I was down at my favorite coffee shop this morning, and
borrowed a friend's Window's computer to log into this box
and check my mail using an app that's like telnet. (can't
recall the name).

There were some guys at an adjacent table "texting" on their
cellphones, and when they saw me reading my mail in console
mode they all started snickering.

I asked them what was so funny and they pointed at my screen
and broke out into gales of arrogant laughter and their
verbal replies could be summed up as "What a primitive
you are to be doing email without a lot of eye-candy
or a mouse."

But mutt on the computer I was using had a far more sophisticated
display than than the text message screen on their cellphones, and is
a far more sophisticated "texting" application than the one they
were using. As is my console IM client and console IRC client.

(Yes. technologically illiterate trolls who are going to replying to
this even though I won't see those replies: modern cell phones
are computers. They aren't "phones" at all.)

Then there's the guy I know who sits in front of his computer
all day long, watching videos.

He's utterly contemptuous of people who sit in front of their
TV's all day long and watch videos. I guess it's because they
punch buttons on a remote control and he punches buttons with
a mouse...

Which reminds me: I had a visitor a while back, who brought
his laptop with him and connected to my neighbor's unprotected
wireless network and was browsing the Web.

He runs KDE and honestly thought that I was a silly primitive
because I brought up Firefox, which is just as sophisticated as
the browser that comes with KDE, by entering "ff" on a screen
with nothing but a shell prompt on it, instead of clicking
on a cutesy icon with a mouse.

I guess I have to applaud the advertising department at
KDE. They have managed to convince a lot of people that
their collection of apps with a common graphical theme
is something other than a collection of apps with a
common graphical theme.

Must be the same people who convinced those guys that
console mode email is sophisticated if it's on a handheld
computer instead of a laptop, and that a couch potato
sitting in front of a computer is superior to a couch
potato sitting in front of a TV.

Tom

Email me here, the other address is just a spamtrap:
calhobbit AT
gmail DOT
com

Ummm...., you don't have to click on any icons in kde to launch
firefox. Just press F2, type in firefox (or whatever alias you
created) and press enter.

On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:44:59 -0800 (PST), Jack <wk1989@gmail.com> wrote:

>Ummm...., you don't have to click on any icons in kde to launch
>firefox. Just press F2, type in firefox (or whatever alias you
>created) and press enter.

OMG! F2 key replaces Tom Neuter's ODE )

Grant.
--
http://bugsplatter.mine.nu/

It's actually Alt-F2, just in case Tom wants to try this feature out.

Jack wrote :

> Ummm...., you don't have to click on any icons in kde to launch
> firefox. Just press F2, type in firefox (or whatever alias you
> created) and press enter.

Start the "Menu Editor" from the "Settings" sub-menu. Browse your way to
the Firefox entry and check the section named "Current shortcut key",
here there's a key-icon with the text "None".

Click the key-icon and choose something like <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<F> and
save. Now you can start Firefox using this key combination.
--
Thomas O.

This area is designed to become quite warm during normal operation.

On 2008-01-30, Tom N <simpleman.s43@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On almost any Linux box in the world, you can just enter:
>
> alias ff='firefox &'
>
> and the deed is done.

Don't you think it's a waste of resources to use an alias when you could
just type

fir[TAB]&[Enter]

and accomplish the same thing? Damn, your ODE is such a resource hog!

> For those of us who use the shell (ODE, the Other Desktop
> Environment),
> we generally have a file called /etc/aliases, which is sourced in the
> shell's main configuration file, /etc/profile in Slackware, with this
> line:
>
> source /etc/aliases

Only an utter idiot would source /etc/aliases, since it's the *sendmail*
alias list (or postfix, possibly exim?). For those of you who are not
as stupid as Tom, system aliases can be put directly in /etc/profile, or
in /etc/bashrc if you like to use that file, or in a shell script in
/etc/profile.d/ . Only aliases that should be system-wide should be
placed here; personal aliases should go into ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc,
or (deprecated) ~/.profile. And, of course, you can source your own
~/.aliases file from any or all of these files.

I hope the above paragraph is warning to people searching the archives
to ignore ''Tom's'' advice, which when not intentionally misleading is
actually incorrect.

> alias al='alias' # makes it easy, eh?

This is an even more egregious waste of resources! You are truly
abusing your system resources now. What if you only have 640k of
memory, which after all ought to be enough for anybody?

> Why the hell tie yourself to an artificial user interface

Aren't custom aliases an artificial user interface?

> that's an
> incredible system-resource hog and takes as long to learn
> as the shell (starting from scratch) and is only found on a
> fraction of the linux/unix boxes in the world?

What fraction, 9/10? Even if you'd said "only used", the fraction is
still higher than the fraction who use ''ODE'' or something less sucky
like blackbox, fluxbox, fvwm, twm, ash, or even csh.

--keith

--
kkeller-usenet@wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
(try just my userid to email me)
AOLSFAQ=http://www.therockgarden.ca/aolsfaq.txt
see X- headers for PGP signature information

On Jan 30, 11:36 am, loki harfagr <l...@theDarkDesign.free.fr> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:14:47 -0800, Tom N wrote:
> >...
> > On almost any Linux box in the world, you can just enter:
>
> > alias ff='firefox &'
>
> > and the deed is done. Whatever alias you want, whatever app you want.
>
> What's this idea to mix-up lyrics from ACDC and StatusQuo in the same
> old b0rken song?-)

I have no idea what you are talking about there.

Except that I know bullshit when I see it.

>
>
>
> > The '&' puts the firefox command in the background, freeing up the
> > prompt.
> ...
> > An artificial interface that is MUCH more limited than the shell.
>
> I just can't wait the day you'll discover that alias are deprecated
> and will start stormtrooping the linux groups with news about the new
> mantras you're bringing out to them, Lucy on the half shell!

This lack of intelligent content is sure typical of people who don't
want the artificial and illusory supremacy of KDE questioned, even
though it is nothing but a collection of applications with a common
graphical theme.

Check out the most recent man bash. Aliases are far from being
deprecated. Why would such a useful feature ever be deprecated?

The problem with becoming hooked on KDE (etc.) is that not only
are you dependent on the corporate-sponsored geeks at KDE (etc.),
but you are also dependent on those who understand the shell.

Because you just can't run linux/unix effectively without
understanding
the basics of the shell.

Those are the sort of dependencies promoted by technocrats who
WANT the ordinary user to be dependent on them.

That's the nature of the corporate agenda: Promoting dependence
on them.

A little shell knowhow and a decent window manager and you
can be free and create an ODE that suits _you_, not some
yuppy geeks whose corporate masters think that turning the
Internet into a virtual shopping mall and your computer into
an updated Boob Tube are admirable goals.


Tom
Use this email address. The other one is a spamtrap:
calhobbit AT
gmail DOT
com

On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:53:20 -0800, Tom N wrote:

> an updated Boob Tube are admirable goals

SUBSCRIBE

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:53:20 -0800, Tom N did catÂ*:

> On Jan 30, 11:36 am, loki harfagr <l...@theDarkDesign.free.fr> wrote:
>> On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:14:47 -0800, Tom N wrote:
>> >...
>> > On almost any Linux box in the world, you can just enter:
>>
>> > alias ff='firefox &'
>>
>> > and the deed is done. Whatever alias you want, whatever app you want.
>>
>> What's this idea to mix-up lyrics from ACDC and StatusQuo in the same
>> old b0rken song?-)
>
> I have no idea what you are talking about there.

Curious, that wass easy though:
ACDC: "Dirty deeds done dirt cheap" - 1976
Status Quo: "Whatever you want" - 1979

>
> Except that I know bullshit when I see it.

Highly doubtful as until then it seems you don't
even know bullshit when you write it.

On 2008-01-31, Loki Harfagr <loki.harfagr@asgard.vh> wrote:
> Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:53:20 -0800, Tom N did cat*:
>
>> On Jan 30, 11:36 am, loki harfagr <l...@theDarkDesign.free.fr> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:14:47 -0800, Tom N wrote:
>>> >...
>>> > On almost any Linux box in the world, you can just enter:
>>>
>>> > alias ff='firefox &'
>>>
>>> > and the deed is done. Whatever alias you want, whatever app you want.
>>>
>>> What's this idea to mix-up lyrics from ACDC and StatusQuo in the same
>>> old b0rken song?-)
>>
>> I have no idea what you are talking about there.
>
> Curious, that wass easy though:
> ACDC: "Dirty deeds done dirt cheap" - 1976
> Status Quo: "Whatever you want" - 1979

My tastes in music are different than yours.

>> Except that I know bullshit when I see it.
>
> Highly doubtful as until then it seems you don't
> even know bullshit when you write it.


Many Slackers don't use KDE or Gnome (etc.) and wouldn't touch them with a ten
foot pole.

As well as many people who use other linux distros. And unix distros.

Yet we do run X and window managers and can do anything that can
be done with KDE, with a fraction of the system resources KDE
requires. We can do MORE.

Since that's all I've been saying, and it isn't bullshit at
all...

ODE (the Other Desktop Environment) is simply running Linux from
the command line, in the console or the X environments.

You ought to try it.



Tom