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Ask HN: Linux users, what is your setup to minimise mouse usage
4 points by herodoturtle on April 11, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments
Hi all,

I'm trying my hand at minimising mouse usage as much as possible.

I do all my coding in a terminal (I won't say which I use between vim and emacs but suffice to say my editor of choice frees me from relying on a mouse).

I also use terminal programs for playing music, movies, and chat (cmus, mpv, and irssi respectively).

I'm wondering how far I can push this "no mouse" approach - for example browsing the web, file system navigation, and other common tasks.

What program(s) would you recommend for the above?

I'm hoping to use terminal programs for everything (not sure if that's the correct terminology, but basically I'm looking for terminal-interfaces that will play nicely with my theme's colour and transparency settings).

Thanks in advance for the tips! ^_^

EDIT: I use a ThinkPad style keyboard (shoutout to my fellow SK-8855 gang), so I've already solved for having to lift my hand to use the mouse. I'm now trying to see how far I can push the "no mouse" philosophy ^_^



I use qtile, because the configuration is Python, and I wrote https://github.com/stonecharioteer/Jerry to help me move my mouse to separate monitors (I use 4).

Use a tiling window manager, get super used to tmux and nvim, learn to use vimium and the firefox variant. And instead of a mouse, use a Logitech MX Ergo trackball.


I work in two separate areas: GUIs and CLIs. GUIs for graphical stuff, but mainly CLIs for most of my work. The command-line is just more usable for my everyday purposes. Note that I use a graphical Desktop to allow many CLI xterms to be open at once.

When it comes to programming, I use quite a few xterms at the one time. That means there is very little mouse use, and that's mainly to switch which particular xterm is open. For most of the time, I'm using just the keyboard. A text-editor for coding, gcc (more or less) for compiling, then leaving that xterm open with all the compile-errors plainly visible, while I use an xterm or two for the next set of coding with a text-editor.

Need to reference a header-file while you're coding? Display it in yet another xterm.

I sometimes have half a dozen open xterms for one task. Works for Me (TM).


DWM window manager. I tweaked the config/source a little bit to make it more my own. Generally it keeps your hands away from the mouse. When I reach for the mouse it's usually to cut-paste via the X clipboard in applications that don't support anything else.


AwesomeWM, Doom Emacs, Tmux in Alacritty, LibreWolf with Saka Key extension (mainly to get link hints so I can click elements without the mouse), Rofi to launch applications, and Unclutter to hide my mouse when it's (usually) not being used.


Albert launcher (like the Alfred Mac launcher, but for Linux) for launching programs, doing various system and web searches, calculations, etc) and a window tiling manager of some sort (changes often).


Check out stumpwm. It is an amazing window manager for non mouse usage. It is based of ratposion, a window manager which was designed to minimize mouse usage


I use openbox with lots of keyboard shortcuts to bring up apps/windows. I prefer this to tiling wm, which I used for a while.


try a thinkpad-style keyboard (for example lenovo ku-1255) -- this will eliminate leaving and returning to the home row, which is the main waste of time with a mouse. Also, the three buttons work well with the X11 copy/paste model, which is good for both speed and accuracy. No need to throw the baby out with the bath water.


Thanks mate - see EDIT in OP above :-)


too radical for me :-)


Reminds me to experiment with tiling on Linux some day. My current workflow used ShiftIt on macOS.

And setting up global hotkeys on Linux has been a mess. I use QuickSilver for that on macOS.


The best wm config-wise for global shorcuts is openbox. You can do system calls. Really easy. One config file, no need to do more than reload the wm (which is done via shortcut) :) It's finished software, and it works


Tmux. No anything else. Just boot to CLI and tmux.




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