So I’ve been switching to linux right? Right. Well the machine has arrived, and I’ve been able to get most of the required things set up the way that I need them. The awesome window manager, my ususal compliment of software, copying over config files and what not. It’s not hard, and the only thing that gave me a hickup was using Xrandr, and that was pretty quickly solved.
I wrote about my editor issues last week, which are progressing slowly. I think I need. I’ve started to use a lot of console emacs for more day-to-day stuff like writing blog posts and takin notes for work. Probably by the time this posts, I’ll have relented and started to use the GUI version for some things.
But, contrary to popular beleif, there’s more to using linux than just text editors. Though it doesn’t seem like it very much. Particularly when you write a crap ton. Let me review the kinds of things that I’ve been working on, and what I have left to do:
- I’m using the vimperator plugin for Firefox, which makes the browser behave a lot more like vim. Which makes sense in a browser, somehow. It basically means that I don’t have to use the mouse very much, except when I want to, and that’s a good thing, given how awesome works.
- Awesome works great with both monitors as I expected. In a way, it’s not so much that I got a new computer, as it is that I got two new computers. And they’re “both” really peppy. It does mean that my desk is way too small for everything I need to do with it. The linux, the Mac. I got a stack of paper to read yesterday, and I tried to set it on the corner of my desk and it was commical how little flexabile room I have on my desk. I’m anticipating a move pretty soon, so I don’t want to get new furnature quite yet.
- I’ve been using the “terminator” program for terminal emulation, and it’s delightfully simple. Wheras with most terminals I think “wow this sucks,” with terminator, I’m only a little grumpy that the copy and past commands are bound to non-standard key combinations.
- I still think pidigin stucks, and I’ve been over this before, but the more I use it, the more I can recognize flaws with Adium, so it’s very much a “you can’t go home again,” situation. Pidgin is an instant messaging client, and Adium is based on the same core software, but packaged for OS X.
- It took me way too long to figure out how to turn on the font smoothing so that everything doesn’t look like crap. Which it did, but it meant some config file editing, because all of the gnome-settings functionality won’t work because it doesn’t like the dual monitor set up. I don’t mind, because I’m only using bits and pieces of gnome as it is, but it’s worrying. I love this computer and this interface, and I wouldn’t like to work in some other way. But I’m acutely aware that except in very controlled situations, I wouldn’t trust it to non-specialized users.
I’ll probably continue to write lists like these, as much for your edification (and mine!) as for record keeping. Thanks for reading!
(I wrote this entry in emacs, and I think it has me sold, particularly if I can get all of the important modes to come on by default, which I haven’t yet. I’m also running in console mode and I’m getting this weird “echo” cursors which hang on the screen in an annoying way that I can’t predict. running “M-x redraw-screen” cleans things up, and if nothing else running that every so often in an automated way would probably clear things up, unless this sounds familiar to anyone?)