It’s easy to get intimidated by the Linux terminal’s numerous commands. cp, mkdir, lsblk, piping—are they really worth memorizing? Not necessarily; you can actually make use of the terminal without memorizing complex commands thanks to TUIs.
A TUI, short for terminal user interface, is a program that you run in the terminal and that gives you something like a very primitive graphic window to complete tasks in. They’re usually more visually engaging, which is why, in videos made by Linux influencers, they’ll usually have a TUI of some sort running in on their monitor in the background. These are some neat ones I’ve come across and think are worth giving a try, even if you aren’t a command line pro.
bandwhich
Monitor all your network utilization in one screen
Are you curious about what kind of network connections are being made on your Linux system? You can watch a live feed of connection activity with the Bandwhich tool.
Bandwhich watches all of the processes running on your system. When a process makes a network call, bandwhich displays that process in its TUI interface along with useful info like the process ID, the data rate, the network adapter, and the connection destination. It’s able to use DNS lookups to resolve hostnames, making it easy to understand those destinations.
If you want to install Bandwhich, you’ll need to either download it from Snapcraft with this command:
sudo snap install bandwhichOr, folks on Arch Linux can find it in their repositories:
sudo pacman -S bandwhichEveryone else will have to visit the bandwhich release page and download the latest binary.
However you install it, you’ll need to run bandwhich with sudo in order to give it the permissions it needs to monitor activity across your system:
sudo bandwhichOptionally, you can run it with the -t flag for “total utilization,” which will keep all packet records in a list rather than only showing the most recent.
Caligula
Write images to USB with a visual speed graph
If you’re like me, you’re constantly downloading ISOs and IMG files to burn them to USB sticks for testing various Linux distros and setting up new self-hosted services. The task of writing to USB drives is repetitive, though, and sometimes feels like something easily done in the terminal.
Of course, you can do that in the terminal by using That’s why I like Caligula. It’s a simple, lightweight TUI meant just for burning images to disks. Let’s say you just downloaded Ubuntu. You can run this command in the directory with that ISO file:
caligula burn ubuntu-desktop.isoThe Caligula interface will open up, prompting you verify the file’s checksum and to choose a target disk for writing. Once it gets started, you get a nice-looking graph tracking the write speed of the burn process on your USB drive.
I Turned a USB Drive Into a Linux App Swiss Army Knife
AppImages and a thumb drive are a matched made in heaven.
To get Caligula, you can install it on Arch Linux systems with this command:
sudo pacman -S caligulaIf you already have Rust utilities installed, you can run this command to get it from Crates.io:
cargo install caligulaEveryone else can check out the Caligula installation guide.
kew
Listen to your music collection in the terminal
Do you have a digital music collection on your Linux computer you like to listen to while you work? There’s a TUI for you: kew.
The kew app, on launch, will ask you to confirm that your music is stored in the typical spot: your home directory’s ~/Music directory. Assuming you don’t have music elsewhere, you can just press Enter, and kew will show you your whole library. Navigate it with the arrow keys and press Enter on any song or album to start playing it.
When you’re listening, you can use your function keys to switch between a visualizer mode with album art for the current track, a playlist showing what’s currently queued, or keep browsing your library.
What I really like about kew though is its intuitive launch command. Rather than just typing kew in the command line, you can specify what you’re launching kew to listen to. For example, you can run this command:
kew smithsAnd kew will guess that you probably want to listen to The Smiths and will play the first song by them in your library. You can even say kew shuffle smiths to shuffle their music.
To install kew, you can find it in several repositories.
sudo apt install kew #Debian and Ubuntu
yay -S kew #Arch User Repository
sudo zypper install kew #openSUSE Tumbleweed
nnn
Fly through your file system
If you know anything about Linux commands, you’re probably familiar with cd and ls for navigating the filesystem. It can be slow and painstaking, though, repeatedly running those commands to see which files and directories exist and where.
That’s where nnn comes in. Also called n³, it’s an ultra-fast file browser for the Linux terminal that lets you use your arrow keys to navigate your file system rather than clunky, difficult-to-remember commands.
Just type nnn in the terminal wherever you are, and you’ll get a list of files and folders. Tap the Right arrow key to go into a directory or to open a file, and press the Left arrow key to go back. At the bottom of the TUI, nnn tells you any pertinent info about the file or directory, like modification dates and permissions.
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Ever wanted to play an RPG without leaving the command line?
You can find nnn in most Linux repositories:
sudo apt install nnn #Debian and Ubuntu
sudo dnf install nnn #Fedora
sudo pacman -S nnn #Arch Linux
sudo zypper install nnn #openSUSEThe Linux terminal doesn’t have to be scary, and in fact it can look really cool and feel intuitive with TUIs like these. There are even TUIs that exist just to make you look like a hacker or like you’re busy when you’re actually doing nothing.
