cheap and minimal just the way i like it

[900donuts]

i like doing things on my computer in minimal and old fashioned ways even when i don't have to but i don't know of a lot of software so please feel free to point me at some interesting stuff (you know ascii art 3d games and any thing else text based but looking graphical i think thats cool) theres also a few i know of that I'd some info about those are the ncurses interface for VLC, the twin window manager, and rat poison desktop environment

[blithen]

if you're looking for command line programs. I highly suggest cmus.
It's a CLI music player. I use it as my main.
Finch is pretty cool. (CLI version of pidgin.)

[kadath]

CD/DVD burning: BashBurn

Ripping Audio CDs to Ogg Vorbis: cd2ogg

[900donuts]

cool an instant messager a music player a burner and a ripper

some one in my family dose some genealogy research any recommendations there?

also whats the most minimal video player(size wise)

[kadath]

also whats the most minimal video player(size wise)

CLI MPlayer, I'd guess.

[plb]

if you're looking for command line programs. I highly suggest cmus.
It's a CLI music player. I use it as my main.
Finch is pretty cool. (CLI version of pidgin.)

moc > cmus....try it If you're into rss feeds, check out newsbeuter it's very nice console based reader and in active development. Also rtorrent, irssi, mutt (goes without saying) I'll think of some more ;]

[karellen]

cool an instant messager

centericq

[rolando2424]

Someone should really make a list of the CLI apps that exits for a given type... (like Pino, Mutt for mail, Irssi, BitchX for Irc)

Well, my recommendations goes for:
Music: Ncmpc / mpd (for ncmpc use the -c flag for color )
Irc: Irssi
Folder Navigation: Midnight Commander (or just the regular commands )
Ftp client: Ncftp
Usenet reader: Slrn (search the web for configurations files)
Msn: CenterIm or CenterIcq (I haven't really tried Finch
RSS: If all your rss are in plain English (that is, no funny characters), use Raggle, otherwise, Snownews.
Watch system resources: Htop (It's like the "top" command, but it has more options, color, and as a more intuitive navigation system.
Watch network bandwidth usage: bmon or ethstatus (ethstatus has color support, but I think it can only watch one connection, while bmon watches several. Try them both )
If you want, you can also use saidar (gives a little information about the system, and the network usage, but I prefer to use htop and bmon/ethstatus)
Calculator: Orpie (Fullscreen Ncurses) or qcalculate (it's more like a command line (it also has a gtk interface if I'm not mistaken)). I personally prefer qcalculate (Orpie has some weird keybindings or something).
Terminal Management: Screen Allows you to have several fullscreen terminals, on just one terminal (ok, not the best explanation). It allows some good things to be done. Give it a try.
Web Browser: elinks (type "." and then you can go to the links on pages. simply by typing it's number). You can also try w3m, with the w3m-image package that adds some image support to w3m (even on a tty console).

Text Editor: VIM!!!!! (ok, fanboyism aside (because I'm not that good with it), you should use either Vim for complex editing, or Nano for simple editing. Try to find some on the repos. Speaking of repos.)

Repository Management: Aptitude (or the apt-* (apt-cache, apt-get, etc.))
Calendar management / to do list: calcurse

I can't remember any more programs... Perhaps mplayer (try using the option -vo fbdev), zgv for image viewing (uses svga lib though, so you have to run it as root and it can mess up your tty), the regular games (Nethack, Angband, Dungeon Crawl, Online Muds, and also take a look at the package bsdgames).

Also, you can try Ghack, it's a rougelike game, but uses opengl (It's not 3d though, but I remember reading about a game like that on the freegamer blog).

[Steveway]

Yes the command-line is awesome.
I just found abc2midi some minutes ago in the repos.
It includes the program midi2abc, wich converts midi files to a format that is pretty similar to the one I developed back in school.
So I can just convert my midis, print it and play it on my keyboard.
Awesome, thank you Linux.
It's the little things that count.

[init1]

Robotfindskitten- The best game ever. Nothing else comes close.
BSD-Games- A collection of text games
Greed- A fun puzzle game
All of these are in the repos