So many subjects were touched in an introduction thread!

(27-11-2018, 02:40 PM)twee Wrote: i have tried vi before, i might try it again because it's more of a necessary skill (I think) than emacs, and because it goes with my xresources better ;)

I do agree it's a necessary skill depending on what you need to achieve, especially if you do server configuration or you work in an operation/sysadmin team. Most of the time you won't have the option to impose what comes installed on the machines or what should be installed, be it for security purposes or because it's not needed. So you have to stick with what comes by default, and what comes by default on most OS the operation team deploy on thousands of servers is usually vi. That's from the practical, skill, way of seeing this.

However I agree with z3bra:

(28-11-2018, 07:34 PM)z3bra Wrote: Better don't assume anything to be available anywhere at all.

There is so much of everything on Unix-like systems and so many differences, which in my opinion makes the beauty of it, adding choices. While at the same time there's a base standard, POSIX, that is somehow and sometimes followed to a certain degree. So you have a baseline.

(29-11-2018, 04:46 AM)twee Wrote: pretty sure arch doesnt come with ed either, because it "If Arch included all the crap that every user considers part of a "standard" *nix system, it wouldn't be Arch" according to one forum post.

(29-11-2018, 10:57 AM)z3bra Wrote: From the POSIX standards tools definitions the standards are ed, ex and vi ;)

(29-11-2018, 02:25 PM)z3bra Wrote: I think that you can rely on vi being available whenever you use an OS that claims to be "POSIX compliant", and that's why today I consider the ability to "save & quit" in vi one of the basic skills of any linux sysadmin.
Also, vi is some minimal stuff! As you praise graphical interfaces so much, I can't believe you'd vote for ed as the defacto standard for text editing.

Now, you've even touched the "Linux is not Unix" usual talk and the "We need to move on from the past interfaces, they're too old".

(29-11-2018, 09:56 AM)z3bra Wrote: Computing has changed a huge lot since them, be it in terms of interface, goals or user base.

(29-11-2018, 10:06 AM)jkl Wrote: But that's what most people on nixers do as well, happily creating a "week in the TTY" on whatever "Unix-like" system, being stuck in the past with "terminals" which deliberately imitate 1978's VT100 hardware. They won't move on.

(29-11-2018, 10:57 AM)z3bra Wrote: Well, the week in the TTY is mostly a fun challenge, pretty much like people that are into cars go to a rally with their car for 1920. They don't expect to win. They hope to finish the race :P

(29-11-2018, 12:13 PM)z3bra Wrote: Text is still a good human-to-machine interface (IMO, better than sound for example, or pictograms), and POSIX defines its standards around this interface.

From my perspective all kinds of interfaces have pros and cons, there should be a balance between all depending on the needs and aims.
I've shared this link in the newsletter before about the keyboard vs mouse research. There's a lot of this around but the debate continues while today we are facing many other types of interfaces such as voice, movement, sensors, etc..

As far as the week in the TTY is concerned, that's a challenge to get accustomed with terminals and textual interfaces for those that usually avoid it or simply want to see if they would be able to achieve it. If you want to associate it with being stuck in the past it's your choice of wording. For others it may simply be forcing yourself to surpass what you usually do, similar to running a marathon.

And to link back to the previous topic of text editors, servers don't usually come installed with a graphical environment by default and such programs are avoided for many reasons. Textual interfaces still have their place on such machines. Just check the list of the top 10 most powerful supercomputer or biggest server farms.

(29-11-2018, 04:34 PM)z3bra Wrote: Why do you call sam a "multiline" ed though? Because its command apply to the dot rather than linewise?

ed uses lines as the standard unit of a text. sam does not (quite).

(29-11-2018, 04:34 PM)z3bra Wrote: I love sam as well (and that is the reason why I use vis(1), which uses sam expressions and commands, wrapped in a vi-like interface)

I find modal editing unnecessarily annoying. The standard mode for editing text should be the one where I can type a letter and it appears on the screen. (That does not automatically invalidate my argument that ed and TECO are good editors though. ;-))

(29-11-2018, 04:34 PM)z3bra Wrote: I must admit that I don't know how it integrates within plan9, so I don't understand your comment about the OS level UI language. What do you mean?

What I mean is: sam - at least in the recommended samterm mode - provides a (for the 80s...) modern mouse-driven GUI without sacrificing the power of editing commands. That's what I would like to have in other operating systems: GUIs as a first-class citizen without hiding the command mode from the user. You currently have either a "kind of hidden" command mode (e.g. Windows NT) or a GUI that does not feel like it came natively with the OS (e.g. all those Linuces and BSDs).

(29-11-2018, 04:34 PM)z3bra Wrote: Unix systems can totally provide GUI installations, and they do! see Ubuntu store for example which is nice.

I'm trying hard not to slap you with a trout, good sir. "Unix systems", "Ubuntu store" ... :-) yes, there is a lot of Windows simulation going on in the Linux world. In order to achieve what? And why? But I thought we were talking about OS installations, not package installations.

(29-11-2018, 04:34 PM)z3bra Wrote: You have to learn how to "speak" your computer language, which is tedious, but in the end it is easier to bind your computer's will by explaining what you want to do, rather than miming it through the GUI

Your computer - unless it's one of those very old architectures - speaks Hexadecimal. You will not understand your computer better just because you go a longer, harder way to control your operating system. And there are GUI debuggers for the former... ;-)

(29-11-2018, 08:31 PM)twee Wrote: i never got on with plan9 and acme. I havent used it much but I thought acme was too reminiscient of emacs without actually getting there :(

Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP1xVpMPn8M

(29-11-2018, 08:31 PM)twee Wrote: (also this absolutely fits here, it is a great introduction to the opinions of forum members , all 2 of you ;))

Now we are at least three members here!

(30-11-2018, 02:19 AM)venam Wrote: However I agree with z3bra:

(28-11-2018, 07:34 PM)z3bra Wrote: Better don't assume anything to be available anywhere at all.

Oy, don't misquote me!

(30-11-2018, 02:19 AM)venam Wrote: Now, you've even touched the "Linux is not Unix" usual talk and the "We need to move on from the past interfaces, they're too old".

Which has not been solved once and for all just yet. :-p

(30-11-2018, 02:19 AM)venam Wrote: And to link back to the previous topic of text editors, servers don't usually come installed with a graphical environment by default and such programs are avoided for many reasons.

The main reason I could imagine is that a graphical interface basically steals CPU cycles on common operating systems, making the "supercomputer" less "super". But this could mostly be solved by writing the OS around a GUI. I doubt that it is impossible to write a native low-level GUI for a processor that wouldn't impose a barely noticeable load on it.

(30-11-2018, 06:27 AM)jkl Wrote: The main reason I could imagine is that a graphical interface basically steals CPU cycles on common operating systems, making the "supercomputer" less "super". But this could mostly be solved by writing the OS around a GUI. I doubt that it is impossible to write a native low-level GUI for a processor that wouldn't impose a barely noticeable load on it.

This is one reason, the others are plenty. The two other most common ones are:
* Adding softwares also add the scope of possible security issues
* Not all servers come with a screen and doing graphics over the network is expensive

(30-11-2018, 06:27 AM)jkl Wrote: Which has not been solved once and for all just yet. :-p

Always an interesting conversation to have.

(30-11-2018, 06:57 AM)venam Wrote: * Not all servers come with a screen and doing graphics over the network is expensive

Both of those challenges had already been sufficiently solved in Plan 9 which was written for notably less powerful hardware than even today's budget servers. Why is this still a problem?

Doing graphics over the network is no problem at all. See the live streams in HD

I don't think there is a problem with GUI over the network. After all, that is what web admin consoles are. See phpmyadmin, wordpress, or any cloud provider. We have many of them already, all based off HTTP(s).

And in this case, the system is even built around that graphical interface, right?

Wrong. WordPress is not an operating system.

(30-11-2018, 10:05 AM)z3bra Wrote: And in this case, the system is even built around that graphical interface, right?

So we're back to screen-at-a-time/block mode on terminals?

EDIT: This should be a thread by itself. It's starting to be a whole subtopic here.

I'll start a new thread :)

EDIT: Done: https://nixers.net/showthread.php?tid=2233
Unleash the beasts!

Hey twee,

What's your fvwm setup like?

The last fvwm workflow I used was https://www.haller.ws/projects/fvwm/

Hi gaak,

actually at the moment I decided to use dwm instead. For fvwm I think I started on one of the examples, and edited bits. It's not much. Check it here if you want: http://ix.io/1xKV

it was no fault of fvwm, I just prefer tiling :)