@abmurrow@fosstodon.org
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

abmurrow

@abmurrow@fosstodon.org

:nixos: :php: :javascript: :emacs:

He/His/Him

Two markup languages and a DSL in a trenchcoat tooting about web dev nonsense and adventures in programming. But also sometimes none of those.

#Linux, #Drupal, accessible web, open hardware, stale Nix user, ouliposting, sometimes contributor to #FOSS.

Trans rights are human rights. Black lives matter.

Opinions are my own.

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abmurrow, to linux
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

Hey people, do you know of any good sources of advice summarizing the best hardware or even a list of computers to run Linux? I have a basic awareness that Intel and AMD based machines are ideal for most things but I want to read up on this to see if there isn't some sort of existing flowchart for computer shopping or hardware selection.

abmurrow, to linux
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

Hey folks, I'm working on a new personal project on my blog to help ease complete beginners into using Linux for personal computing.

Here is the first post: https://andrew-benbow.com/posts/welcome-to-linux/

It is still a work in progress and I will continue adding to it over time. My goal to make a highly guided, open ended experience to help newcomers find their own personal niche and get their computing needs met right away without having to learn anything too big or too new. Its going to be a good time!

abmurrow, to random
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

Oof, guix doesn't seem play nice with foreign distros, even stable ones like Debian. The guix system distro is out of the question because of my WiFi drivers and until nonguix is more mature there really isn't a good alternative for me.

I don't love it but I'll probably have to hop back over to nixos and see how the community changes play out. Good thing it takes like 2 minutes to get my old config back. Still, nix has made it tough to use anything else.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@Mehrad I used guix to install a lot of system packages on Debian, including git, and one of the big issues was that I couldn't got clone at all. Even with ca-certificates installed on the host system I got really inconsistent behavior. I could git clone if I was doing it in my shell but not if a bash script was doing it. I tried installing my doom emacs config with straight.el and emacs couldn't git clone either. I fiddled with it for two days and just gave up.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@Mehrad For context, my aim was to leave the host system as untouched as possible and let guix run the show, but the experience is far from seamless enough to do that quite yet. That, or I'm dumb.

joel, to random
@joel@fosstodon.org avatar

Have you guys ever had like, a fully deleted SSD?

My sibling asked me to fix a friend's laptop, and on GParted the thing is just, unallocated space, not formatted or anything.

Would you consider that they might have gotten hacked in some way or should I just, reinstall Windows on it and hope it was a one time only thing? :blobcatderpy:

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@joel I mean, it is entirely conceivable that they just got a little too involved with playing around with something in their settings they shouldn't have or got confused at what they were doing. I'm not in the infosec world so take this with a grain of salt, but what would the attack vector be in this scenario? The bios or something?

abmurrow, to emacs
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

My journey with

Read about how powerful and unique it is

Install it

Finish the tutorial, read the docs, have a nice little time

Feel a little bit of strain in my hand and remember someone on Stack Overflow talking about "Emacs Pinky"

Stay up late reading about Emacs pinky

Gasp in horror at all of the hairbrained rebinds and custom tools that people have used to avoid Repetitive Strain Injury on Emacs

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

I'm getting the feeling this tool may just be ergonomically flawed in from the jump and the rebinds are just pushing the problem around the keyboard.

Even the Emacs wiki says the popular capslock rebind may GIVE YOU Emacs pinky.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

For clarity, this isn't nerd sniping, I am genuinely impressed by Emacs and I'm kind of open to seeing what easy and non-insane things I could do to make it usable as an editor. Doom emacs and Evil look good, but I'm still a little worried about the default CTRL and META keys.

abmurrow, to random
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

I'm on a text editor quest. I'm looking for something to replace VS Code, and naturally I'm trying out vim and neovim

A thought: Vim is not so much a program as it is the notion of modal editing and precise keybindings. Though revolutionary, there is little else functionally unique about it. The rest of the experience is sort of clunky outside of this core idea

Note how other programs who are "vimified" focus on recreating the keybinds and the modes but not the customization experience.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@jamwil That is truly my hope as well, its a pretty hefty learning curve because you basically have to reengineer some of VS code's basic features. I'll look at neovide, I'm sort of knee deep in nixvim and lunarvim (one legs each as it were) but I like the idea of leveraging the GPU. I imagine it just tears on kitty terminal.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@bignose I am also looking at emacs but I'm still not quite sure where I want to put my time and energy since both systems are pretty different.

For me, I guess the realization was down to "vim isn't really a program, its a design pattern". Vim keybindings are every where, so why exactly do you even need vim in the first place? You could just as well use evil mode in emacs.

abmurrow, to writing
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

For your #SundayFunday, this is going to be a thread about a novel writing technique called "cartes noires" (black cards).

It is a creative writing framework that helps writers come up with a rather elaborate plot for a mystery novel in about 30 minutes using only a set of standard playing cards, a simple set of rules, and your imagination!

#writingcommunity #writingprompt #writing #novelwritingmethod #cardgames #oulipo #WritersOfMastodon

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

Invoking @dx because I know he's into fun card based things like this.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@nyrath @dx Absolutely! The origin of the exercise is really pretty irrelevant, so with enough tweaking this is like a story building kit in your pocket.

stfn, to random
@stfn@fosstodon.org avatar

Ok, a few people here inspired me to add comments to my blog, I found a solution that looks suitable, deployment looks good, soon there should be something running.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@stfn What did you end up going with? I got my theme running with Github discussions, but I feel weird because it feels a little gatekeepery. A lot of the other options I saw seem to cost too much or are basically spyware for end users.

grueproof, (edited ) to random
@grueproof@fosstodon.org avatar

I'm curious: Do you consider yourself/identify as a hacker? (pls boost for range if you don't mind)

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@grueproof Here to say that I'm burned out on the public facing image of hacker culture: young white male edgelord, somewhat reminiscent of the Unibomber, with rainbow keyboard and 30 monitor rig wears Black Hoodie and chugs Caustic Energy Drink while effortlessly infiltrating Megacorp or corrupt government for the lolz.

I'd like seeing more accurate representations of the diverse range of people in this space. Say, ie, a hacker is a stay at home mom with a 3D printer and an unfinished thesis

tuxdevices, to random
@tuxdevices@fosstodon.org avatar

This post tells a lot about the "magic" in most generative AI tools.

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/things-are-about-to-get-a-lot-worse

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@tuxdevices
Notable quotable:

"a whole universe of potential trademark infringements with this single two-word prompt"

writeblankspace, to random

Obsessed with Waiting Room by Phoebe Bridgers. What a dramatic, poetic song. My kind of song basically.

And guitars at the end? Well, what more can I ask?

It's so short, and the last half of the song is just repeating one line but it's effective and cuts deep.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@writeblankspace Ooh! Phoebe Bridgers is fantastic. I need to check this out.

Have you listened to Smoke Signals by her?

stfn, to random
@stfn@fosstodon.org avatar

Oui, I love French trains

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@stfn I don't want to hear anybody call the US rednecky ever again so long as France is doing motions vaguely

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@stfn Oh! Guess I should read the source. Poland then? Well now my point isn't nearly as good.

yakkoj, to random
@yakkoj@fosstodon.org avatar

fucking Microsoft "Smart"screen

YES I WANT TO RUN THE FIRMWARE UPDATER, NO YOUR SHITTY PROPHYLACTIC DIDN'T "PROTECT MY PC"

(I can understand why the digital nanny is enabled by default. They're building this thing so that your grandmother doesn't gets popped by a tech support scam, and NOT for people like me.)

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@yakkoj I honestly wouldn't hate the idea of some super locked down friendly-for-non-techs OS.

I think this issue is that Windows and OSX try to be all things to all people and both just end up being this over engineered nightmare.

kraktoos, (edited ) to linux
@kraktoos@fosstodon.org avatar

Looking to buy a . What do y'all use/recommend? It should run well (so no MacBooks), have really good (~6+ hours), support up to 32Gb+ of , and have reasonably good repairability and upgradability.

Edit: Forgot to mention I'm from Europe (Portugal) and would prefer a Portuguese keyboard layout.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@kraktoos System76 has served me well for the last 6 years or so, the fact that the firmware is open is a big plus because a surprising number of computers that ship with Windows require a Windows partition to update BIOS and other systems.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@kraktoos They're support is awesome, I've had nothing but good experiences with them, and I've used it a handful of times in the last few years. That said, the shipping back and forth to the US is high.

Maybe check Star Labs? Ive heard they're like the System 76 of Europe.

bragefuglseth, to firefox
@bragefuglseth@fosstodon.org avatar

Is it possible to make follow the system color scheme without having it trying to mimick the system GTK3 stylesheet? Ideally it would just stop trying to do that and use its stock light/dark style everywhere, but I'd be happy to hear any workarounds for now.

abmurrow,
@abmurrow@fosstodon.org avatar

@bragefuglseth Firefox is frustrating to theme, my best approach has been to either install a QT implementation on KDE/QT desktops, and troll github for stylesheet scripts that force Firefox to follow the system theme (especially for Pantheon. Gnome and some other GTK DE's don't seem to care).

Oh, I think the Firefox plug-in store may also have some themes or plug-ins to make Firefox follow the Linux system theme, or mimic it well enough to pass muster.

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