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Cool but obscure X11 tools

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Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#141

Post by Accacin »

dexen wrote: post #103
scrollaway wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lennart Poettering is a dev who has contributed massive amounts of code most people in this thread use every hour of every day. Code which, for most people, does work. It's not like free software has a shortage of talented contributors that people hate for a variety of reasons. At some point you have to actually point out the issues productively, rather than the boring character assassination, or just randomly saying…

>Code which, for most people, does work. Working is not the problematic part. There are two interrelated problems: how much complexity is introduced, and how to proceed when something is not working, or is flaky. You, me, and our fellow posters know very well that Lennart's solutions are complex - in fact, more complex than the problem domain. Accordingly, the ability to narrow down, fix, or work around problems suff…

> Why is the solution more complex than the problem domain?

So, where's your solution? If it's so simple, where is your contribution?

The fact is, he did it. You haven't. I can't even begin to imagine how much crap Lennart gets everyday by people who think they know everything and yet never actually seem to write any code.

Have some respect for the guy even if you disagree with the way he works, because you know.. his code is being used.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#142

Post by zeptomu »

dexen wrote: post #103
scrollaway wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lennart Poettering is a dev who has contributed massive amounts of code most people in this thread use every hour of every day. Code which, for most people, does work. It's not like free software has a shortage of talented contributors that people hate for a variety of reasons. At some point you have to actually point out the issues productively, rather than the boring character assassination, or just randomly saying…

>Code which, for most people, does work. Working is not the problematic part. There are two interrelated problems: how much complexity is introduced, and how to proceed when something is not working, or is flaky. You, me, and our fellow posters know very well that Lennart's solutions are complex - in fact, more complex than the problem domain. Accordingly, the ability to narrow down, fix, or work around problems suff…

> [...] aren't UNIX applications

What kind of argument is that - so what?

All major Linux distributions are doing very well with systemd and it makes sense to have some kind of supervizor service (or collection of tools) on top of `init`. You can still tie together your applications with shell scripts and not run systemd. Since systemd it is simpler to admin different linux boxes - at least that is my personal experience - before that every distribution shipped their own shell scripts.

Systemd is fine and if it is so inferior to simple POSIX applications glued together, people should provide a better alternative. The grieve that people have against Lennart is overblown - we should thank him for his contributions.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#143

Post by Accacin »

mwfunk wrote: post #134
scrollaway wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lennart Poettering is a dev who has contributed massive amounts of code most people in this thread use every hour of every day. Code which, for most people, does work. It's not like free software has a shortage of talented contributors that people hate for a variety of reasons. At some point you have to actually point out the issues productively, rather than the boring character assassination, or just randomly saying…

This aspect of the community is one of the biggest turnoffs to me. There are a lot of people who formulate these really over the top narratives about everything, which lead to (for example) writing long seething angry personal rants about people like Lennart (Miguel de Icaza was another lightning rod back in the day). The sheer emotion expressed invalidates whatever point they're trying to make, but at the end of the…

Completely agree. I can't stand how many people have such a strong opinion on some open source software. I find it amazing that there's so many negative blogs about the guy but no one has actually written a good (their version of good, not mine) init system that distributions will use.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#144

Post by jansc »

I used XFontSel two days ago to find a font for my StumpWM mode line. Still works like a charm.

Also, I miss XFig on the list. Still growing strong! The last release is from May 2018. I use it occasionally to create diagrams for presentations.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#145

Post by app4soft »

dahart wrote: post #93

Boy does that bring back memories of the 1990s! Some of these are not obscure at all, but absolutely standard. Xterm was the shell, I’m not sure there were even alternatives in early X. Xbiff+Xload+Xclock used to be on everybody’s desktop. XV was the main image viewer on X for a long time. Anybody remember xvacuum? I guess it’s truly obscure since it didn’t make the list. One of my favorite tricks to play on other pe…

What about AzPainter?[0]

It's really cool image editor based on X11, that still is obscure competitor to GIMP and Krita ;-)

[0] https://github.com/Symbian9/azpainter

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#146

Post by teddyh »

craigsmansion wrote: post #63
microcolonel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For clarity, Lennart Poettering is an extremely prolific guy that people somehow love to hate. At the end of the day, his critics either use his software begrudgingly, or use somebody else's to their own detriment, just to spite him. I take some time every year to thank Lennart for systemd and PulseAudio; I remember when the grass was parched brown on my side, green has been a welcome change!

Don't forget to thank him for `avahi' too. Avahi is a fun whack-a-mole game where your computer hides the network connection. You win the game by remembering to kill processes and setting up stuff manually, like most games produced by LP studios. edit: Other popular games include: SystemD: hack your way through a blob of intractability. Try it on Nightmare mode, where you're only given access to a empty bootscreen, f…

You’re confusing Avahi with NetworkManager, which, IIRC, Lennart should not be blamed for.

Avahi is simply an implementation of the ZeroConf service discoverability protocol, as also used by macOS’s “Bonjour”.

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#148

Post by asveikau »

sjmulder wrote: post #53
TickleSteve wrote: post #36

What? no xdaliclock?? https://www.jwz.org/xdaliclock/

Warning, clicking this link from here redirects to an NSFWish image on imgur. This guy has a problem with HN.

"This guy" happens also to be a pretty prolific developer of Netscape fame and others. (xscreensaver included.)

Re: Cool but obscure X11 tools

#149

Post by ptx »

davidcollantes wrote: post #102
ptx wrote: post #66

The GTK screenshots all use then ThinIce theme[1] – still my favorite, but sadly not available for GTK 3 or 4. And I guess it wouldn't fit with GNOME's current design direction anyway. [1] http://thinice.sourceforge.net/

I don't think so. Those look like the original CDE Motif Window Manager[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motif_(software)

Sure, the window manager could be the Motif window manager, or perhaps FVWM.

I meant the widgets inside the window. The blue-tinted ones are GTK+ with ThinIce; some of the darker grey ones are Motif.

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