'Camping' on the Internet

[samalex]

A post earlier (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1452637) where someone asked about going back to dial-up reminded me of a project I tried to kick off about 5 or 6 years ago called 'Camping' on the Internet.

Think of it, even though we're all used to the amenities of society, many people still enjoy roughing it by camping outdoors in a tent or even travel trailer with few creature comforts. If someone wanted to go back to dial-up or even using only 10+ year old GUI apps or only using CLI apps I think it'd be a huge eye opener for many. But doing this doesn't mean you have to give-up very much.

For example in CLI use:
Alpine (http://www.washington.edu/alpine/) - Email and NNTP -- Note this is Pine just under a different license [see story] (http://www.washington.edu/alpine/overview/story.html). And yes Alpine works great with Gmail (http://javatarian.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/configuring-alpine-with-gmail/).
irssi (http://www.irssi.org/) - IRC
LaTeX (http://www.latex-project.org/), Emacs (http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/), or even WP for DOS via dosemu (http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-msdos@vger.kernel.org/msg04566.html) - word processing
Midnight Commander (http://www.midnight-commander.org/) - File Manager
Lynx (http://lynx.isc.org/) or w3m (http://w3m.sourceforge.net/) - basic WWW access and gopher (yes they still exist)
telnet/ssh/rlogin - Accessing remote systems or BBSes (yes (http://www.telnetbbsguide.com/) they still (http://www.bbsfinder.com/listing.asp) exist (http://www.synchro.net/sbbslist.html))
bashpodder (http://lincgeek.org/bashpodder/), podcatcher (http://podcatcher.rubyforge.org/), or podget (http://podget.sourceforge.net/) - Podcast Aggregation
finch (http://www.upvery.com/8011-linux-command-finch-chat-without-using-windows.html) or centerim (http://www.centerim.org/index.php/Main_Page) - Instant Messaging
pal (http://palcal.sourceforge.net/) - Calendar App
Newsbeuter (http://newsbeuter.org/) or centerim (http://www.centerim.org/index.php/Main_Page) - RSS Feeds
mp3blaster (http://mp3blaster.sourceforge.net/) or moc (http://moc.daper.net/) or musicpd (http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Music_Player_Daemon_Wiki) - listen to audio
mplayer will even play video in 'text mode' -- weird! See here (http://hackedgadgets.com/2007/06/28/text-based-youtube-video-player-for-linux/) where someone got it to play Youtube videos.

So think about it ... for YEARS people used command line and there are lots of apps out there that are often overlooked because we're so used to pretty graphics and fancy interfaces. And using dosemu and other dos emulators you can even tap into all the MS-DOS apps. Other then the DOS apps we're not even talking classic computing here, most of these apps are still actively being developed and work just as well as their GUI counterparts, it's just you have to 'learn' to see things differently in a command line environment.

Also multitasking is something else that would need some special attention. If you're doing all this on your local system, you can run multiple apps at the same time using virtual consoles (ALT-F1, ALT-F2, etc) or you can use Screen which works great over SSH.

This seems like it'd be a fun experiment to go GUI-less for a few days or a week. Anyone game to jump in? And as in the post I linked to in my first sentence, outside of the podcast downloads or streaming audio most of this would work quite well on a slower 56K connection.

Take care --

Sam

[tica vun]

Why? Other than remote server administration and a few select tasks that either don't have GUIs or are more efficient to to in a CLI environment, I don't see why I'd ever want to use the command line.

And 56k is just masochism.

[samalex]

Why?

Why not? To some it may be nostalgic and to others a window into how it used to be. Personally I still love the command line world, and using command line for a decade exclusively before moving to my first GUI desktop in 1998 with Win 98 and Red Hat Linux I still appreciate and enjoy the text world. It's not for all, but some might enjoy such an endeavor.

Sam

[Chronon]

I have been tinkering with console applications on my netbook lately.

[NightwishFan]

I use ogg123 on random to play audio. You can send it an interrupt signal to switch songs.

[tica vun]

I use ogg123 on random to play audio. You can send it an interrupt signal to switch songs.

Yeah, well I used a magnetised pin to send commands to my CPU in machine code. :roll:

This is pointless luddism for its own sake.

[NightwishFan]

I really do not see why it bothers you. In answer sir troll, I will have to say you are not as good as the resident troll, not by a long shot. :D

Personally I prefer a nice GUI but I am familiar enough with a command line interface to take advantage of it and use it daily if need be. I am not taking part in the command line only deal, but I am just sharing my experience and advice.

I honestly see no reason to be negative, especially about something like this.

Edit: And just how is this luddism? I am not destroying my GUI, it still exists with a simple
sudo start gdm

[lemuriaX]

I honestly see no reason to be negative, especially about something like this.


I agree...personally I find this thread to be interesting. I probably don't have time right now to participate in an experiment but would like to collect info of this nature.

If you've ever had your broadband or power go out on you and have had to connect via dial-up to get something done on the net, knowing stuff like this would be very valuable. :)

[ikt]

Why not?

Because there's a reason we don't use them anymore...:confused:

[JamezQ]

I think it would be fun :)

[JoeWheeler]

This sounds really fun actually, I missed the dial up era by about 3 years and by the time i got my first pc it was all guis so it be great to see what i missed

[DrMelon]

Ah, this sounds quite fun. Although I have a couple of old machines I boot up now and then to play with, when I'm feeling nostalgic.

[Maheriano]

One word. Gopher.

[tica vun]

This sounds really fun actually, I missed the dial up era by about 3 years and by the time i got my first pc it was all guis so it be great to see what i missed

-"Disconnecting to read" because you pay by the hour.
-Relatives yelling at you to get off the internet so they can use the phone.
-Basic pages loading for several minutes.
-What's that, you want to download an ISO? That'll be 28.44 hours assuming full speed and constant connection.

Missing dialup when you have broadband and 3G is like missing ln and log tables when you have a calculator.

[dragos240]

This is mostly what I do anyway. I use command line applications for much of my computing. At home, I use fluxbox with mostly cli applications. One of the few exceptions to this is firefox. Links, lynx, and elinks cannot browse a large portion of the web. I use vim for editing, mplayer/moc for music, and I play a few SDL based games that can run in a framebuffer. Sure I use firefox, evolution, open office, and play a few other games. But for the most part CLI is where I roam.

The dial up thread is mine :).

[samalex]

Neat replies... I figured there'd be people with "What the heck?" reactions to the suggestion of ditching GUI for a short while, but I think for old-school guys like myself who remember the days of staring at an amber monitor for hours upon end, whether coding, checking Fidonet, or hacking around Tymnet and Telenet, working in command line is very nostalgic. Or for those who didn't get into computers until later, this is a neat way to see how it once was.

There's more to the Internet then what you see on the WWW, and such an experiment lets you experience those other resources in their truest form.

Here are some gopher sites that are still very active and will work in Lynx:
gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/1/world
gopher://gopher.quux.org/1/

Here's a few URL's with LOTS of telnet sites:
http://www.telnet.org/htm/places.htm
http://www.telnetbbsguide.com/
http://www.bbscorner.com/telnetbbs/
http://www.synchro.net/sbbslist.html

Free Usenet access:
http://www.eternal-september.org/

Using this you can collect RSS feeds from your fave sites and feed them into your RSS Reader:

lynx -source http://msnbc.com > site.txt
cat site.txt | grep rss

Again, just something fun to do and one way to take advantage of some protocols and content on the Internet that don't get used much anymore.

Take care --

Sam

[samalex]

This is mostly what I do anyway. I use command line applications for much of my computing. At home, I use fluxbox with mostly cli applications. One of the few exceptions to this is firefox. Links, lynx, and elinks cannot browse a large portion of the web. I use vim for editing, mplayer/moc for music, and I play a few SDL based games that can run in a framebuffer. Sure I use firefox, evolution, open office, and play a few other games. But for the most part CLI is where I roam.

The dial up thread is mine :).

Before I moved to OSX about 5 years ago this is exactly the setup I had. Most of my day-to-day stuff was in shell, but I ran Fluxbox for web browsing, getting pics from the digital camera, scanning, etc. Heck I used Pine then Alpine for my primary mail client until about four years ago, and I still have it configured to connect to my Google account on my home server as a backup.

And yeah your thread prompted this post, but I didn't want to hijack your thread :) I've actually been throwing around this idea for years and even registered 'campingontheinternet.com' (or something like that) years ago to create a site dedicated to those who enjoy using shell as opposed to GUI. I never got beyond the initial concept, but there are actually more apps then every to take advantage of shell now'days. Heck someone even write an app that'll let you order a pizza from Pizza Hut via a shell command!

Sam

[johnb820]

Perhaps some sort of user input driven MUD would be a neat idea, given that text is the easiest thing for users to alter.

[dragos240]

Before I moved to OSX about 5 years ago this is exactly the setup I had. Most of my day-to-day stuff was in shell, but I ran Fluxbox for web browsing, getting pics from the digital camera, scanning, etc. Heck I used Pine then Alpine for my primary mail client until about four years ago, and I still have it configured to connect to my Google account on my home server as a backup.

And yeah your thread prompted this post, but I didn't want to hijack your thread :) I've actually been throwing around this idea for years and even registered 'campingontheinternet.com' (or something like that) years ago to create a site dedicated to those who enjoy using shell as opposed to GUI. I never got beyond the initial concept, but there are actually more apps then every to take advantage of shell now'days. Heck someone even write an app that'll let you order a pizza from Pizza Hut via a shell command!

Sam

HA! I've been on this forum for way too long, or rather, I visit this place way too much. I've actually heard of that command. However, it looks like pizza hut changed the way you order pizza online because the command no longer works.

[Chronon]

Yeah, well I used a magnetised pin to send commands to my CPU in machine code. :roll:

This is pointless luddism for its own sake.

Perhaps you shouldn't be so imperative with your "is". Console applications allow you to do more with a limited amount of RAM. They also permit scripting and automation. I used scripts to prepare all of the data and graphs for my dissertation. I was able to (automatically) process and graph all of the data in a few hours instead of laboriously opening each one in a spreadsheet, setting chart properties, etc. and exporting the chart as an image (a process that would have taken weeks). Try doing that with a GUI application.

People may have a point in using console applications even if the reason is not obvious to you.

[samalex]

People may have a point in using console applications even if the reason is not obvious to you.

I agree :) Sometimes it's neat just to shake-up things abit, even if just for a short while. Because I use my laptop to much for work I can't really set it up for shell only, but I'll install Ubuntu Minimal (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD) via VirtualBox and start configuring some of the apps I mentioned before.

Right now we're crammed into a small apartment while we're having a house built, so once we're in the new place I'll setup a system that is truly command line only. Heck might be neat to just connect my old Tandy laptop (8088 system) running MS-DOS to my server via the serial port and use that. Totally nostalgic :)

Sam

[JoeWheeler]

Hmmm I've got a while before im back at uni so I think im going to go 'camping' for a week :P