HOWTO: Ubuntu CLI versions & Framebuffer Programs

[trash]

sweet thanks!
About Moc though, there is no man pages so how on earth does it work??

when i run moc all i get is 'can be found in the following 2 packages and then whants to install about 40mb of files? this can't be the best option lol

[Vivaldi Gloria]

sweet thanks!
About Moc though, there is no man pages so how on earth does it work??

when i run moc all i get is 'can be found in the following 2 packages and then whants to install about 40mb of files? this can't be the best option lol

The name of the package is moc but the executable is mocp. See

man mocp

Start with "mocp" and press "h" to get help. To exit press "Q", that is SHIFT+q.

If you only press "q" then it will detach moc and continue playing. To stop it retype "mocp" and exit using shift+q.

[trash]

The name of the package is moc but the executable is mocp. See

man mocp

Start with "mocp" and press "h" to get help. To exit press "Q", that is SHIFT+q.

If you only press "q" then it will detach moc and continue playing. To stop it retype "mocp" and exit using shift+q.

OHHHH of course mocp, how silly of me

Thanks!

[Vivaldi Gloria]

OHHHH of course mocp, how silly of me

Thanks!

You're welcome. Not silly of you because it's a bit unexpected. I guess they didn't use "moc" because there's already another app caled moc. I added a note to howto.

Cheers.

[trash]

Oh that reminds me:

sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/40-permission.rule

should be..

sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules

cheers

[Vivaldi Gloria]

40-permissions.rules corrected. Thanks.

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

Note that xubuntu alt CD doesn't contain this feature

It does for 8.04.1, I am typing from it now

[Vivaldi Gloria]

It does for 8.04.1, I am typing from it now

You're right mate. Just verified it. Thanks. Edited the OP accordingly.

[markp1989]

PART C. Framebuffer Programs

This list consists (mostly) of terminal programs which use framebuffer to show images, web pages, videos etc. You can do all these without using X at all!

1. To enable mouse support in the terminal install gpm:

sudo apt-get install gpm

Then edit

sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules

and add the following line to the end:

KERNEL=="mice",           MODE="0666"

and restart.

You can select text to copy and middle-click to paste. This also works between different terminals. For example select a text in tty1, then press (ctrl+)alt+F3 and middle-click to paste in tty3.

To enable mouse support in nano edit the /etc/nanorc file and comment out the line "set mouse". "When enabled, mouse clicks can be used to place the cursor, set the mark (with a double click), and execute shortcuts."


2. links2 is a webbrowser which can use framebuffer:

sudo apt-get install links2

Now start with

links2 -g

to get the graphical version.

On a side note, see also surfraw which is a frontend to various web search pages including wikipedia & google.

http://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/


3. To see images install fbi:

sudo apt-get install fbi

Then use for example

fbi *.jpg

in a directory with images.


4. To read pdf also use fbi which needs imagemagick to show pdf files:

sudo apt-get install fbi imagemagick

Now

fbi file.pdf

will do the job.

Another program is fbgs - "poor man's PostScript/pdf viewer for the linux framebuffer console" which also works quite good.

Note that there is a good command line pdf maniplation program: pdftk.


5. You can use mplayer (or mplayer-nogui) to watch videos:

sudo apt-get install mplayer

Now I can watch videos with

mplayer -vo fbdev -fs -vf scale=1280:-3 FileName
mplayer -vo fbdev -fs -vf scale=-3:1024 FileName

Use the first one if the width of the video is larger than the height. Otherwise, use second. I have an alias in .bashrc so I don't have to remember them.

My framebuffer resolution is 1280x1024. Change the commands above for your resolution accordingly.


6. I cannot get vlc and xine to work with framebuffer. In theory they should work. When I try to use vlc with one of

vlc video_file
vlc --vout fb video_file

something weird happens. It plays the video as ascii animation. It uses only the text console! It's really fun. You've got to see it to believe it.

But there is a problem. I don't know how to stop the video! To stop I goto ALT+F2 console and kill vlc from there. This leaves the original terminal (ALT+F1) in a weird state so to get it back use the command

reset

7. There are good music players around. I prefer MOC (Music On Console). It plays everything and you can change the config file to your liking. It even uses themes. (Note that you install the package named "moc" but you start it with "mocp").

I don't know any music player which uses framebuffer.


8. For terminal programs in general see the links given in Part B-11 of this howto.

wheni try to run mplayer , i get an error "/dev/fb0 permission denied"


how do i give my self permission ?

Thanks Markp1989

edit: VLC plays , the video is make up of random letters and numbers of different colours?

is that how its ment to look?

[flangemonkey]

I had the same problem with fbi on 8.10 Intrepid, to get fbi to work in a non root account the user must be added to the 'video' group.

I used vigr and there is a GUI app for this too, but this should work too,

sudo usermod -a -G video username

(replace username with the username of the account you are adding)

hth

Phill