Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderBoy does that bring back memories of the 1990s! Some of these are not obscure at all, but absolutely standard. Xterm was the shell, I’m not sure there were even alternatives in early X. Xbiff+Xload+Xclock used to be on everybody’s desktop. XV was the main image viewer on X for a long time. Anybody remember xvacuum? I guess it’s truly obscure since it didn’t make the list. One of my favorite tricks to play on other people in the lab…
GLXGears was my command of choice to verify if my graphics drivers were installed. Either they would run smoothly (when installed) or choppy and broken. Can’t use that anymore because the APUs and generic drivers got so good that everything runs smoothly. Good times.
I would not call gvim obscure, but I always wonder why people do not recommend NEDIT for newbes on Linux. I have xconsole running now, I have cron jobs that echo out stats to it every so often. It is a very nice and lite conky replacement. And a few of these I still use, like xv, xload, xclock, xterm, xless, xmessage and xmahjongg. A few I never heard of. It is too bad all these cool little tools will…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 713
- Total comments
- 520
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-08-16 | Cool but obscure X11 toolsFirst breakout · Best thread | navigaid | 368 | 246 |
| 2020-12-18 | Cool, but Obscure X11 Tools | FlyMoreRockets | 3 | 0 |
| 2023-07-13 | Cool but Obscure X11 Apps | RalfWausE | 311 | 257 |
| 2025-03-21 | Cool, but Obscure X11 ToolsLatest 20+ point return | Aldipower | 31 | 17 |