The default shell on most Linux operating systems is called Bash. There are a couple of important hot keys that you should get familiar with if you plan to spend a lot of time at the command line. These shortcuts will save you a ton of time if you learn them…

Ctrl+A	Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl+E	Go to the end of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl+L	Clears the Screen, similar to the clear command
Ctrl+U	Clears the line before the cursor position. If you are at the end of the line, clears the entire line.
Ctrl+H	Same as backspace
Ctrl+R	Let’s you search through previously used commands
Ctrl+C	Kill whatever you are running
Ctrl+D	Exit the current shell
Ctrl+Z	Puts whatever you are running into a suspended background process. fg restores it.
Ctrl+W	Delete the word before the cursor
Ctrl+K	Clear the line after the cursor
Ctrl+T	Swap the last two characters before the cursor
Esc+T	Swap the last two words before the cursor
Alt+F	Move cursor forward one word on the current line
Alt+B	Move cursor backward one word on the current line
Tab	Auto-complete files and folder names

Note that some of these commands may not work if you are accessing bash through a telnet/ssh session, or depending on how you have your keys mapped.

Filed under: linux