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Why I Use Suckless Tools

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Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#161

Post by profsnuggles »

shawnz wrote: post #139
profsnuggles wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday I posted something about an emacs keybinding and someone pointed out that the command actually doesn't have a default keybinding. I set up that keybinding sometime in the mid 2000's and it hasn't changed since then. Since 2005 home many times have the defaults change in Windows/OSX/Gnome/KDE? (A lot! Gnome3, Plasma, Windows 8) It's something you do once and then leave alone. If someone is tweaking their con…

When new developments are made in computer graphics technology or UX research, I want to be able to take advantage of them. I don't want to limit myself to a design based on the state of the art in 2006 just to avoid having to learn anything new.

Okay.... that's great. Nothing I said precludes that.

Realistically I suspect that at the end of the day the people who are getting things done aren't jumping on every shiny new trend. BUT they also they aren't spending weeks on end tweaking all of their configurations to make them perfect.

I didn't make some grand decision to use emacs (I assume mentioning emacs is what upset you). When I installed linux for the first time the instructions were to use vi or emacs to edit files. I couldn't figure out how to quit vi so after a hard power cycle I use emacs today. It turns out though that if you use a tool for long enough and make small tweaks occasionally it adds up. My environment suits me perfectly. Maybe you would hate it but that's fine too.

Whatever floats your boat. Why be so dogmatic? Why not use a little of the tried and true and mix in a bit of the hip new thing?

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#162

Post by bsg75 »

wowenw wrote: post #146
geerlingguy wrote: post #66

This post highlights many of the reasons why I’ve chosen to just stick with a standard, widely-used desktop OS (macOS in my case, but could easily be Windows or some other OS like Fedora), and use almost all the default settings, adapting to the defaults over the years. Would the tiny incremental gain from tweaking one or two specific settings to my perfect liking save me anywhere near the amount of time, happiness,…

I feel the same way. Other than maybe adding plugins to my browser or desktop bar, the curiosity of these tiling window managers always seemed out of reach. There aren't enough hours in the day for a second job of managing an operating system. But then I found "Regolith". There are a few distributions which have i3 out of the box, but this one had a special keybinding reminder that was one click (or keybinding) away.…

> But then I found "Regolith". There are a few distributions which have i3 out of the box, but this one had a special keybinding reminder that was one click (or keybinding) away. I was very surprised by how quickly I adapted once the barrier of entry was removed.

The i3 community variant of Manjaro is also a nice config for new i3 users (I'm one of them) on an Arch derivative.

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#163

Post by sxp »

> For examples of beautiful dwm setups, see this search of /r/unixporn on reddit.

Despite its NSFW name, /r/unixporn is a great subreddit of people posting their Linux GUI configs. It's mostly tiling WMs, but I learned a lot about how to heavily customize my setup there. The top posts are worth skimming for anyone who's a fan of beautiful UIs: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/top/?sort=top&t=all

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#164

Post by testaccount24 »

karatestomp wrote: post #148
wander_homer wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's some of the latest and greatest UX research someone might miss out on when they don't use some of the modern desktop systems? I mean I'm not against new and better ways to interact with a computer, I just like to decide on my own if I want to use the new and shiny thing or not. Fuzzy searching is probably the most significant improvement I opted in in the last couple of years, and it's used basically everywher…

I can think of two major, useful new features in desktop GUIs in the last, oh, 20 years? More? And both existed before they went mainstream anyway, I think. Both are basically just search: launching programs by search (replaced program-launch menus all but completely for me) and deep search in deeply-nested menus, guiding you to the item at the current level that contains what you need (as in the macOS settings menu—…

> launching programs by search

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command-line_completion#Histor...

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#165

Post by charlesdaniels »

I think I agree generally with the thesis of this article.

In my view, the value of these types of tools (Suckless & friends) doesn't come from simplicity per se, but more from the fact that they can be debugged at all when they break, because it is possible for one person to have a decent handle on all the pieces and how they fit together.

I have tried to use and like more complex environments like macOS or GNOME in the past. If they actually worked, they would be great. However, something inevitably breaks, and now I have to unpick a twisted not of dependencies, IPC, libraries, languages, etc. At least when CWM breaks, it can be fixed at all rather than being forced to give up and deal with it being broken.

I think people saying "having to hack on the C sources isn't easy" and the counterpoint "it's just a four kLOC of C, it's easy to hack on!" are both right, but also missing the point.

GNOME, KDE, etc. are so complicated, that from the perspective of an individual person trying to fix a problem, they may as well be closed source unless you're willing to devote months just to learning the project.

I have no problem using complicated tools, as long as they are tools that I understand, because I can't fix things I don't understand. Alternatively, complex tools that work so well that they never break are also fine, since I never have to fix them.

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#166

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

alphachloride wrote: post #159
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterarguments: tailored clothing, or at least the right fit, made of fabrics which don't scratch or itch, while being sturdy, breathable and not disintegrating during the first wash. Using a bicycle fitting for your body with good components instead of some shabby and abused rental, which makes you sweat, so you could have jogged instead, and been as fast. Using a swiss knife, or some other multitool for anything,…

Counter-counterargument: All this assumes the difference in utility between a specialized and a generic software tool is as stark as your examples portray. That difference is quite subjective, and arguably lesser than your examples given how much effort goes into producing modern OSes and their ecosystems.

One size does not fit all. Also i don't need a full terraforming capable colonization kit where i am.

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#167

Post by shawnz »

profsnuggles wrote: post #161
shawnz wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When new developments are made in computer graphics technology or UX research, I want to be able to take advantage of them. I don't want to limit myself to a design based on the state of the art in 2006 just to avoid having to learn anything new.

Okay.... that's great. Nothing I said precludes that. Realistically I suspect that at the end of the day the people who are getting things done aren't jumping on every shiny new trend. BUT they also they aren't spending weeks on end tweaking all of their configurations to make them perfect. I didn't make some grand decision to use emacs (I assume mentioning emacs is what upset you). When I installed linux for the fir…

I'm not upset and I don't hate emacs (nor love it). I am only addressing the criticism that Windows/macOS/etc change too frequently.

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#168

Post by arp242 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #142
arp242 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t have enough time in my life to debug and recompile my window manager or Terminal app on a regular basis. Maybe a long time ago, when I was single and had a lot more time to burn. I set up dwm, st, and dmenu once years ago, and have worked flawlessly without faults ever since. I actually use a stripped-down hacked-up dwm that I did on a Sunday years ago and have since lost the source for it; I can't recompil…

> I set up dwm, st, and dmenu once years ago, and have worked flawlessly without faults ever since Unless that was the first time you used those tools, how long prior to that did you spend getting to a state where you could do that?

I'm not sure if I completely understand your question, but if you mean "what kind of skills do you need?", then the answer is that you need at least decent familiarity with C, the surrounding toolset, and a general understanding of how Xorg etc. works. In general, you'll need a few years of experience.

I don't think suckless is for everyone; it's pretty explicit about that. I think that's okay: not all software needs to cater to all users; suckless is mostly a hobby project by some devs for their own purposes.

I sometimes see people recommend dwm or st in "what {WM,terminal} should I use?" and I think it's a terrible recommendation, because most of the time people asking those questions don't have the required skill set to be able to use it effectively (not yet, anyway).

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#169

Post by karatestomp »

progre wrote: post #53

> cabytcini to show the current time and weather in my dwm bar ... > As of the time of this post being written, it uses only 11 megabytes of ram I'm not a rust programmer. Is 11 megs for an app like this concidered small?

Wild guess: the web client it includes is most of that. Even if it cleans up the instance of it after, the code itself is still sitting in memory, and that may be quite large. It also seems to include a JSON parser, which might be a bit large.

I'd expect something like this grabbing some dead-simple format over a TCP socket, rather than importing a Web library, to be well under a MB, certainly, and even that seems not to be setting a very low bar, to me. Though those are expectations based on C, not Rust.

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#170

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

sneak wrote: post #100
geerlingguy wrote: post #66

This post highlights many of the reasons why I’ve chosen to just stick with a standard, widely-used desktop OS (macOS in my case, but could easily be Windows or some other OS like Fedora), and use almost all the default settings, adapting to the defaults over the years. Would the tiny incremental gain from tweaking one or two specific settings to my perfect liking save me anywhere near the amount of time, happiness,…

> Would the tiny incremental gain from tweaking one or two specific settings to my perfect liking save me anywhere near the amount of time, happiness, or productivity that I save from just letting someone else choose the defaults for me? There are substantial privacy and security benefits to leaving the macOS/Windows ecosystem. Both of these operating systems include a lot of telemetry that is non-trivial to disable,…

[1] https://github.com/evilsocket/opensnitch maybe?
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