Living Without X - favorite command line tools?

[reed9]

So I've decided to try my hand for a while at running without a GUI. No X Windows installed. Hopefully it will force me to improve my command line skills.

Anyway, I've gotten most of what I want/need installed as follows:

cmus - music player
nethack - fun and games
cboard - chess
mplayer - movie player
links -g - graphical webbrowser
newsreuter - rss & podcast
fbi - image viewer
mc - file manager
calcurse - calendar and personal organizer
calc - calculator
finch - instant messenger
vcs - create screenshots from video files
rtorrent - bittorrent
netcfg - wireless profiles (Too bad Ceni doesn't work on Arch Linux.)

There's a few things I'm considering:

gmailreader - simple gmail client
vifm - file manager with vi like keybindings. But I don't know vi!
wordgrinder - word processor
ripit - cd ripping

I've got emacs and vim installed for word processing/text editing, though I don't know how to use either of them. I should probably buckle down and learn one.

All that said, I would love suggestions from anyone regarding their favorite CLI applications. I need ideas and links to those secret awesome applications that deserve more attention! Got a better CLI torrent app? Tell me about it. Is Snownews better than Newsreuter? Tell me why!

[Surak]

Is this "Links -g" a rip off of lynx? also, emacs is a gui app.

[reed9]

Is this "Links -g" a rip off of lynx? also, emacs is a gui app.

I believe links was written as a replacement for lynx, but is not a fork of it. 2005 Text Mode Browser Roundup

The second version (links2 in some distros, links-g in Arch), allows for graphical web browsing either using X11 or the console framebuffer (which is how I'm using it.)

I haven't fired emacs up yet, but I'm fairly certain it can be run in console mode. There were no X or gtk dependencies when I installed it, and it's listed here GNU Emacs CLI-Apps.org as a CLI text editor.

[SnagaDuath]

doesn't links -g require X? I think you can only run links without -g in command line, but not links -g...?

Anyway, this really is a great way to improve your console skills!

cdrecord is a good tool for writing cds/dvds. And using it together with mkisofs is a perfect combination!

[reed9]

doesn't links -g require X? I think you can only run links without -g in command line, but not links -g...?

Anyway, this really is a great way to improve your console skills!

cdrecord is a good tool for writing cds/dvds. And using it together with mkisofs is a perfect combination!

Nope, you can run links -g without X using the framebuffer. Same thing with watching movies using mplayer. I just compiled mplayer without gui support and with fbdev enabled.

I'm running this on a old laptop without DVD support or CD burning, so while I'm interested in knowing what command line tools people use for burning, I won't be needing them myself. I'd probably go with mybashburn, otherwise, for a nice ncurses menu.

[devils casper]

I use cdrecord to burn CD in CLI.

[Dapper Dan]

I've thought for a while now that a distro that concentrated on command line "visuality" without X would not only be fun but very handy in certain situations. I don't know how to make such a distro but I'd certainly use it if it were available. It'd be cool if you could have a command line "desktop" based on ncurses or something. There may be such a thing out there already and I just haven't come across it yet.

[reed9]

I've thought for a while now that a distro that concentrated on command line "visuality" without X would not only be fun but very handy in certain situations. I don't know how to make such a distro but I'd certainly use it if it were available. It'd be cool if you could have a command line "desktop" based on ncurses or something. There may be such a thing out there already and I just haven't come across it yet.

Have you looked an INX? INX Is Not X : A command line and console Linux "Live CD" based on a minimal Ubuntu, without the X window system graphical interface. INX has some surprising capabilities...

[Surak]

oh wait, emacs -nw runs without a gui

[elija]

Have you looked an INX? INX Is Not X : A command line and console Linux "Live CD" based on a minimal Ubuntu, without the X window system graphical interface. INX has some surprising capabilities...

That looks kind of cool... Time for another download I think