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Cool but obscure X11 tools

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Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#241

Post by Accacin »

netsharc wrote: post #227
Accacin wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, your analogy isn't correct though. You're broadcasting your opinion on an online message board, not just a waiter. Plus, you're paying for the food. It's nothing alike. The parent comment is basically implying that the cook has cooked the dish completely wrong and that he (a non-cook) could do a better job of cooking that dish. Plus, isn't this the great thing about open source? If someone doesn't like systemd, t…

> The parent comment is basically implying that the cook has cooked the dish completely wrong and that he (a non-cook) could do a better job of cooking that dish. I may not know how to cook (insert complicated dish here) but I can tell if it's too salty. Users of systemd / whatever software this man wrote may not have the time to do all the stuff I mentioned, but they know using/configuring the system is a nightmare.…

Well I don't want to continue this argument too much, but I take your point on board.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#242

Post by microcolonel »

CameronNemo wrote: post #222
zlynx wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just how loudly do you think people would complain if PulseAudio decided to link in JACK and replace it, instead of getting out of the way (and becoming a JACK client itself, I believe).

If PA was actually capable of half of what JACK does, they would be fine with it. These people just needs to record music without latency. But PA does not do what they need, so they would indeed complain.

I think what zlynx is saying is that even if PulseAudio emulated JACK, and did 100% of what people use in JACK, exactly as well or better than JACK did it, people would find something to complain about. Maybe they'd complain that PulseAudio is "bloated", or that this is yet another Poettering monolith.

FWIW I've been able to get similar input latency with PulseAudio as with JACK, that's not so much the issue as synchronization. If PulseAudio introduced a timecode like JACK, that'd probably be close to enough.

If you were really just going for minimum latency, your recording application would use ALSA directly.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#243

Post by Fnoord »

throwamay1241 wrote: post #231
jwr wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the three major reasons why I use Mac OS rather than Linux is the existence of Keyboard Maestro and TextExpander, which do tons of useful things and work everywhere. (if you care, the second reason is working system-wide clipboard and the third reason is Emacs keybindings in ALL dialog boxes and inputs).

I really like mac keybindings. However, I really dislike how if I click what is traditionally the maximize button, it doesn't maximize both horizontally and vertically. I also really dislike how if I use the fullscreen mode and then use alt tab to switch windows it takes like 400ms to transition with some animation, and I can't disable it. I also really dislike how alt tab behaves, I want it to switch all windows not…

> However, I really dislike how if I click what is traditionally the maximize button

That's no keybind though. The keybind for fullscreen is Control-Command-F as per [1]. On Firefox, I use Tree Tab Style and in order to hide the tabs, I need to also hide the top bar with the 3 top left window management symbols. Forced me to learn the shortcut (Cmd+H is another one I regularly use, to hide current application).

We should assume the user also is able to utilize multitouch gestures on TrackPad.

Fullscreen applications work very well with 3 finger swipe up which yields all windows and desktops, or 3 finger swipe down which allows further interaction to select the top window. Triple swipe left and right switch to current desktop minus or plus one. If you're going to run a VM, you will need these gestures.

Nothing in Linux land beats these gestures nor the Apple Magic Trackpads, IMO. I've been trying to get my Apple Magic TrackPad 2 to work on Linux. With multitouch. It works, but not as good as on macOS (tried with Libinput 1.13, not 1.14 yet).

You can use Cmd+` to swap between application windows. Nice boss key.

I found two third party apps which potentially fix your issue: Witch and HyperSwitch.

> and then use alt tab to switch windows it takes like 400ms to transition with some animation, and I can't disable it.

I didn't find a way to fix this. It does not bother me, as it is easy on the eyes, but I understand your concern. I also agree it is annoying that we need third party applications to fix these use cases but it does go with the minimalism theme. You could regard Gnome Tweaks as the same problem. And there's more third party applications I wouldn't want to live without such as Bartender.

> I also really dislike that I can't alt-click+drag to resize or move windows like I can in linux.

For resizing or dragging you can do this with the titlebar. I'd use one of these third-party applications like Spectacle or Amethyst to manage windows. I agree its a loss this isn't native. (I suppose Hyperdock provides this functionality?)

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#244

Post by CalChris »

kijiki wrote: post #217
CalChris wrote: post #159

xcostena. It was an X application written at SGI which took an order and faxed it to La Costena, a taqueria on Rengstorff (at the time). It might have been the first case of e-commerce on the internet and this was pre-web.

La Costena is still around, it just moved further down Middlefield towards Sunnyvale, right before Ellis. Sun had a similar app that would fax orders to Tony and Alba's pizza, though that closed a few years ago.

Yeah, tatool.

https://medium.com/@donhopkins/the-story-of-sun-microsystems...

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#245

Post by liability »

Avamander wrote: post #234
liability wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you expect "the community" to do, downvote anybody who speaks harshly about him? That won't stop it, and even if it did it still wouldn't stop 4channers with anime avatars on github from trolling him constantly. There is no community solution to Lennart getting his feelings hurt. That's not an excuse, it's a cold truth.

> downvote anybody who speaks harshly about him? Who said "harshly", downvote anyone who insults randomly, yes. > That won't stop it, and even if it did it still wouldn't stop 4channers with anime avatars on github from trolling him constantly. So if 4chan doesn't stay civil then we shouldn't try to remain civil? > There is no community solution to Lennart getting his feelings hurt. But the community can be half of t…

There is little in this thread which even gets close to approaching incivil. And every time the systemd guys talk about online abuse, they always mention the worst of it, the death threats and other abuse from 4chan. Even if HN outright banned anything other than glowing praise of SystemD, that would not make a difference.

I'll reiterate: the notion of 'community' in this discussion is borderline meaningless and any attempt to govern it will fail for exactly that reason, and therefore any solution to the problem of SystemD developers feeling besieged that is predicated on governing the 'community' is, frankly, worthless.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#246

Post by jhbadger »

mastrsushi wrote: post #230

I didn't know there was an Xgalaga. Linux Emulators aren't the best, inevitably. Hope it's fluid on limited hardware

It was pretty good if I recall (from twenty years ago), but not exactly like like arcade game. I sort of miss games like that -- Xchomp (a Pac-Man game) is another. Before the advent of emulators, programmers used to make versions of arcade games that they hadn't seen in years, making them (intentionally or not) different from their inspirations.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#247

Post by zzo38computer »

Sometimes xterm is still used; I use xterm. It is still being maintained, too. I also sometimes use xfontsel. I do not think these are so obscure, isn't it?

Some of them, although I do not use them, I would not think they are so obscure, such as xbiff, xload, xclock (I have the functions of all three programs in another program I wrote, to display on a status line).

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#248

Post by zzo38computer »

rootbear wrote: post #68
sprash wrote: post #12

Many of those types of programs like XRoach, XSnow, XNeko as well as every program rendering to the root window will never be possible with wayland (unless you built them into the display server).

XRoach doesn't work even on a modern X desktop. The background window on, say, gnome, isn't really the root window. I compiled XRoach a few years ago and didn't understand at first why it wasn't working. I don't know if any of the modern desktops have an actual root window that's visible.

Perhaps if you do not use a desktop environment, then the root window will be visible and usable. (I do not use a desktop environment myself.)

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#249

Post by tripzilch »

ravar wrote: post #219
Accacin wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if anything your list proves my point. They're not used at all. Also, I was asking parent for his implementation - I'm assuming he hasn't written any actual code though.

Jack is actually really useful for music production, far superior to pulse audio, so yeah, people do use those programs.

My only problem with Jack is that Firefox (and Chrome too, afaik) absolutely insists on using Pulse, so you have to make both play nice if you want to use Youtube while working on music (which is actually pretty common). This can be a bit of a pain (funny things happen after suspend/resume). Still it's so useful for music/sound production, I put up with it :-)

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#250

Post by tripzilch »

microcolonel wrote: post #242
CameronNemo wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If PA was actually capable of half of what JACK does, they would be fine with it. These people just needs to record music without latency. But PA does not do what they need, so they would indeed complain.

I think what zlynx is saying is that even if PulseAudio emulated JACK, and did 100% of what people use in JACK, exactly as well or better than JACK did it, people would find something to complain about. Maybe they'd complain that PulseAudio is "bloated", or that this is yet another Poettering monolith. FWIW I've been able to get similar input latency with PulseAudio as with JACK, that's not so much the issue as synch…

Another use case for me is that I can more easily route audio from sources and applications to other applications, using JACK (and Patchage as a GUI).
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