Command Line Workflows

Almost everything that can be done with GUI can also be done with CLI.

Here is a selected list of common Linux workflows with CLI with some esoteric examples. For more examples, please consult stackoverflow and chatgpt.

Controlling the Computer

Cli can command the computer to shutdown now reboot.

$ shutdown now # shutdown the computer immediately
$ reboot # reboot the computer

Sound, display, and keyboard

$ # These commands may not be present on all systems or may not work for all environments
$ brightnessctl set 10%-  # increase the brightness of screen by 10%
$ amixer set Master 5%+  # increase audio by 5%. Only works on pulseaudio systems.
$ nmtui  # An intuitive tool to connects to wifi
$ gammastep -O 4000  # set the display color tempreture to 4000K. (For night light)

Many system configurations, such as controlling the mouse speed, set the display screen and resolutions, are controlled by the desktop environment. Desktop environments often offers some cli tools for more control.

Here are some examples for Gnome:

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-uri "file:///path/to/your/image.jpg"

Flash iso image onto a USB and make it a bootable device

The first step of installing an operating system is to flash its installation image onto a usb. This can be done with the command cp on Linux.

First, find the path of your USB.

$ lsblk  # short for list block device
sda           8:0    1  58.6G  0 disk  # This is the USB
├─sda1        8:1    1   4.4G  0 part 
├─sda2        8:2    1   4.9M  0 part 
├─sda3        8:3    1   300K  0 part 
└─sda4        8:4    1  54.2G  0 part 
nvme0n1     259:0    0 476.9G  0 disk # This is the SDD
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0     1G  0 part /boot
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0    16G  0 part [SWAP]
└─nvme0n1p3 259:3    0 459.9G  0 part /
What is the output of `lsblk`?

The physical disk is presented as block device on Linux. Linux, like Unix, adopts the philosophy of “everything is a file”. The block devices are presented as files under /dev directory.

/dev/sda is the path of the block device representing the usb. /dev/sda1 for the first partition of the usb.

USB devices are usually named as sda , sdb, etc. It can be distinguished by its capacity; or just compare the output of lsblk before and after plugin a USB. The path for the USB will be in the form of \dev\sda.

Assuming the path for the required image is live-disk.iso, the following command will flash the image to the usb and make the USB a bootable device.

Note, the destination is not /dev/sda1, but /dev/sda, without the number.

$ cp live-disk.iso /dev/sda  # This may take a while.

There are also other methods; check this arch wiki.

Make a bootable device on Windows or on Mac is more complicated.

The easist method on Windows or on Mac is to download a media creation tool, such as balena etcher, and let it do the job.

Media creation tools may be more than 200 MB in size, and many time they do not work as well as the cp command.

Esoteric Examples

$ browsh # open a browser in terminal
$ tiv image.jpg # view an image in terminal
$ beep # make a beep sound.