Some useful bash scripts

Here are some little bash scripts I coded along the way.

You can install all of them or just some individually. Be sure to check the script description in this README for additional instructions. (This could be critical. Please, read them.)

Generally, all of these scripts can be copied into your user's binary folder:

$ cp script_name ~/.local/bin/
$ chmod +x ~/.local/bin/script_name

You can check whether your shell looks for binaries in this path by running:

$ echo $PATH | grep ~/.local/bin

If there's text, you're good to go. If not, edit your shell's init file and add the following line:

export PATH=~/.local/bin:$PATH

Table of contents

• battery-warn
• hotspot
• update-cargo-clif
• mount-nextcloud
• check-system-update

battery-warn

Periodically query the battery level and play a sound if the level is low.

This script does not provide a help text!

I originally coded this because my display driver broke and I only had the console. Unfortunately the console doesn't come with any way to notify me when my battery is dying.

You can run battery-warn in the background:

$ battery-warn &

It would be useful to add this line to your shell's init file if you need it regularly.

To check the battery level yourself run this:

$ battery-warn check

hotspot

Quickly start a wifi hotspot using NetworkManager.

This script does not provide a help text!

Starting/stopping the simple hotspot is as easy as:

$ hotspot

This will also show the SSID, password, and a QR-code.

In order to reduce power consumption it will also disable Wifi when disabling the hotspot. This behavior can be changed inside of the script (turn_off_wifi=0). Or you can only turn the hotspot off manually:

$ hotspot off

If you want to be sneaky, you can start a hidden hotspot with a different randomly generated password each time:

$ hotspot random

To show the SSID, password, and QR-code again without changing the hotspot:

$ hotspot show

update-cargo-clif

Download and install the latest build artifact for rustc_codegen_cranelift.

This script does not provide a help text!

This script also needs jq to be installed.

Before using this script be sure to replace the $username and $access_token variables with your own GitHub username and an access token with scope workflow. (This will also enable the scope repo.)

After the initial setup, run without arguments to download the latest GitHub Action build artifact for linux and install to /opt/cargo-clif:

$ update-cargo-clif

It will symlink the new cargo command to /usr/local/bin/cargo-clif (i.e. use with cargo-clif when building your projects).

The script uses sudo internally, so there is no need to run sudo update-cargo-clif.

mount-nextcloud

Mount your Nextcloud account automatically using gio and pinentry.

This script does not provide a help text!

Before using this script be sure to replace the $server and $user variables with your Nextcloud server and account.

If you are not using GNOME, replace pinentry-gnome3 with the correct pinentry binary for your desktop environment.

You could run mount-nextcloud manually (e.g. without a graphical UI in the console):

$ mount-nextcloud

But I recommend installing the autostart file. Assuming you are in the directory where you downloaded this repo:

$ cp mount-nextcloud.desktop ~/.config/autostart/

check-system-update

Update AUR and Flatpak packages directly and install Arch Linux packages from the repos at next boot.

This script does not provide a help text!

This script only works on distributions based on Arch Linux. You will also need to install systemd-system-update-pacman from the AUR (e.g. with yay):

$ yay -S systemd-system-update-pacman

Because the script downloads the packages into a special cache directory, you have to patch the updater script from that package. Assuming you are in the directory where you downloaded this repo:

$ sudo patch /usr/lib/systemd-system-update-pacman/perform-system-update{,.patch}

To check for any updates - be it from the AUR, Flatpak, or the repos - run:

$ check-system-update

This will update AUR packages and Flatpaks directly (i.e. now), and repo packages later at the next time you boot up you system, so you can go on with your work like nothing happened. If you have any critical system packages (e.g. drivers, kernels, etc.) installed from the AUR, installing them now could be a problem though. In order to check which packages come from non-repo sources, run:

$ pacman -Qm

The script uses sudo internally, so there is no need to run sudo check-system-update.

Contribution

Issues and Pull Requests are welcome. Please describe your problems or feature requests as detailed as possible.