#maybe it really is time to finally go linux

[naamah-beherit]

System updates that take forever to install always have me squinting suspiciously at the computer, because I just know I'll have to gut insane amounts of new bloatware out of it.

[piratesexmachine420]

Thoughts on Linux (the OS)

Misconception!

I don't want to be obnoxiously pedantic, but Linux is not an OS. It is a kernel, which is just part of an OS. (Like how Windows contains a lot more than just KERNEL32.DLL). A very, very important piece, which directly shapes the ways that all the other programs will talk to each other. Think of it like a LEGO baseplate.

Everything else is built on top of the kernel. But, a baseplate does not a city make. We need buildings! A full operating system is a combination of a kernel and kernel-level (get to talk to hardware directly) utilities for talking to hardware (drivers), and userspace (get to talk to hardware ONLY through the kernel) utilities ranging in abstraction level from stuff like window management and sound servers and system bootstrapping to app launchers and file explorers and office suites. Every "Linux OS" is a combination of that LEGO baseplate with some permutation of low and high-level userspace utilities.

Now, a lot of Linux-based OSes do end up feeling (and being) very similar to each other. Sometimes because they're directly copying each other's homework (AKA forking, it's okay in the open source world as long as you follow the terms of the licenses!) but more generally it's because there just aren't very many options for a lot of those utilities.

Want your OS to be more than just a text prompt? Your pick is between X.org (old and busted but...well, not reliable, but a very well-known devil) and Wayland (new hotness, trying its damn hardest to subsume X and not completely succeeding). Want a graphics toolkit? GTK or Qt. Want to be able to start the OS? systemd or runit. (Or maybe SysVinit if you're a real caveman true believer.) Want sound? ALSA is a given, but on top of that your options are PulseAudio, PipeWire, and JACK. Want an office suite? Libreoffice is really the only name in the game at present. Want terminal utilities? Well, they're all gonna have to conform to the POSIX spec in some capacity. GNU coreutils, busybox, toybox, all more or less the same programs from a user perspective.

Only a few ever get away from the homogeneity, like Android. But I know that you're not asking about Android. When people say "Linux OS" they're talking about the homogeneity. The OSes that use terminals. The ones that range in looks from MacOS knockoff to Windows knockoff to 'impractical spaceship console'. What do I think about them?

I like them! I have my strongly-felt political and personal opinions about which building blocks are better than others (generally I fall into the 'functionality over ideology' camp; Nvidia proprietary over Nouveau, X11 over Wayland, Systemd over runit, etc.) but I like the experience most Linux OSes will give me.

I like my system to be a little bit of a hobby, so when I finally ditched Windows for the last time I picked Arch Linux. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't want to treat their OS as a hobby, though. There are better and easier options for 'normal users'.

I like the terminal very much. I understand it's intimidating for new users, but it really is an incredible tool for doing stuff once you're in the mindset. GUIs are great when you're inexperienced, but sometimes you just wanna tell the computer what you want with your words, right? So many Linux programs will let you talk to them in the terminal, or are terminal-only. It's very flexible.

I also really, really love the near-universal concept of a 'package manager' -- a program which automatically installs other programs for you. Coming from Windows it can feel kinda restrictive that you have to go through this singular port of entry to install anything, instead of just looking up the program and running an .msi file, but I promise that if you get used to it it's very hard to go back. Want to install discord? yay -S discord. Want to install firefox? yay -S firefox. Minecraft? yay -S minecraft-launcher. etc. etc. No more fucking around in the Add/Remove Programs menu, it's all in one place! Only very rarely will you want to install something that isn't in the package manager's repositories, and when you do you're probably already doing something that requires technical know-how.

Not a big fan of the filesystem structure. It's got a lot of history. 1970s mainframe computer operation procedure history. Not relevant to desktop users, or even modern mainframe users. The folks over at freedesktop.org have tried their best to get at least the user's home directory cleaned up but...well, there's a lot of historical inertia at play. It's not a popular movement right now but I've been very interested in watching some people try to crack that nut.

Aaaaaand I think those are all the opinions I can share without losing everyone in the weeds. Hope it was worth reading!

[mistakenot4892]

Disclaimer that this is a post mostly motivated by frustration at a cultural trend, not at any individual people/posters. Vagueing to avoid it seeming like a callout but I know how Tumblr is so we'll see I guess. Putting it after a read-more because I think it's going to spiral out of control.

Recent discourse around obnoxious Linux shills chiming in on posts about how difficult it can be to pick up computer literacy these days has made me feel old and tired. I get that people just want computers to Work and they don't want to have to put any extra effort into getting it to Do The Thing, that's not unreasonable, I want the same!

(I also want obnoxious Linux shills to not chip in on my posts (unless I am posting because my Linux has exploded and I need help) so I sympathise with that angle too, 'just use Linux' is not the catch-all solution you think it is my friend.)

But I keep seeing this broad sense of learned helplessness around having to learn about what the computer is actually doing without having your hand held by a massive faceless corporation, and I just feel like it isn't a healthy relationship to have with your tech.

The industry is getting worse and worse in their lack of respect to the consumer every quarter. Microsoft is comfortable pivoting their entire business to push AI on every part of their infrastructure and in every service, in part because their customers aren't going anywhere and won't push back in the numbers that might make a difference. Windows 11 has hidden even more functionality behind layers of streamlining and obfuscation and integrated even more spyware and telemetry that won't tell you shit about what it's doing and that you can't turn off without violating the EULA. They're going to keep pursuing this kind of shit in more and more obvious ways because that's all they can do in the quest for endless year on year growth.

Unfortunately, switching to Linux will force you to learn how to use it. That sucks when it's being pushed as an immediate solution to a specific problem you're having! Not going to deny that. FOSS folks need to realise that 'just pivot your entire day to day workflow to a new suite of tools designed by hobby engineers with really specific chips on their shoulders' does not work as a method of evangelism. But if you approach it more like learning to understand and control your tech, I think maybe it could be a bit more palatable? It's more like a set of techniques and strategies than learning a specific workflow. Once you pick up the basic patterns, you can apply them to the novel problems that inevitably crop up. It's still painful, particularly if you're messing around with audio or graphics drivers, but importantly, you are always the one in control. You might not know how to drive, and the engine might be on fire, but you're not locked in a burning Tesla.

Now that I write this it sounds more like a set of coping mechanisms, but to be honest I do not have a healthy relationship with xorg.conf and probably should seek therapy.

It's a bit of a stretch but I almost feel like a bit of friction with tech is necessary to develop a good relationship with it? Growing up on MS-DOS and earlier versions of Windows has given me a healthy suspicion of any time my computer does something without me telling it to, and if I can't then see what it did, something's very off. If I can't get at the setting and properties panel for something, my immediate inclination is to uninstall it and do without.

And like yeah as a final note, I too find it frustrating when Linux decides to shit itself and the latest relevant thread I can find on the matter is from 2006 and every participant has been Raptured since, but at least threads exist. At least they're not Microsoft Community hellscapes where every second response is a sales rep telling them to open a support ticket. At least there's some transparency and openness around how the operating system is made and how it works. At least you have alternatives if one doesn't do the job for you.

This is long and meandering and probably misses the point of the discourse I'm dragging but I felt obligated to make it. Ubuntu Noble Numbat is pretty good and I haven't had any issues with it out of the box (compared to EndeavourOS becoming a hellscape whenever I wanted my computer to make a sound or render a graphic) so I recommend it. Yay FOSS.

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

It's home cinema manufacturing time! 🏴‍☠️ Gonna put my pirate show on my shelf! (I'm doing an Arts and Crafts Project and I'm making it everyone's problem.)

After seeing how much they cost, I abandoned the idea of getting a Blu-ray writer for now. For the time being, good old DVDs is what it's going to be! My TV is old and not very big, so DVD resolution is gonna be fine.

It's been ages since I last burned a DVD. For the full experience, I'm gonna create nice menus and pretty sleeves for the boxes. Graphic design is my passion! Um.

Well. First needed to find a program to do stuff with. I'm a Linux guy, so I'm using Devede. (Which is free, btw. In case someone else wants to do a low cost spot of putting pirate show on the shelf.)

DVDs fit a maximum of 120 minutes of video. So, four episodes, I thought. But after a quick attempt, the program refused to do more than three (maybe because of the menu also taking up space, and four episodes cutting pretty close to the 120 min mark?). Anyway, three episodes per disc it is. It's a pretty nice runtime for watching the entire disc, IMO. An hour and a half, and then you can return to reality to realise you should probably eat something, or go to bed because it's midnight.

OFMD with its current two seasons has a total of eighteen episodes, which is divisible by three. You get the following setup:

Disc 1: Pilot, A Damned Man, The Gentleman Pirate - That's pretty good, Stede's introduction to piracy all on one disc!

Disc 2: Discomfort in a Married State, The Best Revenge is Dressing Well, The Art of Fuckery - All bangers. Great to watch together, our boys meet and shenanigans happen!

Disc 3: This is Happening, We Gull Way Back, Act of Grace - Many romantic moments, lots of great scenes, shit hits the fan at the end there. Alright!

Disc 4: Wherever you go, there you are, Impossible Birds, Red Flags - ... Pain and angst! What have I done!?! The disc of horrors. Gotta make sure to have tissues at hand when I watch this. But hey, it also has messy bun Ed! Small mercies.

Disc 5: The Innkeeper, Fun and Games, The Curse of the Seafaring Life. - Another disc with all winners. I love all these episodes so much! (You can watch this disc to recover from the trauma of the previous one!) But seriously, this one slaps.

Disc 6: Calypso's Birthday, Man on Fire, Mermen - Great combination again. Season finale! Love and excitement!

... Honestly, except for the psychological damage of putting all the most painful episodes together, this is coming out pretty cool. Says a lot about how good the show is. I actually really love all the episodes (yes even the painful angsty episodes of massive depression). Thinking about this little project really reminded me how much I love this entire show.

So, we got a tracklist, now menus, then we can burn this stuff!

I did the menu backgrounds in GIMP. Realised I have a big folder full of screenshots I took myself, screenshots someone else took and posted on Tumblr, official promo pics for the show, and I have no idea anymore where most of them are from, because I named the files according to what's on them. Which is useful for when you want to find pics (Need a picture of cursed suit Stede? I have files named that, easy peasy!), but not so great if you wanted to give credit to whoever took a given pic you used. (It's probably @sherlockig or @ofmd-ann or @blakbonnet. Please feel credited, your beautiful screens and gifs brighten my day, and some of them are now probably part of my DVD menus. Shrunk down and cropped, but, yeah.)

I originally wanted to structure my menus as having the title of an episode, then some pics from it, then the next episode, then pics from that, and so forth, but I couldn't convince the program to give me the necessary padding between the menu items, so I ended up just putting the episode images below the menu. Still like it.

Anyway, DVD menus can also play sound! Behold a crappy video of my beautiful creation (provided entirely for sound):

It plays Gnossienne N°5!

More crappy pics of my other disc menus:

Gonna make them some nice sleeves next. Some day. Gotta make sure they all work properly first. So. I'll be on my sofa, watching my DVDs. With menus! (Edit: here are!)

[blue-ten]

Windows 11 and the Last Straw

Bit of a rant coming up. TL;DR I'm tired of Microsoft, so I'm moving to Linux. After Microsoft's announcement of "Recall" and their plans to further push Copilot as some kind of defining feature of the OS, I'm finally done. I feel like that frog in the boiling water analogy, but I'm noticing the bubbles starting to form and it's time to hop out.

The corporate tech sector recently has been such a disaster full of blind bandwagon hopping (NFTs, ethically dubious "AI" datasets trained on artwork scraped off the net, and creative apps trying to incorporate features that feed off of those datasets). Each and every time it feels like insult to injury toward the arts in general. The out of touch CEOs and tech billionaires behind all this don't understand art, they don't value art, and they never will.

Thankfully, I have a choice. I don't have to let Microsoft feature-creep corporate spyware into my PC. I don't have to let them waste space and CPU cycles on a glorified chatbot that wants me to press the "make art" button. I'm moving to Linux, and I've been inadvertently prepping myself to do it for over a decade now.

I like testing out software: operating systems, web apps, anything really, but especially art programs. Over the years, the open-source community has passionately and tirelessly developed projects like Krita, Inkscape, and Blender into powerhouses that can actually compete in their spaces. All for free, for artists who just want to make things. These are people, real human beings, that care about art and creativity. And every step of the way while Microsoft et al began rotting from the inside, FOSS flourished and only got better. They've more than earned trust from me.

I'm not announcing my move to Linux just to be dramatic and stick it to the man (although it does feel cathartic, haha). I'm going to be using Krita, Inkscape, GIMP, and Blender for all my art once I make the leap, and I'm going to share my experiences here! Maybe it'll help other artists in the long run! I'm honestly excited about it. I worked on the most recent page of Everblue entirely in Krita, and it was a dream how well it worked for me.

Addendum: I'm aware that Microsoft says things like, "Copilot is optional," "Recall is offline, it doesn't upload or harvest your data," "You can turn all these things off." Uh-huh. All that is only true until it isn't. One day Microsoft will take the user's choice away like they've done so many times before. Fool me once, etc.

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence Devlog 1:💙Afternoon route clean up!💙

Hi guys and welcome new followers I hope you're all having a good and safe start into the New year!

This part will contain spoilers if you haven't played through the [Extended Demo], specifically the afternoon route. Here's a link if you would like to play! :]

I want to explain what all was worked on last year up to the afternoon route as a quick recap!

The early start of 2024 was the surprise Trembling Essence [Extended Demo] while the spring/summer of 2024 consisted of me redoing the start of the game leading up to the cabin which included Dialog, CG's, Endings, and the way Noah introduces himself to you.

This was done because a lot of what happened during that segment didn't match what goes on later in the game since my writing and story telling improved. All of it is aboutttt 90% done because I really needed a break from working on it.

Around the fall is when I went through and fixed up the introduction into the cabin.

I added more depth on how the player(Y/N) feels/reacts from being back in the cabin again and cleaned up the different situations you can get depending on your interactions with Noah before he goes to bed along with choices that effects Noah's closeness with the player(Y/N).

"Will the [Extended Demo] receive anymore updates?":

As far as the [Extended Demo] goes, I do have plans on updating it with new/updated content HOWEVER, it will be some time before that happens. I do have a future poll I want to do about this. :[]

Onto the afternoon route clean up:

Midway through December I've been going through the afternoon route and making adjustments as I go! It was a lot of fun to do since I don't think I've played this route since maybe.. the early start of spring? Overall, it gave me a chance to have a fresh perspective of what needs to be adjusted.

I'm still aiming for a meaningful slow-burn build up. :]

I cleaned up the dialog by combining sentences together and slightly removed certain key-words sentences to balance the pacing during this scene. I want some of the talking points the player(Y/N) mentions to happen later in the game since this is still the half of just Day 3. Noah and the player(Y/N) interacting with each other has also been adjusted but not by too much.

The cooking scene:

I wanted the closeness build-up to feel more rewarding so I added 1-2(ish) more choices during the lunch scene and dialed back the dialog so it doesn't drag on too long for both "Chicken" and "Vegetable" choice . I also added a couple of callbacks here too that in canon with how Noah reacts to what you add into the soup! I won't mention any specifics but there is a post or two in the #Get to know: Noah I answered recently that discusses what type of foods he enjoys. :]

The noise scene:

I don't have too much to say about this because not much was changed outside of dialog adjustments and removing key-words sentences to balance the pacing during this scene.

The sewing scene:

I really loved what was already here and it was a lot of fun coming back to this because I was getting better at writing cozy/warm-like scenes around that time. :,D

I'm trying to be very careful when it comes to adjusting this part. The only thing I wanted to do is put a better emphasizes on how Noah truly felt when he caught you sneaking around. In the [Extended Demo], it felt as though you sort-of get punished for picking the choice that shows this because you don't gain any closeness with Noah. In good news around this time my play-tester was able to take a look into what I was doing and did a couple of playthroughs. A lot of good advice was exchanged and it really gave me a better outlook on what to do about this. I still have the original set-up jussttt in case. :,]

This is about where I left off since I didn't get to the final section of this route but I am surprised with how much was completed. I'm really excited about it because that means I'm closer to working on Day 4! :,D

If you like what I create, please consider supporting what I do on kofi [Here]! All donations and tips help tremendously while I continue to work on the game. Since the battery to my computer still dead I might open up chibi commissions through here BUT i need time to figure it out. Thank you to those that optionally bought the [Extended Demo] on itch.io. :,]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

Thank you to everyone that recently sent in asks! I see them and at some point I will respond, I appreciate the small influx of interest! :,D

To know and understand Noah through Asks and random posts about lore, they'll be under #Get to know: Noah ! :]

**Some asks won't be answered if it contains spoilers but I do appreciate what I receive. :]

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here or on itch.io please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I enjoy hearing from you guys!

Anywho, that's all I have to share right now. Thank you to everyone's continued support, especially those that have been here since the beginning and have been very patient! I wholeheartedly appreciate it. :,]

[mantisfriendd]

Ok so I talked about this in tags of a post earlier but I need to talk about it properly

So a couple weeks ago I finally pulled the trigger, I dual booted Linux Mint on my laptop

It has less of my vital files on it then my pc, but I use it more for videos and general Internet stuff, so I would know if I liked it

Installing was scary but after a bit of trouble shooting with disabling bit locker it was easy, and let me be clear, that's a windows thing, because Microsoft really really doesn't want you to have freedom over your machine.

So I booted in

And like

I literally love it so much

I knew people talked about how much better Linux is and how it speeds up literally anything it's put on over windows, but like WOW

It doesn't take 2 minutes to boot up or shut down, my CPU doesn't idle at 25% for no reason, the search for files feature doesn't take 40 minutes only to show me Internet results instead of files, its wonderful.

The default theme is (in my opinion) pretty ugly, sorry whoever made it, it's just not for me.

But that's the great thing, you can literally customize this almost however you would like.

Maybe you shouldn't trust my opinion on what looks nice because I instantly installed a theme that replicated Windows 7

But I got bored of the default colors so I literally found the files where the home bar is saved and changed them to be more "minty"

That along with some CSS color editing gave me this:

You just can't do anything like this in Windows 10/11. You can change the color on windows but if I wanted, in Mint, I could completely change everything, centered icons on the taskbar, icons left justified on the taskbar, no taskbar, make it look like windows 95, it's all yours to do with whatever you want.

There are issues, I won't lie, the biggest one that will probably haunt Linux forever is compatibility.

Simply put most developers don't make native Linux versions of their software, you are lucky if there is a Mac version.

Lots and lots of Windows software CAN work on Linux through compatibility layers like Wine and Steam's Proton, but it's not 100%

My biggest problem is FL Studio and Clip Studio, neither of these I could get working with Wine or Proton so far. I'm hoping in the future I will find a way to make this work, or transition to their free and open source alternatives, but for now I'm stuck with a win 10 pc.

The other issue I've faced is that Linux seems to have a hard time recognizing and remembering my wired headphones. Like sometimes it just works, but most of the time it fails to do so.

My solution to this until I have time to troubleshoot more is to use my stupid headphone jack to USB C dongle that I bought for my stupid phone with no headphone jack.

Luckily it works fine and the type C port on my laptop literally doesn't get used otherwise.

All in all, I'm like excited to use a computer again. I used to only be excited for the programs it allowed me to use, but for the first time in a long time, the "magic" of the PC has returned for me.

Once I save up the money, my next PC will be Linux, Windows doesn't cut it anymore for me.

Ok now I'm going to kinda just talk about Linux for a bit, unrelated to my experience because my brain has been buzzing about this topic lately.

I get why guys who run Linux are so annoying about it now, because it's me now, I love this stupid OS and everyone has to hear about it.

And chances are, you've used Linux before already!

Linux is used in a ridiculous number of places because of its open source nature.

Most servers and other cloud computing systems are running Linux, many public terminals and screens run Linux, every supercomputer in the world runs Linux, if you were in the education system for the past 13~ years you might have used ChromeOS, which is built on Linux, if you have ever used an Android device you have used Linux.

It's never going to take over Windows as the go to operating system in the home, most people don't even know they could switch, and if they don't know that there's no way they are willing to put up with some of the headaches Linux brings.

Although I've spent way more time troubleshooting Windows issues then I have Linux ones so far, so maybe Microsoft stuffing so much bloated spyware into their system is starting to cause windows to rip at the seams, idk.

When I try to explain Linux to people who literally don't understand any of this I use a car metaphor

Windows is like a hatchback SUV, you buy it from a dealer and it mostly works for everyone good enough that they don't complain.

Linux is like a project vehicle in a lot of ways, the mechanic can tune it up exactly to the specifications they want, tear a bit out and put a diffrent one in, it requires some work under the engine but once that mechanic gets it the way they want it, it's incredible.

It's not a perfect metaphor but I think it gets the idea across.

Uh IDK how to finish this post, please try Linux if you can, changed my life.

[delta-orionis]

Tuesday Again No Problem 1/14/25

Long time no Tuesdaypost! Again!! Oops!

(To my newer followers, because I have a few: this is a weekly roundup series inspired by @girlfriendsofthegalaxy's post series of the same name)

Listening

I'm going to be honest, I haven't been very adventurous with my listening habits lately. I've mostly been listening to the Rain World soundtrack and the backlog of Well There's Your Problem episodes. Not much to report here.

Watching

Not much to report in the Watching section either... again, a lot of Well There's Your Problem. Though, DankPods put out a video earlier today where he rambles about telescopes for a bit, and I was fully ready to cringe but I was happily surprised to learn that he's actually pretty knowledgeable about them! He even has a few fancy Celestrons!

Playing

Rain World, what else is new. I'm still modding a bunch. Working on my Three Stars Above Clouds mod some more. I have a basic region map figured out:

The blockier rooms are placeholders with nothing in them currently. I am finally at the fun part where I can actually start filling them with Stuff! The process is incredibly lengthy though... more in the Making section.

I'd like to try and play some of the more popular mods this year, too. I have Preservatory, The Seer, and The Gravel Eater in mind currently. Maybe Unparalleled Innocence (to see what other people's iterators are like). I know the Global Hyper Transit System mod links to UI now, so that's a viable option to get there.

Making

I've been working on my TSAC mod a bunch. I also got Rain World and the Rained editor to work on my Linux computer, which I would like to try and use to render levels instead of my poor Windows laptop... it really struggles with mass rendering. The Linux computer has similar specs, but at the very least I can let it render things and put it to the side so I can actually use my normal computer for other things at the same time.

I've also been using Git to keep track of my progress, and it's already saved my ass more than once. Rain World is remarkably easy to crash, and Git makes it easier to trace back your steps or undo big mistakes.

My most recent work was on TSAC's equivalent of the big Memory Conflux room in both Five Pebbles and Looks to the Moon.

I'm trying to dial in how "claustrophobic" I want the rooms to feel. Five Pebbles' rooms are typically very open and wide, while Moon's rooms are much more cramped with lots of crawl spaces and tubes and things. Three Stars Above Clouds is between the two of them in age, so I want their rooms to be somewhere in the middle. It's still a work in progress!

I also updated my ask blog! Responses have been slow, but I want to try and get back into it in 2025. I'm grateful for everyone's patience.

---

I'm certainly Going Through It(TM) at the moment, but I am trying my best to focus on creative pursuits in 2025. I want to work on my ask blog some more, finish some crochet projects, maybe publish that TSAC mod I've been working on...

I also really really want to try and get a new PC this year. I've been saying this for years, but my poor laptop is really yearning for death at this point. I'd like something more powerful than I currently have (and considering my laptop is from ten years ago, that's not saying much). Hopefully new PC acquisition is a goal I will be able to accomplish soon.

See you next week!

[bringcal]

Okayyy welcome to my first (kind of, I did do something like this one) blog post !!!! I finally finished school, so this past week and a half has just been doing my own thing, preparing for commissions to be open, and trying to sort out all my projects…

Here's all the stuff happening in my life that I'll touch on: I. Commissions and websites II. Schools over, my art plans III. Linux adventures in stupid-land

Commissions and websites I did, in fact, finish my commission page and commissions are open, I just haven't formally announced it here and have been taking them from smaller sources at first. Did a bit of a revamp of my commissions, and posted about making my own site page for people to use instead of a carrd or some graphic design poster type thing.

I'm really passionate about Neocities specifically and I really want to try to get other people into it because I believe a lot of my mutuals on here would have cool sites if they tried. I want people to understand its actually not that hard at all and they should not be taking the "coding anything at all is so intelligible and hard u need to be a super genius to understand anything" sentiments to heart about it because actually if you wanna make urself a nice little site on neocities its very simple to learn and even if your site is built like ass no one on there cares.

When I first opened my Neocities it took me a weekend to make a single page and honestly the longest part was just drawing all the assets I wanted. If you're a creative person like me maybe spend an evening just drawing out an idea of what you'd like your site to look like and congrats you're already part of the way there. Planning is the first step!

Schools over, my art plans NO MORE WORK !!! for the summer. Now I have to get a job. but I'm really considering what to do after this degree. I came in so set on being a psychologist and that dream got stomped out immediately. So then I just chose to be a teacher. and like, I still want that, but. I don't think I'm ready? I try hard to volunteer and get experience, but teachers college is extremely competitive I just can't sort my life out to get a lot of experience I need.

I'm thinking of going to art school for illustration first and putting myself further in debt cuz that shit slaps when you don't have to pay it just yet! I love free school!!!! future Ridley will hate me !!!

This section is much shorter cuz its more personal, but just know these considerations are taking up a LOT of my mind space rn X_X

Linux Adventures in stupid-land

Since school is over, I finally had a single braincell to try out Linux, and try out I did !

For some background, I am not really a tech savvy person, at least I don't think I am. I only ever got interested tech about a few months ago, and before that I just kinda used my stuff like a normal person (and I feel I honestly still mostly do? at least, I am not a programmer. I just play a lot of games and draw art.) and it was mainly my partner lecturing me on Basic Stuff is when i started to know a bit more of what i should and shouldn't be doing

I think because of this my partner has been really interested the entire time I've known them to see how a normal person would handle trying linux when all I've known my entire life is Windows and macOS makes me wanna cry!

At first it was not good, but it was pretty much because my partner took my laptop and put fedora on it and I hated it so bad it made me stop using my laptop entirely and treat it even worse than before. So my introduction was unwelcoming. It was only when I just decided to get Linux mint myself on my laptop when I was like oh ok this is fine actually. It was actually so fine that a week later I ended up backing up all my important shit on an external storage so I can blow up my Windows installation entirely on my desktop so I can exclusively try out CachyOS on my PC, which i use daily. 5 days in and it's been good! I've tried a few distros and nothing is as comfortable as Cachy is for me and it was very much the perfect introduction to the Terminal for me since when you're on mint you don't really need to use it for anything and mint is a lot like Windows 2, at least to me.

My desktop so far! It basically kinda just looks like how my windows did lmao, but I like it ^_^

It's really interesting because I think me alone trying it sparked a lot of people I am friends with and know to immediately ask for help so they can try out linux themselves and like. I don't even know much but I think that's exactly why they immediately asked because they know if I can do it they can too. I've written guides for them anyways despite being a new-baby because It's so unnecessarily complicated for new people to learn and get into cuz a lot of guides just Kind of assume the person is like, majoring in CS and already know 'basic' concepts. So I wrote one to make it even more basic. and doesn't assume where you're at coming in. I've been told to post it but I'm shy! ( and also, I'd wanna go back and make it even easier to follow)

I only had to give up a single game.. which is Infinity Nikki. Really soul crushing bc im obsessed w that game. I play it on mobile only now but its not the same because its so bad on mobile. weh! I at first also had to give up Davinci Resolve (program I use to make videos) but I found my way around that and now I can use it :3

[icarusthelunarguard]

This Week’s Horrible-Scopes

It’s time for this week’s Horrible-Scopes! So for those of you that know your Astrological Signs, cool! If not, just pick one, roll a D12, or just make it up as you go along. It really doesn’t matter. Better yet! Check out “Heart of the Game, Fredonia” - they can sell you those D12’s with the symbols on them! Get in contact with them on Facebook, shipping to the U.S. only, and tell them “Shujin Tribble” sentcha. “Hail, Hail, Fredonia!” Home of the Blue Devil!

These ‘Scopes are due to release just in time for the first week of March, so we’re paying special HAPPY BIRTHDAY… to My Computer - “BOX”! Now, yes. Box’s actual birthday is hard to nail down since, you know, it was a pre-built HP machine sold through “Worst Try”, and parts of it have been replaced over the years, but it’s still chuggin’ along! So with a nod to Markiplier’s reliance on The Ship of Theseus, let’s enjoy memories of 2013.

Aries 

You get to start us off with realizing that BOX is Twelve Years Old! Not quite untested but not yet a teenager. There’s been some growing pains over the years, but at least it’s unlearned many of the things it was taught at birth, like running Windows 8! These days it’s mainly Ubuntu Linux and Windows 10, and with what it’s lacking in hardware that’s about as far as Windows will progress for it. So This Week… For those about to Age Out of Windows 10’s security umbrella who have no upgrade path beyond it, now’s the time to consider making a Linux Bootable Thumb Drive and testing out everything with it. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Taurus 

From its storage to its brain, BOX went from being a 6-Core computer to an 8-Core, which most folks would say is a great upgrade. But the problem is it was an AMD “FX” chip. For those not in the know, these chips were, shall we say, ”Inelegant”. Think of going to the grocery store, but in a fuel-sucking muscle car instead of a more conservative hybrid. So This Week… The best time of year for you is the winter. Your core body temperature is naturally high, so it’ll be good to cool down naturally. As for the CPU, it won’t matter. The stock cooler sucks anyway.

Gemini 

Let’s talk about that CPU a little bit more, though. What do you do with an old one? You use it to upgrade a different computer, of course! In this case it went to max out someone else’s computer, taking them from four cores to six, freeing up THAT one for a higher purpose yet to be described. So This Week… You really need to remember to take out the recycling. It’s easy - just set it next to the door so you take it with you as you head out for the day. And don’t just forget it in the back seat of your car this time.

Cancer Moon-Child 

We’re getting you something math related that will make very little sense. Computers are binary devices, so they work in multiples of two. And, subsequently, so would RAM as well. So you’d expect it to start with two, four, eight, or even sixteen Gigs of it, and you’d be wrong. It came with TEN Gigs. And before you say, “well maybe it was shared with video”, no - that was its own separate board. So This Week… It’s OK for you to feel off-kilter; it happens. Just take it easy, take it slow, and center yourself before you make any big moves.

Leo 

Remember how we told you about the Wil Wheaton Dice Curse last week? Well we’re using that again to finish the tale of the CPU Swaps. That four-core CPU finally found its way into Icarus’ infamous home server, “Hexadecimal” AKA “The Queen of Chaos”. She was named that because no matter what server OS was attempted to be loaded into it, it failed. It took finally trying Ubuntu Desktop to make it work - which made zero sense because the Desktop and Server versions are basically identical. So This Week… You know what Hex is missing, still? A SCSI (“Skuzzy”) card. Oh, there’s at least one iOmega-Branded one available from Adaptec, but who still uses them anymore?

Virgo 

If we’re going to talk about the computer naming adventure, it seems only fair that we get around to explaining how BOX got its name. Previous computers were named based on other computational gadgets from science fiction - so the laptop Icarus had was named “T-W-1-K-1”, “Tweeky”, from the old Buck Rogers TV series, which the smaller Netbook was “Dr. Theopolis”, the round face-thing Twiki carried around on his chest. So This Week… Go back to 1978 and watch “Jason of Star Command”. There’s one more “W-1-K-1” robot to be found. And he’s CUTE!

Libra

One thing we know you love is music - so it’s almost a given that you’ll get information about BOX’s sound. Normally it’s a given that computers these days have on-board sound and don’t need a specific add-in card to handle it; not like the days of yore. But this machine is weird in many ways, not the least of which is how it makes Old Man Body Sounds when there’s no sound to be playing. If you listen closely to headphones or speakers you can almost hear the motherboard talking to the other parts of the system. So This Week… Turn on Closed Captions for your YouTube surfing and see how that works for you. And if you want a challenge, change it to a different language.

Scorpio 

Ok, ok. We’ll let you in on the secret to BOX’s name. Believe it or not it comes in two flavours, both are factual, both are accurate, and both can be denied when pressed for the other. The mundane answer is because desktop computers are often referred to by the term, “box” - kinda the same way that Cylons and Protogens are sometimes called “toasters”. But the more fun one, and harder to just stumble across, is the character from the 1976 movie “Logan’s Run” named “Box”. It was a cyborg covered in disco-ball mirrors who was tasked with freezing food for a post-apocalyptic Earth. So This Week… There was an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where they encountered a capsule with people cryogenically frozen from the late 20th century. The ship's name was the “S.S. Birdseye”. Remember to eat your vegetables.

Sagittarius 

You might like to know a little something about the computer that preceded BOX. It was named, “FrankenPuter”, because it was cobbled together from a lot of spare and old parts. And before you think the name was just for fun, the chassis and original parts were literally picked up on the side of the road that someone was throwing away. It worked well enough until the memory controller ate itself, which made BOX a necessity. So This Week… You know how there’s the old adage that The True Treasure Is The Friends We Make Along The Way? Well, FrankenPuter was not a friend and not a treasure. Sometimes you just have to replace the riff-raff you accumulate when you didn’t know what you were doing.

Capricorn 

Being almost done with the boring parts of that computer, it’s time to give you something wild to consider: from the front it almost looks like the Knight Industries Two-Thousand. The cassis is glossy black with silver trim and a bright red bar light across the middle. The only thing missing is any motion in it from side to side. So This Week… There’s a semi-official Universe Canon that says that “Knight Rider” exists in the same universe as “Battlestar Galactica” because of “Battlestar Galactica 1980”! If you want it to be worse in your head, go watch the movie “Megaforce” and watch the motorcycles.

Aquarius 

Instead of giving you boring minutia, we’re treating you to the cake! The best damned ice cream cake you could ask for; home made and not just out of the freezer from Carvel. It’ll take a while to make the ice creams, since we’re doing Vanilla and Coffee Chocolate, but it’ll be worth every drip off your spoon. So This Week… If you have the ability to make your own ice cream, do that. Yes it’s still winter, but why not have a little fun, right?

Pisces  

Well, not only is it the computer’s birthday, apparently somepony VERY close to you is sharing a birthday as well… Basically =YOU=! So Happy Solar-Orbital Natal-Reset Moment to you! The question is - what’s funnier? Turning forty years old… or REFUSING to turn forty? And now you understand why Jack Benny's running gag worked for literal decades! Because everyone’s just a little vain for themselves. So This Week… Cake is wonderful, but how about splurging on excellent quality food for one full day? Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner - and none of them came out of a frozen box. Let’s start with a Western Omelette and add, get this… Extra Bacon! Happy Birthday, my fellow Fish Faces! And thanks for being good to each other.

And THOSE are your Horrible-Scopes for this week! Remember if you liked what you got, we’re obviously not working hard enough at these. BUT! If you want a better or nastier one for your own sign or someone else’s, all you need to do to bribe me is just Let Me Know - or check out the Ko-Fi page ( https://ko-fi.com/icarusthelunarguard )! These will be posted online at the end of each week via Tumblr, Facebook, Ko-Fi, Discord, and BLUESKY.

[linuxlife]

Linux Life Episode 87

Hello everyone and welcome to my ongoing piddling about in my corner of the world of Linux. Well this month I have been playing around with Wayland and trying to work out whether I am ready to switch to it.

I admit that I recently switched back to X11 when using KDE Plasma 6.2 as several tools don’t work well in it under Wayland.

When in X11 I use Cairo Dock as a program launcher which does have a version that allegedly works with Wayland but the team of Cairo Dock admit its alpha and is buggy. Indeed it worked for a while then it started messing up shortcuts. Also in X11 I can move the bar up above the main KDE panel so I can still see the icons and switch tasks etc.

In X11 it works fine. In Wayland it is just too basic and the coders of it are in no hurry to create a full version until Wayland setup some standards regarding key bindings etc.

Which I guess is fair enough but annoying.

When it comes to collecting screenshots I normally use Shutter. I have tried others such as Flameshot and others but they seem to have issues when grabbing certain screenshots such as Steam games and Shutter just works.

However under Wayland. Shutter has been hacked to work but will only allow you to grab the desktop only and none of the other options are available.

So I have been using X11 to allow Shutter to continue to work.

Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned but I like to have things that work. Also OBS Studio works with Wayland but apparently has issues when selecting input sources and areas.

In time they may fix this but at this time it doesn’t quite work as it should.

So I admit if I am using KDE Plasma I won’t be using the Wayland version.

Taking a slight side step ...

I have recently decide as I was noodling about in the Wayland compositing wibble I decided to try Hyprland.

Well I must admit at first I really didn’t get on very well with it and to be honest while I could open a few windows and I managed to use ghostty as my terminal.

However after a bit of a play I didn’t know how to close all the open windows and had to faff around just to get the slightest thing open.

So I was about to give up. However I decided to look up the wiki and it gave a few preconfigured options. I admit I downloaded and installed the JaKooLit dot files.

I must admit that it has actual made Hyprland useful and with a bit of playing I finally managed to get most things working and yes it can be fun and it’s pretty fast but I really don’t see me using it regularly.

It has allowed me to capture screenshots using certain keys so Hyprland has solved my requirements and Shutter is not needed using it but until OBS Studio issues in Wayland are sorted I will have to go back to KDE Plasma 6 X11 if I want to capture video.

I really didn’t understand Hyprland when i first started but I admit that the preconfig has made it useable once you get used to the quirkiness. I am even willing to live without a dock.

Hopefully OBS Studio will manage to get around its issues and who knows I might even switch to Hyprland and stop using KDE Plasma.

I’m sure someone will advise me better Hyprland tricks but for now I have it working and it is not bad. In time I could get used to working with Hyprland. Once you get the hang of it, it is quite fast and useable.

Wayland is good but not quite 100% there. Not far its about 95% workable, it just needs the last few things to get working.

Well that’s enough waffle for now ... Until next time ... Take care.

[eblu3]

You should talk about your special interests :3

scolipede

well uh you got me actually because my special interests are kinda voided at the moment? which is very strange because I usually have at least something giving me brainworms. but I can probably start reviving some past special interests for the sake of it. here goes:

Channel 4 (UK) has had by far some of the best on-air branding I've seen, especially during the 2000s

the Chao system in the Sonic Adventure games is actually really complex! they have an entire genetics system going on as well as three secret forms that you can obtain by completing a very specific set of tasks. I participated a few forum roleplays with Chao characters around 10-11 years ago, mine was a gray two-tone hero/run that eventually gained waterbending powers or something

people talk about y2k and frutiger aero all the time but my favorite aesthetic is vectorheart. I actually did some of the initial research into that believe it or not!

linux is actually really cool, being able to have that much granular control over your computer like that. unfortunately it gets paraded around by really annoying fanatics and nobody ever develops for people who don't understand what a terminal is on there so it's doomed to obscurity until someone finally pushes to make it user friendly across the board

I read pokemon fanfic from time to time. unfortunately everything involving scolipede seems to be pokephilia. might have to be the change that I want to see in the world there, but I'm kinda crap at planning out stories so bleh

uh turns out I still have it in me I guess. I'm probably too neurodivergent to remember some of my other past special interests but maybe they'll come back to me at some point

[silvercat-the-daydreamer]

right touhou13 experience yeah

(post with considerable delay since i was first waiting for my friend to come back to tumblr, can't just hoepost without them y'know, that'd be rude-- and then i procrastinated on that for several more days,,, you know how it is.)

OH OKAY THIS SHITS EASY ALRIGHT-- I DID ALMOST 1CC IT ON EASY FIRST TRY (n then got it on the second). that's hardly anything. i did get to miko's last attack on the first try without using any continues and then i died there. kinda wet and soggy compared to byaku. like come on miko my guy, how can you live with her being harder than you...

(maybe i should have started with this one, but maybe attempting to figure out the controls while also having to frequently dash up to the top of the screen to grab the things would not be the best idea. who knows. hard to find out now.)

yeah, well, just because i was taken over by the sudden and overwhelming need to look at miko, i went and played touhou13. i'm sure you understand. i just think she's neat.

in any case the gimmick of this game is Interesting for sure. more grab-the-fuckin-things. i love these sorts of things actually. then there's also something neat about being basically dead when you get hit but still being around for a few more seconds but then inevitably dying anyway. very cool. i just haven't really figured out how to use that efficiently i think...

MUSIC GOES REAL HARD TOO. IT'S GOT PECULIAR NOISES HELL YEAH. now that i actually have something to describe that with instead of just "really interesting". futo's theme beloved. stage 2 theme too. and of course miko's theme is a real banger as well even tho it doesn't have that peculiar noises. directly after watching my friend beat the game on stream a few days before i played it i listened to it on loop for an hour while working on a spreadsheet. bless

...that being said, miko's theme does go hard but despite being really speedy and stuff it also feels strangely calm. maybe... "focused" is a more appropriate word. interesting for sure.

now, i really appreciate how interesting the spellcards of this are. fuckin kyouko's with the reflecting? would probably confuse the fuck out of me on higher difficulties but i love it. also the several spells in this game where someone just brings in their buddies. in which i also really appreciate the detail of seiga moving to her pet zombie to heal her if she's knocked out. that's kinda cute.

however. yoshika's.

listen.

I Like The Concept. but. hooo fucking boi are those spellcards where she heals herself annoying. like jesus fuckin christ dude especially the last one can i please get through that without timing out thank you. waurgh.

apart from that there's also that one part in stage 4 where there's a bunch of guys comin at you from the sides at high speeds and throwing things at you, and i really enjoy that part bc there's so much going on and the speediness of the soundtrack works nicely to bring out the vibe of great nyoomage. hell yeah.

(also is it just from me playing this game on linux or does anyone else get a fuckton of graphical glitches playing this. nothing gamebreaking but sometimes just displays unrelated graphics on some bullets which seems to happen most often on kyouko's spells and miko's final one in which it displays big stars for a few frames sometimes. not something that happens with any other touhous i played.)

so anyways miko's birthday is coming up soon isn't it. wonderful fuckin timing. (almost as great of a timing as when i first played touhou15 and then looked out the window after i beat it to see the wonderful full moon. that was really cool. we should all appreciate such small but neat things.) i need to like draw her or smth.

[fracturedgodhead]

Hello from Linux!

I finally got my laptop set up with a Linux OS, specifically NixOS!

I might switch to some other linux distro at some point. I have my environment set up in a way that I like the look of, and I have all the programs I need for now, but the way nixos does programs is very different from anything I've seen before.

It is designed to solve a problem that I can't really say is one I've faced before, and I usually have a lot of difficulty accepting solutions without licking the problem first.

We'll see I guess. It's so weird to have packed up and moved already, digitally anyway. It's such an easy thing to just... do it again.

Anyway. In terms of what I'm going to be posting about for the foreseeable future, I really do want to finish my tarot card stuff. It's very fun, and more than that, the idea that someone wants to see it is incredibly motivating, but at the same time, I'm getting very anxious and in my head about it.

It's so hard to let your own hands make something you think is bad I guess. And that feeling coupled with the fact that my expectations, the bar for what I think is bad, keep rising. That's not really a new thing though. Maybe a new perspective on an old feeling, but far from completely new.

Other than the tarot project though, my friend and I are gonna start doing this thing where every week I give him a programming assignment and he gives me a drawing prompt. I want to learn art and how to draw, and he wants to learn programming and gamedev, and we're both pretty bad with motivation, so hopefully with mutual accountability we'll both be able to improve.

I've never had anything like this with another person... weird. Very fun and exciting though. I'll try and post what I make every week.

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2024-09-23

I have a normal number of tabs open

Listening: Went to a metal show I knew nothing about because my partner was going and I figured it would be a good way to hear what they're into.

Nest of Plagues is a Hungarian outfit, which I liked a fair amount. Bad mix from their sound engineer but otherwise fun. I have no idea what any of the songs they played are so here's a random one:

Next up, Lone Survivors, a French prog metal group. Really fun, great bass

Then Science of Decay, Swiss group. Probably the most consistently good.

And the headliners who were Orphaned Land, an Israeli pan-religious peace themed band? Bizzare on many levels. What is the point of non-blasphemous metal.

Pretty good show all around, I'm not a huge metalhead so other than like "pretty good, some of this is nice" I have very little to say.

Reading: A Desolation Called Peace which is a delicious little thing. A really different book from Memory, and makes very efficient use of its scenes to handle a lot of information very deftly.

It's a bold move to do the like, barest intimations of a relationship in book one, ends with a single kiss. Book two: starts with them deeply estranged on the other side of the galaxy from each other, midpoint fucking, endpoint ???????.

The Eight Antidote scenes are clever! The sanitized self-concept of the empire in this one kid. There's a bit about the "Atrocities Teixcalaan had smartly given up committing" it's such a great line

Watching: Finished Mobile Suit Gundam. which was interesting and educational for multiple things, for one just as a reference for a bunch of other media I've consumed.

I want to compare it a little to Avatar, which is good but suffers heavily from the constraints of being a Western Children's Show, Gundam is a toy advert like Transformers but it doesn't feel the need to lean into "here is your moral lesson of the week" stuff so it can do some really thoughtful storytelling about war and duty.

The instrumentalization of the whole White Base Crew where they're just taken on as an expendable force by Earth is so great because it keeps them at a distance from both sides while still putting them on A Side.

The Newtype stuff towards the end both focuses the story and sort of weakens it? It moves you away from the drama and struggle of the crew into building this universe lore.

I'm probably going to jump ahead to Witch from Mercury and then maybe watch some of the past seasons.

Making: Some abortive microscope stuff, ran into weird power issues, need to fix that. Fiddling with VR projects but nothing meaningful, I wanted to try and work on some 3D curve visualization stuff but I mostly got bogged down remembering how VR on Linux works again.

Playing: Fell off Tactical Breach Wizards but I'm back, pushing through the final act. It's going well and I'm getting Rion under me, he's pretty finicky at times but very powerful.

Tools and Equipment: A consideration for you: if you have weird neck pain check your pillow. Ever since my partner spent a few nights at my place they found their neck pain gone because I use good normal pillows made of firm foam rather than bullshit sad feather sacks that compress down to one centimeter thick and do fuck-all for your neck. I do not know who thought down pillows was a good idea, stop doing that. You need to keep your neck supported!

[antagonistchan]

return

in 2019, i switched to using Linux as my primary operating system. at first, i tried to avoid using Windows as much as possible, but that ultimately turned out to be not viable, switching to Windows on occasion is a necessary part of my lifestyle. but, i still wanted Linux as my primary OS.

of course, Linux comes in many different varieties, and i didn't think too hard about which one i wanted, so... i just went with Ubuntu. Ubuntu's like, the basic starter Linux. not too respected, but not too disrespected either, and extremely well-supported and easy to dip your toes into. i'd actually already dipped my toes into Ubuntu; my dad experimented with maybe switching me to Ubuntu in 2011 when my computer at the time was suffering some major glitches.

and then a few months later, i got my current laptop. because i'd realized that i still needed Windows at this point, i got this laptop with a dual-boot setup. one drive running Windows 10, the other running, again, Ubuntu. and i stuck with this setup for a while.

but then, back in Spring, i decided i was ready to move on from both Windows 10 and Ubuntu. i've always fucking hated Windows 10 so fucking much since it came out, and i already had enough experience with Windows 11 on another computer to know that i VASTLY preferred it (plus, Windows 10 support is ending next year anyway); and i've been primarily a Linux user for five years now, i'm ready to try a different version of Linux.

but upgrading the Windows boot to 11 was a greater hassle than i expected, and i couldn't quite decide on which version of Linux i wanted to switch to. Fedora and Arch were the two candidates- almost as popular and widely-used as Ubuntu, but much more respected. especially Arch, which is what real serious Linuxheads tend to lean towards in my experience.

and, while i still prefer Linux to any version of Windows, i legitimately think Windows 11 might just be my favorite Windows ever, it's like unbelievably tolerable. so for the last few months, i just... briefly went back to being a Windows slut.

like, as i once said in a previous post: when Windows 10 came out, i immediately couldn't get with it, it just turned me off so much. but i didn't want to be a stubborn old woman having a kneejerk reaction to change, so i tried hard to convince myself that Windows 10 was probably fine. but eventually i just had to admit that i just loathe Windows 10 so much. but i had the exact opposite reaction to Windows 11. i immediately found it SUCH a refreshing change and SUCH a drastic upgrade over 10 that i had to hold myself back from praising it too hard- it's still a Microsoft product, and for all i know it's secretly powered by the souls of orphans, so don't just go jumping on the love bandwagon just yet. all i can responsibly say is "Yeah Windows 11 is like infinitely more comfortable for me personally than Windows 10 was".

but it was always a temporary return to Microsoft's cold, calculating embrace. i always intended to go back to primarily using Linux once i finally figured out what i wanted to do and had a good opportunity to do it. and now, i'm very suddenly running into way more Windows Annoyances than i had been for the last few months.

it's time.

(i chose Fedora because Arch does seem a little more intimidating; i think the fairly reliable route to go is just to start with Fedora and eventually upgrade to Arch. unless i just end up really falling in love with Fedora)