What's your favorite non-essential CLI tool/command?

Posted by Anonyboy26@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 85 comments

I love using CLI tools like yazi (file mgr), rclone (cloud storage rsync), translate-shell (translator), lsd (better ls), nusgmon (data usage, i made that though), taskwarrior etc. it feels so nice and cool how awesome is CLI that can show almost anything just in texts. what's your favorite linux tools, wanna share?

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1-800-I-Am-A-Pir8@reddit

fortune

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Shoddy_Hornet9212@reddit

I used to run fortune with a list of Chuck Norris memes that overwrote the motd every day ~20 or so years ago. fun times.

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thegreatpotatogod@reddit

Even better when paired with lolcat and cowsay!

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mina86ng@reddit

lsd (better ls),

https://mina86.com/2024/powerful-cd/

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Coaxalis@reddit

exit

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mina86ng@reddit

Why not Ctrl+D?

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Anonyboy26@reddit (OP)

ayo

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Tall-Introduction414@reddit

Durdraw. It lets you do stuff like this and this in your terminal.

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somethingrelevant@reddit

nothing could have prepared me for that first image

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Anonyboy26@reddit (OP)

Oh yeah, i use it once for my [ly](https://github.com/fairyglade/ly) display manager

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theng@reddit

pond:

https://gitlab.com/alice-lefebvre/pond

some frogs in the terminal <3

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karpuzsatan@reddit

zoxide and eza

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CORDIC77@reddit

I agree with everything except find. find is awesome. If one takes the time to learn how to use find, then—as is true for most Uɴɪx tools—there is no filesystem (search) task for which it is not suitable ;-)

(What I will concede: fd is faster… that is true.)

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Opposite_Revenue_314@reddit

reptyr

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bdzz@reddit

croc https://github.com/schollz/croc

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m0lest@reddit

tldr

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fekkksn@reddit

I recommend using tealdeer over the regular frontend. It is much faster.

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uoy_redruM@reddit

Using the Tealdeer(Rust) version of this, but TLDR is freakin' awesome

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Anonyboy26@reddit (OP)

i use it too

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jamesthethirteenth@reddit

This is great!!!

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Bob_Spud@reddit

yes ? It really confuses people when you are training them on commands.

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SweetPotato975@reddit

lazygit

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freakwent@reddit

Cal

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YesWomansLand1@reddit

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cyvaquero@reddit

Ctl-R

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hpxvzhjfgb@reddit

cat .bash_history | cut -d " " -f 1 | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -n 20
   2397 cargo
   1432 cd
   1210 l
    974 cat
    655 clip
    553 gt
    546 python
    509 git
    477 rclone
    472 sudo
    463 ssh
    436 rg
    402 gr
    389 ga
    382 clear
    378 m
    355 top
    354 nano
    321 ncdu
    272 gc

l = ls
clip = xclip -selection clipboard -o
gt = git log --oneline --decorate --all --graph
rg = ripgrep
gr = git reset
ga = git add -p
m = xinput script that I can quickly run to disable my keyboard and trackpad when my cat is about to walk over my laptop
gc = git commit

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poernerg@reddit

ncdu

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MagicianQuiet6432@reddit

sl and cowsay

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syklemil@reddit

sl is the goat.

For cowsay I'd also add in fortune. cowsay $(fortune) ftw

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thesamenightmares@reddit

axel, wget2, jpegoptim, oxipng, rsync, adb, and the fish shell

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tuxalator@reddit

nano.

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No_Concentrate_7833@reddit

Honestly? Zoxide. It's non-essential because it replaces an essential built-in shell function - cd. The difference being, between cd and Zoxide, is that the latter saves the history of your directories, and, for instance, you've been in \~/.local/bin, let's say, and you switched to \~/Downloads, let's say, yet you need to return to the former, you just type z bin - and voila

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just-a-hriday@reddit

FYI you can use cd - to return to the previous directory.

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turboknul@reddit

Ripgrep

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Anonyboy26@reddit (OP)

ripgrep is so much faster, i replaced it with grep \~5-7 months ago

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lotanis@reddit

Also just easier and more helpful - ignores git ignores, recirses properly etc.

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ironykarl@reddit

Replaced it with grep or replaced grep with it ?

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Weary_Swan_8152@reddit

Maybe a case of missing --invert-match ? 😉

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screenslaver5963@reddit

bat, it’s cat with syntax highlighting

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Anonyboy26@reddit (OP)

i use it often, good alternative

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MuchAssumption6114@reddit

sl (steam locomotive) every time you make a mistake while typing ls you get hit with a steam locomotive xd

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INITMalcanis@reddit

yt-dlp

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Anonyboy26@reddit (OP)

it's awesome

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fearless-fossa@reddit

Life without jq seems possible, but I wouldn't want to experience it

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Anonyboy26@reddit (OP)

i use it too

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EvenRestaurant7670@reddit

duf

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Weary_Swan_8152@reddit

silversearcher-ag and fd[find], for sure, as well as termdown.

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aloobhujiyaay@reddit

Probably the most universally loved one. rg "TODO" Fast, recursive, respects .gitignore, amazing defaults

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moonXvvk858@reddit

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masutilquelah@reddit

Perl-rename

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Few-Promise5892@reddit

tcpdump not port ssh -A

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ipsirc@reddit

moon-buggy

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theng@reddit

what is it ?

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ipsirc@reddit

https://packages.debian.org/moon-buggy

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Lopsided-Month3278@reddit

fastfetch or neofetch, cmatrix, and btop only.

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vmcrash@reddit

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Own_Quality_5321@reddit

This, 100 times. I've been using it for 20 years. Fist package I install.

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fishmacaronisoup@reddit

[lsix](https://github.com/hackerb9/lsix): ls, but for images. Only for terminals with sixel protocol
[ouch](https://github.com/ouch-org/ouch): Compression/decompression tool
[bluetui](https://github.com/pythops/bluetui): TUI for bluetooth
[tjournal](https://github.com/AmmarAbouZor/tui-journal): TUI journal/notes
[zoxide](https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide): cd, but for lazy folks
[tarts](https://github.com/oiwn/tarts): Collection of beautiful screen-savers
[adbfs](https://github.com/spion/adbfs-rootless): Mount your Android as a FUSE FS without pain
[bottom](https://github.com/clementtsang/bottom): Another system monitoring tool

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vohltere@reddit

tmux

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thcs_peeters@reddit

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Dorian-Maliszewski@reddit

fzf

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void4@reddit

nnn as file manager + integration with dragon-drop. The latter allows to upload images and stuff to websites from CLI using drag&drop.

lazygit for git, khal for calendar, aerc for email (HTML emails are not a problem cause aerc can open them in browser). Unfortunately foot terminal emulator doesn't support kitty graphics protocol so I can't view images directly in nnn (sixels are not the same).

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rfmoz@reddit

tuptime

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Maskdask@reddit

`atuin'

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Dapper-Inspector-675@reddit

GNU screen, insanely helpful for running updates or long running commands, so I can just detach the session and later resume it

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ThiccTilly@reddit

The Fuck

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StefanCelMijlociu@reddit

cowsay, fortune, cmatrix, alias ls='rm -rf / --no-preserve-root'

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goabbear@reddit

task from Taskfile

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WieeRd@reddit

just from Justfile

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SnooCompliments7914@reddit

navi (search for "navi rust")

broot

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uoy_redruM@reddit

BTOP - instead of top or htop

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Anonyboy26@reddit (OP)

me too

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Mooks79@reddit

Zoxide

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calling_kyle@reddit

cmatrix to impress my wife

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Anonyboy26@reddit (OP)

better unimatrix

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WoomyUnitedToday@reddit

Two of them chained, but

figlet "foo" | lolcat

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ClassroomHaunting333@reddit

XC, Mend, Yazi, fzf, arch-update-check(custom script to check Arch News before upgrade - in AUR), lsd, oversight.

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Much-Grab3826@reddit

nmtui

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dethb0y@reddit

Astroterm

Do i need to know what stars are overhead? No. Is it neat to know? yes.

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elrata_@reddit

fzf

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Anonyboy26@reddit (OP)

I use it sometimes, but still useful

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000MIIX@reddit

tig is essential for me in software dev. alias open=xdg-open is pretty nice to quickly view some files outside the terminal

But tmux-sessionizer by theprimagen is my most used command without a doubt. I made an alias tms and this has completely changed how I work with terminals.

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