10 useful Linux programs you hardly use!

We list out 10 Linux (available on other platforms too!) programs and commands you would probably wouldn't know, nevertheless, and probably very useful.
Not related to each other and just a assorted collection...

Few of these programs have to be installed either through your distribution's package manager

1. catdoc

Got a M$ doc file and don't want to use OpenOffice to open that ? Check the contents of a doc file on your terminal! Get catdoc which does a decent job of converting your doc to text file

Get catdoc

Ubuntu/Debian Users - sudo apt-get install catdoc

Usage: catdoc {name_of_file.doc}

2. pdftotext

Have a pdf and want to convert to a text file ? pdftotext which is included in most of the distributions lets you do just that. pdftotext is part of the xpdf package and can be downloaded here

Ubuntu/Debian Users - sudo apt-get install xpdf

3. pdftk

The swiss-army knife if you have to do anything with pdf manipulation! Read more and get pdftk

Ubuntu/Debian Users - sudo apt-get install pdftk

4. whois

Don't spit fire on me but I know quite a few people who don't know about this one. Hey! there is no shame in learning. This one lets you check who is the domain owner of a ipaddress or domain name. Get it here

Ubuntu/Debian Users - sudo apt-get install whois

5.vimtutor

Want to learn vim? Use the vimtutor - Comes bundled with vim. Gets you started for sure

6. zless, bzless

Have a gzipped or bzipped text file? No need to gunzip or bunzip2 them. View them directly !

Usage:

zless {name_of_file.txt.gz}

bzless {name_of_file.txt.bz2}

7. strings

Mostly used by programmers to check printable "strings" in binaries and libraries - VERY Useful when you want to find out where exactly the error messages are coming from when you are using man third party libraries

strings {name_of_file}

8. x11vnc

x11vnc is a vncserver that lets you run a vncserver on your current X display. I just love it! Are there any other ? I found this and didn't go beyond it find any other!

Get it here

Ubuntu/Debian - sudo apt-get install x11vnc

9. tidy

Got badly idented code ? tidy it up using this nifty program - there are perl, Java and Python versions of tidy too

Get it

10. ssh-agent

Do you type in those passphrases everytime you ssh to a machine? Make those passphrase logins go away with ssh-agent

Read here