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#

- Console

Translation(s) : English - Français - Italiano - Brasileiro - 简体中文

- The Console is commonly the well known black window in which the user can write in the command line. It is actually a very powerful tool which can complement the graphic utilities on the system.

The Console is often also known as the "Terminal" or "Shell". Technically, the Console is a combination of a "Terminal" and a "Shell". Usually the two terms are used as synonyms.

Contents

1. How to access the Console
2. How to survive on the Linux Console
   1. Generic tools
   2. Communication / Internet
   3. Multimedia
   4. PIM
   5. Office
   6. "Graphic" editors
   7. System Administration
   8. Fun

## How to access the Console

In Debian, there are already six default virtual Consoles ready to be used. They all can be accessed using the key combination `Ctrl + Alt + FN#Console`. For example, the Console #3 is accessed by pressing `Ctrl + Alt + F3`.

Note The Console #7 is usually allocated to the graphical environment (Xorg, etc.).

Another method is to use a graphic display terminal within your desktop environment.

- Under GNOME: `Applications> System Tools> Terminal`

  - or the keyboard shortcut `Alt + F2` for "Run Application" and type "gnome-terminal"

- Under KDE `K> System> Terminal (Konsole)`

## How to survive on the Linux Console

The usual shell commands are listed in coreutils and ShellCommands.

This section lists a selection of useful and popular programs that run from the shell.

### Generic tools

- screen -- virtual tty that allows disconnection (for ssh or X-terminal)

- script -- for logging of a console session

- mlocate -- assists in finding files

- File manager

  - mc

- Editors

  - nano -- very small, very simple, very easy to use text editor

  - vim and vim-tiny -- The Vi like editor.

  - emacs

  - joe -- can emulate WordStar keybindings (`jstar`)

- Shells

  - bash

  - tcsh

  - zsh

- Locking the console

  - vlock

- Misc

  - dict to look-up dictionaries

  - linuxvnc to export console (VNC)

### Communication / Internet

- Download

  - wget

  - curl

- Mail

  - mutt -- all mail clients suck - this one sucks less

- WWW

  - w3m

  - lynx

  - links

  - elinks

- news

  - slrn --

  - tin --

  - etpan-ng --

- IRC

  - irssi

  - weechat

- ICQ

  - licq

  - bitlbee -- ICQ to IRC gateway

- RSS

  - rsstail -- tail RSS feeds

  - rss2email -- RSS/RDF to mail converter

  - newsbeuter -- text mode RSS feed reader with podcast support

### Multimedia

- Mixer
- Sound

  - mpg321

  - cplay

  - mp3blaster

  - cdcd

  - mpc, ncmpc (mpd)

- Graphic conversion and manipulation

  - aview

  - imagemagick

  - netpbm

- Graphic viewers

  - zgv which requires svgalib, so it only runs on some arches

  - fbi which doesn't require svgalib and includes fbgs (a ghostscript frontend)

- Video

  - mplayer (`mplayer -vo caca MyFile.mpg` or `mplayer -vo aa MyFile.mpg`)

### PIM

- Todo list

  - tdl

  - hnb -- hierarchical notebook

- Calendar tools

  - pal

  - ccal

  - gcal

- Address books

  - lbdb

  - bbdb

  - abook

### Office

- Spreadsheet

  - sc

- Word processing

  - odt2txt (view openoffice document, see mc above)

### "Graphic" editors

- aewan

- tetradraw

### System Administration

- top in the procps package -- list what's running and resource usage

- ngrep -- Show network connections

- apachetop -- Show active Apache details.

- aptitude -- manage Debian packages.

- ssh -- Remote system interaction (replaces deprecated "r" commands, telnet, ftp).

### Fun

- fortunes

- sl

- bb

- filters -- B1FF, Swedish Chef, ...

- cmatrix

- CleanMe : This page needs some cleanup, and needs to be improved (hint: focus on most useful tools). For example, how can a console session be recorded in a file?

CategoryCommandLineInterface