Linux has many flavors (read distributions). Each of these flavors comes with an array of shells (the command line interface to linux) like Korn Shell, Z Shell, Bourne Shell and Bourne Again Shell (bash).

I prefer using bash. For all my needs I have set the bash as my default shell. Listed below are a few of the keyboard shortcuts that I use to make my life easy and fast.

 

Esc combinations

Esc + d – delete word

Esc + f – forward a word

Esc + b – backward a word

Esc + t – transpose two adjacent words

 

 

____________CTRL Key Bound_____________
Ctrl + a – Jump to the start of the line
Ctrl + b – Move back a char
Ctrl + c – Terminate the command
Ctrl + d – Delete from under the cursor
Ctrl + e – Jump to the end of the line
Ctrl + f – Move forward a char
Ctrl + k – Delete to EOL
Ctrl + l – Clear the screen
Ctrl + r – Search the history backwards
Ctrl + R – Search the history backwards with multi occurrence
Ctrl + u – Delete backward from cursor

Ctrl + t: transpose 2 characters

Ctrl + w: delete previous word

Ctrl + y: yank or recover previous deletion
Ctrl + xx – Move between EOL and current cursor position
Ctrl + x @ – Show possible hostname completions
Ctrl + z – Suspend/ Stop the command

 

____________ALT Key Bound___________
Alt + < – Move to the first line in the history
Alt + > – Move to the last line in the history
Alt + ? – Show current completion list
Alt + * – Insert all possible completions
Alt + / – Attempt to complete filename
Alt + . – Yank last argument to previous command
Alt + b – Move backward
Alt + c – Capitalize the word
Alt + d – Delete word
Alt + f – Move forward
Alt + l – Make word lowercase
Alt + n – Search the history forwards non-incremental
Alt + p – Search the history backwards non-incremental
Alt + r – Recall command
Alt + t – Move words around
Alt + u – Make word uppercase
Alt + back-space – Delete backward from cursor

—————-More Special Keybindings——————-

Here “2T” means Press TAB twice

$ 2T – All available commands(common)
$ (string)2T – All available commands starting with (string)
$ /2T – Entire directory structure including Hidden one
$ 2T – Only Sub Dirs inside including Hidden one
$ *2T – Only Sub Dirs inside without Hidden one
$ ~2T – All Present Users on system from “/etc/passwd“
$ $2T – All Sys variables
$ @2T – Entries from “/etc/hosts“
$ =2T – Output like ls or dir