Linux® Bible 2011 Edition: Boot up to Ubuntu®, Fedora®, KNOPPIX, Debian®, openSUSE®, and 13 Other Distributions

Chapter 12. Using Network Tools

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Web browsing with elinks

• Wget, curl, Iftp, and scp for file transfers

• Sharing directories with NFS, Samba, and SSHFS

• IRC chats with irssi

• Mail and mutt e-mail clients

In the time it takes to fire up a graphical FTP client, you could already have downloaded a few dozen files from a remote server using command-line tools. Even when a GUI is available, commands for transferring files, web browsing, sharing directories, and reading mail can be quick and efficient to use. When no GUI is available, they can be lifesavers.

This chapter covers commands for accessing resources (files, e-mail, shared directories, and online chats) over the network. To use these commands, open a Terminal window (or use some other means to open a shell interface).

Running Commands to Browse the Web

Text-mode web browsers provide a quick way to check that a web server is working or to get information from a web server when a useable GUI isn't available. The once-popular lynx text-based browser was supplanted in most Linux systems by the links browser, which was later replaced by elinks. To use a command-line browser, you need to install one of these programs, with package names that match the command names: lynx, links, w3m, or elinks. In most cases, if you want a command-line web browser, install the elinks package.

The elinks browser runs in a Terminal window. Aside from not displaying images in the terminal, elinks can handle most basic HTML content and features: tables, ...