How do I only use keyboard to control my computer for all everyday usages?

Question

I have searched about this but I mainly get articles about broken mouse and temporary use of command line tools or GUI interface through keyboard. I only use Linux OS (Ubuntu and Debian).

What I want is total control of:

• file exploring via terminal (instead of GUI file explorer) - possible with any normal terminal.
• web browsing (with Firefox or Chrome/Chromium) - partially possible, shortcuts for open/close tab are OK, moving page-down/up is OK, selecting part of text on page is not possible (to my knowledge), etc ...
• mailing - no idea if already possible
• text editing via terminal - possible.

• extras:

  . text selection of terminal results (partial selection is still not possible, to my knowledge).

  . video open/close/settings/control (with the VLC functionalities) - partially possible.

  . image editing (at GIMP levels) - no idea if already possible

  . virtual machines - no idea if already possible

Would be interesting to know more on this topic by other users. There is no right answer here, but many different approaches might bring nearer to the aim of total keyboard only control of a (nowday) computer.

Answer 1

For web surfing: ELinks, Lynx, w3m ...

Text selecting in traditional browsers: Ctrl + F, search for the text till you find it, press ESC and than Shift+Arrows to select.

Mailing: alpine

Text editor in terminal: nano, vim, emacs ...

Video: vlc launching from terminal, mplayer, mpv ...

Image editor : imagemagick, tuto ...

VM: qemu, virtualbox is GUI but you can use some shortcuts or Alt+keys!

Mailing: alpine

Answer 2

• Here's a list of keyboard shortcuts for Linux.

https://code.visualstudio.com/shortcuts/keyboard-shortcuts-linux.pdf

• For web surfing using only your keyboard, you can try these shortcuts for Firefox:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-perform-firefox-tasks-quickly

And these for Lovely Chrome:

https://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/google-chrome-keyboard-shortcuts

*** Partial text selection is also possible. Just press Ctrl/Command + F and type the first words of what you'd like to select, find it, press esc and use Shift+ Arrow keys to select what you'd like to be selected. ;)

• For Select/copy/paste in terminal using only the keyboard check this out:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/759358/select-copy-paste-in-terminal-using-only-the-keyboard

• For using VLC without the mouse take a look at the link below:

Note: these shortcuts are only default settings and can be customized (along with many others)

https://wiki.videolan.org/Linux_keyboard_shortcuts/

• For image editing and VMs there are also shortcuts depending on your application. You just need to google your application name whether it's virtualbox, Parallels Desktop or QEMU followed by "keyboard shortcuts".

Let me know which of those link were helpful for you Andi. ❀◕ ‿ ◕❀

Cheers,

Answer 3

File manager : mc (Midnight Commander)

Web browser : w3m , links

Mailing : alpine

text editor : nano , emacs , vim , ed ...

video : mplayer, mpv

Image editor : imagemagick , tuto : Edit Images On Ubuntu Via Command Line With ImageMagick

virtual machine : qemu (debian wiki)

Answer 4

* file exploring via terminal (instead of GUI file explorer) - possible with any normal terminal.

Also, Midnight Commander (mc)

web browsing (with Firefox or Chrome/Chromium) - partially possible, shortcuts for open/close tab are OK, moving page-down/up is

OK, selecting part of text on page is not possible (to my knowledge), etc ...

Chrome and FF both have a browsing plugin, vimium, based on vi keybindings. Here's the FF one. Search on mouselss browsing and you'll find other solutions.

mailing - no idea if already possible

I use vm in emacs. There are a lot of terminal based mail readers.

text editing via terminal - possible.

emacs. Then the vi/vim people will come here and start screaming.

extras:

. text selection of terminal results (partial selection is still not possible, to my knowledge).

tmux. Has both an emacs and a vi editing/cut/paste mode. Similar to screen

. video open/close/settings/control (with the VLC functionalities) - partially possible.

VLC is a partial solution, since you can start via cli (vlc &) and use C-up/dn for volume, Alt-left/rt to jump forware/back, etc. There may be better solutions.

. image editing (at GIMP levels) - no idea if already possible

Seems difficult.

. virtual machines - no idea if already possible

Sure, kvm/qemu, virtualbox. Just look at the cli interface. Also, check into LXD.

I think what you really want to look into are tiling window managers. Get on youtube and start looking for people doing comparisons: i3, xmonad, stumpwm, and many more. Lots of us hate the mouse.