💾 Archived View for bbs.geminispace.org › s › Linux › 4889 captured on 2024-08-18 at 19:23:24. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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I am having way too much trouble doing something very simple. I have two machines with XUbuntu but dwm'ed. I want to be able to look at files. I started with PCManFM (from inertia), and using xdg-mime configured text/plain to open vim.desktop (5Kb of yuck!). On one box it works, on the other it opens vim in a 80x24 space, after which status text gets printed at the bottom, arrows scroll past the editable 80x24 region, and the whole thing is a mess, although in a much larger-than-normal font.
As a sidenote, a search for 'vim.desktop' found 6 different ones.
So I gave myself 20 lashes for using a stupid file manager and installed mc (I've used it before). Now it opened everything in nano! Digging further it seems to have a built-in 'select-editor' command which gives you a choice of vim.tiny or vim.basic, but selecting one does nothing at all.
Then, I saw 'update-alternatives' - yet another layer of crap, which did seem to allow vim (but ominously has the other editors 'weighted' higher, whatever that means).
I am getting really fed up, as for the last few years I've largely been not doing anything useful because I my environment really annoys me, and I spend way too much time dicking around with layers of Linux crap, and then my computer breaks, and I start all over.
I kind of miss the days when you stuck a floppy disk in, and booted into your application, and hit the power switch when done.
P.S. vifm seems to be a better fit for me as I am all over vim lately...
2023-08-29 · 1 year ago · 🔥 1
If you just want to look at files why don't you just use ssh?
😺 gemalaya · 2023-08-29 at 18:52:
@stack Have you ever tried the "ranger" terminal file manager ? Quoting the git README:
"ranger is a console file manager with VI key bindings. It provides a minimalistic and nice curses interface with a view on the directory hierarchy. It ships with rifle, a file launcher that is good at automatically finding out which program to use for what file type."
🚀 stack [OP] · 2023-08-29 at 19:57:
I do like ranger, thanks @gemalya - I forgot about it... But LOL: I had to dig a bit to find that it uses the shell's $EDITOR variable!
Hell's bells!