Shallow Thoughts
Akkana's Musings on Open Source Computing and Technology, Science, and Nature.
Sun, 01 Oct 2023
In 2019, I wrote about struggling to get any sort of Windows booting off
an external USB stick, in order to
Install Lenovo Firmware Packaged as a .exe on a Linux Machine.
I ended up needing to borrow a real Windows machine and install Rufus
on it.
In 2023, things are much better. Aki at atkdinosaurus has written a
clear, concise tutorial on that topic:
How to create a Windows 10 installation on a USB stick in UEFI mode.
I love that it's all command-line, so you can duplicate the steps exactly.
Read more ...
Tags: linux, windows, virtualization, qemu, debian
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10:07 Oct 01, 2023
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Thu, 28 Sep 2023
My search for a good desktop Mastodon client has led me down a path
that involved learning some fun ways to interact with existing
browser windows on Linux with X programs like
xdotool and wmctrl.
Like many people, I've switched from The App Formerly Known As Twitter
to Mastodon (where I'm
@akkana@fosstodon.org).
But the next question was which Mastodon app to use.
Read more ...
Tags: linux, firefox, browsers, python, X11, window managers, openbox
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11:48 Sep 28, 2023
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Fri, 22 Sep 2023
I had a need for a window to which I could drag and drop URLs.
I don't use drag-and-drop much, since I prefer using the commandline
rather than a file manager and icon-studded desktop.
Usually when I need some little utility and can't immediately find
what I need, I whip up a little Python script.
This time, it wasn't so easy. Python has a GUI problem (as does open
source in general): there are quite a few options, like TkInter, Qt, GTK,
WxWidgets and assorted others, and they all have different strengths and
(especially) weaknesses.
Drag-and-drop turns out to be something none of them do very well.
Read more ...
Tags: programming, python, qt
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18:45 Sep 22, 2023
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Sun, 17 Sep 2023
The weekly hiking group I'm in has quite a few members who
bring their dogs on hikes, as long as the trail allows it
(National Parks, Monuments and Preserves don't allow dogs).
I've seen various solutions for carrying dog water: bowls that
telescope out in use, and can be compacted flatter. Bowls out of
flexible materials like waterproofed nylon. Smallish cups.
Then there's the tricky job of pouring the unused water from
a flexible bowl back into a narrow-mouthed water bottle each time.
But dogs are more flexible than you might think. One of our canine
hiking companions, Lewis, has been trained to drink from a water bottle.
He just laps at the stream as it falls, and spills surprisingly little.
So his person can give him a drink at any time, without stopping and
digging around for a bowl.
I'd never seen this before, but it seems
pretty handy for a dog and person who go hiking just about every day.
Tags: hiking, dog
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18:04 Sep 17, 2023
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Thu, 07 Sep 2023
Somebody in a group I'm in has commented more than once that White
Rock is a hotbed of Republicanism whereas Los Alamos leans Democratic.
(For outsiders, our tiny county has two geographically-distinct towns
in it, with separate zip codes, though officially they're both part of
Los Alamos township which covers all of Los Alamos county.
White Rock is about half the size of Los Alamos.)
After I'd heard her say it a couple times, I got curious. Was it true?
I asked her for a reference, but she didn't have one. I decided to
find out.
Read more ...
Tags: mapping, GIS, programming, python
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11:58 Sep 07, 2023
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Thu, 31 Aug 2023
This week's group hike was to San Antonio Hot Springs, in the Jemez
above La Cueva. It was nice and cool up there, especially since the
trail is mostly shady, winding through ponderosa forest with views of
San Antonio Creek below and towering rock walls above.
Read more ...
Tags: hiking, sign, mysteries
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12:06 Aug 31, 2023
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Fri, 25 Aug 2023
When I wrote about
Getting Linux System Notifications under Openbox,
I ended up tossing out the whole notification system and using zenity
to pop up a dialog directly. Specifically, a command like
XAUTHORITY=~/.Xauthority DISPLAY=:0 zenity --title "Hello" --info --text="Hello world"
But customizing zenity to make it more attention-getting turned out to
be more difficult than expected ...
Read more ...
Tags: linux, openbox, window managers
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13:55 Aug 25, 2023
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Mon, 21 Aug 2023
I've been a fan of Linux's lightweight window managers, particularly
Openbox, for many years.
But admittedly, there are some things they don't generally handle.
One of those is system notifications.
Mostly, I've been happy to go without notifications. Firefox is
forever asking me whether I want to turn them on for particular websites
(which wouldn't work, but Firefox doesn't know that), usually websites
I'm visiting for the first time and probably don't ever want to visit again,
let alone let them spam me with ads as notifications outside my browser.
But every now and then it would be handy.
Read more ...
Tags: linux, openbox, window managers
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14:03 Aug 21, 2023
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