9 March 2015

Why I Just Can’t Get Stuff Done

It seems like I’m always chasing my tail.  I start doing one thing, and it spirals into all kinds of other things.

First, I start by working on a web application of mine.  I start up a browser, and I get notifications that I need to upgrade, that browser is no longer supported.

Fine.  I go to figure out how to get the newest version of that browser.

I could download the most current version, and install it into my home directory, or… of COURSE the other option is to install a newer version of Linux.  Because, why the hell would there be an easy way just to get a repository that lets me get updates for the most current version of Firefox (or Google Chrome, or whatever)?

Fine.  I go download the newest version of Linux.

Wait.  What do you mean, I’m running 32-bit?  I could be running 64-bit!  Things are so much better that way!

Uh-oh.  I can’t just do an upgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit.  That doesn’t work.  It might not work to upgrade from 32-bit to 32-bit… ugh.

Fine.  But I’m not going to use up another DVD just to get a newer version of Linux.  That’s annoying, it makes the upgrade slower, and… ugh.

Fine.  Spend a few hours figuring out how to create a bootable USB drive.

What do you mean, the newest version of UNetBootin doesn’t support my USB drive?  I HAVE TO FIND AN OLDER VERSION?!?!

Fine.  Get the older version.

Hours and hours and hours later, with a bunch of errors, a wiped USB disk that doesn’t seem to mount anymore at all…

FINE.  I’ll burn the damned DVD.

Wait… if I do this, I have to wipe out my home directory.  That means I lose everything, and I’ve gotta go through this painfully long process of backing up and restoring that data… why don’t I put my home directory (/home) onto a different partition?  I’ve got an SSD (Solid State Drive), it should be crazy fast.  Do it.

FINE.  Figure out how to re-partition my drive.  Burn ANOTHER disc, with Gparted on it.

Wait.  Why can’t I eject my DVD drive?  I press the button and… nothing.

FINE.  Turn off the laptop, take out the screw that holds it in, and… WHAT?!?!? IT DOESN’T COME OUT?!?!?!

Hours go by.  Then days.  Finally, for no good reason whatsoever, the damned thing starts working again.  WTF.

FINE.  Burn Gparted.  Boot off it.  Resize the partition, should be simple.

Resize the drive, so there’s room for the home partition… wait for HOURS until it’s done.  I have NO IDEA WHY.  It’s a Solid State Drive.  It’s like FIFTEEN THOUSAND TIMES FASTER than the original drive.  And it’s acting like it’s fifteen thousand times SLOWER.

HOURS LATER, resize.  HOURS LATER, move.  HOURS LATER, resize again.  HOURS LATER, move something again… not sure why, it’s taken so long, I’ve almost forgotten WTF I’ve been doing this for.  Fix the fstab (file system tab) so it boots.  Reboot.

Hooray!  Now I’ve got a separate /home partition!  WOOT!

Fine.  Time to reinstall, now it won’t be too difficult.  Boot off the new, shiney, 64-bit Linux Mint disc.  Choose “something different” so I can have a separate root (“/”) and home (“/home”) partition.  Even though it takes a while because the DVD drive is slow (compared to a thumb drive install), I reboot and it’s the shiney new Linux…

WAIT!!! WHERE’S MY DATA?!?!

Oh.  I told it to keep my /home partition, but I forgot to tell it to actually boot up with that partition mounted to /home… right.  So, fix the fstab.  Reboot, delete the “/home” folder data from the old partition (being EXTREMELY CAREFUL not to wipe out my real data).  Reboot again.

HOORAY, I GOTS MY DATA!

Alright.  I’ve got my new version of Linux installed and… awww crap.  I have to go install all my old plugins and stuff, because that’s not stored in my home directory.  UGH.

What was I doing again?

Oh. RIGHT.  I was testing my web app.  Finally, got it tested, spotted an error, so I’ll go fire up my IDE to fix it.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I DON’T HAVE JAVA INSTALLED?!?!?

Category: Living With Linux, Rant | Comments Off on Why I Just Can’t Get Stuff Done
8 March 2015

Choosing the Right Distribution

So one of the things you have to decide on when choosing Linux as your desktop OS is what distribution (or “distro”) to go with.  There’s a ton of options, but I’m not even going to get into it.  I’ve chosen Linux Mint, which is a Debian system based on Ubuntu.

The Choices

The real choice turns out to be a matter of the desktop window manager.  The main choices here are:

  • Gnome
  • KDE
  • XFCE
  • Cinnamon

Cinnamon and Gnome

Cinnamon and Gnome are pretty close to the same thing.  I used to use Gnome, but was frustrated when they decided to go away from having a system tray, which a lot of my favorite programs depend on.  After trying to get it to work again, I just went with Cinnamon.  Here’s a screenshot:

Linux Cinnamon Desktop

It has a lot of Windows elements: a standard desktop look with applications and files and shortcuts, a “start” menu, a clock and system tray.

KDE

Another option is KDE.  I used this one when I first switched from Windows, mostly because it was so close to what I was used to.

KDE

KDE is honestly pretty close to the look of Cinnamon.  I switched to Cinnamon because of how easy it was to use compared to KDE, and how much lighter it felt.  There are some other more technical details, but really it’s pretty close.

XFCE

The third choice is XFCE.  And… apparently it looks extremely close to the other options.

XFCE

It’s supposed to be “lighter” than the others.  In fact, probably the biggest difference in all these screenshots turns out to be the wallpaper.

The Choice

The ultimate choice is yours.  If you’ve got an older computer, you should probably go with XFCE, as it seems to work a lot better with fewer resources.  But if you’ve got a reasonably new computer, it really won’t matter.  In fact, you can install all of them, and decide which one to use when you log in.

Category: Living With Linux | Comments Off on Choosing the Right Distribution
2 March 2015

We Have Milestones!

After much waiting: there are now milestones!

Yep.  A bit of a let-down.  I know.  Sorry.

In creating the milestones, I noticed there were some things that were probably missed… setting up an order to the milestones (so I don’t necessarily have to insert them in the proper order), etc.  Nothing mind-blowing here.

I’m working on the code and associated SQL to figure out a contestant’s progress in relation to milestones.  Nothing exceptionaly difficult, just takes a little time to do.

But there are MILESTONES now, people!

Category: Code, Health, Hobbit Walk, PHP, Software Development | Comments Off on We Have Milestones!
19 February 2015

Beware the five o’clock stupids

My brain gets a little “squishy” after working on something for awhile.  Pounding away at the same thing gets a little monotonous.  Over.

And over.

And over.

And over.

And over.

And oevr.

And orev.

And voer.

Adn over.

And oevr.

And OVER.

AND OEVR.

AND OEVER.

ADN VEORE.

AND OEFER.

(see what I did there?)

Wait… what do you mean you can’t find /lib/std++.so?  WTF IS THAT?  Oh… shit…

At 5:00, relative to your timezone.  Stupid strikes.  BEWARE THE FIVE O’CLOCK STUPIDS.

Category: Code, Rant, Software Development, System Administration, Uncategorized | 3 Comments on Beware the five o’clock stupids
17 February 2015

New Series: Living With Linux

I’ve decided to start a new blog series.  I’m calling it “Living With Linux.”

It’s all about dealing with Linux on a daily basis.  I presume that at this point most people run Windows, or Mac.  If they run Linux, usually it’s because they know a friendly geek (or have offspring that became one) that installed it for them.  Hi, Mom!

Anyway.  Having ditched Windows at my house for many years now, I’ve picked up some things:

  • tricks on getting things done (insanely) fast
  • things that you just can’t do in Windows
  • reasons why I hate Windows
  • frustrations about Linux

This post is my public declaration.  I am planning on blogging on a regular basis.  How regular?  I guess we’ll see…

Category: Living With Linux | Comments Off on New Series: Living With Linux
17 February 2015

SSH and Multiple Keys

I do a lot of stuff with SSH.  And I’m a fan of using separate keys for most things: the generic public key

~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub

for my specific workstation; and then a special, non-workstation-specific key for other stuff.

So I’ve got a key for things like:

  • Digital Ocean
  • SourceForge.net
  • BitBucket
  • GitHub

Frustratingly enough, once one has enough identities, one runs into a problem: Too many authentication failures.  Every time I see it, I have to go figure out why, and a workaround.  And that’s a couple of precious minutes that I’ll never get back.

Well, I’ve finally found a solution…  I actually already had it, I just forgot. My salvation lies in this file:

~/.ssh/config

The key is actually the first part, “Host *.hostname.com”, which is like a per-domain catch-all:

GSSAPIAuthentication no
Host *.hostname.com
    PubkeyAuthentication no
Host test
    Hostname www.test.foo
    User danf
    IdentityFile /home/danf/.ssh/digitalocean_id_rsa.pub
Host *.server04.com
    IdentityFile /home/danf/.ssh/source.server04.com_dsa.pub
Host cs
    Hostname indigo.crazedsanity.com
    User danf
    IdentityFile /home/danf/.ssh/digitalocean_id_rsa.pub
    IdentitiesOnly yes
    ServerAliveInterval 20

Oh, and this configuration allows me to use shortcuts that don’t have to resolve to real hosts and don’t require entries in my /etc/hosts file. So I can literally type ssh cs and get to where I want.

EDIT: apparently, there’s not a catch-all.  At least not a global one… but you can set one for an entire domain (like “*.hostname.com”) and that works magically.  So… close enough.  At least for government work.

Category: System Administration | Comments Off on SSH and Multiple Keys
4 February 2015

Project Hobbit Walk: There’s a Database

That’s right, now Project Hobbit Walk actually has a database behind it.  And that database is actually getting data put into it.  Automatically.  Huzaaaa!

I’ve still got a bit of work to do.  But this is an incredibly important foundational piece of the puzzle.  With a single query, I can see how far everyone has traveled.

The only numbers I have to worry about are each user’s grand total, and their progress since the race against me started.  So it’s pretty non-complicated right now.  WOOO!!!

I’ve still got more stuff to do.  Here’s a pretty short list, in no particular order:

  • a URL scheme for showing race data:
    • for anyone (e.g. “/race/{id}/current”)
    • for all races of the currently logged-in user (e.g. “/races/”)
    • for progress on a specific race, up to a given date (e.g. “/race/{id}/20150104)
  • a URL scheme for handling open invitations (anyone can click it, sign up, and enter the race): (e.g. “/race/challenge/open/{id}“)
  • a URL scheme for handling user-specific invitations (only for a selected user, others get an error) (e.g. “/race/challenge/closed/{id}“)
  • some way to graphically show progress generically, without milestones
  • a way to show, graphically, progress with milestones (e.g. progress to Mordor)

Okay, that’s probably enough for now.  I’ll probably dream about this stuff now, since I’m thinking about it so close to bedtime… d’oh!

Category: Health, Hobbit Walk, Software Development | Comments Off on Project Hobbit Walk: There’s a Database
30 January 2015

The Death of Buzzkill

Did you try to go to BuzzKill.org, and now find yourself wondering how you got here?  Probably not, unless you’re a mindless bot.  But if you’re reading this (and are not said bot), you deserve an explanation.

BuzzKill.org isn’t dead.  It’s still around, but it redirects to here.  I got tired of maintaining it–or, more accurately, fixing it when I realized it was broken–so I just redirected it to this website.  If you want to know who I am, go here.

It really wasn’t doing anything anyway.  There was a gallery, which showed some crappy old images that me and a buddy created a couple decades ago, and showed blog posts from CrazedSanity.com.  So for now and the indeterminate future, you’ve landed yourself at it’s new home.

Oh, if you’ve got yourself a spiffy email @buzzkill.org, don’t worry.  That’ll work just like before. 🙂

Category: System Administration | Comments Off on The Death of Buzzkill
21 January 2015

Project Hobbit Walk: Yay, Progress!

I had a little time last night to hammer out some code.

I’ve got a database layout done basically done, so I can store data.   There’s already a script in place that will download a set of spreadsheets in CSV (“comma separated values,” basically just really simple text).

Now I need to get some more code written to interact with it, create reports, and send emails.  And eventually put in some “fun” text into those emails, like, “whoa, you overtook John last night by a staggering 3.45 miles! Hope you told him to eat your dust on the way by!”

I’ve spent some time figuring out how to layout the data, where the data comes from, what it looks like, and how to store what I need to make “Project Hobbit Walk” something worthwhile.  In order for me to consider the application truly useful, it has to do a couple of things.  For users (including me), it must:

  1. Be Intuitive.  Like picking up the controller for a game, and having every button and key combination work exactly the way you expect, so you can have fun right away.
  2. Stay Out of the Way. Once it’s configured, it can just stay out of your way.  No muss, no fuss.
  3. Be Useful.  Probably the most important part, it needs to show you what you want to know, and help motivate you to get healthier by gamifying life.
  4. Be Fun.  Seriously, it has to create enjoyment.

But let’s be honest.  There’s other considerations for me.:

  • Easy to Maintain.  I can’t spend all my time fixing/updating code, since that would keep me from moving around… I’d fall behind in all my races!
  • Easy to Get Started.  I don’t have time to walk every single user through the process of setting it up.  This goes hand-in-hand with the Be Intuitive part from above.
  • Help Pay for Itself.  I have a server that I pay for each month out of pocket; if this can generate enough money (through some hopefully innocuous ads) to pay for that, I’d have less stuff to worry about.
  • Grow On It’s Own.  There will hopefully be enough tools available that it’ll just grow “virally,” like users sending emails to their friends with messages like, “I challenge you to race me to Mordor,” or “I challenge you to climb Mount Everest with me.”

Let me know what you think in the comments below.  And a special thanks to all those that have signed up for testing!

Category: Code, Health, Hobbit Walk | Comments Off on Project Hobbit Walk: Yay, Progress!