How does one find out the command line corresponding to GUI app (eg, LibreOffice Writer)?
Run libreoffice --writer
to start LibreOffice Writer.
In this case, I guessed that it might be libreoffice
or similar, so I entered libre
in a terminal and pressed tab twice. libreoffice
was one of the options, so I ran that. It started something from which one could choose to go to Writer, Calc, Impress, etc. Since you asked specifically about Writer, I looked at man libreoffice
, which mentions -writer
as one of the command line options. Running libreoffice -writer
worked but resulted in
$ libreoffice -writer
Warning: -writer is deprecated. Use --writer instead.
And so I got to libreoffice --writer
.
In general, one could try things like the following:
- Guess and try names, based on the name of the application. Use Tab-completion for help. Read man pages for options.
- Run the program (using a GUI menu or however else you run it), guess the process name, and check using
ps aux | grep guessed_name
. - If you know that the program belongs to installed package
X
, rundpkg -L X
. It will list installed files from packageX
, look for/usr/bin
,/bin
,/sbin
, etc in the output. One can find out the process corresponding to a window as follows :
Run
xprop _NET_WM_PID
, navigate to the target window (without clicking!), and click on it. This will print the PID corresponding to the window, for example_NET_WM_PID(CARDINAL) = 7394
Now run
ps -p 7394
(with 7394 replaced by the PID you got) to find out the process name for the given PID.
To find a command, try using command auto-complete:
type 'libre', then press ['Tab'], giving you:
libreoffice
then add ' --help', finally giving you:
libreoffice --help
This will give you ALL the possible options you might need ..
(snip)
LibreOffice 3.4 340m1(Build:402)
Usage: soffice [options] [documents...]
Options:
--minimized keep startup bitmap minimized.
--invisible no startup screen, no default document and no UI.
--norestore suppress restart/restore after fatal errors.
--quickstart starts the quickstart service
--nologo don't show startup screen.
:
--writer create new text document.
--calc create new spreadsheet document.
--draw create new drawing.
--impress create new presentation.
--base create new database.
:
One very easy way which does not involve any guessing at all:
- Run
alacarte
(that's 'Main Menu' in the Gnome menu). - Follow these steps to find out an application's command name:
- Select the application.
- Click
Properties
. - Find the command name for the application in the field
Command
, in this example it isfile-roller
.