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Why I Use Suckless Tools

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Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#191

Post by RMPR »

kmarc wrote: post #179
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 was you, 10 years ago. Then at one day I decided to _really_ put a lot of effort on improving and highly customize my workflow. It took a while to get used to being the fastest around my colleagues. I'll never look back. We are professionals. The defaults, believe me, are not for us.

> We are professionals. The defaults, believe me, are not for us.

I like this conclusion

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#192

Post by RMPR »

ryanmjacobs wrote: post #147
ken wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A window manager may be only 2000 lines of source code but it implements a host of formal and informal standards and interacts with hundreds of other programs on my computer. You may need only a day or two to orient yourself to the source code, but that’s on top of months or years of experience with X11R6 and ICCCMv2 and EWMH and such. How much debugging did you first need to do to discover your current issue was eve…

I agree to an extent. I'll admit, there is much more under the surface of dwm that 2000 lines of source code. It's all abstractions in the end. But Gnome and KDE are more likely to have bugs because they cover such a wide scope. I've never had dwm fail to do what it claimed to do. But I have had weird Gnome glitches with taskbar hovering and window dragging with workspaces, etc. Dwm "wins" by just giving up, in a sen…

iirc Dwm doesn't have a "taskbar", at least by default, there's a patch for that.

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#193

Post by RMPR »

metalliqaz wrote: post #60

Every time I see these screenshots of tiling window managers like dwm, there is always a browser window smooshed into a block that is barely big enough for a term. I really don't get it. Who uses a web browser like that? I almost always maximize my browser on my desktop, and when i want to share the space with something I'm working on, I maybe will split the screen in half, or just have floating windows on top of eac…

For actual use, look at r/UsabilityPorn

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#194

Post by RMPR »

Carpetsmoker wrote: post #94
metalliqaz wrote: post #60

Every time I see these screenshots of tiling window managers like dwm, there is always a browser window smooshed into a block that is barely big enough for a term. I really don't get it. Who uses a web browser like that? I almost always maximize my browser on my desktop, and when i want to share the space with something I'm working on, I maybe will split the screen in half, or just have floating windows on top of eac…

I rarely use dwm's tiling: I almost always have most things maximized with perhaps one or two floating windows. I use workspaces/tags and alt-tab to switch between stuff. I'm not sure how representative the screenshots are of actual usage.

>I'm not sure how representative the screenshots are of actual usage.

There's a subreddit for that r/UsabilityPorn

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#195

Post by bmn__ »

ghostpepper wrote: post #174
karatestomp wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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—…

The menu-search feature did exist in Unity on Ubuntu at one point but it was not as nice as the macOS one. I think it's a hugely underrated feature in macOS. Another related feature that I wish some Linux gui framework would adopt is the concept of global keybindings. Every menu in every app in macOS displays by default the shortcut key next to it - if one exists. These are the kinds of features that are easy to over…

KDE had global key bindings ab ovo.

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#196

Post by ryanmjacobs »

RMPR wrote: post #192
ryanmjacobs wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree to an extent. I'll admit, there is much more under the surface of dwm that 2000 lines of source code. It's all abstractions in the end. But Gnome and KDE are more likely to have bugs because they cover such a wide scope. I've never had dwm fail to do what it claimed to do. But I have had weird Gnome glitches with taskbar hovering and window dragging with workspaces, etc. Dwm "wins" by just giving up, in a sen…

iirc Dwm doesn't have a "taskbar", at least by default, there's a patch for that.

Yeah, I guess a better word is "statusbar" or "workspace bar". It just displays the currently selected workspaces, the current window's title, and dwmstatus. The point is that it doesn't try to manage buttons and icons for minimize/maximize/multiple-stacked window types etc, like a traditional window manager

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#197

Post by SkySkimmer »

nsajko wrote: post #41
dhimes wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have working sleep? Man I'm so jealous.

> You have working sleep? Man I'm so jealous. Suspend to RAM does not work for you?! What distro do you use and what kernel? What do the files /sys/power/state and /sys/power/mem_sleep contain? Maybe it's just a SystemD issue?

I'm someone else but I get https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/883 on a T495s with debian testing

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#198

Post by megameter »

RMPR wrote: post #191
kmarc wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was you, 10 years ago. Then at one day I decided to _really_ put a lot of effort on improving and highly customize my workflow. It took a while to get used to being the fastest around my colleagues. I'll never look back. We are professionals. The defaults, believe me, are not for us.

> We are professionals. The defaults, believe me, are not for us. I like this conclusion

I have found that the configuration needs are all in the task. Most tasks are default-friendly by dint of harmonizing well.

The ones that aren't must be acknowledged, and attacked directly and mercilessly with automation. That could mean a bit of custom code, recording a macro for keystrokes or mouse clicks, or transforming the task into data to make it programmable or searchable.

Knowing the tools only means adding more options along these axes. Customizing the WM and editors can help, but it leans more in the direction of directionless tinkering. I develop in Windows and make use of its tiling shortcuts(Win + arrow keys) all the time - it's 80% of a tiling WM and is always there and has been there since Vista. That's the benefit of knowing what defaults can do, and "merciless automation" on top of defaults goes a long way.

Anyway, whatever editor you use, you still depend on the keyboard to type the code, the monitor to view it, and comfortable ergonomics for a long session. Identifying the best thing for the task is an art form. I recently invested in cheaper headphones(!) because they are lighter weight and therefore contribute less to neck strain; I also expect them to last longer since drop impacts will be less forceful.

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#199

Post by nsajko »

SkySkimmer wrote: post #197
nsajko wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have working sleep? Man I'm so jealous. Suspend to RAM does not work for you?! What distro do you use and what kernel? What do the files /sys/power/state and /sys/power/mem_sleep contain? Maybe it's just a SystemD issue?

I'm someone else but I get https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/883 on a T495s with debian testing

I'm sad and surprised that one still has to go through so much trouble trying to use an AMD computer with Linux, especially considering the performance and security situation with Intel in the last couple of years.

For what it's worth, a comment [0] on the Archlinux BBS says that Linux 5.6.13 fixed the issue for the user's t495 and Debian seems to have 5.6.14, so if you haven't yet tried updating the kernel, definitely try now.

[0] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1905479#p1905479

Re: Why I Use Suckless Tools

#200

Post by metalliqaz »

yiyus wrote: post #176
metalliqaz wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has a stack too. Most recently used on top. Older windows are either partially or completely covered, but they always have an icon accessible. Would I dedicate a section of my screen to windows down the stack? No, I don't think I would. I guess I just don't get the zen of dwm.

I have tried both workflows. I used a (very) customized dwm for years, and use windows nowadays. Windows works, but dwm is really dynamic. Screenshots don't do it justice. With windows, once I have a large number of windows, working in several things at the same time, I'm really afraid of losing that setup (for example, leaving my laptop unattended for a while and see that the system had the great idea of rebooting w…

ya know it's funny, in my current windows 10 system, I sometimes don't notice the auto reboots, because it reopens my windows, which are usually just browsers on a normal day.
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