My linux box musings.

[Verdauga]

I more or less have my slackware machine set up how I want it, but I'm still adding polish here and there. On the hardware side, I still want to get an AMD graphics card-- it's more powerful and plug-n-play with Linux than my nVidia card.

recently, I finally put my browser in a sandbox (James in particular knows how concerning it is how long I've gone without that) and added .webp thumbnail support to my ROX Filer.

I keep running across base linux programs-- mplayer, display, animate-- and they keep supporting increasingly bizarre file-types. I found out mplayer can play .3gp video files! Why!? But I'm not complaining in the least xD

[James G.]

I more or less have my slackware machine set up how I want it, but I'm still adding polish here and there.

I didn't know you'd gotten back into Slackware. I guess it's working better now? I seem to remember you saying there were some glitches a while (a year or two ago) back. Of course, by now I guess there's been enough time for them to patch that.

My personal opinions on Slackware, of course, remain well known to you.

On the hardware side, I still want to get an AMD graphics card-- it's more powerful and plug-n-play with Linux than my nVidia card.

It depends on what you want to run, I s'pose, but I had a good experience getting a Radeon off eBay a few years back. The regular prices were totally out of control, but it was reasonable, within the range of what I considered not-expensive, then.

Come to think of it, are you still using that laptop or have you moved onto more expandable pastures? That'd be another constraint, I'd think.

recently, I finally put my browser in a sandbox (James in particular knows how concerning it is how long I've gone without that) and added .webp thumbnail support to my ROX Filer.

To be honest, I haven't done the former myself, but then I was using Fedora, which is pretty locked down by default.

I've always wanted to love the Filer. It is still good on systems that are built around it, like Puppy. But I like my list mode with disclosure triangles.

The ROX family kinda makes me sad in that it was evidently meant to be so much more than what it has turned out to be. The Filer isn't the best supported either, so the experience feels like using 20-year-old software on a system that hasn't formally dropped support for it yet. I don't mind that in principle, but I'm always worried about when the drop will come. I think Puppy is probably its last base.

I keep running across base linux programs-- mplayer, display, animate-- and they keep supporting increasingly bizarre file-types. I found out mplayer can play .3gp video files! Why!? But I'm not complaining in the least xD

There's lots of things buried in there, and lots of potential for scripting. I made a script a while back, flacgun, that converts .wav files to .flac; I have that in PHP and Python versions. It seems like one of them has/had a bug, but if you want either one, let me know.

I have to admit I haven't used Linux the past few days, but I expect Apple will eventually do something that will swing me back to it again - even if it's something as basic as dropping hardware support. I can say that *nix on Macs is not the same; don't let anyone tell you otherwise. (Judging by our past conversations, I suspect you're safe.)

[Verdauga]

I didn't know you'd gotten back into Slackware. I guess it's working better now? I seem to remember you saying there were some glitches a while (a year or two ago) back. Of course, by now I guess there's been enough time for them to patch that.

I never really left it-- I added Linux Mint, but keep most of my traffic on Slackware; Mint follows in the path of Debian and Ubuntu, and has similar reasons why I don't like it. As far as glitches, I have noticed that it occasionally has issues starting into X11, but I've traced that to network connections. Still a glitch, but a temporary one.

It depends on what you want to run, I s'pose, but I had a good experience getting a Radeon off eBay a few years back. The regular prices were totally out of control, but it was reasonable, within the range of what I considered not-expensive, then.
Come to think of it, are you still using that laptop or have you moved onto more expandable pastures? That'd be another constraint, I'd think.

Well, I moved on from the old HP laptop, to an old Dell laptop-- It has an AMD card as an option, which actually performs better than the nVidia card, and has better integration with Linux, so it'd be a solid upgrade. I do want to get an (old) desktop eventually, but when I have a more expanded living area for it.

The ROX family kinda makes me sad in that it was evidently meant to be so much more than what it has turned out to be.

I admit, I don't care for much more than the Filer, but it would have been nice to have yet another option for a desktop environment. I'm not sure why I use ROX so much, when I have pcmanfm, Thunar, and Dolphin. It may have to do with my own base in Puppy, as that's how I got into linux. It'd be quite sad if/when it finally is dropped, but it requires so little out of the system that it'll take a while.

I would take you up on the offer for the scripts, but I don't handle audio files with enough frequency to need that automation just yet.

How is *nix on Macs, these days?

[James G.]

I'm not sure why I use ROX so much, when I have pcmanfm, Thunar, and Dolphin. It may have to do with my own base in Puppy, as that's how I got into linux. It'd be quite sad if/when it finally is dropped, but it requires so little out of the system that it'll take a while.

Caja is the only mainline Linux file manager I really basically liked on Linux, because it was the one most like Finder. I could see using ROX-Filer over the other options you mentioned, even if it isn't well-supported, particularly if you get the benefits of the pinboards with it.

I think they are still trying to keep it going on some level, and somebody is taking a crack at a new version of it, though I don't know whether that will pan out. But it isn't maintained in the sense that you can go on the old Sourceforge page and see life.

How is *nix on Macs, these days?

Well, diskutil (a CLI disk program) is usable, unlike the default disk tools on most Linux systems. But the rest of it isn't exceptional. A lot of the things you'd take for granted on Linux just aren't there out of the box, and has to be set up. If that happens every time you want something, that gets old. The advantages of the system still outweigh the disadvantages for me, especially given the hardware, but it's fair to say Linux seems like a better overall CLI and development system (which, admittedly, is what we'd expect, given the users and usage cases each platform is marketed to).