My question is whether it is good practice to include a unique wrapper phrase for custom commands and aliases.

For example, lets say I use the following command frequently:

apt update && apt upgrade -y && flatpak update

I want to save time by shortening this command. I want to alias it to the following command:

update

And lets say I also make up a command that calls a bash script to scrub all of of my zfs and btrfs pools:

scrub

Lets say I add 100 other aliases. Maybe I am overthinking it, but I feel there should be some easy way to distinguish these from native Unix commands. I feel there should be some abstraction layer.

My question is whether converting these commands into arguments behind a wrapper command is worth it.

For example, lets say my initials are “RK”. The above commands would become:

rk update rk scrub

Then I could even create the following to list all of my subcommands and their uses:

rk --help

I would have no custom commands that exist outside of rk, so I add to total of one executable to my system.

I feel like this is the “cleaner” approach, but what do you think? Is this an antipattern? Is is just extra work?

  • @LeFantome
    4•2 months ago

    You have taken the first step towards creating your own distro.

    Seriously though, what you suggest is fairly common but really a matter of preference. The same answer applies to “is it just extra work”.

    I tend not to customize heavily because it keeps “me” generic and I can sit down at anything and be equally effective. Others heavily customize their environments to keep themselves productive and happy on the machines they actually use.

    One advantage of your approach is you can create a “standard” user space across multiple distos. You do not have to remember if this system or that is Debian or Arch if “rk update” works everywhere ( even if is doing something different under the hood. This could be useful if you run a bunch of VMs or containers.

    Do you have a favourite text editor that you heavily customize or do you use whatever? Same question for your DE. It is all scratching the same itch.