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Which Linux tool or command is surprisingly simple, powerful, and yet underrated?" (lemmy.ml)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by mfat@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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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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[-] ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago

Could you explain them in more depth? I opened them and don’t know

[-] jennraeross@lemmy.world 8 points 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.)

[-] ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago

Thank you for explaining. I would never have understood topgrade without your example :)

[-] deadcream@sopuli.xyz 5 points 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.ml 9 points 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.
[-] dil@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

This is sick!! Would you mind sharing your config?

[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 3 points 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

[-] ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Thanks for adding this. What does stashed mean

[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 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.

this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
373 points (97.9% liked)

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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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