Interesting Tools

Exa 

Found on https://the.exa.website

I recently stumbled upon exa, a superior (IMHO) ls workalike.  Exa is found on it's own web page.  I installed it from the community repo on my Archlinux machine. It's a pretty amazing take, not only colorized but with some excellent features as well.   I have found it a pleasant alternative.  My bash aliases:

alias lsl='ls -lrt --color=auto'
alias lsla='ls -lrta --color=auto'
alias le='exa'
alias lel='exa --long'
alias lela='exa --long --all'
alias let='exa --tree'
 

On the exa web site is found comprehensive documentation of the numerous options.

UPDATE (July3, 2024): Eza is a community fork of Exa.  I will use that now. 

Kitty :: "the fast, featureful, GPU-based terminal emulator"

Found on https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/

The git repo is at https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty

Of late, I have struggled with terminal emulators.  The well known xrvxt was difficult---for me---to set up.  On my archlinux and manjaro boxes, kitty has great colors, and it is simple.  I am intrigued with the "gpu based" part of the description.  I am uncertain how much advantage is derived from being gpu-based, or whether I need to take special steps to compile it with support for my gpu.   For now, it seems quick.  I have little need at this point for extra features.   The developer of kitty, Kovid Goyal,  has produced some other intriguing pieces, including Calibre and an interesting keyboard-based browser, vise.   

I am puzzled that I have not been able to use kitty consistently in my dropdown / scratchpad-based terminal setup---borrowed from Luke Smith.  The reasons for this elude me.   I can only imagine that an entire world exists consisting of the meta data and meta functions of terminals.   I have tried urxvt, su, xfce4-terminal, alacritty (another "gpu-based" terminal),

 

Others: a short list of programs useful to me:

• orage
• powerthesaurus: together with the emacs package by the same name
  
• eepclock
• xnviewmp
• posterazor: blowing up a graphic to print on multiple pages/panes
• dillo: a delightful lightweight browser---I use it for documentation.
• xtide and friends
• gri

My Free Software Story, a chapter

 For me, Free Software is a big deal.  My first whiff of it came from an article in InfoWorld, which I had subscribed to because I was interested in computers, and because it's free.  An article was describing or announcing something to do with the Free Software Foundation (FSF).   I had been standing on the precipice of a project to collect animal names in the language(s) of Chuuk Lagoon, where I was living, teaching, and learning.   My intention was to learn the names of animals so I couild discuss them with local fishermen, in furtherance of my plan to study traditional knowledge of marine life.    

I had received a computer as a gift from my mother, a Toshiba laptop, a really nice one.  But my mother did not understand that to use a computer, one needs software.  I might have had Microsoft word; I don't remember.  I had been living off-the-grid on the island of Tol, using a 10 Watt solar panel to trickle charge a 100 Amp-Hour deep cycle battery that had been given to me by someone in the U. S. Airforce CAT Team (short for Civic Action Team).  I also had a portable HP printer that I rigged up to run off of 12 Volts.  Software was the week link in my plan to "digitize" the names I had been writing down.

During my time in Chuuk, I had become known for my interest in animal names and any thing at all about the behavior, ecology...anything...about marine animals.  And about fishing.  Actually more just about ANYTHING anyone could talk to me about, pertinent to marine life.  Students were my teachers.   

 

I had tried to write the names down using the rudimentary editing software I had---possibly Microsoft Word.  But I could not easily write the diacritic marks used for some vowels in writing Chuukese.  I had approached some linguists at the University of Hawaii.  One of them, Robert Hsu, was kind enough to send a "demonstration copy" of an editor called "Multi-Edit" that was capable of doing what I had in mind.   One of the tricks among software vendors is to disseminate these demo, or evaluation, copies, but charge high prices for a full functioning copy.   I was working at a local Junior High School; my take-home pay was barely enough to cover food for the extended family of my wife.  To obtain the fullly enabled copy of the cripple-ware program Multi-Edit, together with a manual, would cost 300.00.  Not a chance.

I tried all kinds of things to try to learn how to type diacritics in Multi-Edit, but had failed.   When I saw the words "Free Software Foundation" in a small one-column article,   fewer than 15 lines long, my imagination ran wild.

 That was a time before the Internet had grown into what has now become.  Snail mail was the only mail, and on islands like Tol, accessible only by motor boat, and with not mail delivery, the "snails" servicing the mail were extremely slow.  I was spending way too much money on stamps in those days.  I wrote the FSF.  

 

Most of my letters never elicited a reply.  I was, therefore, shocked to receive a small box from the FSF some weeks later!   I had described my lexicon project in my letter to the FSF.  Whoever had read my letter must have understood my plea: I had received over 10 of those plastic 3-1/2" disks full of free software compiled for Microsoft Windows.   Remarkably, included in this package were a number of the Unix text tools, for sorting and manipulating text---beyond my wildest dreams.  And, of course, GNU/Emacs, in the form called "Demacs," a version ported to Microsoft Windows by two Japanese workers.   The unix tools were ported very early during the seminal stages of the Cygwin Project. 

These tools were immediately useful to me.  The biggest deal for me was that Emacs comes with documentation built in, as TexInfo files.   Within a shoret time I was able to figure out how to type in diacritical marks.  At the time, I had plenty of free time, so I was able to read most of the documentation, and set up Emacs to work for me, for useful work.   My innovations, made over the years, are still included in my init file!   

The FSF produced a "GNUS Bulletin", I think quarterly.  I had become a believer in this software, and  I read the GNUS/Bull from cover to cover.   At some point after a couple of years, a small article in the GNUS/Bull announced that two unix clone operating systems had become available:  Linux was one; the other was Free BSD.   When I traveled to Guam, I was able---with help---to download an early version of Slackware Linux.   

GNU/Linux had me, right from the start.  Free Software enabled my project.   Operating System it has been built by community action.  This story has been told many times.  Seldom has it gained traction.  But still, GNU/Linux is a phenomenon.  

As a teacher, at my schools were to be found dedicated administrators: that is, dedicated to buying all the possible proprietary software that government money could buy.   I knew that GNU/Linux was superior.  But it required some learning.   I taught some of my students to install and use GNU/Linux systems, and to build computers from parts.   

Comments on Arch GNU/Linux, Manjaro GNU/Linux, and Archbang! GNU/Linux

I was enticed to install Ez-Linux.   It did not work for me.   So it was with endeavour i3 as well.   After a series of mis-steps I have just spent at least two weeks distro-hopping, recovering from blown installs,  trying a number i3 distros.  I have been intrigued by CentOS; however, the install was a puzzle beyond my skill or desire to learn.  

It's been a while since ez linux install, so I cannot remember what went wrong.  Basically just about everything.  Garuda was not nice; don't remember why.   Endeavour was not good enough, and too far outside my previous experience with i3.   So I turned back to Arch, Manjaro, and, this week, ArchBang!.  

Manjaro has been my goto, no question, for years, whenever I am stuck and need to get back up quickly; and it is robust---enough so that I have (until this week) been running the same install for many months with no problem.  It also works well for whatever I use systemrescuecd for---a workflow that would be lame to a linux guru.  I have yet to recover an install that would not boot: I can just do a quick Manjaro install.   I'm fed up with the fiddly changes I have to make each time.  I do say, though, I am getting better at them.  Refining.  

In fact, my workflow relies upon a number of applications that I compile from upstream source, and I have edited configurations for various packages. 

The most recent revelations were about ArchBang!.  This distro just went over to i3, and it's touted, IIUC, to be a pretty much straight Arch install, using Arch repos.  Manjaro does not play nice when I try to use Arch repos---which requires some configuring: the Manjaro repos are supposedly vetted, and released a bit behind Arch.  IIRC Manjaro's unstable branch is pretty much the same as Arch's stable.  Manjaro has a nice tool for kernels and other system goodies like nvidia drivers: mhwd.  A forgotten acronym.   

The issue with repos bothers me.  I finally installed Arch vanilla on my beastly machine, and many, many packages.  It's working well enough, no recent issues, but I haven't bored in on much work.  We'll see.  

The laptop is another matter.  I've had manjaro working for a long, long time.  It's a c.2010 Lenovo Yoga, 13" (small for my eyes, but workable).   One low hanging issue has been the synaptics trackpad; recently it's become a major show stopper on, at the very least, ArchBang!.   I've been wrestling with Archbang for 2 or 3 days, and it's been a slog. 

I cannot count the issues, but there were some big ones, on which I spent hours of valuable time: especially printing and the synaptics touchpad.  The overall impression of ArchBang! has been unfavorably, but I like the close adherence to real Arch.   But there are too many nits. 

One example is printing.  I have installed drivers and cups for my Epson ET-4750 printer more than a dozen times on Arch-based distros.  It's a piece of cake.  But on ArchBang! I was stymied.  I will never know why, because I will never try to install ArchBang! again.  Sufficeth to say that after installing and enabling cups, a persistent message attended every attempt to install the printer, a Server Error.   I have never encountered this message EVER before.   Multiple google searches later... no idea...   For this reason alone, ArchBang! is unusable to me.

A glaring difference between Manjaro and ArchBang! is handling of the Synaptics touchpad.  I had spent hours tweaking the configuration for Synaptics on ArchBang!, and it was good enough to usually type somewhat smoothly.  I reflected that this has not happened in a long while, though I remembered having to do this in the distant past.   Then an epiphany: I booted into a Manjaro live USB drive, and the typing experience was perfect!  

At this point, I installed Manjaro, mistakenly overwrote the ArchBang! partition, but i don't regret it at all. 

One other way that ArchBang! worked differently was found  when I tried to log in as root: ArchBang did not allow me to log in as root, but did allow using su and sudo in a terminal on an X screen.  Mr. Google told me that this issue had been encountered by others.  It was this issue that required me to boot into Manjaro, to mount and edit the passwd file.   At least i THINK that was how it went.  I forget.

I didn't appreciate the wallpaper on i3, and the odd bindings, especially Mod+t to open a terminal; the upstream bindings, Mod+Return did not work. 

Manjaro just works.

One modest tweak that shows thoughtfulness of the decisions made during assembly of Manjaro's OS is seen in the configuration of grub2, remembering the previous  of multiple boots. 

Manjaro's i3  conky displays not only system information, but also the most important keybindings on the root screen!   I have leveraged this ingenious setup, editing to include MY useful keybindings, the ones I edited into the config file myself..  I liked the popup pdf help page, and even edited a personalized version, but it was too much work to keep up with my frequent added bindings.   I think it would be possible to write a tool to scan the config file and produce a text or pdf file on the fly; or perhaps a script could do this in a few keystrokes; then it would be more useful to me.

I cannot say enough about the perfect configuration of the Synaptic touchpad in Manjaro.   I have not investigated the diffs between the configurations in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ .  Too bad I won't have a chance to do so, because I will not boot ArchBang! again, ever.

Overall the impression was that ArchBang! is an idiosyncratic distribution, possibly the work of a small group of hobbyists.  Manjaro GNU/Linux i3 community edition has consistently performed.   i3 still runs at a decent rate of speed on a 10 year old laptop, albeit an i7---an earlier mobile i7, though.   

 

One final point: Arch GNU/Linux is not terribly hard to get running.  Manjaro GNU/Linux is much easier.  More to the point, Manjaro incorporates intelligent configuration defaults that allow me to bypass weeks of tentative fiddling on an Arch install.  That said, this epiphany stilll leaves me wanting to learn how to integrate manjaro-like tweaks into my Arch GNU/Linux install on my main machine.

 

Trouble with Inkscape, Fonts, PDFs, Colors

Suddenly, my workflow with Inkscape had gone blewy!  I needed to invert the colors of a graph from Gri, but where for years this has been a routine process in Inkscape, it now had become obscure, or not possible.  Inkscape had gone to version 1.0.  Who'd expect this?

This is still a work in progress.  I reinstalled Manjaro GNU/Linux, was able to process the file, but it was no longer a straightforward matter. 

First, some fonts. 

This may all be a matter of changes I have been making to my Gri workflow.  We'll see. 

No blame.