I get weird looks from friends when ever I boot up Arch Linux on my eee pc. The same can be said when I load up Emacs/VI to type something. After all, it’s a console application for text-editing. In the world of Windows/OSX, where word processors like Microsoft office rules, it’s akin to saying that you’re a vegetarian for ethical reasons.
I can clearly remember the first time I installed GNU/Linux on my machine. Back then, I thought that Linux was an OS reserved only for the geeks or programmers. I wasn’t too far from the truth. The path to GNU/Linux is tough and required a certain know-how, using strictly text-based application is worse. There are no cute icons to ease your soul. The only thing graphical is the blinking cursor. Some would call such endeavour masochistic. Why did I ditch the GUI? Doing more with less.
In an effort to focus on writing and nothing else, I started on a search for a text-editor that allows me to turn off all the useless tool bars, menus. I found Q10, a full-screen text-editor for Windows. It was a joy to use.
After dropping my last 500 bucks on a Asus eee pc 900, I proceed to find the Linux version of Q10 for my box only to find out–Q10 has no Linux version. That’s when I decided to find an alternative to Q10. After a search on google, I found Emacs and VI. Both text-based applications where the use of the mouse is considered sacrilegious. An affront to all things GNU.
At first, I bemoan the dead of my mouse in Emacs. After learning the key-strokes in Emacs, I found that I can do things in Emacs with relative ease and came to love the idea that my hands don’t have to leave the keyboard at all. It greatly increase my productivity, not to mention that I’m more focused on the screen than ever, since I don’t have to deal with a certain irritating paperclip asking if I needed any help every 5 minutes.
Today, I can surf the web, read my mail, write, instant message all from the console without the use of a GUI. Is it easier? For certain it’s a big NO. So why use command line applications at all? It’s all for simplicity’s sake. Do you remember the days of WordStar? Nothing but just a word processor, it’s effectively just a box with nothing but WordStar loaded. Just for word processing, a far cry from the word processors of today. Those days are far gone, but in the search for more processing power, we keep updating our software like we need the latest glitzy features, when all we need is a blinking cursor and a keyboard.
That’s good enough a reason for me to ditch the GUI and return to the world of console applications–where simplicity rules.
