Command Line Tools

Attention

Be aware that the linked manual pages usually point to the linux man page, in some cases the parameters and flags slightly differ on other *nix system.

Unix “One o One”

Basic Unix Commands

Command	Description	Category	Guide(s)
rm	Remove files or directories	File Operations
mv	Move (rename) files	File Operations
ls	List directory contents	File Operations
cp	Copy files and directories	File Operations
tar	Archiving utility	File Operations
rmdir	Remove empty directories	Directory Operations
mkdir	Make directories	Directory Operations
cd	Change the current working directory	Directory Operations
pwd	Print name of current/working directory	Directory Operations
df	Report file system disk space usage	File System
du	Estimate file space usage	File System
mount	Mount a filesystem	File System
umount	Unmount file systems	File System
cat	Concatenate files and print on the standard output	Text
cut	Remove sections from each line of files	Text
head	Output the first part of files	Text
tail	Output the last part of files	Text
grep	Print lines matching a pattern	Text
less	Page through text one screen at a time	Text
echo	Display a line of text	Text
chmod	Change file mode bits	Access Rights
chown	Change file owner/group	Access Rights
chgrp	change group ownership	Access Rights
ps	Report a snapshot of the current processes	Process Management
top	Display processes	Process Management
kill	Send a signal to a process / Kill a process	Process Management
man	Format and display the one-line manual pages	Help
apropos	Search the manual page names and descriptions	Help

Unix “Advanced”

Advanced Unix Commands

Command	Description	Category	Guide(s)
file	Determine file type
find	Search for files in a directory hierarchy
zip	Package and compress (archive) files
unzip	List, test and extract compressed files in a ZIP archive
gzip	Compress or expand files
umask	Get or set the file mode creation mask	Access Rights
diff	Compare files line by line	Text
wc	Print newline, word, and byte counts for each file	Text
sort	Sort lines of text files	Text
sed	Stream editor for filtering and transforming text	Text
date	Print or set the system date and time
who	Show who is logged on
dd	Convert and copy a file
id	Print real and effective user and group IDs
uname	Print system information
at	Queue, examine or delete jobs for later execution
shutdown	Bring the system down
nice	Run a program with modified scheduling priority	Process Management
spell		Text
ldd	Print shared library dependencies
seq	Print a sequence of numbers
sleep	Delay for a specified amount of time
read	Read a single line from stdin or file
tr	Translate or delete characters	Text
tee	Read from standard input and write to standard output and files
uniq	Report or omit repeated lines	Text
ifconfig	Configure a network interface	Networking
ip	Show/Manipulate routing, devices, policy and tunnels	Networking
netstat	Print network connections, routing tables, etc.	Networking
ping	Send ICMP echo request to network host	Networking
telnet	User interface to the TELNET protocol	Networking
ftp	Internet file transfer program	Networking, File-Transfer
nslookup	Query Internet name servers interactively	Networking, Lookup
finger	User information lookup program	Networking, Lookup
history
w	Show who is logged on and what they are doing	System Info
watch	Execute a program periodically
whoami	Print effective userid	System Info

My Personal Toolbox

Shell(s)

Shell	Description
zsh	The Z shell
ipython	An enhanced interactive python shell
nushell

Development

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
LLDB		Debugger
GDB	Allows you to see whats going on inside another program	Debugger
Binutils	A collection of binary tools	Binaries	link
LLVM Tools		Binaries	link
binwalk	Various development tools	Binaries
xxd	Make a hexdump or the reverse	Binaries
xxd-rs	An xxd clone written in rust	Binaries
hexyl	Simple hex viewer for the terminal	Binaries
SRecord	Collection of tools for manipulating EPROM load files	Binaries
otool	Object file displaying tool	Binaries
elfedit	Update the ELF header of ELF files	Binaries
elfdump	Display information about ELF file	Binaries
rustup	Installer for systems programming language rust	Rust, Toolchain, Compiler
cargo	Build and dependency tool for the rust programming language	Rust, Build-Tool
rustc	The rust compiler	Rust, Compiler
clang	Clang C, C++, and Objective-C compiler	C/C++, Compiler
gcc	GNU project C and C++ compiler	C/C++, Compiler
make	GNU make utility to maintain groups of programs	Build-Tool
git	the stupid content tracker	SCM, Git
gh	Github CLI	SCM, Git
vim	Vi IMproved, a programmer’s text editor	Editor
neovim	Edit text	Editor
miniterm	A console application that provides a small terminal application	Connectivity, Serial

Connectivity

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
socat	Multipurpose relay (SOcket CAT)	Serial, TCP/IP, Networking
arpping		Networking
tshark		Tracing, TCP/IP, Networking
ssh		SSH, Networking
mosh		SSH, Networking
scp		File-Transfer, SSH, Networking
rsync		File-Transfer, SSH, Networking
curl		File-Transfer, multi protocol
wget		File-Transfer, multi protocol
iftop		Monitoring, Networking
ffsend		File-Transfer, multi protocol
w3m		Browser
lynx		Browser
can-utils		CAN
can-scripts		CAN
lsusb		USB, System Information

Documentation & Writing

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
graphiz		Visualization
gnuplot		Plot, Image
sphinx
plantuml		UML
pandoc		Format Converter
termimad		Markdown, Renderer

Email

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
isync
neomutt
notmuch

Encryption / Passwords

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
gpg
pass

Proccesses / Monitoring

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
lsof
strace
ytop
htop

Standard Unix Tools Alternatives

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
ripgrep
bat
fd
exa
broot
tmux
python -m zipfile
python -m tarfile

Encoding/Decoding

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
python -m base64

Formatting

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
python -m json.tool

File Manager

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
mc
nnn
ranger

Contacts

TBD

Calendar

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
khal

Task(s) / Todo

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
Taskworrior
ledger

Finance

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
ledger

Documents

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
papis

Misc

Tool	Description	Category	Guide(s)
urlscan
urlopen
imgmagick
youtube-dl