Re: Musings on debian-user list

On Mon, Aug 03, 2009 at 02:08:07PM EDT, Ron Johnson wrote:

A GUI,

What's that got to do with the interface..?

GUI = Graphical User Interface, right?

though, allows you to have dozens (hundreds, even) of xterms

I would assume that a single instance of a terminal multiplexer allows
you to do the same with, hopefully, less overhead..?

in all sorts of rectangular dimensions.

I guess so.. though I'm not sure about the usefulness thereof, save for
demo'ing the flexibility of, what's the word.. Window Managers..?

In any case, gnu/screen lets you split the screen both "horizontally"
and "vertically", resize the resulting viewports, and compose whatever
mosaic you fancy at a pinch.

I believe that with the latest version of gnu/screen you can even save
those layouts for the next time around - I have no use for this myself,
but it probably means something for the overworked sysadmin who needs to
stay on top of a couple hundred servers.

And doesn't restrict you to a black background, as does the console.

Even on the barebones framebuffer linux console, you can run vim,
ELinks, etc. with a pale grey background, even when under gnu/screen
concurrently with a black or dark grey background on your other
viewports.

If you prefer a richer palette, you have the option of running a
terminal emulator that's 256 color-capable such as fbiterm on top of the
linux console.

But that's hardly relevant - unless circumstances demand it, you are
obviously better off starting X → your terminal emulator → your terminal
multiplexer of choice with the same visual result and considerably more
flexibility..

Your interface is still pure text-mode, with NO "pointing device"
involved.. and quickly muscle-memorized keyboard actions to manage the
multiplexing layer.

Also, GUIs allow different xterm windows to have different fonts/sizes
and background colors.

.. and use separate "desktops" for separate terminal sessions where a
different background (or foreground, while I'm at it), a larger or
smaller font, even a font with a better rendering of a particular
unicode plane if you frequently switch to some exotic language or other
as part of your daily routine.

As an illustration of why some things are better kept separate, I would
certainly NOT want a display with tiny fonts in the left half and
largish ones in the right, if only because adapting to the different
size font when focusing from one to the other takes that little bit of
extra time and effort. Think of your xfce font problem screenshot, not
pretty, annoying, of course, but it also makes user _interaction_ just a
little bit less efficient.

(I'd mention huge scrollback buffers, but emacs or screen probably also
does that.)

Again, I'm lost - how does the graphical nature of the interface change
the size of the scrollback buffer?

CJ





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