The Arch Linux Subreddit is Horrifying
🖊️ Austin Riba ⌚ 🔖 code linux arch 💬 1
This is not a rant about elitest arch-using neckbeards (I am one!) being mean on the internet. No, the Arch Linux Subreddit is horrifying because it provides a glimpse into just how absolutely busted some of it’s user’s machines are.
I’ve been using Arch for the better part of 10 years. It’s been rock-solid the entire time. But I keep hearing about it’s supposed instability. Well, now I understand why. This is a lesson in why no matter how good your software is PEBCAK nullifies all.
As a perfect example consider this thread: How Often Do You Run sudo pacman syu?
A Repository of Themes for the Cosmic Desktop
🖊️ Austin Riba ⌚ 🔖 code linux cosmic 💬 2
System76 recently released the first alpha of their new desktop environment, COSMIC. It has some neat theming capabilities, something I’ve missed since who knows how long ago when GNOME started removing the ability to theme GTK.
The COSMIC settings app already provides the ability to import and export themes. So I thought it would be cool if there was a place where people could share thier creations. Like the gnome-look.org of old, before it was completely gimped.
Since no such site existed, I made it myself!
Landed a PR for COSMIC and I'm Irrationaly Excited About It
🖊️ Austin Riba ⌚ 🔖 code linux cosmic 💬 0
My parents gave me my first computer when I was 14 years old. I played a lot of Unreal Tournament at the time. At some point I heard about this thing called Linux that actually played UT better than Windows. So my dad drove me to Circuit City and I bought a box full of CDs that was Redhat Linux 8. What followed was weeks of running a nearly inoperable computer as I formatted and re-formatted the disk every time I ran into some issue I couldn’t fix - which was a lot.
Bender DD 2: Running Gnome Apps Outside of Builder
🖊️ Austin Riba ⌚ 🔖 code linux bender gnome 💬 0
Builder is pretty neat as an IDE for GNOME. For bootstrapping a new GNOME app, I found it to be downright amazing. Once I started getting down to writing actual code however, Builder’s limitations started to become apparent. Christian Hergert is doing an amazing job writing an IDE but wow, it must be an uphill battle trying to turn a GTK text widget into a full blown text editor. Honestly if it used embedded Neovim it could be perfect; Builder does have VIM emulation which was almost good enough, but the undo stack is buggy and caused me to lose 30+ minutes of work at one point. The second time it happened, I started to look for ways to work on Bender outside of Builder.
Bender Development Diary 1: A Webdev Goes Native
🖊️ Austin Riba ⌚ 🔖 code linux bender gnome vala 💬 0
I’ve been writing code using Linux as my main OS for over a decade now. Despite this long and fruitful relationship I have yet to do any real native development for this beloved platform.
I tell you what, I can whip up some damn good JSON APIs. But it’s time to try something new. I’ll be creating an application for Linux. Specifically for GNOME. Using GTK.
The creat [sic] Unix System Call
🖊️ Austin Riba ⌚ 🔖 code linux c 💬 0
The start of section 8.3 of the venerable The C Programming Language by Brain Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie reads:
Other than the default standard input, output and error, you must explicitly open files in order to read or write them. There are two system calls for this,
openandcreat[sic].
It is very rare to see [sic] in a text about software because typos in software can be fixed. So why here?
Writing a HTTP Server in Zig
🖊️ Austin Riba ⌚ 🔖 code zig 💬 2
I continue my Zig adventure by following up an echo server with a HTTP server.
I’ve been doing web development the majority of my career. Yet I never really thought too much about HTTP servers, much less what it would take to implement one. So it made perfect sense for me when I started to learn Zig to build one. The problem space is a nice mix of socket programming and string handling.
A Simple Echo Server in Zig
🖊️ Austin Riba ⌚ 🔖 code zig 💬 1
Recently I’ve been trying to hone my low-level programming skills. Zig is cool and it’s less painful than Rust.
Eventually I’d like to implement a HTTP server. We’ll see if I get there. As a baby step, here is a simple echo server written in Zig:
Should MIT Really be the Default License?
🖊️ Austin Riba ⌚ 🔖 code 💬 0
When and why did MIT become the default license for open source projects?
I was watching some Fireship videos yesterday and one popped up called The Dark Side of Open Source // What really happened to Faker.js? I am familiar with the story of Aaron Swartz, but I had not heard about faker.js. The author of this extremely popular library got so fed up with companies taking and giving nothing in return that he blanked out the repo and broke it for everyone.
I couldn’t help but notice faker.js was under the MIT license.
What Learning Rust Feels Like
🖊️ Austin Riba ⌚ 🔖 code memes 💬 0
I think I’m going to try Zig