How to Install and Use Exa – A Colorful ls Replacement on Linux

Overview

Exa is a modern, color‑enhanced replacement for the traditional ls command. It can display file types, permissions, ownership, block and inode information, and many other attributes.

Installation – Binary Package

1. Install the Rust toolchain (required for the pre‑built binaries): # curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh 2. Download the latest release archive (example uses v0.9.0):

# wget -c https://github.com/ogham/exa/releases/download/v0.9.0/exa-linux-x86_64-0.9.0.zip

3. Install unzip if it is not already present:

# RHEL/CentOS/Fedora: yum -y install unzip
# Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install unzip

4. Extract the archive and move the executable into a directory that is in $PATH (e.g., /usr/local/bin) and rename it to exa:

# unzip exa-linux-x86_64-0.9.0.zip
# mv exa-linux-x86_64 /usr/local/bin/exa

Installation – Build from Source

1. Install build dependencies (example for RHEL/CentOS/Fedora): # sudo yum install libgit2 cmake 2. Install Rust as in the binary method.

3. Clone the source archive and compile:

# curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
# git clone https://github.com/ogham/exa/archive/v0.9.0.tar.gz
# cd exa
# make install

Basic Usage

List a directory: # exa /etc/ Show a detailed, colored list: # exa -l /var/log/ Display a tree view with attributes:

# exa -a -l --tree /var/log/

Common Flags

-a

– include hidden files -l – long format with permissions, owners, timestamps -b – show block size -g – show group information -h – human‑readable sizes -i – display inode numbers -S – sort by size --tree – render directory hierarchy as a tree

For a complete list of options, run exa --help.

Further Information

Source code, releases, and additional documentation are available at:

https://github.com/ogham/exa