Re: Very slim Desktop Manager
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 10:48:39AM -0600, lee wrote:
> > I do not use spreadsheets but
> >
> > apt-cache show sc
>
> Well, have you tried sc?
As I said, I never used any spreadsheet (or word processor, for that
matter). I have seen once a person using excel, and I decided that the
use of anything remotely resembling a spreadsheet is completely outside
my abilities and interests.
[Above all is completely outside my interest the way in which
spreadsheets are used as calculators, databases, whawtever except
editors, since MS-word is the only existing application outside
MS-excel, in this stange MS-world of spreadsheets users]
> > apt-cache show bmv
> > apt-cache show fbi
>
> Those are not pdf viewers.
Yes, they are and I use them. But I understand that I was no so clear.
One needs a previous conversion, which in case of fbi in integrated in
the script fbgs in the fbi package, and for bmv can be obtained with a
trivial script which calls pdf2dsc before bmv (I use pdf2dsc and not
pdf2ps or whatever for space and speed reasons)
(as "pdf viewer" I am interested in some screen-equivalent of looking at
a printed pdf. I have no need for more advanced features which might be
included in .pdf files)
> Have you ever used MS access?
no. I have also never seen it. And I have also always heard very bad
things about its native file format. (Even worser things than the .doc
format, from the easy of corruption point of view)
> There is no commandline substitute for
> that --- no GUI substitute either, unfortunately.
Once I heard about rekall. What happened to that application?
> try qalculate
no, thanks. It is a X application, I already a working non-X solution
for my needs. As you can see, I am non so flexible as you, or mybe I am
too old for this.
But when I will personally meet a X user who needs a calculator, I will
say "try qalculate", and so I will see how it works without the pain to
have to use it myself.
PS: I have now seen (on sarge)
# apt-get -udfq install qalculate
0 upgraded, 22 newly installed, 0 to remove and 33 not upgraded.
[snip]
Need to get 2009kB/9997kB of archives.
After unpacking 37.7MB of additional disk space will be used.
so much space and so many (gnome) libraries for a calculator? That makes
sense only when one is a gnome user. And I expect that qalculate-kde
from etch makes sense only for kde users.
PS/2: gnuplot has also svgalib output.
> It's one of the applications that would be very hard to create and to
> use without a GUI.
I have now found with google that there are image manipulations programs
for dos (http://www.opus.co.tt/dave/indexall.htm lists some of them).
Even a gpl one [vp386], which unfortunately uses dos4gw and so it should
not work under dosemu.
> What is the console equivalent to gaim?
I do not know gaim, I cannot answer. But from what I see with "apt-cache
show gaim" I expect that the answer that somebody else has already given
makes sense.
> I tend to
> leave things running which I'm going to use again sooner or later
> anyway
me too, but in a very different way
> Did you look at the screenshots?
yes
> With lynx, the screen is mostly empty,
> and it's hard to figure out what you're looking at because the display
> is totally messed up.
evidently we have different ways to look at things. But it might simply
be that I have no idea of what to look for in a forum; I never had
reasons to be intersted in them.
> You can't even scroll,
What is scroll? If it is the horizontal analogue of Ctrl-n and Ctrl-p
the you can enable it in lynx (first, turn word wrap off).
> the images are not
> displayed,
a very good thing for my needs
> and if you want to follow a link, you have to fumble your
> way through all the links from the top of the page until you finally
> get to the one you want to follow.
strange that an xterm user says that (search mouse in man lynx)
> That isn't exactly useable,
evidently is not usable for you, and I am not trying to change that.
> and it is not user friendly.
lynx is like many unixes and many humans: it selectively choses its friends.
Like it happens with humans, lynx friends might not be the best persons
in the world (I am surely _not_ a good person). But the important thing
is that everyone has the friends who are adequate for him.
> Icons are not annoying or useless most of the time.
well, we are discovering the important principle that different humans
have different opinions and different needs.
> Well, yes, it's a GUI ... Have you tried to run X applications without
> using a window manager?
yes. Hovever running them under ratpoison or evilwm (and then
inmediately Alt-Ctrl-x) is better since the apparence is the same but
the dimension of the window become correct (full screen except for a 1
pixel border. With icewm and pressing F11 one has real full screen
without borders, but I do not want the overhead of icewm). Without a
window manager the dimension of the window can be a problem (in some
rare cases I have even found programs which seem to ignore geometry in
.Xresouces or the like)
> Which features would that be?
If I remember correctly some threads in mailing lists like
debian-italian a few (1? 2? ...) years ago have something about the
difference about mozilla on win32 and linux. But it might be that I have
read about this elswere, sorry, I do not remember exactly.
> > much better integration between "win32 console application *in full
> > screen*" and "win32 GUI application" than the default integration in
> > linux/*BSD between vt consoles and X.
>
> In which way?
an easy example: cut and paste (note: I was speaking of _vt consoles_
not xterms). However the win method is so silly that my method (attach
my console screeen in a xterm) is faster, but the point is that win has
its (silly) method by default (i.e. it was consciously included in the
plans for windows).
> The dos boxes they had seem to have disappeared, and you
> could always have only one.
I was speaking of "win32 console", which is a different NT subsystem
from "DOS" (and from "posix", and from "win32 gui", an from "NT
native").
However the unicity of a dos box in NT system is new for me. It was
surely not unique in win9x, even if the multitasking among the dos boxes
was not preemptive.
> Besides that, they never
> had a decent
> shell.
Oh well, I remeber when they included a "Korn shell" in their posix
suite for win 2000, and David Korn declared that it was a non standard
one.
I have heard that their more modern versions of the SFU is better (but I
have never seen them), and in any case cygwin is decent.
I am also told that decent shells in command.com style exist (4nt ? I
know 4dos and it is amazing how it is so capable, given the dos
limitations).
> The server isn't doing it for me now, and I don't want to pipe every
> mail manually through the filters ...
fetchmail and a local server?
In any case, if the mail must be on server and consulted via imap, no
good alternative exists to server side spamfilters (which can reject
mail _before_ being accepted). But I can understand that the included
filters in thunderbird, claws, whaterver, are much better than nothing.
> Using the cheapest card available doesn't mean that it is a good card
> for the resolutions used for X11.
Yes, but is is nonetheless absolutely adequate for the (gimp/kino) video
editing that that amd64 PC must do. So it cannot be so bad.
--
Chi usa software non libero avvelena anche te. Digli di smettere.
Informatica=arsenico: minime dosi in rari casi patologici, altrimenti letale.
Informatica=bomba: intelligente solo per gli stupidi che ci credono.
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