screen to tmux: A Humble Quick-start Guide

An online friend named bmc_ on Twitter introduced me to tmux. It reportedly has simpler, cleaner code than screen, which implies that it’s more robust, in addition to more very useful features. The problem is tmux is very different from screen. It wasn’t at all easy to jump straight into tmux, without doing a thorough [...]

Desktop Revolution: Stage 1: Notifications Bar

I have a lot of ideas about how the Linux desktop can be improved, perhaps revolutionized, and these ideas all come from running up against walls repeatedly. I’m going to write the best ones down, the ones I will eventually turn into an open-source project (years down the road, mind you) if no one else [...]

“git svn” Cheatsheet for Git Rebels in an SVN Workplace

This is my own use of git svn. No one in Google seems to have this mix listed out for a Subversion project with a proper trunk/branch/tag setup, so I decided to post what I’ve got. Getting a repository: git svn clone –tags <tags subfolder> –trunk <trunk subfolder> –branches <branches subfolder> Updating SVN-tracking remote branches [...]

Rule of Thumb for Detecting Poor Design

You know you’ve got a bad design, or at least one that could be improved, when you start copying and pasting code around. (Note: this doesn’t mean the design needs improving.) Now, to brace myself for the rotten tomatoes I see headed my way…

Gentoo-built Desktop Managers and Their Lack of Integration

I don’t know if anyone else noticed this, but I certainly have. It’s not that it can’t be worked around. It’s that Gentoo-built desktop managers lack the polish other pre-mangled distributions like Ubuntu provide. I miss that. Presently, I’m using KDE, and as it turns out, it has the most integration issues, in my experience. [...]