A little collection of cool unix terminal/console/curses tools
Just a list of 20 (now 28) tools for the command line. Some are little-known, some are just too useful to miss, some are pure obscure -- I hope you find something useful that you weren't aware of yet! Use your operating system's package manager to install most of them. (Thanks for the tips, everybody!)
dstat & sar
iostat, vmstat, ifstat and much more in one.
slurm
Visualizes network interface traffic over time.
vim & emacs
The real programmers' editors.
screen, dtach, tmux, byobu
Keep your terminal sessions alive.
multitail
See your log files in separate windows.
tpp
Presentation ("PowerPoint") tool for terminal.
xargs & parallel
Executes tasks from input (even multithread).
duplicity & rsyncrypto
Encrypting backup tools.
nethack & slash'em
Still the most complex game on the planet.
lftp
Does FTPS. Can mirror, kinda like rsync.
ack, ag (silver searcher), pt
A better grep for source code.
calcurse & remind + wyrd
Calendar systems.
newsbeuter & rsstail
Command line RSS readers.
powertop
Helps conserve power on Linux.
tig
A console UI for git.
qalc
The best calculator. Ever. (For scripts too.)
htop, atop & glances
Process, memory and io monitoring.
ttyrec & ipbt
Record and play back terminal sessions.
rsync
Keeps filesystems in sync over SSH.
mtr
traceroute 2.0.
socat & netpipes
Directing stuff easily in and out of sockets.
iftop, iptraf & nethogs
To see where your traffic goes.
siege & tsung
Command line load test tools.
ledger
Terminal-based accounting package.
taskwarrior
Todo management in the terminal.
curl
Everybody's favorite HTTP toolbox.
rtorrent & aria2
Command line torrent downloaders.
ttytter & earthquake
Nice trendy Twitter clients :)
vifm & ranger
Alternatives to the midnight commander.
cowsay & sl
I just couldn't resist. :o)
cloc
Counts lines of code.
ipcalc
For network assignments.
Discussion of this post on Hacker News
- that's the place to get into nice old-school FidoNet-style flame wars about the important things in life,
like whether or not tmux is better than screen, is parallel better than xargs,
whether or not ifconfig is a power tool,
or should this list include somebody's once-used tool for converting old Pascal code to C or something. :o)
Shameless plug: I'm a freelance software architect (resume), have a look at my services!