Installing just a web browser in a minimal X environment using apt-get
Greetings,
I just completed a console installation for my system programing needs but I need a web browser for web programing. I don't care for graphical user interfaces so my question is, how do I install *just* a web browser in a minimal X environment using apt-get? Something that's not going to start-up automatically with a splash screen and take over my shell prompt upon boot-up of my computer.
Hello, welcome to Trisquel!
The most up-to-date web browser in Trisquel's repositories is Abrowser, a rebranded version of Firefox.
Type sudo apt-get install abrowser
I am confused though, when you said you don't care for graphical user interfaces. X is a GUI. Do you mean fancy GUIs?
Thank you for the welcome.
Yes, I know that X is a GUI and no I don't care for graphical user interfaces, I'm a GNU Emacs user. I've come to terms with the fact that if I am going to do web programming in JavaScript that I need to use a modern web browser, which in turn needs a GUI environment to run in. w3m in GNU Emacs is awesome but it does not cut the mustard for this need.
I installed: abroswer, xorg and the fvwm window manger separately. There was no modification to the by boot-up behavior of Trisquel, which was nice but I'll have to do some customization to fvwm to get everything the way I like it. My goal is to run startx from the shell and have abrowser start full screen.
Try dwm, i3 or ratpoison for window management.
Then,
- w3m is a text based browser, for console
- abrwoser
I've never heard of i3. I will give that a try. Thanks for the suggestion.
I am a member!
If you just need a gui browser, but not the whole desktop, maybe you can install something like openbox or lxde? After installation, you can disable the display manager, assuming one got included. This will give you a login and text console; you can manually start x only when you need it. If you don't need a graphical browser, you can use any of lynx, elinks, or w3m; these are text-only clients, available in the main repository.
If after you 'sudo apt-get install' the browser of your choice, the system boots into a display manager, then reverse that. It is just about:
- editing (with administrative privileges) /etc/default/grub so that GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text"
- running 'sudo update-grub'.
You know you can switch between the text sessions and the graphical sessions using Alt+F[1-7] (add Ctrl if you currently are in the graphical session, i.e., the seventh one).
to deactivate the display manager you also can go to:
nano /etc/X11/default-display-manager
and delete the only line you will find.
if you want to restore it you can write the line you have deleted or you can:
dpkg-reconfigure the_display_manager_you_have
Thanks for the tips. I knew about /etc/default/grub and nano /etc/X11/default-display-manager but dpkg-reconfigure the_display_manager_you_have is new to me.
I'm pretty sure the first answer is all that's needed: apt-get install abrowser.
Anyway, try Lynx as well (apt-get install lynx).