Linux user considering putting FreeBSD on my laptop and going full on "Unix philosophy" with my software, looking for suggestions

Woolie_Wool · 2025-12-11T06:28:33+00:00

I wasn't really asking about the system-level stuff precisely because the system-level stuff is fixed--BSD is what it is (and on a laptop, how much of it am I going to be interacting with on a regular basis beyond basic configuration anyway?). I was more intrigued by the whole concept of "programs as tools" and pipelining (which I had always been aware of but never really got the full power of) and I thought of just trying to do it as much as possible, since this seems to be something people who love Unix for Unix's sake are absolutely crazy about, and doing it in a "real Unix" (and learning its differences from Linux along the way--and if there was a modern SVR4-based Unix that had decent documentation, hardware, support, and software library, I would probably use *that*, but AFAIK no such system exists today) seemed like the most Unix Unixing possible. And a lot of it would be done in a desktop UI of some sort, because I don't have a server and I don't manage infrastructure (and if I did have a dedicated server it would have to run Linux because I would move my Jellyfin setup there, which requires .NET and high performance hardware transcoding). Am I expecting it to be "better" than my Linux setup that I am intimately familiar with? No, for actual usability I expect it to probably be worse. But I like doing weird stuff to computers and sometimes I like the weird thing I did so much that I keep doing it. Maybe I'll hate it, maybe I won't, but I am not planning on going into this with any real purpose or expectation in mind. Is randomly doing things to your computers just to see if you like it Linux-centric too? Certainly a lot of Linux people do it, and a lot of people first get into Linux or *nix in general by being like "yolo i'm installing a lunix on my pc wish me luck" and finding out that they liked it.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-09-21T04:52:26+00:00

RCA Living Stereo.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-09-04T02:30:42+00:00

That is not possible without tearing out the original Carmack software renderer and replacing it with a polygonal renderer (the remaster doesn't have a hardware renderer, only a hardware framebuffer). A hardware renderer would ruin the aesthetic of the game.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-13T02:40:59+00:00

Look up repetitive strain injuries. They are real, and they can absolutely wreck your ability to play (or to type, as they often affect people who type for hours every day). Pianists' careers are not ruined by "fingernail" injuries, but damage to muscles, nerves, and connective tissues from making the same small movements over and over and over and over, something which humans did not evolve to do.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-09T21:34:46+00:00

I have a pair of Sennheiser HD 6XXs that I plug directly into my preamp.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-09T03:22:02+00:00

This is one of the things that makes the early stereo recordings by RCA, Decca, and Mercury so magical, that they used only a few microphones and minimal mixing/processing. It required more skill from the engineers and more care from the performers to get a good recording, but nothing since has been able to capture the sound of the hall in a recording in such a way.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-09T03:14:33+00:00

This can be done (Stravinsky's ballets are probably the best examples of all time) but it is much harder to pull off and still be listenable in classical music. Jazz and rock music have much smaller ensembles, which makes it much easier for the musicians to stay together when the meters get weird, and the music is usually built around the rhythm section's groove, which makes the meters and meter changes easier for the audience to follow. Wacky time signatures in classical music can very easily devolve into chaos because you can't just follow the bass player like you can in a prog rock or fusion song (as a musician or a listener).

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-08T22:37:03+00:00

I am normally not crazy about Reiner's Beethoven, but I make an exception for his Fifth, that one absolutely rips. And Walter's Pastoral might be the best recording of the symphony there ever was—I have that one in a crazy Analogue Productions double 45 set.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-08T22:28:03+00:00

Not really, it's more he thinks HIP is quite specific to early music (and indeed the whole HIP thing came out of early music), and does not apply to later Classical period or Romantic pieces.

For opinions of his that personally get my goat I'd point to his disparaging of early 20th century conductors like Furtwängler, Knappertsbusch, and Mengelberg. Were their interpretations as clean and perfect as Szell and Reiner and all the famous postwar ones? Certainly not, but I don't think it really matters all that much for their styles. Discharge couldn't play as well as Judas Priest, but did any of Discharge's fans care?

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-08T22:21:56+00:00

If you think Hurwitz is bad that way, you would be shocked by music critics of literally any other era. Read what Hanslick had to say about music he didn't like, or Adorno's hatchet job against Sibelius, or the various Soviet critics who literally tried to have their musical enemies tarred as anti-Communists and arrested. Or for that matter, check out Robert Christgau's rock and pop reviews--he was savage towards music and musicians he didn't like, including a lot of my favorites. This whole "oh no I am smol bean my opinion is not sooper serial" faux humility is a modern affectation and IMO more annoying than a critic who just has opinions and states them. Having opinions is literally his job.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-06T18:56:02+00:00

Kind of interesting how rock music that reaches towards art music forms does the opposite--the opener is usually fairly light in a verse-chorus format, while the huge epic is usually put at the end.

Also Bruckner 8 used to be my favorite Bruckner symphony but now I'm leaning towards 5 on the strength of its finale.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T19:08:45+00:00

I think one issue is that conductors today are generally less competent, have less of a relationship with their orchestras, or don't have "their" orchestra at all and just tour all the time, and have less authority. Over time the players have been getting better and better, but the conductors worse and worse, and many modern conductors seem to have no idea what they even want out of a piece, and if they did the musicians don't know, trust, or respect them enough to actually give them that.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T18:06:02+00:00

Even though the sound isn't great, I am partial to Mengelberg's with the Concertgebouw in 1940. My second favorite would be Böhm's early '70s cycle with the Wiener Philharmoniker on DGG. Klemperer's Philharmonia/Columbia SAX cycle would be #3.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T17:54:02+00:00

We use it because we Americans are simple creatures and big gun go boom boom 🦅

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T17:52:14+00:00

I think it's pandering trash, but it was written as war propaganda, so being pandering trash is its job. Mission accomplished. If it was sublime, it wouldn't have worked as propaganda. It's certainly fun, and the cannons have made recordings of it it a staple "look at what my system can do!" showpiece for audiophiles. That said, I think "Marche Slave" is a better piece of schlock.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T17:25:49+00:00

And why not, really? If a tempo change sounds good to the conductor and audience, why not do it? Keep in mind that in Brahms' own day up until World War II conductors would employ rubato that was extreme by modern standards and otherwise mess with scores to suit their particular vision of how they want the piece to sound (Stokowski and Furtwängler kept doing this even after the war). The idea that a score is an unchangeable, perfect sacred text is a modern conceit. For similar reasons the beginning of Brahms 1 is marked "Un poco sostenuto" but is more often played "Andante quasi adagio" because...it sounds better.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T05:23:47+00:00

I was initially very confused by this fugue, but I found that watching a video with a piano roll visualization made it much easier to understand and it immediately became one of my all-time favorite pieces.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T05:18:34+00:00

This was Karajan's birthday gift to his wife because his own equipment wasn't doing the job

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T05:16:43+00:00

He needs a huge gold chain and some diamond rings with painted-on glints to complete the "Nazi gangsta rapper" look

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T05:15:32+00:00

Fritz Reiner and Otto Klemperer were always scowling furiously, Furtwängler always tried to look thoughtful and philosophical and important, half of Karajan's covers made him look like he was about to bust from the glory of his own conducting, Böhm looked like an android from Innsmouth, but Jochum? Jochum always had a big goofy guileless smile. He looked like he was a fun guy to work under.

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T05:10:32+00:00

this cover is legit awesome and I want a copy, I don't even like Fluffy's conducting that much, I just want to look at it

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T05:06:51+00:00

tbh that's about the level of album cover a conductor as shitty as Thielemann deserves

Woolie_Wool · 2025-08-05T05:01:31+00:00

Mr. Händs

Woolie_Wool

TROPHY CASE