From Simplifying to Downright Esoteric

Ok, I'd just learned the ropes of Sawfish when I decided to take StumpWM out for a spin. I'm pretty impressed, so far.

StumpWM is a minimalist, tiling window manager with a powerful keyboard interface. It has no window decorations and no mouse control. But what sets it apart from most other window managers is the fact that it's written entirely in Common Lisp. This means almost infinite customisation and scripting possibilities, and, best of all, interactive scripting while the window manager is running! (And yes, this was the main attraction in Sawfish as well, but StumpWM takes it up a notch.)

The Emacs-influenced keyboard interface is indeed powerful, but a little cumbersome for my taste, relying on combinations of several keystrokes. So the first order of business was to set up a few global shortcuts to switch between windows and run my favourite apps. This in itself was almost a trivial matter, but I had a little trouble getting the apple key on my MacBook to function (it's the best key for custom shortcuts as it's not used by any GNU/Linux application by default). After some labour I discovered that using xmodmap to designate it as a hyper key instead of a super key, and binding shortcuts to the hyper key, they suddenly worked.

In Sawfish I spent some time working on a little script in it's Lisp variety to display the track Rhythmbox was currently playing. While it wasn't a difficult task (most of the time was spent on learning things about the language as I'm still not too experienced with Lisp in general, and the particular dialect was entirely new to me), in StumpWM creating a similar feature was almost a trivial matter. As of now, I've pretty much got the same general functionality in StumpWM as I had in Sawfish, but there's still a lot I haven't really delved into, like more powerful use of frames (used for window placement) and groups (aka virtual desktops).

I've used tiling window managers (like wmii) with GNU/Linux before I got my MacBook, so the concept's not new to me. It might take a moment to re-adjust to the paradigm, but on the other hand even on Mac OS X I already mostly kept switching between windows and Spaces with the keyboard. For most of my regular needs (surfing the web, IRC, playing music, writing with Emacs), StumpWM works perfectly. These applications actually work best when they're fullscreen, no unnecessary decorations, title bars or window manager panels to swallow up valuable screen space (particularly as the MacBook's screen isn't incredibly big). I'll have to see what happens when I need to use an app with a very different kind of orientation, like GIMP.

Going Home

Well, after bitching about Mac OS X's shortcomings for a long while, I finally took the plunge and installed GNU/Linux on my MacBook. (Why it took this long was mostly because I didn't have that USB disc to backup my stuff, until now.)

In case anyone is wondering why, let me reiterate. The reason is twofold.

1. Ideology. I'm a devoted supporter of the free software movement. While Mac OS X utilises many open source components, and as a Unix system is fairly compatible with a large number of free software applications, it is still a proprietary system, and many of Apple's policies I just can't agree with.

2. Functionality. While Mac OS X is a certified Unix system, it's focus is on its own desktop environment, which doesn't intergrate perfectly with the Unix core, its command line interface or other Unix software not tailored for OS X. GNU/Linux systems (and probably most other Unix-like systems as well) are much more configurable, use the standard X Window System and are generally more 'whole', not suffering from an identity crisis as OS X is.

Debian GNU/Linux was the obvious choice, as I said before. Installing it on a MacBook isn't exactly a trivial matter, but following instructions on Debian's wiki page it wasn't actually too difficult, even though on the first try I ended up with kernel panic and had to do it all over again. In the end it booted without problems, though, and most features work fine pretty much 'out of the box'. (I still have a small partition with Mac OS X as a backup, and because a pure Debian system apparently still has some issues.)
There's still plenty of configuring to do, of course. The touchpad works, but needs tuning. I haven't been able to figure out how to get custom settings to work yet. And I haven't got wireless yet. It seems that this would require upgrading the kernel to a newer version, which is something I've never done before.

I might have been worried that I'd grown too accustomed to OS X's eye candy and convenient features. Well, I installed KDE 4, and it has certainly softened the blow. It looks pretty, and has pretty much all the desktop and window management features of OS X, such as a grid view of all the virtual desktops. And a slideshow mode for my many wallpapers.

For now, I'm just happy to be back home in a proper free software *nix.

Do As I Say Not As I Do

Computers 101: you don't, repeat don't, go a year and a half without backing up anything on your computer.

Luckily mister Murphy was kind and nothing went wrong this time. I'd been meaning to get a USB hard drive for ages, probably almost as long as I've had this MacBook. But, mostly due to lack of funds, kept putting it off, until I finally got one now. Now everything's backed up, and I feel much safer. The music alone would have been a huge loss if something had gone wrong, ripping all of it again would be more than I could bear...

I think it's time for a fresh start for this computer. A year and a half's worth of accumulated junk needs purging. I might also be interested in trying another OS. It'd almost certainly be Debian GNU/Linux.

Procrastinating with OS Woes

Still got that flu. Mostly it's just an annoying cough, with a slightly runny nose thrown in. I haven't been sleeping very well either. And I have to go to class tomorrow and speak. Great.

I've really started to yearn for a proper free software operating system again. I've used Mac OS X for well over a year now, and the magic is slowly beginning to wear off. I've written before about its flaws from a Unix user's perspective (just look at the posts labeled Mac OS X). Toss in the ethical problems of proprietary software, and I'm really starting to turn against it. OS X had its attractions, much of which were just simple eye candy. But free software systems aren't that far behind. Just look at these features in KDE 4.

Debian GNU/Linux would probably be my top choice. It's undoubtedly the best GNU/Linux distribution I've used so far. A great package management system with a huge software library is one of it's best features. And it's also more devoted to the GNU philosophy than some other distributions.

But installing a GNU/Linux system on a MacBook is no trivial matter. I need to find out more about how well it actually functions. I certainly couldn't even try it without making a complete backup of all my stuff, for which I would need a USB hard drive, which I just don't have the money for at the moment. Which leaves me kind of buggered. Not happy at all.

Testing... One Two Three...

It's been a while, once again. Nothing new. Ben comes and he goes. Right now I'm setting up an environment for writing and publishing these pages directly on the web server. This'll make updating easier. But there's one or two hiccups still. Except future updates sooner than a year from now.

As for news, there's not much. My adventures in the world of operating systems took a new turn, as I bought a new MacBook last summer. I've been very happy with it, and Mac OS X, for the most part. No, it's not exactly all Free Software, but it's a hell of a better than Windows. And being a Unix system, OS X is quite compatible with much of the Free Software scene.

Update: I think I've got the hiccups pretty much sorted out. As a Christmas bonus I've added a new episode of my Kin of Cerberos RPG campaign, as well as two new video game reviews, Guilty Gear and Viewtiful Joe.