Info displays?

[turboscrew]

This is not really a Mint question, but:

Does anyone know a good reason, why the info displays are usually made non-copyable?
Like "System Info".
It shows this and that about your system, but you can't copy the info for, say, pasting to a question on a forum.
The same goes with a lot of programs.

Wouldn't it be nicer to the maintainers if there were an info-program that would show most of the important info such, that
the user could just copy the info from the info-window and paste it onto the post about a problem?

[Cosmo.]

Actually you can in many cases copy the content of dialog boxes into the clipboard, although this is not obvious; mark the text with the mouse and press ctrl-c. For example the site information in Firefox (press ctrl-i to open it.

This does indeed not work with the Cinnamon settings dialogs. But there is a preferable method for providing those information: Open a terminal and enter

Code: Select all

inxi -Sz

Mark the output with the mouse and press ctrl-shift-c to copy it into the clipboard.
This command provides the basic system information, with other options inxi can tell you far more, e.g. inxi -Fxz for a rather complete overview. For the latter one you should press F11 after opening the terminal before you enter the command to prevent line-breaks, which makes reading harder.

[atari800]

Generally 'inxi -Fxz' executed at command line gives a nice overview of your environment

Code: Select all

kodi@Livingroom ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: Livingroom Kernel: 4.4.5-040405-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.2.1)
           Desktop: MATE 1.12.0 (Gtk 3.10.8~8+qiana)
           Distro: Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa
Machine:   Mobo: ECS model: BAT-MINI v: 1.0
           Bios: American Megatrends v: 5.6.5 date: 07/28/2014
CPU:       Dual core Intel Celeron N2807 (-MCP-) cache: 1024 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 6323
           clock speeds: max: 2165 MHz 1: 2102 MHz 2: 1864 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display
           bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.17.1 driver: intel
           Resolution: 1920x1080@60.0hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Bay Trail
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.5.9 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.4.5-040405-generic
Network:   Card: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: e000 bus-ID: 03:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Partition: ID-1: / size: 27G used: 5.2G (21%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/mmcblk0p2
           ID-2: /home size: 27G used: 5.2G (21%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/mmcblk0p2
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 2.03GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/mmcblk0p3
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 60.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 219 Uptime: 16 min Memory: 628.7/1827.1MB
           Init: Upstart runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.111) inxi: 2.2.28 

Is this enough or lacking?

[polarvortex]

It would be cool if there was a Copy Info to Clipboard button. But the reason there isn't and that you can't easily copy this kind of stuff, is just because traditionally that's not a feature that graphical OS's have, cuz nobody thought about doing it or believed it was cool enough to add. I think it's cool though.

[turboscrew]

The problem is that usually the non-copyability is due to the fact that the info can't be marked.
For example Firefox and System Info are such programs.

I just wonder why they are made that way.

Is 'inxi -Fxz' usually enough but not too much?
It'd be nice to now to be able to provide the "right amount" of info right away when discussing problems.

[Cosmo.]

If you want to give the basic system specs, similar to the info in the system info dialog, the inxi options -Sz are enough, for a complete overview the options -Fxz has to be used. The option -z make sure, that no privacy related information will be included. If you want the output only for your own use, you can omit z.

[Moem]

Is 'inxi -Fxz' usually enough but not too much?
It'd be nice to now to be able to provide the "right amount" of info right away when discussing problems.

It depends on the nature of the problem. It's always a good start though. (On preview, Cosmo has the details, as usual.)

And if only EVERY posted problem came with this information, instead of nothing at all or at best, I'm on Mint Rosa or I'm using Linux 17.2, this forum would seem like paradise on earth.
Sometimes, getting usable information from posters is like pulling teeth! Recently, someone posted several questions without ever revealing that he was not even using any version of Mint...

[turboscrew]

Well, I'm a SW engineer... been there...

[polarvortex]

The problem is that usually the non-copyability is due to the fact that the info can't be marked.

I just wonder why they are made that way.

It goes back to 20 year old design decisions in computing about why some text isn't selectable and other text is, and then the natural continuance of making things that way. I mean, I can't select the text in the tab titles in firefox for example. It's made that way because the designers said "we need to display some text here", and they didn't say "and we also want it to be selectable". In the case of info windows where it would be useful to be able to copy the text, imo the reason they didn't say that is because they didn't think of it, or if they did think about it then they didn't care enough about it to bother with it.

Also, some boxes of text are actually rows of individual labels, so, if you could select it, you could only select 1 row at a time. To be able to select all of it, they'd need to build it with a single widget, I mean, basically they'd need to purposely design it to be selectable, and they haven't, and imo it has to be because of the reasons above. There's no way it's because 'it can't be done', because sure it could be done.

[Mute Ant]

"I just wonder why they are made that way" I suspect it's because it only looks like text...really it's a bitmap graphic that can be blindly splatted into video memory without much effort. The Title Bar of a GUI window always behaves like that.