How dependant are you on X?

pizen · Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 6:42 am Post subject: How dependant are you on X?

I was wondering how dependant everyone is on X. Can you happily live in an 80 column world or do you need point and click to feel secure? I'm not asking how much you like X. I love eyecandy as much as anyone but that's not the issue here. The question is can you function solely on the command line or not.

pjp · Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 6:54 am Post subject: Re: How dependant are you on X?

binbash · n00b Joined: 04 Jul 2002 Posts: 16

I suspect most people using Gentoo are comfortable at the command line..

grakker · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 17 Apr 2002 Posts: 100

I like the "eye-candy", but as far as needing it, no. I'm like trying other apps, but I would function fine using mutt, bitchx, w3m, and the like. Have been stuck there many times before after breaking X and not wanting to take the time to get it to work.

Oh, and I just use Sawfish with a couple different apps, so my eye-candy probably means less than the next guys.

credmp · Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 9:21 am Post subject:

Hey,

All the X is for me is a place where i can have multiple terminals open + a webbrowser + (X)Emacs... but mostly it is terminal work for me...

no need for ancy bars or anything... fluxbox..

therobot · Apprentice Joined: 07 Jun 2002 Posts: 256 Location: Canada

Same for me, I've been using Waimea for the last few days. It's nice to have a few windows going at once.

klieber · Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 12:36 pm Post subject: Re: How dependant are you on X?

pizen · Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 6:27 pm Post subject: Re: How dependant are you on X?

meyerm · Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 10:31 pm Post subject: Re: How dependant are you on X?

klieber · Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 11:02 pm Post subject:

Pedantics aside, my point is that drawing conclusions about a user's computer competence based upon their preferred method of interacting with their computer is asinine.

So what if someone doesn't know all the switches and options to make their linux box dance to their CLI tune. Does that mean we're better than they are? Are they somehow inferior because they prefer a graphical interface?

Don't get me wrong -- there are lots of reasons why I don't like GUIs in various situations. But just because I'm comfortable using a CLI doesn't mean I think I'm any better than the guy using a GUI down the street.

It's attitudes like that that give linux users a bad reputation...

--kurt
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pjp · Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 11:08 pm Post subject:

The MCSE down the street uses a GUI... they are frequently thought of asa being lesser beings

. Of course, depends on the MCSE.
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meyerm · Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2002 11:10 pm Post subject:

BTW: It wasn't meant as an offence. OK, for now I am using pine, but as soon as we get new computers I will also switch to KMail since it will be much faster in accessing many, many mails in several different categories.

gsfgf · Veteran Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 1266

I love CLI. That's one reason i switched to *NIX. You can't live at the CLI in windoze. (However the run box was a nice feature). I only need the gui for graphical web pages (porn) and gimp. Also a lot of things are made easier by a GUI, such as audio players, email, irc, and browsing most pages (i do have a soft spot for lynx). Plus its nice to have multiple eterms.

So in short, i like X, but would only miss it for grafx apps and porn. Otherwise i'd be fine in CLI. Also Atl+Tab is more convinent than Ctrl+Alt+F?

Techie2000 · Guru Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 344

I like the eye candy, but since my first computer was a command liner, I feel more at home there...
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heathkit · n00b Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 38

Pigeon · Guru Joined: 21 Jun 2002 Posts: 307

X is a tool that lets me open lots of command lines at once. =)

Also, some tools aren't easily available on the command line- command line irc clients, instant messangers, image editors and web-browsers aren't as capable as their X counter-parts. Pressing the "Rip+Encode" button in grip is easier than the commands I'd have to use to do the same thing in a console.

Quake3 only runs in X. To use nvidia's drivers under quake 2 means using X. (and my mouse is broken under svga- but that's just because I never bothered to set it up right)

To sum it up... X and a CLI are just parts of the whole with linux. To be truly adept with All Things Linux you need to be comfortable with both.

klieber · Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2002 10:59 am Post subject:

trythil · Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2002 8:12 pm Post subject:

I've started doing a lot of non-linear video editing work on Gentoo -- trust me, you can't do this stuff at a command line. Visual feedback when you do this kind of stuff is IMPERATIVE. (Well, I'd expect it to be, since video, is, well, rather visual in nature...)

I also do a fair bit of C++, and it's still nice to have X around for that. I've switched out of KDE-exclusive mode to take advantage of the freedom-of-choice philosophy of X, so these days I usually hop between KDE, fluxbox, and fvwm. The performance hit with the latter two is practically non-existent, and it helps -so- much to have 7 or 8 windows on the current situation -- a few for code, a couple for a test case, one for an attached gdb...

As other people have said, it is a matter of convenience, not of capability. Next somebody will probably be telling me that graphics artists are somehow "dumber" than other people because they require a GUI to do their work, or that programmers who prefer to work in X are "dumber" because they find switching terminals to be inconvenient.

:roll:

line72 · Apprentice Joined: 13 Jun 2002 Posts: 212

i do command line for most things (like all my filemangement needs). But i really like having a grphical mail client, etc. And something just don't work to well under command line. Oh, of course i have to play quake : )

squanto · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 12:54 am Post subject:

masseya · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 2:18 am Post subject:

I like a CLI in linux because there's no really solid gui toolset that everyone uses. The CLI is more uniform. It's great to be able to use if you need to for some reason like setting up a firewall or installing gentoo. Don't get me wrong; I don't think that gui users are lesser beings. I just think that being able to use the CLI is a very handy tool.
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ebrostig · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 2:57 am Post subject:

I like the GUI.
It can be pretty and very useful.
There is no conflict between using the command line and enjoying a nice GUI. If you think otherwise, you are too 1337 and haven''t understood a thing.

I use the GUI for all my work, but Konsole is an important part of it.
Using Emacs for everything just because it is Emacs and not a GUI is a sort of elitist thinking that does computing and Linux no good.

Erik

arkane · l33t Joined: 30 Apr 2002 Posts: 918 Location: Phoenix, AZ

I personally like both at the same time. I open X, have as many terms as I want open right alongside Phoenix and any other graphical apps I want to run. The best of both worlds, without anything given up.

If I need to have a "fullscreen" text application, I just do ctrl-alt-F2, log in and run it.

I run WindowMaker, also... very light on resources and I hardly ever touch swap. (512mb ram, I would hope not)

squanto · Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2002 3:17 am Post subject:

arkane · l33t Joined: 30 Apr 2002 Posts: 918 Location: Phoenix, AZ