Simplifying and improving standard commands
fd
fd
(packaged as fd-find
in some distributions) is a simplification of the find
command. fd
(Figure 4) has less than half the options of find
and does not have obscure distinctions like global and positional options that can confuse occasional users.
What fd
does have is a selection of the most commonly used options. It supports regular expressions – which a search command must do to be any use at all – as well as options to include hidden files, to choose patterns to ignore, to perform case-sensitive searches, or to filter by file types. Probably, it would take a sophisticated user to find fd
lacking.
most
The Bash shell is rich in pagers for viewing files. Although each has more functionality than its predecessors, all remain available in major distributions.
The newest pager is most
(Figure 5). Its name continues a running joke; less
is more than the more
command, while most
is more than less
.
The advantages of most
begin with multiple display options. It continues with the ability to display multiple files and to navigate between them using keyboard shortcuts. If you are frequently opening man pages, you might also want to set most
as the default pages with commands, options, and other standard items color-coded.
apt
apt-get
is the front end for the dpkg
command in Debian and its derivatives. Over two decades or so, apt-get
has grown both in complexity and in the number of related utilities – most of which include apt
in their names. The result is an immensely powerful yet immensely confusing collection of tools.
First developed by Ubuntu, apt
(Figure 6) is a replacement for the most common uses of apt-get
and its utilities. Not only does it drop the last four characters of the command, but the same basic command is used for functions like search
that were originally in a separate command. At the same time, the same functions found in apt-get
, such as install
and update
, are also used, making apt
easy to learn for experienced users. As an added bonus, apt
includes a progress bar that is easier to read at a glance or from a distance than apt-get
's percentage completion counter.
apt
is not nearly as comprehensive as apt-get
and its utilities, so for advanced users it is not a replacement. However, for maybe eighty percent of standard package management, it makes maintenance simpler and more convenient.
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