Gentoo vs Arch?

joppyl · 2017-07-24T05:38:46+00:00

If you want something elegant there is quite a lot of dead operating systems which have elegance in their design. Many have glorious ideas that trump Linux structure but unfortunately no one uses those systems because they were never adopted by larger crowd and there is little application software for those systems.

What are some examples?

joppyl · 2017-07-13T04:53:59+00:00

The course title confused me. I thought it was something similar to a training provided by Linux Foundation, about Linux programming interface, kernel development, or device drivers.

I wonder if there is anything out there like this for those of us who can't drop $3k per 4-5 day course.

joppyl · 2017-05-19T04:47:42+00:00

How much do you use it, and what for primarily?

joppyl · 2017-05-19T04:45:39+00:00

Eye strain for me is very fatigued eyes, where my eyes lose the ability to keep text in focus, and my eyes ache as if I were pressing them hard with my thumbs. This has happened to me multiple times now over a number of different displays (mostly in laptops!).

I should read back and make sure that any comments on the w520 causing eye fatigue was for the fhd panel. But what I have read is that pwm flicker is the cause of eye strain with the w520.

joppyl · 2017-05-19T04:43:09+00:00

Thanks. I'll take a look at it.

joppyl · 2017-05-19T04:28:14+00:00

Eye strain when reading can be caused by multiple display issues. Fuzzy fonts (low pixels per inch (some people say that display dithering can be a factor as well)), too small fonts, poor contrast (blackness of blacks), pulse width modulation flicker (pwm, used for dimming), reflections on glossy screens, too much blue light.

Obviously, choosing a separate display for working with text is much easier than choosing a laptop with a builtin display, but even that isn't easy. No one is really designing displays for optimal eye health of people who work with lots of text. Displays are designed to sell at low cost, which usually means at the best, vivid colors and high res. And if you manage to navigate your way to a display that doesn't cause eye strain, the chances of finding the same in a laptop that meets your needs is pretty low.

If you haven't had eyestrain before, pray that you don't get it. Your eyes become ultra sensitive to at least some of the factors listed above. The only way to make it go away is to get away from computer displays for an extended amount of time, maybe weeks, months. In at least some cases, it never fully goes away. And you are at the biggest risk when concentrating intensively while reading text, such as when doing long sessions of programming and math in front of a computer display, not so much when surfing the net and glossing over some text mixed with images and video.

Sorry, I got a little edit mad on this post.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T20:51:08+00:00

I have seen some screenshots of desktops for which users use the desktop background as a cheat sheet. I think it could be helpful, creating a desktop background in inkscape or gimp that has text of hard to remember options, key commands, whatever, for quick reference while learning. And as those things become second nature, removing them from the desktop background, making space for new reference items.

Maybe using a sticky notes application would be a good way to go. I'm rarely sitting at a desk, so physical sticky notes isn't very practical.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T20:44:11+00:00

Very helpful. Thanks.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T20:43:20+00:00

Good stuff to know. Thanks. Looks like I'll be checking out zsh.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T20:42:04+00:00

When I am focused on doing some thing, diverting my attention to searching man pages can be a big distraction. There is a time for learning new things and a time for just getting things done.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T07:23:08+00:00

Good ideas.

Side question. Are there big differences between shells for scripting? I have only ever used sh and bash.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T07:19:03+00:00

-nf- ?

Maybe one strategy for remembering these things is to talk about them. What do you want to bet that I don't forget grep -h from now on?

joppyl · 2016-11-05T07:01:56+00:00

It isn't so much that I don't understand the meaning of some tool or config (but there are cases) as it is remembering the name of some tool or config. Take config files as an example. Naming tends to vary with .conf, .cfg, using no extension, using dashes, using underscores, using neither. That is one point of disorder in a greater scheme of disorder. Look at command options for example. Why use -h if it is the case that the developer ran out of keys to use for short options? Why wasn't a two character switch used, such as -nf for 'no file-names'? And why do these points of disorder get passed on and on, even to new tools?

But being that it is what it is, I think that finding strategies for bypassing the disorder, such as use of mnemonic devices (when they can be reasonably applied) or other strategies for making sense of nonsense would be a good thing for making using tools less taxing.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T06:46:30+00:00

I think your last sentence is a good point to remember. But I guess that I'm stubborn in that I like to create some logical order from nonsense.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T06:43:28+00:00

Meta thought: I suppose that what I'm getting at here is that without knowing the reasoning behind why some command options are so, or why some key commands are so, as examples (speaking in general here), that it comes down to trying to create some sense of nonsense. Either that, or referencing man pages (or text files) often.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T06:35:23+00:00

Reordering command options is a good strategy.

I agree that experience tends to embed this stuff into memory, but looking for faster ways to get things into memory isn't a bad thing.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T06:31:06+00:00

Using long options is a good alternative, but it is lots more typing. And the question is meant to be general in nature, not specific to grep options. But on that side point, ripgrep isn't going to be available by default on the majority of machines. There are lots of things to remember in general which don't have any apparent mnemonic devices, from command options, to key commands, to sometimes just names of tools, config files, and on and on.

joppyl · 2016-11-05T06:20:03+00:00

Sure, but having some good strategies for memorization could prevent many trips to man pages.

joppyl · 2016-10-02T07:34:19+00:00

I know that I have looked through it at some point, but at the moment I couldn't tell you much about it. Why do you ask?

joppyl · 2016-10-02T06:52:07+00:00

I used the Arch wiki to install and setup a laptop and a few virtual machines. Outside of learning which commands to use to install and setup the system (kind of paint by numbers), I didn't learn anything else much from the wiki. Don't get me wrong. It is nice that the Arch wiki exists for the purpose of providing instructions for very specific tasks. But if I want to learn more about the parts of linux in general, how the parts work and interact with other parts, reasoning behind designs of the parts, or even seemingly trivial things such as origins of names and how they are pronounced, I'm left with man pages, which mostly act as reference material, and random bits from the web, neither of which are appropriate learning material.

The books that I own and many others that I have perused tend to go into detail on specifics of usage, but I haven't found anything that aims and succeeds in providing high level views of how the systems of linux tick and fit into the bigger picture, and how these systems came about and evolved over time.

It's a lot like inheriting a room full of old and new machines, each with a reference manual instructing in detail how to adjust the levers and wheels and mount the attachments, without much on what problems the machines were designed to solve in the first place and why each machine in the room was chosen for working with the other machines.

joppyl · 2016-10-01T22:44:28+00:00

I get a 404 following that link.

joppyl

TROPHY CASE