Have you ever noticed that there are certain directories everyone has? ~/Documents, ~/Downloads, ~/Desktop, and so forth? Some of them you don't need, some of them you might wish were named differently, but any time you rename or delete them, the originals reappear?
You see, these directories follow a standard so that all programs know where they are—with the right tools under your belt, you can customize them.
@benjaminhollon and then some software doesn't use those XDG variables and assumes the default paths hard coded and ...
But neat. I will use those paths in relevant programs.
@benjaminhollon thanks for this post. I've enjoyed every one so far, but this is the first where almost everything was completely new to me. 😁
I was aware of the XDG config directory env variable, but not much else.
@RL_Dane
I'm glad you are! Hopefully that'll keep up. :)
I've been especially pleased with the positive reaction to this one; as you may remember, I was delayed from starting it by a lengthy conversation, so it had less editorial review than I'd normally have applied. :P
I'm not sure how I find the time—in part, it's just that there's a lot other people do for fun that I don't. For example, I don't play video games, and I don't usually watch movies or shows.
For another, I've done enough writing that I'm able to do it quickly. Especially helpful is that over time I've needed less review—one pass is enough before publishing for most blog posts, though some (like the tar article) get special treatment.
@benjaminhollon@RL_Dane I tried i3 and Sway. I enjoy Sway under certain conditions. I tend to favor Cosmic and really like Budgie. So happy to see Solus come back from the dead. Solus + Budgie…such a sweet combo.
But so is Pop and a Sys76 machine - unmatched smooth.
@jppelt@RL_Dane
The last time I was with them for the weekend my grandpa and I stayed up till one watching "Stormy Weather" and "Confessions of a Nazi Spy," then the next evening we all three watched "Casa Blanca" over dinner. ;)
@RL_Dane@benjaminhollon@jppelt ...this is a joke. I suspect you realize that, but it's occurring to me that the internet is not a bastion of private conversation and someone's going to see that and think I'm totally serious :facepalm:
I mean, there's obviously things about Plan9 that you really like that differentiate it from everything else, so yes, I totally read your toot at face value.
Of course, that's coming from someone who's quite used to making impassioned proclamations and then walking them back (xref. anything I've ever said about #systemd -- not that I love it or anything, but I've had a wee bit of time to simmer down. XD )
> “systemd has the right goals but also has poor architecture: i like operating it but i don’t like its underlying design” is so much harder to digest than “systemd good” or “systemd bad”
especially the first bit
All joking put aside for a second, I think caring about the init system is extremely silly. It's not like the rest of a linux system is any better.
@RL_Dane@pixelherodev@jppelt
I don't personally care much from any impassioned standpoint, for me it's just that I experienced the performance boost from systemd-free and I very much would like to have that. ;)
@RL_Dane@pixelherodev@jppelt
Eh, that might end up being me. I'll admit it's still thin, but I keep it around partially to reduce any ambiguity due to my long hair.
I realized this morning that whether subconsciously intentionally or completely coincidentally I've been imitating a professor I admire. I realized this when I ran into him this morning and he complimented my long hair. ;)
What's bizarre is that while the mimicry dies down a lot as you age, the desire for validation from an authority figure can pop up at random times, even well into your 40s.
It can be... awkward.
Important life lesson: emotional/mental health issues absolutely don't go away on their own. Oh my. They seriously don't. XD
@RL_Dane@pixelherodev@jppelt
So, speaking of "desire for validation," I ran into him because he was given an award at a ceremony I was a stagehand for, related to the Honors program. I went over afterward to say a quick congratulation, and was kinda surprised when he ended up introducing me to the other COMM prof he was with and saying… let's say incredibly high praise.
He's really a great guy and teacher. Really great to hear those words from him, though I wasn't sure I deserved them. ;)
Yeah, I absolutely want to take another class with him. I'm especially interested in "Communication in a Diverse World" which includes a trip to Costa Rica and work with a UN representative.
Actually, during my interview for the University Honors advisor role, the person interviewing me at one point stopped me and said, "Do you know Dr. Dave Tarvin? You'd like him." (That's the professor in question.)
@RL_Dane@pixelherodev@jppelt
I have "early" registration, but that's 11k students. And they stagger the registration windows, so classes can already be full by the time yours opens.
2/5 of the classes I wanted were full by the time my slot opened this semester. One it turned out I can't take until Junior year anyway (even though it's a 200-level class???), but the other was a core curricular, "State and Local Government".
They make more seats available for slots on later days, but that doesn't help those of us whose slots are at 10:45, not 05:00.
@RL_Dane@pixelherodev@jppelt
Yeah for the most part A&M still names it after either big faculty or donors, which is why this surprised me so much. "Tradition" is basically our whole deal.
[context: I have long hair and have... okay, probably not literally never thought about it, but never thought about it seriously
...I mean, further context: I regularly sing very loudly outside while walking down the street, which should express quite succintly exactly how much I think about other people's opinion of me :P
or it did until I added the note about how succint it was
But I'm the person who started parting my hair in the opposite direction because I realized the way I was seeing it in the mirror and imagining myself as looking was the opposite from what other people saw. XD
@RL_Dane@pixelherodev@jppelt
Well, I was going to be in English. Then based on how uch test credit I had (and that my scholarship lasts for four years of undergard), I decided to do a second major, COMM.
Turns out A&M is a top COMM school and has limited seats, so I declared it as my primary major. Turns out I liked it so much I didn't declare English as a second major after all. ;)
It's another priority thing:
Bluetooth isn't a priority for #OpenBSD
Having a cohesive OS with good docs isn't a priority for 90% of #Linux distros
Being remotely SANE isn't a priority for #Canonical
That's wild that you're so deep into that world after only a couple years.
I've thought about trying it on a VM, but as I'm not much of a coder (particularly in C, although I understand the basic basics and I like the language conceptually), I think my mileage may be quite inferior to yours.
That's pretty wild!
Reminds me a bit of #OpenBSD's focus and elegance, but on another level ;)
Are there any tiling WMs, or is it the interface more like cwm. Is there any progress on that front, or is that just not a priority? (which is totally fine)
With this article I'd promised to post it yesterday but didn't have anything written as of that morning, so I basically had to pick a topic that could be done with minimal extra research on my part (which some articles I'd planned require). Wasn't sure how it'd turn out, but people seem to like it! :)
@dmoonfire
For games, I'd probably run 'em on my dual boot, I guess. I do that anyway for KSP since I can't get it running on NixOS. Frustrating, though.
@benjaminhollon Yeah, NixOS is a challenge with games. Fortunately, steam-run handles a lot of them though I can't use a lot of the mod-loaders without a lot of pain. Since 90% of my collection is Steam, using Proton also is pretty stable but I always have to reboot after doing an update.
@dmoonfire
I'm hoping my next attempt will end up that way. :)
The hope is to have a stable and minimal (systemd-free) distro as a base. I only install the bare minimum with it. All user-facing programs would be installed with nix, getting me the software support I want, as well as letting me do configuration like I do with NixOS.
Binaries would work normally, I wouldn't need systemd, etc.
@benjaminhollon Not having systemd is a fight I don't have the time for. It work well enough for my needs, I know enough to get Ceph working without using it (they both try to set it up), and it covers my use cases.
For others, it makes sense. I just need to choose my battles wisely and I already have too many projects.
I really hope you find your forever distribution though, everyone should have that.
... unless it's Mac. Then they choose poorly. (Quote from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.)
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