Chapter 8 The Shell enough of the filename to uniquely identify it. Then hit the tab key. bash will figure out what you want and finish typing it for you! ' &
' & ) =
Example time. contains two subdirectories: ) = * . I want to see what’s in . So I just type the TAB key, and bash gives me ls /usr/src/linux. ' & )=
and
' &
ls /usr/src/l,
) )=
hit
)
: Now, suppose there are two directories and ; If I ' & ' & and hit TAB, bash will fill in as much as it can, and I’ll get type ) = . I can stop there, or I can hit TAB again, and bash will show a list of directories that match what I’ve typed so far.
Hence, less typing (and hence, people can like commandline interfaces). I told you it was cool.
8.4 Virtual Terminals So you’re in the middle of working on something and you decide you need to do something else. You could just drop what you’re doing and switch tasks, but this is a multi-user system, right? And you can log in as many times simultaneously as you want, right? So why should you have to do one thing at a time? You don’t. We can’t all have multiple keyboards, mice, and monitors for one machine; chances are most of us don’t want them. Clearly, hardware isn’t the solution. That leaves software, and Linux steps up on this one, providing “virtual terminals�, or “VTs�. By pressing Alt and a function key, you can switch between virtual terminals; each function key corresponds to one. Slackware has logins on 6 VTs by default. Alt+F2 will take you to the second one, Alt+F3 to the third, etc. The rest of the function keys are reserved for X sessions. Each X session uses its own VT, beginning with the seventh (Alt+F7) and going up. When in X, the Alt+Function key combination is replaced with Ctrl+Alt+Function; so if you are in X and want to get back to a text login (without exiting your X session),
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