Is it possible to survive using only TTY capabilities? Here is my short story about how I struggled with TTY, wanting to get it to work properly
prehistory
Recently, on my old laptop, the video card flew. Yes, it flew so that I could not even launch the installer of any OS. Windows crashed while installing basic drivers. The Linux installation did not want to start at all, even if I set nouveau.modeset=0 in the launch configuration.
I didnβt want to buy a new video card for a laptop that had served its purpose. However, as a true Linuxoid, I began to think: "But shouldn't I make a terminal computer out of my laptop, as it was in the 80s?". So the idea was born not to install xserver on Linux, but to try to live on a TTY (bare console).
First difficulties
On PC I installed
So is there a way out?
Then I start to think that I turned the wrong way. It's easier to just buy a video card than to hang around with a bastard. Not that I can call Linux with only TTY a completely unnecessary system, no, maybe for administrators on the server it will do, but my goal was originally to make a "candy" out of TTY, and the result was a Frankenstein monster that convulsed, when it came to GUI operations. I wanted more, then I finally abandoned the idea of ββββplaying video and audio materials, and began to think about how I could make an SSH server with which I could have fun while away from home.
What exactly did I want?
- Working with code: Vim, NeoVim, linters, debuggers, interpreters, compilers and everything else
- The ability to safely surf the Internet
- Software for the institute (at least some programs that can render a document on the web with .md markup)
- Convenience
Survival
Vim, Nvim, and all the other joys of a lazy programmer, I installed and configured pretty quickly. The ability to surf the Internet, however, caused difficulties (who would have thought) because I still can't copy links. Then I thought that surfing the Internet while in the console at least unreasonable and I started looking for a replacement. RSS feeders for the console were searched for a long time, but still a couple of feeders were found, and I successfully started using them and enjoying the flow of information.
Now software for working with documents. Here I had to work hard and write a script so that my .md file is rendered without a video card (irony). To do this, I used a service for viewing and distributing .md files, and then using another service for processing web pages in .pdf, I made documents. Problem solved.
There were also some problems with convenience. The terminal does not support all colors normally, resulting in something like
Experience the Power of Effective Results
It wasn't worth the time. I warn you right away, if you want to switch to the console for a while, be prepared for the fact that you have to suffer. Still, as a result, I got a completely working system, with a file manager, panels, browser, editors and compilers. In general, not bad, but a week later, I just could not stand it and bought a new PC. That's all for me. Share your experience, it will be interesting to know what you did when you found yourself in console-only mode for a while.
Source: habr.com