Discussion on: Helpful Terminal Commands for Beginners!

I love the shell. When I learned OSX had a "proper" shell I never went back to linux.

open is like double-clicking a file in the UI. open . to get a Finder window in cwd.

esc+. repeat last part of previous command

&& is used in an alias below, but is handy if you've got a few time consuming commands that you want to run while you go get coffee. E.g.:

./configure && make -j4

ctrl+k delete to end of line

pushd and popd save a lot of hassle. pushd /some/deep/path to switch directories, then popd to go back to where you started.

If you work with remote machines a lot:

ssh. Particularly using "key-based authentication" (google it) and X11 forwarding (-X but I believe enabled by default now)

screen will change your life. Ssh into remote machine, screen. Do a bunch of work screen -d and logout or go home or whatever. Ssh back in and screen -r to continue where you left off.

There's tons more. I've been using bash for years and still learn new things from time to time. =)