I just found a couple cool programs called turbotail and multitail while searching for rbot using eix.
Turbotail is just like tail, but it uses dnotify instead of auto refreshing a defined number of seconds. I always thought it was kind of silly to keep refreshing the screen searching for new content with tail. Turbotail just sits there until the kernel notifies of a change in the file that you are tail’ing and then it updates what you see.
Multitail looks like a VERY robust way of viewing multiple files. It can tail any number of files and supports text filtering and even syntax highlighting.
Turbotail works great, but unfortunately multitail crashes when I try to run it from my Yakuake console. I get this:
--*- multitail 5.2.0 (C) 2003-2007 by folkert@vanheusden.com -*-- A problem occured at line 511 in function mynewwin (from file term.c): Failed to create window with dimensions 55x9 at offset -27,-4 (terminal size: 167,19)
Seems to work just fine from a regular console though. It will take me a while to actually learn all of the features of multitail.
3 Responses to "Turbotail and multitail"
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Matija "hook" Šuklje
June 24th, 2008 at 3:02 am
I’ve been using ‘inotail’ (also in Portage) so far, but do you know of any end-user difference between ‘inotail’ (uses inotify directly) and ‘turbotail’ (uses it through fam/gamin)?
Also, there is one problem with all *notify *tails I’ve seen so far — it doesn’t seem to work when you’re tailing from the /proc.
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John Alberts
June 24th, 2008 at 7:32 am
I didn’t know about inotail. Actually, I had never even thought about trying another tail program before I found turbotail.
I guess it makes sense that *notify tails don’t work with /proc files, since those aren’t actually files. It’s my understanding that i/dnotify monitors for filesystem changes.
I would expect that including /proc files in i/dnotify would probably generate a ton of notifications.
Thanks, I’ll have to give inotail a try.
John
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Matija "hook" Šuklje
June 24th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Well, if you find any notable difference between ‘turbotail’ and ‘inotail’, please let me know.
Cheers,
Matija
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