Questions tagged [utilities]
small programs used on the command line to do a specific job
303
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Find the optimal value
Let us say I have a program called foo. It takes 1 argument (e.g. foo 42) and it spits out a single line containing a numerical value (e.g. 2034).
I want to find the optimal value for the input ...
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0
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1
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14
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Sum sizes of certain folders/files with inclusion and exclusion patterns
I'm looking for a tool that gives me the total size on disk of certain folders and files. It should be able to unambiguously include or exclude items and all of their children (folders and files in it)...
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2
votes
3
answers
86
views
Are they commands or utilities?
I'm trying to figure out the correct term(s) for Unix/Linux "commands." Specifically, I have always understood that technically commands (e.g., cd) are built into the shell, and that other &...
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1
vote
1
answer
40
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Is there a commonly used environment variable or configuration setting for enabling widespread application verbosity?
Sometimes I write scripts where I want every called application to be verbose as can be for the sake of logging. This often includes typing --verbose quite a bit. Other than the -v and equivalent --...
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0
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1
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33
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What is the alternative for bccmd?
I am trying to learn about Bluetooth stack. In many blogs, they mention a tool called bccmd. But when I download the package bluez and compile it, I didn't found it. It seems it was in the tools ...
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18
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Tool to convert HTML to plain text and print it to stdout [duplicate]
I have a shell script which uses curl to post a request to an HTTP API. The API returns the result as an HTML document.
Upon receiving the result, I would like to print it to stdout. I could just cat ...
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25
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Are there any graphical / text-based user interface calendar programs which use the UNIX calendar utility format to store entries?
On some UNIX systems, there is a calendar utility which acts as a reminder service and which reads entries from files specified in tab-separated format, e.g.:
01/01\tNew Year's Day
01/02\tBank holiday ...
1
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0
answers
39
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Xorg specific tool to probe displays for PCI bus info?
This question came close to what I was looking for, but missed the mark.
After some adventures trying to get device names as displayed from xrandr into xorg.conf I began to wish that there was an X11 ...
1
vote
2
answers
584
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ls -d command only returns `.` eg, and no child directories
I have standard ls installed, I also have lsd installed, which is a nerd-font drop-in replacement for ls. I mention this because the error may have something to do with the alias.
For testing right ...
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1
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0
answers
17
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Is there a system / btrfs tool whick will provide me with the record location for a specific inode number in a btrfs volume?
I want to find the location of the record data for a specific inode. Is there a system tool or a btrfs tool which will provide me with at least it's bloc number ?
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33
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Automatically Kill high-resource utilization programs
In our company, we use a headless Linux machine as development machine. However, sometimes users use up all resources (CPU, RAM) on that machine, which influences the work of others. Hence, we want to ...
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0
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3
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55
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How do I run an package after using apt-get to install it?
I am currently using Linux (super new to this) and used apt-get to install a (package? app?) and am wondering how I am supposed to run it. I can't seem to find anything online as to how I can run ...
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1
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81
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Explanation of pipeline containing egrep, tr and expand
Can someone explain the following pipeline to me?
I am trying to filter a list of ports in services so that only the unique port names are listed out. What exactly do expand and tr do, and what does ...
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1
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3
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57
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Restarting poem line numbering any 4 lines after a blank space
This is related to very interesting answer given here: Any text utility or hack to numbering poems lines omitting certain numbers?
awk 'FNR % 4 == 0 { printf "%6i %s\n", FNR, $0 ; next }; {...
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0
votes
1
answer
34
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Extract 'salt' from mcrypt encrypted file
I have some mcrypt(1) encrypted files, doing file on them
ici$ file myfile.nc
myfile.nc: mcrypt 2.5 encrypted data, algorithm: rijndael-128, keysize: 32 bytes, mode: cbc
However, I'd like to extract ...
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1
vote
1
answer
109
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How to continuously display the newest version of an image file on Linux?
I need program that reads an image from the disk location /home/me/image.png, displays it on the screen in a window and then refreshes the window whenever there is a change to the image located at /...
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1
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0
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hdparm secure erase with progress updates?
Does anyone know of a clever way to receive any sort of progress status updates using hdparm secure erase?
Ideally the end result would be something like dd's status=progress attribute.
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0
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2
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269
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Any text utility or hack to numbering poems lines omitting certain numbers?
My goal is try to see if there are common text utilities in linux that can be used to number lines of poems like this:
OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal ...
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1
answer
340
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how to install blackarch tools in debian based distro?
Black Arch have wide ranges of tools, we can install all those tools in arch based linux with strap.sh. Offsec repo does not have this much tools. Please share some solution to install those tools ...
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0
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26
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GNU screen append buffer multiple times without exiting copy-mode
Is there any way to append copy buffer multiple times without exiting copy-mode in GNU screen?
With the functionality I'm looking for I would be able to
enter copy mode, scroll to the desired area
...
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0
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2
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39
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Tool to detect and give info of compression method
What is utility tool to detect and give info of compression method (preferably more info) in any mean (CL or GUI) ?
IOW what windows 7z tool equivalent for Linux, giving info easily in GUI?
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26
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What's the verify function in fio when reading?
When doing fio test, we can set the verify parameter, for example, when doing write test, I think fio can verify the test by read the same location in disk to verify the write test is successfully.
...
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1
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What is umask command for? [closed]
What actually is umask command for in *nix OS?
How is its working mechanism and usefulness ?
e.g
$ umask 022
Thanks much before
user480483
5
votes
7
answers
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How can I see if a consecutive number name file is missing some file? [duplicate]
If I give ls -1 I get like this,
file_0001.jpeg
file_0002.jpeg
file_0003.jpeg
file_0004.jpeg
file_0005.jpeg
file_0006.jpeg
file_0007.jpeg
file_0008.jpeg
file_0009.jpeg
file_0010.jpeg
file_0011.jpeg
...
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1
answer
57
views
Is not there a program / library to parse common unix utilities text based output, such as lshw, iwlist, dmidecode?
I have a .net core application that makes use of several unix utilities to query hardware data, such as lshw, iwlist, dmidecode.
lshw supports json output, so it's not a problem.
I currently write my ...
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0
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69
views
What does (or did) the name "feh" represent?
To me, the name of the feh image viewer is not memorable enough for me to recall it when I need it. I feel that if I had some context, I'd be able to remember it better.
What, if anything, does the ...
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0
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0
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23
views
xargs-like command templating for argv
Is there a common utility that is sort of like xargs, but operating on arguments instead of stdin?
For example, something like:
$ fictional-xargv 'echo $2 $1' foo bar
bar foo
$ fictional-xargv 'echo ...
- 1,608
0
votes
2
answers
90
views
Play files as if they were raw audio samples
I once in the past used to play with files by playing them as if they were raw 8bit audio, but I forgot which program can be used to do this. How can I stream, say, /dev/random to my speakers with a ...
- 101
0
votes
1
answer
42
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mergerfs no longer accepting "threads=2" option
I wrote my backup script to automatically combine two external drives into one with mergerfs so I could use the whole thing as a destination directory for rdiff-backup. However, when I tried to run it ...
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27
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Create and populate FAT32 filesystem without mounting it
Is there a way to create a FAT32 filesystem containing a set of files, without needing to mount it or have root access?
I am developing a software application for an old operating system as a hobby, ...
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0
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1
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48
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How to auto-detect filetype in pastebinit?
I use pastebinit to share snippets. As you can see, it has a -f switch so the rendered webpage highlights the uploaded file depending on the format of the file (like -f python or -f bash).
Now, I want ...
7
votes
1
answer
555
views
Why do some Linux utilities output Unicode (when it is not expected)?
While building a tool that reads command output I realized that some Linux utilities output Unicode characters when I didn't really expect them to do so. For instance, find uses ‘ (as opposed to the ...
0
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0
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26
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uname -m -p -i. What does every parameter stand for? [duplicate]
I have CentOS7 installed on my computer. uname -a prints the following:
Linux c7 3.10.0-1127.el7.centos.plus.i686 #1 SMP Sun Apr 5 18:08:31 UTC 2020 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
As stated in man uname ...
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2
votes
2
answers
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views
Command line tool to install GNOME Shell extensions
Is it possible to install an extension from https://extensions.gnome.org/ without using GNOME Shell integration browser add-on?
I'm looking for a tool that will be able to search and install ...
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1
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1
answer
139
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Simple and standard way to generate files based on templates?
For my projects I need a way to generate some files based on template ones. I envision it this way:
a template file contains data with something like {{var1}} in place of the variables to be replaced
...
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0
votes
2
answers
51
views
Cheatsheat of all standard utilities [closed]
On a fresh installation pressing double tab prints Display all X possibilities? (y or n). X seems to always be above 1000, on my Arch it's 3003.
So the do one thing and do it well philosophy. But how ...
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1
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1
answer
141
views
Format size in bytes as human readable
Is there a standard command that will format a simple value (size in bytes) as a human readable format (similar to the -h switch on du, ls, ...)?
eg.
echo 1852 | format # should print 1.9K
echo ...
- 4,881
1
vote
2
answers
82
views
Searching multiple files for a string, without regular expressions?
Is there a command that can search multiple files for a string, where that command (perhaps modified by a certain option) doesn't support regular expressions? I'd like this for the speed of avoiding ...
- 113
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1
answer
148
views
Are octal escape sequences more portable than hex ones for shell scripts
As part of a scheme for writing shell code that's capable of processing arbitrary data, I was looking for a way to convert null bytes to some other character. I found that tr requires arbitrary bytes ...
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0
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1
answer
684
views
How EDAC get error notification? from BIOS or memory controller?
We use EDAC to monitor errors on DIMM.
I would like to know how EDAC gets notifications about these errors?
The memory controller has interrupt to notify BIOS, then BIOS notify OS?
The memory ...
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1
answer
52
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How are programs classified as either "bin utilities" or "tools"?
I am frequently hearing the terms "bin utilities" and "tools" when referring to programs. What exactly is the difference between the two?
Both are located at /usr/bin/ and usually ...
18
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4
answers
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Are basic POSIX utilities parallelized?
In a common Linux distribution, do utilities like rm, mv, ls, grep, wc, etc. run in parallel on their arguments?
In other words, if I grep a huge file on a 32-threaded CPU, will it go faster than on ...
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votes
1
answer
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Counting the number of issued syscalls
Is there any tool to count the number of system-calls issued for example in one-second in the entire system (like a global strace) ? ( Something like what vmstat does for number of interrupts or ...
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4
votes
1
answer
297
views
FreeBSD sysrc to add comments
Is there a way to use FreeBSDs sysrc to add comments to the file that it’s modifying?
For example, if I had an /etc/rc.conf with the standard stuff
hostname=“FreeBSDMachine”
ifconfig_em0=“DHCP”
...
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1
answer
107
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Find contents of one file in another, and replace with FF
I have a binary file called rockx.dat, and a bunch of other binary files rockx_#.pmf.
I want to find the contents of the pmf files in the dat file, and replace them with FF. So if the pmf file is 500 ...
4
votes
1
answer
3k
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Is there a linux local tool to view, search, add contacts to/from a .vcf file?
I've downloaded my contact list in a .vcf format to my linux machine. I would like to be able to consult it without having to connect to the internet. The search feature is most important. I've got a ...
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2
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136
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Generic text expansion tool in Linux?
Is there a generic text expansion tool in Linux? I have to type some same strings frequently and I want to use abbreviation to type faster.
For example, I type a lot "symbol testapp/testapp.debug" in ...
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1
vote
1
answer
607
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How to get info on disk drives with powershell
Is it not possible to install Get-Disk on Linux?
PS /home/thufir/powershell>
PS /home/thufir/powershell> Get-Module -ListAvailable
Directory: /home/thufir/.local/share/powershell/Modules
...
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258
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turbostat doesn't show only desired columns with --show option
I'm using tubostat in Manjaro 18.1.5:
$ pacman -Qs turbostat
local/turbostat 5.4-3 (linux-tools)
the man page says:
--show column show only the specified built-in columns. May be invoked ...
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1
answer
337
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Utility to Visualize CPU and Memory Usage based on process tree
Modern desktop applications spawn several child processes to offload tasks to them. Notable examples in this regard are:
Google chrome - spawns a new process per tab
VSCode - spawns a bunch of ...
- 113