Sunday, September 26, 2010

Why I hate Ubuntu

This isn't a rehash of the same things I've been saying for quite a while, it seems, it is a clarification of why I am saying them.


Certain people might say "You're saying them because you like to be controversial, annoying and contrary!", and they would be right. But that's not the entirety of my reasons.


The original hatred stems from use. I used Ubuntu for quite a while, under the guise of Linux Mint, and it worked fairly well. The packages were about as recent as the Pre-Cambrian era, but at that point it really wasn't an issue. I then moved to Arch, because largely, I was bored and wanted to try something new. My skills with Linux grew exponentially during my use of Arch, and I went from nearly no knowledge of the internals to what I would call a fair knowledge of the internals. I can't hack the kernel yet, unfortunately. Lack of C experience.



What did happen though, is when I went back to Ubuntu, the experience was frustration. While Arch made you work all the time, and Ubuntu didn't, when you did want to work Ubuntu got in the way. It is nowhere near as compliant as Arch, and gnome doesn't help. XFCE helps a bit, but my the package manager is the same. And oh, how I hate apt. Why? Because it doesn't have a "force" option. In pacman, I could delete the kernel for all it cared. Why is this important? Let me refer you to a more experienced man:


"UNIX was not designed to stop its users from doing stupid things, as that would also stop them from doing clever things." - Doug Gwyn


The reason the "force" option is important in a package manager is because sometimes there are package conflicts that the package manager cannot sort out, so you need to yank out one dependency and install a replacement, or install the conflicting package first and then the dependency, etc... The inability to do so is infuriating. The obsolescence of packages wasn't great, either.


And then came the time I tried to run Xubuntu off a USB stick. It was slow as all hell. Arch Linux? As fast as normal.


After the noncompliance and the slowness of Ubuntu made me leave it for Arch, and occasionally along the road, Gentoo, I started to grow in a more philosophical way in all aspects. Then I looked at computing.



What did I realize?


Ubuntu, OS X, Windows and all those kind of purported "user-friendly" operating systems actually make computer user harder for the average person. "What?", you might say, akin to my mate Crazy2be, "That doesn't make any sense.". It does, actually. It does because it makes it so the average user requires no skills, and thus develops no skills, in using an operating system. I understand using a stable, supported and easy to use system in a business environment, but in that case you're probably using AS/400 and Windows XP, so the point is moot.


I suppose there is an argument that people should be able to choose. Sure, you annoying libertarian, but then you can choose with Arch Linux. The choice comes down to "pacman -Sy kde" or "pacman -Sy gnome". If you're not sane, that is. The real answer is "hg http://hg.suckless.org/dwm"


So what I'm saying is basically I hate ubuntu because I hate using it, and it is a symbol of what I consider the unskilled corruption of a hobby OS. I'm also telling the average computer user "Go and install Arch Linux so you can learn some skill. For your sake as much as mine."


With your help, we can eliminate things such as this from being needed to be hung up:


Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Fourth Episode of The GuysOnFOSS Podcast

This week on the podcast: Waffle Monster makes his return and we talk about stuff! Remember to enter our contest by emailing us at Guysonfoss@gmail.com! Also, if you don't already have Dropbox and you have been considering it, help us out by signing up with our link by clicking here!


News:
Mint Debian
Sidux
Uberstudent
Schools Spy on Students Through Webcam
Engineer Terrorists 
Dell's New 7" Tablet
FCC Opening TV Airwaves
Facebook Down
IBM Single Atom DRAM
GOG down then up again
Garry's Mod For Mac

Topics:
Diaspora
Microsoft Security Book
OpenBSD
Installing Gnome on OpenBSD

Music credit: Killing Time by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Woofy tutorial

Woofy: how to setup download script.

Tools used:

Notepad ++ (You can use just Notepad if you prefer)

Expresso

Woofy

This is a tutorial explaining how to create the xml file required for allowing Woofy to download all the comic strips from a particular webcomic. The example webcomic I’m using is Nerf now.

To start heres a basic template for a web comic definition:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<comicInfo friendlyName="">
<startUrl><![CDATA[]]></startUrl>
<firstIssue><![CDATA[]]></firstIssue>
<comicRegex><![CDATA[]]></comicRegex>
<backButtonRegex><![CDATA[]]></backButtonRegex>
</comicInfo>

To start enter the name of the web comic inside of the quotes beside friendlyName. One thing that should be noted is that it uses this for the file name this is fine but it can’t download to a file with a space in it. My suggestion is that you don’t use spaces in the name.

<comicInfo friendlyName="NerfNow">

After this you have to enter the start url which is the base url. An example is shown below.

<firstIssue><![CDATA[http://nerfnow.com/]]></firstIssue>

Next up is the link to the first comic.

<firstIssue><![CDATA[http://nerfnow.com/comic/4]]></firstIssue>

After this it becomes a bit more complicated as you have to define search terms with expressions. The tool I use is the same one as the creator of Woofy which is Expresso. The only reason why we need this is mostly to make sure that the search terms with work. A basic tutorial for how expressions work is here. The first thing were using it for is the search terms for the comics name. Which for Nerf now should look like what is shown below.

<comicRegex><![CDATA[http://nerfnow.com/comic/image/[0-9]{1,}]]></comicRegex>

After this we need to setup a search term for finding the back button on the webpage. One thing that I would like to note that is important is putting brackets around the link and the ?<content> I’m not exactly sure what it does but from my understanding it tells Woofy that its the link or that its the final portion of the link depending on were you place it. For this example it is showing Woofy that its the entire link.

<backButtonRegex><![CDATA[<a\shref="(?<content>http://nerfnow\.com/comic/[0-9]{1,})">Previous]]></backButtonRegex>

Finally for Nerf now we need to set a renaming parameter because the comic downloads without a extension. This is a fairly simple one that uses the original name and then adds the proper extension for it.

<renamePattern><![CDATA[${fileName}.png]]></renamePattern>

Finally this comic wasnt the best example but its a pretty good example. If you want to look at the tutorial made by the programs author you can look at it here.

Lastly I would like to explain the contest a bit better. The contest will be running 4 weeks from last saturday and the winners will be emailed there prizes. A post will be made stating the contest is over.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

The Second Episode of TheGuysOnFOSS Podcast

Here it is ladies and gentlemen, the second episode of the podcast! Remember to get in on the contest, simply email guysonfoss@gmail.com with "contest in the subject line. You could win a Steam Key for Plainsight or a Trial Key for Starcraft 2 In a few weeks we will randomly select a winner. Errors: There was an error in the show where The Thoth mistakenly refered to polishlinux.org as polishlinux.com.



Links Mentioned in the show:
Ubuntu 10.10 Beta
Blender Beta
Distrowatch
Polish Linux
Linux Tracker
Puppy Linux
GraphicALL
Pendrive Linux:


Music credit: Killing Time by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Sunday, September 5, 2010

The First Episode of TheGuysOnFOSS Podcast

On this, the first, GuysOnFOSS podcast, Inerg and I talk in an informal manner about jcut, Woofy, and what to expect from this podcast. Keep listening for the next episode, which should be quite a bit better. Until then, sit back relax and listen to us ramble for 13:26.


Music credit: Killing Time by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)