Sometimes we do things because “that’s the way we’ve always done them.” Screws, for example, had slotted heads in the 1500s an

A Collection Of Linux Tools On Steroids

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2021-06-22 10:00:04

Sometimes we do things because “that’s the way we’ve always done them.” Screws, for example, had slotted heads in the 1500s and slotted heads are notoriously bad, but despite Robertson in 1907 and Phillips in the 1930s, it took decades for slotted screw heads to become uncommon and they still lurk in a few areas. Many Linux tools we use every day are direct descendants from Unix tools that have been around for almost half a century. We’ve looked at a few more modern alternatives before, and [ibraheemdev] has a GitHub collection of many such tools that’s worth checking out.

Of course, modern doesn’t always mean better. However, the tools in the list do have great features including things that were uncommon in the old days such as the use of color, text-based graphics, and things like git integration.

Some of the commands replace very common commands. For example, bat is like cat with syntax coloring and git integration. The exa and lsd commands are like ls, and lsd is even compatible with ls. There’s delta for replacing diff, and duf or dust to replace du. Instead of cd, you can use zoxide to get some advanced capabilities that are native so some shells.