Gemini Articles of Interest

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 16, 2022

• Hitchhiker Linux: an origin story

  Once upon a time, about 2011 to be a little more precise, live was not going my way. My marriage had blown up, my kids were strangers to me and I found myself rather on the far side of sanity. This is not in fact the worst thing that can happen to a man of course because I was still breathing. But I found myself at that time without a job, without a car, and without much in the way of motivation.

  One gets bored after a time and finds a way to pass the time. I had left the vast majority of my earthly possessions behind in a storage unit and had at that time no computer. I missed it, however, and found a discarded carcass that I deceided to bring back to life (as one does) with a hard drive but no operating system. Having been a full time Linux and FreeBSD user previously, I wanted a Linux installation. This might be a good time to point out that I also had no internet connection, which combined with not having and operating system to begin with puts a damper on installing Linux. Among what meager possessions I did have with me, however, was an old briefcase with a 512MB pendrive and a CD tucked into a pocket, upon which was written a version of Puppy Linux.

• nForth

  And it's up and running. Defining words, etc.

  I was just a tiny bit more optimistic about getting to this point yesterday -- I would have, but decided to stop for a happy hour drink, and... yeah.

  [...]

  While I've been making and programming in Forth-like languages for around 40 years, I realized I don't have a minimal 386 implementation suitable for, say, KolibriOS.

• Announcing the Collaborative Directory of Geminispace

  It can be tricky to find the good stuff in Geminispace. For glog posts we're well served by Antenna et al, but Gemini isn't just about feeds. There are many capsules with interesting static content not dribbled out in regular updates, as well as a variety of interactive services, mirrors, databases, and so forth. Search engines help, but you have to know what you're looking for. The medusae.space directory of capsules is nice, but it's incomplete and, since it catalogues capsules rather than individual resources, somewhat unfocused.

  So, I thought it might help to have a directory along the lines of 90's Yahoo! -- a simple categorised directory of links with brief titles/descriptions. Since I can't hope to keep such a thing up-to-date myself, links are contributed by users.

• Boosting the Collaborative Directory of Geminispace (CDG)

  I just wanted to help boost the signal on this cool initiative in whatever small way I can. I like the idea of a user contributed directory like this.

  I have a few different themes on my capsule that I would like to share but I don't want to inundate the Antenna timeline every time I post. Instead I posted links to those pages on the Directory for whoever is interested.

  If you have your own links or links to other interesting capsules, take a second to add them to the CDG!

• Proof of Stake

  Now, I’m still staying the hell away from all kinds of crypto personally, but no more sleepless nights.

• Python and Debian Packages

  I have used Debian-based GNU/Linux distros daily on my own computers for about a decade and a half. I find Debian packages very neat to use.

  [...]

  Debian packages are my preferred way of installing apps. I also write a lot of Python code both at work and on my spare time. I really like how easy it is to write installable command line utilities. (I should write about that some day.)

  Building Python packages has changed a lot over the years. I most often use some half old-fashioned half modern approach: I use the classic setuptools build tool, but use the "new" setup.cfg format. This works even in pretty old environments, for example Ubuntu 18.04 which has Python 3.6.

^* Gemini links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.