DOWNLOAD FILES FROM THE SHELL

How about downloading files from various online resources? The

wget tool is your friend, capable of pulling content from HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP servers, like so: $ wget “http://url.com/file.zip”

Add the -O flag if you would like to save to a different directory

( wget -O /home/username/Desktop/ http://url.com/file.tar ). As the file

downloads, wget provides you with a progress bar, but if you’re downloading a particularly large file, press Ctrl-C to cancel the current download, then use the -b flag to download in the background: $ wget -b -O / home/username/ Downloads/ http://url.com/ download.iso

Type ls -l -block-size=M and hit Enter periodically to see how far the download has got by reviewing its file size.

A better tool for accessing

FTP servers is the interactive ftp tool: type ftp and press Enter to get started. The cursor changes to “ftp>” so type the following to connect to a remote server:

ftp> open ftp.example.com

You’re prompted to enter a username and password if required, and then you’re in. Use the same tools you use to navigate your filesystem: cd for changing directories, ls to list directory contents, and so on.

Type get filename to download a file to the directory you were in when you invoked ftp , or put

filename to upload it from the same directory.

Need to grab a file using BitTorrent? Start by installing rTorrent ( sudo apt install rtorrent ).

Next, type rtorrent , and then press Enter twice to reveal the “load.normal>” line. Simply type or paste your torrent URL here and press Enter to load it. Now use the cursor keys to select the torrent file from the list, and press Ctrl-S to start the download. You can stop the download at any time using Ctrl-D, or quit rTorrent completely using Ctrl-Q.