August 2012
1 post
Update
Hey there guys, I’ve noticed that I’ve gained more and more followers in recent days. I guess I should probably point out that this blog is now largely unmaintained, as it was superseded by my other blog at WordPress. It’s probably best to get in touch over there instead of here, because I rarely check Tumblr.
Thank you.
July 2012
2 posts
Anonymous asked: Thanks for the detailed answer. First: is there any chance to get in touch w/o tumblr? jabber? snippl[at]jabber[.]ccc[.]de second: I'm using debian for years now. and yes it is stable and i like that. even testing is very stable, I use it every day as desktop. My problem is not the free software stuff, you can get rid off it. My problem is the actuality. Some stuff is just too old and when i...
Anonymous asked: I started to play around with sabayon a little bit. I've tried gentoo a few times and i really liked it. But however the time aspect is vital to me. And for my work I need a OS that just works and where I can get software/system updates quite quick. So my question is: Do you know a way how I can get a minimal install with sabayon, kinda like a gentoo one? I've tried the spinbase image to...
May 2012
3 posts
The problem with the GPL
I believe that there is only one way to do software right, and that is by developing in the open, giving source code access to all who would wish for it. I use the free and open-source adaptations of everything, such as for Java and Adobe Flash, unless there is no such working adaptation in existence.
The great thing about the GPL is that it guarantees this freedom and open-source nature for the...
Anonymous asked: I think Gnome 3 is a good thing. It shows that people are still re-thinking the desktop, and that they're willing to take a chance. Other people who don't like what Gnome is doing can (and have) gone in different directions. That's one of the things that's so great about free software. Personally, I use LXDE now, but I'm always glad that we have lots of options. I'll...
Anonymous asked: I used to think RMS was too extreme, but then I spent some time reading what he had written and viewing some videos or talks he had given. He really makes some very good points, and his whole philosophy is pretty solid. Right now I can't make the same commitment to Free software that he has, but I have to respect him for taking a stand. - stuart
April 2012
6 posts
A note on coding style
I have never understood why the simple decision about coding style erupted into such a holy war amongst programmers. The majority of these fierce cries and complaints attack other coding styles and proclaim their own style as something of a ‘silver’ bullet. And yet, these comments have the grammatical adeptness of a three year old.
This makes me think that the majority of this holy...
C++: The Advantages of Smart Pointers
By using a smart pointer instead of a regular pointer, the pointer automatically manages its own memory allocation and deallocation. Thus no manual memory management is necessary.
Smart pointers have a significant advantage over C-style pointers, especially in larger projects where manual memory management becomes infeasible. Memory leaks are more likely to occur using C-style pointers due to...
Anonymous asked: in "Why I Still Choose Gentoo" you tell us that "Portage is a brilliant package manager. Of all that I have used, it has still remained my favourite. A close second would have to be Arch’s Pacman" ... whaat!? why arch packman and not sabayon entropy package manager wich is 100% compatible with portage!?
Gentoo's Install Method: Archaic? I Think Not.
Linux users - hell, even BSD users - have been known to criticise Gentoo for its installation method, usually because these users tried installing Gentoo and failed. This is a bad mindset to have; while graphical installers are superb, the aim of Gentoo is not to be newbie friendly. Unfortunately, newbies tend to have little patience and open their mouths wide for a large corner of the Linux...
BSD vs GNU GPLv3
I would hate the idea of developing a product in the open, and then seeing a third party come along, take the source code, and sell the product as a proprietary app. I don’t care what you call that, I call it stealing.
For one, the original development - all that free and open hard work - was so that a third party could take that development after doing no hard work at all, and then make...
The (Safe) Guide to Distro-Hopping
GNU/Linux is occasionally criticised for not having one - and only one - operating system, giving new GNU/Linux users an overwhelming amount of choice. Obviously, having one distribution would severely hurt the Linux community: do we use Portage or Yum, apt or zypper? Do we use KDE or GNOME? What are our thoughts on the importance of free and open source software?
It is questions like these which...
March 2012
6 posts
An Update on my Current Setup
I thought it would be appropriate to shout out (quietly) what’s happening with my computer systems these days, including my preferences in desktop environment, operating system, and so on. Operating Systems
When it comes to operating systems, obviously I’m a GNU/Linux guy. Yes, as much as I can’t stand how political GNU is - not to mention their god, Richard Stallman - they...
Remove an old Kernel (and its symlink) from Gentoo
[Jack Todaro]
I think every Gentoo user would have to admit to having a form of OCD to varying degrees, and I would have to be one of them; I go bonkers when I see a kernel symlink in eselect kernel list to a kernel I don’t even have installed anymore.
If you’re like me and you like to keep your computer clean - that is, every file is organised and categorised into appropriate...
5 tags
Language Wars: Shut up, Get a Life
<rant>
I apologise if the title offended you, but I’m just about fed up with wars between languages like C and C++ - that is what I feel to be the main focus of this article. Nevertheless, it applies to all language wars: Ruby vs Python vs Perl vs PHP, Java vs C++, C vs Go, etc.
Fighting even happens between widget toolkits, like GTK+ and Qt! It’s quite maddening. Let me begin briefly...
GNOME 3: A Positive Stance
[Jack Todaro]
GNOME 3 tends to cop a lot of flak from the Linux community, and it’s no surprise since GNOME 3 is perhaps the most ambitious desktop project to ever surface in the Linux realm. If you read on here from time to time, you’ll notice that I am not the happiest user of GNOME 3, but I do keep up with their latest innovations. The most important thing is, GNOME is getting...
Set Chromium as the Default Browser in Openbox
Setting Mozilla Firefox as the default browser in an Openbox environment is simple; you can do it from the Preferences pane.
But what if you’re a Webkit/V8 kind of person? Well, things are less obvious, because Chromium is unable to set itself as the default browser, because it needs to hook into a GNOME environment (if I were to be more specific, I think it needs GNOME Settings, but...
The Mess Unity and GNOME Shell Made
A couple of years ago, the Linux world was a nice, quiet place. Developers listened to their users and adapted their products based on their feedback. GNOME was the status quo desktop environment; it was sleek, simple, and fun to use.
But all that changed when the GNOME developers wanted something new; a change for the sake of change. What came out was GNOME Shell with GNOME 3.
It was received...
February 2012
14 posts
KDE is Not Dying!
There are some posts floating around the Internet at the moment about KDE dying. Most of it is just FUD, and some of it is really outlandish, but I have a higher chance of licking Redmond’s shoes than KDE dying.
KDE is my favourite looking desktop environment. Regular readers will know that I love to use Openbox on my laptop and on smaller screens, but for larger monitors and...
Top 3 Distributions for Beginners
[Jack Todaro]
You may be a total Linux nut and want to get all of your non 31337 friendz onto Linux too, but if you’re a Gentoo user like myself, for some strange reason they don’t totally understand the awesomeness of being able to spend days in your office building an operating system almost from scratch, learning a CLI package management frontend’s syntax, and working out why...
Why I Still Choose Arch - a Counter-Argument
Yesterday I did a post on why I would still choose the Gentoo operating system over any other GNU/Linux system. Today, I want to talk about why I would choose another favourite operating system of mine: Arch.
The Arch installation is brilliant; everything is simple, streamlined and fully installed in about 20 minutes. I think even a beginner - with documentation - could get through the install...
Why I Still Choose Gentoo
After a ten day trial of Arch, I found myself still craving the superior flexibility and control of Gentoo. Despite being more intensive to set up, I was relieved to have that speedy distribution back on my system, and now, I’ve found that when it comes to installing Linux, my only choice is Gentoo. Here are some of my reasons why I use Larry the Cow’s favourite operating system:
...
Add 'Shutdown' and 'Reboot' to your root menu -...
It’s not hard to open a terminal, type ‘sudo halt’ and confirm the action with your password to shutdown; it takes all but 10 seconds, at most. However, if you want a dedicated Shutdown option in your root menu (and options such as Reboot, for that matter) it’s actually quite simple.
The prerequisites are that you have sudo installed; Obmenu is optional, but it will be the...
3 tags
Openbox Themes
Let’s face it: the default GTK+ theme, ‘Raleigh’, isn’t exactly eye-candy. Here are two themes which I love; one is for the lovers of light appearance, and the other is for the lovers of the dark theme. Orta
Orta is a simple, clean gtk theme which makes Openbox look even more impressive. It is a lighter theme featuring rounded buttons (thankfully) which is very sleek;...
Operating System Wars [Rant]
[Solpeth]
Initially, I found it gratifying to put down any sort of distribution or operating system that I didn’t use, and give reasons that were only valid to me
“Windows sucks because it gets viruses. Mac OS X sucks because you can hardly customise it. Ubuntu sucks because of Unity and Mark Shuttleworth(less).”
It’s both easy and fun to bring down any systems you...
1 tag
Openbox Guide
[0.1.25]
Welcome to the emerge LINUX Openbox guide! This is an ever-expanding, modular guide to Openbox. If you have any objections, comments or suggestions, hit the Message button at the top of this page.
N.B: The following links should automatically open in a new window or tab, depending on your browser. Useful Openbox Applications [Linux Tips]
This part of the guide outlines some fantastic...
5 tags
Openbox Necessities [Linux Tips]
[INITIAL POST - 06 Feb 2012 UTC]
This is one part of an ever-expanding, modular guide to Openbox. To view other parts of the Openbox guide, click here. Just because you use a window manager, it doesn’t mean you have to miss out on all the expected goodness of other, much larger and heavier desktop environments. This guide which outline a few tweaks and programs which will make your...
6 tags
Useful Openbox Applications [Linux Tips]
[INITIAL POST - 06 Feb 2012 UTC]
This is one part of an ever-expanding, modular guide to Openbox. To view other parts of the Openbox guide, click here. I love using Openbox; of all the desktop environments and their fancy effects, I’ve never been in more awe than I have with Openbox. Its simplicity - and a good compositing manager - makes everything perfect. Here’s a list of...
5 tags
Left-handed Openbox user? [Linux Tips]
I’m left handed, and I don’t want to be stuck using my mouse like a right-hander in Openbox - that’s the point of Linux, to configure things to your liking :)
It’s really simple: open a shell and open your autostart file with your favourite editor (we’ll use nano in this example):
$ nano -w ~/.config/openbox/autostart
At the top of your autostart...
Arch Linux vs Gentoo Linux: A Brief Comparison...
While I love to experiment with different desktop environments, distributions and even operating systems, I always get drawn back to Openbox on Gentoo Linux and Arch Linux. I guess my preferred desktop environment is not, erm, a desktop environment per se, but a window manager that is lightning fast and highly configurable. It gives me what I absolutely need - a window manager - and then I can...
January 2012
5 posts
8 tags
Was GNOME 3 worth it? [Desktop Environments]
[Solpeth]
I remember when GNOME 2 was almost the status quo desktop environment for any Linux system; some of the most popular distributions - such as Red Hat Linux (or Fedora), Debian and Ubuntu used GNOME as the default desktop environment.
And then things began to change.
The GNOME developers wanted something new; from what I understand GNOME 2’s code base was becoming difficult to...
10 tags
Set Up the ext4 File System on an External HDD...
For what it’s worth, some of us just want to get rid of all NTFS file systems on our external hard disk drives. NTFS - the abbreviation for New Technology File System - is a file system which was developed by Microsoft to be used in their Windows NT systems, and is still in use today in Windows 7 and most external HDD. It is expected to be superseded by Microsoft’s upcoming filesystem,...
5 tags
Why (and why not) To Choose Gentoo
Gentoo Linux - a so called ‘metadistribution’ - seems to be one of the only distributions that gives the user full control. Because you build the system essentially from scratch, you have control over which packages are installed, what runs at boot time, kernel configuration options and so on. On top of these advantages, every package installed through the Portage package management...
Sabayon - Gentoo that Just Works(tm)
Gentoo is a great meta-distribution; you can do with it whatever you want, or need, and it will do it. You control every package on your system, and all of those packages are custom compiled with the compilation flags that suit you.
And so you end up with a pretty fast, stable system. Your system. Trouble is, not everyone is willing to give their time up to learn how to install Gentoo (despite...
What Happened to Ubuntu?
If you ask any Linux user about how they first stumbled upon the open operating system world, the majority will mention Ubuntu. Ubuntu, a Debian based distribution, rose quickly in popularity by aiming to be “Linux for human beings”. Since then, its popularity has arguably waned for a number of reasons, however it has always remained the Linux distribution of choice for new users. I...
