Reading the handbook from console

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:56:24 -0800, dteske at freebsd.org wrote:
> Ok, the reason I ask is actually because I have this insane (?) idea of shoving
> one of the aforementioned solutions onto the installation media so that (gasp)
> we can have that functionality back like we had in the days of sysinstall.

So my stupid brain remembered something that actually has
happened? A text mode browser in the default installation?
Called /usr/bin/lynx maybe? It must be a long time ago...



> So naturally, my first question is "which one?"

The UNIX philosophy suggests to use one that is sufficient
for the purpose. A look at dependencies would be useful.
>From that point of view, lynx seems to be okay, as it
will do all the things which are required: Render the
HTML in a readable manner, make the hyperreferences
accessible, evenprovide NLS if the installation has
a requirement for that (newbie non-US users probably
will find that feature useful), no dependencies regarding
graphics hardware, so it will even work on a serial
terminal (when in use at a museum) or via SSH if
urgently needed.

However, it seems that lynx does not support UTF-8, but
again, that doesn't matter, as there is no such content
in the documents, and it doesn't work in text mode anyway.

And if you need a transparent background, clean your
terminal. :-)

It would also be possible to use w3m with ja- users in
mind, disabling the "inline image" functions to get rid
of x11, fb, and gtk2 dependencies. If desired, w3m can
use the lynx keyboard map.




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...