Wed, 23 Jul 2008
06:22
My god. It's full of
butthurt.
Through all the screaming about smoke filled rooms and OMG ITS PIDGIN ALL OVER AGAIN ELEVENTY: It is my considered opinion that unlike in the Pidgin debacle, the KDE devs have not earned and do not deserve this backlash of vitriol. And 99% of it is people stubbornly repeating you can't take my desktop from me, while ignoring the fact that they can continue to use KDE3 and wait for their distribution of choice to include KDE4 and/or declare it ready for general use. Aaron Seigo told people over and over that nobody would stop them from making 4 behave like 3, if that was what they wanted. In return, he received so much abuse he made his blog invite-only for a while just to read it.
Now today I find
Killing the Desktop Metaphor with GNOME. And given the previously mentioned events, I don't think it's unfair to assume that even if the author is not a principal GNOME developer, outlining plans for the future: If the teeming millions get hold of this, it'll be unending butthurt all over again.
Meanwhile, I remain content with Openbox.
PS: Half the time Beranger makes sense, but most of the time whatever point he might have is obscured by the flecks of foam. (Says the pot of the kettle.) Far better to be found at Human Readable and Penguin Pete's.
KDrama
Tue, 22 Jul 2008
17:59
In this case,
DadHacker's story of working with the Secret Service.
Unintended Consequences show up everywhere
Wed, 16 Jul 2008
23:05
This is a fraud. With a name like that, I expect a Linux distribution that focuses on the console.
If you search Distrowatch for all distributions with "no desktop", the vast majority are geared toward firewalls, file servers and other appliances.
People have been asking for years. And after all this time, it still seems that noone has felt like scratching this particular itch. At this time, it appears the best one can hope for (other than building one's own Linux From Scratch) is a metapackage that installs a chosen suite of "best of breed" console applications, along with whatever tweaks are neccessary (i.e., none of this nonsense).
I want words, not pictures
First it's a novelty, then it's a convenience, then it's the standard and the alternatives are actively discouraged, then everybody thinks you're a paranoid nutcase if you don't go along, and finally no alternative is available.
It shouldn't be this hard.
Followup: TTYLinux is superminimal (12Mb disk space, more or less). GRML Small is primarily based on Debian, with the goal 'to be a distribution well suited for users of texttools and sysadmins'. Minibuntu is obvious, containing only four packages (two of them meta). And there's INX ("Is Not X"), a console-only live CD derived from Ubuntu (the install routine is incomplete and a work in progress).
So things are looking up.
[/freedom/technology] [#permalink]Sat, 05 Jul 2008
00:15
It's fifteen years later.
Future Vision
Thu, 03 Jul 2008
15:55
Andrew Tridgell's classic account of How Samba Was Written via the "French Cafe technique".
What's the big deal about SVG? Firefox 3 users can get a taste.
Two Unrelated (Data) Points
15:55
Penguin Pete: You Can Hack an OS, But You Can't Hack People.
Seven part series. Very recommended, along with everything else on the site.
The Tragedy of Linux
15:55
Mark D says it's a good thing.
Blosxom sucks
Mon, 30 Jun 2008
03:53
"I was taken out of context" followed by "Then what did you really mean" hardly ever results in actual clarification. Here is no exception.
Hands off - this is private property
02:59
More specifically, Blosxom with tags. I haven't tweaked the technical side of things here in ages. If I do, this should be one of the first.
On slimming down: Have been exploring more Linux/etc distributions geared toward providing power in a small, sleek package. PCFluxbox, derived from PCLinuxOS, has potential but has crashed at two different points on two different machines during boot/install -- a shame, as its successful users seem very appreciative. LXDE is still on the 'to try' list, as are PUD (LXDE Edition) and CrunchBang Linux. (For even more specialized tasks, there's the free NAS OpenFiler; and for ready to use Asterisk and more, Elastix.)
Also following K Mandla after reading application recommendations; Linux Mint Blog though I haven't yet tried it (another "Ubuntu killer" reputation-wise); Splashtop Blog and being quite pleased to hear that not only will Asus be incorporating this Linux BIOS in every one of their motherboards, not just the higher-end models, but will also begin including it in some of their notebooks. More Mini-ITX news, and if that wasn't enough, even if I don't get in on the alpha it's exciting to learn about Boxee, taking Xbox Media Center to new places and heights. First in the comments here, one of the guys from Neuros hooks up with the Boxee folks, then this 5-minute presentation with Q and A overwhelmingly takes first place as people's favorite.
Exciting times, if turbulent.
Want: Asus motherboard with Splashtop/other Coreboot style goodies, to boot OS in under 30 seconds; then 8Gb solid state disk for a lightning-fast home directory that can still fit on one dual layer DVD backup. All other data on external drives and/or network storage. Works for desktops or portables.
Long-term because so many other things take priority: Still have the Speedstream 5861 ADSL router we used for years at the office until it died. I determined it was a fraction too small to contain a then-current Mini-ITX motherboard, but I'm glad I held onto it because the latest models are less than 7 inches square. Would be a fun retrofit to turn into a "real" router, non-highdef media player, lightweight workstation as described above -- just add 16Gb solid state disk for enough room to dual boot Windows and Linux. (Next step -- getting Coreboot on these mini motherboards, and more mobile devices and ultraportables...)
More advanced than I know what to do with but I pick as much low-hanging fruit as I can: Git Magic. Along with Linus' original Google presentation on Git.
Tags
Thu, 24 Apr 2008
21:35
First they bend over for the lawyers.
Then they remove useful information -- which after a shitstorm of complaint, and the development of a third party workaround, they grudgingly added back in a half-assed implementation that wastes screenspace. All while mouthing platitudes about how "some people are never satisfied", "some people will complain about anything", and "everyone's preferences are different" (talk about failing to see the point).
Then they change the simple, unobtrusive "user is typing" indicator to an obnoxious text spam. In your face, in your way.
And most recently, in a yet-again example of "my way or the highway", they determine that you, the user, have no real need to resize your text entry area, just an irrational "preference" that in their opinion, you have no real "need" for. After the expected outbreak of butthurt, the final straw tipping point is reached, and a response given:
Also: Double middle finger to these twats for trying to erase history. Deleting the older source and packages? Stupid, stupid rat creatures. It only makes you look worse.
PS: Even before the name change, the writing was on the wall.
Screw it. I'm going back to Bitlbee.
One Step Closer to MS-DOS Communism
Thu, 17 May 2007
15:38
"Gaim is now Pidgin"? Are you fucking kidding me? The more people knuckle under to these bastards, the more they get away with.
In the spirit of contribution, I suggest PING: Pidgin Is Not Gaim.
"No way! Why should I change? He's the one who sucks!"
Like we needed another reason to kill lawyers
"Well, why don't you just go by Mike instead of Michael?"
[/freedom/technology]
[#permalink]
Sun, 15 Jan 2006
07:50
Or
what to smack the pimple-faced with next time they whine about X sucking up tons of RAM:
Semi-related, an
lsof tutorial
is written at an excellent level for an experienced Unix user or beginning sysadmin,
full of practical examples and explanation of how to use this powerful tool.
The Black Art of Interpreting Memory Usage
Tue, 10 Jan 2006
23:28
Slackware Linux has run on my server
for over three years now, the epitome of stability in every respect. In fact,
my uptime apparently wrapped around and now says thirty-some days, but actually
it's been running for something over five hundred thanks to my backup battery
power supply.
While my workstation still sports a Windows NT 5 partition ("Windows 2000"),
having recently given up my Windows gaming made me realize how much that
environment was starting once more to feel chafed, cramped and bloated, and
so this past week has seen yet another attempt to move full-time to a Linux
desktop. I had set up Linux partitions on this machine those few years back
when I installed Windows, and it still had
College Linux,
which I'd been attracted to for its promise of a Slackware base with a
friendlier installer and better hardware detection. I didn't even realize that
College Linux is now discontinued, but my desire for something more recent,
combined with my love for
Knoppix,
MEPIS
and other Debian-based systems, led me to give
Ubuntu
a whirl. While otherwise an excellent distribution on this hardware, it kept
taking over my CPU with different processes every time, and after a few days'
frustration at not being able to isolate the problem I booted a
Slax
live CD for a short-term solution. That worked so well that I decided to bite
the bullet and install Slackware 10.2.
And by gum, everything I remember loving about Slack is still true and they've
smoothed out yet more of the rough spots, and who cares if I have to hand-edit
a few config files if it works more more efficiently and reliably than
something that detects all the hardware for me, because how often do you need
to install an OS anyway when it just works? Like posting to this blog is as
easy as writing a plain text file with some HTML and saving it in the right
place, Slack makes everything "as simple as it needs to be, but no simpler."
It's a rock-solid foundation with
excellent documentation,
as well as a huge number of thriving and up to date
third-party packages
that provide everything my desktop requires.
In related news, the latest toy I want to try when I again have time to tinker
is
gn*nix:
"The current incarnation of the sample OS known as gnnix is the personal *nix I always wanted. Raw and unfettered, full tool set and libraries to build anything under the sun, clean well integrated desk set providing the minimal set of applications to get some work done wrapped in smoking hot eye-candy I can turn on or off at will. Install all, just the base server or it and add mail server, graphic workstation or web application server packs. In the gn*nix system you can create custom packs or edit the examples just by creating and filling or emptying a directory."
Coming round full circle
"Slackware may not be the easiest distro, but it is by far the least complicated."
"It dawned on me that a linux distro is as permanent as a sand painting and to base all my efforts on such impermanence was sheer folly."
[/freedom/technology]
[#permalink]
Sun, 08 Jan 2006
19:14
Every day I'm reminded how much easier life is when you don't put all your eggs
in one basket. There's always an argument to be made for some
centralization -- for instance, I keep all my MP3's on one partition -- but in
general, the Unix philosophy is very anarchocapitalist and works for the vast
majority of situations.
Latest case in point: Ubuntu was fine on my workstation for a few days but then
started exhibiting 99% CPU load on an unpredictable basis. Every time I thought
I'd tracked down the culprit, it would happen again to a different process,
requiring me to log out of X and back in. After this annoyed me one time too
many, I rebooted from a Slax live
CD (I'm still running Slack on the server, and would be happy to use it as a
desktop since I already know all the packages are available that I care about).
So here I am in a spiffy new environment, already moved most of my old home
directory over to Ubuntu and don't feel like mounting /home on the live CD,
but it would really help to be able to chat with folks on my IM contact list...
Solution: Install one package on the server
(Bitlbee).
All my IM contacts are now available through any IRC client, no matter what
environment my workstation might be running. Makes it so much less of a pain to
test different distributions, or go anywhere in the house and have the same
interface regardless of operating system. Even text-mode IRC clients work fine,
efficiently enough to be usable without a high-speed connection. Plus if my
roommate wants to treat his IM stuff the same way, he can use the server as
well, no additional configuration or futzing around required on anyone's part.
A place for everything
"The sound is awesome... No crackling, no popping, no static, no distortion...
I love it."
[/freedom/technology]
[#permalink]
Sat, 07 Jan 2006
19:13
But you can fix it with a
fun command line option.
Ubuntu: Glxgears no longer prints FPS by default
Fri, 06 Jan 2006
23:33
FreeMe may be of use if you need to unfuck WMA files. See the official response for addendums and caveats.
Don't eat the DRM, it's not good for you
Wed, 04 Jan 2006
07:21
Having bid farewell to the time sink of my first and last MMO, I realized there
was theoretically no Windows-only software tying me to that platform. Of course
I'm keeping the Windows partition intact just in case, but it's been four days
since I installed Kubuntu and I haven't
looked back. Audio/video playback, DVD ripping and encoding,
everything I could ask for...
...except there's no XMMS plugin equivalent to this
lyrics embedder and editor that
I've been using in Winamp for years. I've lost track of how many MP3's in my
collection have had lyrics embedded in them with this thing, and it'd be nice to
be able to display those without having to start over and build a new,
standalone database (as
some applications insist on doing).
The Last Mile
Tue, 03 Jan 2006
04:58
If Helios is right and the use of Microsoft Windows extracts its own ongoing
stupidity tax, then the
commenter known as 'Moon' should demand a refund:
A mugger is not very likely to follow Marquis of Queensbury if they decide your wallet would look better on them.
Stupid Taxes
"The fact that there's a 0 day exploit is the fault of the person who released the code without notifying Microsoft with sufficient warning."
Tue, 08 Nov 2005
20:09
Karl Auerbach has long championed
a free Internet in every sense. This recent interview focuses on his
rebuttal of Vint Cerf's
ideas regarding competition among root servers.
Competing Roots
Mon, 07 Nov 2005
06:08
And right now I'm getting one of the more ironical ones. Media Player Classic kept horking up a hairball at 3:14 into this video -- sound cut out, video froze, player's progress bar kept moving. So (as I sometimes do in these situation) I fire up the "official" Windows Media Player. It does the same thing, but pops up an error message: "The docfile has been corrupted." Not very informative, but there's a "Details" button. I click it and get:
But hey, it also says to check the webpage "which may have more updated information on this error." Which brings us to the webpage, and:
What was that about free software being unfriendly?
I'm tempted to click "No" in response to "Was this information useful?", but that's enough hoop jumping for one day.
UPDATE: Whatever the error, 'tis now fixed. Man triumphs over machine once more.
The Media is the Message
"No more information is available - There is no more information available for this error at this time."
"You've encountered error message 80030109 while using Windows Media Player. We are investigating the cause of this error. We will post more information about this error when it becomes available."
