Run a command and show its I/O progress with pv(1).
pvrun COMMAND [ARGUMENTS...]
Run COMMAND ARGUMENTS and show its I/O progress with pv(1). pv can follow file descriptors of a command and display progress bars.
The simple command
cp bigfile.tar /destination
copies a file, but it displays no progress information about the data
processed so far, its speed or ETA. Instead, we can simply wrap it with pvrun
pvrun cp bigfile.tar /destination
which runs the regular cp command, but also displays progress bars.
pvrun can do the same with other commands:
pvrun tar cfz destination.tar.gz /dir/full/of/files
The pv command must be installed,
as it does the heavy lifting of tracking file descriptors, showing progress bars, etc.
This is free software, distributed under the WTFPL 2.0.