Lunar Updates + Insomnia

So I updated my notebook a couple of days ago. Obviously, the most important update was the kernel bump to 2.6.30. Everything went smoothly. I will be doing another update today on this machine and a couple of my older desks, and it is gonna take a while to be completed, thanks to the the Firefox update to 3.0.11.

I am still in the lab helping my colleague who had been doing some important protein measurement experiments that is crucial for both of us to link our models together. Once we are done with this, we can seriously wind up with our work and focus on our thesis writeup. It was a 30 hour experiment and the last measurement is just around the corner.

Though I haven’t slept the whole night, I still don’t feel that tired, so I will try to keep up with the updates, some coding and will sleep probably tonight. I suffer from migraines, and if I hit the sack right now, I am screwed for the whole day.

EEE 1000H FreeBSD7.2

Here is another screenshot of my EEE 1000H. Of course it is powered by FreeBSD 7.2 Stable. Except for wireless, almost all the features that I need work. Hotkeys, and most importantly, the monitor switching works fine.

I have no use for the camera and bluetooth, so it’s something that I am not interested in. I still havent had the time to work on the wireless. Of course one could use ndisgen to build the ralink 2860 driver from the Windows driver, but so far there are some performance issues it seems from what I have read in many FreeBSD forums. But on the BSD front in general, its great that OpenBSD has support for this chip. Also since I am on a wired network in my office, its no big deal.

Anyway here is the current screenshot from my EEE. Colors are a little bit different, and the window manager is as usual EvilWM. Another major difference is, now I have a linear conky, instead of the sticker, with the same info. Thought it went well in transparent mode with this wallpaper. For people who are interested in this totally unobtrusive wallpapaer, just go back a few posts, and you can fin the link for the wallpaper.

By the way I am planning to move all my configs over to github over the weekend, since dotfiles has gone bust, atleast now. Now lets get to the screenshot. Click on the image for full view.

Sticker Conky

Since I use EvilWM predominantly, I recently thought of having a minimal conky setup with basic information about the machine, date and time.

I am generally not a fan of date only conky or the full blown conky that I see everwhere that fill up half the screen on some people’s desktops. They are hideous, but its just my point of view, and I am sure many will not agree. But that’s not so important. I love this conky setup, and I call it Sticker Conky, like a case sticker. If anyone needs this, let me know.

On a related note, dotfiles has been down since a few days, so may be I will move all my configs elsewhere. I will post a link for my new configs page once I am done right here of course. Anyway here is the conky.

A Different Setup

Was tied up with a lot of work over the last couple of weeks, hence a lack of updates. Anyway, I spruced up my color setup a bit, and thought of using some brown tones for sometime. The setup is sort of uniform on all my machines, and on both Fluxbox and EvilWM. So here is a screenshot from my Lunar Linux powered Lenovo Laptop. As usual, click on the thumbnail for full view.

FreeBSD EEEPC Progress

As I had mentioned earlier, my EEE 1000H is powered by FreeBSD 7.2 and so far it has been good. Still haven’t had the proper time to workon the wireless, but so far have got most of my acpi scripts working, so its great. Anyway I am posting another EvilWM screenshot on this Beastie powered toy. Click on the picture for full view.

Stop the Windows Bashing!

This has been bothering me for quite a while. Of late, I have found some really bad postings, threads bashing Microsoft, and calling different names, that I don’t want to mention. Personally, I completely disagree with this attitude. If Linux or BSD works for someone, doesn’t mean they have to be thrust down someone else’s throat.

My personal experience with *nix began when I had to use Solaris for my simulation needs, ages ago. Though it was very intimidating in the beginning, I started liking it, and when I had a chance to get my own machine, I loaded Linux on it. Since my needs have always revolved around programming, and mathematical modeling, *nix provided me the best platform. I was never into gaming, so I didn’t miss Windows a lot. Same goes with Mac. Never used one, and probably never will, just because my needs don’t require one.

But thats just me. There might be a lot of people who are into hardcore gaming, high quality graphic designing and so on, and certainly in those aspects, *nix is not the best suited. So it would be totally ridiculous on my part to talk to someone who plays games a lot, and preach him about Linux and how his Windows Vista sucks and so on. This self righteousness is something that can be totally done away with.

Being a fan of an OS is something, but to start preaching it is a totally different thing, which i strongly disagree with. In my opinion, world domination is not the agenda of *nix, and a whole majority of folks behind most *nix distros will agree with me I hope. To make matters worse, you also have distro wars, desktop environment wars, and such. Seriously how is it going to help?

Of course, quite a few people I know have started using Linux after I met them. But mostly, it would be that they would see my screen, and ask me details about the colors, and configuration, and when I tell them its Linux, they would ask me for some help in setting it up for them. That’s about it.

So what is the cause for such hatred? For instance, an acquaintance of mine started using Linux a few months ago for the first time, and after a week, he was convinced that Windows was crap and stuff, and he started preaching a lot about Linux. The worst part, he visited me then and saw one of my Solaris boxes at home with the CDE and started complaining how crappy it looked and how Linux was so much better! I did not want to waste time by arguing or explaining about Unix to him, because frankly, I had a feeling that his mind was made up.

So do new Linux converts also have the same opinion? Have you people also come across such individuals? When you use *nix for a long time, you tend to realize how powerful and fantastic the os is, but at the same time, you also tend to learn a lot about the variety of problems that one might have to deal with in using it., especially related to X, wireless cards etc. Mentioning the common problems encountered in *nix is the first thing I do whenever someone asks me about my opinion on *nix.

Sorry about the rant. Just that I got frustrated about all the Windows hate and had to say something about it. Please post your comments if you have come across such things as well.

Pilsner Fluxbox theme – Download

Since I have had some requests for my Pilsner fluxbox theme, I am posting it right here. Please note, this is a direct link.

Pilsner Fluxbox theme

Just download the archive and move the Pilsner folder to ~/.fluxbox/styles

Here is the wallpaper as well.

Today’s Music Fix – Moments in Love – G.O.L – Sensations of Tone

I listened to this track on Groovesalad yesterday, and it was pretty smooth. Got hold of the album after a long search last night. Too bad G.O.L disbanded after their only album Sensations of Tone was released. This track is very smooth and worked great on me when I was working late night, testing some new shell scripts.

I am linking the track right here for you hearing pleasure. Let me know how you folks like the track.

It’s a very rare album, but if someone needs it, all you need to do is let me know with your comments. Happy listening.

Current Fluxbox Screenshot – Lunar Linux

I revamped my Fluxbox setup a bit on my Lunar Linux box at work, and this is how it looks like right now. Thought of using the Pilsner gtk theme for a while, so modified lyrae aka thrynk’s Black and White Fluxbox theme to merge with Pilsner’s menubar color. Also modified the fluxbox toolbar. Quite satisfied with the look as of now.

The rest is self explanatory I guess. If anyone needs this modified fluxbox config, let me know. Please note, this would look good only with Pilsner gtk theme. Click on the picture for full view.

Fluxbox – Lunar Linux Another Screenshot

This is how my current Lunar Linux setup looks like in my office machine. Royalty still rocks my fluxbox, and its Astroboy to take center stage. Was watching a documentary on manga last night, so thought of doing this on my desktop. The rest are self explanatory I guess.