X Free...no, really by jtr · linux - 17 January 2005, 10:55

My friend Ed is guest-blogging at Eduardo’s site. He wrote an interesting article lamenting the decline in usefulness (for everyday tasks) of the Linux command line. At the end of the article Ed wrote, “Be it pure console, semi-GUI or full GUI, I’d love to see someone seriously pursue Linux/Unix desktop use for the home/office without the bottomless pit of computer power that is X.” Having been thinking about this very thing for a number of months, I have decided to rise to the challenge. I shall be X-free (not to be confused with XFree86) for the next month or so.

I have an old Gateway 2000 (yes, “2000”; I said it was old) with a Pentium 200MHz processor, 64MB RAM, a Matrox Mystique video card with 2MB RAM, a 2.6GB IDE hard drive (with Win95), and a 2.2GB SCSI drive with Debian Testing (obviously in a dual-boot configuration). X (of any sort – X.org or XFree86) is not installed on this machine, nor will it be. I shall do everything on it via the Linux console in framebuffer mode. I will provide regular updates on the applications I use to accomplish my tasks.

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  1. I know quite a few good CLI programs to replace common GUI’s. naim is a good AIM client, and there are several good CLI jabber clients. There’s even an RSS reader with jabber built it.

    Links is of course the best web browser, and Pine the best email client. But then, you knew that, didn’t you? ;)
    — Topher    Jan 17, 12:17 PM    #
  2. Heh. No, I did not know that. To know that would be to have false knowledge since all mail clients stink; mutt simply stinks less (than Pine).

    I am very open to app suggestions, particularly the RSS reader with Jabber support. Do tell!
    — jtr    Jan 17, 12:19 PM    #
  3. I can’t find the one that does both, but snownews is a good cli rss reader
    — Topher    Jan 17, 12:36 PM    #
  4. Hmmmmm, now this is a very cool idea.

    From a personal stance I should do more command line stuff but I don’t.

    Please keep us updated on this “experiment.”
    — Mark    Jan 17, 12:57 PM    #
  5. Now, this sounds like one of the most interesting projects I’ve heard proposed. Would you mind providing detailed notes? I might just have to take this one once getting an idea of how you manage it.
    — Josiah    Jan 17, 08:01 PM    #
  6. I just noticed elinks in Xterm will scroll with the mouse wheel, but won’t do it on my FreeBSD console. Still, this whole experiment may justify a longer write-up that I can pester Tim into publishing.
    — Ed Hurst    Jan 17, 08:41 PM    #
  7. I made some comments on my blog…
    http://josiah.ritchietribe.net/blog/archive/2005/01/907/
    — Josiah Ritchie    Jan 18, 08:50 AM    #
  8. i’d really like to have an easy to install and user friendly (??) distro without X. complete with all internet apps (browser, mail, etc) office apps (read/write word/excel compatible documents), etc…
    — rex    Aug 18, 02:57 AM    #