Monday, January 30, 2017

zemlin speaks out

Posted at Foss Force (http://fossforce.com/2017/01/linux-foundations-jim-zemlin-speaks-immigration-ban/):

Linux Foundation Executive Director’s Statement on Immigration Ban

The Linux operating system underlies nearly every piece of technology in modern life, from phones to satellites to web searches to your car. For the Linux Foundation, openness is both a part of our core principles and also a matter of practicality. Linux, the largest cooperatively developed software project in history, is created by thousands of people from around the world and made available to anyone to use for free. The Linux Foundation also hosts dozens of other open source projects covering security, networking, cloud, automotive, blockchain and other areas. Last year, the Linux Foundation hosted over 20,000 people from 85 countries at more than 150 events. Open source is a fundamentally global activity but America has always served as the hub for innovation and collaboration. Linux’s creator, Linux Foundation Fellow Linus Torvalds, immigrated to America from Finland and became a citizen. The Administration’s policy on immigration restrictions is antithetical to the values of openness and community that have enabled open source to succeed. I oppose the immigration ban.

Jim Zemlin, Executive Director, The Linux Foundation

Sunday, January 29, 2017

the most important thing

Perhaps my favorite quote from Martin Luther King Jr.:

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' "

Monday, January 23, 2017

bunsenlabs live

Here's a link to a piece by a former CrunchBang user taking his first look at a live session of BunsenLabs "Hydrogen":

A Deep Look at BunsenLabs

adding lxqt to antergos

As I wrote in "from spain, antergos", "The Antergos installer lets the user choose between Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE, MATE, Openbox, and Xfce desktops; I went with Openbox."

Later, I added LXQt, from the Arch repos. Here's what I saw at the command line:

$ sudo pacman -S lxqt
[sudo] password for steve:
:: There are 19 members in group lxqt:
:: Repository community
   1) libfm-qt  2) lxqt-about  3) lxqt-build-tools  4) lxqt-common  5) lxqt-config
   6) lxqt-globalkeys  7) lxqt-notificationd  8) lxqt-openssh-askpass  9) lxqt-panel
   10) lxqt-policykit  11) lxqt-powermanagement  12) lxqt-qtplugin  13) lxqt-runner
   14) lxqt-session  15) lxqt-sudo  16) openbox  17) pcmanfm-qt  18) qterminal  19) qtermwidget

Enter a selection (default=all):
warning: openbox-3.6.1-3 is up to date -- reinstalling
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (38) kidletime-5.30.0-1  kwayland-5.30.0-1  kwindowsystem-5.30.0-1
              libdbusmenu-qt5-0.9.3+16.04.20160218-1  libkscreen-5.8.5-1  liblxqt-0.11.0-2
              libqtxdg-2.0.0-1  libxkbcommon-x11-0.7.0-1  media-player-info-22-2  muparser-2.2.5-2
              polkit-qt5-0.112.0+git20160226-1  qt5-base-5.7.1-2  qt5-declarative-5.7.1-1
              qt5-script-5.7.1-1  qt5-svg-5.7.1-1  qt5-x11extras-5.7.1-1  qt5-xmlpatterns-5.7.1-1
              solid-5.30.0-1  tslib-1.3-1  libfm-qt-0.11.1-1  lxqt-about-0.11.0-5
              lxqt-build-tools-0.3.0-2  lxqt-common-0.11.1-1  lxqt-config-0.11.0-2
              lxqt-globalkeys-0.11.0-1  lxqt-notificationd-0.11.0-1  lxqt-openssh-askpass-0.11.0-1
              lxqt-panel-0.11.0-1  lxqt-policykit-0.11.0-1  lxqt-powermanagement-0.11.0-1
              lxqt-qtplugin-0.11.0-1  lxqt-runner-0.11.0-1  lxqt-session-0.11.0-1
              lxqt-sudo-0.11.0-1  openbox-3.6.1-3  pcmanfm-qt-0.11.1-1  qterminal-0.7.1-1
              qtermwidget-0.7.1-1

Total Download Size:    23.33 MiB
Total Installed Size:  104.90 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:      103.71 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]



Here's what the LXQt desktop looked like when I first logged into the session:



I had to change the icon theme from Adwaita to Numix to get all of my icons to show up in the menu and on the panel:



Looks like there aren't many themes for LXQt, and I don't think user themes are supported. I'm using the Ambiance theme for now:



To get transparency in xfce4-terminal, I enabled Compton in Session Settings:



A couple of shots of my current LXQt desktop in Antergos:



Monday, January 2, 2017

a good arch derivative

From what I'm seeing so far (after about a month and a half), Antergos seems like a very solid distro. As advertised, Antergos provides an easy way to get an Arch system up and running, ready to go out-of-the-box.

The installer provides a choice of desktops. I went with Openbox, but still the installer (called "cnchi") downloaded a ton of packages (cnchi showed 779 packages being installed). The system's loaded with useful apps. The number of installed packages appears to have no effect on the system's performance while running Openbox; everything's snappy and crisp.

The Pamac package manager is fun to play around with, but for package management I'm using pacman, from the command line, same as with my Arch installation. Antergos uses the Arch repos, plus an Antergos repo for some packages, as pamac shows in this shot.



The following yaourt command shows the packages that come from the "antergos" repo:

$ yaourt -Q | grep antergos
antergos/antergos-keyring 20150806-1 (antergos-base)
antergos/antergos-mirrorlist 20161107-2 (antergos-base)
antergos/antergos-openbox-setup 0.3.1-2
antergos/antergos-repo-priority 1.0.4-2 (antergos-base)
antergos/antergos-wallpapers 0.7-1
antergos/antergos-welcome 0.0.2-2
antergos/galculator 2.1.4-4 (mate-extra)
antergos/light-locker-settings 1.5.2-3
antergos/lightdm-webkit2-greeter 2.2.1-1 (system)
antergos/numix-frost-themes 3.6.6-1 (themes themes::gtk)
antergos/numix-icon-theme 1:0.r1890.2-1
antergos/numix-icon-theme-square 1:0.r83_8-1
antergos/obkey 1.0-4
antergos/openbox-menu 0.8.0-1
antergos/package-query 1.8.r380-2
antergos/pamac 4.1.6-2
antergos/paranoid 1.1.1-2
antergos/plank-theme-numix 0.1-1
antergos/ttf-google-fonts 20160408.r423-1
antergos/waldorf-ui-theme 0.07-1
antergos/yaourt 1.8.1-1



I'm using Antergos' Numix-Frost theme for Openbox, with a few key launchers on the tint2 panel and a customized menu that has all of my Openbox-related tools under one submenu:


But I also have the Antergos Applications menu available:


A "clean" shot from (empty) workspace #3:


antergos greeter screen background

In Antergos, the backgrounds for the LightDM greeter screen are stored in the /usr/share/antergos/wallpapers directory, and you can copy files into there to make them available to choose from at the greeter screen.

The icon at the upper-right corner opens up a panel along the right side for previewing and selecting from available backgrounds.



Seems appropriate for January. Clicking on the digital clock gives you the login window.


To get screenshots of the login screen, I first added the xorg-server-xephyr package from the Arch repos:

$ sudo pacman -S xorg-server-xephyr

Then I used dm-tool to start a nested display of the greeter screen, and took screenshots of that using xfce4-screenshooter with a delay (note: Alt-F4 gets you back to the desktop) (also see dm-tool --help):

$ dm-tool add-nested-seat --fullscreen

pascal

The Toronto Raptors have a rookie power forward in their starting lineup -- 6'9" Pasccal Siakam, a native of Cameroon, the small Central African country.


Siakam averages fewer than 20 minutes of playing time per game. He's getting only about 5 points (and less than 4 rebounds) per game. Those kinds of numbers won't impress anyone.

Yet, Siakam has played in every game this season. In fact, he has started every game this season -- for a Raptors team that currently holds the 2nd-best record (23-10) in the Eastern Conference.

Obviously, Raptors coach Dwane Casey sees something. And I bet he's seeing some of what folks down in Las Cruces saw the past two years. At New Mexico State, Siakam was the WAC Freshman of the Year for the 2014-15 season. In 2015-16, he was good for 20.2 points per game and 11.6 rebounds per game, shooting almost 54% from the field.

I didn't think he'd be an NBA starter in his rookie year, but there he is. And it looks like he's got a high ceiling, as they say.

Here's how he did in Toronto's 123-114 win over the Lakers last night: 31 minutes, 3 points, 10 rebounds, 4 blocks, 5 personal fouls. Doin' the dirty work, apparently.

For more, see this article: Raptors Rookie Pascal Siakam Is Something Special