Bash aliases for productivity and memorability

A very quick hack that I’ve found very useful over the years – an alias lets you rename a command, a set of commands, etc.

For example, the ALSA command-line volume control interface, alsamixer, is much more memorable as salsamixer:

alias salsamixer='alsamixer'

Just stick that in your ~/.bashrc file, run a source ~/.bashrc (or log out and back in) and you can run the command salsamixer.  Neat, no?

 

Another super handy one for debian/ubuntu/mint users:

alias sagi='sudo apt-get install'

Again, append that to your ~/.bashrc file.  Now, you can install software with 16 less keystrokes:

sagi python-mysqldb

 

Neat, hey?