undistract-me

So, let’s be real for a minute. How many times have you found yourself lost in the endless scroll of YouTube cat videos or peeking at random Facebook profiles while waiting for your Terminal command to finish? If you’re nodding your head, don’t worry—you’re not alone! Waiting around can be super boring, especially when you have no idea if the command will wrap up in a few seconds or take forever.

What is undistract-me?

Luckily, there’s this neat little tool called undistract-me. Now, don’t get too excited—it won’t solve all your problems, but it sure makes life a bit easier when you’re stuck at the Terminal.

A Handy Tool for Linux Users

This tiny open-source app works on Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux systems. Its job? It lets you know when long-running commands are done. You might wonder what counts as “long-running.” Well, if it takes more than ten seconds, then that’s your answer!

Customize Your Notifications

You can actually tweak the settings of undistract-me. The default time is ten seconds, but feel free to change the LONG_RUNNING_COMMAND_TIMEOUT to whatever suits you best. Plus, if there are certain commands you don’t want notifications for, just throw them into the LONG_RUNNING_IGNORE_LIST.

Add Sound Alerts!

The app starts with just visual alerts. But if you want a sound too—why not? Just set the variable UDM_PLAY_SOUND to a non-zero value on your command line. Just keep in mind that you'll need pulseaudio-utils and sound-theme-freedesktop installed on your machine.

A Simple Solution That Works

undistract-me is proof that sometimes simple tools can make a big difference. For anyone who spends time in the Terminal (and we know that's a lot of folks!), this little utility is sure to help by letting you know when those long commands finally finish up.

If you're ready to level up your Terminal experience with undistract-me, check it out now!