The sys admin's daily grind
Charly's Column – googler
If you are a genuine admin, you will want to be able to google things at the command line. Charly uses googler for this; it has pretty useful capabilities despite the unimaginative name.
What if you need to google something but only have access to a command line? You could just grab your smartphone, but if you want to copy and paste something from the search results, that's not really a good solution. A text-mode browser like Lynx is more suitable.
But there is another option that is more powerful and fits seamlessly into the workflow on the console: googler [1]. Many distributions have the tool in their package repositories, but it can also be installed manually with a few commands (Listing 1). The current version (at press time in July 2021) is googler 4.3.2.
In the simplest case, you can start a keyword search on Google by calling googler TERM. The result for the keyword "Linux" is shown in Figure 1. You can see that googler numbers the search results. If you type the number for a search result, googler passes the address to the default web browser to open. If this does not work for you, that means that googler cannot determine the appropriate browser. You then need to pass in the name of the program with the --url-handler parameters, for example, as --url-handler lynx (or whatever you use).
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.
-
Arch Linux Available for Windows Subsystem for Linux
If you've ever wanted to use a rolling release distribution with WSL, now's your chance.
-
System76 Releases COSMIC Alpha 7
With scores of bug fixes and a really cool workspaces feature, COSMIC is looking to soon migrate from alpha to beta.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 6.0 Available for Installation
The latest release of OpenMandriva has arrived with a new kernel, an updated Plasma desktop, and a server edition.
-
TrueNAS 25.04 Arrives with Thousands of Changes
One of the most popular Linux-based NAS solutions has rolled out the latest edition, based on Ubuntu 25.04.
-
Fedora 42 Available with Two New Spins
The latest release from the Fedora Project includes the usual updates, a new kernel, an official KDE Plasma spin, and a new System76 spin.
-
So Long, ArcoLinux
The ArcoLinux distribution is the latest Linux distribution to shut down.