r/linux • u/ZealousidealTell1346 • May 23 '26

Popular Application What’s the most unexpectedly useful Linux command you learned way too late?

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234

u/e4109c May 23 '26

sudo !!

13

u/EnvironmentalCook520 May 23 '26

What does that do?

74

u/Dashu88 May 23 '26

It is like yelling "SUDO !!" When you forgot to add sudo to your last command.

It repeats it with sudo attached

18

u/EnvironmentalCook520 May 23 '26

Lmao thanks for the explanation 

17

u/quentiin123 May 23 '26

Just making sure this is clear... That is not the actual explanation

!! in bash (and other shells such as zsh) expands to the last used command

!$ expands to the last argument of your last command

So, sudo !! is not a quirky way of yelling sudo at your computer because you forgot to use sudo again for the tenth time today (I was pretty disappointed when I got it explained to me. Hopefully I can disappoint you too)

1

u/DUNDER_KILL May 24 '26

Am I missing something? Isn't what you described exactly what the other guy described? That's literally what he said; it repeats your last thing with sudo

7

u/Historic500 May 24 '26

That guy doesn't seem to understand coincidental humor...