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#1 2008-03-24 23:20:08

Jen Smith
Member
Registered: 2008-02-18
Posts: 16

Going to try something silly...

I'm getting seriously annoyed with window managers in general lately and their quirks, be it Linux based, or good old Winders.  I sat back and took a look at what I typically do on a day to day basis, and I thought to myself "I think its time to go on a timewarp."

Call it masochistic (or just stupid), as an experiment I'm going to try, for a month anyway, to run 100% console mode.  No Windows.  No Gnome/KDE.  No Firefox.  Good lord, no World of Warcraft.  I have a Wii and XBox upstairs when the craving for mindless gaming hits me.  I'm not going to rule out old DOS games via DosBox and the like though.

I was weaned as a kid on TRSDOS, wayyyy back with the Model 1, then moved onto MSDOS 2.1, and was a Microsoft drone all the way to the present day.   I'm not scared of a console; I used to live with it daily, and I got stuff done and I had fun.  (BBS's, text adventures, programming, later on DOS games when VGA came out with the jaw-dropping 256 color display)

I'll still have Gnome installed, I'm just disabling GDM and the like from starting up on boot.  In a pinch I'll fire it up, but going to really try to avoid doing that for the month.  Plus, if anything, this should be seriously educational, as I can't point and click my way thru things anymore.

My biggest problem is that I didn't grow up with Linux, it was DOS, and I really don't know a lot of what's out there for the console world.  So, I'm basically looking for suggestions on good console based applications.

I know for example about Lynx for browsing the web.  I'm mediocre with Nano.  (Grew up with the Wordstar keystrokes; trying to find something close to that)  But after that, I'm kinda stuck.

Looking for ideas/recommendations on apps, like an audio players and the like.  Are Linux console apps able to switch into a graphic mode?  IE, picture viewers, movie players, etc?  And I don't mean cheating by loading up a GTK app from the console.  Also looking for a console based journal/diary type software; I use one to track stuff I do for clients; I saw one a long time ago that was GTK or console based, but for the life of me can't find it again with Google.  Newsgroup and mail readers?  I just don't know what all's out there, and Google pretty much gives you current stuff of course for GTK or QT.

Thanks for any suggestions

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#2 2008-03-24 23:34:04

peets
Member
From: Montreal
Registered: 2007-01-11
Posts: 936
Website

Re: Going to try something silly...

I'll just throw keywords at you:

framebuffer
moc, cmus, mpd
mplayer
vim
screen

P.S. Good luck, have fun.

Last edited by peets (2008-03-24 23:34:29)

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#3 2008-03-24 23:37:32

lucke
Member
From: Poland
Registered: 2004-11-30
Posts: 4,018

Re: Going to try something silly...

There are already some topics with console software, I believe.

web browsing - links, lynx, w3m (links -g opens a graphic mode, don't know if links is built with that enabled in Arch)
pine, mutt - mail
moc, mpd+ncmpc - audio
mplayer - video

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#4 2008-03-24 23:45:44

Jen Smith
Member
Registered: 2008-02-18
Posts: 16

Re: Going to try something silly...

Thanks for the suggestions guys, appreciate it.

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#5 2008-03-24 23:47:50

bender02
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2007-02-04
Posts: 1,328

Re: Going to try something silly...

If you want wordstar keybindings in a text editor, try e3 from aur. It's veeery small, and by default it has wordstar bindings (which drive me crazy smile
Another one: fim (image viewer).

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#6 2008-03-24 23:51:56

finferflu
Forum Fellow
From: Manchester, UK
Registered: 2007-06-21
Posts: 1,899
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Re: Going to try something silly...

+ fbida to view images in the tty wink
+ Nethack all the way for gaming tongue
+ GNU screen is a must-have, it's like the "window manager" for the console, but unfortunately fbida doesn't work with it.
+ Amongst the text-only web browsers I really suggest you to try Elinks, it's really well done, it can compete with Firefox.
+ For newsgroup/mail I recommend Alpine.

P.S. peets, I knew I would have found your reply here tongue


Have you Syued today?
Free music for free people! | Earthlings

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- A. de Saint-Exupery

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#7 2008-03-25 00:55:51

rson451
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From: Annapolis, MD USA
Registered: 2007-04-15
Posts: 1,233
Website

Re: Going to try something silly...

may want to look at dvtm as well if you're into that sort of thing wink


archlinux - please read this and this — twice — then ask questions.
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http://rsontech.net | http://github.com/rson

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#8 2008-03-25 01:03:46

dyscoria
Member
Registered: 2008-01-10
Posts: 1,007

Re: Going to try something silly...

And if you want a fancy screensaver install 'cmatrix' and do 'cmatrix && exit' to secure it (that command _should_ do it I think. Don't actually have it installed to test it). Lovely matrix effects in your terminal big_smile it should work if you have framebuffer.

Last edited by dyscoria (2008-03-25 01:06:19)


flack 2.0.6: menu-driven BASH script to easily tag FLAC files (AUR)
knock-once 1.2: BASH script to easily create/send one-time sequences for knockd (forum/AUR)

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#9 2008-03-25 02:24:32

lilsirecho
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Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: Going to try something silly...

Feh.................


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
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#10 2008-03-25 04:43:59

MoonSwan
Member
From: Great White North
Registered: 2008-01-23
Posts: 881

Re: Going to try something silly...

I realise the point here is to avoid a mouse, however, even in ncurses-type apps (mc, midnight commander) a mouse is useful.  So I use gpm.  I would probably die if I couldn't use mc in a console, as its saved my ass from the fire many times with its lovely menus & trash-like behaviour when deleting things.

The other editor you may wish to use is pico which can be easily set to use wordstar bindings.  (Aside, pico was developed by a wordstar dev, iirc.)  I also very happy to use rsync, as my other method of dealing with files (moving, copying, backing up...etc).  I think axyftp is a client (haven't got it installed so look this one up), and if not try ncftp.

[edit] Coincidentally I found a podcast that may interest you and others from a website called Linux Reality.  Give it a listen if you want to hear a podcast all about command line use & applications for it.  http://www.linuxreality.com/podcast/epi … -line-fun/

Last edited by MoonSwan (2008-03-25 07:13:25)

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#11 2008-03-25 14:19:28

mrcold
Member
Registered: 2008-01-24
Posts: 150

Re: Going to try something silly...

as has been said.. GNU screen is where its at for surviving beyond the WM
Do a little searching and fix yourself a decent .screenrc and you are set.

good luck

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#12 2008-03-25 14:30:34

Jen Smith
Member
Registered: 2008-02-18
Posts: 16

Re: Going to try something silly...

Some great suggestions in here, thanks guys.

This little experiment has already proven very educational for me. I was working under the assumption that the real "power" of the OS is coming from whatever window manager I'm using, and the "Linux guts" is just providing a backend.  Think older Windows 95 sitting on top of DOS.  Horribly wrong of course. Starting to get a real appreciation for the power of this operating system. Realizing now that the window manager is just a convenience, not a requirement to be able to do anything like Windows. So far I've been able to do pretty much everything I used to do in a GUI, just not as pretty.

Going to be very educational, having a blast so far.  Yea I'm sure its old news for you guys, but cut an ex-MS drone some slack lol.

Thanks again

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#13 2008-03-25 15:55:50

mrcold
Member
Registered: 2008-01-24
Posts: 150

Re: Going to try something silly...

from my experience, the only thing that seriously lacks from the command line is web browsing.  SO.. if you decide to go back to a graphical environment.. you might try some sort of tiling WM (dwm, awesome, xmonad etc.).. basically it just gets out of your way so you can continue your life from the command line, but switch to another desktop briefly when you want to use firefox or whatever

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#14 2008-03-26 01:38:40

evol
Member
From: Ireland
Registered: 2007-06-27
Posts: 53
Website

Re: Going to try something silly...

I've been using just the console increasingly over the last while

There's just one place where my setup falls down:

There is no console based app analogous to nm-applet

I've come across two projects to make one, both of which appear to be dead sad

Anyway, Links is my browser of choice from the console, Transmission works via console, Screen is a must, IRSSI obviously, Pidgin has an Ncurses type interface which is a lil ugly - but it works, I use mplayer for playing/streaming audio..


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#15 2008-03-26 02:34:00

bender02
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2007-02-04
Posts: 1,328

Re: Going to try something silly...

evol wrote:

IRSSI obviously, Pidgin has an Ncurses type interface which is a lil ugly - but it works

You can do IM in irssi by using bitlbee.

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#16 2008-03-26 03:49:30

rson451
Member
From: Annapolis, MD USA
Registered: 2007-04-15
Posts: 1,233
Website

Re: Going to try something silly...

oh. my. god. why have i not found bitlbee until now???


archlinux - please read this and this — twice — then ask questions.
--
http://rsontech.net | http://github.com/rson

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#17 2008-03-26 05:15:33

jeebusroxors
Member
Registered: 2005-10-26
Posts: 58
Website

Re: Going to try something silly...

Damn - beat me to bitlbee big_smile

screen
links-g
gpm
irssi
screen
bitlbee
mutt
snownews - I think I used to use that for RSS

and last but not least - RSS

As far as text editing, learn vi...it's a pain in the beginning but once you get it down it's the best out there.


There's no place like 127.0.0.1

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#18 2008-03-26 11:39:00

Rumor
Member
From: Albany, NY
Registered: 2006-07-07
Posts: 638

Re: Going to try something silly...

K.Mandla asked pretty much this same question in the Ubuntu forums and got a number of replies. You might find some good suggestions paging through it.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=260946


Smarter than a speeding bullet
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#19 2008-03-26 17:39:17

freakcode
Member
From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2007-11-03
Posts: 410
Website

Re: Going to try something silly...

Call it masochistic (or just stupid), as an experiment I'm going to try, for a month anyway, to run 100% console mode.

You would be surprised by the amount of people that actualy use a computer this way.

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#20 2008-03-26 19:16:20

finferflu
Forum Fellow
From: Manchester, UK
Registered: 2007-06-21
Posts: 1,899
Website

Re: Going to try something silly...

I was almost there, but I gave up because my eyes were getting strained by the poor font rendering. I tried with both the TTY and terminal emulators (within Ratpoison), but that's just too painful for the eyes. That's how I came to the conclusion that we need a *graphics terminal*.

Until then, Gnome tongue


Have you Syued today?
Free music for free people! | Earthlings

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -- A. de Saint-Exupery

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#21 2008-03-26 20:48:08

Stefan Husmann
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2007-08-07
Posts: 1,391

Re: Going to try something silly...

Jen Smith wrote:

I know for example about Lynx for browsing the web.  I'm mediocre with Nano.  (Grew up with the Wordstar keystrokes; trying to find something close to that)  But after that, I'm kinda stuck.

I do not use it myself but I think joe uses wordstar keystrokes.

Last edited by Stefan Husmann (2008-03-26 22:57:03)

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#22 2008-03-26 21:57:03

usr
Member
Registered: 2006-07-26
Posts: 20

Re: Going to try something silly...

Another game: Hunt the Wumpus smile
(In the bsd-games package I think)
Good luck


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