The Anti-GUI Challenge!

28 risposte [Ultimo contenuto]
JadedCtrl
Offline
Iscritto: 08/11/2014

For fun, I'm not going to use a GUI on my computer for two weeks, as per the new bimonthly Anti-GUI challenge.
Anyone care to join? Any tips?
Not enough kittens?
[The forum seems to work well with Lynx...]

tomlukeywood
Offline
Iscritto: 12/05/2014

i think ill try for a few days and see how long i last

i just started using lynx and i am getting used to it
as i dont run js from websites this should not be too hard

from now on i shall press the keys ctrl and f2 together(goto cli mode) when
thy computer be loaded into gnome3 DE!

the only thing i dont know how to do is copy and past text??

Comment posted from lynx in a cli interface

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 07/24/2010

Do you know GPM? It gets you a mouse cursor inside the terminal (I am talking about "real" terminals such as the one you get with Ctrl+Alt+F1 from the graphical session).

quantumgravity
Offline
Iscritto: 04/22/2013

That's kind of cheating and shouldn't be allowed in this challenge!

tomlukeywood
Offline
Iscritto: 12/05/2014

yeah i am going keyboard only!

but posting on trisuquel fourms with lynx is starting to
make me go insane
the amount of times i deleated my post by pressing the backspace key !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

quantumgravity
Offline
Iscritto: 04/22/2013

Yeah i already tried this out... the hardest part was not being able to see any pictures or videos :/
besides i actually got along pretty well.

mutt is a great mail client, though it takes some time to configure and get used too,
lynx is a good browser and there are a a lot of great music player out there.
Then just install vim, and there you go, you're almost happy.

tomlukeywood
Offline
Iscritto: 12/05/2014

you can get image(and maby video i am not sure) players
that display in ASCII

Legimet
Offline
Iscritto: 12/10/2013

IIRC mpv works

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 07/24/2010

Or you can use Emacs for everything. :-p

boaz
Offline
Iscritto: 08/09/2013

I hope no one will hang me for posting something sort of off topic. It's not entirely off topic...

quantumgravity, I wanted to respond to something you said in a different thread ( https://trisquel.info/en/forum/icedove-replaced-thunderbird ), which thread is now locked I know not why.

What you said was this:

"

"Do you beleive in the virtue of software freedom? If you think it's okay for free software to be useable only by a small minority of people, then in effect you're saying most people should use proprietary software "

This statement is _ridiculous_.
The "virtue of software freedom" is neither usability nor functionality, and nobody promised to you that free software has any of those two properties.
Developers try very hard to make it happen though, but if they fail - to what extent doesn't matter here -, they don't "force" people to use proprietary software because of that.
Supertramp indicated a way how to get the job done with free software; if the general public isn't satisfied with this, that's unfortunate.

If you argue like that you come to the absurd conclusion that everybody is guilty of forcing people into proprietary software who does not actively write completely satisfactory free software;
"

I think you've misinterpreted what I meant a bit. I never meant to say that anyone is "forced" to use proprietary software. Nor did I mean to say that people who develop free software are guilty of some wrong if the software they work on is not usable to any particular user base! On the contrary I'm very grateful to anyone who does *any* development work on *any* free software.

I was simply responding to what I perceived in SuperTramp83's post as an view that there is no problem, i.e. that there's nothing at all wrong with the present state of affairs wherein Add/Remove Software exhibits this bug or undesirable behavior (which could be extremely frustrating to many users).

If I could write my reply to SuperTramp83 differently, I would do. Immediately after I posted my original post I realized that SuperTramp83 may not have meant what I thought he meant at all, that he may have simply been suggesting a solution for anyone experiencing the problem I was highlighting, and I regretted having worded my post the way I did. That's why I posted my second post in that thread a couple minutes later.

I really did not at all mean to indict anyone of "forcing" anyone to do anything. I see how what I wrote could have been interpreted that way and I hope I caused no offense to anyone.

I was just responding to something I've seen wherein people hold people who don't want to use a command line or otherwise prefer simpler gui methods of doing things (the vast majority of people, by the way) with disdain.

Regarding your statement "if the general public isn't satisfied with this, that's unfortunate.", I agree entirely. The general public is on the whole not satisfied with most free software, and this is unfortunate.

Regarding your statement: "nobody promised to you that free software has any of those two properties.", that's not entirely true. There are people who are very vocal in advocating that the general public should use free software and claiming that GNU/Linux and Trisquel in particular is technically superior for the use case of most people.

In fact, I remember reading on the FSF website about activists dressing in full gnu costumes and handing out Trisquel cds and software freedom literature at a Microsoft store!

I on the whole agree that Trisquel is better than Windows in many ways and can be a good operating system for the general public. I've even set friends and family up with Trisquel and provided support for them. I've had some great successes with this. I've also run into some frustrating problems with technical inadequacies of Trisquel, and ultimately suffered some significant failures.

I love Trisquel and think it's great. I also always wish it were better, particularly in the area of usability. That's why I donate money to the project and post on the forums from time to time things that (I hope) are helpful.

Now, if you don't care if Trisquel and free software in general is not useable to the general public, that's fine! I respect that entirely.

However, I have encountered people who advocate that the general public use free software, claim that they will find it technically superior, sometimes even berate people for not using free software, and then simultaneously display total indifference when free software exhibits properties that make it unusable for the general public.

I want to stress that I am not accusing either you or SuperTramp83 of doing that! Not even a little bit.

I'm just saying that I have run into this. And sometimes I try to provide a reality check to people who over-estimate the usability of free software to the general public.

Anyway, I hope my post caused no offense.

How is this at least sort of related to the topic? Well, it is about command line versus gui... Yeah, I know I'm stretching. Please don't hang me :)

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 10/31/2014

No offense at all boaz! :)
And. yes. I talk about my experience with Trisquel when I say that the add/remove app is totally flawed. I tried it like 4 or 5 times; of these, 3 times it failed to install something..

As far as I am concerned that program is useless. Hence I suggest to learn the elementary terminal commands..
Other than that application and some weird flashing on the edge of the screen when opening applications from panel or viewing pictures or VLC having muted sound when skipping through a video Trisquel was an amazing experience on my old mini atom netbook!
Cheers and keep up helping the free software community!

JadedCtrl
Offline
Iscritto: 08/11/2014

libcaca can be used for looking at pictures.
mplayer -vo caca can be used to view videos, kinda.
I'm trying to get dumb to work, to play D00M.
^_^
EDIT: Anyone have any tips to reduce eye-strain, though? This white-on-blackness is killing me.

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 07/24/2010

You can alternatively choose the framebuffer video output and get something watchable... unless it is considered cheating again (I do not really get why but anyway).

ssdclickofdeath
Offline
Iscritto: 05/18/2013

VLC will play videos over the command line, (use the cvlc command) but it won't keep the aspect ratio.

ssdclickofdeath
Offline
Iscritto: 05/18/2013

I must correct myself:
It happens the way I described in Trisquel 7 (using "normal pixels.")
In Trisquel 6, VLC tries to render the video with colored ASCII characters, which looks horrible.

Legimet
Offline
Iscritto: 12/10/2013

mpv > mplayer2

ssdclickofdeath
Offline
Iscritto: 05/18/2013

Did you make up the Anti-GUI challenge, or is some organization holding it?

JadedCtrl
Offline
Iscritto: 08/11/2014

Oh, I made it up.
I think I'll type up some "official" rules here:

1) Do not use any GUI, such as a desktop environment, file manager, or ncurses program.
2) The exceptions to the above rule are web-browsers, minimal window managers, terminal emulators, and games.

What do you all think of these rules?
The intention of the Anti-GUI Challenge is to learn more. Are you really going to learn if you're torturing yourself?
(Perhaps the game exception shouldn't be made... But I have a Red Eclipse addiction to feed! xD )

Magic Banana

I am a member!

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 07/24/2010

I think those rules are too complicated. What about "do everything in terminals, not emulators, real terminals: from Ctrl+Alt+F1 to Ctrl+Alt+F6 (you can drop the "Ctrl" once you are in those terminals)"? That allows "gpm" to get a cursor, the framebuffer to watch videos, ncurses interfaces ("bsdgames" maybe?), 'screen' to manage your windows (yes, inside the terminal), etc. That way, you are going to discover new things.

tomlukeywood
Offline
Iscritto: 12/05/2014

so you can use twm and icecat??

this info would of been helpfull

i was writing this post in elinks and i just deleated it as
i pressed the left arrow -.-

JadedCtrl
Offline
Iscritto: 08/11/2014

Sorry. ;-;

tdlnx

I am a member!

Offline
Iscritto: 04/09/2014

This is interesting I think I may join in. I used Arch without a GUI for probably 3 or 4 months a few years ago (mostly because I was on a super old laptop that could barely handle viewing pictures), it was definitely a learning experience.

I've been spoiled lately though! I've become used to having shiny graphics and animations in my face!

tomlukeywood
Offline
Iscritto: 12/05/2014

ok i give in i lasted 3 days but i neeed my GUI!

the last time i felt like this was when i was trying to give up sugar O.O

well i am a graphics addict

i think i will still try to use the terminal interface more often though as i did learn some things

i hope you can last longer than me!

now i am gonna run xeyes!

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 10/31/2014

was wrung wit gui bruv?

tomlukeywood
Offline
Iscritto: 12/05/2014

i think the point of this challenge was fun, education and to promote appreciating GUI's!

SuperTramp83

I am a translator!

Offline
Iscritto: 10/31/2014

Hi Heather! I think the last time I saw an ad in Internet was 2 or 3 years ago..

tdlnx

I am a member!

Offline
Iscritto: 04/09/2014

Whelp, I lasted about 48 hours on this challenge. I might give it another go at some point but for the time being I'll be spending my computing time in shiny GUI land :)

JadedCtrl
Offline
Iscritto: 08/11/2014

Yea, I actually kinda gave up this morning. I couldn't stand it anymore! =w=
At least now I know haw useful TTYing is.