Existing in a command-line environment

I am creating this post in a command-line environment using the amazing elinks web browser. If you use Linux it is possible to function completely from a command-line environment. The reason I’m actually doing this right now is because I’m logged into one of my Linux systems and doing a large upgrade and decided not to login to a graphical environment while the upgrade occurs.

Using a command-line environment is refreshing and reminds me of the “good ‘ol days” before graphic environments existed. In fact this is actually way better than the good ‘ol days because the capabilities and power of a modern computer blow away anything from the past.

Being in this command-line environment is refreshing and it makes me think about what really matters. What does really matter? Do you ever think about it? What do we really need?

For me, thinking about it, it’s actually kind of a plus to be able to just go back to this existence where everything’s simply a matter of text. Because ultimately so much of the important information that we need, that we use, that we access is text-based.

Here then are a few tips on how to exist in a command-line environment on a Linux system. This is just very basic but it can help you survive in this environment and you may want to try it just for the experience.

Connecting to the network via nmcli
The leading command-line utility (there are others but this seems to be the main one nowadays) for managing and initiating network connections via the command line is the Network Manager command-line utility nmcli. Briefy, here is how you could use it:
nmcli conn show – list available connections. These are networks that have already been set up in Network Manager. For more detailed info on setting up connections from the command line see the nmcli man page.
nmcli -a c up "sonic" – this will bring up a connection named sonic and the -a flag means it will prompt for the password which is a necessary option if there’s a password for the connection.

Using lastpass from the command line
Yes you can actually use Lastpass from the command line to access your passwords. This is really amazing! The lastpass command-line client is lpass. lpass -l will list all your passwords. You can pipe the output to grep to find a specific site: lpass -l |grep "cool site" for example.
lpass show "my cool site" will show the login information for “my cool site”.

gpm
gpm is a utility which gives mouse support in a terminal session. You can highlight text with the mouse and it will automatically be copied to a clipboard. Middle-click will paste whatever is in the clipboard. This is extremely useful when using lpass (above) and elinks (below).

elinks
elinks is a command-line web browser which has the amazing ability to handle modern web sites really well. Press Esc to bring up its menu and press g to go to a URL.