List of Useful Console Applications
From Gentoo Linux Wiki
I used to run Superkaramba with desklets to show my weather, current processes and other information. However, I frequently noticed it taking up substantial resources, and looked for another solution.
Console applications offer some of the same information, often with much less resource dependence. They can also be easily used over SSH, to give access anywhere to vital information and services that previously were available only through a GUI.
| Console App | Replaces GUI App | Description |
| abcde (media-sound/abcde) | Grip (media-sound/grip) | A cd ripper. |
| centericq (net-im/centericq), naim (net-im/naim), pork (net-im/pork), licq (net-im/licq), micq (net-im/micq), finch (net-im/pidgin) | Gaim (net-im/gaim), Kopete (kde-base/kopete) | Instant Messaging clients |
| bitlbee (net-im/bitlbee) | No exact equivalent, used for instant messaging | Gateway to ICQ, MSN, Jabber... Acts as an IRC-server, use with your favourite IRC client |
| pebrot (net-im/pebrot) | No exact equivalent, used for instant messaging | A simple MSN client. |
| CurseTheWeather | Various weather monitoring desklets | Pulls data from Yahoo Weather. Displays temperature, wind speed, weekly forecast, conditions and more. |
| hnb | [Don't know of any Linux equivalent -- like OmniOutline on OSX] | Hierarchical notebook - easy way to keep categorized information |
| top (sys-process/procps), htop (sys-process/htop), atop (sys-process/atop) | Various system resource monitors | Live-updating process monitors. top is the "traditional one", htop is a bit prettier, atop includes network/disk monitoring too |
| mp3blaster (media-sound/mp3blaster), cmus (media-sound/cmus), xmms2 | Music players like Amarok (media-sound/amarok), xmms | mp3blaster: A full ncurses MP3 player program. Has realtime search like iTunes, and a great navigation structure. cmus: another itunes clone with ncurses interface. xmms2: next generation xmms, client-server model, multiple clients available (also gui) |
| moc (media-sound/moc) | xmms, amarok, audacious | Music On Console. Best audio player someone ever coded. |
| ctorrent (net-p2p/ctorrent), bittorrent-curses (net-p2p/bittorrent), btdownloadcurses.py or btdownloadheadless.py (net-p2p/bittornado), rtorrent (net-p2p/rtorrent), aria2 (net-misc/aria2) | Bittorrent clients like Azureus (net-p2p/azureus) HINT: Azureus also supports console-based GUI, ktorrent (net-p2p/ktorrent) | BitTorrent P2P network clients. |
| irssi (net-irc/irssi), bitchx (net-irc/bitchx), weechat (net-irc/weechat) | Xchat (net-irc/xchat), Konversation (net-irc/konversation), KVIrc (net-irc/kvirc) | IRC clients |
| elinks (www-client/elinks), links (www-client/links), lynx (www-client/lynx), w3m (www-client/w3m) | Mozilla Firefox (www-client/mozilla-firefox), Konqueror (kde-base/konqueror), Opera (www-client/opera) | Web browsers |
| mutt(ng) (mail-client/mutt, mail-client/muttng), pine (mail-client/pine) | Mozilla Thunderbird (mail-client/mozilla-thunderbird), Kmail (kde-base/kmail), Evolution (mail-client/evolution) | EMail clients (reading & sending) |
| slrn (net-nntp/slrn), tin (net-nntp/tin) | Mozilla Thunderbird (mail-client/mozilla-thunderbird), Knews (net-nntp/knews), Pan (net-nntp/pan) | Newsreader (e.g: Usenet) |
| raggle (net-news/raggle) | Akregator (kde-base/akregator) | RSS feed reader |
| screen (app-misc/screen) | konsole (kde-base/konsole) | Multi-terminal Emulator: only screen allows persistent sessions from multiple or zero logins, including remote logins via ssh or telnet. |
| bashburn (app-cdr/bashburn), burncenter (app-cdr/burncenter) | K3b (app-cdr/k3b), GnomeBaker (app-cdr/gnomebaker) | CD and DVD burning |
| lftp (net-ftp/lftp) | KFTPGrabber (net-ftp/kftpgrabber), gFtp (net-ftp/gftp) | FTP Client |
Useful links:
Linux.com - Top 10 Command Line Applications
