Shortcuts on Linux

    Inspired by the topic about Windows hotkeys ( Article 1 and Article 2 )

    Hotkeys can be conditionally divided into the following groups:
    System-wide hotkeys
    Keyboard shortcuts for working in the console
    X-Window system
    keyboard shortcuts KDE medium keyboard shortcuts

    System-wide hotkeys

    We all know the “ shortcut from three fingers ": Ctrl + Alt + Del. On Windows, it was used to invoke the process window. Pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del again rebooted the computer. On Linux, the response to pressing this combination is specified in the / etc / inittab file:

    # Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
    ca :: ctrlaltdel: / sbin / shutdown -t3 -r now


    The –r now parameter of the shutdown command means that the system needs to be rebooted (-r) now (now). You may have another command, for example, reboot, or even the reaction to Ctrl + Alt + Del may be disabled.

    The next system-wide key combination is Ctrl + Alt + Backspace. Pressing this key combination will restart the X Window server if it is running.

    Keyboard shortcuts for working in the console

    There can be several virtual consoles in Linux (usually 6). Alt + Fn key combinations allow you to switch between them, where n is the console number. However, this key combination will only work if you are currently working in the console, and not in KDE or another graphical environment. For example, you are currently working in console 1, and you need to switch to console 4, then press the key combination Alt + F4, to switch back, press Alt + F1.

    Pressing the combination Alt + F7, as a rule, switches you to the graphic mode - the X Window System.

    The Tab key in the console (or terminal system of the X Window System) implements command line autocomplete. Suppose you forget the exact name of the command with which the program you need is launched. Enter the initial letters of the command and press Tab - the system itself will complement the command line. If you hear a sound signal after pressing Tab, it means that there are several possible options, for example, you entered da, and the system found two (or more) commands that start with “da”, and it does not know which command to “enter” into command line In this case, press Tab again to see the entire list of commands that start with “da”.

    You found the command you need, entered it, the program displayed some information on the screen. But the output of the program turned out to be so voluminous that it did not fit on the screen. You can, of course, redirect the output to a file or less program, but if you will not use this output in the future, you do not need to do this. Just scroll through it with the keyboard shortcuts Shift + PgUp and Shift + PgDn.

    X-Window Keyboard Shortcuts

    Now you enjoy working in the X Window. But sometimes you need to switch to the console, because you just got tired of the graphic terminal. This can be done using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Alt + Fn, where n is the console number (1..6). You can switch back using the keyboard shortcut Alt + F7.

    To change the resolution of the monitor you do not need to run any configurator. Just press Ctrl + “+” (on the numeric keypad) to increase the resolution (to the maximum allowable) or Ctrl + “-“ (on the numeric keypad) to decrease.

    A quick tip: if you have a weak board (for example, RivaTNT2 Vanta 8MB) and your favorite toy (of course, a tuxracer) “slows down”, reduce the resolution to 640x480.

    Since virtually no one works with a “clean” X Window System with its classic window managers, I don’t see the point of considering additional key combinations. Let's go straight to KDE.

    KDE Keyboard Shortcuts

    Microsoft offers to start working in Windows by pressing the Start key. KDE uses a button labeled K (or rather, with the logo of KDE itself) for this. If you have a large monitor (19 inches or more) and you are too lazy to drag the mouse (which you forgot to clean) from the upper right to the lower left corner, press Alt + F1, and the KDE menu will appear at the current position of the mouse pointer.

    If you need to run one command, it is unlikely that you need to run the terminal (provided that the called program is graphical), press Alt + F2 to open the program launch window - enter a command or select it from the list and click Run.


    Fig. 1. The program launch window

    You can switch between running programs using the keyboard shortcut Alt + Tab - as in Windows. If there is chaos on the desktop, then it's time to switch to another desktop. You can switch between desktops using the key combination Ctrl + Tab or Ctrl + Fn, where n is the number of the desktop you need. Remember that the keyboard shortcut Alt + Tab only works within the current desktop. If you have dozens of two programs running on the first desktop and not a single one on the second one, when you press Alt + Tab on the second table you will see the message “No tasks”.

    You can view the entire list of tasks by pressing Alt + F5. If you didn’t like a certain process, you can kill it by calling the task manager (Ctrl + Escape key combination).

    Doesn't the keyboard layout switch in the usual way? Doesn't help, neither Ctrl, nor Ctrl + Shift? Then press the key combination Ctrl + Alt + K. This combination will always work in KDE.

    Keyboard shortcuts for working with the clipboard are the most common - Ctrl + C (copy), Ctrl + X (cut) and Ctrl + V (paste). In addition to these three combinations, KDE provides the user with two more:

    Ctrl + Alt + V - show the clipboard menu
    Ctrl + Alt + R - “manual” work with the clipboard

    But what about working with windows? The combination of Alt + F4, as in Windows, closes the window, and Alt + F3 - displays a menu of actions with the window.

    The Ctrl + Alt + Esc combination that calls the xkill program is very useful. After calling it, the mouse pointer turns into a skull with bones. Clicking a “skull” on some window, it will be destroyed, even if the program “hung”. To exit xkill without destroying the window, press Esc.

    In Windows, you could take a picture of the screen by pressing the Print Screen key. On Linux, this can also be done, but to photograph the entire desktop, press Ctrl + Print Screen, and the active window - Alt + Print Screen. After that, the resulting image will be placed on the clipboard and it can be pasted into any KDE-application that supports graphics. However, I recommend taking screenshots with special programs, for example, ksnapshot. The images obtained using this program will be much better than the images obtained by the method proposed above, and they will also take up little disk space (because the ksnapshot program uses the PNG format).

    Some more useful shortcuts:
    Alt + PtScr + S - immediately flush the buffer to disk
    Alt + PtScr + U - immediately disconnect disks
    Alt + PtScr + B - immediate reboot (acts as a reset).
    If there is a hard hang or braking (for example, due to hardware glitches), but the kernel has not fallen into a panic yet, successively pressing these combinations with a slight delay of a couple of seconds will be much safer than resetting
    When working with the console Ctrl + W and Ctrl + U - removal of one word and a whole line, respectively.
    In the terminal, while the program is running, press Ctrl-S. This pauses program output.
    Ctrl-Q - resume the output of the program :)
    Alt + PtScr + K - beat the program, which now occupies the console. It helps a lot if X-sy flies due to crooked firewood.
    Ctrl-L to clear the terminal window.
    Ctrl-A to the beginning of the line
    Ctrl-E to the end of the line
    Ctrl-R search command history back (often used)
    Esc. insert the last argument of the last command
    Ctrl-V insert the next character literally (escape)
    Ctrl-K delete to the end of the line
    Ctrl-U delete to the beginning of the line
    Ctrl-W delete the previous word
    Esc {execute file completion and put the result in curly brackets for the shell
    (try type “ls -l. {” in the home directory)
    ...
    And many, many other things. And if not enough, you can add to .inputrc.

    Full list (Alt + SysRq + character) (if anyone translates I will be very grateful!)

    'R' - Turns off keyboard raw mode and sets it to XLATE.
    'k' - Secure Access Key (SAK) Kills all programs on the current virtual
    console. NOTE: See important comments below in SAK section.
    'b' - Will immediately reboot the system without syncing or unmounting
    your disks.
    'c' - Will perform a kexec reboot in order to take a crashdump.
    'd' - Shows all locks that are held.
    'o' - Will shut your system off (if configured and supported).
    's' - Will attempt to sync all mounted filesystems.
    'u' - Will attempt to remount all mounted filesystems read-only.
    'p' - Will dump the current registers and flags to your console.
    't' - Will dump a list of current tasks and their information to your
    console.
    'm' - Will dump current memory info to your console.
    'n' - Used to make RT tasks nice-able
    'v' - Dumps Voyager SMP processor info to your console.
    'w' - Dumps tasks that are in uninterruptable (blocked) state.
    'x' - Used by xmon interface on ppc / powerpc platforms.
    '0' - '9' - Sets the console log level, controlling which kernel messages
    will be printed to your console. ('0', for example would make
    it so that only emergency messages like PANICs or OOPSes would
    make it to your console.)
    'F' - Will call oom_kill to kill a memory hog process.
    'e' - Send a SIGTERM to all processes, except for init.
    'g' - Used by kgdb on ppc platforms.
    'i' - Send a SIGKILL to all processes, except for init.
    'h' - Will display help (actually any other key than those listed
    above will display help. but 'h' is easy to remember :-)

    How to change keyboard shortcuts in KDE? Open the Control Center and go to the Appearance, Hot Keys (or Key Bindings section in the second version of KDE).



    Fig. 2. Key bindings

    Now summarize and create a table with key combinations. Print it and use it until you learn the combinations you need in your daily work.

    Keyboard shortcut Category Action 

    Ctrl + Alt + Del System Restart 
    Ctrl + Alt + Backspace System-wide Server X Reboot 
    Alt + Fn Console Switch to console number n 
    Alt + F7 Console Switch to graphical mode 
    Tab Console, Terminal Autocomplete command line 
    Shift + PgUp / Dn Console Scrolling (scrolling) the output of the program 
    Ctrl + Alt + Fn X Window Switch to console number n 
    Ctrl + “+” (numeric keypad) X Window Increase resolution 
    Ctrl + “-“ (numeric keys) X Window Decrease resolution 
    Alt + F1 KDE Opens the KDE menu 
    KDE Opening the program launch window 
    Alt + F3 KDE Opens the window action menu 
    Alt + F4 KDE Closing the active window 
    Alt + F5 KDE Window List Display 
    Ctrl + Esc KDE Displays the Task Manager window 
    Alt + Tab KDE Switch between windows within the desktop 
    Ctrl + Tab KDE Switch to the next desktop 
    Ctrl + Fn KDE Switch to the desktop with number n 
    Ctrl + Alt + K KDE Switch keyboard layout 
    Ctrl + Alt + Esc KDE Abnormal shutdown of a window (program) 
    Alt + Print Screen KDE Snapshot of the active window 
    Ctrl + Print Screen KDE Snapshot of the entire desktop
    ALT-Tab Gnome Task List Selection
    Crtl-Alt- (F1-F12) Gnome Command prompt
    Crtl-Alt-Backspace Gnome Restart XWindows
    Crtl-C Gnome Copy the selected text or region onto the clipboard
    Alt- (leftclick mouse) Gnome To hold on to the window / GUI and move it around
    Ctrl-F Gnome Switch to desktop
    Alt-F2 Gnome Show the panel run application dialog
    Alt-F1 Gnome Show the panel menu
    Print Gnome Take a screenshot
    Alt-Print Gnome Take a screenshot of a window
    Ctrl-Alt-Arrow keys Gnome Switches to the workspace to the specified direction of the current workspace
    Ctrl-Alt-D Gnome Minimizes all windows, and gives focus to the desktop
    Ctrl-Alt-Tab Gnome Switches the focus between the panels and the desktop
    Alt-F4 Gnome Closes the currently focused window
    Alt-F5 Gnome Unmaximize the current window, if it is maximized
    Alt-F7 Gnome Move the currently focused window
    Alt-F8 Gnome Resize the currently focused window
    Alt-F9 Gnome Minimize the current window
    Alt-F10 Gnome Maximize the current window
    Shift-Ctrl-Alt-Arrow keys Gnome Moves the current window to another workspace in the specified direction
    Ctrl-N Gnome Create a new document or window
    Ctrl-X Gnome Cut the selected text or region and place it on the clipboard
    Ctrl-V Gnome Paste the contents of the clipboard
    Ctrl-Z Gnome Undo the last action
    Ctrl-S Gnome Save the current document to disk
    Tab Gnome Move between controls in the interface or items in a list
    spacebar Gnome Activate or choose the selected item
    F10 Gnome Activate the left-most menu of the application window
    Shift-F10 Gnome Activate the context menu for the selected item
    Esc Gnome Close a menu without selecting a menu item, or cancel a drag operation
    Alt + ctrl + del Gnome brings up a menu with a choice of actions (reboot, shutdown, hibernate, etc.)
    ctrl + w Gnome closes the window
    ctrl + q Gnome for the most part closes the application
    ctrl + shift + q Gnome closes the terminal

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