A day without X11 ?

I used stock eclipse for java ee. Eclipse use it own ecj compiler to incremental compile source changes in the background so sometime I saw it eating cpu when I do nothing.
 
My work on the other hand mostly requires switching between 2 or more programs and for me switching context every 5 seconds is actually a hassle and I lose focus.

I certainly get this one. Its weird but if I switch between two GUI programs like Dia and Gimp, it is fine, and two terminal programs like Vim and interactive CLI (i.e to run make) I am fine. However I find switching context between CLI and GUI programs much harder.

I think I just don't like being able to use the mouse for some things and not others, same with keyboard. I want to stick to one paradigm entirely.

Also the reason why tiling window managers to me are a bit daft. You have to use the mouse on the GUI programs within them, but often have to use the keyboard to move the windows themselves around (such as hold alt to grab a window). Doesn't make much sense; a single method of controlling the WM would surely be faster than a weird mixed approach (one that Gnome 3 is faffing about with). A single background console (with Tmux) with a few GUI windows in the foreground as they are needed surely seems easier (but each to their own I guess).

Because I happen to use 90% CLI applications that is a very strong reason why I am quite committed to Vim. Possibly if I had to use the majority of GUI applications, then yeah I imagine switching to a GUI text editor would be highly likely (possibly something a bit lighter than Eclipse though.. Sorry! :D)

When using MS Windows, I do use Notepad++ because everything is a sodding GUI application but my whole workflow is slow and awkward. I also find myself in a much worse mood after a while. That said, I don't think it is me. I think almost all Microsoft Windows users have slow awkward workflows, they just don't know any better haha.
 
I certainly get this one. Its weird but if I switch between two GUI programs like Dia and Gimp, it is fine, and two terminal programs like Vim and interactive CLI (i.e to run make) I am fine. However I find switching context between CLI and GUI programs much harder.

I think I just don't like being able to use the mouse for some things and not others, same with keyboard. I want to stick to one paradigm entirely.

Also the reason why tiling window managers to me are a bit daft. You have to use the mouse on the GUI programs within them, but often have to use the keyboard to move the windows themselves around (such as hold alt to grab a window). Doesn't make much sense; a single method of controlling the WM would surely be faster than a weird mixed approach (one that Gnome 3 is faffing about with). A single background console (with Tmux) with a few GUI windows in the foreground as they are needed surely seems easier (but each to their own I guess).

Because I happen to use 90% CLI applications that is a very strong reason why I am quite committed to Vim. Possibly if I had to use the majority of GUI applications, then yeah I imagine switching to a GUI text editor would be highly likely (possibly something a bit lighter than Eclipse though.. Sorry! :D)

When using MS Windows, I do use Notepad++ because everything is a sodding GUI application but my whole workflow is slow and awkward. I also find myself in a much worse mood after a while. That said, I don't think it is me. I think almost all Microsoft Windows users have slow awkward workflows, they just don't know any better haha.

The problem of long use of mouse is not good for the body, muscle and sitting position.
It is fairly better to use a gamer keyboard, about 100 to 250 bucks, only and foremost, this without a mouse. Ideally cordless on a good office chair (with arms).

Eyes:
Large fonts and longest distance between eyes and monitor, in order to tend to long distance vieweing. It allows to reduce eyes fatigue.
Console /black background with no-bold color, with high large font, ex. the regular bsd (second choice) of vidcontrol
With vidcontrol you can change it or just use into vim or emacs.

At the gold age, we could display graphics too on old computers.
Today it is much largely complicated, and FreeBSD tends to runs X11 rather than Framebuffer (no vgl support).


Nec_APC_System_1.jpg

Monochrome : 27 800 FF (France, Dec. 83)
 
However I find switching context between CLI and GUI programs much harder.
Just use programs like yakuake or guake. The console is one keypress away.

Also, I don't use 90% of CLI because most of my CLI is automated. I would say ~50% CLI and 50% GUI.
 
Just use programs like yakuake or guake. The console is one keypress away.

Also, I don't use 90% of CLI because most of my CLI is automated. I would say ~50% CLI and 50% GUI.

When you have chance not to be on MS Windows, why not trying under *BSD to go fully CLI and to drop this X11 that slows you down... ?

Just give a try what is really CLI :
 
When you have chance not to be on MS Windows, why not trying under *BSD to go fully CLI and to drop this X11 that slows you down... ?
Because we're not in 1992 anymore. Just a couple of reasons: Fonts, colors, scrolling, clipboard, tiling. Also - we not always use the PC for textual work. There are the picture and video editors, WYSIWYG, also - I sometimes watch a funny video in my break. You have a 1000 reasons to use the GUI.
Provided you have a handy console window, I don't see why I should drop functionality from my system? How does a GUI slow me down? I still have a CLI one F12 press away?
 
Because we're not in 1992 anymore.

That's not a great reason. A better one would be because "you prefer GUI environments".
The CLI environment far predates 1992 and will likely far succeed us and our children. The CLI isn't "old". It is a tool like any other and will exist in many modern forms on all relevant operating systems in the future.

Besides, I found even the primitive GUI environments in 1992 much better than the kiddie / tablet crap we have today (like Gnome 3) ;)
In reality you need both GUI and CLI but at least the CLI is getting better with time.
 
That's not a great reason. A better one would be because "you prefer GUI environments".
The CLI environment far predates 1992 and will likely far succeed us and our children. The CLI isn't "old". It is a tool like any other and will exist in many modern forms on all relevant operating systems in the future.

Besides, I found even the primitive GUI environments in 1992 much better than the kiddie / tablet crap we have today (like Gnome 3) ;)
In reality you need both GUI and CLI but at least the CLI is getting better with time.
That's incorrect. I do not "prefer GUI environments", as I do not prefer CLI environments. There's the right tool for each job I want to do.
I have a perfectly capable CLI environment inside Xorg. It's summoned with F12 and it's a drop-down console.
What I am against is stripping down my GUI just for the sake of what? Having a textual console for my CLI? Why? I do have a CLI inside my X server. Why should I drop functionality without gaining anything?

It makes absolutely no sense for me.
If you demonstrate some advantage - sure, but I don't see any. What can I do more or better if I stop my display manager? I see only hacks and workarounds, so why?

Having CLI and working without an X server is not the same. X has tons of terminal emulators and CLI is completely supported there.
What is not supported in the pure textual console is graphics.
 
Because we're not in 1992 anymore.
The Xerox Alto started being sold in the early 70s. Even before that, computer graphics existed (at least since the 1950s), although not really as a "graphical interface", since input operations on the graphics screens (like using light pens) were restricted to single graphics programs, not a shell-like construct that runs over multiple programs.

The Apple Macintosh made graphics and GUIs into a mass-market commodity in 1984 (see the famous commercial). Funny story: A friend of mine (former ride-sharing partner at work) bought a Mac in 1984, and was showing it to colleagues. One time he brought it to another lab to show to people there, and was demonstrating how useful it was. After half an hour of demonstrating getting work done, he noticed that he had forgotten to bring the keyboard, and had used nothing but screen and mouse, and still been able to impress the audience!

P.S. Just looked it up: The IBM graphics terminal model 2250 was introduced in 1964. Look for it on Wikipedia. I think I first saw them in the mid 70s, and I used them, plus Tektronix 401x terminals in the early 80s. Even early "home" computers of the late 70s, like TRS-80 or Commodore PET or Apple-II were able to display low-resolution graphics.
 
That's not a great reason. A better one would be because "you prefer GUI environments".
The CLI environment far predates 1992 and will likely far succeed us and our children. The CLI isn't "old". It is a tool like any other and will exist in many modern forms on all relevant operating systems in the future.

Besides, I found even the primitive GUI environments in 1992 much better than the kiddie / tablet crap we have today (like Gnome 3) ;)
In reality you need both GUI and CLI but at least the CLI is getting better with time.


It is actually good that people forget what console is. It is good that GUI is more dominant and present everywhere.
Because....
It means that overall Unix will go to different directions: Linux and Unix *BSD community.
As said one, wayland + kde + compositions + systemd + bash + xinerama + vnc + teamviewer + pulse + ... all those amazing stuffs.
There is a mouse too.
ah... I forget the web also, with Google Chrome and all css, java, ... stuffs.
It looks a bit like this in the screenshot.

Real CLI means that X11/Xorg/Wayland has never ever been installed. ;)
 

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cli, command line, yes ... is limited. text user interface however much less so, especially if running a framebuffer on which you can view pdf's, images, videos ...etc. tmux with multiple panes that you can zoom/restore, or multiple windows is more usable than cli. mc file manager and text editor and you can cut/paste between multiple documents etc.

text user interface can work well in a more server/client arrangement, for instance I set my local tmux prefix key to be the backtick key, F11 for new window, F12 for next window (so not to collide with mc's F1 to F10). Which means that when I ssh into hashbang.sh and run its tmux that uses the default keys, that doesn't conflict with my local tmux. I also have my tmux 'tray' at the top of screen so hashbang's tmux 'tray' is at the bottom of the screen. On that I leave irc, mail ...etc. just running. I just detach (ctrl-b d) and logoff, so when I later log in again and attach (tmux attach), mail, irc etc are all instantly active/available again.

But why run just that alone, when you can have both. Typically I use three jwm (my preferred window manager) desktops. One for music (audacious with its equaliser etc.), another for browser (firefox with multiple tabs typically open), the third for tmux (with its multiple windows across two tmux 'trays').

In addition to that I have two sessions running, DISPLAY :0 and :1 (Xephyr for isolation), where :1 has capabilities dropped and firefox runs in a very restricted userid and where socks is proxied (again to hashbang.sh) so all https and dns traffic flows through a ssh tunnel. :1 is disposable, i.e. starts 'clean' at each restart.

Sticking to just one or the other cli or gui is just either hardcore, or task specific. If you spend all day just ssh logged into other remote boxes then text interface might fit that task better. If you spend all day surfing or doing other gui type activities then you may have no need for a textual interface. For others, a combination of both can serve better than just restricting yourself to one or the other alone. Meat and three veg, but by all means go a day without meat (or veg) if you're so inclined.
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Maybe, we just need to rediscover what is limited graphics like DEC computers ...
slide05.jpg

(Illustrative picture only)
Framebuffer is a possible way to get some graphics without X11/Wayland using API fbio.h or actually alternatively caca library.

Btw, those keyboards were so cool...
 
Sorry, that's not the "first" DEC computer. Rather on the contrary. That thing looks like a low-end LSI-11 (a small PDP 11 with a micropchip-based CPU), and was probably from the 1970s. Actually just looked it up: The VT100 sitting on top means that the picture can not have been taken before 1978. Those things were mass-marketed: tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands were built.

The very first computer Digital built, the PDP-1, was about 20 years earlier. And the PDP-1 is mostly famous for giving rise to the first graphical computer game, space wars. I've never played it on a PDP before the PDP-11; it kept getting ported to newer and newer models (even though the instruction sets are quite incompatible). Matter-of-fact, about 10 minutes by bicycle from where I'm sitting right now is the Computer History Museum, and they have the only functioning PDP-1 that's left in the world. And once in a while they fire it up, and demonstrate playing spacewars. The original PDPs are a very exclusive club; only dozens and dozens were ever built.

So as you see, graphical interfaces are really old, and have a long and illustrious history.
 
It is actually good that people forget what console is. It is good that GUI is more dominant and present everywhere.
Because....
It means that overall Unix will go to different directions: Linux and Unix *BSD community.
As said one, wayland + kde + compositions + systemd + bash + xinerama + vnc + teamviewer + pulse + ... all those amazing stuffs.
There is a mouse too.
ah... I forget the web also, with Google Chrome and all css, java, ... stuffs.
It looks a bit like this in the screenshot.

Real CLI means that X11/Xorg/Wayland has never ever been installed. ;)

CLI means command line interface. If you have a command line, you have a CLI. It has nothing to do with text terminal vs GUI terminal. You can have CLIs in both.
Also you can have GUIs in both: ncurses is a GUI for text mode and Xorg based GUIs work in graphical mode.

These must be differentiated: CLIs are essential and will most definitely be around for the foreseeable future. GUIs also.

When it comes to: Should a GUI be installed? The answer is simple: removing the GUI is a resource optimization. If you need maximum resource utilization and use only CLI locally or over SSH (for example on a web server or Internet gateway), graphics has no place on such a system.
On a workstation, notebook or handheld device - I think GUI is a must have in 99% of the cases.

One more point: If you want to automate stuff, CLIs are irreplaceable. I hate GUI only programs without a CLI interface.
With that said, for every purpose there is the proper tool. If I have a screwdriver this does not mean I have to throw my hammer away, does it?
 
It is actually good that people forget what console is. It is good that GUI is more dominant and present everywhere.
Because....
It means that overall Unix will go to different directions: Linux and Unix *BSD community.
As said one, wayland + kde + compositions + systemd + bash + xinerama + vnc + teamviewer + pulse + ... all those amazing stuffs.
There is a mouse too.
ah... I forget the web also, with Google Chrome and all css, java, ... stuffs.
It looks a bit like this in the screenshot.

Real CLI means that X11/Xorg/Wayland has never ever been installed. ;)
This is amazing!

However, installed mps-youtube and trying it out and - flop, it does not show the video, I hear the audio only. That's the problem with such hacks, you need to make them work first.
Otherwise the idea is phenomenal, thanks!
 
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