Comment by vermaden | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vermaden | Hacker News Reader

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I use these X11 tools daily:

- xterm

- xmessage

- xlockmore

- xkill

- xfontsel

- xev

- xcalc

- xchm

- glxgears

For example *xte rm(1)* can is one of the most compatible terminal emulator out there and its nice to have it started each time with random color theme:

- https://vermaden.files.wordpress.com/2021/05/xterm.random.pn...

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2021/05/19/freebsd-desktop-pa...

With some theming in *~/.Xdefaults* both *xmessage(1)* and *xcalc(1)* look really well:

- https://vermaden.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/openbox-alt-tab...

- https://i.imgur.com/gl1Q63H.png

I still use *xfontsel(1)* to select bitmap fonts.

I lock screen with *xlock(1)* (package name *xlockmore*) to lock the screen:

- https://vermaden.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/xlock-user-pass...

- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2018/06/23/freebsd-desktop-pa...

I also use *xkill(1)* when some X11 window misbehaves.

Hope that helps.

Regards.

+1 for xterm. I also enable VT240 graphics (sometimes called SIXEL graphics) so that I can easily put up a graph or other graphical representation even when I'm ssh'd over to a machine somewhere on the east coast.

I'm very curious what necessitates using glxgears daily.

Um, everyone uses glxgears daily.

Right?

It's the desktop background. The X root Window.

If you finish all your work, all your windows closed, you get to see them gears!

Well, maybe not daily but everytime I configure graphics to see how hardware acceleration is doing :)

Same for xchm and xev.

> xchm

Some materials (like old HP-UX training or documentation) is available as CHM files. You can convert them to something else but it the looks like sh*t ... this using xchm(1) helps here. Yes, nowadays it also does not happen that often.

Besides xchm(1) does not look that bad:

- https://www.dedoimedo.com/images/computers/2009/xchm-another...

> xev

I use that to test what keys what codes have. For example with ThinkPad W520 the keys to the left and right of the ARROW keys are 'NEXT' and 'PREV' - I always map them to Page Up and Page Down keys with ~/.xmodmaprc file:

    ! PAGE UP/PAGE DOWN
      keycode 167 = Next NoSymbol Next
      keycode 166 = Prior NoSymbol Prior

... and I use xev(1) in that process first to check what codes are before xmodmap(1) does the job and second time when the new xmodmap(1) config is loaded.

Its not daily but I also do not use nc(1) or traceroute(1) or dig(1) daily but I of course use these tools when needed.

Hope that helps.

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