chrome's not my cuppa (philosophically/ideologically/ethically or pragmatically), idkwtf is up with firefox4+++++, and none of the others are quite doing it for me. ...so uzbl is still my main cuppa. it's not quite so convenient for getting the plugins you want on the go, but makes up for that with configurability, and putting so much more power in your hands, with it's integration with linux, via it's adherence to the unix philosophy.
having said that, i concede, i have been spending a lot of time with seamonkey/iceape recently, after months of almost nothing but uzbl.
mainly, at least to begin with, it was for it's excellent get-the-job-done wysiwyg html editor.
but i snuck in some use of it's browser, and then realised if i was going to do that, i should get iceape kitted out for browsing, with obvious important stuff like betterprivacy, ghostery, noscript, flashblock, etc. and then of course adding stuff i feel like i cant do without (compact menu, littlemonkey, video downloadhelper, etc)...
so yeah, here i come championing and bigging-up (big-up-ing?) uzbl, and i'm not even using it right now. i'm typing this into the blogger web interface, using iceape. :O
but wait, there's a reason for that...
i'm on a fresh install of crunchbang!
... "but crunchbang doesnt come with iceape!" i hear you cry. indeed... so why didnt i install uzbl instead of iceape?
debian repositories. *sigh*. it feels like the dark ages. now before anyone starts a forest fire from the sparks flying from the speed of their kneejerks, please take into account, that i have come from a prolongued intensive use of arch, gentoo and slackware. and not only that, but i've been using rather more leet management of my packages, picking and choosing which packages i use from stable, which are testing, and which are bleeding edge, since gentoo's portage is ace for letting you do that sort of thing. uzbl is one i set for "**9999" (the bleeding edge).
ok, i know, it's "debian squeeze" and squeeze is now their stable, right? ...buuuuut the uzbl they have is from april 2010. for something that's still calling itself alpha, and under reasonably heavy development, that is dinosaur stuff. i doubt any of the plugins will have much of a chance working with that old hat.
so indeed, since, conversely, slightly older iceape/seamonkey is actually better (in terms of plugins working with it, compared to bleeding edge seamonkey where plugins havnt caught up, as arch users will likely be familiar with), i installed iceape first... to nav around the net, sorting things out n whatnot, rather than chrome. ... and was about to install uzbl just then, when an idea struck me... since i do this a fair amount... wanting uzbl with me as i do... and requiring to install it in such case, that i should create a script for it. and so that's what i did.
i made ddumb,
(and have gone for "release-early" for once)
http://wastedartist.com/scripts/ddumb.html
... and that's why i'm writing this from iceape, and not uzbl.
not even tried it yet. just excitedly threw it up on the net. ^_^
Friday, 30 September 2011
Monday, 5 September 2011
let the noobs de-noob / the sharn o git
the sharn of git:
git's hard to learn, if you dont use it alot to begin with.
(typing half a dozen commands one day, that you had to look up, and never again until ages later, doesnt do much to help learn em)
learning [code] happens much faster, when you collaborate on projects, and everyone fills the knowledge gaps of everyone else.
collaborating is much easier with git, and without git, it's almost impossible to collaborate propperly, since it's the daddy of collaboration aids.
... anyone see a problem with this loop of soft exclussivity?
pre-noobs not allowed in the party that de-noobs them, because they're pre-noobs/noobs.
logic fail in the grand plan. ... oh that's right, it wasnt planned, it evolved. ...well, we better fix that then. :)
git's hard to learn, if you dont use it alot to begin with.
(typing half a dozen commands one day, that you had to look up, and never again until ages later, doesnt do much to help learn em)
learning [code] happens much faster, when you collaborate on projects, and everyone fills the knowledge gaps of everyone else.
collaborating is much easier with git, and without git, it's almost impossible to collaborate propperly, since it's the daddy of collaboration aids.
... anyone see a problem with this loop of soft exclussivity?
pre-noobs not allowed in the party that de-noobs them, because they're pre-noobs/noobs.
logic fail in the grand plan. ... oh that's right, it wasnt planned, it evolved. ...well, we better fix that then. :)
Saturday, 13 August 2011
stuff i love n other stuff.
been using blender again. i forgot how much i love it. ok, so i'm not fluent n free flowing with it, able to get it to do what i want without looking up manuals, tutorials and so on like i could with softimage|XSI (especially since 2.5 changed it so much), but the potential is there.
oops, almost forgot... tilda. ^_^ it's so standard to me now i dont even notice it.
i suppose i should also at least mention, gentoo. i mean gentoo for "real men". i'm no longer on toorox, (nor sabayon nor papug or whatever). a proper stage3 gentoo install from the ground up. :) and oh boy do i love it. got a make.conf sorted nice n minimal, and am keeping my system nice n lean. a speed machine! :)
uzbl is still as much a treat as ever. ... though there are "addons" that would make it all the sweeter, such as a script manager... for easier portability of whole configurations, not just the config file, which, unless u have no additional scripts, is not entirely convenient on it's own. "uzballs" are planned, but no work done on them yet i hear. good to know it's at least been thought of and is in the pipeline.
xmonad.... xmonad xmonad xmonad. oh how i love xmonad.
scrotwm too... i'm using it more these days, and even find it the superior to xmonad in a couple of ways... though sorely lacking in a couple others.
oops, almost forgot... tilda. ^_^ it's so standard to me now i dont even notice it.
i suppose i should also at least mention, gentoo. i mean gentoo for "real men". i'm no longer on toorox, (nor sabayon nor papug or whatever). a proper stage3 gentoo install from the ground up. :) and oh boy do i love it. got a make.conf sorted nice n minimal, and am keeping my system nice n lean. a speed machine! :)
here's the biggie... the new guy to the list. if you know me, or have been through this blog a few times, you'll likely have witnessed my apraisals of the previous apps (and distro), this one, i just discovered a couple days ago (thnx cog).
gmusicbrowser.
gmusic browser utterly trounces all other music players for linux (and for any other system for that matter). ok, sure, it's still kinda young, n has a rare ocassional scabby edge, but you can see it's already kicking bottoms. the customiseability of the interface layouts, the choice of backends, ratings, web features, scalable (designed with >10,000 tracks in mind), fast, clean, light... they done good, boys. they done good. one to watch.
+
i tried google+ for less than a day. that was enough to know "NO!". what epic chain fail. yes, i had to coin a new phrase to depict it. chain fail. ok, so lets say you can overlook the privacy/security/bigbrother concerns about letting google in that far into your social life and to know all that more about you than they already do from your searchings, and that you can even overlook that they report it all to govs (as they've now admitted), the chain fail kicks in hardest if you're not on one of the 4 big name browsers, explorer, firefox, opera and safari (iirc), in which case, they wont even let you in. ok, so no worries, just change what useragent your browser is broadcasting, right? nope. you can get into it then, but stuff wont work right. i dont like a site that tells me which browser i'm supposed to use. even if it told me i had to use uzbl, i would still not be pleased. to highlight the stupidity of this... i can surf facebook, with a text browser, and still have acceptible levels of functionality. .... ok, i can rant on about this for a while. suffice to say, google plus is actually google minus.
... and i'm not happy with facebook either. bring on diaspora or anon+.
"anon+.. what is anon+?"
:) a bright future for the net. huzzah! bring it on.
... and if they dont....
........me and some of the boys have been talking about how we could create better (than facebook).
... and i'm not happy with facebook either. bring on diaspora or anon+.
"anon+.. what is anon+?"
:) a bright future for the net. huzzah! bring it on.
... and if they dont....
........me and some of the boys have been talking about how we could create better (than facebook).
Friday, 24 June 2011
uzbl gtk themes
smplgut-uzbl
^^^ link to my uzbl inspired gtk theme set i made.
originally just 4. now expanded to ten uzbl-esq gtk themes to pick n choose from.
mostly dark, a few middle-ish, and a light one too.
likely makes little difference to most uzbl setups, but makes the rest of your apps look nice.
you dont need to use, nor even know what uzbl is, to make use of these themes. :)
thnx to those of you who use flattr.
Thursday, 19 May 2011
uzbl, the return - day 7
uzbl, the return, day7
so... uzbl has been doing strange things to me. all that "unixy-goodness" has started to go to my head...
... such that i installed slackware.
and slackware has been doing more of the same strange things to me....
... i now like delving deeper, getting to know more about my software. i'm not claiming i sit there reading throguh source code or anything like that... but just more about how the packages interact with each other, a few configuration files that are universal to all distros, i've never known much about, are now familiar to me, i now take a look at the project page for specific applications i want to use, i read about them more, i read README files, and so on.
and y'know what coems with all this extra engagement with my software? knowledge. it's got me off learning about stuff i hadnt been aware of existing. like yeahconsole!!!!!
yeahconsole is another piece of software that's really got me excited.
after tilda was segfaulting, i went first in search of fixes for it, but upon doing so, i discovered a link in one of the threads, pointing to yeahconsole. yeahconsole, isnt a drop down terminal.. it just adds drop-down functionality to your existing terminal of choice. how cool is that!!!
i've long wanted to explore all the rxvt terms n the like, but i've been so gleefully ingraned in the *uake/tild* paradigm that i couldnt bring myself to it.
a friend, rstcogburn/p0rksh3d suggested i check out his urxvt drop-down wrapper script once it was finished... well... thnx for the idea. ^_^ looks like i might have found a working one on my own already. i've not even typed a command into it yet, just configured it, launched it, and made it appear/disapear a few times, and i already love it. it seems properly crisp n clean. fluffless. i like that. ^_^
...and why am i rabbiting on about this in my uzbl series?
well... besides the point of it being MY blog, AND my disclaimer just under the title, because this is what uzbl has done to me. it's set forth a cascade of events (pebcak n all), that's bringing me closer to the metal, deeper into the interoperability of the operating system... the immense power that comes from your software being entirely "sh" friendly, so one app can use the output of another and do things with it... so all apps can work together, rather than distinct separate islands that you're just reliant on whatever features the programmer thinks you need.... which when you're in that prison, it often feels really great, because the programmer has diligently furnished it with everything they could think of you needing. and that's great, it really is, it works wonders, especially for many a specialist application (thinking of the highest couple examples of this like softimage|XSI and abletonLIVE)... and chances are, when the demands are high-end enough, you'll come full circle, and that pipeable interoperability will be on the cards again.
see... i know uzbl isnt the absolute zippiest nippy responsive browser out there... using the likes of "links" (as i'm doing on slackware just now, until i get uzbl installed..... i'll get around to it, dont worry) where everything seems instant, because there's no delay waiting for graphics to load, no wasted cpu cycles on anything but the text n links... yeah, it's fast... but uzbl wins, despite it's python lag, because of it's interoperability with the rest of the os, because of it's relative familiarity. if you've already learned a load of bash, there'l be more tricks availed to you in uzbl. if you havnt, and you learn to use and configure uzbl, you'll learn more tricks to apply to the rest of your os. ...see how clever it is?
... i still feel like i've completely failed to convey the boon of using software that strives to adhere to the unix-philosophy of "one job, well". when you couple this with "Free Software" (i.e. the 4 freedoms) it really takes off. without the freedom, it becomes insular, elitist, esoteric. with the freedom, it becomes a community, where we're all sharing and learning together. ...sure you still get elitism in some corners, but hey, that's kinda part of the freedom... it's "free to share", not "not free to not share" (or not "mandated to share", if that's clearer.)... as was proven just moments ago in irc.. there are of course still people who are in that place where they'd rather massage their own insecurities by calling others "noobs" rather than actually offer something helpful. human failings on their spiritual evolution aside, the 4 freedoms are still maintained, and that fosters the sense of community, encourages the notion that it's not only ok to share, but a very welcome benefit to US ALL. .... n that's the idea that proponents of the proprietary development model are fighting hard against. there, it's aledgedly not being a beneficial contributing member of society, but a leeching pariah criminal!!! see how utterly disturbingly wack that is?!? helping your neighbour is a crime??? helping spread enlightenment and knowledge is a crime? helping spread empowerment a crime??? utter maaaaadness!
centralisation, totalitarianism, want to keep you dependent. hard working dependents. slaves effectively. constantly reinforcing the idea in you that you cant know enough to be empowered, and that you always need to keep relying on what they have to offer you, and that what they offer you is the farthest extent of possible empowerment, so you'd better keep working to pay the piper.
... ok... ok... now i rly have stretched the relevence to uzbl a bit far... this is encroaching on the teritory of digit's ideals vs the incumbent socio-ecconomic paradigm. :/
... i suppose i'm just having a grumble about this because i have some wage slavery to get on with... or the nearest thing i have to it, freelance graphic design crap for commercial interests. :/
better stop procrastinating on that with my lamentations. ^_^
so... uzbl has been doing strange things to me. all that "unixy-goodness" has started to go to my head...
... such that i installed slackware.
and slackware has been doing more of the same strange things to me....
... i now like delving deeper, getting to know more about my software. i'm not claiming i sit there reading throguh source code or anything like that... but just more about how the packages interact with each other, a few configuration files that are universal to all distros, i've never known much about, are now familiar to me, i now take a look at the project page for specific applications i want to use, i read about them more, i read README files, and so on.
and y'know what coems with all this extra engagement with my software? knowledge. it's got me off learning about stuff i hadnt been aware of existing. like yeahconsole!!!!!
yeahconsole is another piece of software that's really got me excited.
after tilda was segfaulting, i went first in search of fixes for it, but upon doing so, i discovered a link in one of the threads, pointing to yeahconsole. yeahconsole, isnt a drop down terminal.. it just adds drop-down functionality to your existing terminal of choice. how cool is that!!!
i've long wanted to explore all the rxvt terms n the like, but i've been so gleefully ingraned in the *uake/tild* paradigm that i couldnt bring myself to it.
a friend, rstcogburn/p0rksh3d suggested i check out his urxvt drop-down wrapper script once it was finished... well... thnx for the idea. ^_^ looks like i might have found a working one on my own already. i've not even typed a command into it yet, just configured it, launched it, and made it appear/disapear a few times, and i already love it. it seems properly crisp n clean. fluffless. i like that. ^_^
...and why am i rabbiting on about this in my uzbl series?
well... besides the point of it being MY blog, AND my disclaimer just under the title, because this is what uzbl has done to me. it's set forth a cascade of events (pebcak n all), that's bringing me closer to the metal, deeper into the interoperability of the operating system... the immense power that comes from your software being entirely "sh" friendly, so one app can use the output of another and do things with it... so all apps can work together, rather than distinct separate islands that you're just reliant on whatever features the programmer thinks you need.... which when you're in that prison, it often feels really great, because the programmer has diligently furnished it with everything they could think of you needing. and that's great, it really is, it works wonders, especially for many a specialist application (thinking of the highest couple examples of this like softimage|XSI and abletonLIVE)... and chances are, when the demands are high-end enough, you'll come full circle, and that pipeable interoperability will be on the cards again.
see... i know uzbl isnt the absolute zippiest nippy responsive browser out there... using the likes of "links" (as i'm doing on slackware just now, until i get uzbl installed..... i'll get around to it, dont worry) where everything seems instant, because there's no delay waiting for graphics to load, no wasted cpu cycles on anything but the text n links... yeah, it's fast... but uzbl wins, despite it's python lag, because of it's interoperability with the rest of the os, because of it's relative familiarity. if you've already learned a load of bash, there'l be more tricks availed to you in uzbl. if you havnt, and you learn to use and configure uzbl, you'll learn more tricks to apply to the rest of your os. ...see how clever it is?
... i still feel like i've completely failed to convey the boon of using software that strives to adhere to the unix-philosophy of "one job, well". when you couple this with "Free Software" (i.e. the 4 freedoms) it really takes off. without the freedom, it becomes insular, elitist, esoteric. with the freedom, it becomes a community, where we're all sharing and learning together. ...sure you still get elitism in some corners, but hey, that's kinda part of the freedom... it's "free to share", not "not free to not share" (or not "mandated to share", if that's clearer.)... as was proven just moments ago in irc.. there are of course still people who are in that place where they'd rather massage their own insecurities by calling others "noobs" rather than actually offer something helpful. human failings on their spiritual evolution aside, the 4 freedoms are still maintained, and that fosters the sense of community, encourages the notion that it's not only ok to share, but a very welcome benefit to US ALL. .... n that's the idea that proponents of the proprietary development model are fighting hard against. there, it's aledgedly not being a beneficial contributing member of society, but a leeching pariah criminal!!! see how utterly disturbingly wack that is?!? helping your neighbour is a crime??? helping spread enlightenment and knowledge is a crime? helping spread empowerment a crime??? utter maaaaadness!
centralisation, totalitarianism, want to keep you dependent. hard working dependents. slaves effectively. constantly reinforcing the idea in you that you cant know enough to be empowered, and that you always need to keep relying on what they have to offer you, and that what they offer you is the farthest extent of possible empowerment, so you'd better keep working to pay the piper.
... ok... ok... now i rly have stretched the relevence to uzbl a bit far... this is encroaching on the teritory of digit's ideals vs the incumbent socio-ecconomic paradigm. :/
... i suppose i'm just having a grumble about this because i have some wage slavery to get on with... or the nearest thing i have to it, freelance graphic design crap for commercial interests. :/
better stop procrastinating on that with my lamentations. ^_^
uzbl, the return - day 6
uzbl, the return, day6
well, yesterday i said i was gonna start from scratch...
i thought i'd rap out an arch install in about 25 minutes, n then another 20 minutes later, i'd have a nice gui (xmonad + my config), packer, pacsync and of course, uzbl installed again, and start up a nice tight install, kept tight n tidy with pacsync...
...alas, events took a different turn.
my dual netinst cd was giving me installation problems again... i'd had this before installing arch on this laptop for bases for the arch based rown witch linux i've been developing.
it seems to somehow cut out just after package installation, and fails to reccognise the media it was being installed to after that (preventing just those last two steps).
so after the third time getting the same result (and not remembering what i did, besides blind luck, to get it to work for the arch witch install), i thought i'd just try the shortcut cheat way of getting arch installed.... archbang. ... installed it, but it failed to boot... and.. well... i could have probably tried a couple things, but i had already decided, somwhere between my second attempt getting the drives to stay awake during the arch install, and the archbang install, that i'd install slackware.
slackware 13.37
how can you resist?
^_^
since i have a 15gb partition newly freed up, n i've long been saying how much i respect slackware n will eventually use it n so on...
so... i thought, since i'm already on this uzbl unixy-goodness fest, why not get closer to the metal with the most leet sounding release of slackware ever.
it makes sense, right?
....or maybe i'm having too much of a good thing here.
configurability n unixy-goodness is good stuff.... but... maybe going for the lightest gui otion availed in the installer was going a bit far. just giving me twm. just giving me basically everything to isntall... in this new* unfamiliar os that takes a little more reading up on how to install software (and more typing) than most of everything else i've used. so much so, i ran back to my ubuntu-based squishboom install on the laptop just after installing libevent and tmux from slackbuilds.org.
* not the first time i've installed slack over the years... but the last time was so long ago, and i dont rly remember much of it, n probably didnt use it for long enough to get a proper feel for it.
it is a far cry from the simplicity of "emerge --sync && emerge tmux" or "pacman Syyu && pacman -S tmux".
and to think i used to lament on how many extra characters/options pacman and apt based distros had you typing/remembering over gentoo's simple "emerge"....
...but anyways, like i say...
it's nice feeling closer to the metal.
and it's good to learn.
learning how to live closer to the metal, means... well... basically it means you're more immediately availed the benefits of free software, the proper way.
i mean, the "open source" guys did think about the term, seemingly, longer and harder than i presume the deliberations went over the term "free software", despite, for the most part meaning pretty much the same thing.
it's about the source. the availability n freedom to get jiggy wid da source!
so the less layers of abstraction and interpolation and plastic wrap between you and the source, the better... right?
well, yes and no.
(or should that be yes and know).
convenience, oh convencience... why must you so often come ready as convenience for those who want to remain ignorant, and why must you be so inconvenient for those who want to know.
it's like the trade-off one has to make for security.
... sure you could have a completely secure locked down system, with no wires leading to the internet, and passwords required for EVERY action... but it's far from convenient.
same goes for being closer to the source. you're more closely afforded the opportunity to paruse the source code, to modify it and so on... but of course, it's not as simple as point and click gui package managers. ... n that's less convenient... if all you want is a click-n-go.
i'm not actually opposed to the idea of a click-n-go system... i just think it can be made in a way that retains that maximal expedient convenience, but ALSO provides the user, up-front, all the knowledge and source-code access that a close-to-the-metal style of package management affords.
nice ideals huh. ^_^
though i know why they've not been programmed to be so... a combination of lazyness and a perspective which says "those who want click-n-go dont want to know".... and there's an element of truth to that indeed. they dont. but is that any reason to help them remain ignorant? is that any reason to be negligent in caring for the intelectual commons? they are free software users just like everyone else... and as such, just as much developers as anyone else. who want's their software developers to be ignorant of how the software works??
....see... it's like an insideous poisonous meme, that's crept into free software from the proprietary cathedralesq model. and understandably so... in the evolutionary meme theory, you can easily see why it managed to out-compete the existing predominant meme in free software at the time of it's sneeking over... that being that hard-ass "geek it up or die" kind of elitist mentality. ...sure, it keeps your intelectual genepool rich... but small. it's off-putting to us lazy masses. n i dont say that disparagingly. lazy in the good sence. efficiency. we evolved to be this lazy. it makes sense. less effort for more gain? no-brainer. so of course plastic wrap started winning out... and just kept getting stronger as more n more arrived, self-exiled from proprietary, "windows refugees" we call them. and of course, they just kept adding to the demand (and supply) of more of this separation-from-code modality.
so yeah... that's me just re-itterating my call for all plastic-wrap to come with details on the contents.
then with a "fully informed public", we can start making smarter decisions. it's as true of software as it is for politics n grocery shopping n religion, and so on.
anyways... yeah... uzbl.
lol.
getting more used to it. though i admit, i have reached for seamonkey a couple of times.
pidgin on my ubuntu 10.04 squishboom, doesnt seem to want to retain that it's uzbl-browser i want it to use. keeps telling me that manual selected browser is not set. :/ maybe i'm doing something wrong.
i havnt done much more tweaking to it on any of my opperating systems since my epic facepalm fail.
(not sure if i mentioned this already, but shortly after my stupid mistake, i was informed that a mere cookie purge would have likely resolved my connection fail to a number of sites.)
i've just been using it. nice n simple.
on a page per page basis, it does seem to amount to a heavier ram useage, compared with my old fully kitted out firefox with bartab, n all the blockers (noscript, flashblock, adblock, ghostery, betterprivacy), and i really dont mind at all.
usually i'm a stickler for demanding things be ever less resource hungry (fighting against the tide, right?) but considering the interoperability with the rest of the system, it's soooooo worth it.
i am starting to see how despite it's slight flaws *coughpythonisslowcough*, it does, and will, confer productivity boons.
... and i'm forced to remind myself here... this is still alphaware!
it's just gonna get better. rly glad i've gotten on board so reasonably early in it's life.
i see a very long bright future for the likes of uzbl.
oh, and a bonux
(^typo worth keeping)
the moral of the story from the earlier bork...
(as repeated in the following todo)
dont go brash n insane next time something doesnt work, and instead, follow the apropriate troubleshooting proceedures.
X|
#####
todo
####
1. stop writing these silly todo lists at the end of your uzbl blogs, now that you've become fluent enough at editing the configs.
2. remember not to go brash n insane next time something doesnt work, and instead, follow the apropriate troubleshooting proceedures.
3. get a nice tiling wm and uzbl and 9menu installed on slackware. (doing that now as i write this blog ~ or procrastinating on that, and got this graphic-design brief to fullfil now too)
well, yesterday i said i was gonna start from scratch...
i thought i'd rap out an arch install in about 25 minutes, n then another 20 minutes later, i'd have a nice gui (xmonad + my config), packer, pacsync and of course, uzbl installed again, and start up a nice tight install, kept tight n tidy with pacsync...
...alas, events took a different turn.
my dual netinst cd was giving me installation problems again... i'd had this before installing arch on this laptop for bases for the arch based rown witch linux i've been developing.
it seems to somehow cut out just after package installation, and fails to reccognise the media it was being installed to after that (preventing just those last two steps).
so after the third time getting the same result (and not remembering what i did, besides blind luck, to get it to work for the arch witch install), i thought i'd just try the shortcut cheat way of getting arch installed.... archbang. ... installed it, but it failed to boot... and.. well... i could have probably tried a couple things, but i had already decided, somwhere between my second attempt getting the drives to stay awake during the arch install, and the archbang install, that i'd install slackware.
slackware 13.37
how can you resist?
^_^
since i have a 15gb partition newly freed up, n i've long been saying how much i respect slackware n will eventually use it n so on...
so... i thought, since i'm already on this uzbl unixy-goodness fest, why not get closer to the metal with the most leet sounding release of slackware ever.
it makes sense, right?
....or maybe i'm having too much of a good thing here.
configurability n unixy-goodness is good stuff.... but... maybe going for the lightest gui otion availed in the installer was going a bit far. just giving me twm. just giving me basically everything to isntall... in this new* unfamiliar os that takes a little more reading up on how to install software (and more typing) than most of everything else i've used. so much so, i ran back to my ubuntu-based squishboom install on the laptop just after installing libevent and tmux from slackbuilds.org.
* not the first time i've installed slack over the years... but the last time was so long ago, and i dont rly remember much of it, n probably didnt use it for long enough to get a proper feel for it.
it is a far cry from the simplicity of "emerge --sync && emerge tmux" or "pacman Syyu && pacman -S tmux".
and to think i used to lament on how many extra characters/options pacman and apt based distros had you typing/remembering over gentoo's simple "emerge"....
...but anyways, like i say...
it's nice feeling closer to the metal.
and it's good to learn.
learning how to live closer to the metal, means... well... basically it means you're more immediately availed the benefits of free software, the proper way.
i mean, the "open source" guys did think about the term, seemingly, longer and harder than i presume the deliberations went over the term "free software", despite, for the most part meaning pretty much the same thing.
it's about the source. the availability n freedom to get jiggy wid da source!
so the less layers of abstraction and interpolation and plastic wrap between you and the source, the better... right?
well, yes and no.
(or should that be yes and know).
convenience, oh convencience... why must you so often come ready as convenience for those who want to remain ignorant, and why must you be so inconvenient for those who want to know.
it's like the trade-off one has to make for security.
... sure you could have a completely secure locked down system, with no wires leading to the internet, and passwords required for EVERY action... but it's far from convenient.
same goes for being closer to the source. you're more closely afforded the opportunity to paruse the source code, to modify it and so on... but of course, it's not as simple as point and click gui package managers. ... n that's less convenient... if all you want is a click-n-go.
i'm not actually opposed to the idea of a click-n-go system... i just think it can be made in a way that retains that maximal expedient convenience, but ALSO provides the user, up-front, all the knowledge and source-code access that a close-to-the-metal style of package management affords.
nice ideals huh. ^_^
though i know why they've not been programmed to be so... a combination of lazyness and a perspective which says "those who want click-n-go dont want to know".... and there's an element of truth to that indeed. they dont. but is that any reason to help them remain ignorant? is that any reason to be negligent in caring for the intelectual commons? they are free software users just like everyone else... and as such, just as much developers as anyone else. who want's their software developers to be ignorant of how the software works??
....see... it's like an insideous poisonous meme, that's crept into free software from the proprietary cathedralesq model. and understandably so... in the evolutionary meme theory, you can easily see why it managed to out-compete the existing predominant meme in free software at the time of it's sneeking over... that being that hard-ass "geek it up or die" kind of elitist mentality. ...sure, it keeps your intelectual genepool rich... but small. it's off-putting to us lazy masses. n i dont say that disparagingly. lazy in the good sence. efficiency. we evolved to be this lazy. it makes sense. less effort for more gain? no-brainer. so of course plastic wrap started winning out... and just kept getting stronger as more n more arrived, self-exiled from proprietary, "windows refugees" we call them. and of course, they just kept adding to the demand (and supply) of more of this separation-from-code modality.
so yeah... that's me just re-itterating my call for all plastic-wrap to come with details on the contents.
then with a "fully informed public", we can start making smarter decisions. it's as true of software as it is for politics n grocery shopping n religion, and so on.
anyways... yeah... uzbl.
lol.
getting more used to it. though i admit, i have reached for seamonkey a couple of times.
pidgin on my ubuntu 10.04 squishboom, doesnt seem to want to retain that it's uzbl-browser i want it to use. keeps telling me that manual selected browser is not set. :/ maybe i'm doing something wrong.
i havnt done much more tweaking to it on any of my opperating systems since my epic facepalm fail.
(not sure if i mentioned this already, but shortly after my stupid mistake, i was informed that a mere cookie purge would have likely resolved my connection fail to a number of sites.)
i've just been using it. nice n simple.
on a page per page basis, it does seem to amount to a heavier ram useage, compared with my old fully kitted out firefox with bartab, n all the blockers (noscript, flashblock, adblock, ghostery, betterprivacy), and i really dont mind at all.
usually i'm a stickler for demanding things be ever less resource hungry (fighting against the tide, right?) but considering the interoperability with the rest of the system, it's soooooo worth it.
i am starting to see how despite it's slight flaws *coughpythonisslowcough*, it does, and will, confer productivity boons.
... and i'm forced to remind myself here... this is still alphaware!
it's just gonna get better. rly glad i've gotten on board so reasonably early in it's life.
i see a very long bright future for the likes of uzbl.
oh, and a bonux
(^typo worth keeping)
the moral of the story from the earlier bork...
(as repeated in the following todo)
dont go brash n insane next time something doesnt work, and instead, follow the apropriate troubleshooting proceedures.
X|
#####
todo
####
1. stop writing these silly todo lists at the end of your uzbl blogs, now that you've become fluent enough at editing the configs.
2. remember not to go brash n insane next time something doesnt work, and instead, follow the apropriate troubleshooting proceedures.
3. get a nice tiling wm and uzbl and 9menu installed on slackware. (doing that now as i write this blog ~ or procrastinating on that, and got this graphic-design brief to fullfil now too)
Monday, 16 May 2011
uzbl, the return - day5
uzbl, the return, day5
well, after my reporting fail yesterday, i've done a faaaar bigger fail today.
the story goes something like this...
i was having loads of fun playing around with change_style.sh and various .css files i'd made/copied. i liked the idea of making every webpage use the style i chose for my webpage.
it was working great.
then dipiwee in ##customize made a second request for screenshots of my customisations, and i thought, "ok".
"ok" as it turns out, lead to a whole load of disruption....
so... i go to ompload with my newly created batch of screenshots, but :O oh no! omploader wont load!
most obvious reason of course being... it doesnt like something i've done in my tweakings... so i try to roll back a few of the changes... still no omp. so i fiddle with my style changes, n the script n my config a few more times, all with the same result, no ompldr.org.
now i've fallen way down the labrynth of changes... and still no omp...
so i try imgur, to see if it can handle change_style.sh...
yup... so i get my images uploaded.
...wait... now what... seems facebook and several other pages are now refusing to load! oh noes!
what have i done. ... and then i discover the reason i couldnt visit omplr.org, was because it was down!
DOH! so all those haphazzard wild tweakings n changes i made.... i was fixing something that wasnt broken!!!
so.. i try to fix my borked fix for a while.... still, no matter what i did, i couldnt get facebook (and a few other pages) to play nice anymore.
always telling me it timed out, n couldnt connect, offering me an utterly futile "try again" button.
i could change the styles all i wanted... n get that message in default, or any number of my tweaked styles... and i couldnt find where it was that i'd changed something so far as to make it not load facebook. i could switch off all the scripts, revert to the original default config... and still get that message.
so... i decided to uninstall, and reinstall uzbl-git...
nope... same message!
so i decided to uninstall and reinstall a different version uzbl-dfb-git ~ nope, that version didnt play nice.
so i decided to install another version... the experimental git branch.
oh lordy, that doesnt work nice at all... broken keybinds n other freakyness.
so, i go back to uzbl-git and as i had started to suspect... same message....
so... i get brutal n serious with it....
i backup all my configs n scripts, and then i sudo updatedb && locate uzbl, and from that list, i extracted everything but my backups of the configs i'd made, and add them ALL to a sudo rm -rf.
... i knew it wa wrong, i did it anyway.
i was desperate. i rly wanted whatever it was that was causing this fail on facebook gone.
alas... it took my whole home directory with it! and a few system directories too!
time to update my entry in the "whats the stupidest mistake you've made" thread.
classic moment of "i know this will likely break things, i'll do it anyway"... i must be missing some neuropathways from my frontal lobe.
so...
instead of fixing this tiny little problem, that wasnt a problem at all... i've ended up with a hosed system.
moment i reboot, i doubt i'll manage to boot into this system again.
:/
i could try restoring an old backup from short ago... but since my home dir was mostly just symlinks now, i'm not rly losing anything more by opting for a complete reinstall of arch... 'cept maybe a day of my life.
still... all's well on my toorox workstation. *sigh*
oh well, at least i got a couple screnshots outta it.
http://imgur.com/a/kT6hY
:/
#-|
y'knoa, i've always heard it said you have to be careful in linux, and that you can very easily completely destroy your system... and in the 7 years i've been using linux, i'd never actually experienced it until now. ...unless you count that time i intentionally put to test, the claims that "ubuntu doesnt let you do that".
well, this pebkac error will only make me stronger. :)
#####
todo
####
1. start from scratch
well, after my reporting fail yesterday, i've done a faaaar bigger fail today.
the story goes something like this...
i was having loads of fun playing around with change_style.sh and various .css files i'd made/copied. i liked the idea of making every webpage use the style i chose for my webpage.
it was working great.
then dipiwee in ##customize made a second request for screenshots of my customisations, and i thought, "ok".
"ok" as it turns out, lead to a whole load of disruption....
so... i go to ompload with my newly created batch of screenshots, but :O oh no! omploader wont load!
most obvious reason of course being... it doesnt like something i've done in my tweakings... so i try to roll back a few of the changes... still no omp. so i fiddle with my style changes, n the script n my config a few more times, all with the same result, no ompldr.org.
now i've fallen way down the labrynth of changes... and still no omp...
so i try imgur, to see if it can handle change_style.sh...
yup... so i get my images uploaded.
...wait... now what... seems facebook and several other pages are now refusing to load! oh noes!
what have i done. ... and then i discover the reason i couldnt visit omplr.org, was because it was down!
DOH! so all those haphazzard wild tweakings n changes i made.... i was fixing something that wasnt broken!!!
so.. i try to fix my borked fix for a while.... still, no matter what i did, i couldnt get facebook (and a few other pages) to play nice anymore.
always telling me it timed out, n couldnt connect, offering me an utterly futile "try again" button.
i could change the styles all i wanted... n get that message in default, or any number of my tweaked styles... and i couldnt find where it was that i'd changed something so far as to make it not load facebook. i could switch off all the scripts, revert to the original default config... and still get that message.
so... i decided to uninstall, and reinstall uzbl-git...
nope... same message!
so i decided to uninstall and reinstall a different version uzbl-dfb-git ~ nope, that version didnt play nice.
so i decided to install another version... the experimental git branch.
oh lordy, that doesnt work nice at all... broken keybinds n other freakyness.
so, i go back to uzbl-git and as i had started to suspect... same message....
so... i get brutal n serious with it....
i backup all my configs n scripts, and then i sudo updatedb && locate uzbl, and from that list, i extracted everything but my backups of the configs i'd made, and add them ALL to a sudo rm -rf.
... i knew it wa wrong, i did it anyway.
i was desperate. i rly wanted whatever it was that was causing this fail on facebook gone.
alas... it took my whole home directory with it! and a few system directories too!
time to update my entry in the "whats the stupidest mistake you've made" thread.
classic moment of "i know this will likely break things, i'll do it anyway"... i must be missing some neuropathways from my frontal lobe.
so...
instead of fixing this tiny little problem, that wasnt a problem at all... i've ended up with a hosed system.
moment i reboot, i doubt i'll manage to boot into this system again.
:/
i could try restoring an old backup from short ago... but since my home dir was mostly just symlinks now, i'm not rly losing anything more by opting for a complete reinstall of arch... 'cept maybe a day of my life.
still... all's well on my toorox workstation. *sigh*
oh well, at least i got a couple screnshots outta it.
http://imgur.com/a/kT6hY
:/
#-|
y'knoa, i've always heard it said you have to be careful in linux, and that you can very easily completely destroy your system... and in the 7 years i've been using linux, i'd never actually experienced it until now. ...unless you count that time i intentionally put to test, the claims that "ubuntu doesnt let you do that".
well, this pebkac error will only make me stronger. :)
#####
todo
####
1. start from scratch
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