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.

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
    101·
    2 days ago

    socat - connect anything to anything

    for example

    socat - tcp-connect:remote-server:12345

    socat tcp-listen:12345 -

    socat tcp-listen:12345 tcp-connect:remote-server:12345

  • friend_of_satan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    27·
    3 days ago

    Not powerful, but often useful, column -t aligns columns in all lines. EG

    $ echo {a,bb,ccc}{5,10,9999,888} | xargs -n3
a5 a10 a9999
a888 bb5 bb10
bb9999 bb888 ccc5
ccc10 ccc9999 ccc888
$ echo {a,bb,ccc}{5,10,9999,888} | xargs -n3 | column -t
a5      a10      a9999
a888    bb5      bb10
bb9999  bb888    ccc5
ccc10   ccc9999  ccc888
  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
    4·
    2 days ago

    nmap *your_local_ip_address*

    for example

    nmap 192.168.1.43/24 will show you what devices are connected to the local network, and what ports are open there. really useful, for example, when you forgot the address of your printer or raspi yet again.

    you can also use it to understand what ports on your computer are open from an attacker’s perspective, or simply to figure out what services are running (ssh service).

  • toastal@lemmy.ml
    11·
    3 days ago

    netstat -tunl shows all open ports on the machine to help diagnose any firewall issues.

  • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
    3·
    2 days ago

    losetup

    it’s useful for dealing with virtual disk images. like a real physical hard disk, but it’s a file on the computer. you can mount it, format it, and write it to a real physical disk.

    it’s sometimes used with virtual machines, with iso images, or when preparing a bootable disk.

  • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
    1001·
    4 days ago

    I think a lot of people don’t realise that yt-dlp works for many sites, not just YouTube

    I used it recently for watching a video from tiktok without having to use their god awful web UI and it was amazing

  • Count Regal Inkwell@pawb.social
    12·
    3 days ago

    batcat

    It’s like cat but better. Great for when you just want to look at the contents of a file, without loading a whole text editor.

    Oh also, tldr

    My procedure for learning how to use a cli command goes tldr page -> --help if the tldr fails to help me -> THEN the full manpage

    • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
      26·
      4 days ago

      I heard about helix from you and I’ve used it for a year and a half or so now, it’s by far the best editor I’ve used so far and I can definitely vouch for it

    • Trent@lemmy.mlEnglish
      17·
      4 days ago

      Just commenting to give more love to helix. It’s my favorite “small quick edits” editor.

    • ObsidianZed@lemmy.world
      8·
      4 days ago

      I’ve actually been testing with fish recently coming from zsh, though I might wait until 4.0 fully releases before I make a more conclusive decision to move or not.

      With that said, I remember looking through omf themes and stumbled onto Starship that branched off one of the themes and really liked the concept.

      • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
        1·
        3 days ago

        It does have clojure lsp support, but you’ll probably have to use a command line for most repls.

        • SFloss (they/them)@lemmy.ml
          2·
          3 days ago

          Yeah the clojure lsp support is top notch, but there being no support for “jacking in” to a repl is the big thing keeping me from using helix full time. There’s a way of doing it if you use kitty, but it’s pretty janky.

      • jennraeross@lemmy.world
        8·
        4 days ago

        Helix is a terminal based text editor. It’s much like vim / neovim, but unlike those editors it’s good to go right out of the box, no configuration or plugins needed to make it work well.

        Topgrade is one I haven’t used, but it looks like its intended purpose is to let you upgrade your apps with one command, even if you use multiple different package managers (I.e. if you were on Ubuntu, you could use it to upgrade your apt packages, at the same time as your snap packages, as well as flatpak, nix, and homebrew if you’ve added those.)

      • deadcream@sopuli.xyz
        4·
        4 days ago

        Fish is a replacement of bash that’s a bit more user friendly (has some cool auto completion features out of the box and more sane behaviour like handling of spaces when expanding variables). I personally started to use nutshell recently but unlike fish it’s very different from bash.

        Starship is a “prompt” for various shells (that bit of text in terminal before you enter the command that shows current user and directory in bash). I haven’t used it but AFAIK it has many features like showing current time, integration with git, etc.

        • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
          9·
          4 days ago

          Yep, here’s my Starship prompt, for example:

          So, I have it configured to show:

          • the exit code of the last command (if it’s non-zero),
          • the duration of the last command (if it’s longer than 2 seconds),
          • the time (when the last command ended),
          • the current directory,
          • the current Git branch, and it also shows some Git status information, for example the $ means I have something stashed,
          • and finally the technology in use in a repository/directory, so in this case that repo uses Rust and the compiler version is 1.83.
            • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
              3·
              3 days ago

              Nope, I’m glad to share.

              I personalized it from the “Gruvbox Rainbow” preset from here: https://starship.rs/presets/
              So, you might prefer that, if you’re not, well, me.

              You will need to set up a NerdFont, like the Starship installation guide says.

              Here’s my configuration:

              Spoiler 
              "$schema" = 'https://starship.rs/config-schema.json'

format = """
[$status](bg:color_red fg:color_fg0)\
[](fg:color_red bg:color_orange)\
[$cmd_duration](bg:color_orange fg:color_fg0)\
[](fg:color_orange bg:color_yellow)\
[$time](bg:color_yellow fg:color_fg0)\
[](fg:color_yellow)\
$line_break\
[$directory](bg:color_aqua fg:color_fg0)\
[](fg:color_aqua bg:color_blue)\
[$git_branch\
$git_status](bg:color_blue fg:color_fg0)\
[](fg:color_blue bg:color_bg3)\
[$c\
$rust\
$golang\
$nodejs\
$php\
$java\
$kotlin\
$haskell\
$python\
$docker_context](bg:color_bg3 fg:color_fg0)\
[](fg:color_bg3)\
$line_break\
$line_break"""

palette = 'gruvbox_dark'

[palettes.gruvbox_dark]
color_fg0 = '#ffffff'
color_bg1 = '#3c3836'
color_bg3 = '#665c54'
color_blue = '#458588'
color_aqua = '#689d6a'
color_green = '#98971a'
color_orange = '#d65d0e'
color_purple = '#b16286'
color_red = '#cc241d'
color_yellow = '#d79921'

[status]
disabled = false
symbol = ""
format = ' $symbol $status '

[username]
format = ' $user '

[directory]
format = " $path "
truncation_length = 3
truncation_symbol = "…/"

[directory.substitutions]
"Documents" = "󰈙 "
"Downloads" = " "
"Music" = "󰝚 "
"Pictures" = " "
"Projects" = "󰲋 "

[git_branch]
symbol = ""
format = ' $symbol $branch '

[git_status]
style = "bg:color_aqua"
format = '$all_status$ahead_behind '

[nodejs]
symbol = ""
format = ' $symbol $version '

[c]
symbol = " "
format = ' $symbol $version '

[rust]
symbol = ""
format = ' $symbol $version '

[golang]
symbol = ""
format = ' $symbol $version '

[php]
symbol = ""
format = ' $symbol $version '

[java]
symbol = " "
format = ' $symbol $version '

[kotlin]
symbol = ""
format = ' $symbol $version '

[haskell]
symbol = ""
format = ' $symbol $version '

[python]
symbol = ""
format = ' $symbol $version '

[cmd_duration]
format = ' 󱦟 $duration '

[time]
disabled = false
time_format = "%R"
format = '  $time '

[line_break]
disabled = false
            • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
              5·
              4 days ago

              Oh, when you’re coding something in a Git repo and you realize that you need to make a different change before you continue coding (e.g. switch to a branch, pull newest changes, or just create a separate smaller commit for part of your change), then you can run git stash push to put away your current changes, then make your other change, and then run git stash pop to bring your ongoing changes back. I recommend reading git stash --help, if you want to use it.

              Sometimes, though, you might end up just taking it into a different direction altogether or simply forget that you had something stashed. That’s when that indicator comes in handy. Because while you can have multiple things stashed, I do find it’s best not to keep them around for too long. If you do want to keep them for longer, then you can always create a branch and commit it as WIP onto there, so that you can push it onto a remote repo.