this is usually in my startup script (.bashrc, .profile, whatever)

shopt goodness, check the comments:

shopt -s cdspell # try to correct typos in path shopt -s dotglob # include dotfiles in path expansion shopt -s hostcomplete # try to autocomplete hostnames 

an alias that save keystrokes, mkdir and cd into it:

mkcd () { mkdir -p "$@" && cd "$@"; } 

and last but not least, I've given up on memorizing tar syntax, so:

extract () { if [ -f $1 ] ; then case $1 in *.tar.bz2) tar xjf $1 ;; *.tar.gz) tar xzf $1 ;; *.bz2) bunzip2 $1 ;; *.rar) rar x $1 ;; *.gz) gunzip $1 ;; *.tar) tar xf $1 ;; *.tbz2) tar xjf $1 ;; *.tgz) tar xzf $1 ;; *.zip) unzip $1 ;; *.Z) uncompress $1 ;; *) echo "'$1' cannot be extracted via extract()" ;; esac else echo "'$1' is not a valid file" fi 

}

This is usually in my startup script (.bashrc, .profile, whatever)

shopt goodness, check the comments:

shopt -s cdspell # try to correct typos in path shopt -s dotglob # include dotfiles in path expansion shopt -s hostcomplete # try to autocomplete hostnames 

An alias that save keystrokes: mkdir and cd into it:

mkcd () { mkdir -p "$@" && cd "$@"; } 

And last but not least, I've given up on memorizing tar syntax, so:

extract () {  if [ -f $1 ] ; then   case $1 in   *.tar.bz2) tar xjf $1 ;;   *.tar.gz) tar xzf $1 ;;   *.bz2) bunzip2 $1 ;;   *.rar) rar x $1 ;;   *.gz) gunzip $1 ;;   *.tar) tar xf $1 ;;   *.tbz2) tar xjf $1 ;;   *.tgz) tar xzf $1 ;;   *.zip) unzip $1 ;;   *.Z) uncompress $1 ;;   *) echo "'$1' cannot be extracted via extract()" ;;   esac  else   echo "'$1' is not a valid file"  fi }