this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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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] 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

Underrated? I'd say lftp is the best FTP command line client there is. And Midnight Commander is a very very good file browser. I don't see either praised enough.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Lftp is fast. Those parallel chunked downloads are not a joke

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 month ago (4 children)

jq - super powerful json parser. Useful by hand and in scripts

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

tmux - makes managing remote SSH sessions a breeze.

tomb - A little FOSS encryption utility that runs in the CLI. Easy, cute, effective. Tomb Utility

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

+1 for Caddy, completely replaced nginx. also...

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago (4 children)

The mouse.

Bring on the downvotes. 🎉

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

🖕😤🖕

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

y
y
y
y
y
y

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago (4 children)

zoxide. It's a fabulous cd replacement. It builds a database as you navigate your filesystem. Once you've navigated to a directory, instead of having to type cd /super/long/directory/path, you can type zoxide path and it'll take you right to /super/long/directory/path.

I have it aliased to zd. I love it and install it on every system

You can do things like using a partial directory name and it'll jump you to the closest match in the database. So zoxide pa would take you to /super/long/directory/path.

And you can do partial paths. Say you've got two directories named data in your filesystem.

One at /super/long/directory/path1/data

And the other at /super/long/directory/path2/data

You can do zoxide path2 data and you'll go to /super/long/directory/path2/data

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

You can do zoxide path2 data

I usually would just do z 2data. Yes, I'm lazy. It's the perfect tool for lazy people.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)
  • xargs
  • parallel
  • PXE (ohai cobbler)
  • tee
  • task-spooler (ts aka tsp)
  • rpm -V

Nothing new, just forgotten.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Lightweight sudo alternatives, hard to google too. I know ssu and rdo, please mention others.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

edir, can use GUI editors too.

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