2016-05-21 05:20:16 +00:00
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#Texttop
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2016-05-22 15:10:23 +00:00
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**A fully interactive X Linux desktop rendered to TTY and streamed over SSH**
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2016-05-21 05:20:16 +00:00
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2016-05-21 09:05:24 +00:00
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or Firefox in your terminal 😲
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2016-05-21 05:20:16 +00:00
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2016-05-22 15:10:23 +00:00
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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2016-05-22 15:13:31 +00:00
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This [Youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE_D_fx_ut8) gives a more faithful rendition of the experience.
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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##Why?
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I'm travelling around the world and sometimes I don't have very good Internet. If all I have is a 3kbps connection
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tethered from my phone then it's good to SSH into my server and browse the web through [elinks](http://www.xteddy.org/elinks/).
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2016-05-21 13:18:06 +00:00
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That way my _server_ downloads the web pages and uses the limited bandwidth of my SSH connection to display the result. But
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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it lacks JS support and all that other modern HTML5 goodness. Texttop is simply a way to have the power of a remote
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server running a desktop, but interfaced through the simplicity of a terminal and very low bandwidth.
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Why not VNC? Well VNC is certainly one solution but it doesn't quite have the same ability to deal with extremely bad
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2016-05-21 13:18:06 +00:00
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Internet. Texttop uses MoSH to further reduce the bandwidth and stability requirements of the connection. Mosh offers features like
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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automatic reconnection of dropped connections and diff-only screen updates. Also, other than SSH or MoSH, Texttop doesn't
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require a client like VNC. But of course another big reason for Texttop is that it's just very cool geekery.
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##Quickstart
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If you just want to have a play on your local machine:
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2016-05-22 03:31:57 +00:00
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```
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docker run --rm -it tombh/texttop sh
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./run.sh
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```
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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##Installation
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You can either pull from the Docker Registry:
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2016-05-21 10:38:36 +00:00
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`docker pull tombh/texttop`
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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or, build yourself:
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```
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2016-05-22 02:55:54 +00:00
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git clone https://github.com/tombh/texttop.git
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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cd texttop
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docker build -t texttop .
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```
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2016-05-22 03:20:12 +00:00
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The docker image is only ~275MB.
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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2016-05-21 05:20:16 +00:00
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##Usage
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2016-05-21 09:38:46 +00:00
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On your remote server (this will pull the docker image the first time you issue it):
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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```
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2016-05-22 09:29:58 +00:00
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docker run -d \
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2016-05-22 02:19:29 +00:00
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-p 7777:7777 -p 60000-60020:60000-60020/udp \
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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-v ~/.ssh/authorized_keys:/root/.ssh/authorized_keys \
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2016-05-22 09:29:58 +00:00
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tombh/texttop
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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```
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Note that this assumes you already have SSH setup on your server and that you have your public key there. Password
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2016-05-22 02:19:29 +00:00
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logins work fine too. The `60000-60020` port range is for MoSH.
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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Then on your local machine:
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```
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mosh user@yourserver:7777
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./run.sh
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```
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2016-05-23 07:23:34 +00:00
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MoSH is available through most system package managers. SSH can be used exactly the same, just replace `mosh` with `ssh`.
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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`user@yourserver` is the normal URI you would use to connect via SSH.
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2016-05-21 13:18:06 +00:00
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**Exiting**
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2016-05-21 09:38:46 +00:00
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At the moment the only way to exit is with MoSH's `CTRL+^ .` or SSH's `ENTER ~ .`
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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##Interaction
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2016-05-23 06:57:46 +00:00
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* `CTRL + mousewheel` to zoom
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* `CTRL + click/drag` to pan
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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Most mouse and keyboard input is exactly the same as a normal desktop. If your terminal is active then you can click,
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type, scroll, use arrow keys and drag things around. However there are still some things not available, like copy and
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2016-05-23 06:57:46 +00:00
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paste. The main difference from a normal desktop is that you can zoom and pan the desktop by using `CTRL + mousewheel` and
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`CTRL + drag`. This is very handy as it's hard to see what's what when you're zoomed right out.
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2016-05-21 08:10:01 +00:00
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Currently, only Firefox is installed on this extremely minimal Alpine Linux distro. However you can add new packages
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2016-05-23 07:23:34 +00:00
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with [apk](https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Alpine_Linux_package_management). Example;
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2016-05-23 06:57:46 +00:00
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```
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# Login with a seperate session
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apk --no-cache add xterm
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export DISPLAY=:0
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xterm &
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```
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2016-05-23 07:23:34 +00:00
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Just remember that you will lose any system changes once you restart the docker container. I'm thinking about ways to
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save state. You may experiment with mounting certain system directories.
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2016-05-21 09:05:24 +00:00
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2016-05-22 02:55:54 +00:00
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##Known Issues
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2016-05-22 03:03:06 +00:00
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The Docker Hub version is built against Intel CPU architectures, this causes hiptext to fail on AMD chips. In which
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case you will need to build texttop yourself:
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2016-05-22 02:55:54 +00:00
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```
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git clone https://github.com/tombh/texttop.git
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cd texttop
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docker build -t texttop .
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```
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2016-05-23 06:57:46 +00:00
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**Working terminals**
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* [Tilda](https://github.com/lanoxx/tilda)
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* [Terminal](https://launchpad.net/pantheon-terminal)
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**Problematic terminals**
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* konsole: neither `CTRL+click/drag` nor `CTRL+mousewheel` are forwarded (perhaps mouse reporting is disabled by default)
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2016-05-23 07:23:34 +00:00
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* xterm: `CTRL+click/drag` is intercepted by the GUI menu
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2016-05-23 06:57:46 +00:00
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* rxvt: rendering issues
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2016-05-21 09:05:24 +00:00
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##Contributions
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Yes please.
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2016-05-21 09:38:46 +00:00
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##License
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GNU General Public License v3.0
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