[conspire] running without a DE- ancilliary tools? [was Re: (forw) Re: InstallFest on Apr. 13th]

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Tony Godshall (togo at of.net):

> of particular importance in these modern days, what with mobile
> devices and all, is ability to configure networks (esp wifi) and
> external monitors, tools for which DE's often include and but window
> managers often do not.

No, wrong.

Any such tool is _merely_ an X client application with dependencies.
Install the application with your package management tools, and it
should run just fine.  Of course, you must first know its package name.
I notice that DE users most often have absolutely no idea what either
the package or the binary name is of almost anything they install and
use.  This trait is most particularly annoying when they're asking me
for help with some graphical tool and I wish to install it so I can see
how it works.

'What's the package name?'
'I don't know.'
'What's the name of the binary, then?'
'I don't know that, either.  You just go to the foo menu and pick bar
from it.'

Which is a lovely description for others who are using exactly the same
DE configured in exactly the same way, but useless for anyone else.

> What have folks found useful to manipulate networking and monitors?

Me, I use mostly vi.

Not the answer you wanted, I know.