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#76 2009-10-05 20:22:27

astacha
Member
Registered: 2009-03-04
Posts: 27

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

ngoonee wrote:
Stalafin wrote:
eldalion wrote:

Same here. I even configured a guest account with a huge facebook icon which fires up firefox in private browsing mode. And a massive Emesene icon too because windows live messenger is way too popular over here in Europe.

Invaluable when having 20+ friends sleeping over for a couple of days and suddenly everybody needs to check something online.

You got an entire mansion or smth?!

Or really close friends...

Perhaps they're all tiny? I can't imagine allowing 20+ friends access to my computer, guest account or no.

A bit like in the second to last Dilbert episode when tehy mention the laydy who gave birth to 20 children each one the size of a pea-nut.

For me there is just something about using terminal apps I can't exactly put my finger on. Not just them being faster, light wieght, etc, but the feeling I get using them.

Althugh, I do use GUI based apps for some things, like firefox, GIMP, xine etc.

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#77 2009-10-13 13:05:17

k.mandla
Member
From: Japan
Registered: 2006-05-16
Posts: 86
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

I don't think I could add anything that hasn't been said already -- terminal applications for me, are faster and lighter than their graphical counterparts. I regularly rely on a 120Mhz Pentium for day-to-day tasks, so that is important.


Linux user No. 409907

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#78 2009-10-13 13:56:29

scv5
Member
Registered: 2008-10-19
Posts: 109

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

i only use terminal apps if they improve my navigation.   how well my navigation is improved by a cli app is usually directly proportional to my familiarity with the app.     I find the high learning curve usually has a high pay off.

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#79 2009-10-16 22:27:20

1LordAnubis
Member
Registered: 2008-10-10
Posts: 253
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

I started out with kde, and still like it, but the novelty has worn off... all the features and eye candy are really *cool* but no longer serve a purpose for me unless I want to be cool and show it off to someone. Don't get me wrong, there are great kde apps I use such as knotes/amarok from time to time/kontact, etc. But I now do this from the comfort of openbox, and use more and more cmdline. screen is a great app, irssi for irc, but I still can't get over the konversation irc client. its nice to use mpc for music as you can log in/out/restartx, and terminals/filemanagers both have their uses, its most efficient to find a balance between them. I tend to prefer ktorrent for most torrenting.
I also think a majority of the use of guiapps is due to lazyness/ignorance, but guiapps allow you to learn at your own pace, and with most people's background, they are just intuitive and allow you to jump right in and get something done.
Its hard to say just where my opinion ends, and where you *should* just pick up cli apps. There needs to be some kind of balance, and it seems more Archers seem to matriculate toward cli apps; they like learning how their system works at a lower level, and like to work on having a very efficient computing experience. Thats why I think they are drawn to Arch. As far as getting work done is concerned, other distros/guis will suffice, but Archers seem to be the ones that believe in reading the instruction manual first.


Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
-Benjamin Franklin
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-George Bernard Shaw

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#80 2009-10-19 16:51:52

purgatori
Member
Registered: 2009-10-07
Posts: 15

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

I love terminal apps and use them for just about everything save browsing (and even then, I use Elinks whenever I'm not looking at videos/pictures on the web). They take up less screen real estate (generally) which makes them suited to tiling, which improves workflow when working between several apps (say a browser, vim, R, and whatever else). Not only that but configuration is only a text file away in most cases, and said configuration files can be easily backed up and retrieved or even distributed to multiple machines. Not having to reach for the mouse is also a big deal, especially for a vim user like myself; many other CLI apps use vim key-bindings as well which decreases the amount of the time taken to learn/adjust to each app as I switch between them. Lastly, resource usage is an issue for me; I'm running an old IBM Netvista with 512MB of RAM, and while I *could* run more GUI apps than I do, its hard to beat the near-zero loading time that I get with most of the CLI apps I use.

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#81 2009-10-22 22:53:23

alexandrite
Member
Registered: 2009-03-27
Posts: 326

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

Lexion wrote:

I use term progs because they make me look cool in public [...]

This.  Like seriously.  With a few terms open on Awesome, people will not stop asking what I'm doing etc.  It's uncanny.

Also, a lot of tasks just seem cumbersome from a GUI.  I don't like having to click through a bunch of menus, and then move my mouse and click "OK," etc just to change a simple setting in Firefox.  It's so much less cumbersome just to type a value into a configuration file, and be done with it.  If I'm managing files, I don't see a reason to read all the entries in a directory, line-by-line, until I find the file I'm looking for.  On the command line, I just have to type the name of the file.  If I want to connect to a wifi network, I'd rather just type "netcfg x" than move my mouse to the corner of the screen, click the wicd icon, move my mouse to the top of the screen where the network is, then click that and so on.  That's not really a "fetish," it's just not liking to waste time.

For the most part, I only use GUI apps for web browsing and media because that's about the only place where they are needed.

kourosh wrote:

For me its simple, I'm 17, and thus 'work' rarely takes priority on my computer (though it kinda should). I'm your typical social networking, multimedia and entertainment kinda guy. I live in the digital age. And KDE 4.3 perfects this for me. And it looks good doing it. Looks matter to me . And no, text (sometimes non anti-aliased ) on a dark background IMO don't look good. It's boring and unattractive. I'll give you points for productivity, but I just don't do that enough to justify that extreme.

If it's fancy transparency effects and antialiased fonts and stuff you're looking for, then CLI can still do it for you.  My terminals look damn awesome tongue

Last edited by alexandrite (2009-10-22 22:54:25)

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#82 2009-10-23 08:16:17

kourosh
Member
From: England
Registered: 2009-03-10
Posts: 241
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

Inspired by this thread, I'm attempting to have a little tiling wm on the side, why do they have to take so much time to configure though :S

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#83 2009-10-23 10:14:16

Barrucadu
Member
From: York, England
Registered: 2008-03-30
Posts: 1,158
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

kourosh wrote:

Inspired by this thread, I'm attempting to have a little tiling wm on the side, why do they have to take so much time to configure though :S

Everything new takes time to configure - once you're used to them, it'll be easier, and faster. WHat WM did you go for?

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#84 2009-10-23 10:42:35

Lich
Member
Registered: 2009-09-13
Posts: 437

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

Ratpoison works out of the box, you configure only what you need tongue
`man ratpoison` should be enough for WM hopping purposes though.


Archlinux | ratpoison + evilwm | urxvtc | tmux

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#85 2009-10-24 02:53:49

deadlylife
Member
Registered: 2008-12-24
Posts: 120

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

They're thinking backwards. Arch users can't have bloat, if they do, it's a waste of minimalism, so they try to be as minimalistic as possible, with no GUI, just using their terminal apps. :

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#86 2009-11-01 19:40:36

levicc00123
Member
Registered: 2009-11-01
Posts: 7

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

If you were to look over my shoulder while I am working on my laptop, you'd notice two things;
first, I don't have Xorg installed, I find that for 99.999% of the tasks I do, it's pointless. Second, I spend most of my time switching between Emacs and elinks.

Here's my setup:

tty1 - Emacs
tty2 - Elinks
tty3 - mutt
tty4 - CenterIM
tty5 - cmus
tty6 - empty

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#87 2009-11-01 20:01:43

pacman
Member
Registered: 2009-10-30
Posts: 10

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

^^maybe you should look into GNU screen.

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#88 2009-11-01 20:05:57

levicc00123
Member
Registered: 2009-11-01
Posts: 7

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

pacman wrote:

^^maybe you should look into GNU screen.

I actually have screen installed.

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#89 2009-11-01 21:47:10

kourosh
Member
From: England
Registered: 2009-03-10
Posts: 241
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

Barrucadu wrote:
kourosh wrote:

Inspired by this thread, I'm attempting to have a little tiling wm on the side, why do they have to take so much time to configure though :S

Everything new takes time to configure - once you're used to them, it'll be easier, and faster. WHat WM did you go for?

I tried ratpoison, disliked it, tried Xmonad, disliked configuring that, didnt get round to trying StumpWM (since it was a continuation of ratpoison), tried DWM and finally getting somewhere smile still a WIP though, but at least I'm learning smile

Actually DWM keeps suprising me, and I might look back to others when I have a chance, I just love how simple DWM is.

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#90 2009-11-01 21:57:12

iphitus
Forum Fellow
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2004-10-09
Posts: 4,927

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

thayer wrote:
bender02 wrote:
hantrash wrote:

The constant reach for keyboard to do every single task seems so.. unnecessary  to me.

For me it's exactly opposite. The constant reach for the mouse to do every single task seems so .. unnecesary to me. Anyways.

People are increasingly opting for notebooks and netbooks which makes this even more pronounced.

Actually on my netbook i find it less pronounced. My thumb only has to barely travel at all to reach the touchpad, a whole cm, maybe. Though I do sometimes get a sore thumb. So I agree with bender, it's the reach for the mouse that is unneccessary.

James

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#91 2009-11-01 23:27:53

zowki
Member
From: Trapped in The Matrix
Registered: 2008-11-27
Posts: 582
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

levicc00123 wrote:

If you were to look over my shoulder while I am working on my laptop, you'd notice two things;
first, I don't have Xorg installed, I find that for 99.999% of the tasks I do, it's pointless. Second, I spend most of my time switching between Emacs and elinks.

Here's my setup:

tty1 - Emacs
tty2 - Elinks
tty3 - mutt
tty4 - CenterIM
tty5 - cmus
tty6 - empty

How do you live without graphical internet browsing?


How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL

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#92 2009-11-02 00:26:19

keenerd
Package Maintainer (PM)
Registered: 2007-02-22
Posts: 647
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

zowki wrote:

How do you live without graphical internet browsing?

Same way you did for the 29 years before 1993 (Mosaic).  Kids these days.  The first virtual terminal was introduced in 1964.  The first *nix gui (W, precursor to X) did not exist until 1983.  And only the rich labs had those.  Before either of those (and after if you weren't wealthy) there was only a teletype and line printer.  Everyone got by okay* without the ability to scroll backwards.

* Some stuff was easier.  Look at 90% of the bsdgames packages.  The games are unplayable without the "infinite scroll buffer" (and ability to add pencil marks) provided by paper output.

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#93 2009-11-02 09:13:53

zowki
Member
From: Trapped in The Matrix
Registered: 2008-11-27
Posts: 582
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

keenerd wrote:
zowki wrote:

How do you live without graphical internet browsing?

Same way you did for the 29 years before 1993 (Mosaic).  Kids these days.  The first virtual terminal was introduced in 1964.  The first *nix gui (W, precursor to X) did not exist until 1983.  And only the rich labs had those.  Before either of those (and after if you weren't wealthy) there was only a teletype and line printer.  Everyone got by okay* without the ability to scroll backwards.

* Some stuff was easier.  Look at 90% of the bsdgames packages.  The games are unplayable without the "infinite scroll buffer" (and ability to add pencil marks) provided by paper output.

I'm sure we all agree on using terminal applications on a regular basis but I think bringing web browsing to the terminal is just overkill. There's no way you can browse the internet the "Same way you did for the 29 years before 1993" today. Thats because the internet of pre-1993 was designed for these text mode browsers. If you try to browse the web with a text browser today the formatting gets screwed up for 99% of websites. Take the Arch Linux wiki for instance. Terminal browsers dont render the columns correctly and place the navigation box at the bottom of the page. If I wanted to search the wiki I would have to scroll all the way down to find it. I regularly read the lifehacker blog and I wouldnt be able to view the pictures in a text mode browser. If you yourself can browse comfortably with a text mode browser could you give me some pointers? I would happily stop using X if it wasnt for this. sad

PS: If you still don't see what I mean about the archlinux wiki see here:
http://www.seo-browser.com/results.php? … =Parse+URL

Last edited by zowki (2009-11-02 09:20:18)


How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL

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#94 2009-11-02 11:59:11

levicc00123
Member
Registered: 2009-11-01
Posts: 7

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

zowki wrote:
levicc00123 wrote:

If you were to look over my shoulder while I am working on my laptop, you'd notice two things;
first, I don't have Xorg installed, I find that for 99.999% of the tasks I do, it's pointless. Second, I spend most of my time switching between Emacs and elinks.

Here's my setup:

tty1 - Emacs
tty2 - Elinks
tty3 - mutt
tty4 - CenterIM
tty5 - cmus
tty6 - empty

How do you live without graphical internet browsing?

To be honest, most of my web browsing is spent looking up information on what I'm doing. I don't miss graphical browsing at all.

Last edited by levicc00123 (2009-11-02 12:07:36)

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#95 2009-11-02 14:00:03

JohannesSM64
Member
From: Norway
Registered: 2009-10-11
Posts: 623
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

levicc00123 wrote:

If you were to look over my shoulder while I am working on my laptop, you'd notice two things;
first, I don't have Xorg installed, I find that for 99.999% of the tasks I do, it's pointless. Second, I spend most of my time switching between Emacs and elinks.

Here's my setup:

tty1 - Emacs
tty2 - Elinks
tty3 - mutt
tty4 - CenterIM
tty5 - cmus
tty6 - empty

Why not have a shell in tty6? Do you never use that?

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#96 2009-11-02 15:04:34

Stalafin
Member
From: Berlin, Germany
Registered: 2007-10-26
Posts: 617

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

I used to use a terminal apps more often... but I grew somewhat dissapointed with certain things, such as calendar applications and integration of mail clients with both calendars (calcurse does not cut it and remind+wyrd is a little inconvenient....) as well as contact managers, chat clients...

So I went from Xmonad to KDE 4.3, which some people might say is kind of a harsh change. smile

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#97 2009-11-02 16:09:15

keenerd
Package Maintainer (PM)
Registered: 2007-02-22
Posts: 647
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

zowki wrote:

If you try to browse the web with a text browser today the formatting gets screwed up for 99% of websites.

99% is a little high.  For example, even when I use a graphical browser, all client side dynamic behavior is disabled.  No java, flash, javascript, or even animated images.  Maybe 10% of sites completely depend on these, and those are the only sites truly broken under a text browser.  I simply don't visit them.  Or there is a small program to download the worthwhile part.  (Do a pacman/aur search for "download".  You'll find CLI apps for everything from Amazon's mp3 store to google docs to youtube.)

The remaining problematic sites (such as the Arch Wiki) use massive CSS tricks to fake a table based layout.  This can be worked around.  Have you ever used Greasemonkey for html rewriting in Firefox?  Elinks can do the same in Lua (or whatever support you compile in).  Sadly, there does not seem to be a vibrant community for Elinks users to swap scripts.  Here are a few examples:

http://elinks.or.cz/documentation/html/ … #id2880229
http://www.xteddy.org/elinks/
http://www.b7j0c.org/content/elinks.html

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#98 2009-11-02 16:37:03

SimonPhotography
Member
From: Arkansas, US
Registered: 2008-04-03
Posts: 24
Website

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

I started Linux using KDE3 and Gnome.  Worked fine, but then I discovered Compiz (Beryl at the time).  The desktop cube was awesome - writing code in one desktop, and using a keybind to swap to the next to test via firefox, then back again. With all that cruft, though, my PC got slower and slower.

Then I discovered Awesome.  I didn't care for the tiling part at first, but I immediately fell in love with the taglist.  Now, my PC was faster, I could switch tags easy to go from Eclipse to Firefox, and I was happy.  Over time, I learned how to use the tiling features, and that was helpful.  I swapped Eclipse for Kate, then Vim.  Vim is amazing, and I see no reason at all now to use a graphical IDE.  I don't even like gvim!

These days, I'm using ScrotWM, and am quite happy.  I switched my xterms to urxvt for the transparency support, and got a zenburn-like color scheme set up, and I'm happy.

CLI tools are better for me in many cases because they are right there.  After using a twm for a while, breaking out a GUI seems clunky.

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#99 2009-11-03 17:59:21

levicc00123
Member
Registered: 2009-11-01
Posts: 7

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

JohannesSM64 wrote:
levicc00123 wrote:

If you were to look over my shoulder while I am working on my laptop, you'd notice two things;
first, I don't have Xorg installed, I find that for 99.999% of the tasks I do, it's pointless. Second, I spend most of my time switching between Emacs and elinks.

Here's my setup:

tty1 - Emacs
tty2 - Elinks
tty3 - mutt
tty4 - CenterIM
tty5 - cmus
tty6 - empty

Why not have a shell in tty6? Do you never use that?

I do keep a shell on tty6, I just keep it open so I can kill a hung process or install packages.

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#100 2018-09-14 03:01:55

BoneTone
Member
Registered: 2017-11-08
Posts: 1

Re: Why this fascination with terminal applications?

pseudonomous wrote:

I don't actually use a tiling window manager because I'm really a fan having a full-blown, or at least XFCE-sized desktop environment and I don't want to work hard at doing things like manually editing an applications menu, or stuff like that, but I've come to believe that a tiling-wm paradigm really makes a light more sense then common "floating" window mangers.

I mean think about it, you can;t do anything with an application you can't see, or is mostly obscured by another window.  If you're only using one application, there's not reason it should be full-screen or at least maximized in the window.  If you want need to see two applications simultaneously it almost always makes the most sense to have them to be non-overlapping and filling as large of a screen area as possible.

With multiple desktop. you can get the effect of "atl-tab" switching w/ the added bonus of setting your maximized applications to be full-screen.

Of course, you can get an arguably better effect using 2 monitors in a traditional WM like Kwin, (which is what I do most of the time), but not everyone has an extra monitor laying around, and you're certainly not dragging on around with you when you take your laptop somewhere.

Anyways, that's how I feel.  Eventually maybe I'll figure out how to integrate a tiling WM w/ the KDE desktop.

I'm still reading this topic so hopefully I'm not resurrecting something that's been dead for too long, but i wanted to address a specific point made here...

I prefera attaching WM, I use Openbox, and I've got keyboard shortcuts that make it b very easy for me to tile the windows, just like I'm the Microsoft Windows OS, where can you snap Windows to the side or corner ofa screen with justa could keystrokes.

But the point i wanted to address, what's the point, if you're going to be working in one window of not having it fullscreen, of if you're using multiple, why not tile them?  Because my display is quite large.  A 32" display a foot away from my face means that if I tile my windows, them the content I'm working with is off to the side of my vision.  With stacking, I can center a window in my vision, resize it such that all the content I'm typing will always be centered and I don't have to turn my head and look to the side to work.  Simultaneously, I can also havea few windows that are open but only partially covered, giving me information or notifications I desire to the sides of the window where my main work is occurring.

Just like other people have said, every tool has its purpose. There are times when I do want my windows to be tiled.  If I'm managing files in several different folders, moving them around between these folders, then i like to have 2-4 or even more windows tiled.  But there are also tasks where I prefer to have windows overlapping, and my immediate work centered and sized appropriately, with other windows only partially visible but the relevant info in view.

I know that tiling WMs (at least some like it) can make windows stack; just like stacking WMs can make windows tile.  So for someone who utilizes both scenarios, it becomes justa matter of preference as to which WM/DE to use. 

Similarly, I do some of my work using a graphical interface and some of it using a command line interface.  If I'm working in one mode I will even do a task in that same mode even if I think that normally the other mode is generally better, simply because staying in one mode can be more efficient than switching back & forth if it is just a quick little task.

So, I think that the best thing, for everyone, is to learn how to work with all the tools, be they graphical- or text-based.  Not just for your own personal usage, like the example I have of executing one small task in a mode you normally wouldn't; but also to be proficient when you have to work in an environment you aren't in control of (work, a friend's computer, the library, whatever).

It's fine to have your preference, and do most of your work in that mode.  But I think it's foolish to ignore other modes out of philosophical reasons.  (Note: I'm not saying any poster here has advocated that stance, but I've seen people in the past do so.)  So, command line, text based, graphical, stacking, tiling, 3D VR, whatever the method of interaction and organization, they all have their place and time where they are the desired approach for me.  And being able to use them all well, I think, is a sign of true craftsmanship.

PS - please excuse any typos.  I wrote this on my phone, and I'll come back later to review and copy edit it.

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