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lurid Guru
Joined: 12 Mar 2003 Posts: 595 Location: Florida
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 3:43 pm Post subject: Who needs X? |
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Ok, so we've all heard the hardcore Unix/Linux people with their "I don't even have X installed!", but lately I've been playing with the command line more and I have to say.. Who needs X? Links has a fullscreen graphical browser that runs on the framebuffer and even has mouse support (though the mouse is a bit ugly). BitchX for IRC. mp123 works like a charm, even reads XMMS playlists. naim is an ncurses based AIM client. And of course the many command line email programs.
I love the Gnome/Fluxbox combo and I've been using it for a long time now, but I'm getting more and more used to using the command line and really liking it. The main problem I've always had with doing things from the command line was that lynx sucked. Links though, being fully graphical, fills that gap in a big way.
Do I get to call myself hardc0re now? |
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hook Veteran
Joined: 23 Oct 2002 Posts: 1398 Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 6:14 pm Post subject: |
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try installing bootsplash also ...and you're in for a treat ...aaxine can play movies perfectly in the console ...and do try to change the font to default8x9 (or was it 9x8) ...you're in for a REAL treat _________________ tea+free software+law=hook
(deep inside i'm still a tux's little helper) |
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lurid Guru
Joined: 12 Mar 2003 Posts: 595 Location: Florida
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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Yup, I've got bootspash installed. Well, I patched a 2.4.20 kernel with it, I'm using 2.5.69 at the moment and I don't know if its safe to use with that yet.. but yes, the background image on the framebuffer is sweet. I don't have Xine installed, but I remember reading some where that mplayer will work on a framebuffer as well. I haven't tried it yet, though.
I read about a CLI WM the other day and I'll be damned if I can remember the name of it. It was fairly basic, but it looked like it could be some what functional. |
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Mystilleef Guru
Joined: 27 Apr 2003 Posts: 561 Location: Earth
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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Hello Gents,
That will mean I'm unable to use KDE. Lord, life will be pretty boring without it. I call myself a modern hypbrid Linux user. A CLI-GUI gunkie; you see I need the graphics and sha-bang! to make the environment cosy and more me. There is just something about dark screen that make me sleepy. Besides, I like to hear my compare cry once in while, or else it will get lazy if I go resource minimal. _________________ simple, sleek and sexy text editor for gnome
"My logic is undeniable." |
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pjp Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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I generally have numerous windows open on several desktops. I've not seen a non-GUI window manager do that nicely. ION isn't useable IMO. _________________ Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
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pilla Bodhisattva
Joined: 07 Aug 2002 Posts: 7729 Location: Underworld
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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Can you read PDF files in the console? _________________ "I'm just very selective about the reality I choose to accept." -- Calvin |
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lurid Guru
Joined: 12 Mar 2003 Posts: 595 Location: Florida
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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I found it. Its called Twin. Like I said, its fairly basic and I've yet to try it. It seriously looks like a multitasking DOS program. Hehe.
Anyway.. so I'm feeling all l33t in my CLI enviroment with my brower, BitchX and mpg123 going with a various combo of backgrounded processes and screen.. but I can't figure out how to change the console font. I tried Googling and I can't find jack. Well, it was nice to feel l33t for a few minutes anyways. |
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Ari Rahikkala Guru
Joined: 02 Oct 2002 Posts: 370 Location: Finland
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 7:20 pm Post subject: |
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Bloody Bastard wrote: | Can you read PDF files in the console? |
http://www.delorie.com/gnu/docs/ghostscript/ps2ascii.1.html
It doesn't preserve layout and show images, of course... but you can get most relevant information from most .pdfs with it anyway. Never tried it with .pdfs that have tables, though... _________________ <laurentius> gentoo linux?
<ari> Yesh.
<laurentius> they look horny |
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Ari Rahikkala Guru
Joined: 02 Oct 2002 Posts: 370 Location: Finland
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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lurid wrote: | Anyway.. so I'm feeling all l33t in my CLI enviroment with my brower, BitchX and mpg123 going with a various combo of backgrounded processes and screen.. but I can't figure out how to change the console font. I tried Googling and I can't find jack. Well, it was nice to feel l33t for a few minutes anyways. |
The Gentoo way to do it is to change /etc/rc.conf. It has all the documentation you need, too. I'm using a self-hacked fi-latin15 as the keymap (fi-latin1 with euro copied from some other keymap) and lat0-16 as the font and *most* things work... not everything, though. The only current issue is that lower-case scands (äåö) display correctly but upper-case ones (ÄÅÖ) don't. _________________ <laurentius> gentoo linux?
<ari> Yesh.
<laurentius> they look horny |
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PowerFactor Veteran
Joined: 30 Jan 2003 Posts: 1693 Location: out of it
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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Bloody Bastard wrote: | Can you read PDF files in the console? | Midnight commander will display them as plain text, most of them anyway. Of course you lose all the formatting. |
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nrl Guru
Joined: 27 Mar 2003 Posts: 446 Location: Glasgow, UK
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 8:02 pm Post subject: |
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The console is useful and although you can survive without X what is the point if you are on modern hardware? Another thing I am not a bg fan of the background images in the console - I use framebuffer so I have a high resolution console but I prefer the good old white on black.
One thing I do love though is if I want to check email I can quickly boot, log in and start mutt - no need to wait on some bloated (OK I use pekwm but you get the point) GUI to load. |
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The Khan Artist Apprentice
Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 210 Location: Texas, USA
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 8:15 pm Post subject: |
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Ari Rahikkala wrote: | lurid wrote: | Anyway.. so I'm feeling all l33t in my CLI enviroment with my brower, BitchX and mpg123 going with a various combo of backgrounded processes and screen.. but I can't figure out how to change the console font. I tried Googling and I can't find jack. Well, it was nice to feel l33t for a few minutes anyways. |
The Gentoo way to do it is to change /etc/rc.conf. It has all the documentation you need, too. I'm using a self-hacked fi-latin15 as the keymap (fi-latin1 with euro copied from some other keymap) and lat0-16 as the font and *most* things work... not everything, though. The only current issue is that lower-case scands (äåö) display correctly but upper-case ones (ÄÅÖ) don't. |
I think you can use bashish. |
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zenlunatic Guru
Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Posts: 312
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Posted: Thu May 15, 2003 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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Lurid, it's good that you are taking this approach, but you need Emacs in your life, honestly. Specifly gnuserv, emacs, screen, gnus, and ditch BX. Try irssi, zenirc, or erc. They are far superior. Zenirc/gnuserv is great combo from what I hear. |
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lurid Guru
Joined: 12 Mar 2003 Posts: 595 Location: Florida
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Posted: Fri May 16, 2003 4:52 am Post subject: |
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Ah, well seeing as how its The Gentoo Way (tm) I don't feel so bad for not having been able to figure it out. ;) I've never used emacs before (gasp) but I'm installing it as I type this. Its huge! 20 megs. So, I suppose I'll now show my emacs ignorance and say "Whats so great about Emacs? And why is there an IRC client for a text editor?" O.o |
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|Quantum| Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 24 Jan 2004 Posts: 133 Location: Belgium
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 10:57 am Post subject: |
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It should be possible with Ghostview!
PowerFactor wrote: | Bloody Bastard wrote: | Can you read PDF files in the console? | Midnight commander will display them as plain text, most of them anyway. Of course you lose all the formatting. |
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placeholder Advocate
Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 2500
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:18 pm Post subject: |
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lurid wrote: | Who needs X? |
You can do much in the command line indeed, but try running UT2004, StepMania or mupen64. I do not think you will have the same amount of possibility with those things. Face it, there are things that X is required to do. I see this sort of stuff as people trying to be "leet" or something like that. All in all, it is just people who think they are cool because they are in a minority of users. Overall, you are only cheating yourself out of things unless you really do not play games and etc. |
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Evangelion Veteran
Joined: 31 May 2002 Posts: 1087 Location: Helsinki, Finland
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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I sometimes go without X. For example I sometimes use my old 350Mhz Laptop in the CLI. I use it quite often to write text, and why would I need X for that? _________________ My tech-blog | My other blog |
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apeitheo Apprentice
Joined: 09 Jan 2004 Posts: 222
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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I don't understand why someone would want to browse the web (unless they must) using a non-graphical browser. Using the CLI for everything may make you '0h s0 l33t!1!!!!1!1!' but it most certainly does NOT make you an expert. Same thing with using a minimalistic window manager, I don't understand... I have a 2.7Ghz processor, with 512Mb of ram, why the hell would I want to run something that only consumes 0.01% of my CPU/RAM? For an older computer, perhaps... but why for a new? |
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Athas Guru
Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 394 Location: Brøndby, Denmark
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:18 pm Post subject: |
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Nightgrave wrote: | I don't understand why someone would want to browse the web (unless they must) using a non-graphical browser. |
It's comfy. Many sites, these very forums, for example, render very well in W3M. Besides, if you browse for information, then graphics are often not required.
Nightgrave wrote: | Same thing with using a minimalistic window manager, I don't understand... I have a 2.7Ghz processor, with 512Mb of ram, why the hell would I want to run something that only consumes 0.01% of my CPU/RAM? |
Why should an application be better, simply because it is more resource consuming? I don't use ratpoison because it's fast (though it's certainly not a bad thing), but because I like it's windowing metaphors. I don't believe that the classic WIMP-principles are particularly efficient. _________________ Emacs-optimized danish console keymap - My .emacs
Climacs - next generation Emacs. |
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Evangelion Veteran
Joined: 31 May 2002 Posts: 1087 Location: Helsinki, Finland
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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Nightgrave wrote: | I don't understand why someone would want to browse the web (unless they must) using a non-graphical browser. |
I sometimes browse with CLI-browser. I do that if the system doesn't have working X (like during Gentoo-installation), or if I happen to be in CLI to begin with. WHy should I switch to X just to browse the web? So I could see the pretty images and Flash-animations? Besides, web-sites render faster with text only . Now, 98% of my browsing is done via KDE, but I don't shun CLI-browsing, far from it.
Quote: | I have a 2.7Ghz processor, with 512Mb of ram, why the hell would I want to run something that only consumes 0.01% of my CPU/RAM? For an older computer, perhaps... but why for a new? |
So that the apps you use would have more CPU-cycles/RAM at their disposal? That said, I have A64 3200+ and I use KDE. _________________ My tech-blog | My other blog |
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motub Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 23 Sep 2003 Posts: 87 Location: The Netherlands
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: | Same thing with using a minimalistic window manager, I don't understand... I have a 2.7Ghz processor, with 512Mb of ram, why the hell would I want to run something that only consumes 0.01% of my CPU/RAM? For an older computer, perhaps... but why for a new? |
Because you want to use all that CPU/RAM for something useful (Doom3, The Gimp, CAD/CAM, some Java app, pick your poison), rather than having it eaten up by the WM itself, maybe? _________________ Holly
--Why not adopt an unanswered post?-- |
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castorilo Apprentice
Joined: 25 Dec 2002 Posts: 157
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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Who needs portage?
Who needs bash?
Who needs vi or emacs?
Who needs a compiler?
...
Anything can be done without those tools, instead of bash, you could use C, instead of portage you can install things yourself, instead of vi or emacs, you can use ed, cat, sed. Instead of using a compiler, you could write assembler code. ...
Just like with those tools, you can do a lot of things withought X. But certanly those tools make many people lifes easier. X allows you to run programs with GUIs that really cut down on user's time. Burning a cd is just a couple clicks away instead of browsing the man pages for several minutes or even hours and typing an imposible to remember command line. Same for watching dvd, viewing pdfs, browsing the web, sending emails, etc... They can all be done withought X, but it takes much longer to figure out and use.
So strictly speaking, YOU DO NOT NEED X. But it is so damn usefull I would not want to live without it. |
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Athas Guru
Joined: 04 Sep 2003 Posts: 394 Location: Brøndby, Denmark
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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paulpach wrote: | X allows you to run programs with GUIs that really cut down on user's time. |
Not really. Many CLI-based applications are way faster than the corresponding graphical variants. Of course, some things are next to impossible to do without a graphical interface; image editing comes to mind.
paulpach wrote: | Burning a cd is just a couple clicks away instead of browsing the man pages for several minutes or even hours and typing an imposible to remember command line. |
Did you even research this stuff?
Code: |
cdrecord dev=/dev/hdd whateverimage.iso
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It actually takes me longer to find a blanc disc, than to type that.
paulpach wrote: | sending emails |
What?! How does the presence of a graphical interface suddenly make my hands move faster around the keyboard? You must really have used a sucky CLI-based email client. Try out Gnus or Mutt, they're every bit as efficient as Kmail or Evolution or whatever. _________________ Emacs-optimized danish console keymap - My .emacs
Climacs - next generation Emacs. |
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deathdruid Guru
Joined: 25 Jul 2002 Posts: 343 Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:02 pm Post subject: |
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doom3 on the console? Call me back when you have that. I'll be the one blasting imps into oblivion. |
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castorilo Apprentice
Joined: 25 Dec 2002 Posts: 157
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:33 pm Post subject: |
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Athas wrote: | paulpach wrote: | X allows you to run programs with GUIs that really cut down on user's time. |
Not really. Many CLI-based applications are way faster than the corresponding graphical variants. Of course, some things are next to impossible to do without a graphical interface; image editing comes to mind.
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I am not talking about how fast the tool solves a problem. I am talking about how much time the user spends on solving his problem. For that you have to include all the reading and researching.
Athas wrote: |
paulpach wrote: | Burning a cd is just a couple clicks away instead of browsing the man pages for several minutes or even hours and typing an imposible to remember command line. |
Did you even research this stuff?
Code: |
cdrecord dev=/dev/hdd whateverimage.iso
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That is exactly the point: you don't have to do the research if you are using X. (At least you don't have to do as much research). And yes. I know now to burn cds with cdrecord thank you.
Athas wrote: |
paulpach wrote: | sending emails |
What?! How does the presence of a graphical interface suddenly make my hands move faster around the keyboard? You must really have used a sucky CLI-based email client. Try out Gnus or Mutt, they're every bit as efficient as Kmail or Evolution or whatever.
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Granted, email may not be the best example. |
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