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O’Reilly Network: Top 10 Tips for Linux Users

  1. “Switch to another console. Linux lets you use
    “virtual consoles” to log on to multiple sessions simultaneously,
    so you can do more than one operation or log on as another user.
    Logging on to another virtual console is like sitting down and
    logging in at a different physical terminal, except you are
    actually at one terminal, switching between login sessions.”
  2. “Temporarily use a different shell. Every user
    account has a shell associated with it. The default Linux shell is
    bash; a popular alternative is tcsh. The last field of the password
    table (/etc/passwd) entry for an account contains the login shell
    information. You can get the information by checking the password
    table, or you can use the finger command.”
  3. “Print a man page. Here are a few useful tips
    for viewing or printing manpages:

    To print a manpage, run the command:

    man | col -b | lpr

    The col -b command removes any backspace or other characters
    that would make the printed manpage difficult to read.”

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