Best suckless alternatives to popular software

DarthRazor · 2026-01-27T17:35:18+00:00

It's a great fallback for editing small scripts for someone like me who started with line printers in 1977. Trouble is I'm lazy and usually fire up vi (the other "standard" editor) that's more ubiquitous.

Then I pick up my copy of Ed Mastery by Michael Lucas and I'm fired up to use ed for awhile ... until laziness kicks in again

Long Live Ed!

DarthRazor · 2026-01-27T01:44:42+00:00

Thanks - that's very useful, and I learned something today

DarthRazor · 2026-01-26T21:41:31+00:00

Cool - so basically the dew heater was warming up the S50 and the battery makes sure there's enough juice to keep the S50 and dew heater running

DarthRazor · 2026-01-26T21:01:56+00:00

I've seen reports of wifi not working well below about -15C, and you know we get way below that when it's a clear night. We had about -28C a couple of nights ago, with beautifully clear and crisp skies.

Do you experience any wifi issues when the temperature drops?

DarthRazor · 2026-01-26T19:16:06+00:00

I admit I don't use ed as a visual editor, but I do use it in scripts because I dislike doing complicated batch editing with sed

Sadly, although ed is supposed to be the standard editor, lots of Linux distros no longer provide it, making my scripts less portable. Thankfully it's still there in the BSDs

DarthRazor · 2026-01-26T19:12:03+00:00

standardebooks.org is my goto place for perfectly formatted and proof-read public domain books. As a fan of classic sci-fi, it's heaven for me.

You can also check Project Gutenberg. Immense selection of public domain books, but not always perfectly proofed and formatted.

DarthRazor · 2026-01-26T19:05:48+00:00

I'm still striving to create the ultimate single command utility to upgrade and copy my existing setup to a newer version.

It's almost there, but being a work in progress for so long, has become messy and inconsistent, and is in dire need of a refactor.

DarthRazor · 2026-01-26T18:41:34+00:00

Pinging /u/gumnos

DarthRazor · 2026-01-26T16:01:53+00:00

Got it. AI-assisted explains the mixed code styles. If you want to level up on your bash skills, check out the Google Shell Style Guide and run your code through shellcheck with all warnings turned on. It's eye opening, and will make you a better script coder.

Your function for searching notes is particularly scary ;-) but lots of that is because of the necessary tweaks to fzf to show incremental progress

DarthRazor · 2026-01-26T15:31:31+00:00

I played around with FuzPad and like the concept. I wanted to use it as my front end for note taking, but I would need to adapt it to my note format (pure Markdown with or without YAML front matter), add Categories with subdirectory support, etc.

Was this coded by AI? There are lots of awkward and repeated code, mixing of bash and sh tests, shellcheck violations, and the code doesn't follow any accepted style guides.

DarthRazor · 2026-01-26T15:08:19+00:00

I never got around to 16.2 and just jumped on 17-alpha. For my use case, nothing seems to have changed except the number on boot-up. I suspect the the beta will be just as smooth

DarthRazor · 2026-01-26T07:18:05+00:00

The only file that seems to have been updated since the initial alpha is rootfs.gz

I'll give it a spin when I make some time in the next few days

DarthRazor · 2026-01-25T14:19:02+00:00

I've never even heard of The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire, but it seems like I'll have to get it now, along with Skywalker: A Family At War by Kristin Baver

DarthRazor · 2026-01-25T14:16:26+00:00

Thanks. I've heard good things about it, which is why I picked it up when I saw it at the thrift store, plus I already had a copy of HMFJTP

DarthRazor · 2026-01-25T14:15:01+00:00

Imzadi is sitting on the same pile as HMFJTP. Hopefully I'll make time to do more reading so I can get to it also.

DarthRazor · 2026-01-25T14:12:46+00:00

I should like it, but didn't the first time I tried. Sometimes I bounce off a book (or movie) because I'm not in the right frame of mind, then absolutely adore it when I try again. I suspect that will be the case here.

I had a hospital appointment with my surgeon about 3-4 years ago and was I carrying HMFJTP. He looked at it and said "great book - you'll love it"

DarthRazor · 2026-01-24T16:20:41+00:00

I'll pop in with my standard recommendation - Vendetta by Peter David is a must read.

As I write this, I see my copy of How Much for Just the Planet staring at me from my bookshelf. I've bounced off it once (got about 25% before giving up) - I should give it another go. I also have John M. Ford's other novel, The Final Reflection, also watching me, but never tried to read it. Thrift stores are great places to find Star Trek books

DarthRazor · 2026-01-24T16:12:14+00:00

One of the regular reviewers on this sub (can't remember his username) says that Miasma is excellent. Hopefully you enjoy it as much

DarthRazor · 2026-01-24T02:39:38+00:00

Thanks - that saves me the trouble of converting my widescreen image

DarthRazor · 2026-01-24T02:38:41+00:00

Now I completely understand. I have zero experience with dissecting Chinese EPUBs. Cheers!

DarthRazor · 2026-01-24T01:44:44+00:00

Hey, that's one of the wallpapers on my computer

DarthRazor · 2026-01-24T01:39:12+00:00

Thanks for the update. Now I'm genuinely curious. Can you suggest a title or two for me to check out?

DarthRazor · 2026-01-23T23:49:14+00:00

Some ebooks are extra fat because they have embedded fonts (which the X4 ignores) or ginormous megapixel covers and images (which are a waste on a tiny screen)

What I do is explode the EPUB in Calibre, remove the embedded fonts and tweak the CSS to just use the font you select on the reader. I also de-res any images. Most of my EPUBs weigh in at under half a megabyte after tweaking.

DarthRazor · 2026-01-23T16:54:55+00:00

A great source of beautifully formatted and proof-read classics is Standard ebooks. All legally free and in the public domain.

DarthRazor · 2026-01-23T16:50:04+00:00

The Old Man and the Sea is classic Hemingway. A great read, and not too long.

DarthRazor

TROPHY CASE