My Favorite Linux Tools

Many of these are actually cross-platform. For context, I currently use:

1. At home: Fedora Workstation 40 & Ubuntu 24.04
2. At work: Ubuntu 22.04.

I am also a heavy user of the default bash shell.

Excellent External Resources

• dbohdan/structured-text-tools - Much of my day job is concerned with understanding log files we produce. This page gives an invaluable overview of standard tools available for slicing, dicing and comprehending large structured text outputs.
• The excellent list at ibraheemdev/modern-unix contains more tools I may try in the future.
• A blog post by Julia Evans has some cool stuff to look at too.

Terminal-based tools

I've marked all tools with icons indicating the primary implmentation language. I really like tools built using modern (relative to, say, C ) languages like Rust , Go (), Python () and Ruby . I obtained the Programming language file Icon icon at IconScout.

Impl	Name	Ubuntu	Fedora	Description / Config
	autojump	apt intall autojump, then see man file for launching in your .bashrc		Lets me change working directory to recently used directories via quick pattern match. (A tool I'm watching to replace this whenever I can rely on fzf 0.33 or later packages is zoxide.)
	bandwhich	Unzip executable from releases tarball to /usr/local/bin		Very nice presentation of what programs are consuming bandwith on connections to where. Needs sudo to run.
	bat	apt install bat (tool is invoked with batcat in this case).	dnf install bat	Colorful cat with line numbers, paging, and syntax highlighting.
	csvlens	cargo install csvlens	cargo install csvlens	Amazing command-line interactive CSV file viewer. (H or ? shows help)
	diskonaut	cargo install diskonaut	same	Interactive treemap visualization of disk space usage, right in the console
	doggo	Unzip executable from releases tarball to /usr/local/bin		Pretty dig replacement, for querying DNS from the command-line.
	duf	22.04+: apt intall duf	dnf install duf	Easy-on-the-eyes du/df replacement.
	dunk	Use Python >= 3.7 and pipx to install to your user executable path.		Pretty, colorful side-by-side git diffs achieved by git diff foo bar | dunk.
	exa	20.10+: apt install exa (Git support not included) Add bash completion script to your ~/.bash_profile. Useful exag alias in .bash_aliases		ls replacement with colorful, columnar output.
	fx	snap install fx	same or go install github.com/antonmedv/fx@latest	JSON Viewer that helps with figuring out jq query syntax.
	fzf	apt install fzf, then look at apt show fzf to find instructions on enabling keybindings and autocompletions.	dnf install fzf, then look in /usr/share/doc/fzf for how to enable keybindings.	Powerful "command-line fuzzy finder" that is hard to describe adequately. Its Alt-C function has allowed me to augment autojump when jumping into the current tree. Just watch this YouTube video, or read this blog post.
	glow	dpkg (see below)	same	Render markdown nicely right in the terminal.
	gitui	Download binary. Place in ~/.local/bin	same	same
	hexyl	dpkg (see below)		Colorful hexadecimal binary file viewer.
	jnv	cargo install jnv	same	Pure Rust interactive json filtering for subset of jq filters.
	mdless	gem install --user-install mdless	snap install mdless?	Pretty print Markdown with color to terminal. I find the --no-pager option useful when looking at small Markdown files
	micro	apt install micro	dnf install micro	Nano replacement with syntax highlighting.
	nushell	Download tarball release file, extract under ~/.local, and update alias
	procs	snap install procs	dnf install procs	Colorful, flexible ps replacement.
	ripgrep	apt install ripgrep	dnf install ripgrep	Fast, developer-friendly grep-like code searcher.
	starship	Install Fira Code Nerd Font; Set as font in terminal application; Set as font in VS Code; Follow Quick Install instructions using shell script.	same	Amazing developer-friendly, colorful, and rich shell prompt. Config: Copy .config/starship.toml to ~/.config
	tig	apt install tig		Fancy git browser. I also like the "git lola" variant given at this blog post
	vim	apt install vim		Like trusty old vi but better, includes syntax highlighting.
	zellij	snap install --classic zellij	dnf install cargo && cargo install zellij	Colorful, user-friendly, tmux replacement, that I usually use now. Config: Copy .config/zellij/config.yaml to use Alt-S and Alt-Q instead, which avoids collision with micro editor keys.
	zenith	dpkg (see below)		Colorful top replacement.

dpkg = Find the appropriate non-musl-variant amd64 or armhf .deb release file in the project releases page (generally just add /releases to the GitHub project URL), curl -LO [release-file-url] for the appropriate .deb release file, then sudo dpkg -i [release-file].

snap is included on Ubuntu as its favored containerized application solution. It can be installed on Fedora, and is not supported on WSL. flatpak is in a way, the inverse: it is available by default on Fedora, but must be installed on Ubuntu.

Nowadays, containerized solutions like snap or flatpak are a common and useful way to install software on Linux.

Maybe at some point?

Look promising, but I haven't really tried enough and/or made up my mind yet:

• I've been nervous about Nix & NixOS, but this tool looks to possibly give me 99% of what I might want from those, anyway, including having a lot of the above tools installed on any new machine easily: https://getfleek.dev/
• nb - CLI-based notebook that utilizes Git and can sync your notes using a remote git repository.
• rulex - I love that this "simplified" text matching language can generate non-trivial regexes for numeric ranges for me.