Running Linux, Third Edition

Useful Keys and How to Get Them to Work

When you type a command, pressing the Backspace key should remove the last character. Ctrl-U should delete the whole line.^[12] When you have finished entering a command, and it is executing, Ctrl-C should abort it, and Ctrl-Z should suspend it. (When you want to resume the program, enter fg for “foreground.”)

If any of these keys fail to work, your terminal is not configured correctly for some reason. You can fix it through the stty command. Use the syntax:

stty function 
            key

where function is what you want to do, and key is the key that you press. Specify a control key by putting a circumflex (^) in front of the key.

Here is a set of sample commands to set up the functions described earlier:

$ stty erase ^H 
$ stty kill ^U 
$ stty intr ^C 
$ stty susp ^Z

The first control key shown, ^H, represents the ASCII code generated by the Backspace key.

By the way, you can generate a listing of your current terminal settings by entering stty -a. But that doesn’t mean you can understand the output: stty is a complicated command with many uses, some of which require a lot of knowledge about terminals.

^[12] Ctrl-U means hold down the Control key and press u.