The terminal just got better as little improvements were made in apt (/usr/local/bin/apt) and a new “highlight” command was introduced in mintsystem.
Improvements in apt:
- apt was completely rewritten in Python
- The search, show, content, contains, version, policy, depends, and rdepends now come with color highlighting
- sudo is now only used when necessary, so “apt search” for instance doesn’t require a password anymore.
- The help was improved and is now shown by simply typing “apt”.
- A new help command shows the Debian APT equivalent of the apt command you typed.
- And for the APT addicts among you, Super Cow Powers were added.
highlight:
- highlight is a new python script placed in /usr/local/bin and provided by the mintsystem package
- it highlights keywords in different colors
- for instance “lspci | highlight VGA USB Ethernet Wireless” shows the normal output of lspci but with “VGA” highlighted in red, “USB” in green, “Ethernet” in yellow, and “Wireless” in blue.
Of course there’s nothing new or revolutionary here, just a few incremental improvements. The terminal is extremely important, and although almost everything can be done graphically nowadays, it represents for many people a simpler/faster way to achieve what they want. It’s always been more precise, more exhaustive… in many respect, a better tool, than most alternative graphical user interfaces, so it’s only natural we make it as confortable as a terminal can be.
Comments and ideas are welcome. These commands can certainly be improved further. If you think something’s missing please speak up.
Note: The commands and improvements mentioned above are available in mintsystem, versions 7.4.9 or greater.
