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!