The Latest And Greatest Console Applications?

An anonymous reader writes "While the 'Linux on the desktop' battle has yet to be won, KDE and Gnome are making great progress. There are too many apps to list on the cutting edge of software development for the X environment. But what about those of us stuck with old machines? Or who just want to work with the console? What console-based apps, that are undergoing just as much development as their X counterparts, do you use? Things like instant messengers and bittorrent clients, for example..."

fortune!

[blunte]

that was too easy. was this a trick question?

Mr. T sez...

[Anonymous Coward]

I PuTTY tha Fool!

Bleeding Edge

[Anonymous Coward]

The version of ls that comes with Fedora Core 2 is 5.2.1. Incredible software! Would use again! A+++++!!!!

Well ...

[mios]

... some folks start X from the command line, soo ...

Re:fortune!

[Ricwot]

It's a program that is viable for enterprise systems, we just rename it to fortune-500

--

Any spare gmail invites could do better than ending up at [e-mail]

plugins for lynx...

[rivaldufus]

I'm working on a Java plugin, a Flash plugin, and a google bar - as well as a popup blocker and an anti-spyware plugin.

playlists, sounds over complicated

[DrSkwid]

isn't that what stdin is for ?

Re:Bleeding Edge

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell... is this ebay feedback.
GREAT SELLER, FAST SHIPPER, A++++++++++!!!!!!

I'm adding a whole bunch of regular text to circumvent the slashdot filters.

Re:One word . . .

[Draoi]

Thank you for re-introducing me to NetHack. It took me five years to wean myself off that, and now I've found a MacOS X version. There goes *my* working day ... :-)

As they say on the site;

Thank you for the latest release of gradewrecker. My GPA just went in the corner and shot itself.
-- USENET posting, author unknown

Re:Why?

[NeoFunk]

Because there IS no better way to show that you care than by using a batch file to flood "net send" messages.

Lynx

[Draoi]

Lynx [browser.org], of course!

Hey - who you calling a Luddite? :-)

Re:Why?

[mattrumpus]

I've got one good reason. At some places of work IM clients are banned and its easier to pretend a text based client is real work...

Re:One word . . .

[Ricwot]

Due to a combination of Beer, Coffee and NetHack, lectures were missed, assignments lost in the darkness, and I failed the year by 0.1 marks :'(

Re:Why?

[haystor]

One does not wonder if something exists for Emacs. One believes.

That is to say, yes.

startx

[FedeTXF]

The best command line tool is startx. It gives you all the power of a full graphical environment within the console.

Re:One word . . .

[confused one]

Bastard... You had to mention it, didn't you.

Re:Lynx

[poot_rootbeer]

At times I browse remotely with lynx to get to sites that require registration before making downloads.

Yeah, I don't like bringing up those picture-intensive porno sites on my GUI desktop at work, either.

kill

[steevo.com]

The classics never get old.

kill

killall

init

Re:fortune!

[paranode]

Just did a search for fortune in my Gentoo portage. Came back with this, made me laugh:

* games-misc/fortune-mod-dubya
Latest version available: 20040527
Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
Size of downloaded files: 24 kB
Homepage: http://dubya.seiler.us/
Description: Quotes from George W. Bush
License: as-is

Killemall

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I have a batch script that runs killall and starts playing the metallica album.

Re:playlists, sounds over complicated

[lanc]

cat sound.au >/dev/audio

or mirroring disks: cat /dev/hda > /dev/hdb

Parent is NOT "funny"

[BerntB]

[..] NetHack. It took me five years to wean myself off that

wtf, moderated "funny"? Should be "Insightful". Stupid moderators.

And, yes, I've lost quite a few months myself... :-(

On the other hand, real life is for users that can't handle nethack. If it wasn't for another console application that has hooked me, I'd reinstall!

My real favorite console application is Perl.

Both incredible power/expresiveness -- and with the syntax, crazy extensions and humour in the Perl tradition, it's like playing a game! :-)

Yes, yes, Python fans -- my adventure is someone elses horror game. :-)

Re:One Word:

[Fjornir]

"The Almighty tells me he can get me out of this mess, but he's pretty sure you're fucked."

Re:kill

[dasmegabyte]

I only need one command when I find myself at the command line:

exit

I find it makes life a lot more worthwhile.

Re:For when you're not playing games...

[interiot]

Yeah, but w3m doesn't farking support <font color="..."> [sourceforge.net] tags, even though it DOES do color menus and such! I constantly get pressure at work to switch back to Outlook, and one of the arguments given is that I can't read "proper" email responses where people color-code their responses to separate them from others. I'm using an ansi terminal, why should I have problems displaying colored emails?

Re:One Word:

[Anonymous Coward]

GUAC? Is that something you eat with nachos?

Re:One Word:

[Anonymous Coward]

When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi *and* Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like, 'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'. So I use the editor that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time.

Ed, man! !man ed

ED(1) UNIX Programmer's Manual ED(1)

NAME
ed - text editor

SYNOPSIS
ed [ - ] [ -x ] [ name ]
DESCRIPTION
Ed is the standard text editor.
-----

Computer Scientists love ed, not just because it comes first alphabetically, but because it's the standard. Everyone else loves ed because it's ED!

"Ed is the standard text editor."

And ed doesn't waste space on my Timex Sinclair. Just look:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 24 Oct 29 1929 /bin/ed
-rwxr-xr-t 4 root 1310720 Jan 1 1970 /usr/ucb/vi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 5.89824e37 Oct 22 1990 /usr/bin/emacs

Of course, on the system *I* administrate, vi is symlinked to ed. Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1) Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!

"Ed is the standard text editor."
Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

golem> ed

?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hell o?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?

---
Note the consistent user interface and error reportage. Ed is generous enough to flag errors, yet prudent enough not to overwhelm the novice with verbosity.

"Ed is the standard text editor."
Ed, the greatest WYGIWYG editor of all.

ED IS THE TRUE PATH TO NIRVANA! ED HAS BEEN THE CHOICE OF EDUCATED AND IGNORANT ALIKE FOR CENTURIES! ED WILL NOT CORRUPT YOUR PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR! ED MAKES THE SUN SHINE AND THE BIRDS SING AND THE GRASS GREEN!!
When I use an editor, I don't want eight extra KILOBYTES of worthless help screens and cursor positioning code! I just want an EDitor!! Not a "viitor". Not a "emacsitor". Those aren't even WORDS!!!! ED! ED! ED IS THE STANDARD TEXT EDITOR.

When IBM, in its ever-present omnipotence, needed to base their "edlin" on a UNIX standard, did they mimic vi? No. Emacs? Surely you jest. They chose the most karmic editor of all. The standard.

Ed is for those who can *remember* what they are working on. If you are an idiot, you should use Emacs. If you are an Emacs, you should not be vi. If you use ED, you are on THE PATH TO REDEMPTION. THE SO-CALLED "VISUAL" EDITORS HAVE BEEN PLACED HERE BY ED TO TEMPT THE FAITHLESS. DO NOT GIVE IN!!! THE MIGHTY ED HAS SPOKEN!!!

Use the CLI to get food

[Wolfier]

Pizza Party

http://www.beigerecords.com/cory/pizza_party/

Re:BitchX

[swv3752]

Ya know, I swear that Linux's vulnerability's list would be cut in half if BitchX was excluded.

Everytime I check the updates for my distro it seems that there is another vulnerability for BitchX.

You're missing ED - "the standard"!

[jokkebk]

Let's look at a typical novice's session with the mighty ed:

golem> ed

?
help
?
?
?
quit
?
exit
?
bye
?
hell o
?
?
eat flaming death
?
^C
?
^C
?
^D
?

---

The full mind-blowing reasoning on why to choose ed "Ed is the standard text editor." available from http://gammatron.novarese.net/txt/ed.html

Have fun. :)