Field notes

Field notes http://skazhy.posterous.com Most recent posts at Field notes posterous.com Mon, 21 Jun 2010 03:13:00 -0700 Rezerwar - a pipes & tetris game http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/rExbyAbN7FQ/rezerwar-a-pipes-and-tetris-game-linux http://skazhy.posterous.com/rezerwar-a-pipes-and-tetris-game-linux <p> <p><div class='p_embed p_image_embed'> <a href="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-06-21/pyCviBACzBGJDofhrFusxlwBgEgebczmpnbhwrGdsurkGfphtmtzElAIGpnp/2010-06-21-131635_1024x768_scrot.png.scaled1000.png"><img alt="2010-06-21-131635_1024x768_scrot" height="375" src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2010-06-21/pyCviBACzBGJDofhrFusxlwBgEgebczmpnbhwrGdsurkGfphtmtzElAIGpnp/2010-06-21-131635_1024x768_scrot.png.scaled500.png" width="500" /></a> </div> Hi!<p />Long time no updates here. I was pretty busy lately (planning trips, exams in university, building a bike, etc etc), but today I found a neat little game, and I'd like to spread the word. It is called <a href="http://tamentis.com/projects/rezerwar/" target="_blank">Rezerwar</a>, I found it when I was checking latest package updates from <a href="http://slackbuilds.org/" target="_blank">SlackBuilds</a>. The package had a pretty cool description there:<p /> </p> <div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #cccccc; padding-left: 1ex;">Rezerwar is a puzzle game that could be quickly described as the illegitimate child of a known tetromino game and a pipe game. I adopted this bastard child and tried to give it some life. The goal of this game is to basically create networks of water and make them disappear, a couple tricks and techniques will help you achieve this goal faster.</blockquote> <div> <br /><span style="font-size: large;">Good parts</span> <div> <ul> <li>Great gameplay. I am fan of fast playable games, that have simple mechanics & addictive gameplay. This is one of them :)</li> <li>Cool idea!</li> </ul> <span style="font-size: large;">Bad parts</span> <div> <ul> <li>You have to get used to game controls. For first games I tried to rotate the block with up button, which drops the block immediately.</li> <li>I am a big fan of chiptunes / oldschool video game music, but the only in-game song may get on your nerves after some time playing. If you know how to make MIDI tracks, maybe you could help the developer by making some more.</li> </ul> </div> <div>I tested the game on 3 distros (Slackware, Fedora & Arch). Here are some install notes:<br /> <ul> <li> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Arch Linux</span>: Grab your copy from AUR (<a href="http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=28977" target="_blank">link</a>), just simple as that :)</li> <li> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Fedora</span>: There is no Fedora package yet, I will try to make one myself! </li> <li> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Slackware</span>: I installed it from *surprise* a <a href="http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13.0/games/rezerwar/" target="_blank">SlackBuild</a>. I dont have sound configured for my Slack machine, but after your tipical SlackBuild install game itself works great.</li> </ul> Cheers to Bertrand (aka Tamentis) for the great game!<br />Now go & play some Rezerwar :p</div> </div> </div> </div> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/rezerwar-a-pipes-and-tetris-game-linux">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/rezerwar-a-pipes-and-tetris-game-linux#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/rExbyAbN7FQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/rezerwar-a-pipes-and-tetris-game-linux Wed, 21 Apr 2010 06:12:00 -0700 Making a cool ssh login message for Archlinux and Slackware http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/jRfUr8dLivc/making-a-cool-ssh-login-message-for-archlinux http://skazhy.posterous.com/making-a-cool-ssh-login-message-for-archlinux <p> <p>I found a useful post on making a ssh <a href="http://www.review-ninja.com/2009/05/login-banner-ssh-banner-howto.html" target="_blank">Login Banner</a> by Review Ninja. I decided to make things more fun by adding some ASCII art (created with Figlet) to it. My Slackware and Arch Linux boxes now have neat login messages. Here is how:</p> <ul> <li> <em>For Slackware: </em>Download figlet from <a href="http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-13.0/utilities/figlet/" target="_blank">here</a> and install with installpkg.</li> <li> <em>For Archlinux</em>: Install figlet with pacman -S figlet.</li> <li>To see what fonts are installed by default run <span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">ls /usr/share/figlet/*flf</span> for Slackware and <span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">ls /usr/share/figlet/font*flf</span> for Arch.</li> <li>Create a custom welcome message. (Figlet has <a href="http://www.figlet.org/examples.html" target="_blank">tons of options</a> available). Check the <a href="http://www.figlet.org/figlet-man.html" target="_blank">manpage</a> for syntax reference.</li> <li>Do something like <span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">figlet -f mini Hello! > ~/.ssh/ssh-welcome </span> </li> <li>Enable the Login Banner (check the link in the beginning of this article)</li> <li> Restart ssh. <em>For Archlinux</em>: <span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">/etc/rc.d/sshd restart</span> <em>For Slackware:</em> <span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">/etc/rc.d/rc.sshd restart</span> </li> </ul> <p>Enjoy! :)</p> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/making-a-cool-ssh-login-message-for-archlinux">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/making-a-cool-ssh-login-message-for-archlinux#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/jRfUr8dLivc" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/making-a-cool-ssh-login-message-for-archlinux Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:22:00 -0700 A synthesizer - my 2nd finished Processing project http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/QRloHwoPwuQ/a-synthesizer-my-2nd-finished-processing-proj http://skazhy.posterous.com/a-synthesizer-my-2nd-finished-processing-proj <p> <p>I got really bored today in a lecture about context-free grammar. I started tinkering with Processing and made the basic "engine" of my project - <strong><a href="http://openprocessing.org/visuals/?visualID=8705">an 8-bit synthesizer</a></strong>. This is the first project in which I used sound (minim libs). I couldn't find some cool samples  on <a href="http://freesound.org">freesound</a>, so I made them myself. (if you want, you can mash it with your samples :)</p> <div> <p /> <div>It is a "true 8-bit" synth, because samples are made with Nintendo Gameboy, yeah ;)</div> <div>This is just a quick project (so I don't forget the idea), but I hope to <a href="http://processing.org/discourse/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1270563858">improve it</a> someday, to get rid of the "switch / case" part, which I really dislike. Enjoy & make some noise!</div> <p /> <p /> </div> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/a-synthesizer-my-2nd-finished-processing-proj">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/a-synthesizer-my-2nd-finished-processing-proj#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/QRloHwoPwuQ" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/a-synthesizer-my-2nd-finished-processing-proj Sun, 28 Mar 2010 04:11:00 -0700 Pino updates for Arch Linux and Fedora 12 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/gtjuPJnQE68/pino-updates-for-archlinux-and-fedora http://skazhy.posterous.com/pino-updates-for-archlinux-and-fedora <p> <p>I updated my favourite Twitter client Pino (<a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/microblogging-client-pino-a-review">I reviewed it 2 weeks ago</a>) for Arch Linux netbook and my Fedora desktop today. Some nasty bugs have been fixed (now the cursor is visible) and now it has spell checker.<p /> <span style="font-size: medium;">Pino 0.2.4 for Fedora 12</span><p />I used <a href="http://pawelpogorzelski.wordpress.com/">Paweł's</a> RPM package for Fedora. Download it from <a href="http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=pawelpogorzelski.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdl.dropbox.com%2Fu%2F146266%2FRPMS%2Fpino-0.2.4-1.fc12.i386.rpm">here</a>. It has tons of new features compared to version 0.1.4 in yum official repos (0.1.4 only supports twitter and doesn't have a pine icon :D )<p /> <span style="font-size: medium;">Pino 0.2.4 for Arch Linux</span><p />There is no Pino package for Arch Linux in official repos and <a href="http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=33042">version in AUR</a> is a bit old. But, you can download the tarball from AUR and replace PKBUILD script with my modified one, which was working OK. Check the comments on AUR page, if you encounter some problems, see my PKBUILD <a href="http://aur.pastebin.com/W9haduGw%20">here</a>.<p /> I don't do microblogging on other distros so I don't know how to run Pino there, but I recommend chekcing out the best twitter/<a href="http://identi.ca">identi.ca</a> client around! ;)</p> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/pino-updates-for-archlinux-and-fedora">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/pino-updates-for-archlinux-and-fedora#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/gtjuPJnQE68" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/pino-updates-for-archlinux-and-fedora Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:04:01 -0700 Distro hoppin to Fedora http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/qL1GDsoTxtY/distro-hoppin-to-fedora http://skazhy.posterous.com/distro-hoppin-to-fedora <p> After my epic failures (read previous posts) with KMS crashing the whole system and building kernel just for fun, I decided that it would be much easier to reinstall whole PC than to try to fix problems. I wanted to change things a bit, so now my home desktop PC is running Fedora12. Looks nice & works fast, even with gnome. And OpenGL runs out of the box (even with my old chipset and integrated intel video card, yay). Most of my machines still run arch & stays my favourite Linux distro.<p /> Oh, the only time I said <i>goddamit </i>with Fedora was, when I couldn''t find vim in default install, hehe. </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/distro-hoppin-to-fedora">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/distro-hoppin-to-fedora#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/qL1GDsoTxtY" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/distro-hoppin-to-fedora Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:12:00 -0700 Reinstalling kernel with Arch Linux Live CD http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/5A47qDNdyv4/reinstalling-kernel-with-archlinux-live-cd http://skazhy.posterous.com/reinstalling-kernel-with-archlinux-live-cd <p> <p>I had some serious troubles  after full system upgrade (which upgraded kernel too) recently. I could not boot my Arch Desktop PC. (Here is my <a href="http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=730725">forum post</a> about it). I thought that new kernel doesn't want to work with my PATA disks, so I decided to rollback kernel (hoping that I could do that with Arch Live CD).</p> <p /> <div>So, I tuned in some old school beats from <a href="http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/album/Run+DMC/389127" target="_blank">Run DMC</a> and started my great experiment -  Reinstalling kernel (and kernel firmware) from Arch LiveCD. Here is my  PC rescue mission step-by-step:</div> <div> <ul> <li>Boot up the Arch liveCD (well, you guessed it would be necessary, right?)</li> <li>Login as root & add some root password (will be useful later) with passwd root</li> <li>Mount the root partition of Desktop PC (for me: /dev/sda3) to /mnt</li> <li>Edit /etc/hosts.allow to allow ssh connections</li> <li>Start dhcp, restart network daemon, & start ssh daemon</li> <li>Connect to Desktop PC from AspireOne (with Midnight Commander)</li> <li>Copy kernel26 & kernel26 firmware from AspireOne pacman cache to Desktop PC's /mnt/tmp</li> <li>chroot to /mnt</li> <li>Install packages from /tmp with pacman -U</li> <li>(fingers crossed)</li> <li>(grab a tea while it's building)</li> <li>Reboot (fingers crossed)</li> </ul> <div>...and it still didn't work. But now error messages were a bit different. It seems that KMS doesn't play nice with my intel 865G chipset. Oh well, it is late and I wont try to remove it. But today I learned the power of Arch LiveCD, hehe</div> <p /> <div>But hey, if you have 865G chipset and you've tried to install KMS, post your <span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;">/etc/mkinitcpio.conf MODULES section please. I don't remember what values it had by default.. :/</span></div> </div> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/reinstalling-kernel-with-archlinux-live-cd">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/reinstalling-kernel-with-archlinux-live-cd#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/5A47qDNdyv4" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/reinstalling-kernel-with-archlinux-live-cd Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:24:00 -0700 OpenBSD 4.7 song is out http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/U8oiagnM4WA/openbsd-47-song-is-out http://skazhy.posterous.com/openbsd-47-song-is-out <p> <p><div class='p_embed p_audio_embed'> <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/openbsd-47-song-is-out"><img alt="" src="http://posterous.com/images/filetypes/unknown.png" /></a> <div class='p_embed_description'> <span class='p_id3'>song47.ogg</span> <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/openbsd-47-song-is-out">Listen on Posterous</a> </div> </div> </p> <p>OpenBSD 4.7 will be out on May 19th (you can pre-order it <a href="http://openbsd.org/47.html">here</a>), but the traditional OpenBSD "theme song" for release 4.7 was released recently. The song is titled "I'm still here". Read the full lyrics <a href="http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html#47">here</a> and enjoy the song :)</p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size: small;"><em>P.S. This was my first attempt to upload a song here. Posterous accepts songs & plays them, horray!</em></span></p> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/openbsd-47-song-is-out">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/openbsd-47-song-is-out#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/U8oiagnM4WA" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva - http://skazhy.posterous.com/openbsd-47-song-is-out Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:03:00 -0700 Installing Slackware 13 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/Xpl1ee7hvTE/installing-slackware-13-linux http://skazhy.posterous.com/installing-slackware-13-linux <p> <p>When I installed Arch Linux for the first time, I was doing it step-by step, following the <a href="http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Official_Arch_Linux_Install_Guide" target="_blank">Arch install guide</a>. With Slack I was reading the <a href="http://www.slackbook.org/html/index.html" target="_blank">Slackbook</a>. IMHO, it is the <span style="text-decoration: underline;">must-read</span> resource for anyone who wants to dive into this distribution.<br /> Here are some quick notes from the install process (a <em>live-blogging</em> entry, hehe). <p /><span style="font-size: medium;">Partitioning</span><p />Arch provides a nice & quick disk partitioning menu in it's install process. I can configure all the bits myself, but default options next-next-finish are available too. But with Slack I had to use standard CLI tool fdisk to partition drives. The old saying <em>When you learn Ubuntu, you learn Ubuntu, but when you learn Slackware, you learn Linux</em> is really true here :) <p /> Don't fail like I did: check if your root (or boot) partition is bootable before exiting fdisk :)<p /> <span style="font-size: medium;">Setup</span><p />The setup tool looks similar to other distributions without a graphical installer. If you have installed Arch, you won't have any problems here. The option of installing GNU Emacs, X and even TeX is provided here. I unchecked most of the package groups (less is more) and installed "full package list". It took quite a time to install. Next time (if there will be one) I will be manually checking packages which I need & which I dont. Because now I have all xf86 video codecs, scanner software and bulk of other stuff I won't need. Configuring the basic system was easy & straightforward. <p /> <span style="font-size: medium;">First run</span><p />LILO bootloeader waits for 2 minutes to proceed, will have to edit this time. This was also the first time I saw Tuz, the <a href="http://tassiedevil.com.au/supporters.html" target="_blank">tasmanian devil</a>, when the system was loading. Now it's time to customize my Fluxbox setup & install some packages Slack style :)</p> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/installing-slackware-13-linux">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/installing-slackware-13-linux#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/Xpl1ee7hvTE" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/installing-slackware-13-linux Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:09:00 -0700 Talkin `bout pain http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/Ynvo2aAR6WM/talkin-bout-pain http://skazhy.posterous.com/talkin-bout-pain <p> <p>After many, many episodes of <a href="http://linuxoutlaws.com">Linux Outlaws</a>, the name <em>Slackware</em> has become a synonym for <em>pain</em>. But guess what, I will try it out now. I haven't really tested distros from this big branch of <a href="http://futurist.se/gldt/">Linux family tree</a> (except for Slax on my USB flash & 2 days with Zenwalk).   My good old distrohopping pal - Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook laptop will be the test subject. <p /> It's a shame, that <a href="ftp://edge.deac.lv/pub/slackware/">latvian FTP mirror</a> only has versions 10.2 - 12.2, so I am downloading the .ISO via bittorent now.</p> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/talkin-bout-pain">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/talkin-bout-pain#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/Ynvo2aAR6WM" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/talkin-bout-pain Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:34:00 -0700 Sync dokuwikis with Dropbox http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/9KSelQnd7fU/sync-dokuwikis-with-dropbox http://skazhy.posterous.com/sync-dokuwikis-with-dropbox <p> <p><span style="font-size: small;">I use Dokuwiki a lot. It is main documentation/notes tool for my projects. Sometimes I need to access my notes from different computers. So I came up with a cool idea how to do this. Copy Dokuwiki in the Dropbox directory and make a symbolic link to it in Apache document root directory. Doing it this way, I can get the same DokuWiki on all machines with Dropbox & Apache (all my machines have that). And my notes stay private too!</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size: medium;">Setting up Dropbox</span><p /><span style="font-size: small;">If you don't have a Dropbox installed, then I recommend <a href="http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/howto/howto_setup_dropbox" target="_blank">this tutorial</a> by the fine CrunchBang folks. It shows how to install & run Dropbox. Arch Linux wiki also has an entry on <a href="http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dropbox" target="_blank">Dropbox installation</a>, but CrunchBang tutorial is much easier and it works on Arch too.</span><p /> <span style="font-size: medium;">Setting up DokuWiki</span><p /><span style="font-size: small;">Download DokuWiki <a href="http://www.splitbrain.org/projects/dokuwiki" target="_blank">from here</a> and extract it to Dropbox folder. Make a symlink <em>ln<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> -s /path/to/</span>dropbox<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;"> /</span>srv<span style="font-family: courier new,monospace;">/http/</span>dokuwiki </em>(/srv/http is the default dir in Arch linux. It may be different on your distro).  Thanks to zimnyx fro #bash in freenode, who answered my trivial symlink question. Then run localhost/dokuwiki in your browser and go trough the simple install process. DokuWiki is ready :) </span><p /> <span style="font-size: small;">Now you can make similar symlinks on other machines and have your DW with you all the time, without making it visible to public. Dropbox allows also sharing of folders, this could be a good way for a "private" collaboration tool. If you have done this, let me know if it works! :)</span></p> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/sync-dokuwikis-with-dropbox">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/sync-dokuwikis-with-dropbox#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/9KSelQnd7fU" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/sync-dokuwikis-with-dropbox Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:32:00 -0800 Microblogging client Pino - a review http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/ZlcqJyH8zWs/microblogging-client-pino-a-review http://skazhy.posterous.com/microblogging-client-pino-a-review <p> <p><div class='p_embed p_image_embed'> <img alt="2010-03-10-180601_1024x600_scr" height="503" src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/skazhy/9EQRRvN0DgCZxPx1U6wxt1OPdugrEz9Ib8FCFEJD96qbgd9295thp53FSSCa/2010-03-10-180601_1024x600_scr.png" width="366" /> </div> </p> <p>For the first time I heard about <a href="http://pino-app.appspot.com/">Pino</a> from one of my <a href="http://twitter.com/rodzhers">twitter contacts</a>, who translated it to latvian. After some days, <a href="http://linuxoutlaws.com/">Linux Outlaws</a> were talking about it on their episode 140 (yet to be released). So I took the latest version from AUR and installed it. Here are some first impressions after 3 days of using it.</p> <p /> <div><span style="font-size: large;">Pino: The good parts</span></div> <div> <ul> <li><strong>It looks really good</strong>. Yes, that's right, like Gwibber back in the 1.X days, and it is using GTK, so I don't need to keep tons of KDE libs.</li> <li><strong>It is displaying retweets from Twitter web interface</strong>. Gwibber and Choqok didn't have this option, all the retweets made in the webpage didn't display there.</li> <li><strong>It is simple</strong>. No useless info, like from what client this tweet/dent was sent etc.</li> <li><strong>It is fast</strong>. Pino is written in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala_(programming_language)">Vala</a>.</li> <li><strong>It shows individual conversations</strong>. Much like the identi.ca`s feature "show in context". Shows individual reply-to conversations. Really neat feature!</li> </ul> </div> <div><span style="font-size: large;">Pino: The bad parts</span></div> <div> <ul> <li><strong>Seperate timelines for multiple accounts</strong>. I am using both <a href="http://identi.ca">identi.ca</a> & twitter, so I need to switch between account</li> </ul> Grab Pino for Archlinux <a href="http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=33042">here</a>. I had some problems with opening links from Pino, after some help from a Pino developer and #archlinux IRC folks, I edited /usr/bin/xdg-open (changed <em>chromium-browser</em> for just <em>chromium</em>) and ran <span style="font-family: courier new, monospace;">sudo xdg-mime default /usr/share/applications/chromium.desktop text/html</span> it works fine.</div> <p /> <div>So, I really recommend you to check Pino out, if you want a small & fast microblogging client. And IMO this is the best choice if you are running Arch and don't want to install Choqok with a ton of KDE stuff. </div> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/microblogging-client-pino-a-review">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/microblogging-client-pino-a-review#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/ZlcqJyH8zWs" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/microblogging-client-pino-a-review Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:03:46 -0800 Installing arch from USB flash http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/QBN5sJhFrwg/installing-arch-from-usb-flash http://skazhy.posterous.com/installing-arch-from-usb-flash <p> After all my troubles with arch install CDs, the preparation for USB install surprised me in a good way:<br /><ul><li>Get a USB flash</li><li>Download <a href="http://www.archlinux.org/download/">core USB image</a></li><li>Run this command <span style="font-family: courier new,monospace; color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">sudo dd if=archlinux-2009.08-core-i686.img of=/dev/sdb</span></li> </ul>And that's it, boot it up and install Arch! This process is really following <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle">KISS principle</a>. When you are reading this, my AspireOne is already running my favourite linux flavour & I am tweaking it to look awesome. </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/installing-arch-from-usb-flash">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/installing-arch-from-usb-flash#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/QBN5sJhFrwg" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/installing-arch-from-usb-flash Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:38:33 -0800 /home cleaning day http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/ETB07BzfOWg/home-cleaning-day http://skazhy.posterous.com/home-cleaning-day <p> After watching 3 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fullmetal_Alchemist">Fullmetal Alchemist</a> episodes in a row, I decided that I need something different to do. I noticed this update in <a href="http://identi.ca">identi.ca</a> from <a href="http://identi.ca/teeahr1">teeahr1</a>: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; padding-left: 1ex;"> A well organized directory structure being the key to a happy /home, I declare today to be filesystem spring cleaning day! !<span class="vcard" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><a href="http://identi.ca/group/56/id" title="GNU/Linux (linux)" class="url" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 4px 4px; border-top-right-radius: 4px 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px 4px; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px 4px;"><span class="fn nickname" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px;">linux</span></a></span> !<span class="vcard" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><a href="http://identi.ca/group/55/id" title="Arch Linux (archlinux)" class="url" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 4px 4px; border-top-right-radius: 4px 4px; border-bottom-right-radius: 4px 4px; border-bottom-left-radius: 4px 4px;"><span class="fn nickname" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px;">archlinux</span></a></span></blockquote> <p /><div>Home (not the partition) was cleanded few days ago, now it's time for /home to be cleaned up! On all my machines I use a similar folder tree in /home, so I know where to find everything. The top level looks like this:</div> <div><ul><li>bildes (latvian for <i>pictures</i>)</li><li>bin</li><li>documents</li><li>downloads</li><li>dropbox</li><li>scripts</li><li>timp</li></ul>The <i>downloads</i> and <i>tmp</i> are getting too bloated. Full of *ahem* torrents, old episodes from TV shows and music, that has not yet been moved to removable HDD. If I'm lucky and sort all the stuff, I could free up to 15 GBs today, hehe.</div> <div> </div> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/home-cleaning-day">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/home-cleaning-day#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/ETB07BzfOWg" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/home-cleaning-day Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:44:03 -0800 Space Invaders!! & install problems http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/3QCp0IdXbWw/space-invaders-and-install-problems http://skazhy.posterous.com/space-invaders-and-install-problems <p> I booted up the Arch install CD and checked out all the features it has. And yes, there is a <i>Space Invaders!!</i> game included, really cool! :) I couldn't find an exit button, so I had to shutdown the whole machine.<p /> But Space Invaders!! is the only nice part, I have some problems with the install itself on my AspireOne netbook (with an external DVD rom). I get "Error 25: disk read error", with my 2009.02 CD and "Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 175886" with other CD. It seems that switch from CrunchBang to Arch will have to wait till Monday, when I can try more install options at job. </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/space-invaders-and-install-problems">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/space-invaders-and-install-problems#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/3QCp0IdXbWw" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/space-invaders-and-install-problems Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:06:00 -0800 entry 1 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~3/VMtRfDVsIeg/entry-1-5 http://skazhy.posterous.com/entry-1-5 <p> <p>Hi there, this is entry one in my posterous. I already have too much accounts around the interwebs (a tumbelog for my <a href="http://startshosse.tumblr.com/">fixed gear project</a> (in latvian), <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/skazhy">latvian streetart flicks</a>, <a href="http://vimeo.com/skazhy">some boring videos</a>, <a href="http://kobriki.blogspot.com/">my ultra awesome webcomics</a> (also, in latvian) and many, many more) but I need <em>yet another one </em>to post my "hey, I just made a cool script" type posts, which are too long to fit in identi.ca, and can be useful to other people too. But sometimes I just want to post my boring thoughts on tech subjects somewhere, and yes, this will be the place.</p> <p>What do I do offline? I study computer science in <a href="http://www.lu.lv/eng/">University of Latvia</a>, work in a pretty large company in IT department and like biking & geocaching (among other things). I am supporting all things open source and my posterous will have this kind of stuff here.</p> <p>See you soon! :)</p> <p> </p> </p> <p><a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/entry-1-5">Permalink</a> | <a href="http://skazhy.posterous.com/entry-1-5#comment">Leave a comment  »</a> </p><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/skazhy_fieldnotes/~4/VMtRfDVsIeg" height="1" width="1"/> http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/455742/26238187.jpg http://posterous.com/users/4aqp56hoQEYV Karlis Lauva skazhy Karlis Lauva http://skazhy.posterous.com/entry-1-5