Terminal-Only Challenge

scj · 2009-08-22 22:15:14

You won't actually become more leet by not having X installed in an environment where it's readily available.

tcoffeep · 2009-08-27 14:27:57

Actually, I'm not doing this to be "leet." I'm doing this as a challenge (for more on the definition of challenge, see here : http://www.answers.com/challenge ). Thank you all for your tips. Wish me luck

zowki · 2009-09-01 14:17:10

I once took the same challenge as you over the 2 months of summer vacation. I chickened out after 3 weeks...
Good luck on yours!

arkham · 2009-09-01 14:19:35

tcoffeep wrote:

Actually, I'm not doing this to be "leet." I'm doing this as a challenge (for more on the definition of challenge, see here : http://www.answers.com/challenge ). Thank you all for your tips. Wish me luck

LAMER ALERT

oli · 2009-09-04 07:40:07

tcoffeep wrote:

Hi, all! I'm currently trying to challenge myself by refusing to use any Desktop Environment, or graphical programs of any kind. This is sort of an endurance test, but I am way behind in the ways of terminal kung-fu. Any tips, program suggestions, and whatnot, for me to actually succeed without giving up?
Current programs to use :
Vim : Text Editing
Ruby : Coding
Finch : IM
Lynx/Links/W3M : Browsing ((( I'm not sure which one to use )))
Thanks.
BDKL

Elinks for example as browser. Mcabber e.g. for IM, newsbeuter as feedreader, mutt or alpine as mail client, cmus as audio player and so on.

newsbeuter: http://www.newsbeuter.org/
cmus: http://cmus.sourceforge.net/
mcabber: http://mcabber.com/
alpine: http://www.washington.edu/alpine/
mutt: http://www.mutt.org/
elinks: http://elinks.or.cz/

k.mandla · 2009-09-13 12:53:54

http://kmandla.wordpress.com/software/#Terminal

X-less is the way to go these days. Recoup all the resources a system has and lose none of the function.

zowki · 2009-09-13 13:15:57

k.mandla, have you yourself went sans X? I'm perfectly cool without X except for one thing, graphical web browsing.

tlvb · 2009-09-13 14:03:56

I'll have to agree with Hrod Beraht, it's not about X or no X it's about how you use it, I mean is running a full screen xterm started from .xinitrc instead of a wm less challenging than a nonX console? I think not, but you get .Xdefaults colors antialiased fonts and whatnot instead.
As a comparision I'd like to point out that I find uzbl with vim bindings more basic than links, even though links is console only and uzbl is not. What I mean is that while links is text only it is still offers a gui, and in essence do not offer any more challenge than any other basic browser. The difference is in what the gui looks like.
tl;dr version:
Running ed in a 180x50 graphical terminal is more "basic" than nano without X. (IMAO)

k.mandla · 2009-09-14 00:42:32

zowki wrote:

k.mandla, have you yourself went sans X? I'm perfectly cool without X except for one thing, graphical web browsing.

Yup. I use the framebuffer only on this machine, mostly because the siliconmotion driver went southward about six months ago, and I stopped caring whether or not it was actually fixed. I get more done without it, and more quickly.

On this machine I use an outdated version of X (7.3) and only terminal applications. I rely on X for this one because the machine predates the framebuffer support available in the 2.6+ kernels (I think). I also happen to like the older versions of X, before they started relying on HAL and dbus.

By the way, memory use floats around 13-15Mb, which would be okay except technically there is only 12Mb available, so some swapping occurs. If only a fully working 32Mb stick of PC66 would magically fall out of the sky onto me. ...

http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2009/09/08 … ords-10mb/
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2009/09/02 … -x-in-1mb/
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2009/08/28 … without-x/

d.j.yotta · 2014-03-19 10:00:28

I too am looking for a good terminal-only (sort of) solution.

I don't mind X - the point is not so much to take away the gui but rather to avoid using mouse.
I found Conkeror (that's a C not a K!) to be quite good although a little buggy (but that's XUL problems I believe - mozilla has the same issues).

Though I certainly have not been saving any time, I have been learning much much more about actual linux and just in general knowing where things are rather than mindlessly clicking through folders.

One thing I want to know is, what is the best distro to go with that is heavily terminal oriented - I've been thinking archlinux with no desktop (or minimal X), I guess I really want a distro where you can choose what to install to start with rather than installing (dare I say it) Kubuntu and then uninstalling all the stuff I'm never going to use and in the process leaving behind lots of junk...

Any ideas?

karol · 2014-03-19 10:29:36

d.j.yotta wrote:

Any ideas?

I think you should start a new thread and include a link to this one - it's very old and it's IMHO best to leave it like that and not necrobup necrobump.

I think Arch Linux is a great distribution to tinker with and there are many keyboard-driven UIs here.

Edit: typo.
Edit 2: You can still use your mouse in the tty https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … se_Support if you want.

Last edited by karol (2014-03-19 10:34:23)

2Karl · 2014-03-19 17:23:38

I use ncmpcpp for music. I'll echo what some others have said though, why not try knocking your own bash scripts together rather than just using terminal only apps?

HalosGhost · 2014-03-19 19:18:42

2Karl wrote:

I use ncmpcpp for music. I'll echo what some others have said though, why not try knocking your own bash scripts together rather than just using terminal only apps?

See

karol wrote:

I think you should start a new thread and include a link to this one - it's very old and it's IMHO best to leave it like that and not necrobump.

There are a lot of newer and better answers to this kind of dilemma, and because of that, a new thread is probably warranted.

All the best,

-HG

chaonaut · 2014-04-29 13:02:35

my first PC could run X no longer than a few minutes due to a broken/buggy hardware, so i lived in console about two years.
i was quite happy since it was framebuffer console (800x600), and i was able to do everything except for watching videos (but the hardware was too weak for acceptable video performance anyway).

as a result, the very first piece oft software i install on any system is midnight commander. absolutely can’t live without it
and some other tools i prefer to have in my system to make life comfortable, just to name a few:
mocp (with ffmpeg plugin; i often don't install any GUI audio player alongside with it)
wodim (writing optical media)
mutt (MUA)
elinks (web browser)
eyeD3 (id3 tags editing)
lame, flac, wavpack, etc (audio encoding / decoding)
fbv (image viewer)
fbcat (to take console screenshots)
conspy
mmv (for mass file renaming)
cfv (checksums calculating)
fdupes (file duplicates finder / cleaner)
finch (instant messaging)
gems (shows a console session in several terminals)

theGunslinger · 2014-04-30 14:34:31

If you're not into dual pane file managers give ranger a try.

Also learning a scripting language will make your life without X (and with it) endlessly easier. If you're not into it though i suggest kingbash or zsh with zprezto to make the most out of your shell.

cmus/mocp for music
hnb for task management/ to do list
catdoc for those pesky windows files
atool for archive extraction (works great with ranger automagically)
fasd for making the shell remember and making life much easier

the rest I believe has been covered in this thread. Good luck.

ANOKNUSA · 2014-05-02 12:44:06

Folks, read the posts above yours before mindlessly rattling off lists. This thread is years old now, any questions pertaining to the OP have long since been answered, and as it is it's got TGN/Dustbin written all over it. If you have specific questions, start threads about them.

If you insist on an answer in this thread, here it is: Any basic information you could want on this subject can be answered at Motho ke motho ka botho, Inconsolation, and One Thing Well, all blogs dedicated to this sort of thing.

ewaller · 2014-05-02 13:13:04

Indeed. I think we are done. Closing.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … Bumping.22

Arch Linux

#26 2009-08-22 22:15:14

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#27 2009-08-27 14:27:57

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#28 2009-09-01 14:17:10

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#29 2009-09-01 14:19:35

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#30 2009-09-04 07:40:07

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#31 2009-09-13 12:53:54

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#32 2009-09-13 13:15:57

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#33 2009-09-13 14:03:56

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#34 2009-09-14 00:42:32

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#35 2014-03-19 10:00:28

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#36 2014-03-19 10:29:36

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#37 2014-03-19 17:23:38

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#38 2014-03-19 19:18:42

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#39 2014-04-29 13:02:35

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#40 2014-04-30 14:34:31

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#41 2014-05-02 12:44:06

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

#42 2014-05-02 13:13:04

Re: Terminal-Only Challenge

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