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Cleverson [clever92000 at yahoo.com.br]
Hello Gang
I'd like to know if there's some kind of "reference guide" for Linux console-based applications, or perhaps a web site / community of people who enjoy doing everything via command line and ncurses-based apps, without setting up graphical desktop environments.
I've already encountered several apps, e.g., for working with e-mails (Mutt), browsing the web (Elinks), playing music (Moc), chatting over MSN (Pebrot), and so on, but I'd like to try more options on each of those activities, and do other things such as recording and playing CDs and DVDs, sharing files over p2p, resizing partitions, reading PDFs and word documents or converting them to text, chatting over VoIP, reading RRS feeds, editing audio, etc etc.
Thank you very much and congratulations for your work on Linux Gazette, my favourite magazine.
Cleverson
Jimmy ORegan [joregan at gmail.com]
On 20/05/07, Cleverson <clever92000@yahoo.com.br> wrote:
> Hello Gang > > I'd like to know if there's some kind of "reference guide" for Linux > console-based applications, or perhaps a web site / community of people who > enjoy doing everything via command line and ncurses-based apps, without > setting up graphical desktop environments. > > I've already encountered several apps, e.g., for working with e-mails > (Mutt), browsing the web (Elinks), playing music (Moc), chatting over MSN > (Pebrot), and so on, but I'd like to try more options on each of those > activities, and do other things such as recording and playing CDs and DVDs,
MPlayer supports playing on a framebuffer console. Try mplayer -vo fbdev if it doesn't work automatically.
> sharing files over p2p, > resizing partitions, reading PDFs and word documents > or converting them to text, chatting over VoIP, reading RRS feeds,
You can use Snownews to read RSS feeds: http://kiza.kcore.de/software/snownews/
> editing > audio, etc etc.
Ecasound (http://www.eca.cx/ecasound/) is a multitrack recording program that you can use for editing audio.
Jimmy ORegan [joregan at gmail.com]
On 20/05/07, Cleverson <clever92000@yahoo.com.br> wrote:
> Thank you Jimmy. Indeed I'm not subscribed to the list. If someone else > answers my, I'd enjoy to read it as well. >
I'm sure everyone else will remember to cc you 
Samuel Bisbee-vonKaufmann [sbisbee at bu.edu]
On Sun, 20 May 2007, Cleverson wrote:
> Hello Gang > > I'd like to know if there's some kind of "reference guide" for Linux > console-based applications, or perhaps a web site / community of people who > enjoy doing everything via command line and ncurses-based apps, without > setting up graphical desktop environments. >
Google.com, sf.net, freshmeat.net, etc., etc.
My above, borderline smart ass response aside, there are way too many scripts and binaries out there to list for every task. Whenever you run into a new task or feature that you want try Google-ing around, searching source repositories, your distro's package management system (if it has one), tldp.org, etc. (and, of course, LG). Then, if you cannot find a command line solution, try asking in communities like this one.
Also keep in mind that package names will often be related to the task at hand. For example, want to convert between rpm and deb? Try searching for rpm2deb (a common naming scheme).
> I've already encountered several apps, e.g., for working with e-mails > (Mutt), browsing the web (Elinks), playing music (Moc), chatting over MSN > (Pebrot), and so on, but I'd like to try more options on each of those > activities, and do other things such as recording and playing CDs and DVDs, > sharing files over p2p, resizing partitions, reading PDFs and word documents > or converting them to text, chatting over VoIP, reading RRS feeds, editing > audio, etc etc. >
Well, I will list off my personal preferences for some of your listed tasks. Keep in mind, though, that one of the beautiful things about the command line is that there is always more than one way to do something.
E-mail: pine (choose a gpg hack of your choice; handles IMAP well enough) Web: lynx Music: mpg123 (thanks for the Moc tip, I am trying it out now) Resizing partitions: fdisk (or whatever tool in that "suite" best fits my needs) CD playing: cdcd, dcd (I don't like either of them, so just use a GUI player) .doc to ascii/.pdf: antiword
> Thank you very much and congratulations for your work on Linux Gazette, my > favourite magazine. >
Thank you very much. Your whole email, and this line in particular, is
what fuels us and gives us a response to the "you do that for free?"
critics. Much appreciated.
-- Samuel Kotel Bisbee-vonKaufmann | "A statistician lay with his head in an oven Boston University, Undergrad. | and his feet in ice, and on the average he OFTC.net, Network Operator | felt fine." --Prairie Home Companion Linux Gazette, Assoc. Editor | www.geecs.org/~sbisbee
René Pfeiffer [lynx at luchs.at]
> On Sun, 20 May 2007, Cleverson wrote: > > I've already encountered several apps, e.g., for working with e-mails > > (Mutt), browsing the web (Elinks), playing music (Moc), chatting over MSN > > (Pebrot), and so on, but I'd like to try more options on each of those > > activities, and do other things such as recording and playing CDs and DVDs, > > sharing files over p2p, resizing partitions, reading PDFs and word docu ments > > or converting them to text, chatting over VoIP, reading RRS feeds, editing > > audio, etc etc. > > > Well, I will list off my personal preferences for some of your listed=20 > tasks. Keep in mind, though, that one of the beautiful things about the > command line is that there is always more than one way to do something.
I'll tune in and list some of my favourites as well.
- jfbterm is very useful if you run the console in a framebuffer and have a need for displaying UTF-8 characters (which might be useful if you look at the output of antiword or pdftotext). - Speaking of the framebuffer, if you have one you might want to try w3m for web browsing since it has also framebuffer support. - mp3blaster and ogg123 for playback; mp3blaster has playlist features. - cabber is a Jabber client for the console. Jabber supports multiple messaging protocols, cabber is a way to use some from the console. - htop is a nicer variant of top for displaying the process list.If you're interested in trying out more console-based utils I can readily recommend the GRML Live CD (http://www.grml.org/). It's a complete bootable system, boots into a nice framebuffer console and has tons of console tools. It is my weapon of choice for my sysadmin work. I am sure you will find lots of useful tools by browsing its package list: http://www.grml.org/files/#debian
Best, René.
Cleverson [clever92000 at yahoo.com.br]
Hi all,
Thank you - René, Samuel and Jimmy - who kindly answered so far, for all of tips and suggestions on specific software and the GRML distro. I'll give them a look.
Regards and stay doing such that good work at LG.
Cleverson
"Be realistic; ask for the impossible."
Kapil Hari Paranjape [kapil at imsc.res.in]
Hello,
On Sun, 20 May 2007, Cleverson wrote:
> I'd like to know if there's some kind of "reference guide" for Linux > console-based applications, or perhaps a web site / community of people who > enjoy doing everything via command line and ncurses-based apps, without > setting up graphical desktop environments.
There used to be something called the "command-line brotherhood"---you may want to google^Wcheck whether they still exist.
Here are some that I have made friends with:
1. "screen" (to avoid logging in many times while on the console
and a host of other things).
2. "w3m" for web-browsing.
3. "xmms2" for playing music --- in spite of the X it does not need
graphics to play music.
4. "weechat" for IRC. ("bitlbee" to convert IM services to IRC).
5. "wyrd" for appointments.
6. "abcde" for recording from CD's to disk.
7. "mc" for file management.
8. "catdoc" for viewing word documents.
9. "pdftotext", "pdftohtml" for viewing PDF documents.
You can also skip all of the above and install (x)emacs along with a
bunch of elisp programs. It is a "universal" command-line
environment.
However, it is probably better to run all these programs in an X window environment if that is possible for you. Reasons follow:
a. That is what 80% of the people you correspond with will expect you to be running. So it will be easier to exchange notes. b. When you need to quickly do some task (expedience) that involves a web-site (say) which requires a graphical browser like Firefox what will you do? c. If you like a fullscreen text-mode window without the clutter of the modern window interface, this can be done with X. Hints for doing this with FVWM, Icewm and other window managers are scattered through LG and elsewhere. d. Like the complaints about emacs, the complaints about X being a resource hog are a not meaningful on standard post-2000 desktop machine.Hope this helps,
Kapil. --
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 06:59:30AM +0530, Kapil Hari Paranjape wrote:
> > b. When you need to quickly do some task (expedience) > that involves a web-site (say) which requires a > graphical browser like Firefox what will you do?
Me, I would use 'links2 -g'. Heck, a graphical browser exists for DOS (Arachne); not having one for the Linux console would be just shameful. 'links2', 'mutt', 'vi', 'zgv', 'sabre', and 'lxdoom' - what else could you possibly need?
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Cleverson [clever92000 at yahoo.com.br]
Thanks Ben.
BTW I forgot to mention a console editor I enjoy: NE, the Nice Editor: http://ne.dsi.unimi.it/
Cheers, Cleverson
"Be realistic; ask for the impossible."
Kapil Hari Paranjape [kapil at imsc.res.in]
Hello,
On Sun, 20 May 2007, Ben Okopnik wrote:
> On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 06:59:30AM +0530, Kapil Hari Paranjape wrote: > > > > b. When you need to quickly do some task (expedience) > > that involves a web-site (say) which requires a > > graphical browser like Firefox what will you do? > > Me, I would use 'links2 -g'. Heck, a graphical browser exists for DOS > (Arachne); not having one for the Linux console would be just shameful. > 'links2', 'mutt', 'vi', 'zgv', 'sabre', and 'lxdoom' - what else could > you possibly need?
I haven't used the graphical mode for links2. Does it support "flash"? There are web sites (unfortunately) which cannot be navigated without flash support. Now normally I would just ignore this or file a complaint with the web-site authors. However, there are times when one has to meet a deadline and so expedience rules over all else.
Similarly, catdoc or wv or a complaint to the person responsible are adequate measures for most .doc files one has to deal with---but when there is a deadline one cannot do without openoffice or abiword. One can (and should) file a complaint later of course.
For this reason, I feel that one should have a running X if possible. It is still possible to work "as if" one is on the console if one configures things suitably.
Regards,
Kapil. (Who feels that deadlines are one way for the majority to dominate the minority.) --
Cleverson [clever92000 at yahoo.com.br]
Thanks folks, and just one more question:
Is there some console program to view or extract the contents of PPS and PPT files, which people create and view in Microsoft Power Point under Windows? I don't need to view them very often, but if someone knows any way to do it at a console....
Cheers, Cleverson
"Be realistic; ask for the impossible."
Kapil Hari Paranjape [kapil at imsc.res.in]
Hello,
On Mon, 21 May 2007, Cleverson wrote:
> Thanks folks, and just one more question: > Is there some console program to view or extract the contents of PPS and PPT > files,
You could try "ppthtml". However, this is not a way to view the presentation as a presentation but only to obtain its contents.
Regards,
Kapil. --
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 09:20:02AM +0530, Kapil Hari Paranjape wrote:
> Hello, > > On Sun, 20 May 2007, Ben Okopnik wrote: > > On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 06:59:30AM +0530, Kapil Hari Paranjape wrote: > > > > > > b. When you need to quickly do some task (expedience) > > > that involves a web-site (say) which requires a > > > graphical browser like Firefox what will you do? > > > > Me, I would use 'links2 -g'. Heck, a graphical browser exists for DOS > > (Arachne); not having one for the Linux console would be just shameful. > > 'links2', 'mutt', 'vi', 'zgv', 'sabre', and 'lxdoom' - what else could > > you possibly need? > > I haven't used the graphical mode for links2. Does it support > "flash"?
I haven't used it myself, but as I understand it, all that's necessary is an entry in ~/.links2/links.cfg:
association "Flash Player" "application/x-shockwave-flash" "swf-player %"
> There are web sites (unfortunately) which cannot be > navigated without flash support. Now normally I would just ignore > this or file a complaint with the web-site authors. However, there are > times when one has to meet a deadline and so expedience rules over all > else.
There are times when "the other Golden Rule" ("whoever has the gold makes the rules") is the key, yes.
> Similarly, catdoc or wv or a complaint to the person responsible > are adequate measures for most .doc files one has to deal with---but > when there is a deadline one cannot do without openoffice or abiword. > One can (and should) file a complaint later of course.
Over time, I've trained all my correspondents (at least, those who had the nasty habit in the first place) not to send me Micr0s0ft-specific files. It's well worth the effort.
> For this reason, I feel that one should have a running X if > possible. It is still possible to work "as if" one is on the > console if one configures things suitably.
Oh, I agree - if for no reason other than the ease of flipping between xterms. However, Linux should have (and does) powerful, efficient software that allows people to work and be productive on low-end hardware. I'm a big fan of that.
> Kapil. > (Who feels that deadlines are one way for the majority to dominate > the minority.)
I'm glad you mentioned that - here we are, just past the LG deadline, and we're very short on articles this month. Since I - all by my lonesome! - am the deadline-wielding majority, I think I'll dominate the minority (the rest of the world) and force them to start assiduously writing articles for us every month...
(There only remains the small question of implementation, but I'm sure
that it's trivial.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *
Suramya Tomar [security at suramya.com]
Hey,
> I'd like to know if there's some kind of "reference guide" for Linux > console-based applications, or perhaps a web site / community of people who > enjoy doing everything via command line and ncurses-based apps, without > setting up graphical desktop environments.
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/more-terminal-programs-you-should-be-using-like-a-pro/
Has a list of some programs that you can use from the command line for common tasks.
Hope this helps.
- Suramya
--************************************************************Name : Suramya Tomar Homepage URL: http://www.suramya.com
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
[ Suramya, please remember to include the querent in the CC list; they're generally not subscribed to TAG. Thanks! ]
On Mon, May 21, 2007 at 09:07:51PM +0530, Suramya Tomar wrote:
> Hey, > > > I'd like to know if there's some kind of "reference guide" for Linux > > console-based applications, or perhaps a web site / community of people who > > enjoy doing everything via command line and ncurses-based apps, without > > setting up graphical desktop environments. > > http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/more-terminal-programs-you-should-be-using-like-a-pro/ > > Has a list of some programs that you can use from the command line for > common tasks.
That's really nice. I particularly liked 'twin' - it's very, very cute.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *