# Interesting Command Line Tools

**URL:** <https://forum.codeselfstudy.com/t/interesting-command-line-tools/112>\
**Category:** Operating Systems, Editors, and Tools\
**Tags:** gnu, linux, command-line, git\
**Created:** [December 23, 2017, 9:50pm UTC](https://forum.codeselfstudy.com/t/interesting-command-line-tools/112 "2017-12-23T21:50:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Josh](https://forum.codeselfstudy.com/user_avatar/forum.codeselfstudy.com/josh/32/4_2.png) [@Josh](https://forum.codeselfstudy.com/u/Josh)\
**Post date:** [December 23, 2017, 9:50pm UTC](https://forum.codeselfstudy.com/t/interesting-command-line-tools/112/1 "2017-12-23T21:50:24Z")

</div>

Here are some interesting tools for people who like to stay in the terminal as much as possible:

# TIG (Text-mode Interface for Git)

This tool lets you navigate your Git logs with Vim keybindings. I use this instead of `git log`. Previously, I had aliased `gl` to `git log`, but now it loads `tig`.

> **[GitHub - jonas/tig: Text-mode interface for git](https://github.com/jonas/tig)**
>
> Text-mode interface for git

([Magit](https://forum.codeselfstudy.com/t/emacs-magit/74) looks very interesting too, but it runs in Emacs, not the terminal.)

## Ranger File Manager

This is a command line file manager with Vim keybindings.

> **[GitHub - ranger/ranger: A VIM-inspired filemanager for the console](https://github.com/ranger/ranger)**
>
> A VIM-inspired filemanager for the console

(Side note: another useful Git tool for visually browsing local repos is [Git Cola](https://git-cola.github.io).)

## Lynx Browser

This is a text browser which can be useful for some things. I use it when I show up at a wireless hotspot that has a splash login screen. If I launch my regular browsers, all of my open tabs (from the previous session) will load the splash page if I’m not authenticated with the hotspot. If I launch Lynx, then I can log in to the hotspot before opening my regular browsers.

Lynx also makes a good text scraper for quick tasks, especially if you want to get a list of links on a webpage.

Example usage as a scraper:

```plaintext
$ lynx --dump https://codeselfstudy.com/ > scraped_webpage.txt

```

> **[Lynx (web browser)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_(web_browser))**
>
> Lynx is a customizable text-based web browser for use on cursor-addressable character cell terminals. As of 2025\[update\], it is the oldest web browser still being maintained, having started in 1992.
> Lynx was a product of the Distributed Computing Group within Academic Computing Services of the University of Kansas. It was initially developed in 1992 by a team of students and staff at the university (Lou Montulli, Michael Grobe and Charles Rezac) as a hypertext browser used solely to distribute c...

## Irssi for IRC

For IRC: [https://irssi.org/](https://irssi.org/)

## Vim or Neovim

A nice text editor. 🙂

See the [Vim tips thread](https://forum.codeselfstudy.com/t/vim-tips-thread/108/2).

## Other Tools

Does anyone have other interesting command line tools to recommend? I’ll probably add a few more in the comments below later.

**Edit:** see also [CLI: improved (command line tools)](https://forum.codeselfstudy.com/t/cli-improved-command-line-tools/1001)