How to stop displaying long long file list of `ls`?

You can control the ls output by using less or more command, like below:

ls | morels | less

They'll work on interactive way. Or you can truncate output with head or tail command, like:

ls | headls | tail

head will show default 10 lines from head and tail will show default 10 lines from tail.

If you are over SSH, you can use escape sequences.For example to send break, press:

enter, ~ and B

"enter" is of course not typed, just press the enter key (I suppose to "reset" the current command buffer)

Other interesting ones

Terminate time-outing session

enter, ~ and .

Send escape character

enter, ~ and ~

You can list these commands with

enter, ~ and ?

On my system the above prints:

# ~?Supported escape sequences:  ~.  - terminate connection (and any multiplexed sessions)  ~B  - send a BREAK to the remote system  ~C  - open a command line  ~R  - Request rekey (SSH protocol 2 only)  ~^Z - suspend ssh  ~#  - list forwarded connections  ~&  - background ssh (when waiting for connections to terminate)  ~?  - this message  ~~  - send the escape character by typing it twice(Note that escapes are only recognized immediately after newline.)

You can stop the output by pressing Ctrl + C (like it's the case with most programs inside the linux shell).

Edit: Just read that Ctrl + C is not working. I think simply opening a new console using Alt + F2 doesn't work with Putty either. Then just close the putty window and open a new one. With that, you can kill the process.

To read the output I would suggest using ls | less or pipe the output to a file and then read it ( ls > filelist.txt ).