Using Mastodon from the command line

Command Line – Mastodon CLI Client

© Lead Image © Author, 123RF.com

© Lead Image © Author, 123RF.com

Article from Issue 269/2023
Author(s):

If you are looking for a Twitter alternative, toot lets you interact with Mastodon from the command line.

An open source, decentralized version of Twitter, Mastodon has been in development since 2016. With Elon Musk's erratic decisions since purchasing Twitter in late 2022, many users predicting Twitter's doom have been searching desperately for alternatives. The result has been a new surge in interest in Mastodon – even if many newcomers remain puzzled by its open source organization. The interest is so great that Mastodon's founder Eugen Rochko reports that he has received offers of "hundreds of thousands of dollars" from five investors – offers he refused so as not to endanger Mastodon's nonprofit status [1]. As I write, the exodus from Twitter appears to have slowed, but along with the renewed interest in Mastodon has come a renewed interest among Linux users in toot [2], an open source command-line client for Mastodon.

Toot takes its name from Mastodon's equivalent of Twitter's tweets, the microblog messages posted by users. Officially, the term is obsolete, with Mastodon's latest release replacing toot with a simple Publish button [3], but the term remains widely used. Toot compares favorably with Twitter clients for Linux such as Twidge, Oyster, and Rainbow Stream, many of which are not up-to-date, and have an alarming tendency to come and go without warning. By contrast, although current users must still use the web interface to create a Mastodon account for everyday use, toot is a complete replacement for the web version of Mastodon (Figure 1), providing functionality that is both thoroughly documented and up-to-date with Mastodon through a series of commands and options that keeps users' hands firmly on the keyboard.

Figure 1: The Mastodon web application.

[...]

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).

Buy this article as PDF

Express-Checkout as PDF
Price $2.95
(incl. VAT)

Buy Linux Magazine

SINGLE ISSUES
Print Issues
Digital Issues
 
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Print Subs
Digisubs
 
TABLET & SMARTPHONE APPS
Get it on Google Play

US / Canada

Get it on Google Play

UK / Australia

Related content

  • Mastodon Clients Post Line

    The open and simple Mastodon API makes it easy to create applications to interact with this federated microblogging platform. Here are some of the clients that the community has come up with and how you can use them.

    more »
  • Social Skills

    Creating a custom application that toots text to Mastodon (the Fediverse's version of Twitter) is simple and straightforward. But we can mix it up by adding images and video, scheduling posts, and changing privacy settings.

    more »
  • Tutorial – Fediverse

    If you're looking for social media options where the user has more control, you'll find a range of options to explore in the Fediverse, including the popular Mastodon.

    more »
  • Mastodon

    Get started with free microblogging, interact with others who share you interests, and even help expand the Fediverse with your own Mastodon instance.

    more »
  • Status Quo

    Creating your own clients to interact with your friends in the Fediverse is easy. A bit of Python and an off-the-shelf module will do the trick.

    more »
comments powered by Disqus
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.

Learn More

News

Tag Cloud

Administration Community Events Hardware Linux Linux Pro Magazine Mobile Programming Security Software Ubuntu Web Development Windows free software open source