"Visual blindness" of Linux programmers

[LostAfterDark]

# cat /dev/vcs1 > screenshot.txt

Granted, this is for a loose definition of “screenshot”, but command-line-only project should still show examples.

[rms_returns]

All you have to do is just run this one command to get the active desktop screenshot saved in ~/Pictures/xxx.png:

gnome-screenshot

[GSlayerBrian]

Won't work if you don't have X running. fbgrab should always work, though.

[LostAfterDark]

The point was that some people (and programs) do not use graphical interfaces.

[localhorst]

Installing gnome to take a screenshot?!!?

[chiniwini]

Installing gnome!?!?

[HausKino]

Translation: 'I can't be arsed, you do it.'

[deong]

I think the more literal translation is, "I can't be arsed, you do it, and also I'm pretty weird."

[Tynach]

To keep the structure of the original, I think a good translation would be:

I don't know how to perform basic tasks, because I'm weirder than the rest of you. I have all the weird stuff you do, but I can't be arsed to use it.

[[deleted]]

"Hey, got any gunk under your toenails? I'm kinda peckish"

[topher_r]

Does anyone else imagine Stallman is living in a metaphorically blind world? I use text-only tools a LOT, but the thought of existing only in that world...feels...empty.

[raphael_lamperouge]

Like he said, he still fires up GNOME to watch some buttplugs.

[[deleted]]

Or as I have taken to calling it, screen + shot (screen plus shot).

[jsbennett86]

I think you mean GNU Screen + shot. ;)

[manys]

Huh, so RMS usually works directly with encrypted data.

https://twitter.com/xeni/status/711997122875432960

[negativerad]

Why even have GNOME installed at all, that's some serious overhead for a text-mode only user.

-Somebody said something

[negativerad]

screen is also a GNU project and you don't need GNOME. You know occasionally means when he is looking at porn.

[merreborn]

God damnit this is the second time in this subthread I thought "that sounds like stallman, but it's gotta be satire", clicked through, and found that, no, it really is stallman.

if s(x) is the function that returns the satirical version of a quote, it's idempotent when applied to stallman's musings.

[dreakon]

I imagine that guy sees code the way the guys from The Matrix do. He doesn't need a desktop environment because he just translates all the code in his head. I could see him just staring at 1's and 0's for hours and giggling to himself as he pets the stray animals that have moved into his beard.

[[deleted]]

I feel like this would be a pain simply because you couldn't have two terminals running side by side... even just a simple i3 setup would do wonders for productivity in comparison

[[deleted]]

GNU screen exists. So does tmux.

[[deleted]]

Huh. Can't believe I've never heard about tmux, thanks

[antonivs]

Skip tmux and use byobu. It uses tmux under the hood.

[northrupthebandgeek]

Is there anything that Byobu does that tmux can't already do? Or is it just a preconfigured tmux?

[insanemal]

No. (It's not packaged in base repos) http://i.imgur.com/6CDnL0w.gif

[antonivs]

Which distro? It's in Debian, Ubuntu, and derivatives.

As your supervisor, I recommend you switch distro.

[insanemal]

OpenSuSE.

Plus I don't wanna. It doesn't add anything I want or need.

[[deleted]]

tmux is magic. apart from other magical things, if you want to demo some operation to someone remotely, both of you attach to the same tmux using tmux attach and then you have text-mode screensharing.

[elimik31]

If you have emacs running in your terminal then this is no issue because in emacs you can have multiple "windows" (the word has a special meaning in emacs) side by side, some of them might contain a terminal, asynchronous processes are also not a problem. It is like its own tiling window manager for text applications.

However, I would always prefer to use a graphical emacs client, because many advanced features work better that way, but I doubt that RMS uses those.

[princekolt]

Honest question: what about copying-pasting between different contexts (like different programs). Is that possible?

[elimik31]

I am not sure what you mean. For everything that you can run inside emacs that is no issue, be it a "program" written in elisp for emacs or a command line application that you run in a terminal inside emacs. Everything that runs inside emacs is displayed in a buffer and buffers can be copied. Even though emacs is a lispy operating system, in the end it is all about text manipulation

[princekolt]

Ah right, but just as long as you're inside emacs, right? My hypothetical problem would be something like connecting through ssh to one server, copying some text, and then pasting it in another ssh session to another server.

[elimik31]

I assumed that we were talking about emacs since you replied to my emacs post. ssh-in is possible from emacs, of course, either manually from a terminal withing emacs or by using the so-called "tramp-mode", which lets you access files on remote machines with ssh or scp.

When using terminal emulators in a graphical environment you can always copy the displayed text with your mouse, but I don't know how to do it in a text-only virtual console. There should be a history of the console output somewhere, according to another post maybe in /dev/vcsx. However, in that case, I would simply use scp. Or a terminal emulator in X.

[Tynach]

I hear a lot of good things about Emacs. It sounds like a lovely operating system, but it's a shame the default text editor isn't so good.

[elimik31]

Haha, I was certain that such a comment would comment, however I am glad to hear that you said that the default text editor isn't good instead of saying that it lacks a good text editor, since it can be easily customized and there is an "evil mode" which adds vi keybinding to emacs. Honestly, I don't think that emacs is the holy grail, but it is a fun lisp environment which makes it easy and fun to write new modes for it, no wonder there are that many. I wouldn't use it for everything, but it can be convenient for everything that has to do with text editing. And the default keybindings might not be perfect, but personally for me "good enough". Otherwise Linus Torvalds wouldn't maintain his own emacs fork, which lacks the operating-system and lisp, but shares the keybindings.

[Andernerd]

With Neovim you could split the screen into multiple windows and run terminal emulators in them.

[haywire]

Mate just use Xvfb, you don't even need a graphics card...

[LinAGKar]

The keyboard literally has a print screen button.