I agree with Dustin's point. When an install goes flawlessly, a text web browser may be superfluous, but when things go crunch and your laptop is not handy, a text web browser is a quick way to find solutions on the Internet. Sometimes, it can be as simple a need as looking up a VMWARE key or making sure that the server's Apache server is serving pages. Wget doesn't really fit the bill. Some form of text web browser should be easily apt-gettable...
Bud On Mon, 2008-06-16 at 10:30 -0500, Dustin Kirkland wrote: > On Mon, Jun 16, 2008 at 9:31 AM, Matt Zimmerman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > * w3m # we need some text-based html presenter > > > > I'd like to formally cast doubt on this statement from the standard seed. > > This was originally added a long time ago in order to provide a text-based > > browser for use on servers, at a time when the default server installation > > was a strict subset of the desktop. It is completely superfluous on a > > modern desktop. > > > > Now that this is becoming possible with the new server seed[1], I'd like to > > propose that it move to the server seed instead (or even be removed, if the > > server team doesn't feel it's appropriate). > > > > Note that wget, which is much smaller, simpler and more generally useful > > (e.g. in scripts) is already in standard. > > Matt, et al.- > > I agree 100% that w3m is completely unnecessary on a modern Ubuntu > desktop machine. No argument there. > > On a server without X, however, I think that some form of an > interactive text web browser is still useful. I know of 3 in Ubuntu > main, (w3m, lynx, elinks). I can't speak for the state of upstream > development of any of those. They may be other alternatives. > > But I do see a distinct difference between w3m/lynx/elinks and > wget/curl. The latter are useful for scripting the downloading of > files/content and then acting on it. The former are more interactive, > and allow for web searching, following links, reading pages. > > We can debate whether an interactive text browser belongs in the > default server seed, or if we simply document how to install and use > it in the Server Guide. I'd like to see an interactive web browser > remain on the server, though. > > > :-Dustin > -- ubuntu-server mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-server More info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam
