Anita Lewis

Distraction-free Writing Environment

Published on: by Anita

2 min read

When I began using Linux over 25 years ago, my installation failed to produce a Desktop. I had a black screen with white text saying “login.” With help I worked out how to make the Desktop appear. It took a couple months as I recall. Meanwhile I booted into Windows and also spent a lot of time on that Linux terminal using programs that worked there. A few days ago it hit me that this environment might be a good one to use for undistracted writing.

Increasing font size

In Linux I can get a terminal with Ctrl Alt F1. I login and I’ve got bash available to type in commands. The font on this terminal used to be small, but I had made it larger when I enlarged the font on the Grub menu (I have more than one OS on my machine, and they are selected from this menu.) This change in font size also changed the size of font on my terminals. To make this change add this line to /etc/default/grub: GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

To increase the font size in the terminal in GhostBSD add this to /etc/rc.conf:
allscreens_flags="-f terminus-b32"

Programs

  • File manager: nnn - This one is quick and easy to use and allows me to open the file in nano. I also have Midnight Commander if I need it.
  • Editor: nano - still looking for a better markdown editor for commandline
  • Browser: lynx
  • BSSG: Create YAML for website posts and pages; convert markdown to HTML; open server for viewing site on localhost in lynx. There’s a link to the website for this Bash Static Site Generator at the end of this page.
  • Terminal multiplexer: tmux - Create panes on the screen in order to use more than one of these programs at the same time

As I get used to the keystrokes, I’m finding I’m more focused writing on the blank screen. I use only the editor to do the writing and then tmux with BSSG and lynx to look at it. If I see a need for a quick edit, I open another pane for nano to edit. When finished, I go back to my Desktop with Ctrl Alt F7 (this function key number varies with different versions of Linux) and take a look at my work again using BSSG to open the server and my regular browser for a view in color with images.