LinuxQuestions.org - The Slacker's Blog

This is a semi-random collection of posts on nearly all things Slackware and Linux-related -- at least as I see it.

Cleaning up the cruft...

Posted 06-09-2010 at 01:25 PM by Lufbery (The Slacker's Blog)

Quote:

Cruft (occasionally kruft) is computing jargon for "code, data, or software of poor quality". The term may also refer to debris that accumulates on computer equipment. It has been generalized to mean any accumulation of obsolete, redundant, irrelevant, or unnecessary information, especially code. An alternative usage is becoming more generalized to refer to any unneeded or unwanted computer hardware or obsolete equipment.

...

Lufbery

Senior Member

Posted in Uncategorized

Views 1082 Comments 0 Lufbery is offline

Emacs 23.2 -- A quick review...

Posted 05-13-2010 at 01:43 PM by Lufbery (The Slacker's Blog)

Earlier this week, the GNU folks released Emacs 23.2. I downloaded it and compiled it on my Slackware64_13 computer to see if I like it.

The short answer is that I like it. Emacs 23.1 had a bug with the tmm-menubar (text mode menu bar) that drove me crazy enough to downgrade again to Emacs 22.3. That bug has been fixed in 23.2 and the overall experience is pretty darned good.

There are a couple of odd things I've noticed with this update:

The default in terminal

...

Lufbery

Senior Member

Posted in Uncategorized

Views 1812 Comments 0 Lufbery is offline

A new snag with my updating script ... and a solution!

Posted 04-20-2010 at 02:16 PM by Lufbery (The Slacker's Blog)
Updated 05-10-2010 at 02:54 PM by Lufbery

The script that I wrote (with a lot of help from the LQ crew) has worked exceptionally well. It is fast (download speed being the limiting factor), secure (it checks md5sums and GPG signatures), and fails in a sane way if something goes wrong.

It requires the user to be logged in as root, and works best when the user:

Has a full installation of Slackware.
Is running the -stable branch of Slackware.
Has a directory set up on the hard drive for a persistent local mirror.
Has

...

Lufbery

Senior Member

Posted in Uncategorized

Views 830 Comments 0 Lufbery is offline

Transferring data from Palm Desktop to Thunderbird Lightning...

Posted 03-23-2010 at 10:11 AM by Lufbery (The Slacker's Blog)

I have a Sony Clie PEG T-415 PDA that I've used for years -- probably since 2001 or 2002. It still works perfectly, so I have no plans to retire it. The Clie is a Palm OS-based PDA. It uses Palm OS version 4.1 and came with Palm Desktop 4.0. I have since upgraded to Palm Desktop 4.1, but the differences between the versions are slight. The main point is that Palm Desktop is a great program and it is an indispensable adjunct to my Sony handheld.

The problem is that Palm Desktop is...

Lufbery

Senior Member

Posted in Uncategorized

Views 7959 Comments 1 Lufbery is offline

It's all a fashion show (or, forget the conventional wisdom)...

Posted 02-17-2010 at 02:51 PM by Lufbery (The Slacker's Blog)

Once again, somebody had criticized a new GNU/Linux distribution for not being friendly enough to new users. This time the target is RMS's Mostly Slax, and the person criticizing is Bruce Byfield in this blog post.

As I understand it, the distribution has been pulled for now. But my comments here are more on Byfield's points of criticism. Specifically, this statement bothers me:

Quote:

However, Slax is not exactly the first name that comes to mind if you are asked

...

Lufbery

Senior Member

Posted in Uncategorized

Views 881 Comments 0 Lufbery is offline

Page 3 of 6

Last »