Thread: Convince me to drop my GUI.

I wouldn't recommend it either. The GUI is there to make things easier, and it's not blocking your terminal, so you have both. Try managing a massive project with thousands of source files in complex directories without the GUI vi just doesn't stack up to Code::Blocks.

But upgrade your OS, seriously.

Originally Posted by Replicon

I wouldn't recommend dropping your GUI completely (cause then you're browsing with links or lynx hehe). However, there are some great replacements for hogs like Gnome.

Look into some minimal WMs, like Fluxbox and Ion.

Both of those are incredibly lightweight (they load in less than a second, and you're good to go). The former is a classical stacking window manager, which is easy to configure to do JUST what you care about. The latter is a nice tile-based one, which is great cause you can use just your keyboard to flip windows MUCH more efficiently than "Alt-tab-tab-tab-tab-tab*inhale*-tab-tab-tab"

Another great utility, which I am sure you're familiar with if you're thinking of dropping Gnome is Screen, which multiplexes your terminals. That is, you open one instance of it, and you can create terminal tabs without needing to rely on x-term or konsole to provide tabbing. An added benefit is that you can detach, ssh in from elsewhere, and re-attach, so you never have to worry about losing, say, those 5 tabs with code open in them, etc. Unless you kill the app somehow of course.

I've messed around with Flux a little bit, but I can never configure it to make it look and feel just how I want

And yeah, screen is pretty cool! I've been checking it out as opposed to using virtual terminals, but whatever's easier I guess....I have a Debian partition setting up right now, and I'm going to try to set it up like I want, you know, minus the GUI. I'm gonna keep the GUI on there at least just in case I want to do more, but I'm keeping the runlevel at 3 (I believe)

Originally Posted by ninja9578

I wouldn't recommend it either. The GUI is there to make things easier, and it's not blocking your terminal, so you have both. Try managing a massive project with thousands of source files in complex directories without the GUI vi just doesn't stack up to Code::Blocks.

But upgrade your OS, seriously.

Well I can see that as far as programming goes, but generally I don't work on massive projects haha, just AIM, browsing, music, some writing, you know, all stuff that I don't need a DM for.

And I can't stand either vi or emacs by the way...too complex. I'm addicted to nano :/

Also, I'm just too damn lazy to upgrade I know it's just like, maybe 3 clicks at most but I don't feel like sitting around