OT: small gush of enthusiasm, followed by: CLI computing and programs to go with it
 

I've spent days (weeks!) customizing my xfce-terminal, and before that, konsole (which is about the only thing from my kde install that I miss) and just these past few days I stumbled into the glories of the console!

Yes folks, I don't mind admitting it: check the join date! I've been around for weeks and it has only just occurred to me to startx, get a connection, logout again, then light up not 1, not 2 but as many as 6! terminals that reveal how stuff was meant to look! uncluttered, unmodified, beautifully placed and spaced ... text!

Forgive the rant!
My question:
Could someone reading this post point me to a trove of CLI substitutes for the following:

1. -a browser (I've tried both Links and Lynx: I probably prefer Links' configurability but lean to Lynx for its colour scheme; I'd like to hear suggestions as to alternatives which might combine the strengths of both)
2. -some words about the relative strengths/weaknesses of alpine, mutt/getmail, and any other CLI mail solutions that you folks use?

Thanks

For a console based network manager replacement I would use wicd-curses (in fact I do use it, all the time). The wicd package is located on the Slackware dvd in the extra directory (or on your favorite Slackware mirror in the same). Just install with instalpkg, then:

These steps make the start script executable, start the start script, and run the program, respectively.

Note that wicd is a replacement for Network Manager in X as well, so if you plan to install it, you should stop Networkmanager and make it non-executable in /etc/rc.d first (so it will not run at startup). You don't want them both running at the same time.

For the browser, I think you're on the right track already.

As for the mail, mutt is good, and I also like Alpine. There is also Elm.

Enjoy!

Edit: regarding strengths and weaknesses, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Mutt has the others beat in the feature department. For example, it can access your google contacts and delete mail from your gmail inbox. It also has more active development. Shame, because I like the names of the other two more ;)

Blooming,
Can't but admire your aesthetic considerations when thinking of emailers :)

Thx for the other recommendations, especially concerning the details you give to help me with internet connection.

PS;And the Haskell stuff I'm reading is drawing me in.

I'm using Lynx and Links, though more of the latter in the last time, as Lynx borked up some downloaded packages. Though I'm using it exclusively on servers without graphical environment, and only to fetch a package or a SlackBuild or do some quick RTFM. 99% of my Links usage happens on SlackBuilds.org.

I've been using Mutt for some time a few years ago. You'll love it if you're accurate with Vim, and you'll probably hate it if you're not.

There's no sense in using the command-line just for the command line's sake, though. Most of my mail has been done with Thunderbird for the last few years, and Firefox (ESR) with a dozen selected addons and plugins is still my favourite web browser.

Cheers,

Niki

Though he retired from blogging this year, K.Mandla's blog is a wealth of information about text-mode and low resource applications. Well worth perusing for someone interested in such things.

How does mutt handle html encoded mail that you might get sent? I hate html mail myself, but sometimes someone will send you some that you have no option but to read.

I've used Opera for my mail for a while now, but it looks like I'll be forced to abandon it in the near future. I don't get on with thunderbird, so 'mutt' might be where I end up also.

I am pretty au fait with Vim, and have already sampled mutt, but had trouble getting mail: does one need to install fetch or getmail to work with mutt?
If that is so, which one of these latter 2 do you use Niki?


You are absolutely spot on with this comment: no sense in becoming puritanical about these things (or monomaniacal, which is the same disorder probably) ... it's just that I deal with such little email that it is barely worth opening up a browser (i use fox too, with gmail) in order to check it. That is why I thought, since I plan to be spending a lot of time studying my first computer language -at the console- it might be sensible to be able to access the occasional email from my girlfriend, uninterrupted from my labours by having to startx etc etc :)

Thanks Niki

Postfix and Dovecot :D

In fact, I use Mutt only to test IMAP mail servers...

My advice: spare yourself some headaches and use Thunderbird. If you want it a bit more lightweight, you might give Claws-Mail a spin.

The following line in .mailcap displays HTML-encoded mail inline (minus images, of course):
I also view HTML e-mails in Firefox occasionally:
firefoxrace.sh is just this:
and just gives a bit of extra time -- there is no feedback loop to indicate Firefox has read the entire e-mail so longer ones ended up getting cut off without the hacky workaround.

Saulgoode,
this is really good... just the kind of thing I was hoping someone might put me on to when I made OP ...

thanks kindly

Greetings textillis,

This old website has general information about using the CLI; you may find some of it useful.

http://linuxcommand.org/

Emacs.

Is there anything it can't do?

Mid-way through this path called life we're on,
I found myself as it were, lost in a forest of editors,
And lo, one major fork presented itself: Emacs to the left, Vim to the right.
With a fretting heart, and death in my soul, I strode on, not knowing, not seeing anything...
for the trees ...

And here I am, 4 weeks later, knowing zip about slack, but a bit, a little bit about vim ...
hard won, there is no way I'm going to put myself through that tortured journey again to master
those same baby steps in Emacs ....

to decide is to slice away a lot of juicey alternatives...

so be it... on, on with vim! for better or worse
cheers and thanks for the suggestion

Gezley, regarding your "slackware philosophy", can I just add, in a spirit of shared disgust for relativism:

"only one way to rebel"? is that right? is there only one thing to react against?
What about this, in an age of credulity and obscurantist, intellectually-medieval faith and foolishness, House-ian skepticism is another road less travelled ...

The words are those of a Catholic philosopher. In a Slackware context they are meant to be ironic: Slackware, in spite of its irreverence, now finds itself one of the most orthodox of Linux distributions, gleefully rebelling against the mindless heterodoxies of those other distributions which are tearing the Unix legacy out, only to reinvent it, poorly.