Life on the Command Line

Rolando Pereira finalyugi at sapo.pt
Fri Dec 28 23:24:57 UTC 2007


Rolando Pereira wrote:
> 
> And I can't remember another one... But I'm sure I forgot someone :D
> 

And I did :P

You might want to learn how to use Cron. Cron is a little program that
can launch another program at given hour. For may for example launch a
program 5 in 5 minutes, or 2 days per month, etc. To edit your cron
file, you use crontab -e . Use Google to learn how to use the program.
Normally, cron will only launch command line apps, but you can also make
it launch graphical applications by adding the "DISPLAY=":0"" before a
command.

To keep an address book (Streets, emails, phones, etc.) use Abook.

To create presentation like powerpoint, use ttp (I haven't really used
it that much, except the example in the their page. but I liked what I
saw :P) http://www.ngolde.de/tpp.html

I forgot three games. Overkill is a Third Person Shooter that can bi
played online, Gearhead is a rougelike with a mecha theme (make sure you
increase the size of your terminal window a bit, otherwise the game
while not launch), and omega-rpg (a bit old, and kinda hard on the
controls, but it was a large world map. Like a MUD, but only single player).

If you want to watch videos on the command line, install aalib, and use
it together with mplayer (mplayer -vo aa filename.avi) if you want color
output (aalib only display in "shades" of gray), use the caca package
(mplayer -vo caca filename.avi)

To draw ascii art, use cadubi or textdraw (textdraw can draw geometric
figures, but I like cabubi more).

To annoy everyone around you, install the beep package. It makes your
computer beep, and you can give it different hz, time of beep, repeat,
etc. You can try and make music with it :P)

Use binclock to have a binary clock displayed in the terminal. Why?
Because you can.

You can also install the caca-utils that installs a group of programs
that use the caca lib. The most important might be cacaview, that allows
you to view your images in the terminal.

You can use calcurse to have a calender/agenda/todo list all in one
program. Great if you use it together with abook.

There is the bashburn program that is a frontend that allows you to burn
cds (and dvds I think).

Figlet allows you to make big letters in the terminal. Good when you
want to create a signature.

To make your computer read something for you, install festival. It a
voice synthesis (I believe that what their called), like that voice that
exists on Windows XP. For example "cat story.txt | festival --tts".

If you code in Python, give Ipython a try, I think it's better than the
default one.

To take screenshots of your screen, use scrot. To take screenshots of a
tty use fbgrab (I forgot in which package that comes :( ).

A nice little utility is unp. Unp allows you to decompress several types
of files, with just one command, as long as you have the decompressing
installed. For example, you have zip and tar installed. Instead of using
 zip or tar, just use "unp file.zip" or "unp file.tar"

Besides cmatrix, there is also the tss package as a screensaver. It has
several pictures.

Besides linux-logo, there is also welcome2l (this one has to be used
with a big terminal, to watch the full effect. :P Try welcome2l -xmas
for a Christmas version (and then try that on a tty :D)

Another todo-list maker is hnb. It as a interesting concept. You make
kinda of folders, and then you put the lists in there. you can then have
lists on lists on lists on lists, etc.

There are also other programs as clex or vifm (both are file managers),
and cmus or moc (music players), but I didn't use then much, because I
prefer the alternatives (mc and mpd in this case).

NOW I think I'm out of programs :D

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