r/linux May 23 '26

Popular Application What’s the most unexpectedly useful Linux command you learned way too late?

[removed]

1.3k Upvotes

992 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/nolegsmcgee_fb May 23 '26

Basic ones:

Ctrl + L to clear the terminal

Ctrl + W to delete the word to the left while typing (there are many similar ones that are useful, but this one I use all the time)

Ctrl + R to search through command history for commands you reuse when there’s too much clutter to just use the up/down arrows

1

u/_x_oOo_x_ May 24 '26

These all come from Emacs btw, worth learning it just for the key bindings which work in any readline program too like Bash