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OneAndOneIs2
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Thu, Jun 25, 2009
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Finally!
My laptop's dual-booted Vista (which it came with) and Ubuntu for a long time.
But I don't like Ubuntu all that much. It uses Gnome, and it's too user-friendly.
Yes, there IS such a thing. I hate software that tries to be helpful, and most people do if they're honest - remember the helpful paperclip is MS Office? :o)
More to the point, though, when it comes to Linux, I hate software that automates everything behind GUIs. It means that you don't know how to do anything WITHOUT the GUI.
So I used debootstrap to install a minimal Debian system tomy spare partition. I followed a couple of helpful guides on setting things up to get the non-free package repositories set up in /etc/apt/sources.list so that I could get the Broadcom wifi hardware working - courtesy of apt-getting b43-fwcutter and then running the shell script it came with. A minor mistake with the /etc/network/interfaces file cost me a reboot, as I configured the wifi as eth1 (As Ubuntu does) rather than wlan0. But that was an easy enough fix.
And now I have a computer that, currently, has no X11 installation and therefore is text-only. No GUIs at all. Command-line or nothing.
I love it :o)
I'm typing this from one of my all-time favourite browsers, links. It's text-only and I always have it installed because it makes life so much easier when you have a broken GUI or can only get to your machine via SSH. Apt is currently pulling down Xorg and FVWM so I'll get graphics sorted out soon. But I have to sort out a few things with the CLI access first. Couple of things people might like to know:
- To have a login prompt that clears the screen instead of appearing at the bottom, as root, type:
Then use a text editor to move the prompt text to BELOW the bottom line of weird characters. This will make the prompt sent the 'clear screen' command each time it appears
- The command line is much easier to use when it's spaced out a little. Go into .bashrc and find where it defines your PS1 variable. Put a \n in front of it. This will add an extra newline in front of the command prompt, giving you a blank line between each command. Much nicer.
Right. That's enough of that for now. Off to configure Xorg! :o)
3 comments
New Xorg is fairly different:
You don't have to have a xorg.conf file. You can if you want, but if you don't it'll autoconfigure everything.
There is a new way of handling devices, called "xorg hotplugging". The idea is that instead of having all your devices hardcoded in the xorg.conf, it is setup in a way that lets you change devices on the run. (Like plug in a USB mouse or something.) It sounds good, but if you decide to use it (it is optional), you need to configure your devices in random XML files around the system. These are often changing, so every now and then you need to look around the web to find the latest place you need to edit to get your device to work properly.
There is also pulseaudio, that while it isn't xorg, it is another new thing that causes similar madness. I've personally only heard of this one, I use OSS rather than ALSA so I don't have to deal with it.
There are a few other annoying little things like that too I think. (For example: Ctrl-Alt-Bksp is disabled by default, to enable it you need to add a new section to your xorg.conf, and if you use hotplugging you need to add another line to a random XML file somewhere on your computer.)
But don't worry, this is all irrelevant to you. By the time the next debian stable comes out they'll find a way to setup everything that makes sense.
Sok: xorg has done a superb job of not needing me to mess around with it. Aside from fiddling with the keyboard map I haven't really had to do much. Because I have Intel graphics I didn't even have to do anything to get the 3D accelerated apps to work.
FVWM is the main thing I'm having to set up so far. I just finished putting icons into the menus I've set up and improving the fonts. Next I'll be looking at window decorations.
KDE-look has been very helpful in finding icons so far, I must say!
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La parte A se refiere solamente a las dos novelas estudiadas. La parte A debe ser preparada después de leer la primera mitad de la novela y contestar las siguientes preguntas: ¿te está gustando la novela/película o no, y por qué? No me gusta la novela. Las personajes que puedes gustar son superficiales, o hacen [...]![[Link to post]](http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/skins/112/rsc/img/chain_link.gif "[Link to post]")
06/08/10 - SPN3730 diario: Pascual Duarte parte A
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Isn't this exciting? We're out of the tedium of Genesis (world created, man falls, many people live and die. Oh, and attempted forced buggery and a spot of incest). We're into Exodus now; the Bible has got going, that tricky first chapter is out of the way and the real action can start! When the [...]
03/08/10 - The Bible ? On The Waterfront
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I was giddy and hopeful when I first met Cary and spent a brief amount of time with him.
The week after that I was happily high on the idea of what could be, the possibility of getting to know someone interesting and intriguing, the wide open potential of what could be.
And I wanted to tell my friends all about him and what had, and hadn't happened, but I also wanted to keep it to myself, sealed safely in the happy bubble that was floating inside me. So I talked to some close friends about him, told them he lived in Vancouver and they, meaning well, told me quite firmly that they would not allow me to go through another long distance relationship. That I shouldn't even consider it.
My bubble had been burst.
I was completely deflated. Hurt. Let down.
I talked to C-Dawg, a sad tinge to the story now that I'd been told it could. . . should never work out.
"Vancouver?" she said, her voice somewhere between amused and incredulous. "That's not long distance! Get serious. Go for it."
And I let my bubble maybe start to re-inflate. Cautiously. Maybe just a little.
Then I talked to my friend about Cary. She said good things.
Maybe there was reason to be hopefully optimistic. Maybe it was ok to be a little girly and dreamy over what-ifs.
I went for a walk with S. We had life to catch up on.
Life including Cary and the story that still makes me smile.
She encouraged me to get his email, which I did, and then she went home and tried to find out what she could about him.
See, I'm not on Facebook. (No, really.) But S is, and in the small world way that Facebook seems to work, she found that Cary and she had a mutual friend and so she looked him up for me. (The modern background check.)
You can sometimes tell a lot about a person by what they put on their Facebook, she cautioned me. Sometimes.
How old is he?
Me: I don't know.
Is he a smoker?
Me: Um, I don't know? (God, I hope not)
Could he maybe be a little bit immature?
Me: I don't know. I suppose.
Well, he seems like a good guy. Cute. Interesting. I'd say he was my type, you know. (We laugh, we already know we share similar excellent taste in men.)
"I say go for it." She says, "just be aware that he's human. Not perfect."
I don't want to hear it.
Don't want to know the reality of him.
Find myself running away from all the what might have been's towards it'll never work what what I thinking's.
It's all or nothing. Perfect or awful. It'll work or it'll be a disaster.
And I realize that my bubble, the one that's been growing and floating inside me will burst on its own, without anyone's help if I get too far into imagining just how great Cary is, how great we'd be together, how perfectly perfect it all will be.
I'm Icarus. My friends don't want me flying too close to the sun.
But I like the feeling.
I like the soaring giddiness of how utterly fantastic this thing I've found will be.
Every single time I meet someone I like that feeling.
And I ride it higher and higher until I'm flapping my bare arms, feathers fallen into the sea and the crash is coming, the relationship splintering and I'm left staring at the brokenness wondering how on earth I could have been so wrong again.
The extremes are familiar. Addictive perhaps.
But I'm trying to learn to ride in the middle.
Safer. A shorter distance to fall.
A smaller bubble to burst.
Expectations that can be met and exceeded.
A safe, yet joyful and giddy flight. Wings intact.03/09/10 - Icarus
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  This was possibly the most ridiculous show I have seen in a long time and I can get Sky 1 I know ridiculous. It could be summed up in three sentences Do you know what's in your cereal? Want to? Read the label. Instead it went on for a hour about how evil the [...]27/10/09 - Dispatches ? do you know what?s in your breakfast? (warning...
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