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.

  • stembolts
    9·
    3 days ago

    awk

    …for parsing the output of other commands quickly and simply. Then that parsed output can be used to create simple log messages or be passed as args to other scripts. Powerful.

    • mfat@lemmy.mlOP
      9·
      3 days ago

      awk and sed have always been intimidating for me with that cryptic syntax.

      • stembolts
        10·
        3 days ago

        I agree with your sentiment regarding confusing syntax, however I think that confusion simply requires a calculated approach to dispell it.

        It’s a prime example of why I use scripts as reminders as much as I use them functionally. I work out the syntax once… save it to an example script, then save myself 20 minutes of remembering by just $ cat ./path/to/script.sh and copying said syntax.

        So if you can change your workflow such that learned things stay around as examples, I feel that you will pick it up much more quickly :)