Command Line Applications

This is a list of the command line applications I like to use on all my systems with a few notes on each. I did skip adding some that are default tools that come with every Linux distribution and skipped anything that is needed for the system. For example, I don’t need to add lspci or lsblk.

Basics

• fish - Switching my shell to fish has been a life changer. Has a long list of features, but I particularly enjoy autosuggestions, man page completions, web-based configuration, and easily add items to the $PATH.
• tmux - Probably the most used multiplexer by everyone. I have added theme customizations, changed the prefix to ctrl-a, remapped capslock to ctrl, and edited the keybindings for starting and navigating panes.
• cheat - A tool for creating and viewing cheatsheets for command line applications. There are community cheatsheets, but I mostly use it for my own, personal entries so I can easily reference notes about the command. I map the personal cheatsheets to a directory I sync to all my devices.
• tldr - Another tool for viewing man pages, but this keeps it short and simple. It is community-driven and is what I use when not referencing my own notes in cheat.
• btop - A system monitoring tool I use on almost every device. It is extremely powerful and monitors basically everything on the system.
• bottom - The other system monitoring tool, but is on all systems due to its very low resource requirements. I prefer btop most times, but on low powered systems I use a simplified version of bottom as a replacement for htop.
• duf - A much nicer looking replacement for df. It is nice for a quick look at disk usage.
• gdu - A disk usage analyzer that is a faster alternative to ncdu.

Networking

• gping - From their Github, “Ping, but with a graph.” I created an alias to always use this cause old habits die hard.
• nmap - I know just enough about networking to get by and I underutilize this tool.
• iperf3 - I measure bandwidth around my network all the time and just default to this, especially since it works with Termux on Android.
• speedtest-cli - For routinely seeing if I’m getting the speeds I’m paying for from Comcast.

Files

• yazi - A terminal file manager with document preview, code highlighting, image viewing, custom themes, and is wicked fast.
• exa - A replacement for ls with some more features. Another alias because I can’t stop typing ls if my life depended on it.
• dufs API - dufs is a self-hosted web file manager that I have sitting on top of my files I used to sync with Nextcloud. In addition to being accessible in the web browser, dufs has an API for downloading, uploading, and moving files from the command line. I use this when I need access to a single file or just want to quickly upload one or two items.
• helix. Okay, below you will see notes on how I don’t need to learn vim. However, I started using helix and I love it. Wicked fast, super powerful, highly configurable text editor for the command line. What’s not to like?
• micro - I’m not a developer and I have no need to learn vim or emacs. I prefer micro as my text editor as it supports highlighting and has sane keybindings.
• glow - For reading markdown… with pizzazz! I will read my notes from the command line, which are all written in markdown. Just makes the reading experience better.
• blobdrop. - A tool that enables drag and drop for files from the command line to any other app. I love this little tool and wrote a blog post about it.
• termscp - A terminal file explorer for remote file systems and works with SCP, WebDAV, and FTP. This is another files utility I use frequently and works great with helix. Check out my blog post on how I use them, even from a virtual Linux desktop on my phone.

Web

• browsh - A terminal web browser based on Firefox and will render modern webpages. Mostly use this with newsboat and tut.
• wiki-tui - For browsing Wikipedia from the command line.
• yt-dlp - Downloading from YouTube for my archive and for low resource systems so I can grab a reduced quality version, without loading up the browser. See this blog for all the options I use when downloading from YouTube.
• newsboat - This is an RSS feed reader for the terminal and can connect to my FreshRSS self-hosted instance. To be honest, this is how I prefer to read my feeds.
• tut - A TUI client for Mastodon.
• calcurse - Terminal calendar for viewing and managing events from my Radicale server.
• todoman + vdirsyncer - For viewing and managing tasks with CalDAV support.
• shaarli-client - For adding bookmarks to my Shaarli bookmark manager instance.
• ArchiveBox CLI utility - For adding pages to my ArchiveBox instance and saving in my digital hoarde.

Utilities

• distrobox - Hands-down my favorite tool on any machine. For the uninitiated, distrobox uses containers integrated with the host to allow any Linux distribution to be available in the terminal. Want something from the AUR on Debian? What Fedora, suse, arch, and void all on one system? distrobox makes it possible.
• bw - The official Bitwarden password manager command line utility. I am using with my self-hosted instance of Vaultwarden.
• cotp - A command line 2FA application that supports importing from Aegis Android multi-factor app.
• chezmoi - My preferred dotfiles manager. Makes it super simple to get new machines setup with all my customized configs.
• gitui - A TUI interface git client. I don’t use git everyday, so it is helpful to have a tool that helps simplify the process.
• terminaltexteffects - A fun tool for animating text in the command line. I also have a blog post on this and how I use it to animate my terminal when connecting to my servers.

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