KBM's Web Log: April 2009

2009/04/28

stumpwm under Linux

True to my normal form I find something interesting but am loathe to do anything too irrevocable!

In this case, I have found stumpwm which is a mouse-less window manager inspired by emacs - lots of key commands! Very fast ( when you know what you are doing)

The instructions talk about changes to .xinitrc which sounds much too difficult if things go wrong. Then I found this gem which describes how to add stumpwm (or any other window manager) as a choice under Ubuntu on login.

Works great.

Now I just have to remeber a new set of key bindings!!

Update: Found this screencast. Very cool - note 2 things: 1) the ogg version is far clearer, C-e is used as the prefix whereas C-t is the default.

Noah 3988 box update

Well, after my post here, mini-itx.com came through - they sent me a new front panel very promptly after I e-mailed them. Apparently the new Noah boxes have a better switch - though unfortunately the replacement for mine was of the old type.

So 10 out of 10 for doing business with mini-itx, but still a little concerned about Noah boxes - I will have to look closely at them when the next system is due. Hopefully there will be a good review somewhere......

2009/04/24

Emacs Command of the Day on Twitter (ecotd)

Another great pointer from emacs-fu but this time to a Twitter account!

emacs-fu: emacs command of the day

Anyway, reason to bring up twitter again is the Emacs Command of the Day-twitter feed. The idea is that every day, it provides some useful command, and it's a response to a similar feed for Vim. It's only just started, let's see where this goes.

I am following! I particularly like the way that this ecotd account is following vim - competition is good,

2009/04/19

Package management in GNU/Emacs?

Emacs-fu:

but the one thing I remember that it still somewhat missing in GNU/Emacs, is package management. XEmacs has a nice system where you can mark packages for installation, and then get them from a website; much easier than the GNU/Emacs way, where you need to manually download things, maybe compile them, and update your .emacs - at least for things that your OS or distribution does not provide.

This has changed now with ELPA, the Emacs Lisp Package Archive. It's Tom Tromey's answer to the XEmacs package manager

Need to give this a try. Update: Tried it - works fine; some concerns on inadvertently getting rogue software but otherwise great strart.

Noah 3988 Case problems

Last July I built a kit from Mini-ITX.com and it has proved to be a very nice box: quite, small, powerful enough for a NAS, but it can also act as a reasonable workstation (but not gaming machine!)

Last night however, the pretty blue power button disappeared inside the case - an inspection showed that the plastic "spring" element had broken. To make matters worse the actual power button is not directly behind the hole in the front panel, so temporary fixes (like poking in a pencil!) won't work.

I can see this being a very irritating problem to fix - gluing plastic never works for long. So if anyone has any insights into how to approach this, please let me know!