Arch Linux

It's been awhile again since I last posted. I finally got brave enough to load linux on my new Toshiba Satellite laptop. You know how it goes, when something is brand new you don't want to mess with it too much. Well it only took two months for the new to wear off and for me to feel comfortable installing linux and dual booting with Vista. What distribution did I pick? well you would think I would load Ubuntu since I had no idea if all the hardware was compatable, but since I'm a linux nutcase and never take the easy way out, I decided to install Arch Linux. Arch has become my favorite distribution over the last several months do to its simplicity and great package management. I like to think of it as Slackware with a good package manager that takes care of all the dependencies. However, Arch takes longer for me to install and setup than does Slackware since after installation all you have is core linux. You need to install Xorg, a window manager, firefox, pretty much every application you want.

How did my Toshiba fare? Sweeeeet! All the hardware was recognized. I have intel video, atheros wireless, and realtek audio. All of these are supported by linux. After many hours of installing software and setting everything up, I now have a fast, minimal, Arch setup with DWM as the window manger and Apwal as my launcher. I did have to edit the config.h file before compiling dwm to make it a little more mouse friendly (like close windows with middle click and start apwal with right click on clock).

I have noticed my laptop seems to run cooler running linux over Vista. I think its due to vistas constant thrashing of the hard drive to update its indexing and high memory requirements for the Aero look. I am really happy with Arch and love how easy it is to keep it updated. I find it easier to configure than Debian. Ubuntu and other easy to use distributions are not my cup of tea, since they work well until you need to get to the nuts and bolts and then you find they are messier than they need to be. I am not fond of distributions that are built on other distributions...since you find they sometimes deviate from the way the original distro set things up. Anyway thats all for now...next time I write, everything will probably have changed.

Mouse Launch - small launcher for Windows

This is a small launcher program that I made to appear under the mouse pointer when the middle mouse button is clicked. The buttons are labeled with just one letter to keep the size very small.

Here is what it launches:
C: - ccleaner
E: - explorer
F: - firefox
I: - Internet Explorer
T: - task manager
V: - volume control
L: - logoff windows
R: - Restart windows
S: - Shutdown windows

Hotkeys:
Alt-Space: Hide all windows
Alt-X: Show hidden windows
Lctrl-wheelup: Maximize window
Lctrl-wheeldown: Minimize window
Lctrl-Mbutton: Close window
Lctrl-Rbutton: Switch to next open task

Here is the program: http://www.autohotkey.net/~netfun81/mouse%20launch.exe

Here is the source code: http://www.autohotkey.net/~netfun81/mouse%20launch.ahk

Here is a screenshot:

KCmenu Vista Launcher

I've created a launcher program for Vista using Autohotkey. It has tabs for each category, shows running tasks, Has a clock and calendar. Has hotkey support for various functions such as controlling volume. It stays hidden in ur taskbar tray until you press the middle mouse button. Has a built in Boss Key for privacy.

This shows the main screen:


This shows the Help tab and some features:

You can download the program here: http://www.autohotkey.net/~netfun81/KCmenu%20Vista.exe

Here is the source code: http://www.autohotkey.net/~netfun81/KCmenu%20Vista.ahk

Linux update

It's been awhile since my last post. Since then, I have downloaded and tested about 100 linux distributions. My favorites are either based on Debian or Slackware. My all time favorite distribution has become Slackware, mainly because I love how I can so easily compile programs in it (includes most needed libraries) and that it keeps files where they should be (most unix like). Although I read that people think Slackware is hard to configure, i completely disagree. It is so easy to start/stop daemons (cd /etc/rc.d) (chmod -x rc.acpid), or tweak the inittab file to have it boot to a command prompt. It also comes with some great command line utilites that are more reliable than most gui utilities (pkgtool, netconfig, etc). Things just work with Slackware which I can't say for all the other distros. Debian is my second favorite with Ubuntu/Sidux third. Although I love mini distributions (Puppy, Zenwalk, Vector, Wolvix, NimbleX, DSL, etc) they don't work for me long-term because I like to install a lot of software and they are usually missing a lot of libraries and often make it difficult. For someone that doesn't install much, I would recommend Puppy Linux since it boots up and shuts down so fast and is light on memory.

As far as window managers go, Ive tried many from here: http://xwinman.org/ I prefer the light simple ones. Two of the latest I have tried are "Karmen" and "Awesome". I like both but for different reasons. Karmen is simple and doesn't have a config file or root menus so you need to use a launcher app with it. It does show running tasks by right clicking any titlebar or desktop. I like how it looks and its simplicity and stability. It manages windows in a very microsoft kind of way. In contrast, Awesome is a tiling window manager that has full keyboard support. It took me a couple hours of editing the .awesomerc file to get this one to my liking, but I eventually got the thing launching apps with mouse1,3 and Alt-mouse 1,2,3. Moving windows with Win-mouse1, sizing with Win-mouse3, and closing windows with Mouse2. You can really configure most anything with it. There are several other tiling window managers that are fun, such as Xmonad, Ion, and Wmii.

So I guess in summary I have wasted a lot of time loading and configuring software but its something I enjoy, and at times get tired of. I never use windows anymore and still believe Linux to be better due to its security, availability of free software, and configurability.