fbterm(1) is a utility for the Linux console that uses the kernel framebuffer to draw a terminal capable of displaying UTF-8 graphics, TrueColor (sorta) colorschemes, and any TTF fonts. The Debian box that I own does not have the horsepower to run an X11 session without bumps,
so discovering such utility exists made me really happy.
Now here's where the fun starts. fbterm requires a few things to be patched/modified in order to function as a full replacement to a graphical terminal. Firstly, it requires the capability to be able to modify the TTY input configuration, to modify its keybinds. Then there are a few patches you really want to apply (like support for colorschemes in the configuration file). All those patches are included in a fork of fbterm, available on
https://github.com/xlucn/fbterm (it's also the most maintained fbterm fork to day).
It's also highly advised to use a terminal multiplexer (the one I, and many others, like is tmux(1)), for simplicity's sake. I have an autostart script that I launch in my .bashrc, that runs fbterm and then 1) if no tmux session is running, then start one 2) if there is, then attach to it. It's extremely nifty.
Most of the things I do are in the terminal, so I didn't need to look for many alternatives to the graphical software I already used. I've found the inability to render images with w3mimg quite jarring though, so if that is something that you cherish dearly, then steer clear. Otherwise...
I've tried many image/media viewers, and found the best ones to be fbv(1) and mplayer(1). fbv is the only option that ended up working on fbterm, and mplayer can be launched in a split, unlike mpv(1). The lack of a usable browser that doesn't crumble under the new era websites is also a bummer, but it's still usable (lynx(1) works best).
Something really, really cool I've found is you can use a utility like yt-fzf(1) to search videos on an Invidious instance, and then play the video chosen. I haven't extensively tested it, but if you have, and have a working solution that you'd like to share, send it my way!
Another pretty big feature of fbterm is that it can display images in the background. It's a pretty simple, but at the same time complicated process, but it's well documented online, so I won't really bother going into it here.
That's about it for fbterm. I consider it a very solid replacement for a graphical session, and with a few hits of a wrench, I think it holds up pretty well.
^D
