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. ^_^
Showing posts with label slackware. Show all posts
Showing posts with label slackware. Show all posts
Thursday, 19 May 2011
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)
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