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Show HN: A single command terminal configuration installer

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Re: Show HN: A single command terminal configuration installer

#21

Post by RhysU »

h1d wrote: post #12
oftenwrong wrote: post #7

The last thing an inexperienced terminal user should be doing is installing a bunch of software without understanding how it fits together, how it is used, or how it is actually configured. If you want to understand your terminal stack, build it; don't have it built for you. The better approach is to start from a basic setup. For example, with vim, don't use vim-sensible right off the bat. Instead, just use vim. If a…

You sound like average people should not start from Windows but from Slackware, so they will have better understanding of what's comprised of their machine. It's a good start to give people the sense of what can be achieved by customization. If they don't like it from there they can certainly learn and tune to their needs, which should give more motivation than getting stuck googling for hours without any results fro…

I have been coasting for nearly two decades from experience from running Slack.

Re: Show HN: A single command terminal configuration installer

#22

Post by aaronkjones »

aaronkjones wrote: post #19
tomsmeding wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still executing code right from the internet without any checking. What it does fix is one of the ways in which a server can tell that a script is being executed and not just downloaded for reading: when piping, the download stalls while the shell is slugging through the script, but when it's done in a shell escape as here, it's downloaded in one go. So theoretically, you have less chance of reading something di…

By safe do you mean there is something insecure with redirecting output in this manner or do you mean one shouldn’t sh -c $(wget... without first checking the source of what they’re downloading?

*By unsafe

Re: Show HN: A single command terminal configuration installer

#23

Post by kungtotte »

aaronkjones wrote: post #9
oftenwrong wrote: post #7

The last thing an inexperienced terminal user should be doing is installing a bunch of software without understanding how it fits together, how it is used, or how it is actually configured. If you want to understand your terminal stack, build it; don't have it built for you. The better approach is to start from a basic setup. For example, with vim, don't use vim-sensible right off the bat. Instead, just use vim. If a…

My thinking is it's easier to start out with a solid foundation that I think the "sensible" and oh-my-zsh projects give you. Take tmux-sensible for example, https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tmux-sensible . Each configuration item is explained in detail. So the goal here is to give new users a starting point that is well documented and explained, instead of finding joeschmo's dotfiles that has "set -g default-command "…

I think vim-sensible is much less of an issue than oh-my-zsh.

Sensible isn't a whole mess of scripts and settings. It's 100 lines of highly readable vim settings and at the top there's a comment instructing people to use :help to learn more about what everything does.

I guess a case could be made for adding descriptive comments to make it more approachable for beginners, but it's not some black box of magic.

Re: Show HN: A single command terminal configuration installer

#25

Post by abcdef123xyz123 »

wareotie wrote: post #24

It looks awesome but... tmux with "control + a" instead of the default "control + b"? That is horrible! "control + a" moves you to the beginning of the line in bash (and in other shells, like zsh).

It works pretty well if you bind C-a to send C-a. It is easy to get used to pressing C-a twice for beginning of line, and if you do it outside tmux it is harmless.

Re: Show HN: A single command terminal configuration installer

#26

Post by tomsmeding »

aaronkjones wrote: post #22
aaronkjones wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By safe do you mean there is something insecure with redirecting output in this manner or do you mean one shouldn’t sh -c $(wget... without first checking the source of what they’re downloading?

*By unsafe

Mostly the second, you should check what you're downloading and executing. But a server can send two different files on two similar requests, ans perhaps it sends you a "good" file when you view it in your browser and a malicious file when downloading it via wget.

When piping, there is a well-known trick how the server can detect the difference even disregarding stings like the user agent header, but that trick doesn't work when you do $(wget ...). But I won't guarantee there isn't some other trick that can be performed.

Re: Show HN: A single command terminal configuration installer

#27

Post by wareotie »

abcdef123xyz123 wrote: post #25
wareotie wrote: post #24

It looks awesome but... tmux with "control + a" instead of the default "control + b"? That is horrible! "control + a" moves you to the beginning of the line in bash (and in other shells, like zsh).

It works pretty well if you bind C-a to send C-a. It is easy to get used to pressing C-a twice for beginning of line, and if you do it outside tmux it is harmless.

As someone who use intensively Tmux, I find easier to not touch the default configuration. Press twice vs use something that works perfectly.

Re: Show HN: A single command terminal configuration installer

#28

Post by abcdef123xyz123 »

wareotie wrote: post #27
abcdef123xyz123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works pretty well if you bind C-a to send C-a. It is easy to get used to pressing C-a twice for beginning of line, and if you do it outside tmux it is harmless.

As someone who use intensively Tmux, I find easier to not touch the default configuration. Press twice vs use something that works perfectly.

You are quite lucky, C-a could easily have been the default and then you would have to either use it or have a config ;-).

The disadvantage of C-b is that you need two hands to press it on a QWERTY keyboard, so I kind of wish I had picked C-x or something instead. But there is no consensus about what the default should be (lots of people use C-a, C-b, `, C-e, etc) so it is not worth changing now.

Re: Show HN: A single command terminal configuration installer

#29

Post by wareotie »

abcdef123xyz123 wrote: post #28
wareotie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who use intensively Tmux, I find easier to not touch the default configuration. Press twice vs use something that works perfectly.

You are quite lucky, C-a could easily have been the default and then you would have to either use it or have a config ;-). The disadvantage of C-b is that you need two hands to press it on a QWERTY keyboard, so I kind of wish I had picked C-x or something instead. But there is no consensus about what the default should be (lots of people use C-a, C-b, `, C-e, etc) so it is not worth changing now.

With C-b you have less movement, C-a moves your hand in a weird form which creates pain in the hand. Apart from that, I use only my left hand to press C-b.

C-a is the default one in Screen but as far as I remember C-b is the default one in Tmux since the beginning of the project.

C-x is a bad idea too, because is another shortcut in bash (C-x + e bring up the $EDITOR). I think C-b is a good choice.

The only thing I change in tmux is the pane and windows number (I prefer to start in 1 instead of 0 because I can type with less movement).

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