util-linux

From LinuxReviews
Jump to navigationJump to search

util-linux is one of the essential core packages in any GNU/Linux distribution. It is distributed by the Linux Kernel Organization and it contains a whole array of basic commands like dmesg, mount, login and a lot of other basic utility-related commands. It is written entirely in beautiful C.

For example, lscpu shows you whether your processor has the core meltdown vulnerability.

The "other" set of basic commands like ls are handled by the coreutils package.

Included Utilities[edit]

  • addpart
  • agetty
  • blkdiscard
  • blkid
  • blkzone
  • blockdev
  • cal
  • cfdisk
  • chcpu
  • chfn
  • chmem
  • choom
  • chrt
  • chsh
  • col (legacy)[1]
  • colcrt
  • colrm
  • column
  • ctrlaltdel
  • delpart
  • dmesg
  • eject
  • fallocate
  • fdformat
  • fdisk
  • findfs
  • findmnt
  • flock
  • fsck
  • fsck.cramfs
  • fsck.minix
  • fsfreeze
  • fstrim
  • getopt
  • hardlink
  • hexdump
  • hwclock (query and set the hardware clock (RTC))
  • ionice
  • ipcmk
  • ipcrm
  • ipcs
  • isosize
  • kill
  • last
  • ldattach
  • line (legacy)[1]
  • logger
  • login
  • look
  • losetup
  • lsblk[2]
  • lscpu[3]
  • lslocks
  • lslogins
  • lsmem
  • mcookie
  • mesg
  • mkfs (legacy)[1]
  • mkfs.bfs
  • mkfs.cramfs
  • mkfs.minix
  • mkswap
  • more
  • mount
  • mountpoint
  • namei
  • newgrp
  • nologin
  • nsenter
  • partx
  • pg (legacy)[1]
  • pivot_root
  • prlimit[4]
  • raw
  • readprofile
  • rename
  • renice
  • reset (legacy)[1]
  • resizepart
  • rev
  • rfkill
  • rtcwake
  • runuser
  • script
  • scriptreplay
  • setarch (including architecture symlinks such as i386, linux32, linux64, x86_64, etc.)
  • setpriv
  • setsid
  • setterm
  • sfdisk
  • su
  • sulogin
  • swaplabel
  • swapoff
  • swapon
  • switch_root
  • tailf (legacy)[1]
  • taskset
  • tunelp (deprecated)[5]
  • ul
  • umount
  • unshare
  • utmpdump
  • uuidd
  • uuidgen
  • uuidparse
  • vipw (including symlink to vigr)
  • wall
  • wdctl
  • whereis
  • wipefs
  • write
  • zramctl

Not included[edit]

Some programs you'd think util-linux would provide are not actually part of that package.

  • lsusb is provided by usbutils.
  • lspci is provided by pciutils.

Links[edit]

util-linux's website is at kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/ and it's source code repository lives at git.kernel.org/cgit/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git.

The current maintainer, Karel Zak, has a blog at karelzak.blogspot.com/.

Footnotes[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Documentation/deprecated.txt. util-linux (2019-12-09). Retrieved on 2019-12-09.
  2. lsblk manual.
  3. lscpu manual.
  4. Karel Zak (2012-01-25). prlimit(1). Retrieved on 2014-08-09.
  5. Sami Kerola (2012-12-16). tunelp: deprecation: remove command from default build. util-linux. Retrieved on 2014-04-12.


Add your comment
LinuxReviews welcomes all comments. If you do not want to be anonymous, register or log in. It is free.