Summary follow Follow Thread Here is a fact-based summary of the story contents: Try something different:
I’ve seen a lot of die-hard Linux fans insisting that you can get almost everything done these days without ever touching the terminal. And even in 2025, I still disagree. The terminal isn’t some relic of the past; it’s one of the biggest strengths of using Linux in the first place.
In fact, I’d argue every power user should know at least the basics. A little shell knowledge and a few useful bash shortcuts can make you noticeably faster in your day-to-day tasks. And on top of that, there are a handful of underrated commands that almost nobody talks about, despite how ridiculously useful they are.
Get even faster search with fzf
Windows could never
I’m sure if you’re moving from Windows to Linux, having an actually usable search option is one of the reasons. Windows Search has somehow gotten worse and worse with every update, and Microsoft obviously thinks web search is more important than file search.
Most Linux distros already give you a pretty fast system-wide search, but what if I told you there’s an even faster way that blows everything else out of the water?
Fzf is a tiny terminal utility that uses a fuzzy matching algorithm for file search. This basically means you don’t need the exact spelling or full file name to find what you’re looking for. You just need to type in a few characters, even out of order, and it intelligently figures out the closest matches.
Related
These Windows commands are easy to learn but make a big difference
Go for the low-hanging fruit.
Posts 1 By Ben Stegner Oct 25, 2025
It’s available through basically every mainstream package manager, so you can install it by running your usual install command and adding fzf at the end.
Once that’s done, you just need to run the following command to bring up a file-manager-style interface right inside your terminal. Here, you can search for files and immediately get the file path.
fzf —style full
—preview ‘fzf-preview.sh {}’ —bind ‘focus:transform-header:file —brief {}’
There is a lot more that fzf can do, such as integrating with Vim, so I would recommend you to go through their GitHub page, and you might find some even more useful features for your workflow.
Use tldr instead of man
Learn commands without falling asleep
I remember being taught the man command back in high school, and I’ve hated it ever since. If you haven’t used it before, man basically stands for «manual.» You type man, by the command you need help with, and it opens a giant wall of documentation explaining what it does.
The problem is that it’s so unnecessarily complicated. It dumps so much dense text all on you all at once, and I usually end up more confused than when I started. Instead, I use a much friendlier command.
tldr serves the same purpose as man, but as the name suggests, it pretty much provides the simplest possible explanation for the command. For example, if you want to know how the git command works, you just need to type in:
tldr git
Just look at the comparison below, with man on the left, and tldr on the right explaining the same command.
Obviously, there isn’t even a competition between the 2 in terms of simplicity. I would pick tldr over man anyday. If you do not have tldr on your system yet, you can install it using your package manager, just like fzf.
While the tool is called tldr, the official package name is tlcr, so make sure to use that when installing it.
Aliases make your life much faster
Shortcuts for your terminal
Alias is another command that will end up saving you an absurd amount of time. They’re basically custom shortcuts you can assign to any command in your terminal. If you often repeat the same long strings of text, aliases are a lifesaver.
For example, instead of running the same long command again and again to update my system, I’ve just set up an alias for it like this:
alias update = «sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y»
Now all you need to do is type update, and the terminal will run the full command.
The only thing to keep in mind is that aliases aren’t persistent by default, and you’ll need to add them to your shell’s configuration file. I’ve actually set an alias for the fzf command I talked about earlier, because it’s really long. Now I just type filesearch, and the entire command fires off instantly.
Related
Linux comes for Windows at 40 — and gaming can't save it
Windows is 40 and its midlife milestone comes with a Linux-shaped crisis.
Posts 40 By Nick Lucchesi Nov 20, 2025
Understand your boot processes with systemd-analyze
Please don't use HDDs in 2025
Systemd is the core system and services manager used by most modern Linux distros. It handles everything in boot-space, and manages things like which services start, in what order, and also keeps track of how long they take.
Because of that, systemd can tell you exactly why your system might be taking too long to start, instead of making you guess. The first command you’ll want to try is:
systemd-analyze
This gives you a complete summary of your boot process across all the major components of your OS. But if you want to dig even deeper, you can run this command instead:
systemd-analyze blame
This will also list every service that started during boot, ordered by how long each one took. It’s perfect for spotting slow services immediately.
And if that still isn’t enough insight, you can even generate a full visual timeline of your boot process:
systemd-analyze plot > bootanalysis.png
This creates an SVG file that shows every single service, how long each one took, and how they overlap. Open it in your browser, and you’ll see a full graphical representation of what’s happening under the hood.
This command is insanely useful when something starts going wrong, maybe after installing a new app or applying an update.
Related
These 4 Linux distros are a bad idea — avoid them at all costs
Install them only if you hate yourself.
Posts 27 By Raghav Sethi 7 days ago
Don't avoid the terminal, embrace it
The terminal is something you really shouldn’t be afraid of. I actually use mine as a full-blown IDE, and I absolutely love the setup. Sure, there’s a learning curve at first, but once you get comfortable with it, it becomes one of the fastest and most reliable ways to get things done.
These commands are a great place to start, and once you get the hang of them, the terminal stops feeling like this intimidating wall of text and starts feeling like a genuinely powerful tool.
