BACCYFLAP.COM

surfraw elvi

surfraw (Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Rage Against the Web) is the name of a piece of software that enables users to search and browse the web from the commandline. It has thoroughly streamlined the way I use the Internet; if you're not familiar with it, you can look it up.

I'm always trying to think of creative ways of using surfraw, and as there is no repository for user-generated elvi (singular elvis), I've put mine on this page.



You can download them, make sure they can be executed by anyone (-rwxr-xr-x usually), move them into /usr/lib/surfraw and you'll be all set. If you're having trouble getting a new elvis to work, delete the nonfunctional elvis from /usr/lib/surfraw before trying again. The easiest way to circumvent problems is to copy a functioning elvis, rename it to what you like, clear its contents, and then paste in the text for the new elvis. This way you won't have to fiddle around with permissions.

While surfraw is a time-saver out of the box, there's room for improvement. I don't want to type "wikipedia" or "duckduckgo" every time I search those websites, and if you don't either I recommend changing the names of your oft-used elvis, like so:

# mv /usr/lib/surfraw/wikipedia /usr/lib/surfraw/w
I've renamed duckduckgo to d, youtube to yt, google to g, et cetera.