IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

A third way of using Linux

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

1. Emacs as the archetypal TUI
Many commenters hold Emacs up as the definitive text‑based interface, praising its versatility and window‑management capabilities.

“When I read: … I immediately thought ‘this person has never heard of Emacs’. And my heart ached with pity.” – tmtvl
“The only one that matters, Emacs in evil mode.” – drums8787
“Emacs Window management via exwm.” – BeetleB
“The article has it backwards: GUIs are the third way of using Linux. TUIs are the 2nd way. I mean, stuff like pico, nano, vi, Emacs – these are all TUIs.” – BeetleB

2. Poor scrolling on the article site (CSS‑related, not JS)
Several users report that the page scrolls badly in Firefox, attributing the problem to heavy CSS (especially backdrop-filter) rather than JavaScript.

“Ah yes, website talks about ‘the bloat of x11 and Wayland’, and doesn’t even scroll correctly on Firefox mobile likely due to some JavaScript fuckery.” – hypfer
“Scrolling is pretty bad on Firefox desktop as well. So bad that I didn’t want to finish the article.” – dormo
“Not JavaScript in this case, just CSS bloat (backdrop‑filter).” – seba_dos1
“another comment … pointed out a similar issue. Now I’m wondering if backdrop‑filter can be used correctly at all or should just be avoided entirely.” – PhilipRoman

3. Advantages of TUIs: lightweight, remote‑consistent, and less bloated than GUIs
The discussion repeatedly highlights how TUIs avoid GUI complexity, enable uniform workflows across machines, and remain practical for many tasks.

“I stick to CLI's and TUI's and use zellij as my window manager… GUI's represent a sort of explosion in the set of valid states for software to be in, and I find that software which opts out of trying to support that explosion tends to work better.” – MatrixMan
“All the TUI stuff you can leave running in tmux and then have a consistent workspace remotely accessible from your PC or phone is indeed really nice. IRC, mail, torrents, notetaking, etc.” – opan
“What gives you the benefit of a visual interface, without the bloat that comes with Wayland or X11? fbdev?” – cowlevel
“I’m making a winamp clone in the tui… We are reaching the point where a terminal tui is a viable and even sensible alternative for certain apps.” – tim-projects

🚀 Project Ideas

TermiWorkspace: Unified TUI Desktop Environment

Summary

  • A desktop‑like environment built entirely from TUIs (terminal, file manager, editor, taskbar, notifications) that can be launched from a plain TTY or within any terminal emulator, solving the fragmentation of having to switch between tmux, zellij, and separate CLI tools.
  • Core value: a single, configurable TUI workspace that feels like a lightweight GUI but retains the speed, keyboard‑centricity, and remote‑SSH friendliness of pure terminal apps.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Power users, sysadmins, developers who live in terminals and want a cohesive workflow without leaving TTYs or X/Wayland
Core Feature Modular TUI panels (shell, file explorer, editor, status bar) managed by a lightweight compositor that reuses tmux/zellij panes and exposes a common plugin API for adding widgets (e.g., system monitors, media controls)
Tech Stack Rust (for performance), tui-ratatui or crossterm for UI, tmux/zellij as backend daemon, optional Kitty graphics protocol for image previews, configuration via TOML
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • HN commenters praised the idea of a “unifying system that treated the TUI itself as the primary user experience” (dspillett) and lamented the lack of a true TUI desktop (BeetleB, MatrixMan).
  • Enables remote workspaces identical to local ones via SSH, addressing jswelker’s desire for SSH workspaces and local workspaces in the same nav structure (zellij/herdr).

TextGraphix: Hybrid TUI/GPU Compositor

Summary

  • A compositor that lets traditional TUIs render bitmap graphics, videos, and OpenGL/Vulkan content directly inside the terminal cell grid using the Kitty graphics protocol or a custom framebuffer bridge, removing the need to leave the terminal for image previews or media playback.
  • Core value: brings rich visual output to TUI applications while preserving their keyboard‑driven, low‑latency nature.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers of TUI tools (e.g., ls, git, news readers) and power users who want inline media without opening a GUI
Core Feature Transparent layer that intercepts graphics escape sequences, decodes them, and composites them onto the underlying text buffer via GPU‑accelerated textures, supporting images, video frames, and shader effects
Tech Stack C/C++ or Rust with libdrm/KMS for framebuffer access, or Wayland compositor using wlroots; Kitty graphics protocol parser; OpenGL ES for rendering; optional WASM sandbox for safe shader execution
Difficulty High
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • cowlevel and neomantra discussed mixing graphics and text in PC text mode and using Kitty terminal graphics compositing; this project directly implements that vision.
  • Users frustrated with scrolling and CSS bloat in Firefox (hypfer, dormo) would appreciate a TUI‑only way to view images and videos without relying on heavyweight browsers.

TUI Remote Sync: WASM-powered TUI Workspaces

Summary

  • A service that streams a TUI workspace (shell, editor, file manager, custom widgets) over SSH/WebSocket to a browser or thin client, rendering the UI via a WASM‑based terminal emulator that uses WebGPU for GPU‑accelerated text and graphics, giving a identical TUI experience on any device.
  • Core value: enables truly portable, low‑bandwidth TUI sessions with persistent state, eliminating the need to reinstall or reconfigure tools on each machine.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Remote developers, sysadmins, and travelers who need a consistent TUI environment across workstations, laptops, and even tablets
Core Feature Server agent that serializes PTY input/output and widget state, transmits it via an efficient binary protocol; client WASM terminal (based on xterm.js + WebGPU renderer) reconstructs the TUI locally, supporting mouse, image protocols, and custom plugins
Tech Stack Rust server (tokio, ssh2), WASM client (wasm-pack, webgpu-wasi, yew or plain WASM), optional TUIOS/sip protocol for widget remoting, encryption via Noise or SSH
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Revenue-ready: Subscription $5/user/month for hosted relay; self‑hostable free tier

Notes

  • jswelker highlighted the value of “ssh workspaces and local workspaces in the same nav structure” and the desire for remote TUI support; this project delivers exactly that.
  • MatrixMan noted the benefit of transferring configs and muscle memory between devices via a TUI‑centric workflow—TUI Remote Sync makes that seamless.
  • The idea invites discussion on standards for TUI remoting (similar to TUIOS/sip) and could spawn a ecosystem of portable TUI plugins.

Read Later