Programs that Suck Less! suckless

[@Rhomagus]

I dig the concept of a decentralized workflow. Instead of having a bunch of bloated programs that overlap in functionality with each other, you can save a lot of space, memory, and processor resources by utilizing smaller programs and only calling on them for their primary purpose, and dismissing them when they're not in use. It's a DIY mentality but for computing. Very cool. Your browser example summed that up perfectly.

[@elpsykongr00]

that's actually unix way

[@しげお-i1l]

Time to create Zuckless software...

[@mxr1337x]

echo "0.0.0.0 facebook.com" >> /etc/hosts

[@notanimufailzone]

@@mxr1337x Here's a big list of URLs you need to create a zuckless hosts file: qz.com/1234502/how-to-block-facebook-all-the-urls-you-need-to-block-to-actually-stop-using-facebook/

[@davidreeves1408]

Yes!! (and thanks for these links guys!)

[@blidit3272]

Zuckless web

[@acmayin]

saugerberg

[@porcupine7945]

Can you start your videos with "zoom zoom, zoomers!"?

[@simpleprogrammingcodes]

It's not fair. I'm not a zoomer and why should it be a problem for me?

[@himanshushukla6451]

That'd be sick lol. I am a zoomer now because I used lol

[@houstoncasey5880]

i dont mean to be offtopic but does anybody know of a tool to log back into an instagram account?? I was dumb lost the login password. I love any tips you can give me!

[@arlocameron7642]

@Houston Casey instablaster ;)

[@houstoncasey5880]

@Arlo Cameron thanks for your reply. I found the site on google and Im in the hacking process atm. Looks like it's gonna take quite some time so I will get back to you later with my results.

[@Fakheet]

>using clear instead of ^L top bloat

[@hrishabhrajput9504]

Does not work if you've set vi as readline editor. Default (in bash) is the one that shall not be named here. : P See man bash > READLINE. Basically, 'set -o vi'. EDIT: You can bind ^L separately though, I didn't knew it.

[@andrewyu6996]

Hrishabh Rajput Nah I am a `fish' guy.

[@radu6772]

Wait does CTRL+L clear? Didn't know that

[@hamzakhiar3636]

Btw is it like shortcuts in terminal

[@saeedbaig4249]

The way you describe suckless programs reminds me of the mindset behind the Unix programs (and yes I mean the basic Unix specs, not the GNUisms added on top); the individual Unix programs (e.g. cat, head, grep) might not be particularly useful on their own; it's being able to chain them together that allows you to do really useful things. I get the same impression from something like dmenu or tabbed; their job is to "do 1 thing and do it well"; you can then chain them together with other programs if you need to do something else.

[@lachlantula]

Netscape... now that was a good browser! *sips*

[@cpcnw]

Seamonkey is alive and as close to Netscape as you can get

[@مقاطعمترجمة-ش8ث]

@@cpcnw honest I never like Seamonkey even once I don't know why maybe because I use FF first .

[@teacon7]

does anyone use dillo? or is that like... the transition stage browser to qute?

[@borjarojo]

The word you've been looking for is 'modular'. The videos where you show how there are programs out there that allow you to compose you're functionality how you want it really making me want to make a switch to Arch and deep dive into constructing my own system like yours, and practicing using it. Super cool. I use emacs, btw, and I'm thinking I might begin to learn vim and harness the power of this sucklessness. Great information dude keep up the good work.

[@rodrigosouto9502]

Modular. Well put word sir

[@ensoxyz2737]

As a software engineer.... This seems very cool not weird or complicated! I'm a FreeBSD user so I haven't been privy to the world of Arch, Suckless, or linux in general for that matter. I can't wait to experiment with this on freebsd!

[@user-ic7cj8lq9z]

Minimal programs are the best. I have been learning C for the last week and building my own minimal terminal filemanager. C is a really fun language because it's so simple to create software for linux

[@chrisbebek3192]

lol goes to his website, says "you can click on stuff", drags the pointer to donations

[@catzybluphish1058]

Lunduke in the making.

[@astrochelonian]

The issue I have with "recompile to configure" software is that it assumes that all unix systems are single-user. In all fairness, many are. But in places where multiple users share a system, or even, if, for instance, a family shares a computer, then this becomes unmaintainable, with several copies of the same program in each user's $HOME.

[@learning2895]

I like simple programs, but think some of these lack basic features, proof of that is that you always have to patch them. The biggest drawback I find is the lack of configuration files, you said config files are a place for bugs, well How editing the source code is any better?, you get loads of errors when patching, and the more patches you apply, the more likely you are to break something or create bugs. I summarize it as at the beginning they are useless, after some patching they start to suck less, but if you put effort into them they become great tools I must say.

[@meh.7539]

It's almost like Suckless utilities are the Lego(tm) bricks that build the applications that you need the way you need it... I can actually see this filling in usability areas where you to enable a disabled person to do a complex thing easily without necessarily having to go the route of a full code project.

[@TheAnimateor]

Geocities boomer website video is gone :(

[@wild1729]

He pulled up porn on accident :/

[@matj12]

I'm still waiting for the videos about setting up a website.

[@Muaddibkhan]

Me too

[@whatthehack1589]

He's done it now. ✅

[@not_herobrine3752]

@@whatthehack1589 restoration 100

[@gavinvales8928]

knew this was because of distrotube

[@FishKungfu]

Thank you for this very clear and rational "outside the box" explanation of the suckless suite of programs! It all makes sense now.

[@ykhatat]

oh kid you don't need config files they suck... use vimrc config file to automate the compiling process.....

[@russellchido]

he didn't say you didn't need config files or that they sucked. He said it doesn't matter. (For these programs in particular, obviously.)

[@ZethGamer]

@@russellchido Not to mention, he actually patched his ST to read stuff from other config files such as Xresources - This is due to the fact that many other programs do so in order to get them pretty colors.

[@senseisecurityschool9337]

Pretty sure Luke didn't create Suckless. He can explain their thinking without being a zealot himself.

[@leonvankammen7499]

great video. I do find the suckless approach interesting and beautiful in its own way, especially if C is your day-to-day technology. However, personally I can't really justify the extra miles (the compile-and-fix-rabbithole). The argument 'X is easy if you just do Y' isn't really making things easier.

[@bitterlemonboy]

What? C is the most unbloated and efficient programming language.

[@risa8244]

@@bitterlemonboy C has several useless keywords ever since optimizing compilers became a thing. And efficient by what standard? The end product is a fast binary, but you can achieve similar results with rust or C++ in fewer lines, which is a measure of efficiency C can't compete in. Dev time is a huge consideration that is never looked into enough. Yes, technically, C is slightly faster. But if it takes twice the time to develop the program in C, the other language can spend all that extra time optimizing, reducing code size, etc

[@ToxicallyMasculinelol]

@@bitterlemonboy You have to be kidding.

[@jandrews377]

That was a really helpful explanation and clears up a lot of the confusion, if you are coming from another tiling wm. I currently use swaywm and have got used to the keybindings, however, I just think we are years away from being able to ditch X and lean on wayland for everything. I am playing with dwm as the 'tag' paradigm seems more flexible to how i3/sway do it with workspaces.

[@ithraldharzul6887]

I generally like the idea of suckless, I just disagree with the given implementation. Building everything as plugins around a core is superior to altering the core every time you want to change something. So for example I make a browser front end, given an ideal suckless html/javascript render engine I just point the front end config file at the API of the render engine. Or say we are using their web browser such as it is, and I want to tweak it to automatically open a crypto wallet any time I click on a *coin address. I could add that, and recompile, or there could be an exposed api where I could just write a separate program to handle all that for me, because opening another app for the most part shouldn't be the web browsers job. I love maximum modularity so it is easy to drop in a replacement for anything I just want to do that with external API calls.

[@Yaxqb]

Everything that isn't super low level should have a cli to make shell scripting a breeze.

[@ithraldharzul6887]

@@Yaxqb Agreed, except photo manipulation that isn't some kind of mass edit, like image magic is cool and all for running a website and quickly resizing things, but the idea of color grading stuff over a cli hurts my head, and what's left of my soul.

[@russellchido]

Programs like st are basically for hackers. If they assumed a normie userbase, then yeah, they'd have to go with some config file. But they are not, so they can make the programs much smaller and nicer; if you want to change something, you just change the program. (Which is fairly simple given the programs are small. And a lot of the time you don't need to change st; you should be thinking of writing an entirely separate program for the thing you want, like tabs, for example.) If you don't know/don't want to learn C then well sorry. It's not for you. It's not to be exclusionary. There are plenty of programs for everybody. It's just these are special programs for basically unix hackers and to accommodate everybody you would have to give up what makes them unique. It's a trade off. A config wouldn't just mean adding code to read and parse the config, it would mean preemptively adding features that they don't want to add to the program (or even need to be in the program) so that when you toggle them they just work. That would defeat the purpose of the whole thing.

[@ithraldharzul6887]

@@russellchido lol, as I recall I specifically said I wanted an API to make interfacing multiple programs simpler... Implying I have interest in writing said programs, implying I can in fact write code, preferably in Rust or C++ but C and Python are not out of the question (unless it is another server written in Python because that is unjustifiable with it's horrible horizontal scaling) And if you also read my statement, I said I wanted to create a config file for MY front-end program to just whilly nilly swap between back-ends. A simple highly configurable system is amazing, I'd just prefer it was a bunch of interdependent programs that could be swapped out so long as they respected the API. Thus everyone who wants whatever weird stuff we want can build it, and then grandma can sit down and quickly and easily just pick whichever one she likes. That way I am happy because I can change anything, and grandma is happy because she was able to pick the one she liked.

[@russellchido]

@@ithraldharzul6887 i did read it all, but api is the same story. It's great that you want to do that for yourself, but my point was that it's counterproductive (to the point of the program) to add that kind of thing in from the start. It's probably not too hard to just port the whole thing into C++ if you are proficient in that however.

[@mrmarmoure5204]

where's the web server video

[@mrmarmoure5204]

@gorgonzola r/selfhosted

[@byron9632]

Luke is pumping out videos like a mad man! I generally enjoy seeing Luke's creative approach to terminal software and am a big fan of suckless. However, this video misses the mark. I don't think it captures the suckless philosophy (although I like the comment about comfort). Suckless, as stated on their website, focuses on "simplicity, clarity, and frugality." It targets experienced computer users who know exactly what they want in their workflow. A guy named Kai Hendry talks a lot about his workflow with suckless and if you're interested in additional videos I recommend his channel.

[@xthebumpx]

Source code configuration is a pain because you can't just get the program through your package manager. Compiling is no issue, but I don't want to fork or clone the code and manually keep it up to date. Arch and Gentoo have ways to get around that if you want to mess with ebuilds/pacman hooks/package builds, but that's another thing to learn that you might not use for much else.

[@Jcarr250]

Nix as well is quite good with these sorts of things, and that's available on any distro

[@xthebumpx]

@@Jcarr250 Not sure why I forgot about Nix/NixOS since I used it for a while myself! I loved having my entire system configuration in a single Emacs orgmode file (using babel to export the sections to the appropriate nixos file locations)

[@desktorp]

_"Really, my web browser is a decentralized mesh."_

[@needthistool]

I thought this comment was a meme until I reached 8:24

[@Vincintosh]

you're gonna switch to DWM soon, aren't you?

[@jozefkomaromy1933]

yes he is

[@DrathVader]

dwm.exe

[@Vincintosh]

lol

[@JavaIsnom]

I'm gonna miss the i3 rice

[@Sp0nge5]

I think at this point he's already switched, but isn't ready for a full video yet.

[@JurajOravecSGOrava]

1. Do not run things as root so casually 2. Take advantage of your package manager, pacman is your friend which helps you manage files in your system. It is easy to write simple PKGBUILD file and than run makepkg. 3. Have a mindset of creator... so troublesome :D Thank you for introduction.

[@maherhayek9696]

1:44 DISCOMBOBULATE - Sherlock Holmes (RDJ)

[@aleksandrpetrosyan1140]

Surf and ST are my favourites. DWM is good in concept, but I found Xmonad to adhere to the same principle but execute it much better. The only problem I found is that surf doesn't handle magnet links well... Maybe need to do some digging.

[@walter_lesaulnier]

The way Suckless stuff works kind of reminds me of how I'd piece together functionalities in an MS-DOS 3.2 Batch language batch file.

[@jonesbbq307]

Under what circumstances would I use surf?

[@DoesThisMatter]

What happened to the Boomer website video?

[@zgscolosseum]

bump I’m still waiting to see it

[@DoesThisMatter]

@@zgscolosseum I got the notification, but didn't get to see it. My guess is it was reported.

[@baileyharrison1030]

I don’t think the live stream was uploaded.

[@xGOKOPx]

It was a livestream, they don't have to be uploaded after they're finished (actually that's sorta against the idea of livestream, not that I care or sth)

[@spagootest2185]

He pulled up porn on accident

[@harrytsang1501]

What I did over the past few days: 1. configured 2.8" TFT display on an SBC 2. installed i3 3. configured the buttons to invoke i3-msg Looks like some surf won't hurt. I don't even have dmenu installed, but nothing some scripts can't do

[@przemekkasprzyk626]

Given your penchant for control at granular level I'm waiting for a series of videos on Gentoo :-)

[@JesseNeckred]

I believe you sir are the catalyst to many Linux youtubers speaking about Suckless, I am pleased

[@davidreeves1408]

I like you, Luke! You're nostalgic for web 1.0. Really, you & I don't want web 1.0 back: it's more like we'd appreciate some current version, with * some * modern (suckless) features, but sans the bloat, extreme eye-candy, in-your-face marketing, and stinky tactics like pagenation of web-sites, reduction of minimalist view options to a link in micro-print hiding somewhere at the bottom of the page, script-heavy, too much use of CDNs, etc. We'd both like a purer, more straightforward web, without the clutter & constant attempts to "trick" us into constantly buying stuff. :)

[@henlofren7321]

I'll never surrender my eye-candy three.js

[@AexisRai]

This: suckless programs Next: wrongless rationality

[@ZethGamer]

My first encounter with "suckless" software, without even realizing it, was a little linux distro known as DSL (Damn Small Linux) - which funnily enough was using DWM for window manager. Now back when I didn't know any better, my initial reaction was "Holy crap that looks so ugly that it makes freaking windows 3.11 look pretty in comparison" - Now to be perfectly honest with you, I was 19 back then, and my only knowledge of linux back then involved my attempts to revive an ancient laptop (By ancient I mean that thing had a floppy drive!) 10 years later, now that I feel more comfortable with potato-batery powered toasters loaded with Arch Linux (and my very own Frankensteined version of LARBS/voidrice combo) I feel like I should take a second look and this time actually try and make it work for me.

[@smudgepost]

FYI surf is install-able via apt and most likely pacman so you won;t need to configure gtk paths manually to avoid 'gio.h' errors. I actually really like this thank Luke! I've been using browsh as a shell browser but surf is super lightweight.

[@armynyus9123]

This video did DOS me out of the apple ecosystem. After 25 years I had the perfect setup - so I thought. Now I'm on Linux on my MBP2015, feel no need to upgrade the hardware like everybody else in the company (I'm the founder) and pretty much exclusive on suckless tools. Even learned the C I need to customize st and dwm for "crazy", previously unthinkable integrations. I'm still hesitant to promote it to the developers in the company, could get costly ;-)

[@lukasbelford8207]

They can add a proper documentation instead of lean C then make things.

[@nilspin]

I was called in by my manager to not use sent next time I made company presentations. He said "god has given us windows" he then *pointed* to the **power**. I told him to shove it. I am now using suckless software in my parents' basement. Me 1 - 0 Life

[@shobhit2197]

Ahead of the meme, I already moved to dwm

[@catzybluphish1058]

Why would you admit to falling for the meme early?

[@0xEmmy]

Thank you! Surf sounds SO much nicer for technical stuff like the Rust docs!

[@arturogoosnargh6027]

Compiled configs are a cute idea. It frees the program from having a file reader and a parser. It also gives syntax checking for free. I wonder which programming languages cant be bent better to allow great compiled configs.

[@talkysassis]

How would one make desktop programs with this mindset? Imagine a video editor made like this, or a 3d engine like blender. Imagine a program like AutoCAD made like this. Would be a nightmare.

[@ncruzalayza]

Hey where is the Livestream 🤨

[@AmirHosseinHonardust]

I love how "oh it takes time to cd and sudo make install... " just took 3 seconds there :))) awesome debunking!

[@slavoie]

Thanks a lot for this Luke! I ended up using *st* and *slock* . Both are clearly very simple and efficient: just what I needed!

[@Артем-щ1ш3у]

Suckless software has problems with patches. Some of them have to be manually applied by copying and pasting code. Also there is no reason to use tabbed with tiling window managers, e. g. i3 can arrange windows within a tree node in tabbed or stacked mode, herbstluftwm can arrange windows within a frame in maximized mode.

[@___xyz___]

I'm trying to make surf do things, but I don't know how to express the kind of extension I'm looking for, as the system confuses me. It feels like we simply don't have the vocabulary to describe using software in this way as we have for more popular bloatware.

[@alanauckland3663]

I was looking at ST a long while ago. No where on Suckless website does it tell you to edit and recompile the source code! Thank you look that will help me to think about how to do it next time. That said I feel I just don't have the time or inclination to be bothered to mess around with it in my spare time. It really is a thing for the tinkers who enjoy messing around with it in their spare time. personal I prefer to game and take a break from work when getting home

[@4.0.4]

I don't get the problem with config files as a general concept. You can't build _really_ complicated stuff without them (unless you're the only one writing and using it) and if someone fucks up the config file you can just error out until the user fixes it. I mean, all the stuff you add to your particular suckless program is hard to share, hard to keep track of when you bring in changes from other people, and depending on what you do, similar to keeping a dependency tree on your mind (say, a change you made depends on something else you use on your machine).

[@trijenhout]

i like your work flow!!

[@pacogarcia3911]

Hey, you use to stream your key bindings during your videos, can you tell me what is the tool you were using please ? thks !

[@nullify.]

I use nano. Works for me.

[@Mostlyharmless1985]

But if you can’t use your text editor as a talisman to show your smug superiority why even live?

[@Viken43]

Running DWM at the moment and am quite surprised. It is not unlike i3 but very much more clean looking. Not used too toolbar being at top of screen but other than that I am enjoying the ride.....

[@Waitwhat469]

I think this is a really solid idea for programming. Is there any package builders out there though? Like (surf, menu, tabs, optons var menu) to make a webbrowser?

[@Mostlyharmless1985]

Wow, surf. I might as well use curl and interpret the html myself. I’ll keep my config files, thanks.

[@bitterlemonboy]

snek

[@Mostlyharmless1985]

∆pertureChromaKey thank you for that completely useless addition.

[@bitterlemonboy]

@@Mostlyharmless1985 gecko

[@Mostlyharmless1985]

∆pertureChromaKey try again, words and sentences, you can do it buddy!

[@gaurdianAQ]

This just makes me want to check out suckless again as I'm getting ready to try and set up a minimalist void linux setup...

[@not_herobrine3752]

what about now

[@mr.dingleberry4882]

what about now

[@XDjUanZInHO]

Tabs in terminals are pretty useful, just think about debugging compilation problems, updating system and coding all on the same window

[@tonyramirez5707]

Tabs and multiplexing kinda have their use in DEs imo, but once you use WMs you just open another terminal.

[@atimholt]

I’ve been desperately wanting something nearly identical to surf. I never dreamed it already existed.

[@Mike-gs7eo]

your vim binding is a pretty big security hole

[@ShowtimeAtWaco]

How so?

[@simpleprogrammingcodes]

Thank you for the interesting video. Can you give more examples of this kind of interaction between programs? I'm interested in what you can create.

[@rmcellig]

I live outside my comfort zone and love it.. excellent video Luke!! 😀

[@Bronyboy123]

Are you still planning on making the series about setting up a website?

[@klintmuse2241]

When will you let it slip you stopped using I3 and moved to DWM ?

[@HexadecimalDump]

I'm moving to linux and I want to start using suckless software. I am a software developer so it's exciting to think about changing source files for configuration and patching, especially since I've just learned C programming recently

[@real-ludovico]

How is the Program called witch open a line where you can write a command? -I had it installed on my old system but forgot the name.

[@ApurvJyotirmay]

Hi Luke! How did you make the vim cursor to behave like GVim's? I want that too

[@RajmahendraR]

what is the app you using to show your cam ?

[@MyurrDurr]

I feel like this is a subtle jab towards Derek about him complaining about needing to recompile

[@CatFace8885]

That has got to be the best thumbnail ever

[@ertwro]

I use tabbed+surf+dmenu+emacs+Qt5webkit, it works.

[@Clutter.monkey]

Any progress on a suckless thesis?

[@fanficAddict404]

I'm sorry Nano is easy to use and all the keybind you need to know are always on the bottom of the screen in case you forget, Vim doesn't let you use arrow keys

[@shimo7013]

maybe actually use vim before saying that, vim does let you use arrow keys

[@bumblbang3012]

I moved onto Micro.

[@iVideo1011]

What keyboard does Luke use?

[@nerrufam7105]

where is your last livestream, cant find it!

[@possumcode]

"Which/what are complicated?" is a complicated question)

[@fitzpatrickmathemati]

Would love to see a video on how to install, configure, and update suckless utilities. If I compile st myself instead of using the AUR, do I need to manually update st? If so, what's the best way to do this? Also, it looks like patches are common for suckless utilities. How does one go about installing patches? Thanks for all the great content!

[@MarkLeonTanner]

Dwm is fantastic... I've been using it for years on my arch system...

[@nikbivation]

So automating a recompilation for achieving simple configuration is not bloat. Hmm...

[@rodrigosouto9502]

Very nice explanation of the suckless mentality!

[@RobinGrays]

a match made in heaven.. you guys were meant to be

[@aerialdude]

I had never heard of suckless before... I like the philosophy! Very unixy. I'll have to give these tools a try.

[@kyuthefox]

"Normal" Linux users be like I have to recompile the programm. Gentoo users: YES!

[@rtfm3015]

This video was really very interesting, thank you very much! PS: do you know the reddit reader rtv?

[@raiden_is_dj]

Top 10 Anime Crossovers

[@Viken43]

Hey man why are you not using dwm?

[@darylnd]

Hi, Luke Do you have any idea how to make a T420's volume switch work with dwm or i3?

[@LukeSmithxyz]

Bind the key.

[@FilippoGuarda]

Can we have another "how to make a website" video? I know there is a shitton of them out there but I want one with a meme on the thumbnail

[@sgky2k]

3:43 when you type sudo make install, the i has an I along with it with less opacity. Is this any kind of feature like suggestion?

[@fortnitejimmy-ih3dn]

Its the mouse cursor lmao

[@233kosta]

So unbloated it doesn't "do" anything 🤣🤣🤣 Joking aside, this stuff sounds pretty awesome!

[@petewest3122]

What happened to the livestream video?

[@mm-bo6ho]

what is the point in configuring programs in a header file? using the compiler for checking errors? what about dhall? and what if the program is huge and/or written in slow compiled language like Rust or Haskell?

[@risa8244]

A lot of his content just looks like slight micro optimization that shaves milliseconds off of boot time. The only advantage I can think of is that overhead on boot lowers a little bit (no parser reading files). Patches are unstable to maintain and slow compilers will be very painful to work with

[@cmoxiv]

THANK YOU

[@ankan2088]

ahh.. now I understand, it's a whole ecosystem built to get rid of redundancy to the extreme level.

[@daiti3666]

I tried to compile my very own version of st, but i cant patch transparency (using the alpha patch on the suckless site) cause i get an error like "undefined reference to alpha" when i make after patching with "patch < file.diff", someone con help me?

[@barmetler]

So what I take away from this is that in order to use suckless programs, I need to open my third eye and expand my consciousness.

[@FredericHamel]

why compile as root??? why not just install as root???