Printing on Linux
Printing on Linux has sometimes been a nightmare for me. The problem is usually worse depending on the printer you have. For me I have a brother MFC-J4620DW. Today, that nightmare is over.
Transfer BTFS snapshots with netcat
Netcat, the swiss army knife of TCP/IP can be used for many tasks. Today, I'll breifly demonstrate sending btrfs snapshots between computers with it's assistance.
Firewalld kernel requirements
I wanted to work out the minimum kernel requirements to run Firewalld with nftables backend running in Gentoo. Here I've documented my findings.
Nagios Core on Gentoo/Raspberry Pi with Nginx
I haven't posted in a while due to a change in my work. I'm currently working in the Server and Storage team at my workplace for a 6 month secondment. The role is much more aligned with my enjoyment of using GNU/Linux.
Precision 5510 - Gentoo GNU/Linux
This documents all configurations, apps and tweaks to get a nicely working Linux machine.
Live on 64-bit Raspberry Pi 4 with Gentoo
I recently wrote that the site is now hosted from the raspberry pi 4.
Converting VHS and DV to Modern Formats - Part 1
Over the past 10 years I've been meaning to convert my family's VHS tapes to a modern format. Originally that would have been DVD, but as it seems that DVD and Blu-Ray would have a limited lifespan, I've opted to go directly to modern encoding formats.
Burning a CD CLI Style
I've written about ripping an album cli style, and sometimes it still makes sense to have older tech around. Like for example if you have 6 kids, you can't exactly afford to buy them all iPods. Or, maybe you can't afford the latest cars, and your car still has cd audio.
Thanksfully with Linux we don't have to resort to some clunky UI. We can do anything on the good ole' command line
Ripping an album from youtube - CLI Style
With the advent of Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, Pandora and many other streaming music services, the need to have local mp3 files doesn't crop up very often. However, my kids either have cheap mp3 players or use their 3ds's to play local mp3 files.
How I Code
Updated 17/08/2018
Coding can be fun. I've enjoyed coding from a young age, starting with GW-Basic at maybe 6, 7, or 8.
I remember my brother Alex seemed like a real genius with the computer (an IBM clone made by Acer 8086 XT). Using Basic he could make the computer do anything and was writing his own games.
Back then, how we edited code would make us laugh today and I would say we take
the humble text editor for granted. Even something like notepad.exe is amazing
compared to tools of yesteryear. Here is a sample to illustrate:
To see your code you would have to type LIST<ENTER>:
>LIST
10 PRINT "WELCOME TO JESSES GAME"
20 PRINT "ENTER YOUR NAME"
30 $I = INPUT
40 PRINT "WELCOME $I, STRAP YOURSELF IN"
To edit a line of code you would re-write it by typing it in, line number and all.
20 PRINT "ENTER YOUR FULL NAME"
And to insert a line, start a line with a number between existing lines
31 $A=$I
When you ran out of in-between-lines there was a command you could run to reindex your lines which would space them all out 10 between each other.
Since then, the notepad, notepad++, programmers notepad, vim, nano, gedit, bbedit and countless other advanced (or not-so-advanced) text editors have evolved.
vi was born out of ed a streaming text editor which didn't really have a user interface so it was kind of more like how I edited my BASIC programs. One thing it did have were commands. Example of vim commands:
You've just run your script/app and get a syntax error on line 432.
PS> .\bigscript.ps1 At C:\bigscript.ps1:432 char:27 + if ($true) {echo "True" | {echo true}} + ~~~~~~~~~~~ Expressions are only allowed as the first element of a pipeline. + CategoryInfo : ParserError: (:) [], ParseException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ExpressionsMustBeFirstInPipeline
So you crack open bigscript in vim (btw, vim is amazing at handling big files)
Enter, 432Gf|a?<ESC>:wq done.
To break that down, 432G will put the cursor at line 432, f| will move the
cursor forward to the |, a? will append a ?, then \:wq puts vim in command mode and execute write
quit.
Now that might seem a bit obtuse if your not a vim user, but to me that is muscle memory and if coding is your life, this is something you are going to want to learn.
If this interests you, and you start your vim journey, then read on. I will share my vim configuration and history of using vim.
My vim story
When my Dad was about the same age as I am now (35), he went back to University to study Computer Science. I remember him bringing home Slackware and RedHat on floppies, which we would install and he would give me lessons on using Vi possibly vim, but I didn't know at the time. (This is probably around 1996).
Since finishing School and entering the workforce I have mostly worked in Windows environments. Even still, with the occasionaly need to touch GNU/Linux at work and often testing Distro's at home I would always feel more efficient when using Vi/m.
My feeling when using another editor is that moving around and changing text feels so lethargic when done one button at a time. This drove me in recent years to keep a copy of vim in my home profile.
Around 2011 I switched from VBScript and the occasional perl script to writing fulltime in Powershell, so it made sense to try a few different editors which are more native to the Windows platform. I tried Visual Studio Code, Powershell ISE, Notepad++ and still kept coming back to vim.
Visual Studio Code is a great alternative, and it's Powershell extensions are very good. If you do choose to use it, install the vim extension too. It brings the vim commands to vscode. Hoever being an electron app, it suffers from performance and memory consumption issues. I love squeezing every drop of battery out of my PC and when you see 7mb RAM on Vim vs 500Mb+ on VSCode, you might rethink your choices.
Therefore I've resorted to delving into the world of customizing vim and setting up plugins.
One of the main things I'm trying to acheive is a cross platform configuration. You see, at work I'm on Windows and MacOs and at home I'm on Gentoo Linux. So I have written my .vimrc file to work on any platform. I usually sync it with OneDrive for Business and symlink it into my linux/mac/Windows home directory with a seperate setup script. Without further ado, here it is with some comments
.vimrc
if has("win32") " Check if on windows \
" Also supports has(unix)
source $VIMRUNTIME/mswin.vim " Load a special vimscript \
" ctrl+c and ctrl+v support
behave mswin " Like above
set ff=dos " Set file format to dos
let os='win' " Set os var to win
set noeol " Don't add an extra line \
" at the end of each file
set nofixeol " Disable the fixeol : Not \
" not sure why this is needed
set backupdir=~/_vimtmp,. " Set backupdir rather \
" than leaving backup files \
" all over the fs
set directory=~/_vimtmp,. " Set dir for swp files \
" rather than leaving files \
" all over the fs
set undodir=$USERPROFILE/vimfiles/VIM_UNDO_FILES " Set persistent undo\
" files
" directory
let plug='$USERPROFILE/.vim' " Setup a var used later to \
" store plugins
set shell=powershell " Set shell to powershell \
" on windows
set shellcmdflag=-command " Arg for powrshell to run
else
set backupdir=~/.vimtmp,.
set directory=~/.vimtmp,.
set undodir=$HOME/.vim/VIM_UNDO_FILES
let uname = system('uname') " Check variant of Unix \
" running. Linux|Macos
if uname =~ "Darwin" " If MacOS
let plug='~/.vim'
let os='mac' " Set os var to mac
else
if isdirectory('/mnt/c/Users/jpharris')
let plug='/mnt/c/Users/jpharris/.vim'
let os='wsl'
else
let plug='~/.vim'
let os='lin'
endif
endif
endif
execute "source " . plug . "/autoload/plug.vim"
if exists('*plug#begin')
call plug#begin(plug . '/plugged') " Enable the following plugins
Plug 'tpope/vim-fugitive'
Plug 'junegunn/gv.vim'
Plug 'junegunn/vim-easy-align'
Plug 'jiangmiao/auto-pairs'
"Plug 'vim-airline/vim-airline' " Airline disabled for perf
Plug 'morhetz/gruvbox'
Plug 'ervandew/supertab'
Plug 'tomtom/tlib_vim'
Plug 'MarcWeber/vim-addon-mw-utils'
Plug 'PProvost/vim-ps1'
Plug 'garbas/vim-snipmate'
Plug 'honza/vim-snippets'
call plug#end()
endif
" Remove menu bars
if has("gui_running") " Options for gvim only
set guioptions -=m " Disable menubar
set guioptions -=T " Disable Status bar
set lines=50 " Set default of lines
set columns=80 " Set default of columns
if os =~ "lin"
set guifont=Fira\ Code\ 12
elseif os =~ "mac"
set guifont=FiraCode-Retina:h14
else
set guifont=Fira_Code_Retina:h12:cANSI:qDRAFT
set renderoptions=type:directx
set encoding=utf-8
endif
set background=dark
colorscheme gruvbox
else
set mouse=a
if has('termguicolors')
set termguicolors " Enable termguicolors for \
" consoles which support 256.
set background=dark
colorscheme gruvbox
endif
endif
if has("persistent_undo")
set undofile " Enable persistent undo
endif
colorscheme evening " Set the default colorscheme
" Attempt to start vim-plug
syntax on " Enable syntax highlighting
filetype plugin indent on " Enable plugin based auto \
" indent
set tabstop=4 " show existing tab with 4 \
" spaces width
set shiftwidth=4 " when indenting with '>', \
" use 4 spaces width
set expandtab " On pressing tab, insert 4 \
" spaces
set number " Show line numbers
" Map F5 to python.exe %=current file
nnoremap <silent> <F5> :!clear;python %<CR>
" Remap tab to auto complete
imap <C-@> <C-Space>
" Setup ga shortcut for easyaline in visual mode
nmap ga <Plug>(EasyAlign)
" Setup ga shortcut for easyaline in normal mode
xmap ga <Plug>(EasyAlign)"
Tags: vim, coding, windows, linux, macos
Burning a DVD Video on Gentoo
Quick note for my future self