Uncompress files using CLI

I usually uncompress all kinds of packaged files from the command line. Unfortunately, I rarely remember which command line tool I should use for some specific packaging format. It is even more difficult to remember all the options needed for the appropriate tool.

Now that I found a cool hack in the ArchWiki, I never need to look for more information about how to uncompress a .tbz2, .tgz or .bz2 file -- I just use extract filename.

Add the following snippet of code to your .bashrc and you are ready to extract any file (if your system has the corresponding tool installed).

extract () {
  if [ -f $1 ] ; then
      case $1 in
          *.tar.bz2)   tar xvjf $1    ;;
          *.tar.gz)    tar xvzf $1    ;;
          *.tar.xz)    tar xvJf $1    ;;
          *.bz2)       bunzip2 $1     ;;
          *.rar)       unrar x $1     ;;
          *.gz)        gunzip $1      ;;
          *.tar)       tar xvf $1     ;;
          *.tbz2)      tar xvjf $1    ;;
          *.tgz)       tar xvzf $1    ;;
          *.zip)       unzip $1       ;;
          *.Z)         uncompress $1  ;;
          *.7z)        7z x $1        ;;
          *.xz)        unxz $1        ;;
          *.exe)       cabextract $1  ;;
          *)           echo "\`$1': unrecognized file compression" ;;
      esac
  else
      echo "\`$1' is not a valid file"
  fi
}

Frankenstein's Laptop

As you are reading this blog, I believe you have at least one or two spare computers you cannot find any real use at the moment. If you are not interested in following K. Mandla's footsteps and use Crux and Awesome with an ancient laptop of 120 MHz & 16 Mb, you might try this "Frankenstein hack" and build a cool slim desktop out of your old laptop!

Or maybe you could combine the two ideas?

Use xosd for on-screen messages

The package xosd-bin provides Linux hackers a way to show messages on X screen. In itself this might not be very useful but the functionality can easily be included in scripts.

After installing xosd-bin the you can use osd_cat to show text on-screen. This is done by sending text over a pipe to osd_cat.

The simplest way to use osd_cat would be:

echo "Hello World!" | osd_cat

If you try this you might not even notice the small output on the top left corner of your screen. But the following gives an output that can barely stay unnoticed:

echo "Testing xosd using different fonts" | osd_cat -p middle -A center -d 5 -s 3 -c blue -f "-adobe-helvetica-*-*-*-*-34-240-*-*-p-*-*-*"

As you see, osd_cat understands many options. In the example, the output is shown at the middle of the screen centered for a period of five seconds with a shadow of three pixels. The color is blue and the font is defined by the rest of the line (use xfontsel for selecting the font).

Now that I have installed xosd I have to think about some cool use for it! Maybe it could be used in a script that checks my email account or to show on-screen reminders.

Any other ideas?