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Awesome Command-line Tools

I've just re-installed my Ubuntu Linux partition and I'm loving the Gnome 3 Shell (way better than Unity) but that will be a later post. This post is about command line utilities that I install right away on my Ubuntu box. You'll notice something right away about them.


1. htop -- System Monitor


Htop is the more easy on the eyes version of top. A incredible valuable utility is like a system monitor for the command line. Perfect for figuring out what process crashed your X-session, and killing that process.


2. mc (aka midnight commander) -- File Manager


Midnight commander is a file manager that is aware of the mouse, so you can navigate the file structure. It's the easiest way to manage files from the command line or see how a folder structure is laid out.

3. jed -- Text Editor


In the Unix world there are two kinds of people: vi people and emacs people. These are the two main text editors for the terminal from the days of old. Vi now vim (vi - improved) is light and fast, while Emacs is huge and powerful. I remember when days trying to get my head around vi, someone introduced me to emacs. It was so much easier for me. Now I wanted to get it back on my computer but it's huge, and therefore slow. And here comes jed, looks fantastic and I'm looking forward to learning emacs again.


Did you notice what they all had in common? A colorful terminal is so much cooler I think. :)
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