I'm curious whether there are people who do all their computing, or part
of it, without a GUI at all. That is, just plain Text Mode.
On Thu, 17 Apr 2025 11:08:03 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man wrote:
I'm curious whether there are people who do all their computing, or part
of it, without a GUI at all. That is, just plain Text Mode.
On a local machine, very rarely. The nice thing about a GUI is you can
have multiple terminal sessions, and you can copy and paste between them
(and other text windows, like editors). And your terminal emulator can
offer features that the old physical terminals could never match, like
choice of themes (font and colours), scrollback (with search) etc. Oh, and Unicode, of course.
Fallback to a text console is handy if the GUI startup itself has failed.
I did fix an issue with that for somebody a few weeks ago, but I would say that’s rare these days.
On a remote machine, I normally SSH in. So I am still using the local GUI capabilities, rather than relying on any remote one.
TMUX can take care of copy and paste and scrollback, but it isn't quite
as smooth as with a mouse.
Subject says it all.
I'm curious whether there are people who do all their computing, or part
of it, without a GUI at all. That is, just plain Text Mode.
While I use a GUI mostly, there are times I just want to discard the GUI
and switch to the Framebuffer and just use text mode. Its not just for 'retro' reasons, but having a purely text based set up does reduce distraction! The fact that nothing else is visible (except the TMUX modeline) and nothing else is going on, just creates a different
experience, one more conducive to single minded focus. The mental map
of what is going on is different, cleaner.
Just want to hear other peoples thought, whether they find this too.
Subject says it all.
I'm curious whether there are people who do all their computing, or part
of it, without a GUI at all. That is, just plain Text Mode.
On Thu, 17 Apr 2025 11:08:03 +0000, Borax Man wrote:
Subject says it all.
I'm curious whether there are people who do all their computing, or part
of it, without a GUI at all. That is, just plain Text Mode.
What, exactly do you mean by "the terminal?" I will assume that you
mean the command-line interface, or CLI.
I use virtual terminals (VT) all the time. I usually have 4-5 of them
open across several virtual desktops (VD).
My favorite TUI, or text user interface, is Midnight Commander (MC),
which offers a plethora of indispensible capabilities.
Thus, for me, it is VTs on VDs with MC that accomplishes most of my
work.
Of course, I build all of my software from source so there is much BASH/Perl scripting involved and these only run on VTs. Then there are many Bash/Perl scripts that perform important processing tasks of various sorts like document scanning and image/sound manipulation.
For me the GUI is just a convenient device that contains VTs on
VDs with MC.
There are also times when a genuine GUI program is called for, such
as Mathematica, Matlab, wxMaxima, GIMP, Geomview, MathMod, Geany, Cooledit, Pan, Sylpheed, etc., but all maintenance, configuration, building, testing, important other stuff, etc. is done with VTs on VDs with MC.
I meant to use a Text Mode interface, ie, no GUI at all. What you get
when you press CTRL-ALT-F1. I assume that people are using terminals
quite often within the GUI, my interest was more wheher people just
forgo the GUI completely from time to time.
After 20+ years I only found out yesterday that Midnight Commander has themes. Still my file manager of choice when no GUI is available.
I find the more I've used Linux over the years, the more I've adapted my workflow to a "terminal/command line" first approach. That is, I'll
solve the problem using the terminal, and maybe at a GUI shim in top of
that. I used GROFF to create financial reports for an organisation I
was treasurer for, "pass" to manage passwords, which is primarily
command line but with GUI front ends, other scripts here and there,
which I can tie in with a GUI front end. This makes the system more cohesive, because I can use the GUI for example, to retrieve a password,
but know when I've not got a GUI available, the underlying process is
still there.
On 2025-04-17, Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> wrote:
Subject says it all.
I'm curious whether there are people who do all their computing, or part
of it, without a GUI at all. That is, just plain Text Mode.
While I use a GUI mostly, there are times I just want to discard the GUI
and switch to the Framebuffer and just use text mode. Its not just for
'retro' reasons, but having a purely text based set up does reduce
distraction! The fact that nothing else is visible (except the TMUX
modeline) and nothing else is going on, just creates a different
experience, one more conducive to single minded focus. The mental
map of what is going on is different, cleaner.
Just want to hear other peoples thought, whether they find this too.
I'm responding to this post using Jstar (a variation of the JOE editor)
under slrn. I use the CLI (and small shell scripts) regularly for writing, taking notes, monitoring my computer, downloading YouTube videos or extracting audio from these videos. I also occasionally convert audio or graphic files within the CLI or extract text from PDFs to create ePubs. There's other stuff I do too, they're just not coming to mind right now. I would guess that about 15-20% of my computer time is spent in the terminal.
On Fri, 18 Apr 2025 12:41:47 +0000, Borax Man wrote:
I meant to use a Text Mode interface, ie, no GUI at all. What you get
when you press CTRL-ALT-F1. I assume that people are using terminals
quite often within the GUI, my interest was more wheher people just
forgo the GUI completely from time to time.
There really is no way to completely forgo the GUI, unless the computing
work is very narrowly constrained.
The computer is no longer used just to process bank transactions and
produce the daily reports thereof. Today the computer is used to process imagery, video, audio and many other tasks that a single terminal cannot easily handle.
But the GUI is also far more comfortable in that it allows one to
visually spread things out. Human beings are predominantly visual
creatures and a GUI thus is a far more natural environment.
However, I do object to the idea of a "Desktop Environment." This
concept, IMO, takes the GUI too far into ridiculous territory.
For me, it is VTs on VDs with a WM (window manager only).
After 20+ years I only found out yesterday that Midnight Commander has
themes. Still my file manager of choice when no GUI is available.
The better themes on MC require a 256 color depth that only Virtual
Terminals can handle.
I find the more I've used Linux over the years, the more I've adapted my
workflow to a "terminal/command line" first approach. That is, I'll
solve the problem using the terminal, and maybe at a GUI shim in top of
that. I used GROFF to create financial reports for an organisation I
was treasurer for, "pass" to manage passwords, which is primarily
command line but with GUI front ends, other scripts here and there,
which I can tie in with a GUI front end. This makes the system more
cohesive, because I can use the GUI for example, to retrieve a password,
but know when I've not got a GUI available, the underlying process is
still there.
That may work, but when one needs to examine the waveform of an audio
file or perform interactive math plotting only a GUI can deliver the necessary performance.
In my experience, the use of VTs on VDs with a WM offers the best of
both worlds.
I meant to use a Text Mode interface, ie, no GUI at all. What you get
when you press CTRL-ALT-F1. I assume that people are using terminals
quite often within the GUI, my interest was more wheher people just
forgo the GUI completely from time to time.
Desktop Enviroments are kinda just fine imo.
The issue with Desktop Environments is: they do things they shouldn't.
I meant to use a Text Mode interface, ie, no GUI at all. What you get
when you press CTRL-ALT-F1.
A lot of the standard/oss tools in Linux seem to be command line based (ffmpeg, imagemagick, pandoc), and its also fun to script stuff.
On 18 Apr 2025 21:01:03 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
The issue with Desktop Environments is: they do things they shouldn't.
So pick one that more closely fits your notion of what they should or shouldn’t do.
Or, if none of them is quite right, do what the creators of all those
desktop environments did, and come up with your own.
Le 19-04-2025, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> a écrit :
On 18 Apr 2025 21:01:03 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
The issue with Desktop Environments is: they do things they shouldn't.
So pick one that more closely fits your notion of what they should or
shouldn’t do.
Or, if none of them is quite right, do what the creators of all those
desktop environments did, and come up with your own.
I'm using a Windows Manager which do exactly what it's designed to and
that suit my needs.
On Fri, 18 Apr 2025 12:41:47 +0000, Borax Man wrote:
I meant to use a Text Mode interface, ie, no GUI at all. What you get
when you press CTRL-ALT-F1. I assume that people are using terminals
quite often within the GUI, my interest was more wheher people just
forgo the GUI completely from time to time.
There really is no way to completely forgo the GUI, unless the computing
work is very narrowly constrained.
The computer is no longer used just to process bank transactions and
produce the daily reports thereof. Today the computer is used to process imagery, video, audio and many other tasks that a single terminal cannot easily handle.
But the GUI is also far more comfortable in that it allows one to
visually spread things out. Human beings are predominantly visual
creatures and a GUI thus is a far more natural environment.
However, I do object to the idea of a "Desktop Environment." This
concept, IMO, takes the GUI too far into ridiculous territory.
For me, it is VTs on VDs with a WM (window manager only).
After 20+ years I only found out yesterday that Midnight Commander has
themes. Still my file manager of choice when no GUI is available.
The better themes on MC require a 256 color depth that only Virtual
Terminals can handle.
I find the more I've used Linux over the years, the more I've adapted my
workflow to a "terminal/command line" first approach. That is, I'll
solve the problem using the terminal, and maybe at a GUI shim in top of
that. I used GROFF to create financial reports for an organisation I
was treasurer for, "pass" to manage passwords, which is primarily
command line but with GUI front ends, other scripts here and there,
which I can tie in with a GUI front end. This makes the system more
cohesive, because I can use the GUI for example, to retrieve a password,
but know when I've not got a GUI available, the underlying process is
still there.
That may work, but when one needs to examine the waveform of an audio
file or perform interactive math plotting only a GUI can deliver the necessary performance.
In my experience, the use of VTs on VDs with a WM offers the best of
both worlds.
On 2025-04-18, Farley Flud <fsquared@fsquared.linux> wrote:
[/snip it's no always stupid but I need to keep its pseudo for my
answer to Borax Man to be understable]
Yes, I know you can make a terminal full screen in a GUI,
but not having the options of distractions does make a difference.
When I'm wanting to focus, I find that turning off other apps,
distractions (one way is to simply turn off the GUI), stops the
temptation and bad habit of "alt-tabbing" to other things. There is
noting else to switch to, so I can read, or write in a focused way.
When I'm writing an article or a speech, this can help.
On Fri, 18 Apr 2025 12:41:47 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man wrote:
I meant to use a Text Mode interface, ie, no GUI at all. What you get
when you press CTRL-ALT-F1. I assume that people are using terminals
quite often within the GUI, my interest was more wheher people just
forgo the GUI completely from time to time.
You mean without a DE? If I press Ctrl-Alt-F1 I get a login screen which puts me back into the same GNOME 47 environment. If I understand what
you're asking then it would only be if I ssh into a machine.
[/snip it's no always stupid but I need to keep its pseudo for my
answer to Borax Man to be understable]
Yes, I know you can make a terminal full screen in a GUI,
You are wrong about that. He can't: he never did it in the videos he
provided because it's well far beyond his capacities. I can, you can,
but he can't. He's pretending to use a terminal, but his videos show he doesn't manage them well.
Le 19-04-2025, Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> a écrit :
On 2025-04-18, Farley Flud <fsquared@fsquared.linux> wrote:
[/snip it's no always stupid but I need to keep its pseudo for my
answer to Borax Man to be understable]
Yes, I know you can make a terminal full screen in a GUI,
You are wrong about that. He can't: he never did it in the videos he
provided because it's well far beyond his capacities. I can, you can,
but he can't. He's pretending to use a terminal, but his videos show he doesn't manage them well.
but not having the options of distractions does make a difference.
I'm not distracted by any options. I don't have any menu and by default,
when I'm opening a terminal in a new workspace it takes all the
available space by default. And, as always, it's exactly what I said
before about him: he's using an obsolete terminal and so can't see why a terminal in a GUI is far superior to a terminal without a GUI.
So, first, when I'm opening a terminal in a tilling Window Manager, the terminal is full screen by default. The first great thing is: I can open
two terminals side by side at the same time. And for that, I believe you
need a GUI. Maybe screen or tmux can work without a GUI, if it's the
case I'm wrong but I'm not sure about it. And, it can be very convenient
to have two terminals opened side by side. Using [CTRL]+[F1] isn't as
easy as moving your eyes.
But, modern terminals, like kitty or alacritty, help you to interact with
the output of a command. And that's a great change. It's really helpful
to be able to copy/paste the output of a command. Not always, but
sometimes I'm very happy to be using a terminal in a GUI which give me
some power the old school without a GUI wasn't able to provide me.
I'm not saying you should switch to a GUI: you do what you want. But I'm saying things have improved since the beginning of the GUI and the first terminals. And if you are willing to use a CLI/TUI as much as possible,
a GUI is not a bad option.
When I'm wanting to focus, I find that turning off other apps,
distractions (one way is to simply turn off the GUI), stops the
temptation and bad habit of "alt-tabbing" to other things. There is
noting else to switch to, so I can read, or write in a focused way.
When I'm writing an article or a speech, this can help.
That I can understand. But when you are writing an article or a speech,
did you never have the need to look for a definition or an homonym? If
so, how do you manage it if you don't have any way to switch for an alternative of your opened terminal?
On Fri, 18 Apr 2025 12:41:47 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man wrote:
I meant to use a Text Mode interface, ie, no GUI at all. What you get
when you press CTRL-ALT-F1.
CTRL-ALT-F1 does nothing for me ... oh, that’s because my GUI session is already on console 1.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 00:08 this Saturday (GMT):
On Fri, 18 Apr 2025 12:41:47 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man wrote:
I meant to use a Text Mode interface, ie, no GUI at all. What you get
when you press CTRL-ALT-F1.
CTRL-ALT-F1 does nothing for me ... oh, that’s because my GUI session
is already on console 1.
Huh, I thought the default was to put the GUI on console 7.
On Mon, 21 Apr 2025 22:40:04 -0000 (UTC), candycanearter07 wrote:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote at 00:08 this Saturday
(GMT):
On Fri, 18 Apr 2025 12:41:47 -0000 (UTC), Borax Man wrote:
I meant to use a Text Mode interface, ie, no GUI at all. What you
get when you press CTRL-ALT-F1.
CTRL-ALT-F1 does nothing for me ... oh, that’s because my GUI session
is already on console 1.
Huh, I thought the default was to put the GUI on console 7.
Debian Unstable seems to keep switching it around. Currently it’s F2 on
my backup machine, F1 on my main machine.
If supporting processes on a server, more then likely you are using a
command line supporting the processes.
The GUI version of Emacs even comes with a GTK-based build that works
with Wayland.
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