5 ms·

For me, the main reason not to switch 100% to the console is the web browser. There is no fb browser with proper CSS and HTML5 support. At work, I have a dual

For me, the main reason not to switch 100% to the console is the web browser. There is no fb browser with proper CSS and HTML5 support. At work, I have a dual monitor setup, one of them with a browser, the other with a console running 'screen'. If I could have the same setup in a console I would. On the other hand, I feel like font rendering is much nicer under X11, and the clipboard support is better.

moonboots 14y ago
Browser support and fonts are also the things holding me back from doing more work without X. For clipboard support, try tmux[1], a screen alternative. I actually like the tmux clipboard more than X's because you can list and select from all previous copies/cuts. Tmux provides vi and emacs shortcuts to find and copy text from the console. The "tmux set-buffer" command can also be used in place of xclip. [1] http://tmux.sourceforge.net/ http://tmux.sourceforge.net/
gbin 14y ago
Check this out, I stumbled on it while making the blog post : firefox ported to directfb https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/DFBPorting https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/DFBPorting
- carlesfe 14y ago
  That would be awesome! I have an old computer which can barely run X, I could try firefox on the framebuffer
  - dguaraglia 14y ago
    Well, to be honest a hardware-accelerated X server (which you'll get with even something as lowly as a 10-year-old S3 card) is faster than the framebuffer. What you might want to do is run X with a minimalistic window manager. Try "fluxbox" or "blackbox", both of those take about 1mb of memory :)
- protobluffers 14y ago
  But why have a huge complex browser in the first place? Do people really get much satisfaction from HTML gimmicks? Are they more interested in media (images, audio, video)? Let's say you want to watch video. Download the video using a program designed for that. Then watch the video using mplayer which works fine with the Linux fb. Same goes for photos. Download the photos quickly and efficiently using the command line and pipe them into a fb-friendly photo viewer. There used to be this idea called MIME. Using separate programs to do separate things. Small simple programs that do one thing well. Mozilla has all but abandoned this concept. We all had to suffer through the hassle of Adobe Flash, only to finally admit it sucks and watch Adobe kill it. (.sfw = "small web file" - nice try guys) And it now takes hours if not days for most consumer machines to compile Firefox. The compexity burden for a "modern web browser" is through the roof. The program is a monstrosity. (And the codec jungle makes a simple video player like mplayer far too complex. We need some common sense here folks.)
  - carlesfe 14y ago
    Honestly, no. I use gmail as my email manager, calendar, tasks, contacts, documents, and general organizer. That's why I haven't migrated to mutt or other console email client. I agree that not all javascript is needed, but I wouldn't consider Gmail a gimmick
sbochins 14y ago
Definately agree. I think a good alternative is something I used at my old job (when I wasn't required to run a clunky ide). Just use tmux for window management. Use vim for your ide. Use the shell for interacting w/ the OS and automating things. Then I use firefox with pentadactyl so I rarely have to ever resort to the mouse. Not the best dev environment, but I'm too lazy at this point to learn/develop alternatives. Maybe one day...

moonboots 14y ago

Browser support and fonts are also the things holding me back from doing more work without X. For clipboard support, try tmux[1], a screen alternative. I actually like the tmux clipboard more than X's because you can list and select from all previous copies/cuts. Tmux provides vi and emacs shortcuts to find and copy text from the console. The "tmux set-buffer" command can also be used in place of xclip. [1] http://tmux.sourceforge.net/ http://tmux.sourceforge.net/

gbin 14y ago

Check this out, I stumbled on it while making the blog post : firefox ported to directfb https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/DFBPorting https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/DFBPorting

carlesfe 14y ago
That would be awesome! I have an old computer which can barely run X, I could try firefox on the framebuffer
- dguaraglia 14y ago
  Well, to be honest a hardware-accelerated X server (which you'll get with even something as lowly as a 10-year-old S3 card) is faster than the framebuffer. What you might want to do is run X with a minimalistic window manager. Try "fluxbox" or "blackbox", both of those take about 1mb of memory :)
protobluffers 14y ago
But why have a huge complex browser in the first place? Do people really get much satisfaction from HTML gimmicks? Are they more interested in media (images, audio, video)? Let's say you want to watch video. Download the video using a program designed for that. Then watch the video using mplayer which works fine with the Linux fb. Same goes for photos. Download the photos quickly and efficiently using the command line and pipe them into a fb-friendly photo viewer. There used to be this idea called MIME. Using separate programs to do separate things. Small simple programs that do one thing well. Mozilla has all but abandoned this concept. We all had to suffer through the hassle of Adobe Flash, only to finally admit it sucks and watch Adobe kill it. (.sfw = "small web file" - nice try guys) And it now takes hours if not days for most consumer machines to compile Firefox. The compexity burden for a "modern web browser" is through the roof. The program is a monstrosity. (And the codec jungle makes a simple video player like mplayer far too complex. We need some common sense here folks.)
- carlesfe 14y ago
  Honestly, no. I use gmail as my email manager, calendar, tasks, contacts, documents, and general organizer. That's why I haven't migrated to mutt or other console email client. I agree that not all javascript is needed, but I wouldn't consider Gmail a gimmick

sbochins 14y ago

Definately agree. I think a good alternative is something I used at my old job (when I wasn't required to run a clunky ide). Just use tmux for window management. Use vim for your ide. Use the shell for interacting w/ the OS and automating things. Then I use firefox with pentadactyl so I rarely have to ever resort to the mouse. Not the best dev environment, but I'm too lazy at this point to learn/develop alternatives. Maybe one day...