Ubuntu – How to stop `clear` from clearing scrollback buffer

16.04command linegnome-terminal

Initially I thought Unlimited scrolling was not working with the terminal application on 16.04. I have the option "limit scrollback to" unchecked. Some times it scrolls back some times it does not. Then I realized it does not scroll back when ever I use clear command. It scrolls back only one scree.

I use clear a lot(almost once in every 3 commands).

The man page for clear points to terminfo.
There are some options on terminfo but I can't find a config file where I can define the options.
All the files under /lib/terminfo/ from where clear seems to be reading its config are in compiled format and I do not understand them.

I didn't see this issue with earlier to 14.04(guessing).

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Best Answer

What you want is to type CTRL+L instead of clear.

This will send a "Form Feed" to the terminal. Basically it will move everything up the height of the terminal window clearing the screen without affecting your scrollback.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to stop the terminal from wrapping lines

It depends on what application you are using.

If you are viewing a file or command output using less, passing the -S option (a.k.a. --chop-long-lines) will cause output to be chopped off rather than wrapping to a new line. You can use the horizontal arrow keys to view the rest of the line.

For generic non full screen applications, you can turn off line wrapping by sending an appropriate escape sequence to the terminal:

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Details on adjusting the behaviour for a few other command line tools can be found here:

http://tomayko.com/writings/StupidShellTricks

Ubuntu – Stop Terminal from saving commands

Several things you could do.

1. Type a space in front of each command you run.

It's tedious, but putting a space in front of your commands will keep them from being saved to the bash history.

2. Set a Cronjob to delete .bash_history every hour

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