Following on the heels of my google search hotkey in awesome, I decided to tackle expanding the functionality of the run prompt. Awesome’s run prompt, by default, is basically a command-launcher; it chokes on any input that doesn’t represent an executable file.
I wanted it to behave more like the run prompt in other desktops, so that typing in a URL would open the URL in an appropriate application.
With help from Alexander Yakushev on the awesome mailing list, I managed to figure it out….
I’m back to using AwesomeWM on my work desktop; not sure what brought me back, but I will say that overall I prefer the way it handles multiple monitors and multiple desktops a little better than how KDE does it. That, and KWin’s tiling mode is still useless with dual monitors even in 4.8.
Something about running a window manager like Awesome makes you uber-sensitive to operations that require you to do a lot of mouse-maneuvering or manual window management, and thus encourages you to streamline these operations. One such thing for me is searching google for something, an activity which I’m bound to do at least six dozen times during a workday, especially when developing (since I can’t remember API’s for squat).
With a little help from a bash script and surfraw, I came up with a pretty cool solution. (more…)
After conversing a bit with one reader of my kiosk how-to, I was reminded how tricky it can be to really lock-down a modern web browser for kiosk use. It’s so tricky, that for my own needs I ended up writing my own browser.
Well, I figure it’s time to stop being stingy, so I am releasing the code to that browser under the GPL. You can find it on github, here:
https://github.com/alandmoore/wcgbrowser
Contributions would be welcome, as the code has some stupidities and shortcomings. It does work for my needs, and may work in a wide variety of situations, so feel free to make use of it.
I will, of course, appreciate code contributions from those so inclined!
Finally got some time last night to do a little recording on my Lubuntu/ardour setup. I wasn’t doing anything serious, just wanted to lay down some sounds to experiment with software, workflow, and getting a good sound out of my new cajon.
The result is here. No sequencing or drum programming going on (obviously), just laid down one track at a time into Ardour and mixed down with a handful of plugins. The lead synth is nekobee running through a parametric eq and rotary speaker sim, recorded live into Ardour.
I’m pretty happy with what it can do, though I still feel like the workflow with Jack/Ardour is a little cumbersome. My hardware is kind of flaky too, sadly. Still, there’s something that inspires me more about working with duct-tape and baling wire than with some shiny turnkey system.
Long ago, before I ever knew a lick of BASH or even what an OS kernel was, my passion was not technology but music, music, and more music. Roughly the first half of my adult life was devoted to the writing, playing, and recording of music, and by around 2002 I’d built for myself a tidy little home recording & mixing setup centered on Cakewalk Sonar, Jeskola Buzz, and Windows XP. Alas, the years were not kind to my career or gear, and up until recently my music computer was busy being a game & education machine for the kids.
Thanks to a hard drive crash and the purchase of new machines for the kids, I got my old music machine back, albeit lacking a functioning operating system and software. So, I decided now was a good time to rebuild it. This time, though, I decided the time was right to kick XP and Cakewalk to the curb and go it Free Software style.
When tinkering with old computers, there is little about an operating system quite as endearing as flexibility at install time. The “Universal Operating System” is no slouch in this regard; the Debian installer will work quite happily from CD, DVD, USB drive, PXE boot (my personal fav), and even a Windows executable.
But what if none of those is an option? Suppose you’re stuck with a system with no optical media, no USB boot, no PXE boot, and no OS? Can we get Debian on such a machine?
You bet we can! (more…)
Back around 2006 our public library was in need of a cheap way for patrons to browse its web-based INNOPAC catalog. Thin clients running Windows CE had been purchased for this purpose, but they turned out to be buggy and limited. I was tasked with finding a solution to the problem “on the cheap”, and being a fairly new Linux fanatic at the time, I figured I’d see what I could do using free software. This led to my first kiosk project.
Since then, I’ve refined my approach time and again, deploying kiosks throughout my organization just about anywhere a web-browser kiosk can be put to use. The original library system has been completely rebuilt with newer hardware and software, but is fundamentally the same system I set up five years ago.
I often see people asking about how to set up a kiosk system with Linux, and like me they usually start out going about it the wrong way; so I thought I’d write this tutorial based on my years of experience to help those getting started.
In part III of this series, I told you that lightweight Linux distributions can be classified as either “fully lightweight” or “remixes”; and in part IV, we took a look at several “fully lightweight” distributions. Naturally, in this article, we’re going to talk about remixes.
Unlike the last article, however, I’m not just going to go through a bunch of remix distros and blather on with my half-formed impressions of them; not only would that would be unbearably dull for both you and for me, but selecting a three or four remix distros from the zillion-and-a-half out there in the world is an impossible choice. Instead, we’re going to understand what really distinguishes one remix from another with the aim of helping you select one that fits your needs; after which I’ll go through a few example distributions and talk about what makes them different.
Our home server — we call him Rupert — is a real trooper. Beneath his yellowing beige exterior, a first-gen Pentium 4 works its 224 MB of RAM night and day delivering a variety of services to our home network. On top of storing our files, caching our DNS requests, filtering the Web for little eyes, and providing me a handy back-door into the network via SSH, rupert’s most important job is delivering a selection of web applications to our home network.
One of the most important — and unfortunately the bulkiest — is Moodle. Moodle is a CMS designed for schools that deliver online classes and content, and it’s proven quite valuable over the last couple years as an aid in our homeschooling. Sadly, though, poor Rupert has a tough time dishing out the Moodles. (more…)
HP Decides to Open Source WebOS
Well this looks like interesting news: HP has decided to open its failed WebOS platform to developers. If they do it right and actually help found a project, this could be really cool. WebOS might become the free software option for mobile & tablets for all us I-must-replace-the-factory-OS-on-every-device-I-own folks.
Then again, they could just mess it up and WebOS will fade into obscurity.
It’ll be fun to watch, either way.