this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025

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Linux

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Which Linux tool or command is surprisingly simple, powerful, and yet underrated?" (lemmy.ml)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

316 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Which Linux command or utility is simple, powerful, and surprisingly unknown to many people or used less often?

This could be a command or a piece of software or an application.

For example I'm surprised to find that many people are unaware of Caddy, a very simple web server that can make setting up a reverse proxy incredibly easy.

Another example is fzf. Many people overlook this, a fast command-line fuzzy finder. It’s versatile for searching files, directories, or even shell history with minimal effort.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

paste. I don't think a lot of people know this command, but it can be handy at times

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (4 children)

mlocate

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[–] jbrains 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Underrated or not widely known?

I love lazygit and I'm still surprised at how many people are shocked when they see it for the first time. Not exactly a command, but a very handy text UI tool.

For more elementary tools, I can't believe how many people know about ! and ctrl+r who don't also know about fc and edit-and-execute-command.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (5 children)

degit is a tool that will check out a git repo (or a specific branch or commit), but not set it up as a git repo. Basically just downloading a specific commit to a directory.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Bat, a cat alternative.

Lsd, an ls alternative.

Procs, a ps alternative.

Renane, because it's great.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago

find?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Idk a lot of commands but I think wget for downloading webpages and rsync for syncing devices are pretty awesome

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (9 children)

As someone who has to do installs and admin at work a lot I'm constantly dealing with yum/dnf. I cry when I have to work with AIX.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

People always sleep on script. It's badass and let's you do goofy things like this while keeping standard terminal formatting: https://github.com/StaticRocket/dotfiles/blob/043e9a56cc9515060188ec4642e4048c0dd6c000/dot_bashrc#L79-L94

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

edir, can use GUI editors too.

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