In today's open source roundup: Discover secret Linux tricks. Plus: Five of the best gaming distros for Linux. And 3D platformer games for Linux? Linux secrets most users don’t know about A reddit discussion that focused on things about Linux that most users don’t know has gotten tons of responses, and some of them are quite interesting and informative. Malefairy asked his question in the Linux subreddit: What are some linux ‘secrets’ most users don’t know about? For example the ‘Alt-SysRq’ key combination, I just learned about that and am curious to know if there are some other ‘secrets’. More at Reddit His fellow Linux redditors responded with their knowledge of Linux secrets: Exex: “Not sure about most, but I suppose at least a few don’t know about the Magic SysRq key.” Uoou: “The at command combined with something like notify-send is really handy for short-term one-off reminders.” Gsxr: “Don’t have nc? telnet? nmap? and don’t feel like writing a python/perl/* script? Use /dev/tcp/${ip || hostname}/${port}” Opheltes: “1) Screen is a fantastic command that I didn’t know about until after I’d used linux for about 10 years. 2) You can use ssh for more than logging into a remote machine – you can also use it to execute commands remotely, e.g. ssh [hostname] [command] 3) chkrootkit – Just found out about this one recently. It does a security scan for malware on your system. (I did run into a false positive on the suckit rootkit check)” BarqsDew: “Tmux is an alternative to screen. Tmux is superior (unless you’re connecting to a serial console, but pff), mostly because it’s not ungooglable. :)” Faviu2: “The date command accepts free-form input.” Devel_watcher: “You can scroll tty with Shift.” Skaarj: “A lot of outdated tutorials tell you that your need to specify the compression method when unpacking with tar. This is false. tar can detect the file format and tar xf FILENAME is all you need to unpack a file.” Flameleaf: “If you’re on Arch Linux, try adding ILoveCandy to your pacman.conf” Auxiliary-character: “Ctrl + R in bash will let you search your history.” Kei_katsuga: “Add “Defaults insults” in your sudoers file(sudo visudo) and see your computer insult you as you type wrong password for sudo.” B-Con: “The SIGSTOP signal. It forces the process it’s sent to to stop executing (it’s one of the two signals that the process can’t catch, so even deadlocked userspace apps aren’t immune to it). It’s handy for runaway processes eating CPU (or whatever) that you want to just stop for the moment so you can go do something else but you don’t want to actually exit for some reason and re-open. Resume the process later with SIGCONT.” MadMakz: “More fun: https://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/820944-10-truly-amusing-linux-easter-eggs-“ Paradiesstaub: “It is possible to increase the maximum cached terminal output line count. When using git status sometimes the default gnome-terminal max-line-count is to low to display all content, therefore I always set it to 2000 lines (piping to less is not a solution because syntax highlighting would be lost).” J1r1k: “Alt + . (dot) in bash. Last argument of previous command. It took me few years to discover this.” More at Reddit Five top Linux gaming distros Linux gamers are awash in riches these days, and that extends to desktop distributions. TechRadar has a roundup of five of the most popular Linux gaming distros currently available. So do check it out if you’re a Linux gamer. Shashank Sharma reports for TechRadar: Unlike most other genres of Linux distributions, gaming distros aren’t a thriving bunch. But this isn’t because Linux users dislike games, instead it’s due to the fact that this niche category is almost redundant thanks to most modern desktop distros. Almost all desktop distros are equipped nowadays with drivers for most modern graphics cards, which means that just about any distro can be turned into a gaming station. Despite this, some distros continue to churn out special gaming editions which provide hundreds of games right out of the gate, and the means to install even more with additional software such as Play on Linux, Wine and Steam. So without further ado, we’ll highlight five of the best gaming distros. Fedora Games Spin Play-Linux Sparky Linux Ubuntu Gamepack SteamOS More at TechRadar 3D platformer games for Linux? Speaking of games, the topic of 3D platformer games came up in a thread on the Linux Gaming subreddit. One redditor was excited about a new 3D platformer coming to Linux, and asked others for similar games that they liked. SaadN31 asked about 3D platformers on Linux: I am excited after a long time when I saw this. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playtonic/yooka-laylee-a-3d-platformer-rare-vival[1] Last time I played Crash Bandicoot Twinsanity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_Twinsanity[2] ) on ps2 in 2004, after that some 2D games on ds emulator and recently Mini Dash on friv.com. I am happy to see a this type of game coming in 2016. If you have any 3D platformers in mind, post them below, for Windows, Mac and Linux of this decade only. Windows, Mac and Linux games here. More at Reddit His fellow redditors offered their thoughts about 3D platformers that run on Linux: Karmiktoucan: “I can remember only two decent 3d platformers that were released on linux: Psychonauts and Tiny&Big: Grandpa’s Leftovers. There is also The Last Tinker: City of Colors but I am not sure that it can be called platformer.” SaadN31: “The Last Tinker: City of Colors is similar to Ratchet and Clank series. Mostly a game for children. Tiny&Big: Grandpa’s Leftovers is interesting though. http://store.steampowered.com/app/205910/[1] And Psychonauts is okay.” VitulusAureus: “I’d recommend Trine. Technically, it’s 2.5d, but the stunning visuals will make up for the missing 1/2 dimension.” Zerothis: “Personally I find irrlamb to be fun (no flashy cartoony characters though). The other performers I enjoy have already been mentioned. Haven’t tried Not Without My Robots, but I’d like too. While Linux may offer only a few choices for any particular type of game, this is not the case for 3D Platformers. There are currently 51 such titles: http://www.uvlist.net/search?ftype=p&fplat=106&fpersp=d&fdisp=t&ipp=c[1] That is an ever expanding list.” WilliamTheBreaker: “In this decade? You won’t find many. There is a reason why a game like Yooka Layle is on kickstarter. :p” More at Reddit Did you miss a roundup? 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