I ThinkPad therefore I am

As usual, how about a screenshot of one of my work machines? It’s a Thinkpad T420 with pimped up specs – i7 processor, 16 gigs RAM and coreboot (I should probably document my experience with implementing this in a separate post). Nothing beats the badassery of ThinkPads in my opinion, especially the older ones. I was given a brand new thin laptop with all the bells and whistles at work. I couldn’t survive a week with it. Hustling is a major aspect of my job these days and my boss was of the opinion that a thin laptop will help me with traveling light. Sure, but it ain’t no fucking Thinkpad. I was using this machine as my primary development box as well and not just for presenting shit. The backlit keyboard with the MacBook like flat keys was downright criminal and I could never get used to the fucking clear screen.

Thinkpad T420

So after a week trying, I returned this abomination back and told the boss I will find my own machine. She just had to pay. Long story short, found a fantastic dealer dealing exclusively with refurbished ThinkPads and got my current machine. It had been used very lightly and it looked and felt like it was brand new. Pimped it up as I had mentioned earlier and it has been my greatest companion ever since. Wife comes a close second.

I am running Debian Bullseye on it. It definitely wasn’t my first choice. But other devs are insistent on using it, so I had no other choice. Also, in spite of a being a coding heavy job, I am senior management and naturally some devs look at me as a code monkey. I don’t really care about it as long as the job’s done. Anyway, as I was saying, Debian was not my choice. Actually, I didn’t even want to use Linux. I put FreeBSD on it. Linux is better in this case, said top management. Wanting to get around systemd, I went back to Gentoo, after so so many years. Emerged out pretty quickly as time was becoming a constraint. Then I found Void. It was what I believed to be exactly what I wanted. But there were some strange issues with it after a few updates. WiFi used to drop quite consistently and a few other minor annoyances got me worked up after a while. Never really figured out a proper reason for this behavior. So, I finally relented and knocked on Debian’s doors again, after ages. It is my base OS now. I still run OpenBSD, FreeBSD on a couple of other machines, OpenIndiana Hipster and Illumos on my other laptops. I will post shots from those machines soon. For the moment, here’s Debian Bullseye on a ThinkPad T420.  KDE for a change. I alternate between xmonad and KDE.

KDE on Debian Bullseye -ThinkPad T420

KDE theme is Carl from jomada and also includes the wallpaper. Urxvt colors are just ported from Carl konsole color scheme. Icon theme is Candy icons. UI font is Roboto Condensed. Window Font is Fjalla One. Urxvt font is Pragmata Pro Mono.

If you guys need any other information, please comment.

Countdown to The Dark Knight Rises

This is an exciting week. The Dark Knight Rises comes out on Friday and from what I have read online, is supposed to kick some serious butt. The movie is getting released here in Germany only on 24th of this month, but still, I have begun my prep already. Apart from re-reading many comic books (Vengeance, Knightfall, Cataclysm, No Man’s Land etc.), I am also revamping my desktops and laptops to celebrate the release.

This post is related to such a revamp. The following screenshot is from my EEE box powered by OpenBSD 5.1 and running  ScrotWM. I just thought this minimal Bane wallpaper fit perfectly and the terminal colors are one of my ancient creations from years back, called, Colorado. Since, there were a few requests for the colors, let me post them right here. The media player is vitunes, which is an MPlayer frontend that has vi-like key bindings. I have spoken about it in one of my previous posts.

Without further ado, here is the screenshot. Click on the image for full view.

Preparation for The Dark Knight Rises

You can get the terminal colors from the following link.

Colorado Colors

If there’s any other information needed, please drop a note.

By the way, The Dark Knight Rises soundtrack is mega awesome. Gotham’s Reckoning and Imagine the Fire are spine-tingling.

Starting with this post, I will add more Batman related posts for the next couple of days. Keep watching this space.

Variation on a theme

So, I just cooked up some new colors for my OpenBSD rig. The colors are just low contrast variations of the default X colors. Thought it would look crappy, but I am kinda satisfied with the results.

Now, presenting the screenshot. Click on the images for full view.

Clean Version

Clean Version

Busy Version

Busy Shot

Now, for the colors, just click on the following link.

Brew

As for the wallpaper, it’s the famous Minimal 2 version from Alexander at DevArt. Follow the link to the wallpaper. If you are into minimal walls, make sure to check out his profile page. He’s got some excellent wallpapers.

Minimal 2 by Alexander

 Enjoy!

On a related note, the track Terrific Trio vs Rocketeers from Batman Beyond Album is da bomb! Killer track to run in the background when hacking furiously. Sort of reminds me of the track, Ishikawa surfs the system from one of the Ghost in the Shell Albums.

Nighty night!

Time to crash. One of the tablets just knocks you off! Anyway, before I crash, a final shot of my EEE. Using the green version of VT220 based setup right now.

Green Maze

Boring Day!

Today, we moved from the first floor to the fourth floor in the hospital. It was pretty hectic. Finally, I can sit back and relax for a while. Posting a current shot of my EEE. I have only my EEE machine with me at the hospital. It is powered by OpenBSD 5.1 and ScrotWM is the window manager. The machine is brilliant and OpenBSD just flies on this nifty box. I have had no problems whatsoever with upgrades. Started out with OpenBSD 4.5 and now it is the latest 5.1. No reinstalls, just simple upgrades and some minor hacks here and there.

As far as the details of the shot goes, the font is still Dina medium and bold, pixelsize 15. Colors are gentoo colors. If any other information is needed, please drop a note.

Now, to the screenshot. As usual, click on the image for full view.

Bats Family-Version 2

Tradition!

Going by tradition, how about a mundane screenshot of my EEE at the hospital. I am still using OpenBSD on this machine and ScrotWM is the window manager (SpectreWM, as it is called these days!). I love the Bats family wallpaper. The font is Dina, pixelsize 15. If there is any question, please let me know. Oh, the colors by the way are based on the famous Gentoo default config, both the Xdefaults and vim theme.

Click on the image for full view.

I am the Goddamn Batman!

Now, the wallpaper. Click for full view.

Bats Family

Marathon Mod Showcase Contd.

Thought of adding another screen with Marathonmod in action. Window Manager is Fluxbox. OS is FreeBSD 9.0-Release of course. The fluxbox theme is a mod of Absurd theme. I am using the Xoria256 color palette on my terminal. The font has been released in my previous post and it points to my github from where it can be downloaded.

Marathon Mod in action

This wallpaper is one of my absolute favorites. It’s not from a bio weapons research lab or a deleted scene from The Shining (It is one helluva film!). It’s from Bell Labs, 1966. Everything works in this picture, the “WTF are you lookin at punk?” look, the glasses, the creepy hallway and much more. I will post the wallpaper and some related stuff tonight. The current network I am on is crapping all over the place.

If you are interested in the animation series in the screenshot, it is one of the funniest series ever, Harvey Birdman – Attorney at Law. The references to pop culture, politics and being extremely funny at the same time made this series stand out. Perfect animation with loads of adult humor. The guy you see here is Phil Sebben from Sebben & Sebben (Stephen Colbert was beyond awesome in this series man!).

Note: I would just like to say one thing about the font. It might be too tall or the character variations might be too much for some of you. I had the same feeling about the font when I started out. But it kinda grew on me.  This is particularly obvious with the semi-condensed version shown in the screenshots. The normal version isn’t that extreme. Besides, I had posted earlier that I am just releasing all the fonts that I have created over a period of time, regardless of their aesthetic appeal.

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.

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.

More FreeBSD EEEPC Goodness

I am currently in the process of customizing and tweaking my FreeBSD 7.2 setup on my EEE PC 1000H. Did away with Fluxbox, and in comes EvilWM. Keeping it as minimal as possible. Currently working on the acpi scripts to get most of the hotkeys working. Hopefully, it should be done by this weekend. Also want to try out the wireless thing just for fun. It must be a big challenge though.

Anyway here is a new screenshot of FreeBSD 7.2 in action on my EEE.