3.7 KiB
Frequently Asked Questions
The Project Does Not Compile:
Do you have Rust version >=1.39 installed?
If that's not the case, there should also be warning at the very top of your cargo build output.
If you have Rust version >=1.39, please file a bug report.
A Command Doesn't Behave Like Expected
First thing to do: Try to run the command without adding it to Pueue. If this fails, it's not a problem with Pueue.
Second thing to do when debugging any problems with running/failing processes, is to look at the process output:
This can be done via pueue log $task_id for finished processes or pueue show $task_id for running processes.
You can also get a live view of the output with pueue follow $task_id. Add the -e flag, if you want to see the error output.
The Command Formatting Seems To Be Broken:
Pueue takes your input and uses it exactly as is to create a new bash -c $command in the background.
If your command contains spaces or characters that need escaping, you might need to encapsulate it into a string:
pueue add -- ls -al "/tmp/this\ is\ a\ test\ directory"
Without quotes, the character escaping won't be transferred to the bash -c $command, as it's already removed by calling it from the current shell.
Display not found | Unable to Initialize frontend
All programs that require some kinde of display/window manager won't work, as the tasks are executed in the background.
Don't use Pueue for commands that won't work in a non-visual environment.
A Process Waits For Input:
Sometimes some process waits for input. For instance, a package manager may wait for confirmation (y/n).
In this case you can send the desired input to the process via:
pueue send "y
"
This can be also be avoided by issuing the command with something like a -y flag (if the program allows something like this).
My Shell Aliases Don't Work:
Pueue doesn't support aliases in shell's .*rc files, since that's pretty tricky.
That's why Pueue brings it's own aliasing.
Check the Readme on how to use it.
What's The Advantage Over Using A Terminal Multiplexer
- The ability to queue commands and not start them all at once
- You can specify how many parallel tasks you want
- Easy pausing/resuming of tasks
- A very pretty printed table with a good overview
- You don't need to attach to a multiple tmux sessions, just check your tasks' status via pueue.
Additionally the long term plan is:
- to allow remote connection to servers. No need to ssh onto a server, you can manipulate and check the status directly on your local machine.
A lot of its functionality is convenience. Using your shell's tools is possible, but IMO, having something that's specifically designed for this task is more efficient and definitely more convenient.
For example, one of my very regular use cases is Movie encoding. In this case I want:
- at most two parallel encodes (otherwise performance degrades).
- them to be processed one after another
- to see at first glance, whether a command fails
- an easy way to look at output
- everything to be in a uniform interface
- it to look pretty and clear
- being able to pause/resume everything in case I need to run something with full power on my server right NOW
- I probably forgot a few things
I used tmux for this stuff all the time before writing Pueue. However, after using it for a really long time, it just kept feeling annoying and inconvenient. Up to the point I couldn't bare it any longer and decided to write something that's better suited for such scenarios.
Additionally, I already used Pueue as a TaskManager in combination with some other tools (It has a simple JSON API via TCP). Those tools need to be adjusted for the Rust rewrite, but back then it worked like a charm.