Which Linux command or utility is simple, powerful, and surprisingly unknown to many people or used less often?

This could be a command or a piece of software or an application.

For example I’m surprised to find that many people are unaware of Caddy, a very simple web server that can make setting up a reverse proxy incredibly easy.

Another example is fzf. Many people overlook this, a fast command-line fuzzy finder. It’s versatile for searching files, directories, or even shell history with minimal effort.

  • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    6 days ago

    I’m a big fan of screen because it will let me run long-running processes without having to stay connected via SSH, and will log all the output.

    I do a lot of work on customers’ servers and having a full record of everything that happened is incredibly valuable for CYA purposes.

    • Static_Rocket@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      6 days ago

      I’d recommend tmux for that particular use. Screen has a lot of extras that are interesting but don’t really follow the GNU mentality of “do one thing and do it well.”

      • kitnaht@lemmy.world
        4·
        6 days ago

        Tmux / Screen is like the emacs/vim of the modern day Linux I think.

        Screen is more than capable, but for those who have moved to Tmux, they will absolutely advocate for it.

    • surfrock66@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      I know everyone likes tmux but screen is phenomenal. I have a .screenrc I deploy everywhere with a statusbar at the bottom, a set number of pre-defined tabs, and logging to a directory (which is cleaned up after 30 days) so I can go back and figure out what I did. Great tool.

    • villainy@lemmy.world
      4·
      6 days ago

      Woah screen is seeing active development again? There was like a decade where it stagnated. So much so that different distros were packaging different custom feature patches (IIRC only Ubuntu had a vertical split patch by default?) Looking at it now, the new screen maintainers had to skip a version to not conflict with forks that had become popular.

      When tmux stabilized I jumped ship immediately and never looked back.