Linux Tools: 2026 Edition

Sixty-four command-line tools for Debian and Ubuntu. Each entry says what the tool does, the command that installs it, and what you type to run it — which is not always the same word.

• Start with — the seven essentials · a better tool for a classic command · when the command isn't found
• Browse by job — Files, search, disk · Shell & prompt · ls replacements · Editors · Monitors · Network · Git · Data & documents · System & packages · Docs & benchmarks · File explorers · Desktop GUI

Lazy-Linux-Tool-Installer.py skips anything you already have. Works on Debian, Ubuntu, and anything built on them such as Mint or Pop!_OS. You need sudo and curl.

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StewAlexander-com/Linux-Tools/main/Lazy-Linux-Tool-Installer.py
chmod +x Lazy-Linux-Tool-Installer.py

python3 Lazy-Linux-Tool-Installer.py --dry-run   # preview, changes nothing
python3 Lazy-Linux-Tool-Installer.py             # go

Flags, pinning to a release, and the security notes are further down.

If you install nothing else, install these seven:

• bat — read a file with colour and line numbers (a nicer cat)
• fd — find files by name, quickly (a nicer find)
• ripgrep — search inside files, very fast (a nicer grep)
• fzf — type a few letters to pick from any list
• htop — see what is using CPU and memory (a nicer top)
• ncdu — find what is filling up the disk
• tldr — short worked examples instead of long manual pages

sudo apt install bat fd-find ripgrep fzf htop ncdu tealdeer

# Three of those are typed differently from the package you install:
#   batcat   not  bat
#   fdfind   not  fd
#   tldr     is what tealdeer installs

Four more worth having. These are not in apt, so you fetch them straight from the project's own downloads using a helper called eget. eget is not in apt either, so install it once, verifying the download against its published checksum:

curl -o eget.sh https://zyedidia.github.io/eget.sh
echo "0e64b8a3c13f531da005096cc364ac77835bda54276fedef6c62f3dbdc1ee919  eget.sh" | sha256sum -c
bash eget.sh
sudo mv eget /usr/local/bin/

Then:

• eza — ls with colour and git status
• zoxide — cd that learns your habits
• dust — du as a bar chart
• micro — a friendly nano replacement

for r in eza-community/eza ajeetdsouza/zoxide bootandy/dust micro-editor/micro; do sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin "$r"; done

Sorted by the older command being replaced, so you can look up whichever one you have run into. One recommendation per row, with alternatives in the notes. The full list below is grouped by category instead, for browsing.

The name you install is often not the name you type, for three different reasons. Only the first two are Debian's doing:

# Debian renames these, and only these
bat           you type   batcat
fd            you type   fdfind

# These ship under a short name upstream, on every distro
ripgrep       you type   rg
ripgrep-all   you type   rga
miller        you type   mlr
bottom        you type   btm
neovim        you type   nvim

# Here it is the apt package name that differs, not the command
tldr          sudo apt install tealdeer
mtr           sudo apt install mtr-tiny
hping3        sudo apt install hping3
nmtui         sudo apt install network-manager

To keep the upstream names for the two Debian renames:

echo 'alias bat=batcat' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'alias fd=fdfind'  >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Sixty-four tools in twelve groups. Every group starts with the command that installs it. A few are listed for reference only, and say so.

The eget lines fetch a binary straight from a project's GitHub releases and drop it on your PATH. They need eget itself, which is installed under Start here.

sudo apt install ncdu fd-find fzf ripgrep
for r in bootandy/dust muesli/duf phiresky/ripgrep-all chmln/sd; do sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin "$r"; done

• ncdu — Terminal disk/folder space viewer
• dust — Friendlier du with bar charts
• duf — Friendlier df with graphs
• fd — Friendlier find (sharkdp/fd); Debian/Ubuntu apt package fd-find, command often fdfind
• fzf — Fuzzy finder for files, history, and pipelines
• ripgrep — Fast recursive search — command is rg
• ripgrep-all — ripgrep across PDFs, office docs, and other rich formats — command is rga
• sd — Simpler sed-like find/replace

sudo apt install fish
for r in starship/starship ajeetdsouza/zoxide atuinsh/atuin; do sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin "$r"; done

• fish — Friendly interactive shell
• starship — Cross-shell customizable prompt
• zoxide — Smarter cd that learns your habits
• atuin — Shell history search/sync across machines

for r in eza-community/eza lsd-rs/lsd; do sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin "$r"; done

• eza — Modern ls replacement with colors and Git integration (successor to exa)
• 🌟 lsd — Another ls clone, cross-platform (Linux/macOS/Windows); can show directory sizes (lsd-rs/lsd) - personal favorite

sudo apt install bat ne neovim vim
sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin micro-editor/micro

• micro — Friendly terminal editor if you are not into vi/vim (micro-editor/micro)
• ne — Terminal editor (nano-like menus; Esc or F1)
• 🌟 vim — Vi Improved - personal favorite
• neovim — Modern Vim-compatible editor (apt package neovim; command nvim)
• vimrc — Shared vim config (amix/vimrc); see ⭐ vim_awesome based on this — configs only; not installed by the Lazy installer
• bat — cat clone with syntax highlighting / git integration — on Debian/Ubuntu apt the command is often batcat
• sublime text — GUI editor — manual install; not in the Lazy installer

sudo apt install htop
for r in aristocratos/btop ClementTsang/bottom; do sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin "$r"; done
pip3 install --user glances

• glances — Lots of system info in one glance; cross-platform — Lazy installer uses pip3 install --user glances (requires Python/pip already present)
• 🌟 htop — Supercharged top clone — personal favorite
• btop — Fast TUI process/resource monitor
• bottom — Cross-platform process monitor inspired by btop — command is btm
• system informer — Windows-only successor to Process Hacker — listed for cross-platform awareness; not in the Lazy installer

sudo apt install bmon hping3 mtr-tiny network-manager nmap
for r in orf/gping mr-karan/doggo; do sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin "$r"; done
sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin schollz/croc   # installer verifies its SHA-256
sudo apt install npm && sudo npm install -g neoss   # neoss ships on npm, not a binary

• croc — Securely send files between machines (cross-platform; schollz/croc)
• network-manager — apt package that provides nmtui (terminal NetworkManager UI)
• hping3 — Advanced ping/packet crafting — install via apt as hping3 (upstream repo is antirez/hping)
• nmap — Network scanner → related: ncrack — ncrack is not auto-installed
• bmon — TUI network bandwidth monitor
• mtr — Traceroute + ping (apt package is often mtr-tiny; command mtr)
• gping — Ping with a live latency graph
• doggo — Modern dig alternative (DoH/DoT/DoQ); actively maintained successor to ogham/dog
• neoss — User-friendly ss alternative with a TUI — installed with npm install -g neoss
• zabbix — Full monitoring stack — not in the Lazy installer (much heavier than a CLI utility)

sudo apt install tig
for r in jesseduffield/lazygit dandavison/delta; do sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin "$r"; done

• tig — TUI git client
• lazygit — Simple TUI for git
• delta — Syntax-highlighting pager for git diffs

sudo apt install miller jc pandoc
sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin ArthurSonzogni/json-tui
pip3 install --user visidata

• miller — awk/sed-like tool for CSV/JSON/etc. — command is mlr
• jc — Convert common command output to JSON
• json-tui — Terminal JSON viewer with table view
• visidata — Interactive viewer for CSV and other tabular data — Lazy installer uses pip3 install --user visidata
• pandoc — Universal document converter

sudo apt install lynis apt-show-versions nala
for r in fastfetch-cli/fastfetch dalance/procs; do sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin "$r"; done

• systemctl — Built-in systemd service manager (systemctl status, systemctl list-units, …) — not installed by the script (already on systemd hosts); former wrapper chkservice is effectively unmaintained
• lynis — Linux security auditing by CISOfy (GitHub)
• apt-show-versions — Show package versions / upgrades (apt-show-versions -u)
• nala — Friendlier apt frontend
• fastfetch — Fast system-info display (neofetch-style)
• procs — Modern ps replacement

sudo apt install most
for r in jesseduffield/lazydocker sharkdp/hyperfine casey/just; do sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin "$r"; done
pip3 install --user eg
sudo apt install tealdeer                    # provides the tldr command

• tldr — Simplified practical man pages — Lazy installer uses pip3 install --user tldr
• eg — Useful command examples at the CLI (similar niche to tldr) — installed with pip3 install --user eg
• most — Pager with more features than less/more
• lazydocker — TUI for Docker
• hyperfine — Command-line benchmarking
• just — Command runner / lightweight make alternative

sudo apt install nnn
for r in sayanarijit/xplr gokcehan/lf; do sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin "$r"; done

• xplr — Very graphical TUI file explorer, best on large screens (sayanarijit/xplr on GitHub)
• 🌟 nnn — Efficient and elegant
• lf — Cross-platform TUI file explorer (gokcehan/lf on GitHub)

sudo apt install geany guake wireshark
sudo eget --to /usr/local/bin Eugeny/tabby
sudo snap install --classic code

• Visual Studio Code — via snap: sudo snap install --classic code (Lazy installer uses the same)
• geany — GUI editor like "notepad++" for Windows
• wireshark — network packet analyzer
• guake — dropdown GUI terminal for Linux
• tabby — Modern cross-platform terminal (desktop app; GitHub releases are AppImage/.deb/tarballs, not a tiny static CLI)

Lazy-Linux-Tool-Installer.py routes each tool to apt, pip, snap, eget, or npm, whichever suits it.

python3 Lazy-Linux-Tool-Installer.py --dry-run   # preview, changes nothing
python3 Lazy-Linux-Tool-Installer.py --server    # skip the five desktop GUI apps
python3 Lazy-Linux-Tool-Installer.py --help

Pin to a release rather than tracking main:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StewAlexander-com/Linux-Tools/v5.1.0/Lazy-Linux-Tool-Installer.py

It also needs network access, and prompts once for consent. It skips the five entries this page lists for reference only: vimrc, Sublime Text, System Informer, Zabbix, and ncrack. It does not pipe curl into a shell — release artifacts are downloaded, sanity-checked, and croc's published SHA-256 is verified.

python3 -m unittest test_lazy_linux_tool_installer
python3 -m unittest test_lazy_linux_tool_installer -v
python3 -m unittest test_lazy_linux_tool_installer.TestSystemChecker -v

export GITHUB_TOKEN=$(gh auth token)   # optional, but avoids the 60/hour limit
LINUX_TOOLS_NETWORK_TESTS=1 python3 -m unittest test_lazy_linux_tool_installer

Ran 53 tests in 0.011s
OK (skipped=1)

• jc + json-tui (pretty JSON table view):

sudo lsof -i | jc --lsof -p | json-tui

• Interactive file picking with ripgrep + fzf:

rg --files | fzf

• Faster navigation + richer prompts: zoxide with starship (each needs its own shell init hook; see their docs).

1. Linux CLI Tool Upgrades/Alternatives — r/selfhosted
2. eget
3. doggo
4. NetworkManager
5. micro editor
6. jc docs — lsof parser

MIT. Use it, fork it, ship it.