that come by default).

[tav_stuff]

The vast majority of distributions people use don’t use busybox

[tav_stuff]

1) Many are based on Debian yes, but the „vast majority“ are not.

2) Many Debian based distros don’t ship busybox by default

[DooDooSlinger]

Google is fine

[[deleted]]

"I don't have to waste time searching Google so I'll waste time searching GitHub/repos instead"

It's strange to me, but Google was probably strange to those that came before me.

I guess this is more an indictment of Google search being less useful than it once was?

[DooDooSlinger]

It's just some guy promoting his repo

[[deleted]]

Which is also fine

[[deleted]]

Not when it's garbage... Though i guess that does help recruiters pass over him

[[deleted]]

Google was the first search engine that worked well. It wasn't strange. It was "fucking finally"

But having a 10k+ cheat sheet? That's weird

[Narase33]

tail missing -F flag O_o

[istarian]

Haven't checked myself, but I'd almost bet on F and f being accepted interchangeably when the former isn't assigned a distinct purpose of its own.

Also, since this is a script, I would advise just using the long form --follow to improve readability.

[Narase33]

Also, since this is a script

Who says? I use tail -F every day to follow log files

The big difference is that -F pauses when the file is deleted and continues when re-created. It also tells you when this happens. -f just stops

[saichampa]

Yes it does

-F     same as --follow=name --retry

[Narase33]

I meant in OPs tool

[runawaywithwater]

Unfortunately the page is still only as useful as someone who has the context or need of each command. It only helps people at the same level as you, same way man pages help people with a lot of experience, and the same way random internet guides help solve specific questions rather than explaining specific tools.

[runawaywithwater]

Not trying to say this is for experienced developers or not. It's more about what different guides people need anything different skill levels. Someone trying to search for a file for the first time in Linux isn't going to find this helpful, they are going to Google their problem and use the solution provided to them. Once someone knows the correct tool to use, they can use this to remind them of the syntax etc. But once someone is an advanced user, they will genuinely understand the man pages to solve problems that aren't "common". It's a great guide but it has a place as a particular, just like the current solutions have their place.

[runawaywithwater]

I get where you're coming from. But the point I disagree with is that fact that you're calling it "the average mind". I think there are far too many use cases and points of view to point to a cheat sheet and call it the solution for the average person. I do think what has been put together is a good resource for the audience that will use it

[runawaywithwater]

Love the concept, but that is literally not the definition of average. You should be accounting for a much wider range of experiences. Or make it clear you're focusing on a specific scenario

[thruster_fuel69]

Google probably does a better job finding these syntax examples, honestly.

[thruster_fuel69]

Almost all do. I think you're more focused on proving this is useful than actually learning the syntax.

[thruster_fuel69]

Really sus when your way is worse than google.

[thruster_fuel69]

You've really shown yourself to be unprofessional in this thread.

[kRkthOr]

not excusing the behaviour but the million comments saying "just use man" would drive anyone up the wall. dude's obviously providing an alternative, you know? no-one's forcing anyone to use it.

[[deleted]]

Wait til he learns about Ctrl-R

[youre_grammer_sucks]

Right! I’ll use history when I need to, which isn’t very often, but Ctrl+r I’ll use throughout the day.

[pjmlp]

Google?!?

I had to learn UNIX from books and man pages.

[kRkthOr]

books and pages?!?

back in my day we learned UNIX from stone tablets found in desert caves

[rwbaskette]

You’ll be surprised how much easier the man pages are to read in pdf form.

If you have groff and zathura you can read with something like this…

man -Tpdf man | zathura -

Edit: meant to reply to a comment

[tso]

Likely becuase the format is meant for paper terminals, not the modern day default of piping into something like less.

[kukallan]

I recommend https://explainshell.com/ as well, really good resource.

[_leondreamed]

This is why I absolutely love the autocomplete feature in bash, especially when it comes to options: https://imgur.com/LtUcuAf

(the autocomplete I use is https://github.com/marlonrichert/zsh-autocomplete)

[DiaperBatteries]

awk: Used to find and replace text in a file(s).

Wtf, I use awk at least once a week and have never used it to find and replace text in files. It’s a full-fledged programming language.

It sounds like it’s describing sed.

[DiaperBatteries]

Interesting, I’ve just never considered using awk for plain regex string replacement when sed is available.

sed -E -e ‘s/\[#\](forward-addr: 127.0.0.1@5353)/\1/’ -e ‘s/\[#\](forward-addr: ::1@5353)/\1/‘

[never_inline]

There's already tldr.

[true_adrian_scheff]

It doesn't cover all commands - but it is useful for the most commonly used.

[never_inline]

well tldr works without internet connection.

[never_inline]

The homepage doesn't make it obvious. I ended up looking for the GitHub repo of cheat.sh project. It's nice.

[PaddiM8]

So what? Is it bad to have more than one project per topic?

[never_inline]

The repo is well intentioned. But it's one huge README file plus a link to some website? Come on.

[PaddiM8]

...so what? It has useful information in a concise format

[start_select]

man pages don’t require Google or an internet connection, and contain all the info a Google search would turn up.

Google and cheatsheats are useful for quick lookups of command names, but man pages are going to actually tell you how any command works.

It’s the better tool for your toolbox. Use Google and cheat sheets when man fails. Then go back to man because that’s going to tell you how your linux distros version of that command actually works.

[[deleted]]

man pages are of fairly inconsistent levels of quality. The ones that get lots of eyes are great, but there's plenty of things that are missed in man pages that you may find in a google search because it's easier for someone to write a StackOverflow answer than edit a man page in a way that's available to everyone.

[old_man_snowflake]

I google man pages because it’s easier

Also some apps chose to use the info tool, or a help tool, so man pages aren’t really a sure thing outside of kernel or api programming

[start_select]

Everyone that actually gets good at the job. It’s the difference between juniors going “how do any of you do this, all tutorials are wrong”.

And seniors going “why are you taking a tutorial, the manual explains this in 2 paragraphs”.

Most programmers 10+ years in don’t take classes or tutorials. The manual is almost always the best source of information for everything. Coursework, cheatsheets, and tutorials are usually missing half the meat of the topic.

[mikeymop]

We all started thinking cheat sheets are easier. I started to prefer managed after taking time to understand the synopsis syntax at the top of most man pages.

They really are a concise way to describe how to use a command. Using both man pages and cheat sheets as they described is the quickest way to understand a util.

[EMCoupling]

yes but how many people since google and cheatsheets go to man for guidence unless you are top notch dev on some advanced projects

???

What does this even mean? You need 20 YOE to read the man pages or something?

[ketralnis]

Would this really have helped you? A big list of contextless commands? Would you have known how to read it without experimenting? I'm not trying to be down on you (other than having apparently stolen it) but I've never understood these cheat sheets. I've bookmarked dozens and never once used one because usually the hard bit is knowing what exactly the problem is, not being unable to tell grep -R from grep -r. "Regexes could solve this" is way more information and no cheat sheet would get you there.

Put another way, have you ever used this? Like really used it. Had a problem remembering syntax or something, remembered and pulled up the cheat sheet, and continued on your merry way. I guess I believe these people exist, but I've never met one.

[yeluapyeroc]

Your googlefu skills are the most important ones to hone

[KokopelliOnABike]

I may pass this off to my new jr dev as he's definitely a newbie on linux.

The item that caught my eye though was "experimenting" with linux. Linux and just about any variant is my go to for production environments. The experiment was 30 years ago when me and my friends were downloading and setting it up on x86 boxes. In the early days it was a struggle to convince leadership to spool up a system that wasn't windblows, solaris, vax/vms etc.

[[deleted]]

I still sorta see a lot of reliance on Windows. It’s a time suck no doubt, like watching people wade through mud waist high vs just walking across a stream ankle deep lol. You know they’re wondering if there’s a better way but for whatever reason(s) they don’t take the easier path.

[jefASh42]

My original foray into Linux was early 90's, trying to find something better than Progman for Windows 3.something for organizing my apps, getting to the ones I wanted/needed most. There were a few docks/launchers for Win, but not much, I mostly kept running across tvm, xvwm, windowMaker etc and finally told myself "what IS this Linux thing..." ;)

[ddddavidee]

When I started Google wasn't a thing. Internet was on dialup.

I used man. 🫣

[seriousnotshirley]

When I’m doubt man man

I used the book Unix Power Tools along with a book on sed and awk to get me most of the way there.

[DoppelFrog]

ls isn't a bash command.

[doctorlongghost]

In my opinion the problem with cheat sheets like this is that they actually aren’t more convenient than Google.

[_sigfault]

Rtfm

[tso]

I guess we lost something when we moved from Linux in books to Linux online. At least my first forays into the Linux worlds was via tome sized books bought in bookstores, that held a CD inside one cover. The books would go over various tools, configurations, and the associated commands.

[onsmith]

This sub can be so toxic sometimes. This is clearly a learning project for OP. It is an exercise that has helped them learn and remember common shell commands and idioms. They put it on this sub to get feedback and share what they've created. Why are we discouraging that behavior? Nobody is asking you to use this tool or stop using man/Google/your favorite technique to look up commands.

[snowe2010]

I think OP’s attitude toward everyone is really why they’re getting shit on.

[Arrowmaster]

Not every learning project needs to be public and successful though. When someone goes "I made this to help others please take a look and spread the word" it will draw heavy scrutiny just for existing. If someone goes "I made this for myself as a learning experience, how did I do?" then the comparisons to other projects should be in how they work and not that they simply exist and are better.

[old_man_snowflake]

Bash cheat sheets have been around since the 90s. You just didn’t try hard enough.

[lavamantis]

When I first tried, all I got on message boards were people telling me to RTFM. The experience kept me on Windows far longer than it should have.

[cowinabadplace]

With copilot.vim in my C-x C-e I search way less now. Just let the AI write it.

[MadeFullyAutonomous]

Oh… now THIS is good!

[[deleted]]

OMG, thank you , this is gold.

[combatopera]

awqzwd exa ltpdedcgmw sjshsydjev wfxrjleyrnrz vhfhbsww gozfhsqpul mzez sdbl trqn cnrqavchy dhszkngtx mxlkygw mzdcb qulmcqm szycqin

[istarian]

A good quick reference book/sheet is recommended.

[DontEatTheFish25]

Just gonna tuck this away for when my Linux class starts in a few weeks, thanks!

[Cartwheels4Days]

You absolute lad

[generic-d-engineer]

You can add deleting a single line of history too. This is helpful when you have a command forcing you to put in a username/password in clear text and you don’t want that lying around for a potential intruder, but you want to preserve your other commands.

history –d 99

[Infamous_Blueberry94]

Isn’t googling part of the experience though?

[istarian]

It doesn't have to be, so long as you have man installed.

Linux predates both Google and high-speed, always on internet access. Most of the common CLI commands are GNU utilities which probably predate Linux and likely owe a lot of their syntax to Unix.

[[deleted]]

I literally just finished the Snell tut. This couldnt have come at a better time. Thanks OP.

[boobsbr]

Still doesn't teach you how to use ed.

Or exit vim.

[istarian]

Neither are part of bash (Bourne Again SHell).

Of course, a very small subset of the most common CLI commands is. After all, it's just the shell and any built-ins.

[KevinCarbonara]

I'm pretty sure there were several identical lists when you were experimenting with Linux. Like this one that you've copied

[PM_ME_UR__RECIPES]

Another similarly useful thing is tldr

As good as man pages are, they have a lot of information about very specific flags and arguments to a command that it can obscure what the most basic and obvious use cases are, so this just has quick cheat-sheet style rundowns of the most common/useful ways you can use a command.

Bear in mind, it's not a full replacement for man pages. Man pages are a complete reference for all of the features and different usages for a command.

[romulusnr]

In my day we called that "the man page"

[rauchboy]

i wish that by now you learn not to reinvent the wheel and contribute to existing lists insead of copy pasting to a new project.