# non-X applications



## lm8 (Jul 5, 2009)

Wasn't sure where to post this, so please move if it belongs elsewhere.  Am running a very old laptop without a lot of memory (just 64 MB RAM).  While I can run X applications on it, several people have recommended I try applications that don't require X.  Would be curious to hear from others what are some of their favorite applications that don't require X Windows.  Always interested in new applications to try out.

Am also curious how well applications like mplayer, vlc or xine or applications using SDL work on FreeBSD if built to run without X Windows.  Have read that you could compile libraries like SDL with libSVGA or some other non-X video library support.  Also noticed ghostscript has a non-X version in ports.  Does anyone have any experience with any of these.  Can you share any results, tips, etc.?

In case anyone else is interested in this topic, programs I have tried on FreeBSD or other operating systems that seem to run fine without X include:
diffh, lxsplit, gsar, pcal, lcal, starchart, pwsafe, gramofile, gle, sox, abc2midi, abcm2ps, midicomp, sdcv, links, httrack, timidity++, xmlstarlet, dvdauthor
I tried out zgv on FreeBSD for graphic viewing and it seems to work okay, though resolution doesn't seem as good as a standard viewer program under X.

There's also http://inx.maincontent.net/ which is a Linux distribution that still aims to be useable for desktop (not just server purposes) and works completely without X.  Many of the applications in the distribution should work fine on FreeBSD and already have ports.
Another nice list of non X applications is here:
http://www.jaredandcoralee.com/CLIapps.html

Would be very curious to hear what programs other people like to run when they don't want to start up X Windows.  Thanks.


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## stonecoldsed (Jul 5, 2009)

I like using moc for a command line music player, lots of features and easy to use.


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## lme@ (Jul 6, 2009)

Even with Xorg started I use mutt for my emails and irssi for IRC.


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## blah (Jul 6, 2009)

This thread reminds me of "[thread=235]Your favorite text based application[/thread]".

Well, my favorites are: audio/xmp, editors/mg, www/w3m. It's nice to have lightweight emacs-like editor like *mg* in */rescue* when in dire situations.


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## fronclynne (Jul 6, 2009)

www/links does (did?) middling well with -g under svgalib.  If you can get svgalib working correctly.  It has been a couple of years, though, so it may be easier or impossible now.

`$ mplayer -vo aa` (& -vo caca) is (are) amusing, if silly (to downright pointless at times).

www/youtube_dl is also nice at times.  The port can lag a bit, though, and when youtube gets funny the only recourse is to upgrade.  Since it's a python script, I just grab it from http://bitbucket.org/rg3/youtube-dl/ and run it from ~/scripts/.


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## Daisuke_Aramaki (Jul 7, 2009)

Most apps I use when I am not in X has already been covered here. But I have done that only on my Lunar Linux box so far. I am extremely productive when I am just using the framebuffer, for instance (when coding for long hours and debugging). The apps I use are as follows:

Editing - Vim and emacs(LaTeX)
Email - Mutt
Music - mpd and ncmpcpp
Web - elinks & w3m
Video - MPlayer with fbdev
Pictures - Mostly never use, but fbida for the odd viewing

screen and dvtm are indispensable when I am in framebuffer.


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## blah (Jul 7, 2009)

fronclynne said:
			
		

> www/links does (did?) middling well with -g under svgalib.  If you can get svgalib working correctly.  It has been a couple of years, though, so it may be easier or impossible now.


IIRC, you can browse WWW with images under console using w3m + jfbterm, too. (pic)


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## lm8 (Jul 15, 2009)

blah said:
			
		

> IIRC, you can browse WWW with images under console using w3m + jfbterm, too.



If anyone's got any more details or links to more info on this, a tutorial, etc., please post.  I'd like to give this a try.  I downloaded the packages, but still have to set them up properly before I can test it out on my machine.

Tried asking on the SDL mailing list about running SDL outside of X.  It's supposed to run with VGL, svgalib and/or directfb as alternatives to X.  GGI and Nano-X are also supposed to be alternatives, but have not attempted anything with either of those sets of libraries.  No luck getting SDL to work outside of X so far, and no one on the SDL mailing list had any pointers on how to do it.  I think directfb probably wouldn't be a good option for FreeBSD as it runs on SDL in FreeBSD, so if SDL is running based on it...  Was hoping VGL or svgalib might be options.  Have not been able to get any applications to work using VGL so far and the only program using svgalib that's worked so far for me is zgv.  If anyone has any other ideas or tips for running applications outside of X or getting some useful GUI/screen libraries (other than ncurses, pdcurses, slang) working, would love to hear about it.  

Thank you.


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## blah (Jul 16, 2009)

lm8 said:
			
		

> If anyone's got any more details or links to more info on this, a tutorial, etc., please post.  I'd like to give this a try.  I downloaded the packages, but still have to set them up properly before I can test it out on my machine.


jfbterm and w3m should work without additional configurations provided you have vesa.ko which is only available on i386 atm. Don't forget that you need w3m with INLINE_IMAGE support (ja-w3m-img, w3m-img, w3m-m17n-img packages).

Try to use w3m under X first so you get the picture how images will look like under console if you have any problems.

BTW, you may want to install some kind of input method (like uim-fep from textproc/uim) to be able to type in native language under unicode environment. Currently input layer in console only likes 8bit keymaps but jfbterm allows you to use UTF-8.


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