SLiM and dwm: again

After a great deal of hassle I finally got SLiM working on my Arch laptop. I spent hours reading man pages, websites, howtos, and wiki-es in search of my problem. None of them helped. I could not, for the life of me, find out what I did wrong. I even reinstalled it. Well, turns out I’m just an idiot. In the /etc/slim.conf file you have to specify which xinitrc file you’d like to use. You can use the personal one of the user logging in or a global one in /etc/X11/xinit. I had mine set for the local one for my user while I continued to modify and toy with the global one. So I spent roughly two days pulling out my hair only to realize all I had to do was use the right init file. It was one of those experiences that makes you feel retarded after its over. My install of SLiM does function properly now and can correctly log me into either xfce or dwm.

As far as dwm is concerned I haven’t really done anything with it. In fact I’ve done nothing with it. I have no idea what so ever how to use it. Gentoo users frequently get mad at the Paludis team for being harsh on IRC or through the mailing list. Well, all I have to say is at least they write up-to-date, correct, and human readable documentation; and lots of it I might add. The authors of dwm won’t even give you that. They show you a roughly 50 line man page and what ever comes with the source code and send you on your way. And apparently they too have bad reputation on IRC. Oh well. Unlike Paludis, I at this point, do not see myself using dwm for more than just personal entertainment. Though there are some other window managers out there I would like to try but have not. E17 is at the top of the list right now. I have tried E16 and I was not very impressed, but E17 appears to be a lot better. We’ll find out.

Enjoy the Penguins!

dwm and SLiM

On my Arch Laptop I blew out GDM and replaced it with SLiM and I have added dwm to my list of usable desktop environments. I have no real experience with either of them but I’m working on it. My first thoughts of SLiM on my laptop so far is that it is a pain in the butt to configure. I know its supposed to be “simple” hence the name but I’m having a terrible time getting it to work properly. It lives up to its reputation though. It is very light weight and despite its being lightweight it does look very good. After I get it setup I’ll give a better review of it.

dwm, much like SLiM, has been a rather rough ride. At this point all I’ve got is it up and running. My impressions at this point is that its lightweight. It does have some rather odd, I think their odd anyway, methods though. For example it has not configuration files. Instead all of the configuring is done through the source code. So every time you change something you have to recompile. This is great while the program stays under 2000 lines of C, but when it begins to grow and gain new features that is really going to become a nuisance, if it isn’t already for some users. Past that I haven’t really gotten the chance to use it much. I’m busy doing a lot of other things besides Linux.

I have created Arch Linux Wiki pages for both SLiM and dwm if you would like to check them out. As of this writing I’m the only one who has edited them so feel to change them or submit changes to me if you see room for improvement. Again, as of this writing, I haven’t tried to use either of these with Gentoo though a Gentoo Wiki page does exist for SLiM, though I do not believe one exists dwm, yet.

Enjoy the Penguins!

Books and Window Managers

So today started out with nothing for me to do. I woke up and I was bored. Typical day I suppose. I haven’t found a job yet to keep me busy with… but that is another story. So the mail came today and I got the books I ordered off of Amazon finally. The first is Effective C++ (3rd Ed.) and the other is Effective STL both written by Scott Meyers. I haven’t really gotten to far into either of them as I seem to find more things to do as the day goes on but so far they both are excellent reads. If you like C++ anyway. I’ve read more of Effective C++ so far and it so far is written so that anyone with C++ experience can understand it pretty well. You will of course have to make sure you understand the lingo just like anything else, but the book presents very simple ways to improve your code. I don’t do a great deal of coding at the time being (okay I do about zero coding right now) but that will soon change. I would definitely recommend both of these books to any and everyone. I already plan on buying More Effective C++ as soon as I can.

In other unrelated news a thread on TuxForums.org inspired me to try a new window manager named dwm. I haven’t honestly used it yet as its not in Arch repositories so you have to use ABS (the Arch Build System) to install it. While attempting to get it up and running after getting it setup through ABS I decided I didn’t really like GDM. In fact I think sucks. So instead on my laptop I have switched to SLiM. So far I haven’t actually gotten SLiM working either but so far I already like it better if for no other reason than its very lightweight.

Finally, I think this post holds the record thus far for the number of external links provided within the text and for the number of tags. Sheesh!

Enjoy the Penguins!

A new laptop: Mac or Mac?

No, I haven’t bought one. And I still don’t plan to buy one for another several months, but considering the current states of my DELL Inspiron 8200 I’ve already started planning on what I want and how much I’m willing to pay for it. Right now I’ve pretty much decided I want a Mac. I want to experience Mac OS full time. It is after all UNIX based and though not Open Source it does appear to provide an excellent platform to develop code on. My only problem at this point is whether or not it is worth it to spend the extra money on a Macbook Pro as opposed to a regular Macbook. I don’t want a large laptop. I prefer a notebook computer as opposed to a laptop or desktop replacement. My current computer is a “laptop replacement” and while having the beefier hardware is nice the weight and other factors almost make it not worth it. Not in my opinion anyway. I’d like to be more mobile with my next laptop. Oh, and Xcode also looks interesting. I’d like to get my hands on that and play with it some. It comes with all of Apples computers, supposedly, so there’s another reason why I am currently having a bit of trouble justifying the extra price for the Pro. It doesn’t matter to much at this point though. I’m not doing anything till Leopard comes out. It would be pointless to buy one now with Tiger when Leopard is only months away. Not unless you had no other choice. Leopard better be worth it. I’ll ticked off if it isn’t.

Enjoy the Penguins

Blogger Upgrades

I didn’t realize it till just a couple of minutes ago but Blogger upgrading their template system so that you can change just about everything without having to manually edit the HTML. Its nice. Makes it easier for me to tinker with the colors and fonts sizes. I no longer have to hunt through a hundred or more lines of code I didn’t write trying to find the piece I need. There is little I hate more a lot of times then hunting and pecking through someone else’s code. If your reading this through Planet Larry or an aggregator I suggest you come look at it. I like it a lot better now. I liked the way it looked in black, but it just didn’t feel right considering the nature of the site. Oh well, the new Blogger is much better. If you didn’t start a blog with before because they were to limiting I suggest you give them another look. They’re not near as lame as they were when I started using them =).

Enjoy the Penguins!

My new mascot

You like the penguin? I bought him at a farm supply store. Yes they have those where I live. He’s about 6.5cm tall so he’s not huge, he is instead, the perfect size. I haven’t really decided if I should physically mount him to the monitor or the tower, or instead, just leave him sitting there. I’m afraid if I don’t glue him or something he’ll fall over and fall off. We can’t have him falling off. Oh yeah, that book in the background is Learning the Bash Shell by Newham and Rosenblatt published by O’Reilly if you couldn’t already tell from the giant fish. I don’t think I’ll name him. He needs no title. Exciting I know!

Enjoy the Penguins!

Thank you Mike Kelly

In another installment in my new “Thank You” series, I will today be thanking another open source programmer who has written a piece of software that make my life that much easier.

Today’s programmer is Mike Kelly. I don’t know Mike Kelly, but I know of him and now I’m glad I do. He is a developer for Gentoo Linux though and is currently working on the Paludis package manager. He wrote a wonderful little script in ruby that lists all the overlays for the Gentoo project and then writes the necessary configuration files for you so that you can use Paludis with all of those wonderful unofficial sources of code you know you wished you used.

So if you use Paludis and you still want your repositories and don’t want to learn how to write your own config files, because your lazy, Mike Kelly already wrote them all for you.

Enjoy the Penguins!

Script – playman.rb
Paludis

Dead Pixels: They come and go?

Alright for Christmas I bought a Samsung SyncMaster 940BF. Its a 19″ flat panel LCD for my computer. I love it. Its probably the best monitor I’ve ever owned except that it has.. err had dead pixels. Since when do these things come and go? I’ve been turning it off with the least bit of inactivity in order to spare myself more than I had. Since starting this practice they’ve gone away. This is starting to get ridiculous. This is like the third time now I believe this has happened to me. I either have them or I don’t… or so I thought.

Enjoy the Penguins!

Kernel trouble

Compiling your own kernel is a hallmark of the Linux user experience. It is something that truly separates it as an OS for the user unlike Windows or Mac. While this totally rocks it also sometimes sucks. Every time I deiced I need to recompile my kernel I usually go grab the latest gentoo-sources. While upgrading the kernel is always a good idea for a lot of reasons it tends to provide me with trouble a lot of times too.

Recently I’ve been tired of having errors upon boot on Firestarter not being able to start because of me not having iptables built into my kernel. This along with the fact that the atheros drivers require several crypto options I’d never compile in unless needed by my wireless card. So I figured out where on earth the iptables section was in the kernel (thank you #gentoo) and recompiled. Only to realize I left out my sound drivers. So I recompiled again with my sound card and such only to find that ALSA claims I don’t have the drivers for it. What changed between 2.6.19 and 2.6.20 that I no longer have a sound card I don’t know, but I don’t. I selected the same driver packages that I always do. This is odd because it seems to happen on every other kernel upgrade. If 2.6.21 comes out and I switch to it I will probably get my sound back.

On the flip side though I did get iptables up and running along with Firestarter so I do have a firewall now. I also successfully got the right options for my wireless card in and now can connect wirelessly.

Recently, during a trip to Maryland, I had a talk with my adviser on my master’s degree. He asked me what I wanted to do my thesis on. Any ideas?

Enjoy the Penguins!

I’m still here

I’m still here. Don’t give up on me. I haven’t given up on blogging. I’ve just been real busy lately. Graduating. Job hunting. Apartment hunting. Starting school… again. You know how it is. Don’t worry my computer is well neglected as well.

Enjoy the Penguins!