[Browsers]
Browsh
old school looking terminal web browser with image support that runs on a modified version of Firefox https://www.brow.sh/
Lynx
Terminal web browser (can configure to use MPV or YouTube-dl for videos) https://lynx.browser.org/
Links
Terminal based web browser a lot like lynx http://links.twibright.com/
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
[System Monitoring]
uptimed
System uptime record daemon that keeps track of your highest uptimes https://github.com/rpodgorny/uptimed/
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/Steamymoomilk
TTYload
color-coded graph of load averages over time http://zhar.net/projects/shell/terminal-colors
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/Steamymoomilk
Bottom
shows CPU cores, CPU usage, Memory usage, Disks, Disk usage, Processes, Network, Temperature. https://github.com/ClementTsang/bottom
gdu
Pretty fast disk usage analyzer written in Go.
Gdu is intended primarily for SSD disks where it can fully utilize parallel processing. However HDDs work as well, but the performance gain is not so huge.
suggested by @[email protected]
neofetch
display your *NIX and system info with one command! https://github.com/dylanaraps/neofetch
nvtop
Shows Program usage, GPU usage, GPU memory, Clock speeds, Power, Temperature, https://github.com/Syllo/nvtop
Htop
generic terminal system monitor and is very basic Shows CPU core util, Memory, Swap, Uptime, Load avrage, Tasks https://htop.dev/
duf
Shows disks space, Mounted point, File system type, Size https://github.com/muesli/duf
Pydf
Check disk space usage with colored output https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/pydf-check-disk-space-usage-with-colored-output/
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Glacees
A lot like Htop or top but looks different and is cross platform. https://github.com/nicolargo/glances
Btop
Btop is like Htop but with customizability cranked to 11, it shows by default, Memory load, Available Memory, Cached Memory, Free Memory, Network interface, Network Download, Network Upload, IP address, Running Programs, How much memory the Programs are using as well as CPU, CPU cores, CPU util, CPU Temperature, and the time. https://github.com/aristocratos/btop
Suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
[Text Editors and file location]
fd
Superfast file finder Via cmd line. https://github.com/sharkdp/fd
Autojump
autojump is a faster way to navigate your filesystem. It works by maintaining a database of the directories you use the most from the command line. https://github.com/wting/autojump
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
fzf
Fuzzy command line finder https://github.com/junegunn/fzf
mcfly
quickly look through your shell history, to find that one command you’re too lazy to type again (I do it as well LMAO) https://github.com/cantino/mcfly
Atuin
Atuin replaces your existing shell history with a SQLite database, and records additional context for your commands. Additionally, it provides optional and fully encrypted synchronisation of your history between machines, via an Atuin server. (its like mcfly but better objectively)
https://github.com/atuinsh/atuin suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
TLDR
a community driven easy man page finder. (life saver) https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr
Nano
The default text editor, not stupid complicated not. not very configurable but does the job https://www.nano-editor.org/
Micro
it’s like Nano but is static and has no dependency as well as plugin support. https://micro-editor.github.io/
Suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Helix
It’s a post-modern text editor that is similar to VIM or Neovim the main difference is it runs on Rust meaning No JavaScript, Electron or Vim Script and is highly customizable!
https://helix-editor.com/ Suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Emacs
Behold the Church of Emacs, its like nano and vim had a child. its configurable and somewhat simple https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
Kakoune
A modal terminal text editor based on Vi. Kakoune is based on selection before action and is committed to the unix Philosophy https://github.com/mawww/kakoune
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Bim
Bim aims to be lightweight and featureful with no external* dependencies, providing a modern editing experience in a lightweight, extensible package and is based on VIM https://github.com/klange/bim
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Vim
The master-race of text editors that has a learning curve but is very configurable as well as plugins, to the point so people argue why need anything other than VIM https://www.vim.org/
Neovim
it’s like vim and Oh my ZSH had a child, its got a lot of configurability and is ment to be more user-friendly https://neovim.io/
[Command utilities]
Tmux
its a CLI window, manager with a lot of bits and bobs. its actually a terminal multiplexer which is a fancy word i don’t understand :D Also the keybindings are hard to remember and would highly recommend https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tmux-pain-control suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki
tmate
its a fork of tmux that lets your share your terminal over LAN or the internet https://tmate.io/ Suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/Steamymoomilk
Terminal colors
It automatically detects 8, 16, 88, 256 color capabilities (via ncurses)
and displays the appropriate color charts.
http://zhar.net/projects/shell/terminal-colors suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/Steamymoomilk
byobu
its alot like tmux with added features https://www.byobu.org/ suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
zellij
Alot like Tmux and has plugin support https://github.com/zellij-org/zellij suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
jq
jq is a lightweight and flexible command-line JSON processor akin to sed,awk,grep, and friends for JSON data. It’s written in portable C and has zero runtime dependencies, allowing you to easily slice, filter, map, and transform structured data. https://github.com/jqlang/jq suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
zoxide
faster/easier cd lets you quickly jump to places in your filesystem. E.g. z pic will put you in ~/Pictures. https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
ncdu
shows how much disk space is used by each directory, can also explore subdirectories and delete files suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
neomutt
email via cli! https://neomutt.org/
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
tig
interactive terminal UI for git with lots of functionality https://github.com/jonas/tig
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
pass
the standard Unix password manager https://www.passwordstore.org/ suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Starship
The minimal, blazing-fast, and infinitely customizable prompt for any shell! (its lets you customize your shell) https://github.com/starship/starship suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Lazygit
Terminal UI for git https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit Suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Lazydocker
Terminal ui for docker, Shows CPU and memory, and what’s running and where its pulled from. https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazydocker
Suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
RM-improved/RIP
Use RM but everything goes to /tmp folder https://github.com/nivekuil/rip
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Trashy
fast and light weight RM that moves items to trash folder and has colorized outputs like FD. https://github.com/oberblastmeister/trashy
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
tealdear
tldr but in rust (tldr lets your easily find manpages/examples and usage for terminal command) https://github.com/dbrgn/tealdeer
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Navi
navi allows you to browse through cheatsheets (that you may write yourself or download from maintainers) and execute commands. Suggested values for arguments are dynamically displayed in a list. https://github.com/denisidoro/navi
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Cheat
this program allows you to create and view interactive cheatsheets on the command-line. https://github.com/cheat/cheat suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
gomi
its RM except has a trash can so you don’t permitly delete something by accident
https://github.com/babarot/gomi
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
broot
a different than ranger/lf approach to navigating folders https://github.com/Canop/broot suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
mdr
a markdown viewer https://github.com/michaelmure/mdr suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
eza
modern ls, with cool features like file icons https://github.com/eza-community/eza suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Rtorrent
a terminal based torrent client https://rakshasa.github.io/rtorrent/
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
ouch
It’s a CLI tool for compressing and decompressing for various formats. such as .tar .zip 7z .gz .xz .lzma .bz .bz2 .lz4 .sz .zst .rar https://github.com/ouch-org/ouch
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
bat
modern cat, with features like syntax highlighting, line numbers, etc https://github.com/sharkdp/bat suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
thefuck
hey you!, yeah you I DIDNT TYPE THAT COMMAND WRONG! with thefuck it fixes when you type a prevoius command wrong https://github.com/nvbn/thefuck
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
[Shells]
Nushell
it is a new type of shell that has some really cool features such as more detailed error messages and displays licenses via HTTP get, git or curl As well as a more clean UI for ls. https://www.nushell.sh/ suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Bash
its the default and lots of programs use it, https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/
ble.sh
Bash Line Editor, bash Shell with a few tweaks https://github.com/akinomyoga/ble.sh suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Mosh
Remote terminal application that allows roaming, supports intermittent connectivity, and provides intelligent local echo and line editing of user keystrokes. (sadly there is no pit) https://mosh.org/
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
DASH
a POSIX-compliant /bin/sh that is fast and simple http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/dash/
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Fish
its like bash but has auto correct for typing https://fishshell.com/
Zsh
its like vim for a shell, it has lots of bells and whistles and is very customizable. https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/wiki/Installing-ZSH
[File Browsers]
Midnight Commander
Midnight commander is a file Browser that has 2 panes where you can do basic file manager stuff such as Copy, Pasting, moving files, and Deleting all Via Terminal!
https://midnight-commander.org/
Suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Fm.awk
File manager written in awk https://github.com/huijunchen9260/fm.awk/ Suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/Steamymoomilk
lmf
st File Manager is a powerful file manager for the UNIX console. It has a curses interface and it’s written in Python v3.4+. https://inigo.katxi.org/devel/lfm/
Rover
Rover is a small file browser that aims to be simple, fast and portable. https://lecram.github.io/p/rover/ suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/Steamymoomilk
LF
lf (as in “list files”) is a terminal file manager written in Go with a heavy inspiration from ranger file manager. https://github.com/gokcehan/lf
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Ranger
Alot like Midnight Commander but running on VIM, and just like VIM it is highly customizable
https://github.com/ranger/ranger
----added note ranger should be installed via git most distros have 4+ older versions and lots of bugs
Suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
nnn
nnn (n³) is a full-featured terminal file manager. It’s tiny, nearly 0-config and incredibly fast. https://github.com/jarun/nnn suggest by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
[Fun/games]
lolcat
make your terminal rainbow https://github.com/busyloop/lolcat
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Cowsay
make a cow say something in Terminal! https://github.com/piuccio/cowsay
Suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Bastet
Tetris clone via terminal https://github.com/fph/bastet/ suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
Cmatrix
make your terminal look like your mr.hacker man https://github.com/abishekvashok/cmatrix suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
spotify-tui
Spotify CLI frontend (Spotify via terminal) https://github.com/Rigellute/spotify-tui
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
cacademo
plays a bunch of neat ASCII animations https://linux.die.net/man/1/cacademo
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
figlet
ASCII text art. http://www.figlet.org/
toilet
turn text into ASCII art. http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/toilet
Yewtube
a cli youtube piped client, stream, download and play audio from YouTube piped. https://github.com/mps-youtube/yewtube
suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/Steamymoomilk
cbonsai
Little ASCII art bonsai tree that can be animated with the -l flag https://gitlab.com/jallbrit/cbonsai suggested by https://sh.itjust.works/u/[email protected]
tty-clock
a digital clock via your terminal! https://github.com/xorg62/tty-clock
I would love to add more useful and cool programs to this list! Feel free to leave suggestions to add! I really want to make this post a really good place to find cool new programs
I would love to add more useful and cool programs to this list! Feel free to leave suggestions to add! I really want to make this post a really good place to find cool new programs
I suggest ani-cli to the list. I love it.
s/ZHS/Zsh
You got some letters mixed up. Also, only the ‘Z’ should be capitalized. See https://www.zsh.org/.
Fixed, Thanks for the help!
The letters are still in the wrong order 💀
Actually fixed now LMAO sorry, im kinda brain-dead also have a nice new year!
All good lol, and happy new year to you too!
I’d add micro to the list of editors. It’s really nice step up from nano.
Added to the list! And it looks pretty neat, I will be playing with it later cheers and thanks!
Nice. I’d never heard of micro, but it looks good. yoink
I really like Micro. I wish my fingers could forget all the nonsense Nano keybinds
Can we move this to some community wiki? I think a lot of people can benefit from it and we can expand it with our own recommendations. Something like awesome-cli
Yeah that would be a great idea. The piracy community on dbzer0 uses rentry.co, maybe that’s an option?
They now use their own wiki
baca is a terminal based epub reader. Quite nice.
I’ve been looking for a good TUI epub reader. I went to install it from the AUR and stopped when I saw it wanted to install 247 dependencies. Wow!
hmm, not sure why baca would need so many requirements. I installed baca using pip as per (https://github.com/wustho/baca), on a hedless ubuntu based server. Maybe on Arch it would need to install / update python packages?
You could also try epy (https://github.com/wustho/epy) which is also a terminal based epub reader.
I didn’t go through every package, but a large number of the dependencies were related to Haskell.
And, yes, I did find epy. Tried it yesterday and it’s great! Thanks!
htop is nice but btop is best top.
btop is very neat! Thanks for the addition to the list!
Spins forever
ncdu: shows how much disk space is used by each directory, can also explore subdirectories and delete files
tig: interactive terminal UI for git with lots of functionality
Two of my favourite tools!
FYI, browsh is more than just an old school terminal web browser (that would be lynx). It’s actually full firefox (or chromium IIRC), adapted to run in a terminal
Thanks for the correction, I have fixed it!
Calling Emacs “somewhat simple” is… A Choice. It’s the only text editor that can be a window manager lol
I would add file managers like midnight commander, ranger, and so on
yep, added them, thanks for the suggestion!
Maybe add lf too, I think of it as a better ranger
nnn
I would add:
cheat
- a tool that lets you make and use your own cheatsheetsgomi
- replacement for therm
command that has a trashcan, so if you accidentally delete something important you can just restore itbat
- moderncat
, with features like syntax highlighting, line numbers, etceza
- modernls
, with cool features like file iconsbroot
- a different thanranger
/lf
approach to navigating foldersmdr
- a markdown viewerAlso, I think you should add a note that
ranger
should be installed from git because most distros package version 1.9.3 and that is 4 year out of date and has lots of bugs that have been fixed in the git master branchAdded to the list As well as the note for ranger thanks for your contribution to the list!
-
Kakoune should also be added under Text editors.
-
Yazi is a good terminal based file manager
-
nnn is another file manager
-
rtorrent for a terminal based torrent client
-
nushell - a different kind of shell.
-
starship prompt
-
weechat for IRC
added thanks!
-
Zsh becomes really handy with oh my zsh and powerlevel10k theme
https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k
And for neovim I made the transition from vim with lazyvim: https://www.lazyvim.org/
You can replace almost all aspects of oh my zsh just by using fish shell. Like straight out of the box it does most of it. I switched off of a completely customized zsh (oh my zsh didn’t do enough for me) and fish is able to do everything I did with my custom zsh setup.
Written in Rust:
- bat
- dust
- exa
- rg
- sd
- hck
- grex