Been using the CLI more and more and for whatever reason it gives me more dopamine than using apps with a GUI and I’m curious about what else is out there since I was a windows user til 6 months ago.
Discovering ish and the ability to use alpine linux on my iphone, also has me curious if there is anything useful/fun out there that isn’t openssh, ranger, and ffmpeg. (a-shell is still updated and comes with those two by default but doesn’t have access to alpine repo and apk, uses its own iphone based thing) Tho im curious about cli tools/apps in general to use on my pc or over ssh, not just those that could be installed on my phone
I mostly use ffmpeg to convert video and compress stuff for size limits (so I can convert before sftp when away from my pc after the render finishes) Ranger file manager on phone since it can easily exit at a path, and yazi with the shell script that lets it exit at whatever path your on on pc.
Will update this list as people comment.
- Conversion/Compression: ffmpeg
- Email: mutt, neomut
- File management: mc, nnn, ranger, yazi, sfm
- File editor: vim, neovim
- Git: lazygit
- Piracy: ani-cli (anime) rip (music)
- Pdf Management: pdftk (pdftk-idk, or stapler)
- Python: rich, pythondialog, textual
- Docker management : lazydocker
- Performance monitor: btop, nvtop (nvidia), ncdu (disk usage)
- Network management: nmtui
- Web browser : browsh (firefox backend)
- Video downloader: yt-dlp
- Shell scripts: dialog, whiptail
- Misc: netpbm (plaintext image creation) If you can’t comment this post seems to be bugged for me at least, says I’ve deleted it and I can’t reply to anyone.
I rely on cli tools for a lot of things too. Here’s a list:
tmux: terminal multiplexer
zsh (with fzf zsh completion): shell
fzf: fuzzy finder
doas: sudo replacement
bat: cat replacement
fd: find replacement
advcpmv: cp/mv replacement
eza: ls replacement
zenith: htop replacement
trash-cli: trash management
neomutt: email client (notmuch is a most recommended addition)
neovim (and plugins): text/code editor
buku: internet bookmarks manager
tut: mastodon client
ucollage: image viewer
udevil: (un)mounting removable devices and networks without a password
magic-tape: youtube search/download and more
rofi: used with scripts to do a lot of things
pass: password manager
yazi: file explorer
iwd: wireless manager
khal: calendar and webdav sync with vdirsyncer
taskjuggler: complete task manager
newsboat: feed aggregator
fwupd: firmware updater
chawan: web browser
ncmpcpp: mpd-client
duf: disk usage
abook: contacts manager
I have some of them detailed here.
This GitHub also has a long list.
Edit: added abook and duf to the list