One of my essential tools for working with code and data files is meld. It’s a graphical diff tool, so if you’ve ever used diff and struggled to make sense of the output, meld is here to help. This is a brilliant description from the project’s website: Meld is a visual diff and merge tool […]
Last week I covered terminal multiplexer byobu, and this week’s tool is quite similar. Terminator is a single-window split-screen terminal multiplexer that allows you to send identical keystrokes to all terminals at once. This means you can SSH into any number of machines, and run the same commands simultaneously, and see them all at the […]
Byobu is a text-based window manager and terminal multiplexer. If you’ve ever used screen, it’s similar but more modern and more intuitive. If you SSH’d into a Pi or server, ran sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade for example, and lost your internet connection while it was running, your command would be lost to […]
Today I’m sharing three tools for checking your internet and LAN speed: speedtest, fast and iperf. speedtest speedtest is an old favourite. It’s implemented in Python, packaged in apt and also available with pip. You can use it as a command line tool, or within a Python script. Install it with: sudo apt install speedtest-cli […]
The deadsnakes PPA lets you install multiple Python versions on your Ubuntu system, so instead of only having just the Python 2.x and Python 3.x that comes with your distribution (18.04 comes with Python 3.6, and 2.7 is available), you can install older or newer versions, from 2.3 (!) to 3.8! The way PPAs (Personal […]
Have you ever used pastebin websites like pastebin.com to share snippets of code, data or text? Did you know you can publish a file from your computer or a Raspberry Pi to a pastebin site with a single command? Install pastebinit: sudo apt install pastebinit Mac users can install with brew. Usage: pastebinit <filename> pastebinit […]
I use SSH constantly. Every day I find myself logged in to multiple servers and Pis (both in the same room as me and over the internet). I have many devices I need access to, and different requirements for gaining access, so as well as using various SSH/SCP command options I have to maintain a […]
I was recently introduced to ranger by Dave Jones. It’s an incredibly handy terminal based file navigator that’s written in Python and is available in Debian, Raspbian and Ubuntu. Ranger allows you to navigate your filesystem using the arrow keys on your keyboard: up/down to select files in the current directory (middle pane); left/right to […]