Linux has always been great at holding onto its roots. A lot of the commands from the original Unix days still work just fine today. But just because they still work doesn’t mean they’re the best option anymore. Open source is moving fast and there are newer commands out there that just feel better to use.

I’ve been on a bit of a cleanup spree, trying to make my setup faster and easier to work with. I swapped out a few of the usual Linux commands for newer ones and, honestly, I should’ve done it way earlier.

5 Bat is better than cat

It adds a splash of color and more

The cat command is a staple for outputting file contents, but it hasn’t changed much in 40+ years. Enter bat, a drop-in replacement for cat that adds a splash of color and more. In fact, bat bills itself as a cat clone “with wings.”

Bat packs handy features like syntax highlighting for a wide range of languages and Git integration to indicate repository changes. Using bat feels immediately familiar. You run bat filename as you would with cat but the output is enriched with line numbers and color-coded syntax.

One of bat’s most lauded features is its Git integration. If you use bat to view a file in a Git repository, it will automatically show a git gutter alongside the content, indicating lines that have been added, removed, or modified relative to the index. Plus, bat has sensible defaults that improve usability, like automatically piping long output into a pager so you can scroll.

4 ncdu beats du

du on Steroids

If you’ve ever run du -sh to figure out where your disk space went, you know the output can be overwhelming. The classic du command dumps a wall of numbers that the human brain doesn’t always parse well. ncdu (NCurses Disk Usage) tackles this problem by presenting disk usage data in an interactive, text-based UI.

Instead of scrolling through hundreds of lines, you get an organized, navigable interface that highlights the largest directories and files. The interface also shows a summary of the directory you’re in and allows on-the-fly actions. For instance, you can press d to delete a highlighted file or directory right from within ncdu’s UI.

3 duf is a better df alternative

df but pretty

The venerable df command tells you how much disk space is used and available on your filesystems. It’s useful for scripts and provides a lot of info, but df’s default output is not the easiest to read, especially when you have many mounts. Similar to du, it tends to be a sea of columns with wrapped text, and even with -h, it can be visually bland. duf, short for Disk Usage/Free, reimagines this tool with an emphasis on clarity and user-friendliness.

Duf produces a beautiful, colorized table of your disk usage. Just running duf with no arguments will display all mounted filesystems with columns for size, used, available, and usage percentage, plus a handy color bar. The output is clean and easy to parse at a glance, with colors making the usage percentage stand out. It even groups entries by type such as local disks in one section, network mounts in another, and special or pseudo filesystems separately.

Duf’s interface can adjust to your terminal width and theme. It supports sorting by different columns if you want to see, for example, the most-full filesystems on top.

2 tldr to look up command line tools

A more simplified version of Man pages

You need a quick reminder of how a command’s options work, so you open the man page, only to face dozens of screens of densely packed text. Man pages are thorough reference docs, but sometimes you just want examples and common use-cases. The tldr project (“Too Long; Didn’t Read”) was created to solve this exact problem. It provides community-maintained help pages that serve as a simpler, more approachable complement to traditional man pages.

Think of tldr as a collection of concise cheatsheets for command-line tools. Instead of explaining every possible flag and edge case, a tldr page for a command will typically show a description and a handful of the most common examples of how that command is used.

1 zoxide is smarter cd that remembers

Who thought CD needs improvement

Changing directories (cd) is so fundamental that you might not think there’s much to improve. But consider how often you find yourself typing out long paths or jumping between the same set of directories. zoxide is a remarkable re-imagining of cd that saves you keystrokes by learning your habits. It’s a fast drop-in replacement for cd that keeps track of the directories you visit and can quickly take you to whichever one you mean with just a few keystrokes.

zoxide builds an index of the directories you’ve cded into, weighting them by frequency and recency. The power of zoxide becomes apparent when you want to jump to a frequently used directory without typing the whole path. Instead of cd /home/alice/projects/2025/client-alpha/docs, you might just type z docs or part of the project name, and zoxide will take you to the most likely match.

See beyond the usual options

Linux open-source community has managed to come up with impressive alternatives for all the tools you might. If you need more options, try these 6 modern alternatives to classic Linux tools. If you want to explore Linux further, check out these apps that let you customize and enhance the look and feel of your desktop. You might also want to check out these underrated apps that are quite helpful.