Hello everyone! I know that Linux GUI advanced in last few years but we still lack some good system configuration tools for advanced users or sysadmins. What utilities you miss on Linux? And is there any normal third party alternatives?

  • esa
    link
    fedilink
    3
    edit-2
    24 hours ago

    The part is constructed from two parts:

    1. ls: list
    2. usb: usb

    It lists usb devices that your machine (/kernel) knows has been connected; they may not necessarily be usable.

    E.g. I have some sound output device connected via USB to one machine. On most of my machines I’ve switched from pulseaudio to pipewire¹, and I figured I’d bring that machine closer to the others so there’s less variance. Unfortunately the sound output device didn’t want to work with pipewire. The problem manifested as no sound and pipewire not listing the device. lsusb helped me know that the machine at the very least recognized the device, but wasn’t currently able to use it. (It did actually also show up as an error in dmesg -H, but reinstating pulseaudio let the device work again as normally. So now I just have to live with a situation where some machines use pipewire because bluetooth and others use pulseaudio because … usb?¹)

    ¹ There’s a memory of ALSA vs OSS I didn’t want to be reminded of

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      110 hours ago

      Ah thanks, I wonder if GUI tools for this is useful. Especially if it is for system diagnostics.