# suggested applications for X



## hirohitosan (Dec 6, 2009)

Hi there. I installed FBSD + X on my laptop and I need some suggestions about some applications for X.
As wm I chose fluxbox. I don't want to use gnome or kde.
What's your suggestions about an terminal app (with copy & paste), a file manager and an text editor for X?

thanks


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## graudeejs (Dec 6, 2009)

x11/rxvt-unicode - terminal
www/firefox35 - browser, natural choice
editors/vim - best editor
graphics/hsetroot - to set wallpapers
graphics/epdfview and graphics/xpdf - pdf viewer
graphics/gpicview - pic viewer
graphics/ImageMagick - very useful image processing tool (you can make screenshots with import)
graphics/inkscape - svg editor
multimedia/mplayer - best media player
multimedia/playd or multimedia/playd2 - my mplayer cli wrappers for easy usage
ftp/axel - download axelerator
mail/mutt-devel or mail/thunderbird - mail app
irc/irssi or irc/xchat - irc client
net-im/psi or net-im/pidgin - jabber client (pidgin support other protocols as well, psi can encrypt/decrypt messages with gnupg[/port]
security/gpa - gpg key manager
sysutils/tmux or sysutils/screen - terminal multiplexer... [tmux is BSD lisenced, I love it]
shells/mksh - shell, install mksh and forget about filemanagers
`$ bc -l` or math/scilab - calculator [scilab, very advanced calculator. lol]
x11/numlockx - add to WM startup. Will turn on numlock by default 
x11/xlockmore - screensaver
ftp/filezilla - ftp file manager
security/keepassx - password manager [I love it]
sysutils/gtk-send-pr - send bug reports
sysutils/conky - eye candy, sys monitor
x11/trayer - tray app, if you need one.
audio/audacity or audio/sweep - audio editor
x11/xclip - access X11 copy buffer in terminal [very useful, if you use a lot of cli apps]

I attached my app list


It all depends on personal taste, and time you're ready to spend investigating apps and their features


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## Beastie (Dec 6, 2009)

Some of my favorite applications have already been mentioned by killasmurf86.
Here are a few additional GTK-based lightweight applications:
editors/leafpad text editor (I also use nvi under a terminal emulator)
math/galculator scientific calculator (or Python hehe)
graphics/geeqie image viewer (GQview fork)
For file management, I like x11-fm/pcmanfm, but I prefer x11-fm/thunar (it has a few Xfce deps though)

Personally, I've never used a download accelerator. fetch(1) works perfectly for me. :e


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## graudeejs (Dec 6, 2009)

leafpad.... is good only for VERY basic usage....
qalculator is quite good

pacmanfm I don't like it.... because if you run as minimalistish desktop as mine, there seams to be no way to configure witch apps configure which apps

I used to like x11-fm/gentoo - very configurable file manager... it seamed already to be gone, but now they started to develop it further (now gkt2 only.. woot). The only think that in 2-3 years, that I haven't been using file managers.... file managers now seam to slow me down. I do much more and much faster in terminals


I might use www/opera if it could build with QT4... It used to be my favorite web browser

When you browser large ftp directories. I suggest you use text based browser, they are much faster for this.... I like www/lynx, www/elinks and www/links

I have tried every FM and almost all pic viewers in ports 
Also I've tried majority of calculators and players.

I like gpicview, because it's very basic pic viewer, almost entire space is dedicated to display picture....

About epdfview.... it ok, but xpdf is better... I've seen some pdf's that gpicview can't render corectly.... xpdf renders them better (still not perfect). I hate xpdf open dialog... it just ****s

Lately I proffer QT apps over GTK2

Actually since last time I tried KDE4.3 something is bugging me to start using it.... At some point I don't like it (Start menu ***), also I don't like that I can't see end of `$ top` + extra cpu usage.... but it looks very appealing (and it has some features that my custom desktop miss)


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## hirohitosan (Dec 8, 2009)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> x11/rxvt-unicode - terminal



thanks killasmurf I installed rxvt-unicode, but I don't know how to start it in fluxbox.


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## graudeejs (Dec 8, 2009)

`$ urxvt`

I prefer to start daemon, when fvwm starts *urxvtd -q -o -f*, and then start clients, when I need to use console with *urxvtc*

I like this because If i start 100 clients, I don't have 100 entries of urxvt... in top 

Also they all share same resources, so this is also more lightweight [not that I have little ram, but.... ]


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## hirohitosan (Dec 8, 2009)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> x11/xclip - access X11 copy buffer in terminal [very useful, if you use a lot of cli apps]



I installed too, but how to use it?
If I go in firefox for ex. and Ctrl+C I can go in urxvt and Ctr+V or something like that?


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## graudeejs (Dec 8, 2009)

in terminal `$ xclip -o` will output.... your buffer.... you then need to redirect it to some app, or file

to copy file to buffer `$ xclip filename`

xclip(1) - read manual


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## Oxyd (Dec 8, 2009)

hirohitosan said:
			
		

> I installed too, but how to use it?
> If I go in firefox for ex. and Ctrl+C I can go in urxvt and Ctr+V or something like that?



Welcome to X Selection.   You can copy&paste while in X by just marking the text you want to copy with your mouse, then simply switch to the destination window and press the middle button on your mouse -- bam, text pasted.  (On today's mice that usually means you press the scrolling wheel.)  It works with terminals as well.  Same goes for copying from a terminal window -- you mark the text, switch to the destination, press the middle button.

It gets addictive -- I always curse out loud when I'm on Windows and have to press Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V each time I want to copy something -- just as if marking it wasn't enough!

Note that while you're in the terminal, Control-C sends the SIGINT signal to the running process, which basically tells it to terminate; while Ctrl-V tells the shell to interpret the following character "verbatim" -- try, for instance, pressing Ctrl-V and then Tab at your shell -- it will insert the tabulator character, instead of autocompleting or whatever your shell is normally supposed to do on tab.


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## graudeejs (Dec 8, 2009)

you can also use good old *Ctrl+insert* to copy and *Shift+insert* to paste, this works in virtual terminal as well, haven't tried in terminal


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## Oxyd (Dec 8, 2009)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> you can also use good old *Ctrl+insert* to copy and *ctrl+insert* to paste, this works in virtual terminal as well, haven't tried in terminal



_Shift_-Insert to paste, you mean.   Cool, didn't know these two worked with terminals -- I'm too used to the middle button way already.


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## graudeejs (Dec 8, 2009)

Oxyd said:
			
		

> _Shift_-Insert to paste, you mean.   Cool, didn't know these two worked with terminals -- I'm too used to the middle button way already.



Dam... I did fix that....
Oh well, really fixed now....

middle-button rocks


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## Beastie (Dec 8, 2009)

Oxyd said:
			
		

> It gets addictive -- I always curse out loud when I'm on Windows and have to press Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V each time I want to copy something -- just as if marking it wasn't enough!


Tell me about it! It's the exact same thing here, hahaha.


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## Dru (Dec 9, 2009)

Oxyd, thanks for posting that, I didnt know about using the middle mouse button for paste. I like plain old simple xterm myself, and missed being able to occasionally paste info.



			
				killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> leafpad.... is good only for VERY basic usage....
> qalculator is quite good
> 
> pacmanfm I don't like it.... because if you run as minimalistish desktop as mine, there seams to be no way to configure witch apps configure which apps



Using Leafpad exclusively here, but then again, I never used anything but notepad in Windows. I like to keep stuff lightweight.

I think your install of pcmanfm was broken, as I posted a fix for elsewhere on the forum here. To me pcmanfm would compliment a minimalistic desktop, its all configurable.


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## oliverh (Dec 9, 2009)

An extremely small alternative to xpdf is mupdf (plus antialiasing).

http://www.freshports.org/graphics/mupdf/

Palm e.g. uses it as pdf-backend in it's Palm Pre.

An alternative to mutt is alpine:

http://www.freshports.org/mail/alpine/


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## graudeejs (Dec 9, 2009)

```
killasmurf86 $ mupdf mitacija2.pdf
ximage: mode 24/32 00ff0000 0000ff00 000000ff (16,8,0) lsb
ximage: ARGB8888 to BGRA8888
ximage: XShmPutImage
+ mupdf/pdf_font.c:442: loadsimplefont(): freetype get glyph name (gid 0): invalid argument
| mupdf/pdf_font.c:512: loadsimplefont(): cannot load simple font
| mupdf/pdf_font.c:959: pdf_loadfont(): cannot load font
| mupdf/pdf_resources.c:171: preloadfont(): cannot load font resource (60 0 R)
| mupdf/pdf_resources.c:241: scanfontsandmasks(): cannot preload font resource
| mupdf/pdf_resources.c:408: pdf_loadresources(): cannot load font resources
| mupdf/pdf_page.c:218: pdf_loadpage(): cannot load page resources
\ apps/unix/x11pdf.c:86: winerror(): aborting
```


it failed to open very first pdf what I picked..... It can be opened with xpdf and epdfview


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## oliverh (Dec 9, 2009)

I don't have any problems with mupdf. It's widely acknowledged as highly compatible up to PDF 1.7. Maybe just bad luck ...

There are some minor problems of course, like some of those documents for example http://www.jungsteinsite.uni-kiel.de/artikel.htm and the embedded graphics. But I can easily crash xpdf too with complex graphics in scientific documents. Sometimes I have to use Acrobat.


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## graudeejs (Dec 9, 2009)

I wrote that file myself few days ago, and exported as pdf with OpenOffice.org


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## oliverh (Dec 9, 2009)

Well, I filed some pr to the Mupdf author. I usually use cups-pdf instead of the sometimes faulty OO export or LaTeX. But Mupdf should handle even malformed documents without any problems.

[edit]

Well, after talking to some devs, those bugs are already fixed since some months. The build in ports is rather aged.


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## dennylin93 (Dec 9, 2009)

Some additions to killasmurf86's list:
multimedia/vlc: Another media player
x11/roxterm: A terminal


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## graudeejs (Dec 9, 2009)

x11-fm/rox-filer is pretty good file manager, once you get used to it.... 
and it can be configured for different actions for different file types 

Still, Alien to me


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## Anonymous (Dec 9, 2009)

GIMP and GIMP plugins...

I have to used all the time OpenOffice but I am thinking about new Koffice 2.??. Supposed to be faster than OO and should open MS Office files too...
We have at work MS Office and with OO was okay.


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## graudeejs (Dec 9, 2009)

and will require lots of KDE stuff, which is everything, but lightweight


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## fronclynne (Dec 10, 2009)

killasmurf86 said:
			
		

> I like gpicview, because it's very basic pic viewer, almost entire space is dedicated to display picture....


I like things with a fairly straightforward text interface:
graphics/xv
It does have a graphical interface, if you just start it up, but I generally use something like `% xv -quit directory/kitten_pants.png`

x11-clocks/swisswatch is another favourite.


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## BuSerD (Dec 16, 2009)

All fine apps gents. I would like to add just 2 games to the list to give it a little umph;

xgalaga If you don't know what this is you suck 
&
pysol Very fun Python Solitaire Game

There are many other worthy games in ports but these two are on every desktop install I have control over


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## john_doe (Dec 16, 2009)

graphics/comix - read comics/manga in compressed archives; works as image viewer otherwise

editors/emacs - it's shipped with nice mail/news client called Gnus; somewhat similar to mutt


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## fronclynne (Dec 17, 2009)

*pkg_delete -f /var/db/pkg/emacs\**



			
				john_doe said:
			
		

> editors/emacs - it's shipped with nice mail/news client called Gnus; somewhat similar to mutt


I've heard there's an Easter Egg in emacs that lets you edit text files.


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## Eponasoft (Dec 18, 2009)

fluxbox is ok, but if you want something a little more robust, try windowmaker (x11-wm/windowmaker). On systems where I don't install KDE3, I typically use windowmaker. It's probably not as lightweight as fluxbox, but it's great for people who want to get up and running right away without having to manually mess with too many config files.



			
				BuSerD said:
			
		

> pysol Very fun Python Solitaire Game


My wife likes to hop onto my BSD laptop just to play that game.


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