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This post is inspired by a post by Remy Sharp at https://remysharp.com/2018/08/23/cli-improved
Please read that blog post as I won’t repeat some tools mentioned in that blog
If you use *nix OS then you’ll find yourself using command-line more often than not. I find myself using the command-line majority of the time and I prefer using CLI over GUI. Linux command-line by default has tools that are mature and powerful to get most tasks done.
Over the years, I have picked up various tools that are not available by default in Linux command-line. I use these tools extensively to improve my CLI experience and stay productivity.
In this blog post, I’ll list various tools that I use to improve my CLI experience. I’ll try not to repeat the tools mentioned in Remy blog post unless necessary.
fzf > ctrl+r
In terminal, ctrl+r
is used to search through history but I found ctrl+r
to be not intutive. fzf
is a great alternative to ctrl+r
.
Project page: https://github.com/junegunn/fzf
Remy blog covers this tool: https://remysharp.com/2018/08/23/cli-improved#fzf--ctrlr
zoxide > fasd > cd
This section recommended fasd in the past but the project is deprecated. Use
zoxide
instead.
Project page: https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide
Traversing directories is one of the most tedious things to do on the command-line. zoxide
boosts your productivity by offering ways to quickly access to files and directories.
Zoxide ranks files and directories by “frecency,” that is, by both “frequency” and “recency”
Zoxide defines various powerful commands but I tend to use the following commands frequently
z <keyword>
: To quickly switch to the highest weightage directory with the keywordzi <keyword>
: List of all directories with the keyword and their corresponding weightagezoxide add <dir>
: Add a specific directory tozoxide
zoxide
requiredfzf
as a prerequisite.
fd > find
find
is a command to find files. Although powerful, it is a struggle to remember the syntax for the find
command.
fd
is a great replacement for find
. The command suntax is straight forward and covers all the common use cases.
Remy blog covers this tool - https://remysharp.com/2018/08/23/cli-improved#fd--find
trippy > mtr > traceroute
This section recommended mtr in the past but I have started to use
trippy
often.mtr
andtrippy
are great tools solving the same problem.
Project page: https://github.com/fujiapple852/trippy
trippy
is a combination traceroute
and ping
functionalities. It is quite handy when diagonising network issues.
trip disruptivelabs.in
nnn > ranger > GUI file managers
Project page : https://github.com/jarun/nnn
Installation - https://github.com/jarun/nnn#installation
nnn
is blazing fast and lightweight CLI file manager. I also like ranger as an alternative but nnn
flow feels more natural and faster.
Socat > Netcat
Project page : http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/
This one is might be a little obscure. I do security assessments and often I need to use tools that connect to different hosts/ports and also forward ports etc.
socat
is an incredibly powerful tool for network relays, forwarding ports etc. It supports IPv6 and SSL. Socat has strange syntax but once you get hold of the syntax, you can do magic with socat
.
jq
Project page : https://stedolan.github.io/jq/
Installation - https://stedolan.github.io/jq/download/
JSON has become defacto format for data exchange. jq
is a command-line JSON processor which is quite handy while working with JSON streams. The syntax is a little tricky to get hold of though
curl -s 'https://api.github.com/repos/stedolan/jq/commits?per_page=5' | jq .
Tig ~ Git
Project page : https://github.com/jonas/tig
Installation - https://github.com/jonas/tig/blob/master/INSTALL.adoc
tig
is a great compliment to git
. tig
makes git
through CLI more intutive.
I use the following tig
commands often -
tig
- equivalent ofgit log
tig status
- qquivalent ofgit status
but cleaner and interactivetig refs
- equivalent ofgit tag -n
Other mentions
- i3wm Powerful, resource efficient, productive tiling window manager. The learning curve is steep but totally worth it. Customisation is the key.
- Oh My Zsh Glorified Bash. I find that using
zsh
&Oh My Zsh
make me relatively productive - Terminator Linux terminal on steroids with tabs, layouts and shortcuts etc
- HTTPie
curl
for humans - direnv Manages directory specific environments
- asciinema Tool to record and share a terminal session (Not videos)
References
- https://github.com/alebcay/awesome-shell
- https://github.com/BurntSushi
- https://www.atlassian.com/blog/git/git-tig
- http://jonas.nitro.dk/tig/manual.html
- https://blog.dnsimple.com/2017/07/ag-a-better-unix-search-tool/