On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:44:44 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 06/10/2011 11:52 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> In Windoze:
>>> >
>>> >  Start>  type calc [enter]
>> In Linux:
>>
>> In the already running terminal window (on my system, I always have one
>> running), "bc".
> 
> Better than short cuts on the desktop IMO. But then it (unreasonably)
> pisses me off watching some other people use their computers. Their slow
> deliberate use of the mouse and context menu makes me want to shove them
> aside and drive myself. Lord! I'm getting to be a crusty old man. :-)

I know what you mean (about both statements!)

I find myself often trying to drive someone else's computer by using my 
voice.  I tell you, voice control of another person's computer with them 
interpreting is probably one of the more frustrating things to do.

Or when my mom starts reading an error message to me - and after three 
words, I know what the next thing is and what to do next.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

I'll top post as I'm sure nobody wants to read all that again.

What do you mean?

On 07/10/2011 6:51 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 10/7/2011 1:47 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> But then it (unreasonably) pisses me off watching some other people use
>>> their computers. Their slow deliberate use of the mouse and context menu
>>> makes me want to shove them aside and drive myself. Lord! I'm getting to
>>> be a crusty old man. :-)
>>
>> No, that was already annoying me 20 years ago...
> Sigh.. You people are the cause of things like Blender being a damn
> nightmare of hotkeys you have to memorize to do shit, even in the new
> version, instead of a damn toolbar, and controls that are in places that
> make some slight sense. Though.. I suppose it is marginally better than
> K-3D, which seems to use the toolbar to insert animation elements, while
> using a right click menu for the "actual" build functions (with
> identical names)... I mean, how the frak are you supposed to scroll
> through 900 damn menu items to find something, often with some bizarre
> name, instead of using the toolbar to just pick the "bend this"
> function? I seriously wonder some times about the sanity of the people
> that write some of these applications.
>
> Still. For someone that doesn't have enough money to shell out $4,000 in
> software, to get the applications that are the top line out there, I ask
> just one question, "Why they hell isn't there anything that comes even
> 'vaguely' close to Rhinoceros?" At least Photoshop has both Gimp, and
> the cheaper, but still not free, but close enough, Paintshop Pro. But,
> you want Nurbs... Good luck finding one that fully supports it, and
> isn't an, "all in one, so we do everything incompletely, and in the most
> confusing way possible", application.
>
> And, somehow, using Wings, just isn't going to be real fun. The only up
> side is, I am looking for one to export to a non-nurbs mesh, and/or
> directly to Collada (or how ever its spelled), because Linden Labs
> "finally" got off their asses and supported mesh imports, instead of the
> nightmare displacement map idiocy they called "sculpties", and everyone
> else called "prim torture". lol


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:25:55 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 06/10/2011 11:54 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Ye’r not biased by any chance?
>> Oh, yes, I'm biased, and I don't try to hide it.:)
>>
>>
> I know, I know. :-)

Well, I know how it is when age starts creeping in.  My dad always said 
that memory was the second thing to go. (Can't remember if I've told that 
one here before or not - but I probably have <g>)

>>> >  Actually I can’t be bothered to learn another OS and like Andrew
>>> >  I’ve got lots of s/ware that works on Windoze.
>> Whereas I can't be bothered to use Windows for the vast majority of
>> what I use a computer for these days, and I don't have a collection of
>> Windows software holding me back.<gd&rvvvf>
>>
> That is another point. I need the M$ Office Suite for work and
> complained bitterly when they changed to Office 2007. Which reminds me
> of the faux quote attributed to Petronius Arbiter.
> 
> "We trained hard... but it seemed that every time we were beginning to
> form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life
> that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful
> method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing
> confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization."

Yeah, and that is a good quote, faux or not. :)

>> But my point above was that if you're citing "numlock doesn't behave
>> the way I'm used to" as "another reason to give Linux a miss", it's not
>> really that great of a reason.;)
> 
> It is no reason at all, at all. :-D

Well, exactly. :)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:15:06 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>> Audio certainly is an area that's recognised as being problematic.
> 
> Really? I thought that was Wi-Fi.

Nah, Wi-Fi is pretty easy - either it works or it doesn't.  Either you 
have the firmware necessary or you don't.

Audio is so horribly complex on Linux because there's at least 3 
different systems to use it, and nobody's standardised on one.  OSS.  
Alsa.  PulseAudio.  The standards were all not standardised, so they 
decided to fix the problem by creating ANOTHER STANDARD.

Gah.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:08:25 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>>> Mine never turns off on its own.  Just switched between several VTs
>>>> and my X session, the state didn't change at all.
>>>
>>> OK, well I guess it varies by distro then. This was, IIRC, Debian
>>> "potato".
>>
>> Possible.  At the very least, there are ways to configure it to not do
>> what you're seeing, but not knowing Debian, I couldn't tell you how on
>> that distribution.
> 
> Quite. As I recall, stopping the shell doing this involved editing
> ~/.bashrc and setting an environment variable or something like that.

An environment variable on its own wouldn't do anything.  It's got to be 
used by something, obviously. :)

>>>> "in the shell" - do you mean on a VT?  Or is it changing when you
>>>> open a term window in X?
>>>
>>> I mean in the text-mode screen that appears before you tell X Windows
>>> to start up. (I didn't have it configured to run at startup.)
>>
>> That's a "virtual terminal" or VT.  aka the "Console".
> 
> Oh, right. I thought that refers only to when you run an X application
> that emulates a terminal in a window.

That's technically called a 'pseudoterminal' - pts.  "man pts" is 
interesting reading, if you like that sort of thing.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:10:33 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> I'll top post as I'm sure nobody wants to read all that again.
> 
> What do you mean?

LOL

Post a reply to this message

>>> Audio certainly is an area that's recognised as being problematic.
>>
>> Really? I thought that was Wi-Fi.
>
> Nah, Wi-Fi is pretty easy - either it works or it doesn't.  Either you
> have the firmware necessary or you don't.
>
> Audio is so horribly complex on Linux because there's at least 3
> different systems to use it, and nobody's standardised on one.  OSS.
> Alsa.  PulseAudio.

Ah yes, that's fun.

I especially like the way that installing one GNOME application installs 
the entire GNOME system, including the GNOME sound daemon. And all I 
actually wanted to do was run gedit...

> The standards were all not standardised, so they
> decided to fix the problem by creating ANOTHER STANDARD.
>
> Gah.

Required XKCD quote: http://xkcd.com/927/

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

>> 1. How do you get it so a terminal is always available? (Most distros
>> I've seen make the terminal program one of the hardest things to find.
>
> Alt-F2 ->  gnome-terminal.
>
> Done.

I presume that only works if GNOME is your WM?

>> It's easy to find Firefox or Evolution or Jabba, but the terminal window
>> is usually somewhere under "advanced"... It's almost as if I'm using a
>> Microsoft OS!)
>
> It's usually under "system tools", which is appropriate.

With Ubuntu, it's "accessories". With OpenSUSE, it was somewhere else. I 
forget where the heck it was with Debian.

KNOPPIX put it right on the desktop though. Smart guys...

>> 2. Why type "bc" when you can type "ghci"? ;-)
>
> Because 'bc' actually does something on my system - namely, it starts an
> arbitrary precision calculator. :)

Yeah, I wasn't entirely serious with that one. ;-)

Typing "ghci" starts the Glasgow Haskell Compiler in Interactive mode - 
i.e., an REPL for Haskell. Which has arbitrary math support backed by 
the GMP [which is probably what powers bc, I wouldn't be surprised...] 
But it's also a full Turing-complete programming language, not just a 
calculator.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On 07/10/2011 06:51 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 10/7/2011 1:47 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> But then it (unreasonably) pisses me off watching some other people use
>>> their computers. Their slow deliberate use of the mouse and context menu
>>> makes me want to shove them aside and drive myself. Lord! I'm getting to
>>> be a crusty old man. :-)
>>
>> No, that was already annoying me 20 years ago...
> Sigh.. You people are the cause of things like Blender being a damn
> nightmare of hotkeys you have to memorize to do shit, even in the new
> version, instead of a damn toolbar, and controls that are in places that
> make some slight sense.

No - that's just poor program design. Everybody has that... ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message

On 10/7/2011 12:15, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Oh, right. I thought that refers only to when you run an X application
>> that emulates a terminal in a window.
>
> That's technically called a 'pseudoterminal' - pts.  "man pts" is
> interesting reading, if you like that sort of thing.

No, that's an xterminal or a terminal window. A pts (actually, ptty) is a 
device driver that isn't a terminal but exposes the same ioctls as a 
terminal (and in particular can belong to a process group). Because UNIX 
never figured out the concept of a "login".

Unless a pts is different from a ptty?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   How come I never get only one kudo?

Post a reply to this message