macOS is my favourite operating system. Finder in column view with arrow keys to navigate, combined with space for file preview, is incredibly fast and intuitive. Trackpad integration also results in less hand movement. I’m building a Linux (Bazzite) desktop, though, and I’ve set my sights on the stars.
nnn looks to be an incredible file manager, and was a great recommendation. It looks even more capable than Finder, albeit without scrolling/zooming previews, thanks to macOS having unmatched trackpad functionality. Not to mention Spotlight, which makes opening apps trivial–especially with Alfred available as well. I want to go beyond mere file management, though.
File managenent, browsing, gaming, everything. Just how much can you configure a Linux system to eliminate mouse usage? Shortcut guides welcome (I already know the major ones). I also have a keen interest in tiling window managers, but I’ve not delved that deep yet. I don’t know how to set one up.
Guess I’m forced to learn Emacs/Vim/similar.
Step 1: open a terminal emulator of your choice. There’s no step 2 because you are already done. All features, 0 dependency on your mouse.
You’re welcome :)
Even better, after your machine boots up, press ctrl+alt+F(3-6) to access TTY sessions and then there is no mouse at all. Plenty of TUI apps work just fine here too.
Difference being you can still do things like launch steam games as long as you have a DE installed even if you’re using TTY primarily.
Unfortunately there is often a use case for mouse that is hardly doable without, such as nondestructive video editing or image editing. I even use the mouse in Vim. Why is there this obsession not to touch the mouse??
Some people just don’t want to move their hands off the keyboard, it can be an incredibly productive workflow if you’re used to it.
My point is, it depends on the workflow and the tools. Try editing complex images with keyboard alone with GIMP or Inkscape. I’m a Vim user and used tiling window managers for years, so I know exactly what you mean with keyboard centric workflow being productive. But sometimes ignoring the mouse can make the workflow harder, not easier. Off course it always depends on what you actually do.
Edit: Guess I answered my … question (even though it wasn’t a question). Never mind.
To achieve this you will need a tiling window manager like Sway, Hyprland, or i3 and try to use as many CLI-based programs as possible for everything else. For browsers, there are projects like Nyxt (and some others I can’t remember) that allow you to use vim or emacs like shortcuts to browse around.
However most GUI apps probably won’t support an all-keyboard workflow so you will still need one. Depending on what software you use, however, you could make the vast majority of your regular computing mouse-free
I did mention tiling managers already. Other comment has me interested in NixOS, and I think I’ll be changing my plans to account for both. It’s a nerdier setup now, RIP Bazzite.
I love Mullvad browser, though. It’s a great “peace of mind” browser. I’ll stick with it for now, but I will be looking into Nyxt. Might take a while.
Thank you!
I would strongly recommend not to dive into NixOS yet.
It has its benefits and I think it’s awesome, but it has a bit of a learning curve and you already have plenty of learning to do with going mouseless and the whole interface stuff. You do not want to deal withbreakages in unstable NixOS, or broken Nvidia drivers in stable.
If Bazzite’s immutability is holding you back, just switch to another distro you are familiar with: Be that Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, openSUSE, whatever.
Hyprland is the most complete and configurable tiling window manager today, so definitely start with that. You can install it in any Linux distro.
I have Arch familiarity already, and I’ll use it if all else fails. I’ll read into NixOS beforehand and decide, but I am a quick and determined learner. I want to expand my experience with this build. Won’t do anything stupid–promise!
I spent about a year in NixOS, and my main desktop still has it, though mostly out of laziness. I did end up switching back to Arch, mostly because if there’s anything you need that isn’t in the Nix repos it’s a pain to install. The other big issue I had was the lack of documentation, so you’ll be figuring a lot of stuff out completely on your own, because Nix works differently enough to everything else that a lot of general Linux resources just don’t apply.
If I had a recommendation for switching to nixos, I’d probably say use the Nix package manager on Arch for a while first, and just slowly switch everything to Arch. It’ll get you more familiar with everything, and then you can make the switch more easily.
I use a firefox plugin on librewolf and i3 (since qubes doesnt support wayland). Mostly works but still some things that require mouse for other gui applications.
A lot of fucking around getting it set up in a way i like. Modifying dom0 scripts live, injecting python themes to get dark mode in the qube manager, fucking around compiling dubious drivers from source and installing them in dom0, fuckig around with getting windows to behave itself (havnt got it working but i just have a drive partition i pass back and forth to tranfer data). Other than that its pretty good. I3 is a godsend for efficiency, have got ctr+shift+c/v as muscle memory now.
Am currently fucking around with getting split backend for keepass so i can use the keepassxc browser plugin and have it then requesting access to the keepass backend in a seperate qube. Got it working in 1 qube manually. Currently having systemd kicking my ass over a ncat socket in /run/user/1000/app/org.keepassxc… that doesnt exist untill the browser extension tries to access it but thats well after boot so systemd has already crashed the service.
Overall having lots of fun tinkering. And god do i love the ability to just blow up my os whenever i feel like it. I can sudo rm -rf / --no-preserve-root whenever i feel like it and my system is fine.
Last I checked there’s a vim-ifying Firefox addon, don’t know if it’s maintained though
Don’t run a window manager and you don’t need a mouse at all. No problem.
Just don’t start X and your problem is solved.
In the Linux world we have this great training routine called broken updates that forces users to regularly rediscover the magic of text mode. If you’re lucky enough to run a specialized graphics card you get to experience this almost every update.
We have a similar program for training users how to cope without WiFi.
Lol on nixos I’ve broken my gui twice so far. Keeping old configurations is nice but I learned the hard way that I should have been keeping copies of my configuration.nix
I haven’t tried any ostree based distros yet.
You can always break your GUI yourself, but I was talking about updates breaking it.
It’s really easy to go mouseless on Linux/Unix. Just use as many TUI programs as possible since none of them will be mouse-oriented.
Also check out this list: https://github.com/erikw/vim-keybindings-everywhere-the-ultimate-list
A lot of people (myself included) like vim keybindings and want them in other programs, and of course using vim keybindings is inherently mouseless.
Off the top of my head, some software I use:
- river as my wayland compositor
- lf for a file browser
- imv for an image viewer
- Librewolf with Vimium-C to browse the web
- mpd + ncmpcpp for listening to music (you can also use cmus if you don’t want to use mpd)
I don’t use them, but you can also use something like Mutt, Neomutt, or Aerc for an email client, and use CLI bittorrent clients and password managers.
LibreWolf with Vimium-C? Could I do this with Mullvad?
EDIT: Upon second thought, I feel like this might be very easily identifiable, and break the entire purpose of Mullvad
Yes, exactly, installing additional add-ons for Mullvad browser (except noscript) defeats the purpose. I also find it annoying whenever I have to use Tor Browser or Mullvad Browser because I have to use the mouse.
I use Librewolf for my “normal”/fingerprintable/non-anonymous browsing, but I still try to reduce fingerprintability (don’t have too many add-ons installed, RFP is on ofc, I have letterboxing etc).
To be fair, if you want to reduce fingerprintability but still browse the web with just your keyboard, the TUI web browsers could work. Obviously they’re pretty uncommon, but I imagine you’d look like any other user of lynx/w3m/etc. So you’d be quite unique but I’m not sure if you’d be distinguishable from other users of the same browser.
