backporting tail from HEAD to RELENG_5

[Kevin Oberman]

> Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 21:19:05 +0100 (CET)
> From: Oliver Fromme <olli at lurza.secnetix.de>
> Sender: owner-freebsd-stable at freebsd.org
> 
> Xin LI <delphij at frontfree.net> wrote:
>  > On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 01:01:44PM -0600, Doug Poland wrote:
>  > > Cool, I currently get this functionality from misc/xtail.  xtail was on
>  > > my short list of "must-have" ports.
>  > 
>  > Would you please share the list with us?  I think it would be helpful
>  > if we know the needs :-)
> 
> I'm surprised that nobody else replied.  This is a list of
> small non-X11 ports that I install on most machines (even
> non-FreeBSD if applicable).  This list is certainly not
> complete, and everyone probably has his/her own favourite
> tools.
> 
>  - cpdup    (great to copy/sync directory trees)
>  - cvsup-without-gui   (cannot use FreeBSD without it)
>  - elinks   (nice text web browser, better than lynx)
>  - fping    (useful to ping multiple hosts/nets at once)
>  - joe      (my fav. editor, though I can cope with vi, too)
>  - logsurfer   (useful tool to watch your logs)
>  - lsof     (can't live without it)
>  - lynx-ssl   (sometimes useful)
>  - netcat   (well-known)
>  - nmap     (well-known)
>  - omi      (I use this one to mirror stuff via FTP)
>  - par      (I use this often for mail / news)
>  - screen   (can't live without it)
>  - strace   (better than ktrace and truss, IMO)
>  - super    (better than sudo, in my opinion)
>  - trafshow   (very nice tool to watch network activity)
>  - zsh      (my favourite shell, very powerful)
> 
> Of course, lots of people will probably have different
> opinions about some of those tools.  But that's one of
> the big advantages of FreeBSD and its ports collection:
> You have enough things to chose from, so go and try them
> to find the one which suits you best.  :-)

Excellent. I've used swatch for a long time, but I had missed
logsurfer. I'll see how it does.

One absolute requirement for me is most(1) which is more(1) than
less(1). It handles binary files and has a number of very nice
capabilities that less lacks, but wraps lines with a '\' at the wrap
point which I find very annoying. But I still prefer it and, even when I
try to type "more", my fingers insist on "most" at least once. Guess
it's because I've been using most(1) for at least 15 years and probably
closer to 20.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634