4.3.1 Special key strokes
In the Unix-like environment, there are few key strokes which have special
meanings. [
17]
-
Ctrl-U: Erase line before cursor.
-
Ctrl-H: Erase a character before cursor.
-
Ctrl-D: Terminate input. (exit shell if you are using shell)
-
Ctrl-C: Terminate a running program.
-
Ctrl-Z: Temporarily stop program. (put it to the background job, see command &, Section 4.3.10.1)
-
Ctrl-S: Halt output to screen. [
18]
-
Ctrl-Q: Reactivate output to screen.
The default shell, bash, has history-editing and tab-completion
capabilities to aide the interactive use.
-
up-arrow: Start command history search.
-
Ctrl-R: Start incremental command history search.
-
TAB: Complete input of the filename to the command line.
-
Ctrl-V TAB: Input TAB without expansion to the command line.
Other important keystrokes to remember:
-
Ctrl-Alt-Del: Reboot/halt the system, see Install a few more packages after initial
install, Section 3.8.1.
-
Left-click-and-drag mouse: Select and copy to the clipboard.
-
Click middle mouse button: Paste clipboard at the cursor.
-
Meta-key (Emacs terminology) is assigned traditionally to Left-Alt-key. Some
system may be configured to use Windows-key for Meta-key.
Here, in order to use a mouse in the Linux character console, you need to have
gpm running as daemon. [
19] See
Mouse configuration,
Section 3.3.
