text mode applications

jellywerker · 2007-08-25 09:47:32

I have a fascination for text mode applications. I certainly can't use them any faster than a gui application like many people can, seeing as I can barely touch type, but their simplicity, low memory use and ensuing elegance appeals to me. So my question is how I can build an arch system from the ground up with only the applications I need and use (I don't want vi installed by default as I can't use it, along with dial-up internet services, etc...). My second question would be what text mode programs are out there for various applications, like music, etc...? I was looking at some of the following for the beginnings of the archlinux install on my next computer.

gift+giftcurs for *acquiring* music
cmus to play that music, as I have too many issues with mpc and ncmpc, although I like that combo
nano (easy, woo!)
screen
irssi and finch (or maybe just naim?)
midnight commander

As for gui apps, I'd like to keep it down to opera alone. On my new pc I won't be using linux for anything besides music, movies, typing, and internet/email (I have online email). I will have a *gasp* windows xp pro installation on part of my hard drive for games and artwork.

I'd like to get a few command line games (nethack and tetris come to mind) also, so any recommendations for those would be nice too.

azerty · 2007-08-25 10:36:50

Hey dude you made the right choice
Shell/text-only apps are really much more productive and your workflow tends to be faster.

I would consider you starting by just installing the base-system, after that my personal choice would be:

Vi/Nano - Editor, Nano for some small config files and Vi for serious stuff like programming
Xorg & dwm - X & a small but powerful WM
Screen & Xterm - Both are really useful
mpd & mpc/ncmpc - Music
VLC - Movies, Videos etc.. (For movies there isn't any good text-only app, imho)
qiv & GIMP - Image viewer & the must-have GIMP if you want to work on images and grafics
Irssi - IRC
cdrkit - Burn CDs, DVDs, ISOs, etc..
GPG - Encryption
Midnight Commander - File Management
Opera/Firefox - Browser

If you need a text browser, w3m is pretty good.

Finally this config would lead to 3 GUI apps, it's pretty lightweight imo.

Gilneas · 2007-08-25 11:07:33

If you're only using MSN I can really recommend gtmess. Compared to the others I have used, pebrot, centericq and naim, this one is imo a lot better. (I never tried finch though)

Dwm is nice, but it's tiling. If you use screen like I do - I start my term with:
aterm --geometry 160x73 -e bash -c "screen -D -RR"
so there's only ever one open - tiling will get in your way. Browse around http://xwinman.org/others.php and check out the wms with evil/light in their name/description.

aythun · 2007-08-25 11:13:35

If you can't use vi, I'd recommend running `vitutor`. You'll quickly feel limited by nano if you're using it for anything extensive, so learning vi is definitely worth it if you're restricting yourself to text-only applications (actually, it's worth it even if you aren't).

shining · 2007-08-25 12:40:11

azerty wrote:

Vi/Nano - Editor, Nano for some small config files and Vi for serious stuff like programming
Xorg & dwm - X & a small but powerful WM
mpd & mpc/ncmpc - Music
Irssi - IRC
cdrkit - Burn CDs, DVDs, ISOs, etc..
If you need a text browser, w3m is pretty good.

Good suggestions

Screen & Xterm - Both are really useful

I prefer urxvt as a terminal, it also have some neat features :

URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,matcher
URxvt.urlLauncher: firefox

VLC - Movies, Videos etc.. (For movies there isn't any good text-only app, imho)

For movies/videos, the best player in my opinion is actually a text only app : mplayer
Though, vlc is decent as well.

qiv & GIMP - Image viewer & the must-have GIMP if you want to work on images and grafics

You can also try feh which doesn't depend on gtk.
I wasn't perfectly happy the few times I tried feh, but I don't use image viewer much
so I didn't look deeply in its options / settings.

Opera/Firefox - Browser

firefox + vimperator is pretty cool
I also recommend setting browser.link.open_newwindow to 0 .
That will open popups in a new tab instead of a new window, for playing more nicely with tiling wm.

Bebo · 2007-08-25 13:16:48

IMO, moc is the perfect terminal music player.

upsidaisium · 2007-08-25 14:26:16

rtorrent
feh (a decent image viewer)
elinks (or links2 for when you need graphical mode)

if you like gnu screen, then ratpoison would probably be a good choice of window manager. dwm, wmii, ion, etc. are all nifty too. my preference would be dwm, if that makes any difference..

Last edited by upsidaisium (2007-08-25 14:26:54)

jellywerker · 2007-08-26 02:37:23

Which of those tiling window managers would you say would be the easiest to learn the shortcuts? I saw the topic about xmonad, and that looks interesting, as does dwm, although dwm says it is for elitists, and while I consider myself a pretty advanced user, I am not a coder and normally have to rely out trial and error and google for troubleshooting, so I am not sure it is for me.

As for learning to use vi, it's always been on my todo list, but I have never gotten around to it so I normally use nano. I understand what you mean about serious typing though.

Screen is also on the to-learn list, I've played with it a bit but haven't really gotten into using it daily. I certainly want to though.

So it looks like I am leaning towards:

dwm+xorg (or maybe just xorg and a terminal, should be all I need with screen)
screen
urxvt
mplayer (no gmplayer)
finch
rtorrent
gift+giftcurs
irssi
qiv (personally a fan of this one, although feh is good too)
opera
cmus (still a little divided on music player, but I have been using this one more lately and liking it)

I don't need a text browser, hardly any pages bother making themselves readable with a text browser anyways. No need for a cdburning app either, as I'll have a data partition with my music stored there and if I want a music cd I can burn it with a120% which I'll be getting for my windows partition. Also, getting gimp on the windows partition, works better with my wacom over there.

So that seems like most all of the tools I will need, save for a few games and things I cannot remember I use.

upsidaisium · 2007-08-26 15:10:20

if you already know some of the shortcuts for screen, then ratpoison would come pretty naturally. it's the same idea, except key shortcuts are prefixed with (i think) control+c rather than control+a.

dwm isn't really all that difficult either though. you'll probably only need to alter the header file (config.h), so you're not really writing much c code -- it's just changing the values of variables and array items to configure dwm to yer liking. you might as well just download it and have a look for yourself. what's the worst that can happen?

ProzacR · 2007-08-26 15:57:20

Text mode app for pdf reading?

eyolf · 2007-08-26 16:00:15

ProzacR wrote:

Text mode app for pdf reading?

pdftotext. Perhaps also in conjunction with (e)links/lynx, or just dump the output to less or sth.
Great in combination with mutt too

ProzacR · 2007-08-26 16:05:39

And if i want to see pdf with normal images?
I want something like xpdf, but xpdf needs x.

azerty · 2007-08-26 16:58:45

jellywerker wrote:

Which of those tiling window managers would you say would be the easiest to learn the shortcuts? I saw the topic about xmonad, and that looks interesting, as does dwm, although dwm says it is for elitists, and while I consider myself a pretty advanced user, I am not a coder and normally have to rely out trial and error and google for troubleshooting, so I am not sure it is for me.

dwm is really easy to learn, to remember the shortcuts and understand it's config file it took me about one hour.
For the full transition from xfce4 to dwm (+ text-mode apps) I needed 3-4 days.

Reading 'man dwm' will help you. Additionally reading the mailing list at suckless.org can be somewhat useful and interesting.

Edit: Yeah, we even got a new dwm release today.

Last edited by azerty (2007-08-26 17:04:43)

burk · 2007-08-26 18:03:39

Don't worry about dwm being for elitists, being a text mode-lover is enough. Just a little bit of configuration and you have all the shortcuts you need.

As for other apps I would recommend:
- irssi (i have heard you can use bitlbee to connect to msn through any irc client but havent tested it)
- mpd, i like it and havent had any problems with it, but cmus is a good second choice
- rtorrent, nice and intuitive interface
- emacs, since you like nano you should learn emacs, nano is just a simplified version of it. Dont listen to all those people saying Vi, they dont know their own good
- text mode video: mplayer -vo aa vidfile.avi

kandrews · 2007-08-26 18:38:16

I really like gtypist for learning and practicing touch typing skills. It is in the repositories. In spite of its name, it is a text-only app.

jellywerker · 2007-08-27 00:38:07

Ok, so I've jumped into dwm, but for the life of me I can't do anything, I am posting this from openbox because I cannot figure out what modkey (mod1) is : /

dolby · 2007-08-27 01:29:35

shining wrote:

firefox + vimperator is pretty cool
I also recommend setting browser.link.open_newwindow to 0 .
That will open popups in a new tab instead of a new window, for playing more nicely with tiling wm.

after trying out that firefox setting for a while.. it doesnt only open links in a new but instead in the next tab. im pretty sure there is a better workaround somewhere in the config.

edit: @jellywerker: used mod4mask which is the flying windows key

Last edited by dolby (2007-08-27 01:30:58)

upsidaisium · 2007-08-27 02:40:05

jellywerker wrote:

Ok, so I've jumped into dwm, but for the life of me I can't do anything, I am posting this from openbox because I cannot figure out what modkey (mod1) is : /

in most cases, mod1 is the alt key.

F · 2007-08-27 03:12:12

I just discovered this in another thread.

A vi file manager. Yep, you read correctly. Check out more here: http://vifm.sourceforge.net/

jellywerker · 2007-08-27 06:00:03

That looks awesome, and since cmus uses vi-similar keybindings, it would behoove me to learn vi faster. Atm I can now insert text into a document =P

shining · 2007-08-27 10:40:27

dolby wrote:

after trying out that firefox setting for a while.. it doesnt only open links in a new but instead in the next tab. im pretty sure there is a better workaround somewhere in the config.

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, is that sentence right ?

dolby · 2007-08-27 20:19:47

shining wrote:

dolby wrote:
after trying out that firefox setting for a while.. it doesnt only open links in a new but instead in the next tab. im pretty sure there is a better workaround somewhere in the config.
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, is that sentence right ?

afaik yes

i mean it will open the link in a new tab, but if from the right of the tab u are currently in & opening the link from there are other tabs as well it will open it to the next one on the right no matter what that tab has. it wont create a new tab of its own at the end of the tab queue. hope that explains it better. at least that happens here. try it on CVS or AUR

F · 2007-08-28 03:38:35

I think we've pretty much exhausted the "essentials" list for client applications. See how simple life is when you comandeer your terminal?

Also, I am a fan of wmii but lately its been pissing me off and development has been a little slow. I remember trying ratpoison ages ago and loving it, haven't tried any other tiling WM's. Is there anything anyone else not just knows about but actually recommends?

jellywerker · 2007-08-28 05:04:34

Apparently dwm has some support among arch users, I'm messing with it at the moment, considering ratpoison though too.

And I came to the same conclusion, after music, web, dl's, and text, you are pretty much set. Since it's so storage minimal, I'll probably end up making only a 3gb partition or so for linux, a 5 for xp pro, and the rest data/apps.

dr_te_z · 2007-08-28 05:35:14

Got any java.swing apps? Port them: http://www.pitman.co.za/projects/charva/index.html

Arch Linux

#1 2007-08-25 09:47:32

text mode applications

#2 2007-08-25 10:36:50

Re: text mode applications

#3 2007-08-25 11:07:33

Re: text mode applications

#4 2007-08-25 11:13:35

Re: text mode applications

#5 2007-08-25 12:40:11

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#6 2007-08-25 13:16:48

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#7 2007-08-25 14:26:16

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#8 2007-08-26 02:37:23

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#9 2007-08-26 15:10:20

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#10 2007-08-26 15:57:20

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#12 2007-08-26 16:05:39

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