Code Notelets

This is a list of my favorite Linux GUI applications in alphabetical order. Command-line applications (e.g. dadadodo, sbcl, etc) will not be listed here. Balsa - I use it as a searchable mail archive Brasero - This is my main tool for making live media CD's (i.e. disk ISO) Clam TK Claws mail Dia - diagram editor Emacs GUI GIMP gthumb - my favorite photo viewer and basic editor Kazam - screen recording software to make a video LibreOffice suite Links2 - alternative super low-tech browser (I hardly ever use it but like having it in case) Master PDF Editor 5 - the best way to fill and annotate PDF's nobleNote - for my archived notes; searchable ReText - Markdown editor, dual pane for markdown syntax and WYSIWYG. Useful in NaNoGenMo season for ease of reading the output of my program Zim desktop wiki - planner/organizer

Above: my Linux desktop layout. Back in 2017, I switched my operating system entirely to Linux. In case anyone is wondering, here is what I experienced over the last few years. Others I interact with have no idea I'm on Linux. For example, if someone emails me an MS Word document that I need to complete, I simply open it with LibreOffice (an open-source word processing program that is pre-installed on most Linux systems), edit the document as needed - which is very easy since the same sorts of functionalities are available in LibreOffice - and then I can save it in MS Word format and email it back. Likewise, if I'm on a Zoom call, everything works just the way it does on PC and Mac. Zoom makes their application available for Linux too, I downloaded it and let it self-install, and it works exactly the same way as it does on other operating systems. I can point-and-click my way to whatever I need to do on Linux; no special knowledge required. If you want to dig deeper into script...

 This is my personal list of software to look into. It's things that look interesting (to me) that are in the Linux Mint Software Manager. Note that this is distinct from the Synaptic Package Manager; however I assume that the Mint Software Manager is a curated subset of Synaptic. Artha - awesome-looking off-line thesaurus Treeline - tree-like custom data manger. Might work as a hierarchical note-taking app. For now though I'm happily using feathernote for that. Geekcode - fun personalized geekcode generator for signatures etc Singularity - looks like an intriguing and original game Laby - kids learn to program game with ants and spider webs Tuxtype - educational typing tutor game

I recently tried installing Academix , a Linux distro aimed at schools and universities. The graphical installer seemed to work fine except that it would hang up whenever it got to the stage of configuring the network. It was able to correctly connect to Wi-Fi when given the Wi-Fi password during the install, but never moved beyond that. This problem was surprising to me, because when trying it out on live media I never had any problems with network connectivity. So I was blindsided by this issue coming up when installing. I reasoned that if I was having those problems, maybe others were too, and so I contacted the developers to ask how I should proceed. I received a very nice response quite quickly, mentioning that in my situation it would be best to install without a network and add it in later. For me, that meant specifying my wired connection (which wasn't connected) instead of Wi-Fi during the install. It couldn't establish a connection, but fortunately was still able to c...

I've noticed from people's attitudes toward Lisp that many think it is an esoteric and difficult language to learn. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it does depend on what angle you're coming at it from. If you're coming from C, C++, Javascript, or even Python, then yes Lisp does appear impenetrable at first glance. But if you're coming from shell scripting (e.g. Bash or another Linux or Unix shell) - a skill which most programmers have used at some point - then Lisp is going to be very simple and very familiar for you to learn. You may be asking, how is this? Well, I'll demonstrate it with a couple of examples. I'm going to show you a shell command that takes the second column of a space-delimited file test.txt, sorts the resultant data, and shows the second item in the sort. cut -d" " -f2 test.txt | sort | head -2|tail -1 There is absolutely nothing remarkable about this, as you can see. The results of one command are bein...

I thought I'd make an ongoing list here of odd-looking Linux commands that I've typed in the course of my Linux-ing. 1.Looking for information about the date and time command: man date No, computer! I'm not asking you to find me a date! 2. Echoing something as root sudo echo ... Should I have simply completed that command by typing "funky town"? In case you're wondering, there was an 80's song called Funky Town, sung by Pseudo Echo. 3. Looking for information about the find command: man find Yet again, I'm looking desperate for a date.

I recently upgraded from Debian Stretch to Debian Buster (or Debian 9 to Debian 10). I hadn't done anything unusual with my system, so I was expecting a smooth upgrade process. It did work smoothly, with one exception: my monitor simply would not wake up after a screen timeout.   The problem The monitor just refused to wake up after time out, even if I unplugged and replugged its power cord (its own one, separate to the computer). The monitor reported no signal from the computer. However, the computer was actually working fine during this time - the light was on, and the keyboard caps lock key light toggled on and off; a sign that it was indeed working. But with no way to see any of the screen, I simply couldn't do anything to restart the machine except for a hard restart (turning off the computer with the power button and turning it back on). Needless to say, this was not good since I had open unsaved files on my desktop! I couldn't find anything actually helpful o...