In Operation
Here’s example output from eza with the -l option which displays extended file metadata as a table.
You’ll probably want to tweak the color scheme. The EXA_COLORS or EZA_COLORS environment variable can be used to customise the colours that eza uses to highlight file names, file metadata, and parts of the UI.
For example, when using the Hyper terminal emulator with our customized color scheme, the date field is barely readable using eza, so we append the following lines to our .bashrc file to make this column clearer.
EZA_COLORS+="da=33"
export EZA_COLORS
eza has added some additional features. Probably the most useful is hyperlink support. With the --hyperlink option we can open files direct from the terminal. In the image below, we’re about to open a PNG image with our default image viewer (note the wavy blue line under the filename).
You may have noticed we switched to the kitty terminal emulator, as Hyper didn’t want to play ball with hyperlinks. That’s something we’ll investigate.
There’s mount details available with the -M or --mounts option. Here’s example output from ls and eza in this regard.
Other useful additions include Git repo status output and human readable relative dates. eza uses natord to sort its file alphabetically.
Summary
eza build upon the awesome exa. It receives our strong recommendation. There’s lots of bug fixing underway.
At the time of writing, eza has gathered 3.2k GitHub stars.
We’ve replaced exa with eza in our Excellent Utilities series.
Website: eza.rocks
Support: GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Christina Sørensen and contributors
License: MIT License
eza is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction and Installation
Page 2 – In Operation and Summary
Complete list of articles in this series:
| Excellent Utilities | |
|---|---|
| AES Crypt | Encrypt files using the Advanced Encryption Standard |
| Ananicy | Shell daemon created to manage processes’ IO and CPU priorities |
| broot | Next gen tree explorer and customizable launcher |
| Cerebro | Fast application launcher |
| cheat.sh | Community driven unified cheat sheet |
| CopyQ | Advanced clipboard manager |
| croc | Securely transfer files and folders from the command-line |
| Deskreen | Live streaming your desktop to a web browser |
| duf | Disk usage utility with more polished presentation than the classic df |
| eza | A turbo-charged alternative to the venerable ls command |
| Extension Manager | Browse, install and manage GNOME Shell Extensions |
| fd | Wonderful alternative to the venerable find |
| fkill | Kill processes quick and easy |
| fontpreview | Quickly search and preview fonts |
| horcrux | File splitter with encryption and redundancy |
| Kooha | Simple screen recorder |
| KOReader | Document viewer for a wide variety of file formats |
| Imagine | A simple yet effective image optimization tool |
| LanguageTool | Style and grammar checker for 30+ languages |
| Liquid Prompt | Adaptive prompt for Bash & Zsh |
| lnav | Advanced log file viewer for the small-scale; great for troubleshooting |
| lsd | Like exa, lsd is a turbo-charged alternative to ls |
| Mark Text | Simple and elegant Markdown editor |
| McFly | Navigate through your bash shell history |
| mdless | Formatted and highlighted view of Markdown files |
| noti | Monitors a command or process and triggers a notification |
| Nushell | Flexible cross-platform shell with a modern feel |
| nvitop | GPU process management for NVIDIA graphics cards |
| OCRmyPDF | Add OCR text layer to scanned PDFs |
| Oh My Zsh | Framework to manage your Zsh configuration |
| Paperwork | Designed to simplify the management of your paperwork |
| pastel | Generate, analyze, convert and manipulate colors |
| PDF Mix Tool | Perform common editing operations on PDF files |
| peco | Simple interactive filtering tool that's remarkably useful |
| ripgrep | Recursively search directories for a regex pattern |
| Rnote | Sketch and take handwritten notes |
| scrcpy | Display and control Android devices |
| Sticky | Simulates the traditional “sticky note” style stationery on your desktop |
| tldr | Simplified and community-driven man pages |
| tmux | A terminal multiplexer that offers a massive boost to your workflow |
| Tusk | An unofficial Evernote client with bags of potential |
| Ulauncher | Sublime application launcher |
| Watson | Track the time spent on projects |
| Whoogle Search | Self-hosted and privacy-focused metasearch engine |
| Zellij | Terminal workspace with batteries included |
Please – edit/update the link:
> One of the tools we routinely install on a fresh Linux system is exa.
The link is correct and doesn’t need editing/updating. It’s deliberately a link to my review of exa.
exa is abandoned?
exa’s GitHub says the developer is unreachable. It may be the developer has abandoned exa, There is always the possibility he has just taken a complete break and may restart his project. it may be he is not even alive. Who knows.
Given the popularity of exa, there is always the chance that there will be other useful forks of exa besides eza.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of Rust.