8 Linux commands so good, they feel like cheating
8 Linux commands so good, they feel like cheating
https://www.howtogeek.com/linux-commands-so-good-they-feel-like-cheating/
Publish Date: 2026-03-02 08:30:00
Source Domain: www.howtogeek.com
While the Linux command set is great on its own, it seems that programmers can’t stop reinventing it. Here are some of the best modern takes on classic Linux tools that fix some common annoyances with Unix-like systems. You might wonder how you ever got by before you knew about them like I did.
Search text quickly with fzf
To find files on Linux, you might use the ls or even the find command. While you can locate exact filenames and use wildcards to to generate lists of files to pass to a command, fzf, for “fuzzy find,” lets you search output in real. The “fuzzy” part comes from how it will show the search string highlighted in the list of files. fzf is a full-screen terminal program. With the find command’s notoriously abstruse syntax, fzf is a welcome replacement.
It’s also useful as a replacement for grep. fzf is great for piping things into for searching.
To install it from Debian or Ubuntu:
sudo apt install fzf
To install it on Arch:
sudo pacman -Syu fzf
On Fedora and other Red Hat family distros:
sudo dnf install fzf
Find info on commands quickly with tldr
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