Tag Archives: Floss

Quick google search in Awesome window manager

March 27, 2012 , 2 Comments ,

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…)

Posted in: Free/Libre Open Source Software, General, Technology , Tagged: , , , ,

WCGBrowser, meet world…

March 6, 2012 , 4 Comments ,

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!

Posted in: Free/Libre Open Source Software, Programming, Technology , Tagged: , , ,

Reviving my home studio, this time the free software way

January 11, 2012 , 2 Comments ,

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.

(more…)

Posted in: Free/Libre Open Source Software, General, Life, Music, Technology , Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

HP Decides to Open Source WebOS

December 9, 2011 , Leave a Comment ,

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.

 

Posted in: Free/Libre Open Source Software, Technology , Tagged: ,

Creating a kiosk with Linux and X11: 2011 edition

November 5, 2011 , 107 Comments ,

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.

(more…)

Posted in: Free/Libre Open Source Software, Technology , Tagged: , , , , , ,

Lighttpd to the rescue!

September 26, 2011 , Leave a Comment ,

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…)

Posted in: Free/Libre Open Source Software, Old computers, Technology , Tagged: , , , , ,

Reviving your old PC with Linux, Part IV: Fully Lightweight Distros

September 10, 2011 , 12 Comments ,

By now, we have established a vocabulary with which we can discuss distributions and their strengths and weaknesses, and thus understand the best uses for them given our needs and resources. So in this article, I’ll talk about some actual “fully lightweight” distributions (for those who didn’t read the last article, “fully lightweight” refers to distros that are built from the ground-up to be small and fast. It doesn’t include lightweight remixes or spinoffs of other distros).

(more…)

Posted in: Free/Libre Open Source Software, Old computers, Technology , Tagged: , , , , , ,

The GNOME 3 Meltdown – Datamation

August 17, 2011 , 1 Comment ,

Bruce Byfield flexes his usual balanced, insightful journalism in analyzing the GNOME3 situation over on Datamation: The GNOME 3 Meltdown – Datamation.

It’s a great write-up, because apart from just regurgitating Linus’s recent gripes at GNOME, it analyzes the growing divide between users of Free software and the developers thereof — a problem I’ve been noticing increasingly over the years, especially at Ubuntu forums (where under-informed griping seems to have become a spectator sport).

Posted in: Free/Libre Open Source Software, Technology , Tagged: , ,
« Previous Page