I'll probably soon regret this list. Please read my signature as
disclaimer.
ack (in /opt)
playing with B sometimes is nice and it has a back-end for 8080 and
Z80 (CP/M) too which sometimes for me is nice to have.
bash-completion
it's ok to be a little lazy.
bc (gavin howard version, includes dc in /opt)
having a dc variant with long register names makes playing the dc
puzzle even nicer.
bitlbee
I want to read my jabber stuff in the same front-end as my IRC chats.
dc
mostly just for fun (as puzzle).
dillo (in /opt until available as up to date package)
writing own dillo plugins is easy and that makes dillo a nice GUI
front-end to smallnet protocols.
doas/opendoas
I'm still in the progress to migrate from sudo to doas.
drawterm (in /opt)
for some top secret reasons.
ed
knowing at least its very basic commands can save your day.
elinks
for some of the smallnet protocols.
emacs
I'd give every other "editor" a chance that gives me elpher, eshell,
GNUS, org-babel and tramp (mastodon.el occasionally). really... ;-D
evolution
I too often get important HTrashMailL to be happy with only using
GNUS. additionally splitting "official" stuff from hobby mail & news
is not a too bad idea.
gambit (scheme, in /opt)
trying to stay up to date with its master branch. I feel like still
in scheme-preschool, but that may change someday.
git
we cannot live with it and we cannot live without it.
<https://xkcd.com/1597/>
mawk
I like "-We" and dislike GAWKisms.
mc
trying to fade out using it but muscle memory is strong.
micropython (in /opt)
to have the unix version at hand to play out some ideas without
needing to attach a micro-controller.
netcat & ncat
life savers for poking around in text based protocols.
nvi
to replace nano and vim-tiny (if in a default install), as I don't
want to get used to vim-isms.
openssh
I'm too used to its config files, so alternative implementations would
screw me up.
qemu
curiosity kills the cat but keeps me alive.
pcc (portable cc, in /opt)
for fun and curiosity.
rlwrap
debugging luxury, try e.g. 'rlwrap nc newsserver nntp' \o/
rsync
openrsync doesn't really replace it yet.
screen
I'd need way to many xterms without it and it can access serially
connected stuff directly. that's the only reason I prefer it over
tmux.
sudo
until I'm confident that I really only need (open)doas.
t(iny)cc (in /opt)
built from its mob branch, because the distributions typically only
include way too outdated versions.
tlsclient
as bonsai tree in /opt, see drawterm.
tor
looking for an alternative because I don't want to get dependent on
Rust (because of arti).
uxn (in /opt)
for fun and puzzling.
w3m
w3mman is my favourite man page front-end outside of emacs.
weechat
typically from the project's repo because they are too fast for
e.g. debian/devuan to keep up with their updates.
wget
...still is more in my muscle memory than curl.
xterm
looks like there is no alternative if I want SIXELs and occasionally
TEK mode.
...
something to scan, print, do the heavy WWW-stuff with all the mean
modern stuff inside, some devtools and compilers, ...
--
I do not bite, I just want to play.