Linux: command aliases are the s*** :)

Since I’m getting seriously fed up with the way Ubuntu messes with the UI, I recently gave a try at Debian. One of the first thing the struck me was the unavailability of the ‘ll’ “command”. After digging a bit, I found that this is technically not a command but just an alias. And aliases can be created quite easily. For instance for ll, you’d just need to type the command:
alias ll='ls -l'

To make the alias permanent, you should add it to your ~/.bashrc file. Depending on the distribution and on the user, this file may also contain other interesting stuff. I ended up uncommenting the whole following block, so as to have the ll and l aliases, as well as colorized file names:
# You may uncomment the following lines if you want `ls' to be colorized:
export LS_OPTIONS='--color=auto'
eval "`dircolors`"
alias ls='ls $LS_OPTIONS'
alias ll='ls $LS_OPTIONS -l'
alias l='ls $LS_OPTIONS -lA'

You can also add some time-saving commands. For instance, I find it a hassle to often type apt-get update and apt-get upgrade so I added this:
alias au='apt-get update && apt-get upgrade'
Now no excuse not to upgrade often 😉

NB:
– if you want to configure aliases for all users at once, you can set them in /etc/profile instead of each individual .bashrc file.
– changes will apply once you reconnect to SSH (maybe you’ll need also to do /etc/init.d/ssh reload, but not sure)

Source (with a nice other idea to save more typing with alias): Terzza – Linux “ll” command / alias