Sometimes you need to copy an entire directory structure to another location on the command line. Here is a quick way to do it using the tar command:

tar cf - * | ( cd /target; tar xfp -)

I recently installed a 2nd hard drive in my Macbook Pro dedicated to Linux. When I hooked up a secondary monitor to it I found that I could not get a reasonable resolution. After some research I found that I can add a new mode to the “Display” choices by entering the following in a terminal console:

xrandr # to find the device name cvt 1920 1080 # to generate the mode for the xrandr program. xrandr –newmode “1920x1080_60.00” 173.00 1920 2048 2248 2576 1080 1083 1088 1120 -hsync +vsync # to add the new mode to the monitor choices. xrandr –addmode DP1 1920x1080_60.00 # to associate the new mode to the monitor.

To sort files in a directory and to list them by the biggest file first:

$ du -a | sort -n -r | more

Alternatively you can use:

$ du -s * | sort -n -r | more

Sometimes I need to know how many times a specific character occurs in a string. The best tool to use for something like that is AWK. Let’s say we’re looking for the count of commas in a string: string=“text,text,text,text” char="," echo “${string}” | awk -F"${char}" ‘{print NF-1}’

Having trouble getting the “Empty Trash” working in Thunar? Remove "~/.config/xfce4/xfconf/xfce-perchannel-xml/thunar*".

To find the uptime for a Windows machine do

C:> net statistics server 

To backup files from a source directory to a backup directory:

$ mkdir /path/to/backup/directory
$ cd $HOME/source/directory
$ tar cf - . | (cd /path/to/backup/directory && tar xBvf -)

Define the following alias:

tar cvf - . | ( cd \!* ; tar xvf - )

or as an alias:

alias cpbytar='tar cvf - . | ( cd \!* ; tar xvf - )'

(The alias definition above is for Bash)

To do a recursive copy of a directory to another location, preserving the PERMISSIONS and OWNERSHIP of the files. “cd” to the source location and invoke the following alias:

A useful tip to beautify your output is to use:

$ git log --graph --decorate --oneline --abbrev-commit --all --date=local

when looking at your log entries. Or you can add

[alias]

   lola = log --graph --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit --all --date=local

to your ~/.gitconfig file to use $ git lola as an alias.