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DarkStal n00b
Joined: 07 Dec 2003 Posts: 18 Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 2:47 pm Post subject: Strange Question about a GUI |
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Greetings all,
While waiting to save up some money for a decent computer I have been looking around at window managers (which I will refer to as WM) for linux. The only problem I have seen across all of them is that you have to seperately open up a terminal in order to get to the shell...
Question I have is: Is there a GUI/WM that integrates the Linux command line as the "background"
I have always wanted a command line interface with the ability to add a background (similar to the start-up command line when you run Gentoo off the bootable CDROM) but also have the ability to open up windows for internet browsing, play games, type up programs, and the like. Kind of strange but I like the keyboard and I minimally use the mouse.
Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciative.
Thanks for your time and best wishes,
DarkStal _________________ "Attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."- Sun Tzu |
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Stormy Eyes Veteran
Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Posts: 1064 Location: Watching God spit-shine my boots.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 2:59 pm Post subject: Re: Strange Question about a GUI |
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DarkStal wrote: | Greetings all,
While waiting to save up some money for a decent computer I have been looking around at window managers (which I will refer to as WM) for linux. The only problem I have seen across all of them is that you have to seperately open up a terminal in order to get to the shell...
Question I have is: Is there a GUI/WM that integrates the Linux command line as the "background" |
As far as I know, there isn't. What you could do is add a line to ~/.xinitrc to open a transparent Eterm with a reasonably large font that takes up most of the screen, and then use a window manager like Kahakai or Openbox 3 that lets you set custom keybindings for launching apps and other functions.
What you'd want, is for the terminal to be the "magic process", so that X doesn't cut out until you exit that shell. So try something like this in ~/.xinitrc
Code: | #!/usr/bin/env bash
# set window manager...
WINDOWMANGER=/usr/bin/openbox3
$WINDOWMANAGER &
# change this line to choose a favorite wallpaper. Run
# "Esetroot --help" for usage help.
Esetroot -center ~/image/big-porno-pic.jpeg
# refer to "man Eterm" for command line switches needed to
# setup transparency, etc. X will cut out when you kill this term
exec Eterm |
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DarkStal n00b
Joined: 07 Dec 2003 Posts: 18 Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 4:46 pm Post subject: Re: Strange Question about a GUI |
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Greetings Stormy Eyes,
Thanks for the quick response. I guese I will just have to get up and start learning some C++/Pearl if I plan to get EXACTLY what I want. Thanks for the tip though.
I guess for now I will just have to live with having to open up a Terminal, setting it's background to transparent, and then maximizing the terminal to encompass the full screen I guess... at least I will still get my widgets
Thanks again for your help,
DarkStal _________________ "Attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."- Sun Tzu |
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Stormy Eyes Veteran
Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Posts: 1064 Location: Watching God spit-shine my boots.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 4:53 pm Post subject: Re: Strange Question about a GUI |
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DarkStal wrote: | Thanks for the quick response. I guese I will just have to get up and start learning some C++/Pearl if I plan to get EXACTLY what I want. Thanks for the tip though.
I guess for now I will just have to live with having to open up a Terminal, setting it's background to transparent, and then maximizing the terminal to encompass the full screen I guess... at least I will still get my widgets |
Bleah. Learn C++ and Perl? Just to get a transparent fullscreen term and a WM that respondes to keystrokes to avoid using the mouse? Chaos blast you, now I'm going to have to figure out how to do it with existing tools and a well-written ~/.xinitrc just so I can be an ornery bastard and prove you wrong.
Why reinvent the wheel if you can get what you need using somebody else's work? Keep an eye on the board and I'll post a how-to and a screenshot. |
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DarkStal n00b
Joined: 07 Dec 2003 Posts: 18 Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 5:29 pm Post subject: I apologize... |
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Greetings again,
I apologize if I have insulted you. The computer I have at the moment barely works, it was a hand me down, and it currently running off of core linux... as in command line. ~/.xinitrc is different to me as I am rather new to linux and Im learning slowly but surely. If you have a documentation about how to set up the GUI of my dreams I would greatly apreciated and would even loose sleep over such a thing. My current obsession over Linux never seems to end.
As far as going overkill and learning new things, it is somewhat of a bad habbit of mine. For example my computer I will be assembling will be from the ground up, which will network a cable connection through to both my computer and my girlfriends, while learning how to compile linux through the glorious blessing of gentoo, and reading goddless documentation as I go. Forgive me for I am strange , very, very strange...
Thanks again for your quick reply, and again sorry if I have insulted you...
Best wishes,
DarkStal _________________ "Attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."- Sun Tzu |
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Stormy Eyes Veteran
Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Posts: 1064 Location: Watching God spit-shine my boots.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 5:39 pm Post subject: BDE: Bastard Desktop Environment |
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DarkStal wrote: | I apologize if I have insulted you. The computer I have at the moment barely works, it was a hand me down, and it currently running off of core linux... as in command line. ~/.xinitrc is different to me as I am rather new to linux and Im learning slowly but surely. If you have a documentation about how to set up the GUI of my dreams I would greatly apreciated and would even loose sleep over such a thing. My current obsession over Linux never seems to end. |
*giggle* No, you didn't insult me. I just forgot to add a smiley or some ASCII cat ears. >^..^<
If you had insulted me, I would not have posted a reply.
I don't have a recipe for your dream interface yet, but I don't mind doing a bit of experimenting. I'll call it the BDE -- Bastard Desktop Environment. What I have in mind involves Eterm, Openbox 3, and all GTK apps -- Mozilla Firebird/Thunderbird, GAIM, Rhythmbox, etc.
Do you object to Emacs-style keybindings? Those would be the most straightforward to set up in Openbox.
Don't worry, I'll explain ~/.xinitrc and such when I write the HOWTO. |
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DarkStal n00b
Joined: 07 Dec 2003 Posts: 18 Location: New Mexico
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 6:05 pm Post subject: Emacs? :D |
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Greetings,
As far as Emacs are concerned, that is like my current "GUI", it reminds me of the days of working on a 1.44MB HARD DRIVE running Word Perfect
So the Keybindings I don't mind. Though the nice feature I like about what I have heard of the *box is keybindings you can MANUALLY set up on the keyboard. I hate using the mouse, except for obvious tools such as GIMP and other GTK environments. I have grown up through DOS and I would like to continue my keyboard happy self with Linux.
Now concidering it will take me until May to save up enough money to buy the computer mentioned in my previous post, I'm in no hurry to find the best GUI. Though at the moment, as far as window managers are concerned, OpenBox seems to be the one WM that catches my fancy. The faster the better, and with all the possibilities of keyboard commands it is like a dream come true for me. Minimal screen/memory usage, fast reaction time couple with gentoo technology on a 64bit processing computer (64 doesn't mean much now, I know, but it is still nice to think about), sounds really juicy to me...
Let me know how the HOWTO goes... I will be sure to be one of the first to get my hands on it...
Thanks again for the quick reply, I'm off to lunch.
Best wishes,
DarkStal _________________ "Attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy's army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence."- Sun Tzu |
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Stormy Eyes Veteran
Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Posts: 1064 Location: Watching God spit-shine my boots.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 6:15 pm Post subject: Re: Emacs? :D |
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DarkStal wrote: | As far as Emacs are concerned, that is like my current "GUI", it reminds me of the days of working on a 1.44MB HARD DRIVE running Word Perfect
So the Keybindings I don't mind. Though the nice feature I like about what I have heard of the *box is keybindings you can MANUALLY set up on the keyboard. I hate using the mouse, except for obvious tools such as GIMP and other GTK environments. I have grown up through DOS and I would like to continue my keyboard happy self with Linux. |
Yes, you configure keybindings in Openbox through the "rc.xml" file Openbox reads on startup. No mouse needed; just RTFM and fire up emacs.
DarkStal wrote: | Now concidering it will take me until May to save up enough money to buy the computer mentioned in my previous post, I'm in no hurry to find the best GUI. Though at the moment, as far as window managers are concerned, OpenBox seems to be the one WM that catches my fancy. The faster the better, and with all the possibilities of keyboard commands it is like a dream come true for me. Minimal screen/memory usage, fast reaction time couple with gentoo technology on a 64bit processing computer (64 doesn't mean much now, I know, but it is still nice to think about), sounds really juicy to me... |
Well, this is probably something I'll start hacking on tonight, in between updating my website to show the new Openbox and GTK themes I've been working on.
DarkStal wrote: | Let me know how the HOWTO goes... I will be sure to be one of the first to get my hands on it... |
No problem. |
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krinkle Guru
Joined: 04 Feb 2003 Posts: 338 Location: Garden Grove, CA
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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i did something like that once in fluxbox... just pop open aterm/eterm/whatever-term that has transparency. then maximize it. click on the main bar and where it says "layer" select desktop. It you stay on the bottom no matter what after that. Another thing that you can do (which i do) is just bind a simple key to open a terminal. Since i used to play quake a lot, when i hit the ` key, a terminal pops up. You also might want to check out kahakai as it is VERY customizable (the config files are python scripts). |
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Stormy Eyes Veteran
Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Posts: 1064 Location: Watching God spit-shine my boots.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 7:31 pm Post subject: |
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krinkle wrote: | i did something like that once in fluxbox... just pop open aterm/eterm/whatever-term that has transparency. then maximize it. click on the main bar and where it says "layer" select desktop. It you stay on the bottom no matter what after that. Another thing that you can do (which i do) is just bind a simple key to open a terminal. Since i used to play quake a lot, when i hit the ` key, a terminal pops up. You also might want to check out kahakai as it is VERY customizable (the config files are python scripts). |
I've been playing with Kahakai, and I've been impressed -- but I still prefer Openbox 3. I helped test the alphas, so it seems a shame to turn my back on it.
What DarkStal had in mind was for X to center around a terminal without him having to manually launch it and configure it to taste. I'm thinking of a way to do that, and will post a HOWTO when I'm done. |
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-Anders n00b
Joined: 02 Sep 2003 Posts: 50
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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You might want to take a look at kuake.
It's not exactly what you wanted, but it's nice eitherway. |
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Stormy Eyes Veteran
Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Posts: 1064 Location: Watching God spit-shine my boots.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2003 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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-Anders wrote: | You might want to take a look at kuake.
It's not exactly what you wanted, but it's nice eitherway. |
Yeah, Kuake's nice, but since emerging Qt used to cause kernel panics on my machine (though I might try again now that I replaced my uber-cheap generic memory with 1GB of Crucial RAM) I stick with GTK apps. |
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Cerement Guru
Joined: 14 Jun 2003 Posts: 404
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Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2003 1:37 am Post subject: |
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Remembered this from awhiles back ...
The Antidesktop
... maybe a coupla useful items in there? |
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