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The stuff I always install on a Debian box

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!