The DnD Sanctuary

General => Browsers & Technology => Topic started by: Frenzie on 2013-12-30, 20:16:30

Title: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2013-12-30, 20:16:30
There is more to discuss, but opening a new topic for everything might be a bit much. Here's a quick overview of what exists already:



Some other subjects I might talk about include the compose key, Geeqie, Pandoc, qBittorrent, tmux, and VirtualBox. I semi-regularly write something about such matters on my blog (http://fransdejonge.com/category/operating-systems/linux/).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2013-12-31, 03:58:57
Are you trying to tell me that I should keep my obscure hobbies out of other peoples' threads? ;)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2013-12-31, 08:51:07
:lol:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-01, 11:34:46
vnstat (http://humdi.net/vnstat/) is really useful to get an overview of the network volume use on a particular computer. For more precise information of overall use you need to set up something where your router pushes stats to your computer or your computer retrieves them from your router.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-01-01, 12:09:12
What is the compose key? Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Win/Super? Something else?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-01, 12:23:24
It's a specialized key (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Compose_key_on_Sun_Type_5c_keyboard.jpg). ;)
(http://data:image/jpeg;base64,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)

Anyway, the compose key is whatever you want it to be. Back in '09, I used Right Ctrl (http://fransdejonge.com/2009/10/ubuntulinux-tips-that-i-cant-do-without/):
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Ffransdejonge.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F10%2FScreenshot-Keyboard-Layout-Options.png&hash=23355a0deb354c3f77f8aa9b0d37235b" rel="cached" data-hash="23355a0deb354c3f77f8aa9b0d37235b" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://fransdejonge.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Screenshot-Keyboard-Layout-Options.png)

However, these days I use Caps Lock (http://fransdejonge.com/2013/02/compose-key-on-xfce/):
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Ffransdejonge.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F12%2Fscreenshot-keyboard-layouts.png&hash=9a2e8dd06fd2573b44d0ec14ff0345ac" rel="cached" data-hash="9a2e8dd06fd2573b44d0ec14ff0345ac" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://fransdejonge.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/screenshot-keyboard-layouts.png)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2014-01-01, 13:03:45
There is more to discuss, but opening a new topic for everything might be a bit much. Here's a quick overview of what exists already:

And where's the beginning? I mean, for us, mere mortals that don't have a clue about what are you saying? :)
Why should I install Linux operative system in the first place?
How is it done?
What are the benefits over windows?
Why do you use mysterious terms no one uses?
Doesn't Linux gives you much more work and much less available software?
Etc... :)

Courageous Windows users would like to know.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-01-01, 13:04:11
Compose key is just to provide another layer of Alt Gr function? I tried right now, and compose seems to do nothing useful for me. But I sure would like to map Caps Lock function to a key combination rather than a single key in a nasty place. Something like this would work https://donatstudios.com/assets/43/hhkb.png even though I prefer an additional numbers keypad too.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-01, 13:24:31
Compose key is just to provide another layer of Alt Gr function? I tried right now, and compose seems to do nothing useful for me.

It overlaps with Alt Gr, but because it can take multiple keys as input it's significantly more versatile.

Here's a few things that aren't useful per se, but note that you might not want to use Alt Gr for some reason or other:
Alt Gr + m = µ; Compose, m, u = µ
Alt Gr + s = ß; Compose, s, s = ß
Alt Gr + c = ©; Compose, o, c = ©

But speaking of the last one, Alt Gr + what produces ™? Alt Gr + what produces ¥? How do you type ±? Why does z lead to æ and Æ? It makes certain things simpler and more intuitive. Compose, t, m = ™; Compose, =, y = ¥; Compose, +, - = ±; Compose, a, e = æ.

Here's an article about it: http://cyberborean.wordpress.com/2008/01/06/compose-key-magic/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-01, 14:03:01
And where's the beginning? I mean, for us, mere mortals that don't have a clue about what are you saying?  :)
Why should I install Linux operative system in the first place?

If you're happy with Windows, you can safely stick with it. If you're curious, I'd recommend trying a LiveCD of one or all of the following. NB A LiveCD means no installation (and thus no risk) is necessary to try it out.

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop (review (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/ubuntu-salamander.html))
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php Choose Cinnamon (review (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-mint-petra.html))
http://www.opensuse.org Choose Live KDE (review (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/opensuse-13-1.html))

However, I personally use Xubuntu (http://xubuntu.org/) (review (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/xubuntu-salamander.html)) and Debian Xfce.

Doesn't Linux gives you much more work and much less available software?
Etc...

More work—I'd say only if you want it to. Less available software, probably, but most software is crap anyway. I was already using Filezilla, Inkscape, Pidgin, LibreOffice (as OpenOffice), SciTE, Workrave, Opera, and several other multi-platform programs, so in my case making the final switch was fairly uneventful.

Of course, if you require MS Office, Solidworks, or other MS-exclusive applications for your work, you will need a Windows installation. In my case, the computer software I needed most the past few months was Python, which comes with most Linux distros by default. That is, it actually made my life significantly easier than installing Python on Windows would've been. Soon I'll have to use R (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(programming_language)), which doesn't come preinstalled but I guarantee it will be significantly easier to install for me than for a user of Windows.*

What are the benefits over windows?
Why do you use mysterious terms no one uses?

It's all Unix terminology. Most of it predates even MS-DOS.

Benefits are personal. One benefit in my case is that Windows doesn't exactly make it easy to put e.g. all your user data on one particular partition or HDD, but most Linux distros tend to set it up that way by default.

Then there's freedom. For more background see e.g. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html

* It'll mean searching for r-base in a graphical package manager or typing sudo apt-get install r-base in a terminal.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-01-01, 15:40:17
Here's a few things that aren't useful per se, but note that you might not want to use Alt Gr for some reason or other:
Alt Gr + m = µ; Compose, m, u = µ
Alt Gr + s = ß; Compose, s, s = ß
Alt Gr + c = ©; Compose, o, c = ©

Ah, yes. Here I see the point. However, for me Alt Gr and Alt Gr+Shift do everything needed. For example, on my keyboard © is produced by Alt Gr+Shift+c. Alt Gr+c produces ¢.

Alt Gr + what produces ™?

Alt Gr+Shift+8

Alt Gr + what produces ¥?

Alt Gr+Shift+y

How do you type ±?

Alt Gr+Shift+9

Why does z lead to æ and Æ?

I have Estonian layout. In my case Alt Gr+a produces æ and Alt Gr+Shift+a produces Æ.

But I agree that the compose key can be useful to access more characters or the same characters in a customised way.

@Belfrager
I can corroborate everything Frenzie says about switch from Win to Linux, though we shouldn't be trusted so much, as we are techie-minded above average. On my part, I'd add Manjaro (Xfce) and Mageia (KDE) among LiveDVD's to try out.

To me it feels Xfce is the best desktop environment to make the switch. Office software is vital to my work, but it has turned out that Libreoffice/Openoffice is a sufficient replacement, even professionally. Wifi works, attached storage works, Flash works, sound and video works, DVD's work (for Disney DVD's I had to launch a script to make them work, but the script was already included in Mint, Ubuntu, and Manjaro, so no problem), printers work (particularly if HP). What more do you want?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-01, 15:49:59
On my keyboard layout the answers are different (and ± can't be typed at all I believe), but on the whole I find it a more elegant solution than switching keyboard layouts or customizing them on the third (Alt Gr) level. In any case, you caught me somewhat unprepared. :P
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2014-01-01, 18:32:36
@Frenzie
Nice, I'll pay close attention at those links you provided. Thanks. :)

@Ersi
Currently I need nothing specific for professional needs. Decided that profession must adapt to me, not me to the profession. :)
Besides what you mentioned, I just need an image editing software, but I'm sure that exists.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-01-01, 18:44:20
Besides what you mentioned, I just need an image editing software, but I'm sure that exists.
Indeed - Gimp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LmW5ndnEqw I haven't figured out this Gimp thing myself. I only need image viewing and some scissor functions, which are provided by much simpler programs.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-01, 19:16:27
To me it feels Xfce is the best desktop environment to make the switch.

However, Xfce (and Cinnamon) are more like classic Windows. I'd argue it's simply an extremely effective paradigm, but people looking for something else might at least initially be more pleased with Unity.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-01-01, 19:57:34

To me it feels Xfce is the best desktop environment to make the switch.

However, Xfce (and Cinnamon) are more like classic Windows.

This is not "however". It's exactly the idea, to provide a familiar user experience even though the underlying opsys is different. All people for whom I am adminning in my small hobby manner appreciate the familiarity of the experience. I try to make the switch for them so that the most visible change is that they don't see anti-virus programs any more.

...people looking for something else might at least initially be more pleased with Unity.

Unity is Mac-ish (I suppose - I have seen Macs only in shops) and I think its utility is only in appealing to those who switch from a Mac. I don't know anyone besides myself who would be interested in different experiences.

In the graphical section, KDE provides the best "different" experience (kind of). Otherwise the only truly different experience is to do everything in the console. There's also a good "middle path" provided by Openbox. Dwm and the likes are too barebones, only good to shoot up multiple terminal windows, which can just as well be done with tmux or 'screen' in the console.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-01, 20:24:09
In the graphical section, KDE provides the best "different" experience (kind of).

But KDE is the most like Windows (or can be). With a few quick settings it can be as different as Unity or practically a clone of Windows. In any case, know your audience. :P I'm just saying that Unity, unlike Gnome Shell, is actually functional. :)

Unity is Mac-ish (I suppose - I have seen Macs only in shops) and I think its utility is only in appealing to those who switch from a Mac.

Or to those who'd switch to a Mac but don't feel like buying one of those overpriced computers? Perhaps. It does follow its paradigm quite closely, from the window buttons to the global menu to the way task switching works (Alt+Tab for applications; Alt+` for windows within applications).

Dwm and the likes are too barebones, only good to shoot up multiple terminal windows, which can just as well be done with tmux or 'screen'.

For those who wonder what ersi's going on about, here are some links:

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/linux-and-open-source/is-tmux-the-gnu-screen-killer/1901/
http://lukaszwrobel.pl/blog/tmux-tutorial-split-terminal-windows-easily

Otherwise the only truly different experience is to do everything in the console.

Not necessarily. I can actually add Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) to the list of programs I used on Windows (with PuTTYcyg (http://code.google.com/p/puttycyg/)) because it offered a significantly more powerful shell than Windows. These days that's no longer true because of PowerShell, although the fact that the GNU utils in many ways work better in a Unix-like environment remains, but back during the Windows 9x days PowerShell was still a long way off.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-01-02, 01:26:30

To me it feels Xfce is the best desktop environment to make the switch.

However, Xfce (and Cinnamon) are more like classic Windows. I'd argue it's simply an extremely effective paradigm, but people looking for something else might at least initially be more pleased with Unity.

There used to be a few window managers that look like windows 95, Mac OS 9, AmigaOS etc., many of them fvwm hacks ( which itself is a Motif lookalike... ). After years of playing with KDE, xfce etc. I ended up with just WindowMaker again.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-02, 21:11:22
Xfce 4.8 and 4.10 made large strides in improving the user experience. It's now closer to where Gnome 2 was in 2010. In any case, do you have any tips for using WindowMaker? Or screenshots of your setup? That reminds me, I promised to share a screenshot of mine.

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fpolymathicmonkey.smugmug.com%2FFrans%2FScreenshots%2Fn-d5sFT%2Fi-PLWjLsr%2F1%2FO%2Fscreenshot-xfce-debian-wheezy-01022014.jpg&hash=ee2e32feceb6fa53f5e1a62640a31f15" rel="cached" data-hash="ee2e32feceb6fa53f5e1a62640a31f15" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/Frans/Screenshots/n-d5sFT/i-PLWjLsr/1/O/screenshot-xfce-debian-wheezy-01022014.jpg) (http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/Frans/Screenshots/n-d5sFT/i-Nqhcpzf/0/O/screenshot-xfce-debian-wheezy-01022014.png)

(full size (http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/Frans/Screenshots/n-d5sFT/i-Nqhcpzf/0/O/screenshot-xfce-debian-wheezy-01022014.png); 120kB)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-01-04, 01:31:58

Xfce 4.8 and 4.10 made large strides in improving the user experience. It's now closer to where Gnome 2 was in 2010.

Yeah, I saw that but didn't have much time to play with anything lately.


In any case, do you have any tips for using WindowMaker?

There isn't really much that's not blindingly obvious ( then again, I'm doing this since the mid 1990s so my judgement may be off ) - it's just a window manager that has NeXT-like application icons that you can stick on the dock or the clip. Works with most applications, notable exceptions are firefox and opera, mostly because they're started by scripts, not the actual binary that then talks to the window manager. For those just sticking the icon on the dock won't work since it will try to start things like xul-runner instead of firefox's startup script, but that's trivial to fix.


Or screenshots of your setup?

Here (http://files.myopera.com/Macallan/files/wmaker.png) - kinda big ;)
Fairly old school, just a bunch of xterms, pidgin, firefox, bluefish abused for hacking C code, evince showing some hardware docs, balsa ( I got fed up with sylpheed / claws taking bloody ages working over IMAP, balsa was just the first I ran into that doesn't have this problem ), amarok, gkrellm.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Sanguinemoon on 2014-01-04, 03:24:48
Fairly old school,

My  XFCE is so old school, that it's late 19th century or early 20th (https://files.myopera.com/Sanguinemoon/files/0Screenshot%20-%2001032014%20-%2007:43:16%20PM.png). Yes, I know what I'm saying ;)  Most of the desktops are highly configurable. For my desktop, I actually took out the standard XFCE applications menu and replaced it with App finder. Even Gnome 3 is reasonably configurable and usable, but it's not obvious how to do that at first (in fact, at first it seems almost unusable except maybe as a tablet interface.)

One strange thing I noticed this morning is that it seems KDE communicates better with user than Gnome or Cinnamon. I tried to change the Firefox panel icon in Cinnamon to a custom one, and Firefox disappeared from the panel with no explanation. When I tried to do so in KDE, it at least told that for some reason it couldn't find Firefox and I was able to show it where the browser was ( in /usr/bin as usual...IDK ) I need a DE that more reliably tells me what's wrong if strange things like that happen. Meanwhile, the GTK 2 DEs  (Mate and XFCE) had no trouble finding Firefox at all.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-17, 13:16:53
Apparently not all 34-year-old code is hard to compile today.

http://drj11.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/on-compiling-34-year-old-c-code/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-01-17, 13:23:15
Plain C is simple. Try to compile something like KDE1 on a halfway modern compiler though.
( C++ and especially gcc's implementation of the language changed a lot in the last 15 years )
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-17, 13:38:41
I'll take your word for it. :D
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-17, 13:48:24
Oh, and we have a new Linux World Map.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-world-map-reloaded.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-01-17, 15:28:56

I'll take your word for it. :D

For starters, C++ back then didn't have namespaces and modern C++ puts a whole crapload of stuff that used to be public ( and which the KDE1 source tries to use ) into std::.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-23, 11:53:30
I keep forgetting that UNetbootin has become pretty much useless ever since they decided to remove the "show all devices" option. And now the ancient version that still offers that functionality no longer works either…
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-01-23, 12:40:43
What is UNetbootin? What do you need it for?

My own latest little Linux lessons:

1. KDE + VLC is no happy marriage. I mean, VLC works as usual for everything, but so does KDE. Namely, I have the desktop lock automatically timed and the lock works even when VLC is playing full screen, which is when it shouldn't work. I have spent hours going patiently through settings both in VLC and KDE and tweaked and tried some to no effect :( The only solution is to use some other media player that is more KDE native.

2. When wrestling with the above problem, I ran into a nice-looking media player Kaffeine, whose project looks unfortunately have had a short life. On the surface it contains some versatile promises (something to do with TV) that I am looking forward to try out. At least DVD plays okay.

3. Another media player that was recommended on the interwebz is called Miro. I got suspicious when I saw that its required dependencies bear names like geoip and such. Those are apparently required for its torrent function. I installed it anyway to give it a fair chance.

At first launch Miro asks permission to auto-launch at system startup and sniff for media files all over the home directory. It contains a webkit-based browser that is necessary to browse its media-sharing website, embedded in the interface, sign-up required. The top news on the site was a lengthy request for donations.

Then, before I had a chance to do anything with it, Miro caused a hickup of the desktop environment on my little Packard Bell Intel Atom dual core netbook for two minutes or so. After the hickup was over, mouse pointer had vanished. Keyboard still worked. So I uninstalled Miro right there, before I rebooted to get the mouse pointer back. That's about it on this piece of software.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-01-23, 14:15:10
What is UNetbootin? What do you need it for?
If you use it to create bootable USB sticks, isn't it enough to do it as per instructions here (http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=23267)?

1. Stick the USB stick in. By the end of the procedure, all previous data on it will be lost and it will only contain the bootable iso file.

2. Determine the device:
Code: [Select]
sudo ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/*usb*

The device listed multiple times, with a number in the end and without, is the one to use. E.g. /dev/sdb

3. If you have automount enabled, unmount the device.

4. cd to the folder where the iso file is.

5. Create bootable device:
Code: [Select]
sudo dd if=filename.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M; sync
The device path is an example. However, it must be without number in the end.

Bottom line: UNetbootin not needed for creating bootable USB sticks.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-23, 15:07:27
1. KDE + VLC is no happy marriage. I mean, VLC works as usual for everything, but so does KDE. Namely, I have the desktop lock automatically timed and the lock works even when VLC is playing full screen, which is when it shouldn't work. I have spent hours going patiently through settings both in VLC and KDE and tweaked and tried some to no effect  :(  The only solution is to use some other media player that is more KDE native.

While inelegant, you could write a shell script that checks for VLC's existence every few seconds.

3. Another media player that was recommended on the interwebz is called Miro. I got suspicious when I saw that its required dependencies bear names like geoip and such. Those are apparently required for its torrent function. I installed it anyway to give it a fair chance.

If you're talking about apt-get, you can always use --no-install-recommends. Not that the rest of what you wrote inspires any confidence in this "Miro" thing. I'd probably just use plain MPlayer if I didn't want VLC's Clone filter.

If you use it to create bootable USB sticks, isn't it enough to do it as per instructions here (http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=23267)?

If you want to erase the existing data, sure. If you want only one OS on your USB drive, sure. Also, can you properly use it as a USB stick afterwards on all operating systems or would that need yet another format?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-01-23, 15:23:23

If you're talking about apt-get, you can always use --no-install-recommends. Not that the rest of what you wrote inspires any confidence in this "Miro" thing.
Indeed, the Miro thing was on my machine for max fifteen minutes. I am not looking for any clever ways to get it back. There are enough workable video players around. I only tried Miro and wrote about it because Linux.com ranked it high once upon a time (https://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/287828:the-five-best-linux-video-players). My trust for their criteria sank a bunch.

If you use it to create bootable USB sticks, isn't it enough to do it as per instructions here (http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=23267)?

If you want to erase the existing data, sure. If you want only one OS on your USB drive, sure. Also, can you properly use it as a USB stick afterwards on all operating systems or would that need yet another format?
I don't know any other operating systems any more besides Linux :) You are right, multiple partitions on the USB device may be desirable, but I haven't needed it. Maybe GParted can do something in this area?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-24, 11:40:39
Looks like dd should also be able to handle specific partitions, so I guess you would always be able to use fdisk or gparted or whatever to make a couple of partitions and then use dd to write to them. But then how do you create a bootloader on the disk so you can choose at boot? Note that UNetbootin doesn't exactly handle such scenarios gracefully either, but at least it's fairly easy to manipulate.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-01-27, 19:59:34
This is not directly a promotional post for a specific distro, but well, here it is http://canaima.softwarelibre.gob.ve/

Canaima is Venezuelan national OS, a Debian modified to suit the institutions and the people of the country. Or so the website says.

Somebody mentioned a national OS of China. Here about this one too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylin_%28operating_system%29
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-27, 20:47:09
And apparently LibreOffice has a Chinese fork called NeoShine?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-01-27, 21:05:52
I'm not completely sure when or how this would come in useful (easy graphs, perhaps?), but I'll drop this link to PyLaTeX just in case.

https://github.com/JelteF/PyLaTeX
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-02-01, 16:19:10
Apparently Debian has started some kind of officialized tone trolling:

http://www.preining.info/blog/2014/01/debians-newspeak/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Sanguinemoon on 2014-02-02, 04:06:09
I had a somewhat interesting experience getting my Canon printer working in Ubuntu the other day. At first I thought I could install the printer driver metapackage and it should work, but it didn't. So I searched the web for the answers and found a thread in Linuxquestions about my issue. A poster answered the driver was available on Canon's Asian site. Figuring that I missed the OP saying he was Asian, I tried the US site. According to the US site, there was no driver for Linux. So I followed the link to the Asian site, successfully installed the driver and my printer works fine. I find it odd that Canon would make the driver available on the Asian site, but not the American.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-02-02, 06:58:05

I find it odd that Canon would make the driver available on the Asian site, but not the American.

Possible that the Asian branch of Canon made it available by accident. The headquarters didn't mean to, but they don't have control over what is going on in all the departments.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-02-17, 21:29:41
Here's a quick overview of some text editors: http://netrunner-mag.com/war-best-text-editor-of-them-all/

I mostly use SciTE and Geany, myself.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-02-17, 23:35:34
I'm using kate or bluefish, mostly because of the built-in file browsers - very helpful if you have to mess with lots of files ( like the NetBSD source tree ).
For terminals I got used to joe, and on ancient hardware where kate or bluefish would be too slow or too fat there's nedit.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Sanguinemoon on 2014-02-23, 08:23:14
This is kind of random, but I'm tired of folks saying Gnome is lighter than KDE. On launch, they seem to use about the same ram but Gnome seems to inflate more after usage and might even have a memory leak. The real culprit for using up all the ram is Firefox anyway, not the desktop environment.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-02-23, 08:48:13
On a Dedoimedo review, OpenSUSE Gnome Shell ate 700MB RAM straight out of boot, while Kubuntu KDE ate 400-something MB RAM. Clearly a lot comes down to your (distro's) configuration. Also, Gnome 3.6 had a memory leak where every interaction with the top panel increased memory use. I hope/assume that's fixed by now.

I've got Opera using 2.1GB, Firefox 350MB (3 tabs), operapluginwrapper 139MB, and everything else uses less. I'm currently using 64% out of 6GB. I'd be more concerned about CPU and disk I/O than about 100MB RAM more or less (even or perhaps especially so on my netbook).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Sanguinemoon on 2014-02-23, 09:30:43
I don't think the memory leak is fixed. I came home from work to find my machine swapping like crazy and nearly unresponsive. At first I suspected Fx was acting up, but discovered that Gnome-shell 3.8  was eating 1.4 gigs of ram (obviously without the user interaction you mentioned.) Ram usage is a bigger issue for me, since I have 3 gigs of it here. With Fx having 8 tabs open, Libreoffice with a large document open,  the Last.fm desktop client and Goldendic, I'm using 77%; which is high for me (I usually run about the percentage of ram as you are, maybe a little higher.) CPU usage is usually around 15% on either desktop.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-02-23, 09:48:49
1.4 gigs of ram

Ouch! :(

Ram usage is a bigger issue for me, since I have 3 gigs of it here.

Sure, but on my netbook I've got 2GB, and on my older kinda broken netbook merely 1GB. I use Xfce because I like the interface better, with better battery life and lower RAM usage more as blissful side effects than as a reason for choosing it. Of course if a DE really uses too much RAM you'll notice, but whether it uses 270MB or 300MB doesn't sound like a substantial difference unless you're on 512MB RAM.

Edit: LXDE using something like 110MB, on the other hand… that's a far more significant difference. ;)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-03-07, 21:51:59
MATE is slowly progressing.

http://www.webupd8.org/2014/03/mate-desktop-18-released.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-03-13, 10:05:19
Google Translate CLI

http://www.webupd8.org/2014/03/google-translate-cli-lets-you-translate.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-03-27, 09:13:13
My main job decided to go over from Windows to Linux in a few months. I will be sharing how they succeed :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-05, 12:01:45
I haven't tried this yet, but ulatencyd sounds really interesting.

https://github.com/poelzi/ulatencyd
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-07, 11:55:37

My main job decided to go over from Windows to Linux in a few months. I will be sharing how they succeed :)
The transition will also mean an entirely new computer park. The OS will be Linux Mint.

I hope they will offer the old machines to employees. Some among them are reasonably capable.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-04-07, 20:52:49
At work they replaced an aging IBM database server running AIX with some x86 box running SuSE Enterprise Linux. Wasn't nearly as much of an upgrade as everyone was hoping for. Sure, some big, rarely used operations got a lot faster. Too bad other, frequently used ones, got slower.

Also, they didn't let me have the IBM box. Damn them :right:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-18, 11:19:30
UEFI nonsense.

http://www.preining.info/blog/2014/04/sony-vaio-pro-uefi-booting/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-18, 19:26:25
Unwanted junk in office software: autocomplete and autocorrect.

Here's how to disable it in LibreOffice Calc http://www.efrag.gr/2011/06/remove-autocomplete-from-calc-in-libreoffice/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-04-19, 00:30:25

UEFI nonsense.

http://www.preining.info/blog/2014/04/sony-vaio-pro-uefi-booting/

Ewww. The path names look kinda like ARC(S), as found in SGI firmware and Windows NT boot managers. Not all that surprising though, considering where it came from.
Why can't they just use OpenFirmware?! :cry:
Oh, I know why. As a user you'd actually have control over the thing.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-04-19, 00:33:39

Unwanted junk in office software: autocomplete and autocorrect.

Ugh, autocomplete is a fucking nuisance in pretty much every instance I've ever seen. Starting with Visual Studio ( where it was somewhat useful since Win32 API names can be kinda long and easy to tpyo but that's about it ) and these days in things like bluefish where it just plain gets in the way without ever suggesting anything useful. Also, automatically adding braces :yuck:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-19, 04:35:18
Why not just somebody patch it with a killing code. Is it open source sw or what?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-19, 07:13:23
That doesn't mean they'll accept any old patch…
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-19, 07:35:12
I use OpenOffice anyway. Which is compatible with Android's "Document To Go", IIRC.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-19, 07:45:33
Which has the same default behavior. :P
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-19, 07:55:08
Inono, it didn't take trouble to cope with them for me: my Windows 'edition' is fairly customisable.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-19, 08:31:04
No need to patch the behaviour away. The best patch is configurability.

If autocomplete makes sense anywhere, it's exactly in spreadsheet software. I personally use autocomplete wherever possible, if writing in English. In English it makes sense, but in Estonian it doesn't and can't. To satisfy everyone, all you need is the option to switch autocomplete off.

Autocorrect is another matter. This is hardly ever anything else than pure evil, breeding unwanted changes in the text.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-19, 09:57:12
No need to patch the behaviour away. The best patch is configurability.

Well, I'd patch it up to more sensible defaults. Off. ;)

If autocomplete makes sense anywhere, it's exactly in spreadsheet software.

Really? It makes sense to write "blabla" in a cell, press enter because you're done and you want to move down to the next cell, and then it says "blablabla" instead? That's fucking evil. It's probably worse than writing "Blabla" and ending up with "blabla" or vice versa.

Perhaps autocomplete would be reasonable if it weren't activated with the same bloody key that's used for next cell/paragraph. Although, even more sensible autocomplete implementations than in Open/LibreOffice annoy me. It's really simple: I type fast. Bothering me with unexpected stuff I didn't type or ask for only slows me down. But hunt & peckers actually respond the exact same way, so it doesn't help anyone.  :faint:

(Seriously, I've never heard of anyone who likes autocomplete. I have once heard a person defend autocorrect because of some silly argument that typing capitals is hard or something.)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: j7n on 2014-04-19, 10:35:45
ׂ
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-19, 10:49:41
There've been noticed an inconsistency within that piece of reference: First they par Win/Lin -> car/bike, the next paragraph the author seems to have got lost in the trees and switched the par the other way round.:)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-19, 11:14:30
Quote
Linux/cars were designed from the ground up for multiple users/passengers. Windows/motorbikes were designed for one user/passenger.

Windows NT was also fundamentally designed as a multiuser OS.

The Firefox example leaves a bad taste, because these days copying Chrome seems to be their primary goal.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-19, 12:50:06

If autocomplete makes sense anywhere, it's exactly in spreadsheet software.

Really? It makes sense to write "blabla" in a cell, press enter because you're done and you want to move down to the next cell, and then it says "blablabla" instead? That's fucking evil. It's probably worse than writing "Blabla" and ending up with "blabla" or vice versa.

I don't know what you use spreadsheets for. To me it's not to write any "blablabla" (random or creative prose) in it. It's tables with focused, limited, highly repetitive text and numbers. Highly repetitive means autocomplete makes lots of sense. Also, when there's "Blabla", it should remain "Blabla" throughout, and all occurrences of "blabla" should be best spotted immediately. If the difference between "Blabla" and "blabla" is important, configure the behaviour of the software accordingly.

It's really simple: I type fast. Bothering me with unexpected stuff I didn't type or ask for only slows me down.

Even fast typists should think carefully. Before I type, I think of the end result. The software I use is part of the means to achieve the end result and time must be spent on configuring it so that it would be a better tool instead of an obstacle. This is a no-brainer to me probably precisely because I don't type so fast :)

(Seriously, I've never heard of anyone who likes autocomplete...
You did now. Autocomplete has its uses.


Windows NT was also fundamentally designed as a multiuser OS.
I never got it to work as such, e.g. as a single computer where the members of family or whoever can log on in turn and not screw up each other's settings. Even in NT workstations the multiuser ability looks more like an afterthought, whereas in Linux it works without any headache.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-19, 14:04:31
I say that autocomplete and autocorrect should be off by default. Your counterargument is that they're useful if they're set up correctly, which it seems to me implicitly supports the point that the defaults are crappy. As to the point itself, autocomplete is a lot better in Bash and Vim than in LibreOffice. Not being activated by the Enter key might be part of it.

Highly repetitive means autocomplete makes lots of sense.

Perhaps, but I also always end up on youtube.com/blablabla instead of plain youtube.com thanks to autocomplete (but because the addressbar dropdown is broken since Opera 10.50 or so I no longer have it disabled). That kind of repetitiveness occurs plenty in spreadsheets.

Even fast typists should think carefully. Before I type, I think of the end result. The software I use is part of the means to achieve the end result and time must be spent on configuring it so that it would be a better tool instead of an obstacle. This is a no-brainer to me probably precisely because I don't type so fast

I think before I type. The fact that evil software would interfere with what I type by default, however, is something I am forced to rediscover whenever I have to use the type of junk called office software.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-19, 14:49:42
Yey, I don't think OpenOffice severely differs in for Linux from that for Windows, huh? You should tinker more!:lol:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-19, 14:52:55
My OpenOffice opens very slow here in Windows. Is it so in Linux too?
Or does it just eat much CPU?
What such application works best in Linux?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-19, 16:16:23
I say that autocomplete and autocorrect should be off by default. Your counterargument is that they're useful if they're set up correctly, which it seems to me implicitly supports the point that the defaults are crappy.
I agree that the defaults may seem crappy when you need to tinker with them. However, when there are easy options to alter the settings, there's no real crappiness. Personally I haven't found any software, office or otherwise, whose defaults I didn't have to change. And as we grow into experienced users, we should also grow to be more humble when considering what defaults noobs find sensible.

We all would like software be set up out of the box as per our specific needs, but this is just laziness. Realistically, options to make it work as per our needs should be enough. It's also realistic to suggest that experienced users should not complain when they are made to tinker, and noobs should be happy that they are learning stuff, growing with experience.

My OpenOffice opens very slow here in Windows. Is it so in Linux too?
Or does it just eat much CPU?

Yes, but only at startup. Once it's up, it's cool. Office software is the heaviest kind of software. For ordinary mortals, only imaging and video processing are even more heavy.


What such application works best in Linux?
If by "best" you mean fast startup, then use text editors* rather than office software. If by "best" you mean all the necessary word processing filetypes that humans share, then you are stuck with Openoffice and Libreoffice.

* Such as Notepad (on Windows Notepad++ was my favourite). Then in command line interface, once you learn it, you will find editors that surpass Notepad equivalents too in terms of speed and solidity (=non-crashiness).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-19, 17:46:04
No, I mean smoothly, most organised, easy to understand etc.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-19, 19:55:23
Then you mean the likes of Notepad. Yes, those exist on Linux, of course. They have names like Mousepad, Leafpad, Gedit, etc.

There are also lightweight office replacements, such as Abiword (to do word processing) and Gnumeric (spreadsheets), but I have not tried them properly, because my requirements to office suits are of professional class. I need Powerpoint too.

There have been attempts to develop a full-featured office suit to replace Openoffice (and Libreoffice, which is essentially the same thing). In this area I am most familiar with KOffice http://www.kde.org/applications/office/ but I have not kept up with it at least ten years, even though historically I had serious interest in it.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-19, 20:07:05
I agree that the defaults may seem crappy when you need to tinker with them. However, when there are easy options to alter the settings, there's no real crappiness. Personally I haven't found any software, office or otherwise, whose defaults I didn't have to change. And as we grow into experienced users, we should also grow to be more humble when considering what defaults noobs find sensible.

N00bs don't find it sensible when computers randomly do things without being told to do anything. N00bs say, "wtf did the black box just do!?!?!? Help, I lost everything!!!" I say, "relax, you can still undo." To me, it's an extremely annoying default because it might've changed things around before I noticed. That's bad enough — but to a n00b, it's torture.

Microsoft Office actually does this significantly better. It visually alerts you that it's changing things around and allows you to disable the feature on the spot. Out of all of their silly GUI experiments over the years, I'd say that's one of the best.

PS Alternatively to disabling by default, I think the Tab key would make a more sensible default. Just. not. Enter.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-19, 20:15:27
@Josh
The KOffice project is called Calligra these days. This is how behind I am in this area.

@Frenzie
Besides the noobs argument - which goes roughly this way, "There are no sensible defaults for noobs. Noobs have to learn everything from scratch whatever the defaults are. And patiently." - there's also the continuity argument, which goes like this: "If the new version changes anything, it sucks. If it provides continuity/familiarity (and intuitive improvement - but this is already arguable), it's okay." Word processing on computers is definitely subject to the continuity argument. My shift from MS Office to Open- and Libreoffice would have taken far more time if the latter office suits didn't provide continuity and familiarity - and if the former didn't experiment so much. I hate experiments. Therefore I say easily no thanks to MS Office.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-19, 21:02:53
Adding a little visual hint remains continuous. It's not comparable to shuffling things around or removing them. It's a bit like what Clippy used to do, but without the annoyingness factor. That being said, I believe the Office interface was fairly continuous until that ribbon came about. And it's not like they've removed the ribbon from the latest versions or anything.

My opinions about the ribbon are mixed at best, but besides the disaster that is Windows 8 I don't think MS is that bad at continuity.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: j7n on 2014-04-20, 04:16:40
ׂ
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-20, 06:11:52

I never had problems with autocorrection in Microsoft Office. It took me about one year of use until I discovered that the corection was an operation undoable by Ctrl-Z.

I got into trouble with autocorrect as soon as I began typing in MS Word the first time in my life - which was pretty late in life, I can still be considered more as a paper and pencil kind of guy. However, after an hour of figuring where to change the default behaviour of autocorrect, from English logic to more Estonian logic, to set away autocaps after every dot and a bunch of other stuff, I didn't run into problems ever again. Behold the power of configurability.


With Office 2007 and Eight it seems that Microsoft is desperate to attract attention through visual tricks, as a kid would by painting something on a wall. I am still using Office 2000.

I still have an MS Office 2000 CD lying around somewhere. My absolute favourite version. But Libreoffice is a complete replacement, and Linux works just fine, so why bother installing some MS relics?

The obstacle of using Win XP and later to its full potential as a multi-user OS is that there are no instructions included with the OS about it. With every version they try to hide the permissions and user concepts deeper and deeper.

In fact MS hides Windows' multi-user functionality so deep that the concept of sensible defaults comes into play. To me it doesn't look like Windows has multi-user functionality, because when multiple users are set up at first, they still can screw up each other's settings by installing and uninstalling programs, etc. It's a big work to prevent this behaviour in the system, and even after all this work it's easy to override by the user. I once heard a ten-year-old child (of whom I know he has not seen computers much, has no own computer, even though he knows a lot about game consoles and owns those) say to another a bit older child "When he prevents you installing your own programs, install it in My Documents." Things like this seem to be common knowledge now even without actual experience!

This is why Windows doesn't seem to me a proper multi-user OS, whereas Linux is instantly appropriate for multi-user usage. In Linux you have a very clear and transparent, well documented distinction of administrator tasks and user tasks. In Windows, instead of real help, you have that weird suggestion in error messages "Contact your system administrator..." WTF!? I am the administrator!! Who am I supposed to contact??
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-20, 06:15:42
Microsoft Office actually does this significantly better.
You wanna pay or you donna'wonna?
:rolleyes:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-20, 07:40:29
I have heared negative remarks about Total Commander and Mikrotik WinBox looking the same as they did several major versions ago. So what? Everything is in the same place.

I don't know the latter, but from what I know about Total Commander it's pretty much perfection.

I got into trouble with autocorrect as soon as I began typing in MS Word the first time in my life - which was pretty late in life, I can still be considered more as a paper and pencil kind of guy. However, after an hour of figuring where to change the default behaviour of autocorrect, from English logic to more Estonian logic, to set away autocaps after every dot and a bunch of other stuff, I didn't run into problems ever again. Behold the power of configurability.

Behold an idiotic default (autocaps after every dot).

You wanna pay or you donna'wonna?

The reason I use Linux and LibreOffice is not that I don't want to pay. I have Windows 7 and an Office 2007 license at my disposal. I use LibreOffice because I think it's better than Microsoft Office.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-20, 08:26:23
Q.E.D. Sic transit, et cetera.
I mean I perfectly know why the defaults are such, but I'll only tell that in a proper thread.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-20, 08:38:05
Quote from: Ersi
In Windows, instead of real help, you have that weird suggestion in error messages "Contact your system administrator..." WTF!? I am the administrator!! Who am I supposed to contact??
Yes, that comes up a lot.
Quote from: Schwarzminator
Talk to the hand!
:)
:spock:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-20, 08:40:47
Microsoft seems to think, along with Adobe, that a serious program must be "felt" slowing down the PC. Free software unfortunately isn't immune to bloat.

LibreOffice has focused a lot on performance improvements. Even on my netbook it starts really fast now.

Modern people are preferring Directory Opus these days over TC, and UBNT's WebUI. I'm afraid they're gonna drive the other companies out of business. Just like it is happening with Opera.

I quite like Directory Opus. Sorry. :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-20, 09:22:10
Behold an idiotic default (autocaps after every dot).

I agree that this default is idiotic. However, it's an instructive idiotic default. It instructs noobs quickly to look for a way to change it. And if the setting to change the default is obvious enough, it's not really an annoyance, but a useful lesson, namely that defaults can be changed, and this way the noob progresses towards intermediate stage. Which is totally fantastic. It's very good to have such instructive idiotic defaults in software - in moderation of course - so as to spur learning.

The purely annoying and frustrating kind of configuration, the kind that cannot be changed or is too hard to change, is another story. It's also a real story, but a different category. When the user can't change the settings, their idiocy is sheer torture. To build software this way is a sure mark of evil.

And of course I agree that even the instructive idiotic defaults, when there's too much of it, when it's too idiotic, and when the particulars of the idiocy increase or change sweepingly with every update, it begins to border uselessness. The instructive aspect will be lost in the ocean of overwhelming idiocy.

All-in-all, autocomplete and even autocorrect can have its uses. I personally use autocomplete a lot, but autocorrect I switch off completely these days. Still, I appreciate some visual feedback, such as underlining words unrecognised by the spellcheck dictionary, so as to keep my attention awake.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-20, 10:09:19
I agree that this default is idiotic. However, it's an instructive idiotic default. It instructs noobs quickly to look for a way to change it. And if the setting to change the default is obvious enough, it's not really an annoyance, but a useful lesson, namely that defaults can be changed, and this way the noob progresses towards intermediate stage. Which is totally fantastic. It's very good to have such instructive idiotic defaults in software - in moderation of course - so as to spur learning.

I'm not convinced, except in the sense I already mentioned: Microsoft Office XP and later does a reasonable job showing that it can indeed be configured. When I was 10 years old, i.e. a n00b, I could just use my computer without it doing crap. Letting the current crop of kids get used to computers doing stuff by themselves is not a good thing. But mostly, I just don't necessarily look at my screen when I'm typing. More likely I'm just thinking about what to type, or looking at my source. If you're semi-fluent at typing, you feel typos — no need to look at anything. I'll have typed whole paragraphs on a default installation and suddenly it turns out they're horribly disfigured by unwanted interference. That's why, when I remember, I actually open up e.g. Notepad instead of Word when I'm not on one of my own sane systems.

N00bs? N00bs shouldn't learn to type with Microsoft Word. They should learn to type properly. I suggest just typing out passages from books and whatever, and then checking the result. No silly specialized software required, except perhaps to help with the very basics. After all, you want to learn both how to type and how to proofread for small mistakes.

Once I borrowed someone's phone to send a short e-mail. Only after typing a sentence or two did I realize the phone hadn't actually produced what I typed at all, but instead wrote down some autocorrected gibberish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino_effect).

PS This doesn't mean I hate all autocorrect. I probably like how it replaces -> with → by default. But I'd rather call that text replacement than autocorrect.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-20, 12:46:10

Once I borrowed someone's phone to send a short e-mail. Only after typing a sentence or two did I realize the phone hadn't actually produced what I typed at all, but instead wrote down some autocorrected gibberish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino_effect).

Yes, this is hilarious. All the iPhone users I know, they don't know how to turn this thing off. If it can't be turned off, then it's even more hilarious :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-04-20, 12:53:45
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino_effect
Corrected.:cool:
"Voltmeter" is good.:yes:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-20, 13:04:08


Once I borrowed someone's phone to send a short e-mail. Only after typing a sentence or two did I realize the phone hadn't actually produced what I typed at all, but instead wrote down some autocorrected gibberish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupertino_effect).

Yes, this is hilarious. All the iPhone users I know, they don't know how to turn this thing off. If it can't be turned off, then it's even more hilarious :)

Luckily this iPhone user (my MIL) did know how to turn it off.

"Voltmeter" is good.:yes:

Voltmeter, the evil wizard. Oh well.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: j7n on 2014-04-20, 13:14:48
ׂ
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-20, 13:44:58
Most touchscreen phones come with a full QWERTY (also of course QWERTZ and AZERTY) keyboard. Traditional cellphone layout optional.
Title: Linux woes: Xfce and Bluetooth
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-22, 11:29:49
Something I disovered the other day: There's no bluetooth applet specifically for Xfce.

I use bluetooth only occasionally, no real need for it. But it's nice to have it working out of the box in Ubuntu and Mint. This includes Mint Xfce. However, there's no specific bluetooth applet specifically for Xfce.

My current most-used desktop is Manjaro Xfce and the applet is not there. I installed Gnome's Blueman applet, but this didn't launch. Then I dug deeper and discovered that Manjaro fails to detect the laptop's bluetooth device altogether. And further research showed that it's hard to get bluetooth to work in Arch. Following these instructions (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Bluetooth) over and over gave no result over a weekend.

What is the bluetooth applet in use in Mint Xfce? How do Ubuntu and Mint make bluetooth work? Why can't other distros make it? Why does Xfce, otherwise a wonderful full-featured desktop, lack a dedicated bluetooth applet?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-04-25, 06:18:42
In yet another attempt to mess up my workflow, the GNOME Archive Manager 3.12 seems to do without the icon in the top left of the window.

I don't really use Bluetooth, but isn't Blueman used for that?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-04-25, 08:33:47
If you don't use bluetooth, then you can't imagine what a headache it is to get it work in Linux. I have this experience:

- Works like a charm under preinstalled Ubuntu on bluetooth-capable laptops.
- No problemo with Mint either - if the laptop has inbuilt bluetooth device, Mint finds it and works.
- Pretty much any other distro I've tried does not come with bluetooth module properly developed. The thing is not there out of the box. Then it's installing the packages, trying to launch them, pasting lots of weird marks in terminal, and hacking files without any guarantee or warranty.
- A separate Bluetooth dongle - I got this thing to work under Fedora some 15 years ago. I don't remember what I did right. I was just following some instructions found on the web, that's how I do it all...
Title: Little things between distros and desktops that make a big difference
Post by: ersi on 2014-05-01, 21:39:25
BLUETOOTH

Last time I mentioned (the lack of) bluetooth applet in Xfce. The bluetooth applet is doable - namely, it has been done in Xubuntu and Linux Mint Xfce - but I have not seen the applet in other distros,  specifically other distros that develop and provide an Xfce desktop.

I have tried to get bluetooth to work in Manjaro Xfce for weeks. I stopped caring if it includes a visible systray icon and applet or not, but still the result is that bluetooth does not work in Manjaro in any shape or form. I know from before that if bluetooth doesn't work in a distro out of the box, attempts to make it work by installing and uninstalling different available packages will usually end up as a fruitless frustration.

So after all that I decided to install Mint Debian Mate alongside with Manjaro Xfce simply to have functional bluetooth on the machine. A whole additional operating system for one simple little function, how stupid is that. There are bluetooth drivers developed for Linux, but only Mint (and Ubuntu) teams package them so that it actually works. For those teams, bluetooth is obviously a specifically dedicated labour, as is evident when comparing Mint's Xfce with other Xfce distros.

MATE versus XFCE

Of course with Mint Debian Mate installed, I looked a bit more into what I got. For a while I had a hard time determining which one is a more mature and advanced desktop, Mate or Xfce. Desktop backgrounds and desktop icons are nicely workable and easy in both...

Xfce can easily tile windows (fill the screen with two windows side by side or on top of each other by keyboard shortcuts or by dragging) like in the more advanced Unity and Cinnamon, but Mate apparently cannot do this. On the other hand, two of my most favourite desktop keyboard shortcuts work out of the box in Mate:

- Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up the dialog to log out and power off
- Windows key (called Super key in Linux) to bring up the system menu

The first one is easily configurable in Xfce. The second one is possible too, but with great difficulty, because it clashes with many default Super key functions.

However, tiling windows and some keyboard shortcuts, am I comparing things of equivalent weight? I guess not. Ability to position windows is a much more important desktop productivity function than these specific keyboard shortcuts. So the point goes to Xfce.

Other things thus far I found missing in Mate:

- Keyboard layout systray icon
- Clipboard manager

Both are native desktop applets in Xfce, but Mate's native selection of applets does not offer such solutions. Parcellite made a good easily installed clipboard manager in Mate, but a missing keyboard layout icon may be a serious obstacle for someone who switches between keyboards. It may force one to choose Xfce.

DEBIAN versus other

I found more issues with my Mate installation, but they are related with the underlying Debian, such as that youtube-dl doesn't work (I noticed when it broke in Ubuntu at one point; still works in Manjaro), Otter browser doesn't install (or, more correctly, the right Qt5 is beyond my capacity to install), etc. Looks like I really only keep Mint Debian on board for its functional bluetooth. The bluetooth icon shines bright like a diamond in Mate desktop. This point goes to Mint Mate.
Title: Cinnamon 2.2 released
Post by: ersi on 2014-05-11, 18:35:16
Those of you interested in Cinnamon desktop, take a look at the highlights of the new release http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2014/04/cinnamon-2-2/

Looks good to me mostly, except for one big thing and a few details. The big thing:
Quote
Applet Roles and Systray Icons

Previous versions of Cinnamon came with a hardcoded list of systray icons to hide. Icons such as the one for Network Manager, or Banshee were typically hidden as their functionality was already covered by the network and sound applets.

In Cinnamon 2.2, this list is gone and each applet is able to register “roles”, i.e. to tell Cinnamon which functionality they take care off, and thus, which systray icons should be hidden when they are running.

Why try to automate this hiding of systray icons?  There are some icons that make sense always, such as the network manager. People use computers for the internet connection, so there should always be an icon telling if it's connected or not. If some app takes the connection applet over and hides the normal icon, isn't this confusing? Why not show both icons side by side? When the user feels like removing one of the duplicating functions, he may do it.

Quote
These new roles enable Cinnamon to dynamically show relevant systray icons when applets are removed, or to dynamically hide them when applets are added.

Say you remove the network applet, well… you’ll see the Network Manager GTK systray icon appear. Say you put the network applet back in the panel, the Network Manager systray icon will then disappear.

Sounds extremely prone to bugs to me.

Little things:
Quote
The menu applet received two mintMenu features (more will come in 2.4):
- Right-click an application and select “Uninstall” to remove it.

On a laptop on the move, I have enough hard time hitting the right menu item. Adding a hardcore admin function to where it is too easily accessible is not going to help.

Quote
- Newly installed applications are now highlighted in the menu.

One of the things that made Win XP and later look icky. Then again, on Win it was actually an important function, because this way people could find out if some major crap had sneaked into the computer. On Linux this is not supposed to happen and therefore there's no reason to advertise newly installed stuff.

I see admin and user roles getting mixed. Very sad.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-05-11, 19:08:10
On a laptop on the move, I have enough hard time hitting the right menu item. Adding a hardcore admin function to where it is too easily accessible is not going to help.

Funny thing, many people claim the Mint menu is their favorite part of Mint. I don't like it much at all, myself. This certainly won't help.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-05-11, 19:20:47
How about the normal Whisker menu? Don't you like that either? And why? I personally am okay with stuff under right-click, if they are the right kind of stuff. I will be okay with Cinnamon 2.2 too, if the things I brought up can be modified or switched off.

Btw, my favourite Mint element is the installer. Close second is the theming, which I usually only tweak a little on Xfce and don't touch at all on Cinnamon. Cinnamon desktop itself is my third favourite Mint element. At version 2 or 2.1 as it is now at my main job, Cinnamon is a great work environment, if it suits one's preferences. It suits mine. And we have good machines too now, so it flies, particularly with effects turned off. I always turn the effects off :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-05-12, 07:38:33
How about the normal Whisker menu? Don't you like that either? And why?

Probably not, but I don't think I've tried it. I like the regular menu structure. If I know what I want, I'll use Alt+F2. If I don't know what I want, the search capability is about the last thing I need. It's the logical menu structure (precariously and often futilely maintained on Windows) that is absolutely terrific. I can never remember the name of Meld, for instance, and the search function only finds it when you search for "merge", not "diff". But go to the development menu, and there you are.

Now, to be clear, what I absolutely despite is having to scroll in my menus in order to actually see what's in them. If that Whisker menu automatically extends like a menu, perhaps I wouldn't dislike it. Another thing I dislike about search in menu is that it breaks access keys, but I guess Xfce doesn't have those in the menu regardless.

Btw, my favourite Mint element is the installer.

Yup, love it. That being said, even Debian has a rather sane installer these days, with only three or four steps.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-05-16, 14:16:15
This seems potentially a bit dangerous, but Betty simplifies some command line business by allowing natural language input.

https://github.com/pickhardt/betty
Code: [Select]

Internet
betty download http://www.mysite.com/something.tar.gz to something.tar.gz
betty uncompress something.tar.gz
betty unarchive something.tar.gz to somedir
(You can use unzip, unarchive, untar, uncompress, and expand interchangeably.)
betty compress /path/to/dir

[…]

Meta
betty what version are you (or just betty version)
betty whats your github again

Permissions
betty give me permission to this directory
betty give anotheruser ownership of myfile.txt


I haven't personally tried it.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-05-19, 13:03:00
Human language imputed to programming languages is always dangerous and also unworkable. Programming languages always need to make a sharp and unmistakable distinction between the command/element and the argument/attribute. Using natural language, this distinction is diluted and the result is always unworkable. See for example the config files of Fetchmail. Sheer insanity. The unworkable config files were one of the several reasons why I use and advocate Getmail instead.

Btw, Whisker menu is largely non-different from XP menu which everybody loves. It's just that it's not convertible to the plain tree-style menu like XP menu is. It's good to have a choice of different menus on Xfce. I find the search function in Whisker and Mint menu quite workable. In conjunction with whatever is under Alt+F2 it's perfect.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Banned Member on 2014-05-19, 14:16:50
Human language imputed to programming languages is always dangerous and also unworkable.
But that only resembles a human language.
Being a real human language - like English or Russian - means being structurally wholesome. In the case of the written language, the discourse is built not at all only with properly spelled words. Words are only one of the several structural elements of the written language. The discourse (or a discourse) is obligatorily composed of paragraphs, or directly sentences. A sentence is not a blah-blah-blah without its own structural elements, a blah-blah won't be a sentence, hence won't count as a human language element.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-05-19, 17:21:31
Human language imputed to programming languages is always dangerous and also unworkable.

That being said, there's definitely a case to be made for e.g. some kind of script that automatically runs the right command if you just type unarchive blabla.zip. It's probably half the reason I prefer unpacking things with a GUI.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Barulheira on 2014-05-19, 18:37:09
tar? http://xkcd.com/1168/ (http://xkcd.com/1168/)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-05-19, 18:38:47
unarchive blabla.zip is a clear-cut command plus its target. It does not qualify as a human-language sentence.

It's like saying "Fetch!" to a dog. To you it may seem that the dog understands the word "fetch", but in reality the dog may be trained to do the same action to any combination of sounds.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-05-19, 18:54:17
tar? http://xkcd.com/1168/ (http://xkcd.com/1168/)

Yup. tar -x blabla.tar.gz doesn't work, I think, because you also need -f. Maybe. But try compressing some files. That's when the fun really starts. :P
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-05-20, 00:16:05

tar? http://xkcd.com/1168/ (http://xkcd.com/1168/)

Yup. tar -x blabla.tar.gz doesn't work, I think, because you also need -f. Maybe. But try compressing some files. That's when the fun really starts. :P

Can't remember tar cvzf whatever.tar.gz blah/ ? Or tar cvjf ... if you want bz2 instead of gzip? :left: :right:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-05-20, 13:28:08
There was a time when I mentioned the inflexible time format of Cinnamon screensaver https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=68.msg3996#msg3996

Now there's this news at Mint Blog: Cinnamon Date and  Time improvements (http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2014/03/cinnamon-date-and-time-improvements/)

Quote
The ability to switch between a 12 and 24 hour clock is back. Many of you requested it after Mint 16 was out. I was the one who thought it needed to go, and that translations could take care of that… and I was wrong :)

How can a programmer be mistaken about what a translation/localisation does in his program? And why ever remove a configuration option, seriously? Well, okay, he fixed it eventually. This particular detail ended well, luckily. Good job of fixing something back to how it was when it was perfect.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-05-20, 15:17:17
Translations? Seriously? I use my system in American English, but that doesn't mean I want a clock that says AM and PM. Or that I use this currency known as the Dollar. Or for that matter, that I want all clocks to display time the same way.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-05-20, 17:17:15

I use my system in American English, but that doesn't mean I want a clock that says AM and PM.

I do the same thing. Also, american vs. metric units :right:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-05-31, 21:39:33
Today Linux Mint released version 17, codenamed Qiana, based on Ubuntu Trusty. Highlights:

- Long Term Support
- Cinnamon 2.2 in the Cinnamon Edition
- Mate 1.8 in the Mate Edition

Cinnamon 2.2 highlights:

- Hot corners feature enhanced (off by default)
- Date and time settings more configurable (24 h clock finally also applies to the screensaver!)
- Advanced applet roles in systray icons

Mate 1.8 highlights:

- An implementation of tiling of windows (similar to Cinnamon and some Xfce configurations)
- Support for Metacity window manager
- Date and time in screensaver

Personally, I have found out that Long Term Support is not an entirely good thing in Linux world. Updating packages over a long period of time tends to gradually break things, and this is particularly true of Ubuntu, on which Mint is based. Then again, users who rarely install anything new, who simply use what's on their computer, for whom the concept of "updates" provides a sense of security and a warm sense of being cared for, definitely appreciate such releases. Enjoy!
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-06-03, 20:20:25

Here's a quick overview of some text editors: http://netrunner-mag.com/war-best-text-editor-of-them-all/

I mostly use SciTE and Geany, myself.

This week I found a dark theme for Geany and this makes it my favourite now https://code.google.com/p/geany-dark-scheme/

In the terminal I am used to Nano. I have configured things so that Vi never pops up. Vi really gave me the creeps every time I ended up in it. Is there a distro that comes with Emacs rather than Vi?

In the graphical section I recently replaced Gedit with Medit. Looks like a good replacement, if one prefers Gedit over Geany. In Windows, Notepad++ was my favourite for over a decade.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-06-03, 21:11:08

In the terminal I am used to Nano. I have configured things so that Vi never pops up. Vi really gave me the creeps every time I ended up in it. Is there a distro that comes with Emacs rather than Vi?

I memorized the handful shortcuts I need for basic vi operation ages ago, so it doesn't really bother me that much. All I ever use it for is basic config work on fresh installations ( once in a blue moon ) before I can install something like joe ( which has a pico / nano mode IIRC ).
Emacs is probably too fat to put into the base system. At least that's more or less the reason we don't ship emacs in base - the code base is big enough as it is and emacs is much more of a maintenance headache than vi ( or rather nvi, since original 4BSD vi is pretty much dead ).


In the graphical section I recently replaced Gedit with Medit.

Looks interesting.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-06-04, 12:04:36

I memorized the handful shortcuts I need for basic vi operation ages ago, so it doesn't really bother me that much.

So did I. When I end up in it, I frantically hit z key or look for an opportunity to type :quit and :exit, whatever works to get out of it.


All I ever use it for is basic config work on fresh installations ( once in a blue moon ) before I can install something like joe ( which has a pico / nano mode IIRC ).
Emacs is probably too fat to put into the base system. At least that's more or less the reason we don't ship emacs in base - the code base is big enough as it is and emacs is much more of a maintenance headache than vi ( or rather nvi, since original 4BSD vi is pretty much dead ).

What is "basic config work on fresh installations"? Is it similar to following Linux From Scratch website where you set kernel parameters etc. before installing the rest of the OS?

I have taken a look at kernel parameters a few times when some distro failed to boot post installation. GRUB grants friendly entrance behind any line that is displayed as a boot option. It's possible to edit what is behind those lines by means of "minimum Emacs-like editing", as it says right there. This implies that at least for the creators of GRUB, Emacs seemed a more intuitive solution and perhaps more readily recognisable for the masses than Vi. I am by no means competent in making the final verdict either way, but Vi, with which I have had a number of recent encounters, never helped me in any kind of configuration.

By "basic config work on fresh installation" do you mean the kind of modification of bootup lines that I described? In GRUB, there's "minimum Emacs-like editing" on offer, which works for me. I would be totally lost if there was only Vi-like editing on offer in that place. Of course, I would also be lost if the help text were not there in GRUB interface, no matter what kind of editor it emulated. A bootloader is definitely not the place to try and see what happens if I press this or that. Intuitive operation and sufficient immediate guidance is important there.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-06-04, 18:07:28


All I ever use it for is basic config work on fresh installations ( once in a blue moon ) before I can install something like joe ( which has a pico / nano mode IIRC ).
Emacs is probably too fat to put into the base system. At least that's more or less the reason we don't ship emacs in base - the code base is big enough as it is and emacs is much more of a maintenance headache than vi ( or rather nvi, since original 4BSD vi is pretty much dead ).

What is "basic config work on fresh installations"? Is it similar to following Linux From Scratch website where you set kernel parameters etc. before installing the rest of the OS?

Probably similar enough. I usually install on 'new' hardware by netbooting it ( I have netboot environments set up for the kind of hardware that interests me - mostly Sun, SGI and PowerMacs ) and setting things up by hand, as in partitioning/newfs-ing/mounting disk(s), untaring the base OS, write appropriate fstab, rc.conf etc., copy hosts, resolv.conf, nsswitch.conf and such, make the whole thing bootable and so on. Using the installer instead doesn't really speed things up - to me typing mountpoints into a sysinst dialog isn't any faster or less difficult or whatever than writing directly to fstab. Same with network setup and pretty much everything else. When everything works it's time to write a kernel config - for old and unusual hardware it's usually helpful to strip the kernel down as much as possible. Not strictly necessary on newer machines with plenty of RAM but it's kind of a habit.


I have taken a look at kernel parameters a few times when some distro failed to boot post installation.

Another reason for me to have netboot environments set up - if something doesn't boot normally I can always boot over the network and poke around.


By "basic config work on fresh installation" do you mean the kind of modification of bootup lines that I described?

Not really. I meant config files the installer would normally take care of.


In GRUB, there's "minimum Emacs-like editing" on offer, which works for me. I would be totally lost if there was only Vi-like editing on offer in that place. Of course, I would also be lost if the help text were not there in GRUB interface, no matter what kind of editor it emulated. A bootloader is definitely not the place to try and see what happens if I press this or that. Intuitive operation and sufficient immediate guidance is important there.

That's what comments and examples in config files are for. Nothing to do with the editor you use.
Either way, you shouldn't really have to mess with the boot stuff directly at all. Then again, I'm used to Sun and SGI hardware where you set this sort of parameters ( what disk/partition/whatever to boot from, which file(s) to load and so on ) via firmware variables. In most cases there's no need to touch any of those either.
Title: What's with OpenSSL?
Post by: ersi on 2014-06-05, 20:13:20
Another vulnerability found today... http://www.openssl.org/news/secadv_20140605.txt

And someone also said TrueCrypt was not truely crypting any more...
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-06-09, 09:18:24
Quote
VSIDO is a front line Debian Sid installation built with the goal of providing both basic and advanced users the toolset needed to be productive, protected yet flexible enough to enjoy

VSIDO is built on Debian's latest to date kernel ...

x64 Boot less than 125 MB Proof
x32 Boot less than 100 MB Proof
Installation less than 3:30 proof
http://vsido.org/index.php?topic=12.0

This is a distro that Distrowatch knows nothing about. Where goes the line between a distro and a mere ISO?
Title: GTK color theming
Post by: ersi on 2014-08-03, 13:38:29
Here's a fresh video tutorial to tweak GTK themes. This really makes me appreciate the possibility to style all apps centrally in harmony with the desktop environment.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KREXq26f6Mw[/video]

Title: Skype
Post by: ersi on 2014-08-08, 07:47:33
Skype is being force-updated. Old versions discontinued. I cannot log in to an old version any more. On my smartphone I had an old version for a long time and had to update it to be able to log in, but I am not sure at all if it stays logged in when I need it. When I turn to the app, it does weird things, such as it changes the icon to logged out and then logged in again. It's becoming ever more urgent to find a replacement for this thing.

On a seemingly related note, Hotmail.com has acquired a Skype panel. When you log in to Hotmail account, you log in to Skype too with that account.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-08, 08:22:47
Skype 4.2 still seems to be working. How's 4.3?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-08-08, 09:03:30

Skype 4.2 still seems to be working. How's 4.3?

4.3 is the newest version, but very crashy for me. In Manjaro it doesn't even open up properly. In Mint it stays open and I can do stuff, but it occasionally crashes. Often, not occasionally.

4.2 threw me out yesterday in the middle of nothing (when I was simply logged in) and does not allow to log in any more.

And two days ago I received an email from Skype that said that my Android version of Skype would soon be retired and I was encouraged to update it, even though I did that already weeks earlier when my Android version of Skype had thrown me out and prevented logging back in the way 4.2 is doing now.

I guess it's the East versus West thing again. My location is treated like scum.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-08, 10:46:55
I'm using 4.2.0.11 at the moment. Maybe the problem was with a slightly older revision?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-08-08, 11:08:45
Exactly the same version that threw me out.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-08, 18:33:44
Here's what I love about Linux: today I swapped out my motherboard (an upgrade from my '07 Core 2 Duo E6600 to an '09 Phenom II X4 955 BE, so somewhat less exciting than it sounds; my wife's the one who upgraded to a nice i5), plugged in all of my disks and after booting it's almost as if nothing changed.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-08-09, 04:13:25
Nice. But I am stuck right now with a machine where i486 and i386 systems install, but i686 don't. And those systems that install lose keyboard and mouse after a few reboots. The bootup screen tells sometimes that all USB slots are overheated.

This machine has never been cleaned inside. I will start there. And then I will maybe try to change the keyboard and mouse from USB-connected to PS/2-connected, even though this is silly - USB should work, otherwise there's not much point to the whole machine. And then I will be out of ideas.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-09, 07:58:53
I figure something that deals with the i386 instruction set is a Pentium 4 at best, correct? I just checked and unfortunately the cost of shipping to Estonia seem to be something like €30 (add in the fact that I'd prefer to get some money for the actual components to fund the purchase of e.g. a Scythe Mugen 4 and/or some extra memory), but my now discarded Abit Ab9 Pro motherboard with a Core 2 Duo E6600 would likely blow whatever you've got out of the water in every single aspect imaginable.

In case you're interested I took a couple of quick pictures (not pictured: some kind of GPU I could include if you want; I've got two spare ones atm). Full product info here (http://abit.ws/page/en/motherboard/motherboard_detail.php@pMODEL_NAME=AB9+Pro&fMTYPE=LGA775&DEFTITLE=Y). Incidentally, I was running the CPU at a stable 2.7 GHz overclock (without changing the voltage) for the past year.

(Full pictures are over 4MB.)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fpolymathicmonkey.smugmug.com%2Fphotos%2Fi-8hSmxp5%2F0%2FL%2Fi-8hSmxp5-L.jpg&hash=77d54de96a68e3a53adec41978912058" rel="cached" data-hash="77d54de96a68e3a53adec41978912058" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-8hSmxp5/0/L/i-8hSmxp5-L.jpg) (http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-8hSmxp5/0/O/i-8hSmxp5.jpg)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fpolymathicmonkey.smugmug.com%2Fphotos%2Fi-LTBWRtJ%2F0%2FL%2Fi-LTBWRtJ-L.jpg&hash=e99f0736b3bb17dcbb47fc80db2a6ad7" rel="cached" data-hash="e99f0736b3bb17dcbb47fc80db2a6ad7" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-LTBWRtJ/0/L/i-LTBWRtJ-L.jpg) (http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-LTBWRtJ/0/O/i-LTBWRtJ.jpg)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fpolymathicmonkey.smugmug.com%2Fphotos%2Fi-M3gM4Wx%2F0%2FL%2Fi-M3gM4Wx-L.jpg&hash=1497acf850985f17e8a8d25a4ad5517b" rel="cached" data-hash="1497acf850985f17e8a8d25a4ad5517b" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-M3gM4Wx/0/L/i-M3gM4Wx-L.jpg) (http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-M3gM4Wx/0/O/i-M3gM4Wx.jpg)

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fpolymathicmonkey.smugmug.com%2Fphotos%2Fi-wqk2t8M%2F0%2FL%2Fi-wqk2t8M-L.jpg&hash=da8133f72b4aaacb2b2be55acc74364a" rel="cached" data-hash="da8133f72b4aaacb2b2be55acc74364a" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-wqk2t8M/0/L/i-wqk2t8M-L.jpg) (http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-wqk2t8M/0/O/i-wqk2t8M.jpg)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-08-09, 08:56:54

I figure something that deals with the i386 instruction set is a Pentium 4 at best, correct?

I guess so. Thanks for the pictures and for the offer.

The machine is a leftover from someone else and I am trying to make it work for a child in early teens. In my opinion it's more important to spend time cleaning the components, looking at the cooling, maybe rearranging some parts, etc. i.e. giving some sense of problem-solving and cooperation to the child, than making the machine actually work. Even though it would be nice to get it to work too. I actually did it for a moment, but then after a few reboots it loses mouse and keyboard. Buggers.

Unfortunately my basic living budget is bust for this month. I may consider your offer next month. I'll write something in this thread to let you know.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-09, 10:33:39
my now discarded Abit Ab9 Pro motherboard with a Core 2 Duo E6600 would likely blow whatever you've got out of the water in every single aspect imaginable.

Just to be completely clear, I meant that besides performing better it'll likely also use less electricity for more performance.

giving some sense of problem-solving and cooperation to the child, than making the machine actually work.

True enough. :up:

Unfortunately my basic living budget is bust for this month. I may consider your offer next month. I'll write something in this thread to let you know.

My offer may not be terribly attractive thanks to the shipping costs, even if I ask very little for it. As a quick comparison, consider the more or less equivalent Intel Celeron G1840, which retails for a little over €40 (comparison (http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/365/Intel_Celeron_Dual-Core_G1840_vs_Intel_Core_2_Duo_E6600.html)). Add about €50 for a motherboard and €40 for RAM and you'd have a brand-new more or less equivalent computer for €130ish.*

* I'm overlooking €60-70 for something like a Crucial MX100 128GB and €40 for a sufficiently decent PSU, but you may or may not have those costs regardless.

Edit:
Back on topic.

While I've been hailing /etc/fstab with its UUID's for partitions which always mount the same regardless of the physical connections, I just found out your computer will not boot if your /etc/fstab contains an incorrect line. I deleted a partition and following that my computer wouldn't boot. Unfortunately the Grub command line doesn't seem to come with an editor (no nano, vi or vim), so I had to boot with a LiveCD to fix it.

In this case the cause was easy to identify, but what if one of my HDDs had some kind of failure? I'm not quite sure what to think of this.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-10, 11:04:34
Note to self (and perhaps others): ARandR is significantly more useful as a graphical randr configuration utility than the Xfce display manager. Also, in order to properly deal with multiple displays on a Radeon HD 4850, I had to install firmware-linux-nonfree (on Debian). I'm still using the open-source Mesa driver though. Some benchmarks for the open-source drivers vs. binary blobs can be found on Phoronix.

I'll probably swap this card with an R9 270X in a few days for the maximum performance I can get out of this rig.

My biggest performance "problem" now is the HDD on which I installed Windows, but that @#$# isn't touching my nice SSD or my newest (faster) HDD.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-22, 19:24:33
Oh, I'm getting the Skype thing now. I wonder why I've been able to connect up to earlier this evening, when it seems to be this started happening on August 1. Time to update and hope the experience doesn't go downhill, I guess.

Btw, why didn't they implement a proper notification or something?

Edit: hmm, I can't seem to install it at the moment because of some kind of dependency hell related to the i386 stuff. Hopefully it's just because I'm running Debian testing, although I'd have thought I already had all of Skype's dependencies from 4.2.

Code: [Select]
$ sudo apt-get install libasound2-plugins:i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libasound2-plugins:i386 : Depends: libavcodec55:i386 (>= 6:10~beta1~) but it is not going to be installed or
                                    libavcodec-extra-55:i386 (>= 6:10.2) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.


The error message is helpfully mistaken.

Are there any decent Skype alternatives yet? By which I don't mean stuff like Ekiga which requires manual configuration of port forwarding, but something actually usable by the people I want to contact. Like how qBittorrent is actually equivalent to old µTorrent these days and probably superior to present-day µTorrent.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-08-23, 06:37:42

Edit: hmm, I can't seem to install it at the moment because of some kind of dependency hell related to the i386 stuff. Hopefully it's just because I'm running Debian testing, although I'd have thought I already had all of Skype's dependencies from 4.2.

One of the things changed in new Skype is the way it uses sound. I don't know the names for the packages, and I care less as time moves on.

Skype is a strictly 32-bit thingy and multilib is a dependency hell all by itself. On my 64-bit installations, Skype frankly fails to stay open for more than two seconds. On 32-bit installation it works, but I will begin to try alternatives now.


Are there any decent Skype alternatives yet? By which I don't mean stuff like Ekiga which requires manual configuration of port forwarding, but something actually usable by the people I want to contact. Like how qBittorrent is actually equivalent to old µTorrent these days and probably superior to present-day µTorrent.

Well, all I have heard thus far is that Ekiga is most usable. If no friend can set it up on their own, take it as an opportunity to go visit the friend and set it up for her :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-23, 07:35:51
One of the things changed in new Skype is the way it uses sound. I don't know the names for the packages, and I care less as time moves on.

I believe it already used PulseAudio, but the difference is probably that it updated to the latest API or something.

I already have libasound2:i386, but this new Skype also wants libasound2-plugins:i386. Given that I have all those packages in 64-bit I don't know why they'd pose a problem in 32-bit.

I've now started a big cleaning effort. It seems I still had an old mplayer hanging around, which is the kind of thing which might be problematic (although it was 64-bit). Checking among my obsolete packages, I also happened to notice Iceape, which apparently is no more (http://www.debian.org/security/2013/dsa-2819).

If the cleaning effort doesn't work I'll probably just uninstall everything 32-bit (it's not much) and see if that helps. After all, as annoying as it may be, something other than Skype must be to blame.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-08-23, 07:45:17

I believe it already used PulseAudio, but the difference is probably that it updated to the latest API or something.

What I remember from the messages I read as installing it, it was the other way around: It dropped support for some kind of older sound library.

I would still blame Skype. The update is not well considered and it's poorly communicated to users and poorly implemented dependency-wise. It's forced in corporate manic panic.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-23, 08:00:21
I tracked down the problem to a lingering libmp3lame0 1:3.99.5-dmo2 and a libxvidcore4 3:1.3.2-dmo1 from back over a year ago when I had DMO in my sources.list to watch a DVD or two. I "downgraded" these badly versioned packages to the versions from testing, 3.99.5+repack1-3 and 2:1.3.3-1. This particular dependency problem was not a Skype issue.

What is a Skype issue is that it forced my package manager to switch from libavcodec-extra-55 to libavcodec55.

Quote from: libavcodec55
Libav is a complete, cross-platform solution to decode, encode, record,
convert and stream audio and video.

This is the codec library from Libav (both encoding and decoding).

It supports most existing codecs (MPEG, MPEG2, MPEG4, AC3, DV...).


Quote from: libavcodec-extra-55
This package is a replacement for the regular libavcodec55 library package;
it contains the following additional codecs:

* OpenCORE Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) Narrow-Band (Encoder/Decoder)
* OpenCORE Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) Wide-Band (Decoder)
* Android VisualOn AAC (Encoder)
* Android VisualOn Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) Wide-Band (Encoder)

Why did I have the extra package? I have no idea. Do I use any of those codecs? Probably not. But not a single proper Debian package forces any kind of choice.

Skype now has some ugly buttons on top, but besides that it seems to be okay.

The update is not well considered and it's poorly communicated to users and poorly implemented dependency-wise.

I quite agree. It's ridiculous that it just won't log in all of a sudden. But what corporate panic do you mean? What are they panicking about?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-08-23, 08:11:02

The update is not well considered and it's poorly communicated to users and poorly implemented dependency-wise.

I quite agree. It's ridiculous that it just won't log in all of a sudden. But what corporate panic do you mean? What are they panicking about?

Since they communicate it poorly, I naturally have no clue what they are panicking about. But I take the forced hasty update along with poor communication as signs of panic :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-23, 08:42:10
What I remember from the messages I read as installing it, it was the other way around: It dropped support for some kind of older sound library.

Oh yes, it dropped support for ALSA, which seems kind of stupid because why would you drop something which you can support for free by not removing it? They also upgraded PA support. http://blogs.skype.com/2014/06/18/skype-4-3-for-linux/

Since they communicate it poorly, I naturally have no clue what they are panicking about. But I take the forced hasty update along with poor communication as signs of panic :)

I think it's probably just because Linux is a bit of an afterthought. I believe the whole consolidating MSN/Windows Messenger and Skype into one program was communicated reasonably well on Windows.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-08-23, 12:13:25

I believe the whole consolidating MSN/Windows Messenger and Skype into one program was communicated reasonably well on Windows.

And if you haven't noticed, they consolidated Skype into Hotmail.com too. Your Skype history shows up there as you log in. Depending on how you relate to Microsoft, be hilariously happy or devastatingly shocked.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-08-23, 13:17:29
I hadn't noticed. My Skype account and MSN account are still separate entities and I never check that e-mail. I would never want to pollute my Skype with all of my MSN junk.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-01, 19:31:09
Dedoimedo wrote a little something about this (http://www.graphviz.org/) interesting semi-alternative to FreeMind.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/graphviz.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-06, 09:52:53

I hadn't noticed. My Skype account and MSN account are still separate entities and I never check that e-mail. I would never want to pollute my Skype with all of my MSN junk.

Today MSN has been turned off for me. I started my computer as usual, and Microsoft promptly sent me this e-mail.

Quote from: Microsoft account team
Unusual sign-in activity
We detected something unusual about a recent sign-in to the Microsoft account *****@hotmail.com. To help keep you safe, we required an extra security challenge.
Sign-in details:
Country/region: Unknown
IP address: x.x.x.x
Date: 9/6/2014 12:29 PM (CET)
If this was you, then you can safely ignore this email.
If you're not sure this was you, a malicious user might have your password. Please review your recent activity and we'll help you take corrective action.


The IP address was mine. 12:29 is when I turned on my computer. The "unusual" activity? Simply Pidgin connecting to MSN as it has done for years. The only thing unusual is that Microsoft stopped accepting it.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-09-06, 12:43:38
How it MS (eventually) locking out 3rd party software unusual? :left:
Yahoo did the same thing to me years ago ( lock out pidgin, again ) but since I didn't really need the account anymore anyway I couldn't be arsed to do anything about it. Other than deleting it from pidgin that is :right:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-06, 12:48:35
How it MS (eventually) locking out 3rd party software unusual?  :left:

:lol:

Other than deleting it from pidgin that is  :right:

I'll probably end up doing that. I can't recall the last time I actually used MSN.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-07, 09:55:18
After finally having upgraded my eight year old graphics card a few weeks ago, I decided to look into getting VDPAU to work. I understand this should result in less power usage, which is good for the electricity bill. For my Radeon R9 270X, the relevant package was mesa-vdpau-drivers. This in turn gave me the well-known Smurf Flash bug. I could work around this the way I once did back in 2012 (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=177380#td_post_2542379), but I figured I might as well try to get Fresh Player (https://github.com/i-rinat/freshplayerplugin) to work: a Pepper Flash wrapper for browsers like Opera/Presto and Firefox. Debian helpfully provided the package pepperflashplugin-nonfree so you don't have to install Chrome just to get Pepper Flash.

For the installation I don't really have to say anything, except perhaps that for Ubuntu there's a PPA (http://www.webupd8.org/2014/05/install-fresh-player-plugin-in-ubuntu.html) if you're not comfortable compiling. It may work in Debian too, but since I compiled my own I didn't test it.

The Fresh Player Plugin page has very clear compilation instructions. The only thing not included I had to do to get things to work the way I wanted was to create ~/.config/freshwrapper.conf with xinerama_screen = 1 in it. That isn't quite ideal. The real Pepper Flash in Chromium or Opera/Blink automatically and correctly goes fullscreen on the monitor it's on using said monitor's geometry. Still, it ought to suffice.

A benchmark like this (http://www.craftymind.com/factory/guimark2/FlashGamingTest.html) (via (http://www.craftymind.com/guimark2/)) runs probably twice as fast in real Pepper Flash as it does in Flash 11.2, but it still seems to run about 1.5 times as fast in the Fresh Player wrapper. If I'm bored I'll try actually running the benchmark instead of getting a quick feel for the FPS. I might also take a look at comparative Windows performance if I can be bothered to install Flash. Then again, that might be more of a comparison between the Linux Mesa Gallium drivers and the Windows binary blob Radeon driver.

PS I'm not sure if VDPAU was worth the trouble by itself. CPU use is quite low both with and without it. I'm not even sure what the power usage impact is of going from e.g. 10% to 6%. Only when playing a 4k video (http://www.hd-trailers.net/ultrahd/) does it seem to have a truly tangible benefit on CPU utilization, from over 40% to about 20% when a lot of stuff is happening in the video.* Still, I'll probably run some extra tests where I'll check out CPU time rather than keeping a manual eye on top. Is there any way to automate that?

* Keep in mind that this percentage is based on 4 independently clocked cores, so 40% just means one of them is probably running at the highest step while 20% may indicate a lower step. Basically it's just hard to tell what exactly is going on.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-09, 20:11:47
Did you know that with Ctrl+R you could search your Bash history? (via (http://hoopajoo.net/tips/content/11.html))
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-09-10, 05:28:24

Did you know that with Ctrl+R you could search your Bash history? (via (http://hoopajoo.net/tips/content/11.html))
Indeed, works much better than history redo that I have been messing around with thus far.

What I really miss is to type help and see everything man-style.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-09-10, 06:59:23
RISC OS and - to a degree - OpenFirmware have help commands like this :right:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-10, 07:28:59
What I really miss is to type help and see everything man-style.

You mean it'd give you a browseable list of all available man pages or something? I was going to say Yelp (the Gnome help thingy) can do that, but I guess Gnome 3 thought that was much too useful to keep (https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/yelp/+question/155847). Maybe Mate's version still can.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-09-10, 11:38:03

What I really miss is to type help and see everything man-style.

You mean it'd give you a browseable list of all available man pages or something?

No. I mean that man bash should give vital basics like Tab completion and the mentioned Ctrl+R up front. Basics should be up front, followed by the set of commands that cannot be uninstalled.

I opened up man bash and tried to read if Ctrl+R is there. Maybe it's this,
Code: [Select]

re-read-init-file (C-x C-r)
Read in the contents of the inputrc file, and incorporate any bindings or variable assignments found there.

but after reading myself past lots of detailed intricacies of shell scripting, variables and other esoterics, I'm not sure. Also, it has C-x there so it's probably not this. Then it's probably not there at all. So the documentation is incomplete. Yet it should be right up front there among the introductory basics.

Yelp is a graphical thing, an overall help database. This is different from learning the bash or the shell. I meant I miss a readable and well-structured help concerning the bash right there in the bash.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-10, 12:48:26
Ah, I see what you mean. How will can learn about these basic shortcuts (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/keyboard-shortcuts-for-bash-command-shell-for-ubuntu-debian-suse-redhat-linux-etc/) without the Internet? I don't think it's in the man page, but in the tsunami of information I'm not looking for it's hard to tell.

The part where man pages are literally pages even if some are gigantic reference manuals is definitely not one of their best aspects. If I recall correctly some DOS software had significantly better structured help, more similar to what you'll get in Windows or Yelp (or LibreOffice, but that doesn't use any independently standardized mechanism).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-10, 13:29:18
Here's a fun little quiz to select a Linux distro: http://www.zegeniestudios.net

It seemed to fairly accurately reflect what I'd expect it to say given the answers I gave (openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-09-11, 03:41:08

Here's a fun little quiz to select a Linux distro: http://www.zegeniestudios.net

It seemed to fairly accurately reflect what I'd expect it to say given the answers I gave (openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint).
To me it doesn't seem like much effort was put into it. The number of distros they considered is not that large, and at least one major issue with Linux compared to Win/Mac goes unmentioned: root permissions and passwords.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-09-11, 07:13:54
Manjaro Pek edition in action. Pek has a windows stacking feature. Not sure how well it does tiling and cascading.

Note: The Opera browser in display does not come pre-installed. It's just that the author of the video is a fan :)
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04JQDPXCXac[/video]

Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-13, 14:37:00
Have you ever wanted to check dependencies in reverse? There's a tool for that. For instance, this'll list anything that depends on libwnck-3-0:

Code: [Select]
apt-cache rdepends libwnck-3-0


If you want to go more in-depth you can also use apt-rdepends for recursive dependency listings.

Code: [Select]
apt-rdepends -r libwnck-3-0


The reason I wanted to find out is because pretty neat programs like devilspie2 and superswitcher* make use of it and maybe I'd overlooked something useful. Unfortunately, I do not believe that to be the case.

PS apt-cache rdepends libwnck22 might also be of interest. Actually that's what superswitcher uses, as well as stuff like maximus and winwrangler — both of which can be useful (but I already knew them). Brightside (http://lifehacker.com/263508/add-screen-actions-with-brightside) I didn't know, but it doesn't interest me, and that's about it.

PPS fuzzy-window-switcher (https://github.com/XCMer/fuzzy-window-switcher) also uses Libwnck.

PPPS Why was I interested in this? After searching for terms like "window switcher" and "application switcher" I wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking anything awesome like superswitcher before I created this (forked from fuzzy-window-switcher):
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fpolymathicmonkey.smugmug.com%2Fphotos%2Fi-p2jg2Fv%2F0%2FO%2Fi-p2jg2Fv.jpg&hash=27aa21de20360475e39bc018a1424d9e" rel="cached" data-hash="27aa21de20360475e39bc018a1424d9e" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-p2jg2Fv/0/O/i-p2jg2Fv.jpg) (http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-p2jg2Fv/0/O/i-p2jg2Fv.jpg)
More info coming shortly as it's not quite done yet.

* Not in the repositories, see here (https://github.com/Frenzie/smartswitcher) if you want to build superswitcher.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-13, 20:03:47
Alright, it is good enough for now.

https://github.com/Frenzie/nimbler/

Have at it. :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-21, 12:14:13
I just noticed that Apt 1.0 also listens to just apt rather than the good old apt-get only. So instead of:
Code: [Select]
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Now you can save a few keystrokes with:
Code: [Select]
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt full-upgrade

Perhaps more important, it also listens to stuff like apt search instead of having to remember that it's apt-cache or whatever.

It also comes with a fun little progress meter.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fpolymathicmonkey.smugmug.com%2Fphotos%2Fi-DPScwWp%2F0%2FO%2Fi-DPScwWp.png&hash=a39b50ee221d8743a0283703af219b77" rel="cached" data-hash="a39b50ee221d8743a0283703af219b77" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://polymathicmonkey.smugmug.com/photos/i-DPScwWp/0/O/i-DPScwWp.png)

Edit: some background info: http://mvogt.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/apt-1-0/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-22, 14:07:43
I just found out apt autoremove is not a thing; that still requires apt-get. Weird.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-09-24, 18:21:43
There's a (fixed) Bash security flaw: https://securityblog.redhat.com/2014/09/24/bash-specially-crafted-environment-variables-code-injection-attack/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-10-13, 14:58:46
Although I'm not exactly a fan of the GNOME 3 looks, the new Evince 3.14 is much improved. Files display significantly faster and opening it by itself gives you a nice homescreen with recently viewed files. In semi-related news, I wrote a script to fix up scanned PDF files people send you: https://github.com/Frenzie/readablepdf
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-10-21, 18:58:51
http://lkml.iu.edu//hypermail/linux/kernel/1408.1/02496.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Barulheira on 2014-10-22, 11:59:34
Scaring!
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-10-22, 14:27:39

http://lkml.iu.edu//hypermail/linux/kernel/1408.1/02496.html

Someone sent that over a NetBSD list a while ago.
We're not likely to adopt it. One reason is that the very idea of running all or most system services in a single process context gives the security people a heart attack.
And boot time? My old PowerBook ( 500MHz G3, 1GB RAM ) boots from pushing the button to the login prompt in about 10-15 seconds. That's a full BSD init, scripts and all. Includes the firmware twiddling its thumbs. Ok, it's running from a CompactFlash card. Still beats the living crap out of a bunch of 'fast' inits I've seen with Linux on newer hardware.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-10-22, 16:00:15
Manjaro was among early adopters of systemd. Now they have put up a tutorial to transfer from systemd to OpenRC (https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?topic=14080.0) and are considering if to provide Manjaro versions with both init systems or to conclusively go over to OpenRC.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-10-22, 20:55:44


http://lkml.iu.edu//hypermail/linux/kernel/1408.1/02496.html

Someone sent that over a NetBSD list a while ago.
We're not likely to adopt it. One reason is that the very idea of running all or most system services in a single process context gives the security people a heart attack.
And boot time? My old PowerBook ( 500MHz G3, 1GB RAM ) boots from pushing the button to the login prompt in about 10-15 seconds. That's a full BSD init, scripts and all. Includes the firmware twiddling its thumbs. Ok, it's running from a CompactFlash card. Still beats the living crap out of a bunch of 'fast' inits I've seen with Linux on newer hardware.

My computer boots in less than 10 seconds with or without systemd,* yet a completely negligible speed benefit is given as an argument. Also, I happened to think the list of things loading was awesome to look at. Now I don't even know when my file systems are being checked for consistency anymore, or if they are at all. I just sort of assume it still happens automatically. The bottom line: systemd obfuscates information and I don't like it. As a user, not as a developer who thinks systemd is a massive beast just a disaster waiting to happen. Although if they're trying to change the kernel to work around systemd bugs (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTY1MzA)... yeah.

* The key primarily being hard disk speed.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-10-23, 04:57:28

My computer boots in less than 10 seconds with or without systemd,* yet a completely negligible speed benefit is given as an argument.

With HDD (as opposed to SSD or whatever it is) the boot times are from 20 seconds up to a minute. This is not negligible. However, as far as I have been able to test, systemd only speeds it up ten seconds at best. For better results, other tweaks are needed.

(Of course I am talking about a shipped distro, not about a system built by following Linuxfromscratch website, which is probably how Macallan does it.)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-10-23, 08:36:56
With HDD (as opposed to SSD or whatever it is) the boot times are from 20 seconds up to a minute. This is not negligible.

To me it is. More than two seconds means I'll do something else first. At that point it doesn't really matter if it's five seconds or up to about a minute. For example, my HDD-using netbook boots in half a minute. When I take it with me I'll take it out of my bag, turn it on, and when I've finish preparing other things I need it'll be ready to go. From that point onward I'll use suspend until I'm completely done with it. In any case, while I didn't explicitly time it and it's not the only difference, I have the impression that my Xubuntu laptop boots almost twice as slow with systemd than it did with upstart. Could be it's not systemd's fault but that it still needs to be configured better.

Anyway, I fully recognize that Debian's old sysinitv system is kind of silly in a way. Sure, some processes need to come after others, but plenty of stuff could be loading in parallel.

Edit: for good measure, here's one of the developers defending the opposite point of view http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths.html (see here (http://0pointer.net/blog/revisiting-how-we-put-together-linux-systems.html) for something completely unrelated that might show philosophical differences.)

(Of course I am talking about a shipped distro, not about a system built by following Linuxfromscratch website, which is probably how Macallan does it.)

NetBSD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBSD) isn't Linux. :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-10-23, 11:09:28

(Of course I am talking about a shipped distro, not about a system built by following Linuxfromscratch website, which is probably how Macallan does it.)

NetBSD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBSD) isn't Linux. :)

True, Macallan is running BSD. However, he mentioned that he has tried Linux and that Linux was slower than BSD. Since he didn't say which distro he tried, I assumed he built it from scratch, because in his world this is how everybody does it.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2014-10-23, 12:41:47

True, Macallan is running BSD. However, he mentioned that he has tried Linux and that Linux was slower than BSD.

I said several 'fast' inits. One of them was creatively names 'fast-init'.


Since he didn't say which distro he tried, I assumed he built it from scratch, because in his world this is how everybody does it.

Quite obviously you have not the faintest idea what my world looks like.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-10-23, 15:25:07

With HDD (as opposed to SSD or whatever it is) the boot times are from 20 seconds up to a minute. This is not negligible.

To me it is. More than two seconds means I'll do something else first. At that point it doesn't really matter if it's five seconds or up to about a minute. For example, my HDD-using netbook boots in half a minute. When I take it with me I'll take it out of my bag, turn it on, and when I've finish preparing other things I need it'll be ready to go. From that point onward I'll use suspend until I'm completely done with it.

This is how I behave with my netbook too. I am not in a hurry. The boot time, which seems to vary from 18 to 28 seconds (some inherent systemd instability?) is fast enough for me. I don't need faster. However, "in the industry" or "on the market" the bootup time craze is one of the current hypes, and Linux must not be left behind. Of course I am confident it won't be left behind.

I don't think bootup time is any kind of argument for systemd per se. If anything, it is an argument to develop even more different types of init systems and perhaps find a way to easily switch between init systems in a single installation.


Quite obviously you have not the faintest idea what my world looks like.

I was just guessing at random. It was not intended as an accurate real-life description. Sorry if it was too close.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-10-23, 15:46:26
Of course I am confident it won't be left behind.

Windows 7 and 8 both boot significantly slower in my experience. As such it'd be more about maintaining the advantage. Compared to Windows 7, running Xubuntu on a different netbook quartered the boot time, increased battery life by at least a third (from ~4 to 6+ hours), and felt faster to use on top. And that's after I uninstalled all the preinstalled junk, but without digging into disabling unneeded system services like I might if actually intended to use Windows. Oh yeah, and its lack of Aero resulted in a horribly ugly look, while in Linux there was no trouble using Cinnamon, Unity or Gnome Shell if so desired.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Sanguinemoon on 2014-10-28, 15:03:46
With the latest version of Chrome, you can now watch Netflix in Linux.
Title: wget security flaw
Post by: ersi on 2014-11-06, 21:41:19
When wget is used with -m flag to pull in a whole HTTP or FTP server, a specifically modified server can create a symlink to the root file system and write any content within the limits of the user's permissions. A patched version 1.16 has been released, available at http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/wget/

Via QuHno https://vivaldi.net/forum/private-browsing/710-wget-security-flaw
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-21, 15:41:38
I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like Debian Jessie Xfce should finally have an update notification icon again: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=710565

Code: [Select]
sudo apt install pk-update-icon
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-11-21, 20:40:58
The upcoming release of Manjaro Xfce (http://manjaro.org/2014/11/15/manjaro-xfce-0-8-11-release-candidate-available/) is pure awesomeness. First stylewise, but also otherwise. Even bluetooth works out of the box this time! I thought I had tweaked my prime machine to perfection as far as possible, but now I'm seriously considering a new installation.

For a hands-on impression, try a live boot. In my opinion, Manjaro provides the best Xfce, certainly the best-looking one. Mint is a close second. Others are far behind.

In other news, Manjaro team is dropping Openbox from among official releases. Looks like what unites the team is the knack for what critics call "bloat", and the Openbox maintainer does not tolerate criticism. In my opinion, the best Openbox release was 0.8.8 - most minimal. Later ones were overstyled and overpacked. With regard to Manjaro Openbox, I tended to side with the critics.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Josh M on 2014-11-23, 08:19:44
Quote from: ersi
In my opinion, Manjaro provides the best Xfce, certainly the best-looking one. Mint is a close second. Others are far behind.

You may be right that Manjaro is the best Xfce option.

As for me, I used many desktop environments and to be fair enough, I can be happy with each one of them. Human is able to get used to on every desktop gui. I even heard about amazingly happy customers of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 upgrading from Windows XP. Also, the same appears for new adopters of Mac OS X. As for Linux, it does not much really matter if user prefer Unity, KDE, GNOME, LXDE (soon LXQt), Enlightenment, Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce or something else).

Recently I am using Xfce-based Xubuntu 14.10 (I installed it from Daily builds repos about a year ago http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/daily-live/current/). There are links for every other Ubuntu family distros. For example, Lubuntu is here http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/daily-live/current/. Everything else can be find in parrent directory http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/

I heard about Manjaro a lot. It is quite high in Distrowatch.com ranking, and also it attracts me the fact, that Manjaro is based upon Arch Linux with much more user-friendly installation and using processes. Manjaro is certainly on my check list. I only dislike a bit slow implementation of new stable packages. In latest stable version of Manjaro (0.8.10 stable), I can get only Firefox 32.0.3, libreoffice 4.3.2, gnome-shell 3.12.2, kdelibs 4.14.1, linux 3.17.0, which are all obsolete versions. Although, particular packages concerning XFCE (xfdesktop) is currently in version 4.11.8, while the last stable is 4.10.3. However, it is true that Manjaro 0.8.11 RC is making things newer, but generally I feel that original Arch Linux is doing better job than Manjaro do in keeping packages rolling stable.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-23, 10:44:15
As for me, I used many desktop environments and to be fair enough, I can be happy with each one of them. Human is able to get used to on every desktop gui.

If a GUI requires you to do twice as much moving and clicking that's a significant disadvantage not only to simple efficiency, but also to your basic health through the risk of RSI and increased eye strain. And in any case, decreased efficiency also negatively affects your life because you're spending more time doing meaningless busywork.

I even heard about amazingly happy customers of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 upgrading from Windows XP.

I suggest you ask them how to shut down their computer. I dare you. :lol:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Josh M on 2014-11-23, 14:21:37
Quote from: Frenzie

If a GUI requires you to do twice as much moving and clicking that's a significant disadvantage not only to simple efficiency, but also to your basic health through the risk of RSI and increased eye strain. And in any case, decreased efficiency also negatively affects your life because you're spending more time doing meaningless busywork.
Hmmm. Very scientific speech!  :jester: ... Yes. I generally prefer more sophisticated and more feature-rich desktop environments, with many pre-installed apps. GNOME and KDE are the top in such custom measure. While Xfce and LXDE are quite poorer, low-end and old computers needs such simple environments to ensure its limited resources available for best performance. The nice about Linux is plenty of choice.
Quote from: Frenzie
I suggest you ask them how to shut down their computer.
Yep. New adopters and unskilled users can have had, at first, problem to find a way ho to do it. ... I mentioned it in accordance of my opinion that most computer users are able to adapt and get used to on previously unknown desktop environment. Suchlike many first-time critics of Ubuntu Unity are now fully satisfied. I believe that the same applies for every DE and every OS. This theory only suppose both the GUI and OS are good-enough for average user.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-23, 14:44:44
Yep. New adopters and unskilled users can have had, at first, problem to find a way ho to do it.

There is nothing "unskilled" about someone who can't find a "charms bar". Hiding things is just horrible GUI design. I happen to find that menus are easier to use and scan through than the ribbon, but at least the ribbon is functionally equivalent. The thing is, if it's equivalent, I don't want it because I'm already proficient in something equivalent. I'm only interested if it's better. If it's worse, get away from me with that junk. MetroModern UI full-screen apps are objectively useless. It's called Windows for a reason, not Window.

Suchlike many first-time critics of Ubuntu Unity are now fully satisfied.

I used it for a year and I still don't like it. However, it never had such retarded notions like Gnome Shell and Windows 8 that something as simple as shutting down your computer should be hidden away. Getting used to Unity or Mac OS X? Sure, they're just slightly different. Getting used to Gnome Shell or Windows 8? Heck no, they hate people who have actual things to do.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Josh M on 2014-11-23, 15:54:54
Quote from: Frenzie
If it's worse, get away from me with that junk.
I agree. Windows 8.x have lot of doubtful novelties. But Windows 7 and all older ones are also slow, insecure, and nothing-work OS. Also, I experienced repeatedly 'Windows Update' errors on Windows 8.1 (my friend's computer). The updates are trying to install and cycling again and again, even when is self-evident something is wrong with the update! The only solution was just disable and hide that updates altogether to avoid cycling spiral again. My legally bought Windows 7.x is claiming to be illegal license! This error can happens to few legal customers, just google it for 'Windows Not Genuine, even though Copy is Purchased' and after few months of trying to fix it, I resigned. The Copy is activated and registered, with license key. But... something with the Windows is always wrong. Newly bought computer with Windows contains lot of bloatware that I must manually uninstall with good uninstaller. .... and so on, and so on. .... Some people say: 'Hey, it will be great and all fixed with Windows 10. Just wait.' ... But who believes that? ..... Also, how Linux is doing software repositories and packages management. In Windows I have to update all applications separately and most of them even download separately. Getting Windows up-to-date takes usually full one day or more to update everything and clean all the mess behind. In Linux I just write few words in terminal and that's it! Software management in Linux is incredibly efficient. Nothing compares.

Quote from: Frenzie
Getting used to Gnome Shell or Windows 8? Heck no, they hate people who have actual things to do.
Not sure why you think that bad about GNOME, but generally to paraphrase first part of this last post from me: 'Wait for Windows 10. Everythin will be perfect.' ... if you believe that  :D
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-23, 16:43:04
Software management in Linux is incredibly efficient. Nothing compares.

It's a double-edged sword, albeit one that usually pans out in your favor.

Not sure why you think that bad about GNOME

I could write down a lot of stuff, but I'm probably in 99% agreement with Dedoimedo. See e.g. http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gnome-3-6.html

In 3.14 Evince ("Documents") finally seems to have regained most or all of its previously lost functionality, albeit the GUI is still worse than it used to be. Perhaps it's finally coming together. By this point I couldn't much care. It's not like I'm going to be switching DEs yet again anytime soon.

The problem is, I suppose, that people have to justify their wages. That causes change for the sake of change. I'm not entirely sure what we can do about that. Luckily there's Linus keeping most of the junk out of the kernel. Secretly I'm just hoping he'll get so fed up that he'll write his own DE. That's how we got Linux and Git, after all. Some of the most brilliant software in the world.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Josh M on 2014-11-23, 17:12:01
Quote from: Frenzie
I could write down a lot of stuff, but I'm probably in 99% agreement with Dedoimedo. See e.g. http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gnome-3-6.html
Sure, those who liked Gnome 2 are probably using Cinnamon or MATE. But Gnome 3 (latest stable is 3.14.2) have also lot of pros. Debian, Fedora and many others are using Gnome as a default. Not by accident.
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Gnome/GNOME-3603.shtml
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Desktop-Environment/Gnome/
http://news.softpedia.com/newsTag/GNOME
http://news.softpedia.com/cat/Linux/
http://linux.softpedia.com/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-23, 17:39:00
Sure, those who liked Gnome 2 are probably using Cinnamon or MATE.

If I were to say I like Gnome 2 I'd primarily mean gnome-panel. Actually I mostly like xfce-panel better than gnome-panel, albeit only in 4.8+ and not in its more primitive earlier form. But seriously, anything that requires a "GNOME Tweak Tool" to do something as simple as change the fonts is a conceptual failure. Gnome 2 had a brilliant appearance dialog. Very Spartan, yet it seemed to be able to do just about anything you might want. It also had a brilliant menu. Gnome 3 instead want you to use your fonts and theme in a way that supports their "brand image" and they keep breaking themes and APIs. Great stuff.

Debian, Fedora and many others are using Gnome as a default. Not by accident.

Well, of course Fedora uses GNOME. Anyway, there are perfectly valid concerns I don't care about for myself, such as accessibility. It's possible that GNOME is better at that than Xfce, although given how iirc the GNOME accessibility API seemed to be Debian's metric of accessibility that seems like a foregone conclusion. Anything Apple is wildly superior to anything in Linux or Windows accessibility-wise. Gnome 3.14 also has better, or at least easier to use, reasonable-DPI support (what the marketing folks call HiDPI).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Josh M on 2014-11-23, 18:19:35
Quote from: Frenzie
Gnome3


I cannot mind all about Gnome from 1 review from October 2012. It is absolutely irrelevant nowadays to Gnome and especially to Gnome 3.14.2. And even so, it was only experience of single customer, what is always statistically unproven.

Every operating system and every desktop environment has its own negative reviews. As I said in my previous replies, something bad occurs to few percent of customers and nobody knows why. My horrible experience with Windows may be diminished by positive no-problem experiences of thousands others. The same applies for Linux users. I first encountered to Linux in about 2005 or so, and always gone back to Windows, at least four times until I tried it for longer than short weeks. Gradual year-over-year experience made up more than trying. That is how it works. No user is perfect and all-knowing. Neither desktop environments are perfect from initial release. It is a gradual process. Sometimes it is a progress. Sometimes it is a degress. I hope that future generations (if any) will not blame us for their Social Degress.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-11-23, 18:34:00

I heard about Manjaro a lot. It is quite high in Distrowatch.com ranking, and also it attracts me the fact, that Manjaro is based upon Arch Linux with much more user-friendly installation and using processes. Manjaro is certainly on my check list.

Manjaro has been falling in Distrowatch popularity. Its top place was sixth, right now it's 20. While Manjaro is easy to install, there are changes of direction going on that may feel uncomfortable for users. Any next release features wildly different theming and selection of software. Lately they dropped Openbox from official support, which is a shame, as I am a huge fan of it. However, if you are happy with what you installed and you don't do version-hopping, the update/upgrade experience provides a good sense of continuity.


I only dislike a bit slow implementation of new stable packages. In latest stable version of Manjaro (0.8.10 stable), I can get only Firefox 32.0.3, libreoffice 4.3.2, gnome-shell 3.12.2, kdelibs 4.14.1, linux 3.17.0, which are all obsolete versions. Although, particular packages concerning XFCE (xfdesktop) is currently in version 4.11.8, while the last stable is 4.10.3.

It seems that the team is heavily focused on the desktop experience, theming and such. Also hardware compatibility (they provide their own unique hardware detection tool) has been in focus.

You look at what the latest official release provides and you think the apps are old. But actually, as soon as you install it, you will have to update it, and then you will have fresh versions of everything. You cannot install any different apps if you have not first updated the system. This is how Manjaro works.

As I have been on it for a while and live booted to different releases over a year, it looks to me like the applications to fill the desktop are pretty much ad hoc. Apps seem to be chosen for their icon colours rather than functionality. Luckily everything is in the repos and can be changed. Under Ubuntu I never felt as generously provided as now under Manjaro/Arch.

By the way, Ubuntu is shipped with some laptops and computers here. People don't need to install Ubuntu, they can by a computer with Ubuntu preinstalled. Ubuntu is Windows of the Linux-world and does not qualify as a knowledgeable self-made choice for me. It qualifies as a first taste of Linux.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-23, 19:10:05
I cannot mind all about Gnome from 1 review from October 2012. It is absolutely irrelevant nowadays to Gnome and especially to Gnome 3.14.2. And even so, it was only experience of single customer, what is always statistically unproven.

I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make. De gustibus non est disputandum? To some degree, perhaps. Allegedly most people's needs pretty much consist of browsing a few web pages, sending a few e-mails and occasionally typing up a text document or maybe keeping track of some finances in a spreadsheet (and that, supposedly, is advanced). To what extent that's actually still true in 2014 I'm not sure, but my requirements look absolutely nothing like that.

You cannot install any different apps if you have not first updated the system. This is how Manjaro works.

On Debian and derivatives it's also recommended to at least update the repositories before you install new applications.

By the way, Ubuntu is shipped with some laptops and computers here. People don't need to install Ubuntu, they can by a computer with Ubuntu preinstalled. Ubuntu is Windows of the Linux-world and does not qualify as a knowledgeable self-made choice for me. It qualifies as a first taste of Linux.

The first Ubuntu I tried was called Warty Warthog. It was definitely a self-made choice. :P
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-11-23, 21:08:38

You cannot install any different apps if you have not first updated the system. This is how Manjaro works.

On Debian and derivatives it's also recommended to at least update the repositories before you install new applications.

It's recommended this way on every system, but not every system makes it near-impossible to install a new application unless you have updated the system after the first installation.

When you install a Manjaro or Arch version that is a few update cycles behind, then repos are so terribly out of sync that you cannot pull specific packages from there without first updating the whole system. The package manager will complain about dependencies that cannot be satisfied. It's very difficult to bypass it. It's far easier (and recommended) to update everything first, and only then replace some applications.

It so happened that Network Manager on my netbook ceased doing mobile modem and wired internet at some point. On the forums I figured out that a specific update stopped working the way it should, but an earlier version works. So my modest plan was to reinstall the system with an earlier version of Manjaro where I knew Network Manager still worked. I did so. Then, before updating, I blocked Network Manager from updating. It turned out this was too much. A dependency spiral into hell followed, and it was impossible to update the system. So I had to unblock Network Manager, update everything, and then begin downgrading Network Manager with extra difficulties. It's really hard to do anything on Manjaro without updating.


The first Ubuntu I tried was called Warty Warthog. It was definitely a self-made choice. :P

I'm sure it was in your case. I meant that when people buy a computer with an OS on it, then it's an imposed choice to that extent. When they overinstall it, then they are making a self-made choice.

Here we have computers in stores with Ubuntu preinstalled. It would be kind of cool if somebody sold Mintboxes too, a little bit more variety. Otherwise people think Ubuntu equals Linux.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-23, 21:41:49
I'm sure it was in your case. I meant that when people buy a computer with an OS on it, then it's an imposed choice to that extent. When they overinstall it, then they are making a self-made choice.

Around here you can really only choose between Windows and Mac OS. Even when you can get it with or without Windows it tends to make no difference in price, so you might as well get it with Windows just in case. Although then I'm talking about laptops. For desktops I hugely prefer putting your own stuff together. Pre-built might seem cheaper, but what do you want to bet that they're using some horrible cheap PSU that'll reduce the lifespan of your precious disks and other components? Besides, in my case it wouldn't be cheaper at all. A new computer means a new motherboard, CPU and RAM. Everything else is still hunky dory and can be upgraded selectively regardless of any other components.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-11-23, 22:35:17
Here a laptop with Linux or no OS is about a 100 euros cheaper than the same specs with Windows. Honest price. As far as I know it's the same in Germany. I have no idea why it should be different in your country.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-24, 09:12:49
I'm not talking about something Belgian; I refer just as much to what I've seen in Germany, the Netherlands, France, and the US. For the record, I'd never buy anything other than a US-ANSI keyboard, so I consider most European stuff junk regardless. I find the ISO layout unusable for its unequal Shift keys and ridiculously far-away Enter key. When I first used a US-ANSI layout completely by accident it was as if a veil were lifted, although after the initial euphoria wore off I'm still wondering why US-ANSI, too, is unequally balanced toward the right. But at least the problem is smaller.

Anyway, Windows for OEMs is something like half the price of Windows for consumers (<€50 as opposed to €100). Coupled with economy of scale (making a few laptops Linux-only is expensive) that leaves you with no or a negligible difference.

Linux-only laptops from dedicated sellers have the same economy of scale issue, where they are essentially selling the same chassis and hardware as some other place for the same price with Windows (or maybe they're just getting a better margin — same difference to me as a consumer), but I have taken that option in the past because I didn't want Vista — I had a perfectly good XP license anyway — and I didn't Microsoft to get any money for it.

The situation didn't seem to have changed when I last looked, but perhaps I didn't look hard enough or perhaps it didn't occur in any segment that interested me. But the concept of a laptop without an OS I don't want in the first place for €100 cheaper? Shut up and take my money (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shut-up-and-take-my-money).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-11-24, 11:02:03

But the concept of a laptop without an OS I don't want in the first place for €100 cheaper?

And you don't want it just because you prefer US-ANSI keyboard? :)

Of course, I am not a master with keyboard, so I look more at the size of the buttons rather than layout. I am most used to Estonian layout, but due to my profession I sometimes need to switch to e.g. Russian, and then I literally have to hunt for the letters one by one, because the layout is unfamiliar to me (and will be forever). This is where bigger keys provide at least some imaginary ease.

With US keyboard I would be totally lost. It's unusable for typing Estonian anyway. You of course would not notice the difference because in Dutch there's just an occasional é, whereas German orthography, and even more so Estonian, is built around the umlaut letters, so it's essential to have them under a single keypress, all of them.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-24, 11:25:52
And you don't want it just because you prefer US-ANSI keyboard?

Conceivably. Considering your keyboard, pointing device and monitor are what you're going to be interacting with on a daily basis I think they're of the utmost importance. I can't even begin to comprehend people who seem to think my keyboard which will last across many computer component upgrades was absurdly expensive, yet buy a € 300 graphics card.

You of course would not notice the difference because in Dutch there's just an occasional é, whereas German orthography, and even more so Estonian, is built around the umlaut letters, so it's essential to have them under a single keypress, all of them.

Dutch has frequent ï, ë, and é. More occasional would be è, ç and ü. Besides, it's not like I never type German and French. I mean the mechanical ANSI-INCITS 154-1988 layout as opposed to the ISO/IEC 9995-2 layout. You can use that with stupid layouts like AZERTY and QWERTZ equally well if you wanted to.

Letters like é, ë, ï, ß, etc. are just as much a single keypress as uppercase letters like A, B, C, etc. It's technically two keypresses, but you press them simultaneously.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-11-24, 14:32:15

Conceivably. Considering your keyboard, pointing device and monitor are what you're going to be interacting with on a daily basis I think they're of the utmost importance. I can't even begin to comprehend people who seem to think my keyboard which will last across many computer component upgrades was absurdly expensive, yet buy a € 300 graphics card.

I am one of those who buys keyboards looking at price mostly. But it's a rare purchase. I barely know what a graphics card is, so I never bought any of those.


Letters like é, ë, ï, ß, etc. are just as much a single keypress as uppercase letters like A, B, C, etc. It's technically two keypresses, but you press them simultaneously.
If letters like é, ë, and ï take "technically" two keypresses, then their uppercases take three. Not quite the same as a single keypress and two for uppercase :)

Speaking more about Xfce, looks like VLC does not obey global hotkeys under Xfce. There may be a hack available, but I want to do without a hack. Do you use a media player with global hotkeys? I need a player that can play things at higher-than-normal speed, so I guess VLC will still be pretty much the only option.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-24, 15:21:16
If letters like é, ë, and ï take "technically" two keypresses, then their uppercases take three. Not quite the same as a single keypress and two for uppercase  :)

I consider keypresses mostly consecutive affairs. Alt Gr + e (é) is pretty much the same as one keypress, as is Shift + Alt Gr + e, while Compose, ', e (or Shift+E) is three. In the past I've also dabbled with dead keys and Alt + ####. The only thing that matters is whether you've mastered your layout and whether you're comfortable with it, but at least for AZERTY and QWERTZ the differences with basic QWERTY are ill-conceived.

Speaking more about Xfce, looks like VLC does not obey global hotkeys under Xfce. There may be a hack available, but I want to do without a hack. Do you use a media player with global hotkeys? I need a player that can play things at higher-than-normal speed, so I guess VLC will still be pretty much the only option.

To my knowledge VLC is the only player that can easily output video on two screens at once (http://fransdejonge.com/2012/12/vlc-control-clone-window-with-devilspie2/) (functionality stripped out of the drivers by those idiots at Nvidia and ATI) and possibly the only player that can easily transcode and redistribute streams on the fly from within a simple GUI, but if it's just playback speed you're after you might want to check out MPV or another variety of MPlayer? I'm pretty sure most also do global hotkeys.

As to (re)gaining control of hotkeys in Xfce, see e.g. here (http://fransdejonge.com/2013/12/get-back-control-of-ctrlf1-12-in-xfce/).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-11-25, 06:10:35

The only thing that matters is whether you've mastered your layout and whether you're comfortable with it, ....

This was where I was getting at. And admittedly I have not mastered even my own layout. I have all along had different keyboards to work with. At first other people's computers and public computers in the era when I had no plans of acquiring my own computer, so I had no interest in mastering any keyboard. This era was rather long and when I finally had my own computer, I was already old. And even now I have three fairly different keyboards daily, a big laptop, netbook, and the box at work. I have simply gotten used to type as compared to writing with pen, but not properly mastered the keyboard in the pianist fashion.


As to (re)gaining control of hotkeys in Xfce, see e.g. here (http://fransdejonge.com/2013/12/get-back-control-of-ctrlf1-12-in-xfce/).

It makes no difference to the accessibility of VLC. I will probably have to try SMplayer under Xfce.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-11-26, 13:41:11
SMPlayer has no global keys at all :(

Now for something totally different.

Xfce development has been practically at standstill lately. Only extras, such as the whiskermenu and power manager, got updates. Looks like the developers ran out of ideas and are now asking for ideas from the general public.

Quote
Hi,

I'm writing as a member of the Xfce Design SIG to invite the Xfce users and
enthusiasts among you to participate to user research we're doing on sessions,
login and autostart applications. Each survey takes under 10 minutes
to complete.

By completing these surveys, you help us understand what's useful for you and
make Xfce more usable and enjoyable!

Questionnaire on logins and session saving: http://goo.gl/forms/3oYrPQNDEt
Online task on the app autostart settings:  http://goo.gl/forms/c7qYcIE0EQ

Cheers,

https://mail.xfce.org/pipermail/xfce/2014-November/033853.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-26, 19:55:38
Xfce development has been practically at standstill lately.

I don't follow the actual Git (?) repositories or anything, but stable, complete software doesn't need much other than the occasional bug fix (and as far as I can tell there are plenty of those about).

Looks like the developers ran out of ideas and are now asking for ideas from the general public.

They could always port it to Gtk 3 or something if they're bored. :P Anyway, thanks for the surveys. I'll make sure to indicate that as far as I know I'm quite happy with session handling.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-30, 10:13:40
So now there's this: https://devuan.org/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-11-30, 15:30:11

So now there's this: https://devuan.org/

You mean you enjoy following Debian politics?

About developments in the desktop environments section, here's Maui, a new KDE-based desktop http://www.maui-project.org/

Maui provides its own ISO. And Manjaro has a prime KDE release, plus a bleeding edge Plasma 5 ISO (https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?topic=18150.0).

My first proper hands-on encounter with Linux was Fedora 6, IIRC. It provided both Gnome and KDE out of the box, plus other desktops, most of which I could not figure out. I at first preferred KDE over Gnome, but these days I have sided with the leaner Gnome-like Xfce. At work I have Cinnamon.

If KDE were not so heavy on resources, I would probably still be looking into it. As to Gnome, I have not even thought about it for rather long. Very long.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-11-30, 16:10:52
You mean you enjoy following Debian politics?

Nah, this kind of thing just pops up. I have no reason to switch from Debian Xfce as my main OS in the foreseeable future.

About developments in the desktop environments section, here's Maui, a new KDE-based desktop http://www.maui-project.org/ (http://www.maui-project.org/)

Ooh, Wayland.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-12-01, 06:53:52

You mean you enjoy following Debian politics?

Nah, this kind of thing just pops up.

It's just that there's been several posts from you already linking to Debian politics, systemd controversy, and such, without much comment :)

So, if you actually follow politics, here's some Arch vs. Manjaro politics http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTg1MTQ The comments link will take you to a forum thread with the real bashing going on.

Manjaro's update cycle this month was rather long. The update/upgrade finally arrived yesterday. The one before that was October 25th. Manjaro team cites work on the new releases (v. 0.8.11) as a reason, but there's been most likely a bit more happening. Anyway, at least the new Xfce release is more awesome than ever and has clearly received tons of attention, so I don't complain. And they have been putting out ISO's with OpenRC init, testing if a move away from systemd is feasible.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-12-01, 10:19:54
So, if you actually follow politics, here's some Arch vs. Manjaro politics http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTg1MTQ (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTg1MTQ) The comments link will take you to a forum thread with the real bashing going on.

See, and it just popped up on Phoronix: a site many Linux users probably pass by every once in a while. :) Anyway, it's like money. It's a means to an end (having a place to live, proper food on the table, etc.) but not something that is enjoyed by itself. These Debian politics concern me in the sense that the pervading camp seems to be moving in the direction of doing just those kinds of things for which I left Windows. I don't enjoy following (most) news in general, but I'd sure feel mighty silly if I stepped out the door expecting to find public transit when there's a strike on. :P
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-12-25, 12:42:01
Perhaps this is mostly a note to self, but these are some useful youtube-dl flags:

Code: [Select]
youtube-dl --list-formats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCTL7BebBbE


Code: [Select]
youtube-dl -f bestvideo+bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCTL7BebBbE
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-12-25, 22:59:26
From my .bashrc (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=244.msg13046#msg13046):
Code: [Select]

alias udll='youtube-dl -F'
alias udl='youtube-dl -g -e'
alias udlf='youtube-dl --restrict-filenames -f'

The first lists the available formats.

The second I use rarely. It displays the title and the exact url from which the download would occur.

The third I use to select the format which to download.

Lately I have added one more alias, because I usually tend to download the best available format:
Code: [Select]

alias best='youtube-dl --restrict-filenames -f best'

Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-12-25, 23:33:03
On YouTube itself the "best" is 720p video nowadays, and it doesn't seem to include the actual best audio. The -f bestaudio+bestvideo flag grabs the actual best available from YouTube, but because it comes in separate streams it requires ffmpeg or avtools to be installed to mux them together. To what extent YouTube's 1080p is better than its 720p is debatable, I suppose. The quality looks fairly similar to me and the bitrate of either option is a tad on the low side. I think 1080p is maybe a tad sharper on a 1980x1200 monitor. More important is the audio quality:

Code: [Select]
139         m4a       audio only  DASH audio   49k , audio@ 48k (22050Hz), 2.27MiB
171         webm      audio only  DASH audio  124k , audio@128k (44100Hz), 5.02MiB
140         m4a       audio only  DASH audio  129k , audio@128k (44100Hz), 6.04MiB
172         webm      audio only  DASH audio  187k , audio@256k (44100Hz), 7.63MiB
141         m4a       audio only  DASH audio  256k , audio@256k (44100Hz), 11.99MiB


This is the audio in the 720p file:
Code: [Select]
$ ffmpeg -i QWOP\ \(Elders\ React\ -\ Gaming\)-NCTL7BebBbE.mp4 
[…]
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
    Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 191 kb/s (default)


And this is the audio for what may be the best (in past listening tests I've preferred Vorbis, so it's conceivable that I'd prefer the "WebM" option):
Code: [Select]
  Duration: 00:06:34.18, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 255 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 253 kb/s (default)


It's a pity YouTube makes you jump through such hoops, and that its video quality is so much lower than on Vimeo. On the plus side, youtube-dl also supports Vimeo and various other sites I use.

PS Ignore any of the lower quality audio files like the plague. I've heard they cut off at 16 kHz instead of 20 kHz.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-12-26, 00:06:23
On the same topic, Smtube, a plugin for Smplayer, provides a convenient GUI for browsing and downloading YT videos.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-12-26, 10:10:26
VLC also supports playing YouTube videos directly through "open network stream".

Btw, don't forget to likeascribe the channels and vids you enjoy. People get money that way, apparently. :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-12-26, 10:42:01

VLC also supports playing YouTube videos directly through "open network stream".

Unfortunately works only with speedy reliable internet which I still don't have.


Btw, don't forget to likeascribe the channels and vids you enjoy. People get money that way, apparently. :)

Applies to those who are logged in to YT, which I am not. Those who are not logged in can generously disable their adblocks :) except that this makes half of YT unwatchable in the browser. VLC and Smtube don't pull in ads though.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-12-26, 10:48:34
Unfortunately works only with speedy reliable internet which I still don't have.

It works for me, but I just don't like it much as a matter of principle.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-12-26, 11:55:17
Have you tried these for streaming? Option 1:
Code: [Select]

youtube-dl -f 18 $URL -o -| mplayer -


Option 2:
Code: [Select]

mplayer $(youtube-dl -g $URL)


The first option works for me. The second doesn't no matter what switches I try with youtube-dl.

There's also a more complicated tutorial with YT cookies. I have not tried to follow it.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCuq0_nY3Xk[/video]

Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2014-12-26, 12:59:43
Have you tried these for streaming? Option 1:

I prefer to save the file instead of passing it through. You can play it on the fly while it's growing.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2014-12-26, 13:09:22
I also prefer to save. Just showing that there are other streaming options besides VLC. Streaming in VLC or mplayer is good when you don't have flash-capability in browsers and before saving you want to take a look at what you gonna get.
Title: Pipelight vs Flash
Post by: ersi on 2015-01-28, 17:24:41
Does anyone have Pipelight installed? Can it completely replace Flash? At my job we have Linuxes and it looks like (not sure at the moment) we have both things installed.

Pipelight at the job computer is able to do Silverlight plugin which is necessary for me due to a website I need to visit. I am thinking of installing Pipelight to home computer too, if it can completely replace Flash.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-01-28, 17:38:53
I've never tried it, sorry. Don't websites tend to use either Silverlight or Flash though?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-01-28, 17:43:41

I've never tried it, sorry. Don't websites tend to use either Silverlight or Flash though?
Not this one http://www.katsomo.fi/?progId=427939

Edit: I mean, see if you get it to work, please.

As to either Silverlight or Flash, one of my impressions has been that Pipelight is supposed to do both. I could be wrong. Needs to be verified somehow.

(Sorry, I'm overtired, looks like I didn't get at first what you meant. Maybe I am still not getting it.)

Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-01-29, 04:39:10
Looks like Wine Silverlight is a dependency of Pipelight so, sadly, Pipelight is not a replacement for anything.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-03-01, 11:30:56
There's a new Xfce release: http://www.xfce.org/download/changelogs/4.12

The bad part of Debian: I imagine it shouldn't show up in Jessie.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ultraviolet on 2015-03-01, 22:22:54

I also prefer to save. Just showing that there are other streaming options besides VLC. Streaming in VLC or mplayer is good when you don't have flash-capability in browsers and before saving you want to take a look at what you gonna get.


give minitube a go, great program for streaming / downloading youtube vids
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-03-01, 23:36:39

There's a new Xfce release: http://www.xfce.org/download/changelogs/4.12

The bad part of Debian: I imagine it shouldn't show up in Jessie.

It's already present in Manjaro unstable branch and will move to stable in about a month, depending on the feedback it gets in testing.


give minitube a go, great program for streaming / downloading youtube vids

I have tried SMtube, SMplayer's YT extension. It's somewhat clumsier than youtube-dl, really, and this is inadmissible. Graphical things are only worth it when they are smoother to operate.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ultraviolet on 2015-03-02, 08:34:48


give minitube a go, great program for streaming / downloading youtube vids

I have tried SMtube, SMplayer's YT extension. It's somewhat clumsier than youtube-dl, really, and this is inadmissible. Graphical things are only worth it when they are smoother to operate.


type into the search bar what you want, press play, press download. done. i guess thats pretty smooth
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-03-02, 09:09:14



give minitube a go, great program for streaming / downloading youtube vids

I have tried SMtube, SMplayer's YT extension. It's somewhat clumsier than youtube-dl, really, and this is inadmissible. Graphical things are only worth it when they are smoother to operate.


type into the search bar what you want, press play, press download. done. i guess thats pretty smooth

Yes, but I need one more thing: To choose the quality. This can be set, but it's rigid and cannot be changed easily on the fly. In command line I can easily select from the available formats separately for every video I want to download.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ultraviolet on 2015-03-02, 13:49:46




give minitube a go, great program for streaming / downloading youtube vids

I have tried SMtube, SMplayer's YT extension. It's somewhat clumsier than youtube-dl, really, and this is inadmissible. Graphical things are only worth it when they are smoother to operate.


type into the search bar what you want, press play, press download. done. i guess thats pretty smooth

Yes, but I need one more thing: To choose the quality. This can be set, but it's rigid and cannot be changed easily on the fly. In command line I can easily select from the available formats separately for every video I want to download.


thats just a button down the bottom right of the screen :-)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-03-02, 14:37:20
You mean the button in the flash element? Minitube plays YT in flash?

In SMtube there's no flash element. The video is played in Mplayer. The quality of the download can be selected in general settings and when you want to change it, you have to go to the general settings. It would be much better if it were in some right-click menu or in a button that would display the available formats.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-03-12, 08:36:09
https://github.com/jepler/cropgui/

I came across this nice little GUI app to perform lossless JPEG cropping.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-03-29, 10:06:40
Never forget about the power of your shell. For instance, if you don't want to keep some audio around losslessly:
Code: [Select]
for f in *.flac; do opusenc --vbr --bitrate 128 "$f" "$f.opus"; done
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-04-18, 03:08:13
Linux kernel 4 is out. I installed it on the netbook and booted to it. Nothing seems to have gone wrong. I guess I am going to keep it :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-04-18, 08:40:50
Linux kernel updates should be (and are) uneventful. :)
Title: Windowing versus Tiling
Post by: ersi on 2015-05-09, 10:35:38
Manjaro has conclusively stopped me from distro-hopping. However, its choice of fan and community editions with wildly varying configurations is so attractive that I keep trying out different desktops and window managers.

It's said that there are two kinds of window managers, stacking and tiling. Stacking is the ordinary thing that everybody uses with or without knowing, while tiling is the more geeky. However, I don't think the names are accurate. I think stacking window manager is the true window manager, whereas the other is a tiles manager. There are no true windows on a tiling desktop. There are tiles.

So, tiles instead of windows. Other features of tiling desktops include lack of proper cycling (i.e. lack of the equivalent of Alt+Tab), lack of iconifying (minimising, particularly the equivalent of Minimize All a.k.a. Show Desktop is missing), lack of right-click on desktop, and lack of a native taskbar (there's still a statusbar or tabbar or both). These missing features (emphatically NOT considered as missing features by the authors of tiling desktops!) may have their workaround scripts shared on some forums or they may still be directly implemented anyway; for example Pek comes close to a windowing desktop, as it has right-click and cycling (at least Manjaro Edition does this, not sure about the original author defaults).

My first attempt with a tiling desktop was when I was fooling around with my freshly bought Ubuntu laptop a couple of years ago. I installed the "awesome" window manager a.k.a. awm. I tried to like it, but I just didn't see the point with tiles back then. It was kinda awesome for terminals, but it basically ruined the window decorations for all the other apps. Tiling desktop is kind of pointless when you don't use terminals much. And I cared a lot about window decorations back then. 

By default, tiling desktops open the first app up maximised and then they tend to open each next tile to the side or under the already open app, thus quickly eating up the screenspace. But Manjaro community edition with i3wm (https://sourceforge.net/projects/manjaro-i3-ce/) has changed this. In this configuration, each new tile opens up maximised.

So, in Manjaro i3wm Community Edition, every new app is maximised and the open apps are neatly identified on a tabbar. This makes perfect sense on the netbook whose usability is my constant work in progress. (After much experimenting, my chosen and preferred desktop on the netbook is Openbox and I have occasionally thought if I should configure each new app to open up maximised on it. They mostly open up maximised anyway when they continue where they left off, so I sometimes think it would make sense to configure the window manager to help it along a bit.)

To open up every new app maximised was also attempted in Manjaro Netbook Edition (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=318.0) by means of a modified Xfce desktop, but there the result was a bit clumsy, because in addition to normal windows, even dialogues tended to fill up the whole screen. The i3 Community Edition avoids this clumsy experience. True tiles managers seem to have careful definitions for dialogue popups, so that despite the general tile geometry, dialogues and prompts can still appear floating as usual.

It really makes sense to have apps open up maximised in a small screen, such as on a netbook, and i3 does it very well. However, with maximised windows you also generally want to have two things:

The first action is sort of available in i3 by opening a new workspace. It's "sort of" because opening a new workspace not quite the same thing as Minimise All/Show Desktop. Moreover, new workspaces are opened by identifying them by number. You have to know the next available number to open a new workspace. There's no generic action for "Open a new empty workspace" the way there is in Openbox, Xfce, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, etc. This is what I consider a missing feature.

The second one is frankly not available at all. It's only possible to cycle through open tiles in one workspace, then change the workspace and cycle through tiles there. This is where i3's native "container logic" is really inconvenient, even though the author of it disagrees of course.

Various scripts and patches try to make up for the broken cycling. Looks like the best one is probably Quickswitch (https://github.com/proxypoke/quickswitch-for-i3) that works by extending the functionality of DMenu, identifying open apps on all workspaces and switching to them by means of search, so Quickswitcher is a cool appswitcher and exposé kind of thing in one.

On i3, DMenu is the default access to installed apps and system commands, given that the Start Button kind of apps menu is missing. Quickswitcher, which is basically an extension to DMenu, is not available out of the box in Manjaro i3 Community Edition. I think it should be.

I think that the two missing features are a serious shortcoming in tiling desktops and any Linux distro or spin featuring a tiling desktop should make up for it out of the box as best as possible, complete with help file instructions or a list of shortcuts in conky. Until then, tiling remains properly useful only when opening up multiple terminals, but we have Tmux for that.

Tiling may seem useful when two apps are needed open side by side, and tiling desktops handle this very naturally, but the same feature is well available in windowing desktops too these days. It's available by drag-to-edge in recent versions of Cinnamon and Xfce, and many window managers are configurable to tile windows by keybind.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-05-10, 12:29:10
Tiling may seem useful when two apps are needed open side by side, and tiling desktops handle this very naturally, but the same feature is well available in windowing desktops too these days. It's available by drag-to-edge in recent versions of Cinnamon and Xfce, and many window managers are configurable to tile windows by keybind.

It's also been available in Windows since presumably Windows 95. (Hold Ctrl while clicking windows on the taskbar.) KDE has also had it since forever, but Xfce and Gnome traditionally do not afaik.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-05-10, 17:11:01

Tiling may seem useful when two apps are needed open side by side, and tiling desktops handle this very naturally, but the same feature is well available in windowing desktops too these days. It's available by drag-to-edge in recent versions of Cinnamon and Xfce, and many window managers are configurable to tile windows by keybind.

It's also been available in Windows since presumably Windows 95. (Hold Ctrl while clicking windows on the taskbar.) KDE has also had it since forever, but Xfce and Gnome traditionally do not afaik.

I am really not familiar this history. It makes sense that KDE is the most advanced one of Linux desktops. I always thought it was. Unfortunately it's resource-hungry and occasionally glitchy too, making it inconvenient to find out its features of convenience.

I only discovered tile-to-edge by mouse when it was discussed as a new big thing for Cinnamon (http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2013/07/new-window-tiling-and-snapping-functionality/). After Cinnamon, it arrived to Xfce too. I'm not even sure how native it is to Xfce. On my computer, it appeared by updating Manjaro. Until it arrived like this, I tiled windows the slow, painful, and wrong way: resize with mouse adjusting little by little.

But Openbox had keybinds for this ever since I first had Openbox.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-05-11, 07:40:17
Ah, here I found the history of the tile-to-edge feature as it applies to Xfce https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6648
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-05-11, 11:43:55
I guess you'll have to toggle a switch somewhere? Dragging to the window edges moves to a different workspace on both Xubuntu and Debian Xfce. Actually I think tiling would be the preferable option. Moving workspaces is easier to control through other methods than dragging (e.g. right click on title bar).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-05-11, 13:13:23
When it wraps to another workspace, at least this thing has to be unticked:
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.stack.imgur.com%2FO83At.png&hash=b5f8def8a04e693506b9d2db720cf77b" rel="cached" data-hash="b5f8def8a04e693506b9d2db720cf77b" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://i.stack.imgur.com/O83At.png)
Maybe something more too.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-05-11, 22:07:10
Pekwm looks like a very good balance between tiling and windowing. I haven't tried it yet, but this demonstration is enticing. (Manjaro again)
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyheCwSZbs4[/video]
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-05-13, 12:48:22
When it wraps to another workspace, at least this thing has to be unticked:

Thanks, I'll give it a look. I don't know if I want the automatic tiling per se, but the automatic desktop toggling is pretty much exclusively triggered by accident. When I want to put a window on another workspace that doesn't mean I want to drag it around — usually I don't, in fact.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-05-14, 08:55:18

I don't know if I want the automatic tiling per se, but the automatic desktop toggling is pretty much exclusively triggered by accident. When I want to put a window on another workspace that doesn't mean I want to drag it around — usually I don't, in fact.

If tiling is not important to you, then everything I have said is useless. Can you describe how windowing works for you?

Tiling is pretty important to me. I have keybinds for tiling. And drag-to-tile is also nice enough to have so I use it when it's available.

My Xfce settings - the part that is shown in the image a few posts up - are as shown in the image a few posts up. When I drag a window to the screen edge, I always intend to tile it, never to move to another workspace.

Still, I have multiple workspaces and I use them too. In Xfce taskbar I have the workspaces widget. When I want to move a window to another workspace, I drag its taskbar item to the workspaces widget on the same taskbar. The same trick works in Openbox when you have Tint toolbar in multidesktop mode - grab an item on the taskbar and drop it to another workspace. (More often though, when I need another workspace, I switch to it first and then begin opening windows there. This is more in line with the way I really work - when I have messed up a place enough, I switch to another place and start with a new clean slate.)

In Xfce, I also have set up keybinds to move through all the workspaces a la spatial navigation, as the workspaces widget indicates: Four workspaces in a grid (Manjaro Xfce has two by default, but I need four). And I have set Alt+Tab to cycle through all windows on all workspaces.

This screenshot still applies as an illustration of the way I have set up the taskbar:
(https://vivaldi.net/media/com_easysocial/photos/6757/51067/ekraanipilt-27-11-2014-19-04-26_original.png)
The screenshot also shows that, beginning with version 0.8.11, Manjaro Xfce uses the xfce4-terminal in dropdown mode by default. Terminal emulator dropdown mode was first popularised by Yakuake, if I am not mistaken.

By default the dropdown terminal drops down to about half of the upper screen and it does not use the full width either. I immediately liked the dropdown terminal and I made it nearly fullscreen, down to the taskbar, as shown in the screenshot. I like it even so much that I put xfce4-terminal on Openbox too and I configured it to open up as a similar maximised dropdown there.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-05-16, 08:19:21
If tiling is not important to you, then everything I have said is useless. Can you describe how windowing works for you?

I said automatic tiling by dragging is not important to me. Automatic tiling the way it works in Windows is far more useful, although I like partial overlap to maximize actual content. In Windows first you select a bunch of windows with Ctrl, then you right click and tile. Anyway, it depends on the computer. On the laptop I'm using right now* tile left and tile right could work. On my nice UHD monitor? Other than a few Devilspie2 rules I don't think there's much I can automate there.

* I just moved btw, so I haven't got my computer set up.
I have multiple workspaces and I use them too.

Yes, me too.

The screenshot also shows that, beginning with version 0.8.11, Manjaro Xfce uses the xfce4-terminal in dropdown mode by default. Terminal emulator dropdown mode was first popularised by Yakuake, if I am not mistaken.

I don't think it'd work for me. I like to have at least two terminal windows. Tabs or tmux are nice too though.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-05-16, 17:12:50

I said automatic tiling by dragging is not important to me.

I have come to rely on it. Perhaps because I view it as a kind of resizing. We resize windows by dragging the edges, right? Similarly, dragging the window to edge resizes it to a specific state.


Automatic tiling the way it works in Windows is far more useful, although I like partial overlap to maximize actual content. In Windows first you select a bunch of windows with Ctrl, then you right click and tile.

Yes, the Windows way sounds great particularly when you want to tile more than two windows. But for me the most ordinary case is to tile two windows.

Partial overlap can perhaps be best achieved by tiling and then resizing by mouse. Another way would be to cascade and then move/reposition the windows. I used to do this in Opera.

In some Linux desktops I have noticed there are ways to make window decorations (titles and borders) disappear upon tiling and/or maximisation, while retaining them when floating. I have set it this way in Openbox. This makes good use of space.


The screenshot also shows that, beginning with version 0.8.11, Manjaro Xfce uses the xfce4-terminal in dropdown mode by default. Terminal emulator dropdown mode was first popularised by Yakuake, if I am not mistaken.

I don't think it'd work for me. I like to have at least two terminal windows. Tabs or tmux are nice too though.

The dropdown xfce4-terminal naturally allows tabs, as it always does. A maximised transparent xfce4-terminal (sometimes with tabs) is good for some things, while a black floating xterm (or a number of them, or with tmux in them) is good for other things.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-05-17, 11:19:36
In some Linux desktops I have noticed there are ways to make window decorations (titles and borders) disappear upon tiling and/or maximisation, while retaining them when floating. I have set it this way in Openbox. This makes good use of space.

That's pretty cool, but for window decorations I'm fine with whatever you call the automatic magnetism. I've only got them at 1 or 2px wide anyway.

The dropdown xfce4-terminal naturally allows tabs, as it always does.

Yes, but simultaneously means simultaneously, not hidden behind tabs. ;) It's on my netbook that I don't have much of a choice. Perhaps a tiled tmux layout could work, but that complicates interaction.
Title: Mandriva out of business
Post by: ersi on 2015-05-28, 11:42:25
Quote from: http://uk.businessinsider.com/mandriva-goes-out-of-business-2015-5?r=US

A Linux company that spent 17 years competing with Windows is officially over

For decades, Mandriva has been trying to take on Microsoft Windows with a Linux version of a desktop PC. Its claim to fame was a deal in 2007 with the Nigerian government in which it beat out Microsoft to put its flavor of Linux on 17,000 PCs used by Nigerian schoolchildren.

It also had some success in Malaysia.

But by 2012, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy, a situation that had happened several times since its early days, in 1998.

But long live Mageia!
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-05-28, 19:11:35
I've been reading about that place having financial troubles for like a decade now. I'm actually surprised they managed to hold out that long.
Title: Regular Expression Terror!
Post by: ersi on 2015-07-19, 11:29:35
For about half a year I was wondering what on earth was wrong with my cute little alias that was meant to handle dotfiles in the directory. The alias had some regex attached to it, so that it would supposedly limit itself to dotfiles only, not other files. The trouble was that it left out some of the dotfiles, never handled them all, no matter how I tweaked it.

I noticed a pattern that it always forgot files towards the alphabetical end of the list. And today I became enlightened with the reason for this - my machine has a non-English system locale.

Spookily, the letters in regex operate according to the alphabet of the system locale...
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-07-19, 12:33:55
I know that expressions like [a-zA-z] are problematic because of diacritics, but which regular expression implementation differs by locale?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-07-19, 12:53:56
Precisely the same [a-zA-Z] (except that I had 0-9 also there). It so happens that in Estonian alphabet Z is next to S, so all letters later in the alphabet, such as T, U, V, X, Y, were ignored. To get them covered, I had to explicitly put them all into the regex. Today I understood why this was happening.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-07-19, 19:10:34
I see. But in which regexp implementation is this?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-07-19, 20:13:02
Which regexp implementation? I have heard that BSD version and GNU version differ a bit. I have the GNU version of course, because I am on Linux. But I cannot do regex -v for a better answer :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-07-20, 08:15:24
I mean, are we talking Perl, grep, Python, Bash… how are you running your regular expression? Of course it's conceivable that they all refer back to the same C library, but in any case it ought to be worthwhile investigating whether you can simply use Unicode. Locale is just too much trouble, but in e.g. Python you have to explicitly import it first. In a sense, I might be asking which regexp implementation I should avoid.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-07-20, 09:08:11
bash
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-07-20, 12:07:15
Hm, annoying to keep in mind. Luckily the only locales I'm likely to run probably wouldn't yield too many compatibility issues.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-07-21, 20:32:46
Shashlik: A New Way To Run Android Apps On Linux
Quote from: Michael Larabel, http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=shashlink-android-linux

Shashlik is an "Android Simulated Environment" to serve as a launcher for running Android applications on a conventional GNU/Linux distribution.

Shashlik will be presented later this month at KDE's Akademy 2015 conference as a new way for running Android applications on "real" Linux.

Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-07-22, 07:23:26
I'm not sure there are any Android apps that I'd like to run on a proper OS. Maybe one of the offline maps apps like MAPS.ME or HERE maps. That's about the only thing I can think of that's superior to e.g. GNOME Maps (which I don't think even supports offline) or the rather different in scope Marble.

One of the comments there (http://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/software/desktop-linux/811107-shashlik-a-new-way-to-run-android-apps-on-linux?p=811124#post811124) mentions TuneIn Radio. Perhaps the app offers some advantage over the website; I don't use it. The suggestion that MX Player can stand up to e.g. VLC or mpv is frankly laughable, as is the suggestion that Windows beats Linux for multimedia (http://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/software/desktop-linux/811107-shashlik-a-new-way-to-run-android-apps-on-linux?p=811306#post811306) (although Media Player Classic is quite good).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-07-23, 16:09:35
Another death announcement that I did not notice in time: Development of Crunchbang Linux has stopped (http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=38916). 

Crunchbang was where I first discovered Openbox. And its underlying Debian supports rather old and weak hardware. This distro has perhaps the sanest defaults I've ever seen.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-07-23, 16:17:27

One of the comments there (http://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/software/desktop-linux/811107-shashlik-a-new-way-to-run-android-apps-on-linux?p=811124#post811124) mentions TuneIn Radio. Perhaps the app offers some advantage over the website; I don't use it.

I'm a long-time user of it. It allows inserting links to your own favourite webradio stations. But the pre-existent catalogue is extensive enough.

The version that I have for now (last updated maybe two years ago) introduced a "like" button (a heart shaped button) that gets in the way when you want to browse your own custom list of stations. The app was better before this update, it had less ads too. That's the usual development, I guess.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-07-24, 07:25:45
A properly curated list of radio stations could be a good thing. As it is, however, I do all of my radio listening in podcast form.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-07-24, 10:08:15
A good podcast feed has become a luxury. The stations that I need to follow have stopped providing them. Sometimes some third-party enthusiasts still create the podcasts that used to be popularly available.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-08-21, 15:58:08
Gnome Shell is, apparently, still unusable.

Quote from: http://changelog.complete.org/archives/9394-first-steps-debian-on-an-asus-t100-and-some-negative-experience-with-gnome
I am already disappointed after just a few minutes. There is no suspend button on the menu. Some Googling showed that holding Alt while hovering over the power off button will change it to a suspend button. And indeed it does. But… uh, what? That is so common and so non-obvious. And pushing the power button does… nothing. That’s right, nothing. Apparently the way to enable some action when you push the power button is to type in a settings command in a terminal. There’s no setting in the settings panel.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-08-23, 05:19:02
Tmux, on the other hand, is highly usable. I found a wrapper for Tmux today: Byobu http://byobu.co/

After installation, just type byobu in terminal and enjoy the cute default profile built around Tmux (Tmux is a requirement or dependency for Byobu). Basically, Byobu shows what nice things could be done with Tmux, if we had the brains or time for it.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-08-23, 06:53:01
It came by default with Ubuntu (http://fransdejonge.com/2011/06/more-fun-with-screen-and-ssh-with-byobu-automatic-reattaching/) a few years ago. tmux support wasn't available then, but the very first steps toward implementation coincided with that blogpost. It became the default shell for Byobu on 08 Nov 2013, although already on 29 Dec 2011 tmux became a depend and screen a recommend.

Getting a quick overview (http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kirkland/byobu/trunk/view/head:/debian/changelog) of these things is definitely made simpler by Opera/Chromium showing search results in the scrollbar.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-08-23, 08:33:03
Having finished some rather important stuff last week, I decided to risk temporarily breaking part of my stable Debian Jessie by installing Xfce 4.12 from unstable. Looking over the release notes, what jumped out to me was that the window switcher gained a list view. As you might know, I'm a big fan of window switching by list view (https://github.com/Frenzie/nimbler).

Unfortunately, however, they seem to have decided to add an annoying transparency effect to the windows switcher. This is obviously awful since it is in complete negligence of my setting that all popups should be completely opaque. The only way I've found yet to get rid of it is to disable compositing, but that won't do.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-08-23, 08:54:20
After some trying, I disabled Byobu. There's too much going on there by default.

Its keybinds are attractive, sort of intuitive, and that's precisely the problem - they are in use in my desktop environment and in other apps, so there are many conflicts. Whereas configuring is not easy enough.

I'd like Byobu to detect my Tmux keybinds and other settings in max two simple steps and, while doing it, discard its own settings. There's a module called byobu-export but no module called byobu-import.

It still makes a whole lotta sense in tty though, where there's not too much chance for keybind conflicts.



I like the list-style window switcher in Openbox, but in Xfce I prefer the fancier switcher.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-08-23, 09:02:36
The program must've changed, but also note that Manjaro may ship a set of configuration defaults that differ from those of Byobu itself. For me, the shotcuts are those of screen (http://fransdejonge.com/2010/12/screen/). It's possible that the program asked me on the first start.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-08-23, 09:12:48

The program must've changed, but also note that Manjaro may ship a set of configuration defaults that differ from those of Byobu itself. For me, the shotcuts are those of screen (http://fransdejonge.com/2010/12/screen/). It's possible that the program asked me on the first start.

For me, Byobu came up in fancy colours, offered quick overview to keybinds and some configuration elements. After some digging, I found its raw configs, but I could not see how to make it use Tmux, just that and nothing else. There seems to be a way to make it behave screen-like though.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-08-23, 09:18:04
Yes, the fancy colors and everything are kind of the whole point of Byobu. I just noticed it does support some keys like F2, F3, and F4 which I wasn't aware of. I just remembered that the thing I set up to work with screen's shortcuts is tmux, not Byobu.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-08-23, 14:53:37
Byobu reminded me of this video. Openbox is supposed to be minimalist in order to emphasise content and substance, but this video makes it all about easily switchable preset styles.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKwFe_OI4LQ[/video]

Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-08-25, 06:18:41
Happy Birthday, Linux!
Quote from: Marius Nestor, http://linux.softpedia.com/blog/linux-turns-24-happy-birthday-489974.shtml
Dear all, today is August 25, 2015, and the time has come for us, Linux users, to party in celebration of the 24th anniversary of the Linux project, announced by none other than its creator, Linus Torvalds, on the sunny day of Sunday, August 25, 1991.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-08-26, 20:43:05
Very nice. :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-09-06, 09:46:36
gcc-5 is coming to Debian testing
https://nthykier.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/the-gcc-5-transition-is-coming-to-testing-tonight/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2015-09-06, 16:21:55
Speaking of compilers - LLVM/clang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clang) has been used to build NetBSD on ARM and x86 for a while now, and it mostly works on powerpc and sparc64 as well ( 'mostly' as in kernels and executables in general work, but shared objects seem to randomly lose symbols. Likely just a config or linker problem ).
It won't be able to replace gcc any time soon for lack of CPU architecture support but it's nice to have alternatives.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-09-06, 18:37:00
Yeah, I hear clang has better error messages. But for freedom's sake, go gcc! (and get some better error messages too) :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2015-09-07, 05:12:58

Yeah, I hear clang has better error messages.

Way better. It even catches things like tpyoed include guards.


But for freedom's sake, go gcc! (and get some better error messages too) :)

They did improve between 4.5 and 4.8
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-11-03, 12:11:58
Some desktop news.

Cinnamon 2.8 was announced yesterday. The power manager and volume icon in systray are now more convoluted than ever. It's a bad idea to prevent media players show their own icons in systray and instead combine them into and control them by the volume icon. Luckily there's a setting to disable this behaviour.

A good development is in Cinnamon desktop switcher, which can now display the placement of windows. Something that Xfce has had for a long time already.

In other news, I have booted into a few more desktops just to see what they look like. JWM and Fluxbox look sympa, Budgie not so. Budgie prominently features the unmanageable non-titlebar titlebar familiar from Gnome 3.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-11-20, 11:41:26
When (https://github.com/almostearthling/when-command) sounds like it could be interesting. It can automatically execute commands and such based on certain conditions.

http://www.webupd8.org/2015/11/schedule-tasks-based-on-various.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-11-20, 14:45:24

When (https://github.com/almostearthling/when-command) sounds like it could be interesting. It can automatically execute commands and such based on certain conditions.

http://www.webupd8.org/2015/11/schedule-tasks-based-on-various.html

Does it do something that cron doesn't do?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-11-20, 22:13:44
Does it do something that cron doesn't do?

I think it should be faster and/or easier to set up certain types of scenarios. Similar to what I said above about devilspie2, if you wrote a cron script that executed every minute or two to check whether a certain condition applied I'm sure you'd start to go in this general direction. Also I'm not sure if you could easily listen to stuff like DBus events using a cron script?

Quote from: https://github.com/almostearthling/when-command
It is not generally intended as a replacement to cron and the Gnome Task Scheduler, although to some extent these utilities might overlap. When is intended to be more flexible, although less precise, and to provide an alternative to more complicated solutions -- such as the implementation of cron jobs that check for a particular condition and execute commands when the condition is verified. In such spirit, When is not as fine-grained in terms of doing things on a strict time schedule: the When approach is that "when a certain condition is met, then something has to be done". The condition is checked periodically, and the "countermeasure" is taken subsequently -- although not immediately in most cases. In fact, and with the default configuration, the delay can reach a couple of minutes in the worst case.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-12-01, 15:44:29
APT 1.1 has been released

https://mvogt.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/apt-1-1-released/

It includes some pretty cool stuff like:
Quote
apt install local-file.deb
apt build-dep foo.dsc


No more thinking about what command line switches to use with dpkg.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-12-01, 17:43:16

APT 1.1 has been released

https://mvogt.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/apt-1-1-released/

It includes some pretty cool stuff like:
Quote
apt install local-file.deb

...

How did you install local files until now?

And how do you downgrade a package? Is there a dpkg switch for that?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-12-02, 13:44:21
How did you install local files until now?

Usually gdebi, sometimes sudo dpkg -i.

And how do you downgrade a package? Is there a dpkg switch for that?

Not sure I understand the question. Just install an older file?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-12-02, 16:58:24

How did you install local files until now?

Usually gdebi, sometimes sudo dpkg -i.

I had forgotten about gdebi. It brings back good memories now.


And how do you downgrade a package? Is there a dpkg switch for that?

Not sure I understand the question. Just install an older file?

For example when after a system update you discover that an FF addon has not caught up, then how do you reinstall, for FF only, the version that you had just prior the system update?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-12-02, 19:19:45
If it still exists in your Apt cache in /var you could install that; otherwise I'm not aware of an option to do that.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-12-02, 21:32:14
Ah, then it works the same way as with Arch's pacman. But Arch's pacman is very liberally keeping old packages in /var/cache, so it's easy to downgrade.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-12-19, 20:44:58
Dedoimedo says GNOME 3 might finally be approaching usability again.

Quote from: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/fedora-23.html
Fedora 23 Workstation with the Gnome desktop is a very reasonable release. I am surprised first and foremost by the advancement in the Gnome framework. It's usable, and there's no reason to hate it anymore. This shows how objective and cool I am, and that my past resistance was all legit techno babble. When credits are due, I'm a bloody bank.

Indeed, self praise aside, Gnome has reached a point where it can be used. 'Tis a paradox, because it was perfect before being ruined, and now it's approaching the same level of usability it had years ago. But if we put the background story aside, yes, it's okay, and it makes sense on top of Fedora. The distro itself also works well. It's stable, robust, the hardware support is really good, all my peripherals were properly initialized, all the network protocols ate their bits and bytes without hiccups, and with some extra pimpage, you have a pleasant, friendly system that can serve entertainment as well as state-of-the-art functionality.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2015-12-24, 18:13:00
Just for the hell of it - posting from this:

Code: [Select]
NetBSD 7.99.25 (CUBIETRUCK) #28: Thu Dec 24 09:53:18 EST 2015
        root@claymore:/home/build/obj_earm/sys/arch/evbarm/compile/CUBIETRUCK
total memory = 2048 MB
avail memory = 2022 MB
sysctl_createv: sysctl_create(machine_arch) returned 17
timecounter: Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec
mainbus0 (root)
cpu0 at mainbus0 core 0: 960 MHz Cortex-A7 r0p4 (Cortex V7A core)
cpu0: DC enabled IC enabled WB disabled EABT branch prediction enabled
cpu0: 32KB/32B 2-way L1 VIPT Instruction cache
cpu0: 32KB/64B 4-way write-back-locking-C L1 PIPT Data cache
cpu0: 256KB/64B 8-way write-through L2 PIPT Unified cache
vfp0 at cpu0: NEON MPE (VFP 3.0+), rounding, NaN propagation, denormals
cpu1 at mainbus0 core 1
armperiph0 at mainbus0
armgic0 at armperiph0: Generic Interrupt Controller, 160 sources (151 valid)
armgic0: 32 Priorities, 128 SPIs, 7 PPIs, 16 SGIs
...
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2015-12-25, 07:01:11
What do you use it for? :p
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: midnight raccoon on 2015-12-25, 11:08:15
Dedoimedo says GNOME 3 might finally be approaching usability again.

While it is better, I'm unable to use Gnome 3 without getting annoyed. I think the main cause of is the Dash (if I'm using the right term :p) Instead of organized menu, you get a full screen with the names and icons of every application in alphabetical order instead of categories. I do realize the way around this is the menu extension or going into classic mode, but then I wind up with DE who's look and functionality is easily replicated and IMHO improved upon in XFCE while using much less system resources (keeping in mind this poor little machine only has three gigs of ram.) I see from the screenshots he's using the Dash to Dock extension, which does greatly improve usability for a lot of users.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2015-12-25, 13:20:28
There are now plenty of alternatives for those who dislike Gnome 3. Ubuntu created Unity, which remains probably the most-used option for those who don't know any better. In my opinion, Cinnamon is the best desktop forked off of Gnome. Then there are Budgie and just now I took a look at Deepin desktop https://manjaro.github.io/Manjaro-Deepin-released/ The Deepin Game app (supposedly a collection of Flash games, the main reason why I tried this desktop) fails to load its contents - probably because its server considers me third world or something - but the desktop overall has its attractive aspects. And Manjaro team generally does a good job designing and preconfiguring stuff for easy readiness.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2015-12-25, 16:21:36

What do you use it for? :p

Programming of course. Lightweight / low power debugging aid ( for example, if you mess with graphics drivers it kinda helps to have an extra set of monitor & keyboard ). Also, got to finish & commit the support code for the VGA port. Just needs a little more cleanup and I want to add hotplug support as well.
Our A20 code was written for a Cubieboard 2 so there isn't much support for the Cubietruck's extra bells & whistles. I'm slowly changing that.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-01-14, 14:36:10
curl can now do IMAP — something I'll probably never use, though :P

http://www.debian-administration.org/article/726/Performing_IMAP_queries_via_curl
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-01-22, 19:33:50
"Is Wayland ready?" isn't the right question.

http://who-t.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/is-wayland-ready-yet.html

Incidentally, I believe my wife's Jolla phone uses Wayland.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-02-04, 10:26:45
Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa Xfce gets a glowing review by Dedoimedo.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-mint-rosa-xfce.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Macallan on 2016-02-05, 18:46:26

"Is Wayland ready?" isn't the right question.

Hmm, got to look at that again some time.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-02-08, 10:18:56
I was having trouble connecting to GitHub.

Code: [Select]
$ git pull
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.


A little debugging showed the following:
Code: [Select]
$ ssh -vT git@github.com
OpenSSH_7.1p2 Debian-2, OpenSSL 1.0.2f  28 Jan 2016
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 19: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to github.com [192.30.252.130] port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
[…]
debug1: Skipping ssh-dss key /home/frans/.ssh/id_dsa for not in PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes
[…]
debug1: No more authentication methods to try.
Permission denied (publickey).


Checking OpenSSH.com (http://www.openssh.com/legacy.html) tells me that "OpenSSH 7.0 and greater similarly disables the ssh-dss (DSA) public key algorithm. It too is weak and we recommend against its use." So, although I could obviously re-enable it easily, I guess I'll have to generate a new key. I hope GitHub's guide (https://help.github.com/articles/generating-a-new-ssh-key/) is accurate for generating something sufficiently secure, because I'm kind of ticked off that something I generated in 2013 is already considered "legacy." Clearly it must've already been quite old back then.

Incidentally, to change the passphrase one would use the -p option, e.g.:
Code: [Select]
ssh-keygen -f id_rsa -p
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-02-23, 19:26:07
Here's a blog post about how to use pdftk to combine a signature (entered using e.g. Inkscape) with a bureaucracy PDF.

http://www.enricozini.org/2016/pdftk-inkscape/

And here's an advantage of open-source: if you know what's up, you can just fix the darn problem yourself. https://blog.sesse.net/blog/tech/2016-02-23-11-23_multithreaded_opengl_driver_quality.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-03-10, 09:49:59
I'm not sure; would one be able to do this in Windows?

http://www.enricozini.org/blog/2016/debian/simple-one-liner-to-save-battery-life-and-reduce-system-latency/
Quote
Lynoure suggested this simple one-liner which helps immensely, to a point that I have turned it into a habit:

Code: [Select]
pkill -STOP chromium

When I want to use the browser again:

Code: [Select]
pkill -CONT chromium

I wish web browsers would stop running anything when unfocused, unless asked otherwise on a site by site basis.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-03-11, 21:02:33
Iceweasel is dead. So it goes.

https://glandium.org/blog/?p=3622
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-03-13, 06:06:52

Iceweasel is dead. So it goes.

https://glandium.org/blog/?p=3622

Palemoon also seems to be ailing. For half a year I haven't had Firefox installed. Am I really forced to return to it?

In other news, Linux Mint servers got cracked once again less than a month ago. All forum users should change their passwords and the ISO's downloaded during the cracked period may be compromised.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-03-13, 19:33:48
Palemoon also seems to be ailing. For half a year I haven't had Firefox installed. Am I really forced to return to it?

Iceweasel is basically just Firefox with a few different icons and a different name. Mozilla finally gave permission: http://news.softpedia.com/news/debian-finally-switches-iceweasel-name-back-to-firefox-500966.shtml
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-03-21, 11:01:43
After the earlier news that GNOME Shell has supposedly become usable, now Unity gains a traditional bottom taskbar option.

http://www.webupd8.org/2016/03/ubuntu-1604-xenial-xerus-gets-option-to.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-03-29, 12:58:11
OpenShot sounds like an interesting video editor

http://www.webupd8.org/2016/03/openshot-207-beta-4-released-adds.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-04-01, 08:54:12
Apparently Microsoft created reverse WINE
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2016/03/ubuntu-on-windows.html
Quote
"So maybe something like a Linux emulator?"  Now you're getting warmer!  A team of sharp developers at Microsoft has been hard at work adapting some Microsoft research technology to basically perform real time translation of Linux syscalls into Windows OS syscalls.  Linux geeks can think of it sort of the inverse of "wine" -- Ubuntu binaries running natively in Windows.  Microsoft calls it their "Windows Subsystem for Linux".  (No, it's not open source at this time.)

Oh, and it's totally shit hot!  The sysbench utility is showing nearly equivalent cpu, memory, and io performance.


(And no, this isn't an April First joke from the looks of it.)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-04-08, 08:47:28
Debian stable, always cause for much debate

Quote from: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41085.html
So, coming back to the title for this entry. The most obvious failure of the commons is where a basically malicious actor consumes while giving nothing back, but if an actor with good intentions ends up consuming more than they contribute that may still be a problem. An upstream author releases a piece of software under a free license. Debian distributes this to users. Debian's policies result in the upstream author having to do more work. What does the upstream author get out of this exchange? In an ideal world, plenty. The author's software is made available to more people. A larger set of developers is willing to work on making improvements to the software. In a less ideal world, rather less. The author has to deal with bug mail about already fixed bugs. The author's reputation may be harmed by user exposure to said fixed bugs. The author may get less in the way of useful bug fixes or features because people are running old versions rather than fixing new ones. If the balance tips towards the latter, the author's decision to release their software under a free license has made their life more difficult.

Most discussions about Debian's policies entirely ignore the latter scenario, focusing more on the fact that the author chose to release their software under a free license to begin with. If the author is unwilling to handle the consequences of that, goes the argument, why did they do it in the first place? The unfortunate logical conclusion to that argument is that the author realises that they made a huge mistake and never does so again, and woo uh oops.


From the comments:

Quote
Locking down versions brings stability to the user experience: on a system-wide scale, known and static issues are better than unknown and ever-changing issues, obviously.

Which is why, when I don't have the time or desire to tinker with my computer, I pretty much prefer Debian/stable or Ubuntu LTS over anything else (including more recent versions of Windows).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-04-08, 09:56:15

Which is why, when I don't have the time or desire to tinker with my computer, I pretty much prefer Debian/stable or Ubuntu LTS over anything else (including more recent versions of Windows).

If it works like this, why not. But I have found that Manjaro smoothens out all the bleeding edges of Arch rather operatively. When I detect an issue with an update and report it according to my shallowish level of comprehension, it always gets fixed in days. It's not up to policy, really, but up to the enthusiasm of the tinkerers.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-04-08, 10:36:19
Eh, my main daily driver is actually Debian/unstable. It's quite stable in every sense of the word except the one meant by Debian/stable.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-04-14, 18:49:10
Xfce 4.14 won't add new features, only port to GTK+ 3. http://blog.alteroot.org/articles/2016-04-12/road-to-xfce-4.14.html

I hope the fact that GTK+ 3 keeps breaking many things between version updates won't come back to bite. Or has it finally matured a bit?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-05-05, 19:20:11
I just found this awesome website: http://explainshell.com/

It automatically extracted the info from basically all of Ubuntu's manpages so that if you put in a command you see in a shellscript or online or whatnot, it explains what it does. Of course, being sourced from Ubuntu means it'll be useful on anything Debian-based, but it won't help you with e.g. emerge, pacman, yum, and zypper.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-05-12, 19:50:25
Probably doesn't really go here, but what the heck. Next to your tradition http://www.regexpal.com/ and https://regex101.com/, there's also https://www.debuggex.com/.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-05-30, 06:16:34
https://spwhitton.name//blog/entry/firejailskype/

This could be interesting. It's about sandboxing potentially insecure apps. Although I guess I'd go for a VM.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-06-04, 16:33:05
I was eventually never able to figure out Manjaro-iso (a tool to easily create ISO's out of an installation of Manjaro). Now it has morphed into Manjaro-tools and the makers of little community spins of Manjaro all praise it. Thus easily installable ISO's based on Manjaro keep coming in all flavours and configurations.

Community Editions ready for takeoff (https://manjaro.github.io/Community-Editions-16.06-rc/)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-06-04, 16:39:16
That could potentially be interesting, although I've always thought that for the most part it probably makes the most sense to just stick to a list of installed packages: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-get-list-installed-software-reinstallation-restore.html (this link is 10 years old, but I assume it should still be valid) Or just reinstall a few programs selectively if you miss them. I'm just not sure if making your own special ISO is worth the effort.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-06-04, 17:14:13
I'm just not sure if making your own special ISO is worth the effort.
In Manjaro, I discovered that pacman can easily install packages in bulk - point it to a list of package names with the option --needed and it grabs only the packages that are missing from the system. That's how I lost interest in Manjaro ISO (and Manjaro-tools) and never properly learned it. I thought for a while to become the maintainer of the Openbox spin (currently unmaintained, very unfortunate), which would have required me to learn to put together ISO's, but I didn't.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-06-14, 19:12:51
I feel that for mainstream success, Snap packages are good.

http://www.webupd8.org/2016/06/snaps-become-universal-linux-packages.html

Imagine Debian stable with a few select updated packages (e.g. LibreOffice) and you'll see why. Backports and PPAs aren't quite it.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-06-15, 14:25:24
A negative reaction http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu-snaps-fedora&num=1
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-06-15, 15:12:38
I feel that for mainstream success, Snap packages are good.
Yes, as long as you are on a Debian or derivative. For any other distro, it still pays off to compile locally, if the package is not provided in the repos.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-06-15, 19:38:34
Incidentally, I bought Oxenfree in the GOG summer sale. I've had my eye on the game for a month or so now. Unbeknown to me, they came out with a Linux version a couple of weeks ago and I was pleasantly surprised to find it staring at me in my GOG library. Even though I usually play all games pretty much exclusively in Windows, on kind of a whim I decided to go with the Linux version. It runs beautifully, Xbox One controller support and all.

My biggest gripe so far is that at the very beginning of the game, one of the characters says "who's [sic] car is this". It's looking to be a good one.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-07-06, 19:25:31
Talking about some finished software projects:
Quote from: http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/twenty_years_of_free_software_--_part_9_small_projects/
Studies of free software projects have found that the average free software project was written entirely by one developer, is not very large, and is not being updated. That's often taken to mean it's a failed or dead project. But all the projects above look that way, and are not failures, or dead.
I thought this was fairly obvious. Besides some occasional maintenance, free software can afford to just be done. Like a wrench or something. It's only commercial software that has to keep inventing new GUIs or whatnot to justify you buying the next version.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-07-13, 19:26:16
The version of Skype I use apparently hasn't been updated since 2014. Seeing how the Windows version has evolved, I'm quite grateful. In any case, apparently there's a new version coming out again…

http://www.webupd8.org/2016/07/new-skype-for-linux-alpha-released.html

Quote from: http://blogs.skype.com/2016/07/13/skype-for-linux-alpha-and-calling-on-chrome-and-chromebooks/
For example, you’ll be using the latest, fast and responsive Skype UI, you can share files, photos and videos and send a whole new range of new emoticons.

I have no idea what they're babbling about with "responsive UI". The current version scales along just fine with DPI thanks to it being Qt-based. I guess they hope that by just tossing terms around I won't notice the old version already does all the things they're boasting. Well, except for those emoticons. Big whoop.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-07-14, 13:01:01
I figured I'd point out that the Day of the Tentacle Remastered Linux version came out a couple of days ago. A quick check shows it working beautifully, gamepad at all, just like that other gaming highlight of the year, Oxenfree. An interesting feature of Day of the Tentacle is that you can resize the window (or of course run it fullscreen) and it just scales along at whatever size you decide to play it.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-07-25, 18:33:49
I want to play mouse+keyboard only games (like Broken Sword 5) with my gamepad and QJoyPad (http://qjoypad.sourceforge.net/) seems to do the trick. I should upload my Xbox One controller config once I'm done, because it takes annoyingly long to set up…

Edit: there is also this port to Qt 5 https://github.com/panzi/qjoypad It says it has some other additional features, but it's not immediately clear to me what they are.

Edit 2: a similar program is https://github.com/AntiMicro/antimicro I haven't yet checked it out, but I did notice a missing feature in QJoyPad: you can't seem to map an axis to scrolling. (Preferably I'd want my right trigger to scroll like on the mouse wheel or two-finger scroll on a touchpad.) In any event antimicro will be very useful to check out on Windows, because it supports both Linux and Windows.

Edit 3: seems like antimicro might actually be nicer.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-07-28, 10:24:36
I followed this guide to get me some simple arrows in Gimp: https://www.maketecheasier.com/draw-arrows-in-gimp/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: krake on 2016-07-28, 15:32:48
Some simple arrows? Hmm, Google gives me about 228,000,000 results. :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-07-29, 13:43:57
I wouldn't call that very simple. Using e.g. Pinta instead might be, though.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: krake on 2016-07-30, 06:43:36
I meant images of arrows you could modify at your like. :)

Didn't know about Pinta.
Gimp isn't designed for drawing. It's primarily a great editor.
Inkspace would be my choice for drawing. You can export images (scalable vectors) to PNG and edit them with Gimp if you need to.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-07-30, 08:10:53
I love Inkscape, but it's terrible with bitmaps. That being said, I would consider creating an arrow in Inkscape and exporting it to PNG much easier than trying to find or modify some random arrow from the internet.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-07-30, 15:51:25
I should upload my Xbox One controller config once I'm done, because it takes annoyingly long to set up...

[…]

Edit 3: seems like antimicro might actually be nicer.
Here's the antimicro setup I'm trying out with Broken Sword 5. Note that there are a bunch of premade profiles available here (https://github.com/AntiMicro/antimicro-profiles).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-08-10, 08:49:36
You can set all kinds of PulseAudio settings from the command line. For instance, to change the default sink (output):

Code: [Select]
pacmd set-default-sink 1
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-08-12, 13:45:24
Even though I do almost nothing with Steam (DRM-free GOG is much better, for example), I decided to check out its Linux version. To my surprise the majority of my "triple A" games are actually available on Linux.


More negatively you could say only 10 games out of 42 total, but most of those are actually ancient games that barely work on current Windows either, if at all. Meaning they work best in a virtual machine or on Wine anyway.

Note that Steam doesn't seem to take my DPI settings into account, or if it does it's just freaking tiny regardless.

I'm installing Tomb Raider right now out of curiosity, but I expect performance to be abysmal and the going might be tough.[1] And I'm not going to install the binary blob drivers. No way. :P

Edit: So performance actually isn't bad at all. It seems to look a bit worse than I remember, but that's probably because of Rise.
Even Steam itself has to be started with LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 DISPLAY=:0 steam or it refuses.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-10-09, 10:02:37
Slight update on Steam. It quit working after an update and I had to add another library to the preload:
Code: [Select]
LD_PRELOAD='/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgpg-error.so.0' steam
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-11-04, 08:40:04
Besides some occasional maintenance, free software can afford to just be done.
Looks like Elinks is so done that its website is down. Not sure if permanently.

Seriously, I am so happy with the browser that I have hardly any requests. It doesn't even require any maintenance. My only hope is that the web itself won't evolve in some unexpected direction.

Edit: Elinks website back online again. It didn't even take a week :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-12-06, 12:22:17
Here's the antimicro setup I'm trying out with Broken Sword 5. Note that there are a bunch of premade profiles available here (https://github.com/AntiMicro/antimicro-profiles).
Up-to-date antimicro DEB packages can be obtained from https://launchpad.net/~mdeguzis/+archive/ubuntu/libregeek/+packages

(Or you could use the source as an easier base for backporting and installing, but I don't bother.)

Slight update on Steam. It quit working after an update and I had to add another library to the preload:
For some games, like Broken Age (NB GOG version, not Steam), I had to add yet another directive:
Code: [Select]
LD_PRELOAD='/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 /lib/i386-linux-gnu/libgpg-error.so.0' LIBGL_DRI3_DISABLE=1 ./start.sh 
The moral of the story, if you hand someone Linux as an alternative OS perhaps you shouldn't give them Debian/testing but something like Ubuntu 16.04 instead lest they walk away in frustration.

Me, I'm actually quite pleased that the vast majority of games I think are worth playing now run on most flavors of Linux with no or minimal effort. The problem is probably related to Broken Age being ever so slightly older. Newer games like Oxenfree and Day of the Tentacle Remastered launch just like that.

I don't think it would be fair to paint this as a Linux problem either. I've got plenty of stuff that doesn't work on Windows 10. That being said, the problem is quite likely worse on Linux. There are even games like Type:Rider (a mediocre game; I'm not recommending it) that work properly on Linux while on Windows they have serious issues. This is Microsoft's own fault, because instead of a standard gamepad API it seems they keep reinventing it for every controller they release — in my case the Xbox One controller. Seems like overkill for the only new feature: rumbling triggers.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-12-07, 13:56:47
The moral of the story, if you hand someone Linux as an alternative OS perhaps you shouldn't give them Debian/testing but something like Ubuntu 16.04 instead lest they walk away in frustration.
Certainly, insofar as gaming or Mac-like out-of-the-box ease-of-use is involved. And googleable help tips and tricks for later.

I personally don't do gaming, so less frustration to begin with, but Manjaro allegedly takes Steam support seriously. Might be worth a try some day.

Lately in my own Linux propagation work I have begun installing Manjaro for people instead of Ubuntu-based distros. I'm now confident of Manjaro's stability and simplicity and of my own competence with it. And it currently has at least three releases that are so smooth out of the box that they require hardly any tinkering to perfect them: Xfce, Cinnamon, and JWM. Also i3wm is very good, but at first it comes with gaps and some other stuff that are not easy to remove or modify for noobs.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-12-08, 11:53:42
I don't propagate Linux as such except through my geeky online writing, but I do oblige the occasional curious look at my Xubuntu.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2016-12-10, 23:03:33
I'm very disapointed that my Ubuntu Mate upgrade, from 15 to 16 version, uses around 40% to 50% ram memory, just for the operative system, instead the usual less than 30%, at the previous version, for my one giga ram memory old laptop.

If it keeps like this, soon, accessing DnD will be the only thing I can do with my computer...
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-12-11, 08:10:42
Try other distros with Mate, for example

Mint Mate (http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3052) (next version will arrive in a month or so)
Manjaro Mate (https://sourceforge.net/projects/manjarolinux-community/files/release/16.10.2/mate/)

Both have very simple installer walkthroughs.

And then there are lighter desktops than Mate. In my notebook (Atom processor and 1GB RAM) I have taken a look at JWM and I think it could run there nicely https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X9L9cTQJ48 (turn the sound off before you click).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2016-12-11, 11:54:55
And then there are lighter desktops than Mate
That's probably the solution... I'll look around, thks.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Barulheira on 2016-12-12, 10:22:05
If you like basic Windows desktop style, you could give LXDE a try.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-12-12, 19:06:15
What we need is a RAM contest for small window managers.

Quote from:  unixporn, https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/4tfdzu/ram_usage_of_small_window_managers_a_comparison/
To give every WM the same conditions I measured the wm's memory with only the wm running plus urxvt - in which I executed the smem command. Additional bars, panels, etc. were not running - only the "core" wm binary. So the results are different than when taking the measurement in the middle of the work, when you have typically opened several different programs. But it will give you an idea.

dwm 2.3M
ratpoison 2.5M
cwm 2.6M
notion 2.9M
fluxbox 4.4M
i3 5.5M
icewm 6.2M
openbox 8.3M
awesome 26.9M
Fluxbox, IceWM and Openbox are probably the least geeky among these. The sad thing is I don't know of an up-to-date distro that would offer these.

Manjaro used to do Openbox, but so many moons ago that if you install it now, it will be a struggle to be able to update.

The best Openbox used to be on Crunchbang, which is abandoned. It has Debian underneath, so if you know Debian well, maybe you can figure it out.

Then there's Arch documentation where you can follow instruction to configure any desktop after you have managed to install Linux. For example https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/fluxbox These instructions tend to be Arch-specific though and Arch is hard to install. But they apply to Manjaro too.

I have tried IceWM and DWM for fun. I don't remember where I saw IceWM. I think I downloaded DWM on Ubuntu that I used to have. IceWM was amazingly workable out of the box, but DWM requires much geeky configuring.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Barulheira on 2016-12-12, 19:11:26
@Belfrager: LXDE is based on Openbox. It worked well out-of-the-box on a netbook with 1GB RAM with Debian.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-12-12, 19:25:25
Ah, I remember I booted into Fluxbox once too. It was nice and light and complete out of the box. Very similar to Openbox, but I didn't like the taskbar.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2016-12-12, 19:37:27
What we need is a RAM contest for small window managers.
To be fair, if you have to load all of GTK+ or Qt/KDE for some program you use then it doesn't really matter if your window manager already preloads it. The author of the post points that out as well.
Quote
The "proportional set size" (PSS) smem reports is the memory the program plus the '"fair share" of each shared area to give a realistic measure.' That means, of course, the program's PSS will shrink the more programs with the same shared libraries will run. So, the RAM usage depends on how much and which other programs you run. In extrem[e] cases it is possible, that you need lesser RAM with a full blown desktop environment with applications which are all linked to the same libraries than with a small wm, but running programs with different shared libraries - e.g. a mix of GTK2, GTK3 and QT4/QT5 programs (emphasis mine).
I don't think your choice of window manager or desktop environment can solve the fundamental problem: modern-day websites are too heavy for old netbooks even though much more complex applications like LibreOffice or GIMP run perfectly fine.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-12-12, 20:11:06
What we need is a RAM contest for small window managers.
To be fair, if you have to load all of GTK+ or Qt/KDE for some program you use then it doesn't really matter if your window manager already preloads it. The author of the post points that out as well.
It may not matter for running the program when you run it, but to me it matters to know that it's exactly that program that eats up the resources. And you will know the resource-hungriness of programs better when your window manager is lighter.

Edit: By the way, Xfce is great in that it allows flexibly changing the window manager to anything. I have heard of people who changed it to i3wm. I myself used Xfce with Openbox for some time. Wait a minute, there was news about Mate too http://segfault.linuxmint.com/2015/09/easier-wm-selection-in-mate-and-xfce/

@Belfrager Maybe you don't need a new installation. You can download a lighter window manager and switch to it inside Mate
https://www.maketecheasier.com/replace-mate-window-manager-with-openbox/ /edit

I don't think your choice of window manager or desktop environment can solve the fundamental problem: modern-day websites are too heavy for old netbooks even though much more complex applications like LibreOffice or GIMP run perfectly fine.
Which is why I have gone through some trouble to try minimal browsers. Elinks and w3m are still the best.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2016-12-17, 16:29:55
You can download a lighter window manager and switch to it inside Mate
https://www.maketecheasier.com/replace-mate-window-manager-with-openbox/ (https://www.maketecheasier.com/replace-mate-window-manager-with-openbox/) /edit
Made it but the thing went wrong, had to revert to Mate.

Since the upgrade for 16 that a Nvidia splash screen appears at start up. Maybe that's the culprit for a bigger ram usage, using the Nvidia driver instead the linux one. Never saw before that screen with the old 15 Ubuntu version.
I could change that at the "other drivers" settings but I'm a bit afraid of getting a black screen forever and no way to get out of there... a bit like death.  :lol:
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2016-12-17, 21:23:09
Well, I survided from "death". No changes regarding ram usage.

Next step will be a lighter linux distro.

I start to be tired of computers. Really.
Computers are nothing but another tax for paying for all your entire life.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-12-18, 19:05:15
Well, I survided from "death". No changes regarding ram usage.

Next step will be a lighter linux distro.

I start to be tired of computers. Really.
Computers are nothing but another tax for paying for all your entire life.
There are two solutions (or alleviations rather).

1. Having found a distro that suits the computer very well, don't update.
2. Find a workable rolling-release distro. A rolling-release distro is such that once you install it and it works, you will get updates indefinitely, no need to re-install any new release/version.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2016-12-18, 22:45:39
1. Having found a distro that suits the computer very well, don't update.
Very true. But I didn't resist, nobody does.
2. Find a workable rolling-release distro. A rolling-release distro is such that once you install it and it works, you will get updates indefinitely, no need to re-install any new release/version.
Interesting, very interesting. Never heard before about those "rolling-release" distros. Not sure if it doesn't gets heavier.

My next (and last) attempt will be http://tinycorelinux.net/intro.html

Thks for your help.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-12-19, 05:24:19
Interesting, very interesting. Never heard before about those "rolling-release" distros. Not sure if it doesn't gets heavier.
My favourite distro - Manjaro - is rolling release. On my netbook I have had Manjaro i3wm (https://sourceforge.net/projects/manjarolinux-community/files/release/16.10.3/i3/) constantly updated for about one and half years, it hasn't gotten heavier.

Unfortunately I don't know other rolling distros. Some say Debian is "half-rolling". Not quite sure what this means.

My next (and last) attempt will be http://tinycorelinux.net/intro.html

Thks for your help.
Another reasonable (light on resources) distro that I have tried (but I opted for Manjaro) is wattOS Microwatt edition http://planetwatt.com/new/index.php/downloads/
This one varies. Release 8 was Openbox based on Debian. Right now release 10 has i3wm and is based on Ubuntu.

Edit: Anyway, what Frenzie said about browsers is very significant. My netbook is likely not surviving just because of the distro that I have installed on it, but because I never use Firefox, Chrome or Chromium there. I use Palemoon, Otter browser, Opera 11 and Elinks. I use Seamonkey too, but it occasionally bogs down the system.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2016-12-25, 10:39:12
I was not able to write tinycore into a bootable usb (disk creator doesn't recognize the iso file) but I did run it from a virtual machine.

Well, it is really very basic and certainly very light on ressources but I imagine that it's also very depending on dominating the command lines on the terminal, something I'm not an expert and don't want to spend most of my time doing it.

My netbook is likely not surviving just because of the distro that I have installed on it, but because I never use Firefox, Chrome or Chromium there. I use Palemoon, Otter browser, Opera 11 and Elinks. I use Seamonkey too, but it occasionally bogs down the system.
I use Firefox for livestream tv (can't run the flash player in any other browser) and it also goes perfectly with TOR (that uses Firefox). More than the browsers the problem seems to be the extremely heavy websites. I would be not surprised bad encoding to be also responsible.

So, I'll keep the Mate distro and will try some tweaking with services that I believe are not needed to load at start up. The first difficulty will be to understand what some of those services are for, I wonder why linux names have to be always so cryptographic....

One thing I've been noticing with this kind of Linux distros, simple problems are... well, simple to solve :) but more complex problems are simply out of reach for the common mortal.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2016-12-25, 13:06:56
I use Firefox for livestream tv (can't run the flash player in any other browser) and it also goes perfectly with TOR (that uses Firefox).
Well, if you need livestream tv, you need something better than a netbook. Maybe a mid-to-high range mobile phone :D

Seriously, those weak netbooks are not good for much these days. They are basically harddrives with a keyboard and a screen, no real processor to handle streams and scripts on the web. It's possible to keep downloaded and typed stuff there, but sometimes it's hard even to view heavier pdf files.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: krake on 2016-12-25, 16:34:51
it also goes perfectly with TOR (that uses Firefox).
TOR doesn't use Firefox. Firefox uses TOR. ;)
Hence you can configure any browser whose network settings aren't tied to the network settings of the OS (like IE or Chrome), to use TOR.

I would be not surprised bad encoding to be also responsible.
Doesn't even has to be bad encoding. Heavy load of JavaScript and CSS are the most common causer.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2016-12-25, 20:56:49
TOR doesn't use Firefox. Firefox uses TOR.  ;)
TOR bundle uses Firefox. It could use any other browser but it doesn't. That being clear, TOR is a network, any browser can use it, I suppose.

About code, I have many doubts about its quality. For some reason it's cheaper to let the users testing than testing the programmers that did it...
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2016-12-26, 20:09:30
Seriously, those weak netbooks are not good for much these days.
I have no netbooks, I have laptops.

One works fine with Ubuntu, the other is more complicated, cd/dvd drive doesn't work anymore and Bios doesn't have usb boot option.
I didn't gave up yet. It seems that a little free program can be activated at start up and recognizes and even labels usb entries for booting options. Need to try it.

The problem is that I'm a low resources usage maniac, very specially when I have low grade machines.
I'm very satisfied with Ubuntu Mate but I want more (in this case, less). :)

Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-01-18, 20:11:36
Plotinus looks kinda cool.

https://github.com/p-e-w/plotinus

(https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/2702526/20246717/454a1a9a-a9e3-11e6-8b19-4db092348793.gif)

Via: http://www.webupd8.org/2017/01/add-searchable-command-palette-to-any.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-01-21, 08:14:08
Today I noticed that a simple countdown in GNOME Clocks appears surprisingly CPU-hungry.
Title: Real men run as root
Post by: Barulheira on 2017-02-13, 17:19:07
Real men run as root. (https://www.garyshood.com/root/)
(Fortunately, Donald Trump doesn't run as root.
Yet.)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-03-17, 14:55:07
Dedoimedo tends to align well my thoughts rather than display some kind of odd enthusiasm about the latest unnecessary software rewrite.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/software-development-cancer.html
Quote
n a nutshell, the system should start quickly and get into a working session. We had this in 2010 or so, with boot times down to mere 10 seconds using init. No flaws, no bugs. Even in the commercial sphere, working with init, I do not recall any major problems.

Then, suddenly, we have this new binary diarrhea with a hundred million modules, and for the past five years, this unstable, half-baked, undebuggable nonsense is the backbone of most Linux distros. The invasive and pervasive nature of the systemd framework has also affected the stability of the user space, the very thing it should never have touched, and pretty much all problems with the quality of the Linux desktop nicely coincide with the introduction of systemd. The development continues, of course, and for no good reason than trying to reach the level of stability, maturity and functionality that we had half a decade ago. Someone landed themselves a lot of monthly pay checks by writing complex code to solve a problem that did not exist.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-03-17, 15:43:44
Quote from: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/software-development-cancer.html
While testing Fedora 25, I had my first taste of Wayland, and it was when I visited the official page and read the manifesto that it dawned on me. Here we had a new framework, created to make it easier for those developing it to develop it.
The same dawned to me big time when Opera stopped the development of its own engine. Developing something unique from scratch and then maintaining it is hard. To do it, you have to be creative, determined and dedicated. It's much easier to step under the umbrella of some framework where it's been made very easy for you to "create" in a few mouseclicks.

A workable advanced development kit for developers is lovely, in a way. To create a workable development kit is hard. But if the development kit is truly lovely and workable, all sorts of weirdos make use of it for all sorts of nonsense. See the formulaic websites of any corporation that is centred on owning, not producing anything.

The latest edition of intranet in the company where I work is also a good example. It's meant to be my daily work tool, but the developer has no idea what my work consists of nor does he care. Fortunately, I can suggest improvements, but unfortunately the developer has made his job easy with a weird development framework that pre-determines too much. If anyone makes a suggestion of a button or a hole or a menu item in the intranet, the developer can implement it with a few clicks, whereas normal browser things such as mid-click, right-click, informative titlebar, ability to view and edit webpage code and style, etc. are impossible and all requests related to those are overruled. And even though it's easy to add buttons and holes, end users are not granted permission to do it themselves. With an older crappier looking version of intranet, the end users were able to test additions and improvements in the webpage code in their own browser.

This old version was changed because (1) it looked crappy (crappy for most users, while my styled-up and improved version looked splendid and the improvements could be shared liberally) (2) to change anything, the developer had to understand the underlying code, i.e. to actually be a competent developer. This situation of course was deemed untenable and had to end.

Overall, developers who look for ways of not having to develop, which has always been a trend in the corporate world, seems to be gaining upper hand everywhere. It's very sad when this affects Linux.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-03-17, 17:19:18
I suppose Linux being affected by this kind of mindset speaks for its increasing commercial success. It has advantages. Prior to 2010-ish it was just too hard to get Linux to work. Even today I use Xubuntu on my laptop rather than Debian because Xubuntu Just Works™ while Debian doesn't have a working touchpad. Sure, I could figure out which driver to install or compile, and maybe in the vacation I might even consider that some kind of fun activity that teaches me more about my system, but the fact of the matter is when you just need things to work it's actually faster to install (X)Ubuntu instead. Admittedly this is more likely to be related to proprietary drivers than to systemd or some such nonsense, but what has given me a lot of pain is that UEFI nonsense.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-03-17, 17:28:27
Commercial success is evil. Manjaro is currently #3 in Distrowatch after Mint and Debian, heading before Ubuntu. Looks like I have to find some other more obscure distro.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Barulheira on 2017-03-17, 17:33:14
Try a BSD one.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-03-17, 17:47:59
Speaking of BSD, last week I helped figure out how to bundle LibreSSL with Otter (https://github.com/OtterBrowser/otter-browser/issues/1233#issuecomment-285896200).
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-03-19, 13:11:13
Disaster struck. Thunar randomly freezes and I don't know why. I'm trying Nemo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_%28file_manager%29) and it's pretty decent, although it lacks Thunar's multi-file rename dialog.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-03-19, 19:45:32
For me PCManFM always seemed a better approximation of Thunar. Nemo makes sense in Gnome only. Well, perhaps depends what your Xfce looks like.

And disaster struck me too. Somehow I managed to slightly crack the glass of my 8" e-reader. It was judged outside warranty and the repairs would cost 160 e. Not worth it. A terrible loss. In a short while I had become dependent of it. Not sure what to do with it now.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-03-20, 11:06:35
Well, perhaps depends what your Xfce looks like.
I don't really care about the looks much provided they don't get in the way too much (like how in Evince the looks somehow get in the way of accessing the menus though the keyboard). I'm not too sure about Nemo's single-click mode for example because it deviates from the way it works in Explorer/Directory Opus/Thunar/Nautilus/Dolphin but that's not a looks thing. I actually really like Nemo's option to open a subfolder within the main folder view as an alternative to Miller columns as in the interesting-looking Marlin (http://alternativeto.net/software/marlin/). Edit: apparently this is now Pantheon File Manager.

Interestingly, both Thunar and PCManFM sensibly allow selection of multiple files in details view, as does Dolphin if memory doesn't betray me. Nemo, Nautilus, and SpaceFM do not and always initiate a drag.

It is interesting to take a look at what's available, but realistically what's probably the best file manager (Dolphin) is too KDE-centric and doesn't integrate all that well with Xfce. Anyway, Nemo and PCManFM work well enough in the sense that they don't freeze. Both lack Thunar's multi-file rename functionality.

Hopefully this Thunar thing will sort itself out soon all by itself.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-03-20, 11:35:36
It is interesting to take a look at what's available, but realistically what's probably the best file manager (Dolphin) is too KDE-centric and doesn't integrate all that well with Xfce.
When I said "looks like" I meant how things integrate. Some people put KWin into their Xfce and that would naturally make Dolphin the file manager in their Xfce.

Both lack Thunar's multi-file rename functionality.
Isn't there a command line thingy to mass/bulk/batch-rename files? I launch the terminal in a specific folder inside the graphical file manager fairly often, mostly for multiple-deletion or for downloading with wget, aria2, etc.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-03-20, 13:02:40
Isn't there a command line thingy to mass/bulk/batch-rename files? I launch the terminal in a specific folder inside the graphical file manager fairly often, mostly for multiple-deletion or for downloading with wget, aria2, etc.
Well sure, but it's just not as user-friendly imo. You can run rename -n to see what would be the result without actually doing it, but that still potentially takes a whole load of back and forth.

Btw, the repair price sounds like it's probably not too far off from the new price?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-03-20, 13:14:05
Btw, the repair price sounds like it's probably not too far off from the new price?
I already bought a new one for the price - Pocketbook Touch HD. Its touchscreen is the best among the ones I have owned now, the screen resolution is fantastic, but the physical buttons annoingly glitchy, if not the worst. And when you stick the microSD in, it dangles out a bit. Why can't they make a perfect one for once? Overall I liked the first one (Pocketbook Sense) best, if it only had had sufficient RAM.

Still must decide what to do with the 8" one. The screen is cracked a bit in one corner. Apart from that corner, it's usable, but of course every corner is important. Maybe I will wait patiently until I have an opportunity to smuggle it to Russia to repair dirt-cheaply or give it away to someone who is willing to repair it.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-04-01, 12:56:53
Manjaro moves over to ARM architecture and phases out x86 architecture (https://manjaro.org/2017/04/01/phasing-out-x86-architecture-support-in-general/) in short order.

This is something drastic, even though I don't quite get how drastic. I always assumed that i686 meant 32-bit and x86_64 meant 64-bit - a difference of bits, hardly anything else. Looks like architecture means something more than that. Now I have to figure out what ARM is and which, if any, of my machines have it.

One new machine has AMD Phenom. ARM? Guess not, just AMD. And Linux is misbehaving on it. Should I try a BSD?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-04-01, 13:55:27
Re ARM and phase out of x86, I suspect I got april-fooled. Verdammte Churrmanns.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-04-03, 08:51:04
I thought the Debian equivalent was quite amusing.

Quote from: https://bits.debian.org/2017/04/unknown-parallel-universe-uses-debian.html
The space agencies running the International Space Station (ISS) reported that a laptop accidentally threw to space as waste in 2013 from the International State Station may have connected with a parallel Universe. This laptop was running Debian 6 and the ISS engineers managed to track its travel through the outer space. In early January, the laptop signal was lost but recovered back two weeks later in the same place. ISS engineers suspect that the laptop may had met and crossed a wormhole arriving a parallel Universe from where "somebody" sent it back later.

Eventually the laptop was recovered and in an first analysis the ISS engineers found that the laptop have a dual boot: a partition running the Debian installation made by them and a second partition running what seems to be a Debian fork or derivative totally unknown until now.

[…]

Add ten new language locales that do not correspond to any language spoken in Earth, with full translation for four of them.

[…]
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-04-06, 19:14:45
My Thunar problems have lessened but I still get the occasional freeze (which is a lot better than the virtually guaranteed freeze). In any case, that's why my radar's active for filemanager news: http://www.webupd8.org/2017/04/polo-is-interesting-new-gtk3-file.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-04-24, 16:35:27
I think my Thunar problems might be related to my Brother DCP-9020CDW network printer/scanner. Activating it and printing something seems like a sure-fire way to trigger Thunar freezes, while having the printer turned off seems to coincide with a normal, expected lack of freezes.

Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-04-24, 17:21:22
Printers suck. On any operating system. Their interface and general reliability has stood still for decades. I'd recommend taking the stuff to a printing service, but I have had trouble with those too, when I needed special fonts.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-04-24, 21:11:26
My experiences with laser printers have generally been alright. It's inkjets with ink that dries out, clogs printheads and whatnot that are annoying. On the plus side, they print nice pictures when they work.

I wonder what about the printer or its driver makes Thunar freeze and Thunar only. Very odd.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2017-04-24, 23:48:34
Printers suck. On any operating system
Printer sucks on Linux. Not because Linux but because printers manufacturers,
Not even the scanner function I can get in Linux with Brother manufacturer.

So I have to maintain dual boot.

Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-04-25, 07:12:38
That's too bad. :( Of course I checked in advance, but their Linux support is pretty decent: http://support.brother.com/g/s/id/linux/en/index.html?c=us_ot&lang=en&comple=on&redirect=on

I seem to have these installed:
Code: [Select]
$ dpkg -l | grep Brother
ii  brscan-skey                                                 0.2.4-1                                amd64        Brother Linux scanner S-KEY tool
ii  brscan4                                                     0.4.4-1                                amd64        Brother Scanner Driver
ii  dcp9020cdwcupswrapper:i386                                  1.1.4-0                                i386         Brother CUPS Laser Printer Definitions
ii  dcp9020cdwlpr:i386                                          1.1.2-1                                i386         Brother lpr Laser Printer Definitions
ii  printer-driver-ptouch                                       1.4.2-2+b1                             amd64        printer driver Brother P-touch label printers
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-04-25, 07:14:32
I wonder what about the printer or its driver makes Thunar freeze and Thunar only. Very odd.
Could it be something in a Thunar update instead? I mean, file managers attempt to show more than system file structure. Thunar can display connected flash drives and the like. Perhaps something's out of order in that direction?

I myself one day experienced crashes with PCManFM when downloading a YT video that came in tons of tiny fragments. Displaying the download folder, PCManFM crashed and then refused to reopen. After the file had been downloaded and merged, it was okay again. Apparently there is a limit to the number of file units that PCManFM is able to display/contain without crashing.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-04-25, 07:20:58
Oh yes, I've actually also suspected that but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it's not so much the number of files (at least not as long as it doesn't exceed a few hundred) but that the files are only there for a split second and already gone again by the time it tries to get some more information about it.

Perhaps something's out of order in that direction?
Well sure, I guess it must be a Thunar problem somehow. It's annoying because by and large I like Thunar. :(
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-06-06, 18:03:34
I picked up Wolfenstein 3D + Spear of Destiny in the GOG summer sale.

Spear of Destiny certainly has some… interesting visuals.

To play, the game optimally, grab ECWolf from http://maniacsvault.net/ecwolf/download.php

Then extract the GOG installers using innoextract and run ECWolf in the relevant directories (I'd copy them to your game folder in a relevantly named subfolder).

Other than fullscreen you can set your resolution in ~/.config/ecwolf/ecwolf.cfg.

I went with:
Code: [Select]
ScreenWidth = 1280;
ScreenHeight = 960;

On UHD that gives you a nice little window.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-06-13, 20:43:50
@Frenzie

In your blog you write
Quote from: http://fransdejonge.com/2017/04/qalculate-my-new-favorite-calculator/
...most Linux distros don’t seem to ship with a calculator by default.
*Buntu and derivatives seem to include Galculator. If you are not speaking about them, you are not speaking about *most* Linux distros.

And doesn't Debian come with bc at least? It doesn't show currency rates, but it calculates...
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2017-06-13, 22:29:56
Course it cames with a calculator, Frenzie just enjoys to say those things when he's bored from his linguistic studies.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-06-14, 10:21:00
*Buntu and derivatives seem to include Galculator. If you are not speaking about them, you are not speaking about *most* Linux distros.
I'd swear that Ubuntu didn't used to come with gnome-calculator but I might be wrong. I'm also fairly sure that Xubuntu only added gnome-calculator to its list of default apps fairly recently, although perhaps not nearly recently enough for when I wrapped up that post. Note that the screenshot links point to /2016/08/qalculate-conversion-celsius-fs8.png but that only indicates when I uploaded the screenshots. It's actually a cut-down version of something more elaborate involving several calculators I wrote half a decade ago.

Many of my posts are lined up months in advance and the draft can date back many years.[1] I've currently got posts lined up until July, almost all of which I wrote or finalized in January. I try not to do that thing where I create drafts and forget about them as much anymore, but instead I try to stick 'em in the queue to force myself to either edit them or publish them as is. Or I just post it on a forum somewhere. :P
For example, I wrote the bulk of http://fransdejonge.com/2017/03/image-optimization-guide/ due to https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=420.msg22488#msg22488 back then in 2014, finished it up in January (as you can also tell from /2017/01/Screenshot_2017-01-22_11-22-23-inkscape-plain-svg-fs8.png) and added those addenda in February.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-09-13, 18:23:19
Manjaro began doing hardware https://stationx.rocks/blogs/news/the-manjaro-special-edition-spitfire

Awesomer than Mintbox, but Mintbox might be more marketable.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-09-18, 17:02:17
Hopefully it also comes with an American keyboard.

Who am I kidding. I don't need a new laptop for another few years. :P
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-09-21, 17:54:31
I don't know why this is taking so long, but resizing a 465 GiB ext4 partition (256 GiB is used) to 315 GiB with resize2fs seems to be taking an eternity. It's finally almost done and it's getting to close to three hours.

If I'd just copied the files I know I would've been done in about an hour tops. I guess two hours since I might've had to copy it twice in the process.

According to top my CPU is at a fairly consistent 2-4% and writing speeds are practically non-existent. Not exactly what I was expecting. I'm displeased.

Edit: it finished pass 2, but apparently there's a pass 3.  :faint:

Edit 2: ok, pass 3 and 4 only took a minute or two. That's good. :P

Edit 3: hm, time plays tricks on your mind I guess. It took "only " 2:15:12. The next step of the process, copying a 120 GB partition, is set to finish in 21 minutes.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-10-19, 19:55:56
I've been using mainly VirtualBox and perhaps a bit of VirtManager, but today I finally tried GNOME Boxes. In typical GNOME style it's fairly simplistic, so probably a lot harder if you actually need to tweak things. However, the simplicity and speed of just straight up loading a disk image is phenomenal.

(Booting into a LiveCD on bare metal is kind of meh for just quickly testing a few things.)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-11-01, 20:36:36
I just found out about a fun little tool named screenfetch.

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=85.0;attach=332;image) (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=85.0;attach=332;image)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-11-01, 20:59:24
Annd apparently there's a better alternative called neofetch.[1]

(https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=85.0;attach=334;image) (https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=85.0;attach=334;image)
See https://github.com/dylanaraps/neofetch/wiki/Neofetch-vs-Screenfetch
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-11-01, 21:22:26
I just found out about a fun little tool named screenfetch.
Really? Two years after I posted an up-front picture about it https://dndsanctuary.eu/index.php?topic=474.msg30378#msg30378 (the picture is now lost as Vivaldi blogs moved)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-11-01, 21:27:14
Very well, forgot about it. :lol:

Code: [Select]
for f in /usr/share/neofetch/ascii/distro/*; do neofetch --ascii $f; done
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-11-01, 21:44:28
Here's a fresh screenfetch

(https://ersi.vivaldi.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/308/2017/11/2017-11-01-233204_1274x1051_scrot.png)

Neofetch notices that there are two monitors, not just one. That's nice.

Edit: Hmm, it's not showing. Probably can be only seen when logged in to Vivaldi.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-11-01, 21:54:17
Edit: Hmm, it's not showing. Probably can be only seen when logged in to Vivaldi.
Shows for me and I'm not logged in.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-11-01, 21:58:32
Ah, shows in Mozilla-ites, but doesn't in Chrome-ites. (For me.)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-11-01, 22:06:57
Seems to load in the Vivaldi Chromite.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2017-11-01, 22:16:55
Seems to load in the Vivaldi Chromite.
And in Chromium, but not in Otter and Qutebrowser. (Edit: Ah, works with QtWebEngine, but not webkit.)

And your attachments only show when logged in, but then I guess that's the idea.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2017-11-02, 07:57:36
I don't think that was intentional. I've added attachment viewing privileges to guests.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2018-01-17, 14:21:57
I just updated from VirtualBox 5.1 to 5.2 and it is so. much. faster. Good stuff.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2018-02-11, 15:52:05
I just found out that Alt+Tab cycling through all workspaces (https://bgstack15.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/cinnamon-adds-show-all-workspaces-setting-to-alt-tab-appswitcher/) has become a regular part of Cinnamon DE. Finally the option that I am used to on XFCE and Openbox has found its way to CInnamon, oh joy. Ain't life wonderful  :wine:

But seriously, it's sort of annoying when you like a DE or WM very much and there's just one little thing missing. For example, i3 would be perfect for my purposes if I could kill a particular workspace at the same time killing all the windows located there or kill all windows except the current one like I can in Openbox.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2018-03-09, 16:58:32
A neofetch on my Cinnamon laptop.

(https://ersi.vivaldi.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/308/2018/02/Ekraanipilt-2018-02-11-18-31-29.png)

There are many aspects I really like about Cinnamon, but I guess it's about time to change it everywhere for the most productive and functional desktop I know - i3wm. Actually, the most productive and functional desktop would be something between i3wm and Openbox, but nobody has done it yet.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2018-03-09, 20:37:00
What's the fancy desktop clock? Not that I spend a lot of time looking at my desktop, but it could be cool. Is it related to Conky (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conky_(software))?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2018-03-09, 21:05:39
Modified from one of the designs that comes with Conky Manager (http://www.teejeetech.in/p/conky-manager.html)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2018-06-17, 06:33:41
New Thunar: https://andreldm.com/2018/06/06/thunar-1.8.0-release.html

I'll probably see how it works out soon 'cause I'm on Debian unstable (the rolling release) atm.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2018-07-07, 18:20:20
Manjaro passed Mint in popularity, probably a while ago...
Quote from: distrowatch.com
1 Manjaro 3779>
2 Mint 2754<
3 Ubuntu 1686<
4 elementary 1407>
5 Debian 1379<
6 MX Linux 1129>
7 Solus 1099<
8 Fedora 922=
9 openSUSE 799<
10 Antergos 738<
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2018-09-17, 06:11:10
​Linus Torvalds takes a break from Linux
Quote from: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-takes-a-break-from-linux/
Torvalds looked at himself in the mirror, and he wasn't happy. He realized "it wasn't actually funny or a good sign that I was hoping to just skip the yearly kernel summit entirely, and on the other hand realizing that I really had been ignoring some fairly deep-seated feelings in the community."

[...]

Torvalds will be back. "This is not some kind of 'I'm burnt out, I need to just go away' break. I'm not feeling like I don't want to continue maintaining Linux. Quite the reverse. I very much *do* want to continue to do this project that I've been working on for almost three decades."
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2018-09-17, 18:10:15
He does send some rather insensitive e-mails out in public, in any case.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2018-09-18, 09:22:44
This story says that 18 months of compassion training may help Torvalds https://qz.com/work/1392782/can-adults-learn-empathy-linus-torvalds-of-linux-wants-to-try/

(https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/USE-THIS-2-e1537205389389.png)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2018-09-18, 19:07:46
Quote
One important thing to note: When Torvalds gave that company his middle finger and a public cursing, the room erupted in laughter and cheers. Bad behavior is much harder to change when you’re surrounded by people who encourage it.
Um, it's "that company" (@qz: why not write Nvidia?) that was behaving badly. You might argue all kinds of things about the best way to address the issue, but that wasn't so much bad behavior as collectively venting frustration. To call that bad behavior seems like an incredibly black & white way of thinking. Now of course it's true that you shouldn't encourage it even then because the ways in which we interact with the world tend to generalize, but we're talking about a properly deserved fuck you here.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2018-10-29, 06:18:48
IBM to Buy Linux Distributor Red Hat for About $33.4 Billion (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-28/ibm-to-buy-red-hat-for-190-shr-in-cash)

Billion? Has money devalued so drastically or has Linux suddenly become a thing worth hard cash? Probably the latter. Microsoft bought up Github too.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2018-10-29, 18:48:29
Microsoft, Red Hat, etc. all use Linux for their massive cloud infrastructure. The fact that Red Hat also makes some desktop stuff is probably more like a bonus or even an unwanted distraction.

My hunch seems to have been correct, CNN calls it a "cloud computing firm":

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/28/tech/ibm-red-hat/index.html
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2019-04-20, 17:19:50
Two Linux-related letdowns today.

First. There is a regression in systemd that prevents me from getting to the internet. I can connect to both wifi and LAN without error messages. I can ping to numeric addresses, but not to alphabetic addresses. And I cannot ping to the (numeric) DNS addresses in resolv.conf. The way systemd works, there is no way to manually do things with resolv.conf. According to the following thread, there ued to be things to be done, but this thread does not apply anymore, just one year later, thanks to systemd takeover of the dns resolve function https://forum.manjaro.org/t/setting-a-dns-or-nameserver/46186/9

Edit: I got this issue resolved today. It turns out somehow my resolv.conf had turned immutable. I guess it happened half a year back (that's the date on the file when it was last touched) when I lifted the harddrive from one laptop to another and it Just Worked®
Still a systemd problem, I guess. It did something when I lifted the harddrive /edit

For a while I used openrc, when a dude at Manjaro forums promoted it and created easy packages for it. It's a nice understandable init system that did its work well. When it does its work and is understandable too, it provides a sense of security that if something goes wrong, it can be fixed. Not so with systemd. Unfortunately Manjaro decisively sided with systemd - as did Arch - and the openrc promoter withdrew to create his own distro, Artix.

Second. With great excitement I thought I'd familiarise myself with the self-documentation feature in Emacs. It turns out self-documentation does not mean auto-magically generating documentation as you go on coding features of a programme. It only means help pages for Emacs https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/SelfDocumentation
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2019-06-01, 11:08:25
What's this about? Gnome app developers ranting against theming?
Quote from: https://stopthemingmy.app/
GTK Stylesheets can make applications look broken, and even unusable.

Icon Themes can change icon metaphors, leading to interfaces with icons that don’t express what the developer intended.

App Icons are the identity of an app. Changing an app’s icon denies the developer the possibility to control their brand.

Appstream Screenshots (the screenshots used in GNOME Software or Flathub) are not very useful if they look nothing like the real app does once you install it.

[...]

Though we could disable theming directly in our apps, we do not want to resort to this. We believe that a technical solution would likely not be effective, because this is not a technical problem.

The problem we’re facing is the expectation that apps can be arbitrarily restyled without manual work, which is and has always been an illusion.

[...]

© Do Not Theme, 2019
On the one hand there is what the app *does* and on the other there is what the app *looks like.* What's the reason that these two should be inscrutably fused? Theming is things like enlarging the fonts, adding/changing contrast to tints in the interface, and when you can do it a little, then why not a whole lot for fun or for special needs? Why should one not be able to e.g. enlarge fonts in your app?

I understand the app developers' frustration a little bit, because my experience with Gnome is that theming is one of those things that makes Gnome unusable. But I vehemently disagree that theming is the evil. The evil is Gnome's incompetence at theming.

I have heard that GTK does not have an API for theming, every distro modifies the Adwaita theme (and ships the modification and occasionally fails to include the default) and that's plain stupid. Theming is important to have in a desktop environment and therefore there should be a DE-community policy about it. The solution should be easy: Adwaita must be there to fall back to, and there must be a procedure by which things fall back to it, duh. To disable themes would take away much of the appeal of Linux, just like Gnome's incompetence at theming has, in my case, caused me to never use it.

Mint and Manjaro have done a wonderful job at theming. They have worked very hard to achieve this. But theming is just about the looks. It should not be too hard.

For app developers, it should also not be too hard to educate yourselves to write the interface so that it is themable. Themes do not break your apps. Apps get broken by your inability to foresee that the interface could be themed differently. Every app *must* be themable, otherwise it is written by an incompetent developer! Unthemable apps are a nightmare for the user. I see this at my work every day when I need to open an app that is made exactly for a FullHD resolution screen, no more, no less; an app whose window is unresizable; an app that lacks the DE borders and titlebar; etc. (Luckily at my work there is MS Win, so it is not directly about Gnome app developers.)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2019-06-03, 10:45:51
Quote
Appstream Screenshots (the screenshots used in GNOME Software or Flathub) are not very useful if they look nothing like the real app does once you install it.
What a flatout bizarre statement. Sure, if they looked nothing like the real app I suppose they wouldn't be very helpful, but we're just talking about some fonts & colors & maybe icons here. The difference is actually much bigger due to the fact that I seldom see a window in a size in which I'd use it than due to what window decorations or colors are shown.

The evil is Gnome's incompetence at theming.
I think it's because they want to exude some kind of Gnome "brand".
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2019-06-07, 20:01:53
ranger is an interesting alternative to mc.

http://ranger.github.io/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2019-06-07, 20:33:56
ranger is an interesting alternative to mc.

http://ranger.github.io/
And nnn (https://github.com/jarun/nnn) is said to be an interesting alternative to ranger.

I have been keeping an eye on and tried them all. In my opinion, mc does just about the right amount of things in the right way, such as multi-rename, multi-copy, and other multi-select operations. Those alternatives can do all of it too, but I find the dual-pane interface cozier particularly for multi-copying of files. And I am not so comfortable with so many automatic viewers as are present in those alternatives.

In reality, my file operations are so low-key that I mostly still do ls.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2019-07-12, 11:37:42
ranger is an interesting alternative to mc.
I discovered that ranger has a live-update feature like graphical file managers.

The situation: I had to download many files that in order one by one, naming them in sequence. To keep track of my downloads at any time, I always had to see the bottom file in the directory.

Even better than graphical managers, ranger works like this:
1. Open the directory in ranger
2. Scroll to the bottom
3. In the browser (or whatever you are downloading with), keep downloading files named so that they are added as last in the directory
4. ranger live-updates the file list (and displays the bottom file even when the list is longer than the screen)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2019-07-12, 20:03:45
An interesting finding. :)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2019-07-13, 05:50:10
It's also a very lucky finding, because nobody expects terminal-based apps to have any automaticity. I was trying different file managers to see which one allows me to see the newest bottom file with least effort on my own part and it turned out that ranger understood what i wanted without me having to do anything. In contrast, mc and nnn act like ls - they move only when you directly tell them to.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2019-07-13, 09:12:55
At the same time, there are also advantages to keeping things more or less in place. In that sense adding items to the middle of the list will result in a location shift as a necessary evil, but an addition to the top or bottom outside of view will only result in a growing scrollbar.

In mc, I suppose no one is terribly interested in auto-refresh:
https://midnight-commander.org/ticket/1756

Since I mainly use Thunar and Dolphin I didn't realize mc didn't auto-update.

It's also a very lucky finding, because nobody expects terminal-based apps to have any automaticity.
I don't know; MS-DOS apps were quite advanced by the early '90s so there isn't really much of anything I wouldn't expect them to do in an even more advanced Linux environment with tremendous processing power and memory readily available. They did all the things their Windows counterparts did (MDI, etc.) except that you couldn't switch between apps as easily. Although afaik neither "GUI" nor "console" apps auto-refreshed directories at the time. But perhaps they did on Unix.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2019-08-22, 16:42:00
I've been using Qalculate as my preferred calculator for a while now, but I recently discovered Speedcrunch as an interesting alternative. (I don't like most calculators.) But Qalculate has more useful built-in conversion stuff, like currency, temperature, and distance. Speedcrunch is more plainly math/physics.
Title: Manjaro goes corp
Post by: ersi on 2019-09-11, 16:37:46
Quote from: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/manjaro-is-taking-the-next-step/102105
The two main changes are:
  • To transfer donation funds to a non-profit “fiscal host 166” which will then accept and administer donations on the project’s behalf. This secures the donations and makes their use transparent.
  • A new established company, Manjaro GmbH & Co. KG, to enable full-time employment of maintainers and exploration of future commercial opportunities.

This new structure should enable Manjaro to reach the next level, for example:
  • enable developers to commit full time to Manjaro and its related projects;
  • interact with other developers in sprints and events around Linux;
  • protect the independence of Manjaro as a community-driven project, as well as protect its brand;
  • provide faster security updates and a more efficient reaction to the needs of users;
  • provide the means to act as a company on a professional level.
Not sure how to take this. On the one hand I understand that when you do partnerships, such as when providing own-branded hardware (https://manjaro.org/hardware/), you need a legal entity. On the other hand, when FF went corp, things went irreversibly evil and stupid.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2020-05-23, 08:56:57
The usual way I try to install Linuxes these days is to dd them to a USB stick and then try to boot the stick on the computer or laptop. However, many distros or opsyses do not boot this way. For example Slackware and FreeBSD consistently fail. At the same time, I cannot find any information on what their way of getting to boot up or getting installed is. Why does the regular Debian not boot up while LMDE (Linux Mint Debian edition) has no problem? How do you install Haiku or Dos?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Barulheira on 2020-05-24, 16:23:35
You could try out FreeBSD with FuryBSD (https://www.furybsd.org/). I'm going to do the same the next days.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2020-05-24, 16:27:20
If they aren't capable of booting from USB then they probably only boot from CD/DVD by default. I thought hybrid USB/CD images were easy to make these days though.

There are various tools you could use to get around that, like Rufus on Windows, probably also UNetbootin[1] and balenaEtcher on Linux.
https://fransdejonge.com/2016/11/unetbootin-custom-drive-selection/
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2020-05-24, 18:35:22
Thanks for the suggestions. I have to correct myself a bit: I actually stumbled upon a recent FreeBSD ISO that happens to boot fine on the Thinkpad X60 (https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-IBM-Lenovo-Thinkpad-X60s-Notebook.3445.0.html) I bought for 15 euros.

I went along with a stupid memery to work up exactly this machine as my laptop mostly to boot into console. There are two possible paths. Either I put a boring LMDE on it and then start mostly uninstalling and deleting stuff or I put some BSD on it and learn to build and compile things on it until the console can display colours and Japanese and Ethiopic and switch between keyboard layouts (alphabets like Cyrillic and Greek) as a typing machine should. Maybe even mousing is possible in console?

By the way, what is happening to 32-bit Linuxes? Manjaro and Arch dropped official support for 32-bit some weeks ago.
Title: The Linux Foundation Doesn't Use Linux To Create Their Reports
Post by: ersi on 2020-09-05, 06:06:18
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-2dYfYvJGk[/video]
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2020-09-05, 09:28:29
It's certainly possible this Linux Foundation is a worthless money-wasting organization, but it's not clear that using Adobe software proves much of anything. Gimp is much worse than Photoshop,[1] Inkscape doesn't quite measure up to Illustrator but it's quite good and arguably better in some ways, and I don't have a sufficiently informed opinion InDesign vs Scribus, which is unfortunately the main point under discussion here, but from people in the know I understand Scribus isn't all that good. Moreover, such design may well have been outsourced.
Not sure where to fit in Krita in this quick overview. Krita is much better than Photoshop at digital painting but it's not intended to be generic like Photoshop.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2020-09-05, 10:46:10
I'd say the main point here is that the primary goal of the Linux Foundation is to promote Linux. By failing to use Linux-based alternatives for everything it fails at its primary goal. If sufficiently slick presentation design tools do not exist, take it as a challenge to set up a project that would develop those tools, and start using them in order to promote them.

Otherwise the Linux Foundation would be something like Theranos, WeWork, and Wirecard, whose entire value depended on high-profile board members and the charisma (and slippery talk) of the central driving figures.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2020-09-05, 11:37:21
It sounds like they're about the Linux kernel, mainly in the server sense.

Quote from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Foundation
In recent years, the Linux Foundation has expanded its support programs through events, training and certification, and open source projects. Projects hosted at the Linux Foundation include the Linux kernel project, Kubernetes, Automotive Grade Linux, Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP), Hyperledger, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Cloud Foundry Foundation, Xen Project, and many others.

Quote from: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/
The Linux Foundation has taken its experience and expertise supporting the Linux community to help establish, build, and sustain some of the most critical open source technologies. Its work today extends far beyond Linux, fostering innovation in every layer of the software stack. The Linux Foundation hosts projects spanning enterprise IT, embedded systems, consumer electronics, cloud, networking, and more.

It's interesting that they almost seem to be avoiding the desktop, presumably because businesses aren't very interested in it. Perhaps using InDesign at some point in the process is indicative of that, but I'm not clear on why focus is a bad thing.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2020-09-05, 12:09:26
Oh, only about the kernel? Then they are all about things like porting the kernel to Android, maybe gear it to be adaptible to more proprietary solutions. They were rotten from the get-go!

As to businesses not being interested in desktops, it is an acute problem. Office workers are increasingly suffering under new software that pops up childish nonsense like "Rate this call" and "How do you like this app?". This is not only distracting, but absolutely destructive to the work environment. Businesses ignore this trend in software design to their own detriment. When buying software from some biggie, they should demand that such nonsense be removed.

Another problem in the offices is internally developed legacy nonsense. It is nonsense when it only works in one limited environment, such as in Internet Explorer with legacy mode enabled and fails under all other conditions.
Title: Short note on FreeBSD
Post by: ersi on 2020-09-20, 10:45:39
Some options on FreeBSD console are pretty cool out of the box, but installing UTF-8 fonts (for Cyrillic, Japanese, etc.) and making them to work turned out to be too difficult.

There's also a major structural flaw in FreeBSD that port apps are in conflict with repo packages. Say I spot a nice port app and build it and install it with some specific options that I want. But if that app is also available on the repos, it gets overinstalled upon next update and my options get annihilated. This is not how it should be in my opinion. Or maybe it is somehow an excellent feature that I fail to appreciate. Whoever knows better please explain.

So, on my fabulous 15€ Thinkpad X60 I am now trying out two Debians - Linux Mint Debian Edition and Bunsenlabs with Openbox. We'll see which one wins ultimately or if I find another 32-bit opsys.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Barulheira on 2020-09-21, 15:38:50
That flaw is well known. When I update my system, I need to first deinstall my custom app, and build it again afterwards. There's no easy workaround, unfortunately.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2020-10-12, 12:40:25
That flaw is well known. When I update my system, I need to first deinstall my custom app, and build it again afterwards. There's no easy workaround, unfortunately.
Does any of the other BSD flavours solve it?
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Barulheira on 2020-10-12, 23:09:52
I don't think so. When updating the base system, all ports (apps) must be rebuilt, and the packages provided are built with just the default settings. You will get your default packages just fine, but you'll have to rebuild your custom app yourself.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Belfrager on 2021-03-17, 08:37:34
Resident technology masters already knows it for sure but for the simple mortals, you can speed up your already much-more-faster-than-Windows operative system.

An example -> four-ways-to-speed-up-ubuntu (https://www.maketecheasier.com/four-ways-to-speed-up-ubuntu/)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2021-04-09, 22:35:00
The best YT alternative has gained a decent website. How does our embedding work?

[video]https://odysee.com/@danwood:0/reactos-can-it-replace-windows-in-2021-!:d[/video]
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2021-04-10, 13:35:40
The best YT alternative
Best in what sense? (E.g., not likely to go bankrupt soon, usability, or something else?)
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2021-04-10, 14:23:04
It's the best alternative because it is the only alternative I know of in terms of content. I can go over there to get (most of) what I want on YT. There's also Bitchute, but the average uploader there is about as bad for mental health as Conservapedia.

Do you know of anything better?

And from what I have heard from content creators who have made the move, they can import their YT content over to Odysee with hardly any glitches.

I don't know much more. I am not a content creator and I never log in to YT. I keep it at arm's length with ytdl, which works in those other sites too.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: Frenzie on 2021-04-12, 07:10:20
No, I don't know anything better.
Title: Re: General Unix/Linux Thread
Post by: ersi on 2021-07-31, 12:54:57
Microsoft released a Linux distro, apparently primarily to set up cloud services. Remember to not use it.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gofc7mrnzE[/video]