Command Line Challenge 2023 - Thoughts

Subjective thoughts here given the 'official' challenge issued to Ctrl-C Members ends in a couple days.

I'm displeased with my inability to unstick from just using chrome for web-browsing and youtube. Like, you wouldn't believe how disappointed I am there.

Similarly never could wrap my head around i3. Aggrivating really. It feels like a lot of 'almost.' Maybe if I give it a couple more weeks it will grow | on me, As is though it annoys me that the guides I've seen essentially go, 'Oh yea do this this and eighty other things and it'll be amazing, trust me.'

Some of it I can mentally parse more than other things. A lot of it, though,just feels like a case of 'meh.' That shouldn't be an insult to anyone who does tiling window managers. i can see how you can get into a flow-state. I'm displeased with my inability to unstick from just using chrome for web-browsing and youtube. Like, you wouldn't believe how disappointed I am there.

In the middling section; Gemini.

I feel the browsers are there, but the content isn't. I consider it a me problem mostly, as I've if anything grown less curious and willing to poke random search results to see where the rabbit hole goes. Now it's 'oh the well worn path doens't have what I want. Oh well.' Not the fault of the software so much as PEBCAK.

MUTT was an utter bust with gmail. Turns out Google did a thing and,I just moved on.

Alpine works. Had to do some fiddling about, but at least for the scope of my needs, works out.

Where I'm most happy

file browsing and writing. Midnight Commander is a genuinely amazing piece of software when it comes to file work. Not perfect, as I do wish there were more themes, but it is something that helps me a great deal.

irssi is great. I still need to figure out a few things for the sake of configuring, but I'm glad to know that when all other real time protocols fail, are abandoned, or are compromised, IRC carries on.

Pairs well with Micro. Has keybindings i"m familiar with, suits my aesthetics, and paired with midnight command it makes most file manipulation a breeze. Maybe i'll get to vim at some point, but not right yet. For now Micro serves my needs, though I suspect if I were to do more with print material I'd need to learn latex for the sake of formatting, or at the very least, pandoc since that is a thing.

Experimentation: Raspbery Pi Zero.

I asked the little guy to do too much and I think I fried its poor little brain. Turns out demanding it serve as an access point/extender, DLNA server, ftp server, and host a tmux instance of a few differing things is a step too far for the poor little thing. Maybe not for the zero2.

Even so, my experimentation has proved that, at least to an extent, I can muddle through on the command line with the thing thanks to a micro hdmi to dvi cable. Maybe I should get a pi 400.

In Closing.

This isn't 'Over.' If anything the challenge was just an invitation to get out of my comfort zone rather than a thing to be endured. Learn to do more with less and enjoy what computing from a simpler enviroment can give.

If nothing else it's been an experiance in just how stuck I am on the windows 95 interface.

-_-_-_-_-

Gemlog

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