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Stuff some guy always installs on debian

The stuff I always install on a Debian box « boltblog
Sitting here installing a brand new box, I look through what I use on other machines and figure out a list of things I want to have installed on any box I'm on. Here's the list so far, in no particular order:


  • vim - my favorite text editor 
  • ssh - the secure shell server and client - a must. 
  • realpath - gets the full pathname of a given file. very useful in scripts 
  • autossh - keeps ssh connections open on its own. very useful for ssh tunnels. 
  • sysstat - various performance tools, like mpstat to see the individual cpu usage in an smp setup sudo - allows normal users to execute things as root. mind-bogglingly useful 
  • preload - tracks which applications are frequently used and tries to keep them in memory to improve startup times 
  • lshw - prints way more information about your machine than you really need 
  • sysv-rc-conf - a nice tool to set at which runlevels the machine should start and stop services 
  • console-setup - pretty, pretty console fonts (terminus) 
  • pastebinit - lets you pipe output to most pastebins from the console. EXTREMELY USEFUL ccze - pipe stuff to this program to colorize the output. "sudo tail -f /var/log/messages | ccze" = bliss hdparm - sets various drive parameters for IDE drives, such as spindown time etc. also performs speed tests 
  • logwatch - sends you a nice log summary every day 
  • build-essential - compilers, kernel headers and other stuff which is damn useful 
  • deborphan - finds autoinstalled packages which are no longer necessary 
  • module-assistant - compiles and inserts modules on the fly with a running debian kernel. brilliant. remember to execute "m-a prepare" to get additional stuff it needs, including the kernel headers for your currently running debian kernel, which is always useful to have around 
  • kernel-package - stuff needed to compile new kernels the debian way. 
  • psmisc - contains the all important "killall" command beep - makes a pc speaker beep. very useful to put at the end of a long series of commands 
  • yafc - yet another ftp client, but my favorite one 
  • lftp - easily scriptable ftp client - use this for all synchronization (which doesn't support encryption) 
  • rsync - for remote file synchronization realpath - finds the real path of a file. useful in scripts 
  • screen - allows several virtual consoles in one 
  • p7zip-full - for those pesky 7z-archives which have suddenly started to appear everywhere 
  • wget - if it's not there, it damn well should be! 
  • unace - file extraction 
  • unrar - file extraction 
  • unzip - file extraction watchdog - keeps an eye on the computer and restarts it if it hangs (hopefully) 
  • irssi - irc chat. it's always useful to be able to reach #debian on irc.freenode.net 
  • sshfs - utilities to allow remote mounting of directories through ssh. insanely useful. also installs fuse 
  • smbclient - utilities to allow remote mounting of samba shares (windows shared directories) 
  • smbfs - utilities to allow remote mounting of samba shares (windows shared directories) 
  • nmap - simple portmapping utility. very useful. 
  • nbtscan - scans for machines with windows shares. also useful sometimes. 
  • rungetty - allows for autologin to consoles and, for instance, displaying the system log in a tty without having to log in. woo. 
  • mutt - console-based email client 
  • ntp - clock synchronization 
  • ntpdate - manually query time servers 
  • nload - displays network traffic graphs in the console 
  • file - identifies filetypes by content 
  • autofs - automatically mounts and unmounts preset filesystems when they are needed 
  • fakeroot - useful for compiling stuff


And a one-liner to install them all and beep afterwards, for my own copy-pasting delight:
apt-get install ssh vim sudo ccze ntp lshw watchdog realpath sysstat nload sysv-rc-conf preload autofs pastebinit fakeroot file console-setup lftp autossh p7zip-full deborphan ntpdate nmap hdparm logwatch mutt nbtscan rungetty build-essential screen module-assistant kernel-package psmisc beep yafc rsync wget unzip unrar unace irssi sshfs smbclient smbfs && m-a prepare && update-alternatives --set editor /usr/bin/vim.basic && beep more to come, probably...
anything to add to the list of incredibly useful stuff? comment!

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