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.

  • jaxiiruff@lemmy.zip
    2·
    6 days ago

    nano was and still is vital to me learning and using linux, I will not learn how to use vim so if the distro forces it to be default im not using it.

    Why is editing text so convoluted for seemingly no reason… also hate that vim must be used for certain files.

      • jaxiiruff@lemmy.zip
        0·
        6 days ago

        one of my favorite linux youtubers is named vimjoyer so maybe one day I will try to learn it

        • Kornblumenratte@feddit.org
          2·
          4 days ago

          It’s totally worth it. But be aware that you might get some :w sprinkled over your documents you are forced to write in other editors or word processors which does not speak vim…

    • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
      0·
      6 days ago

      Nano is hella confusing too. Since when is ^ = Ctrl?

      And why dont they tell you that Ctrl+S Ctrl+C Ctrl+X works?

      • jaxiiruff@lemmy.zip
        0·
        6 days ago

        Cant remember exactly but it had something to do with a file relating to sudo and it only was allowed to be edited with a vim style editor.

        • hersh@literature.cafe
          0·
          6 days ago

          There’s a separate command called visudo for this purpose.

          You CAN use any ol’ text editor but visudo has built-in validation specific to the sudoers file. This is helpful because sudoers syntax is unique and arcane, and errors are potentially quite harmful.

          • azuth@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            6 days ago

            But visudo can use any editor if you set SUDO_EDITOR or EDITOR variables. If you don’t want to use vi(m) you should probably set EDITOR in your .bashrc and visudo and probably other programs will use your editor of choice.

        • johant@lemmy.ml
          1·
          3 days ago

          The EDITOR or VISUAL environment variables are usually read by command line tools to launch your preferred editor. You could set VISUAL to nano before launching visudo and you would be editing the sudoers file in nano.

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
      0·
      6 days ago

      It’s for people to memorize hundreds of arcane shortcuts and shit so they can feel like a smug hacker and gloat over the rest of us using other editors and getting just as much done as they are.

      Also for graybeards that haven’t realized it’s not 1985 anymore.

      • Dran@lemmy.world
        1·
        6 days ago

        For the average user you’re definitely right, but I will say for the sysadmin of headless systems, having a powerful cli editor is a godsend. While it may seem arcane and unnecessary, learning vim is easier than managing remote x or sshfs or copying files to and from a system.

        I didn’t learn vim to be a contrarian; I learned it because it seemed (and still seems to be) the path of least resistance for many workflows.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        6 days ago

        I’ve used Vim for some pretty non-nerdy stuff. Like ripping my DVD collection, when I got to the TV section I had a lot of file names to modify in bulk, and Vim let me do that. Also guitar tablature, the ability to edit plaintext both horizontally and vertically is surprisingly handy. Just having a macro to be able to add a bar line saves a shocking amount of time.