Unix was developed as a command line interface in the early 1970s with a very rich command vocabulary. DOS followed more than a decade later for the IBM PC, and DOS commands migrated to Windows.

Classic Unix tools (ls, cat, ed, cal, dc) and games show modern OS lineage ...

GUIs are great—we wouldn’t want to live without them. But if you’re a Mac or Linux user and you want to get the most out of your operating system (and your keystrokes), you owe it to yourself to get ...

You can make your life a little easier and more productive by adding some Unix power to your Windows system. For a fairly extensive collection of Unix tools — including most of the essentials like ...

Lifehacker reader Michael writes in with a nifty tip that was lurking in our comments all along, but deserves to see the bright light of posting. If you're already using the Unix-like Cygwin, it's an ...

Last week’s column introduced NTP, the Network Time Protocol and the concept of highly accurate timekeeping. While numerous commands exist to help system administrators maintain fairly accurate time ...

Computer archaeology lovers among the audience are in for a rare treat in these challenging times. Remember that Unix v4 tape ...

Delete Backs up to erase one character. Backspace Mapped as a backspace key, displaying ^H. Ctrl-u Erases the command line. Ctrl-w Erases the last word on the command line. Ctrl-s Stops flow of output ...