My personal Linux story and a thank you

I was talking to a friend earlier, after we were talking about some early games we played and what kind of hardware we had back then, a flood of memories came crashing over me. I wanted to share that with you today, for no real particular reason other than that I feel thankful and hope it'll do something for you.

I grew up incredibly poor as the only child of a single mother (who was a teacher's assistant, which pays squat here.) Our very first computer was an Amiga, I am not sure which exactly, perhaps a 1000 or 2000? It was already kinda outdated back then, and it was a gift from a friend who owned a computer shop - stock he couldn't sell anymore.

In the late 90s, however, is when my story with Linux began. A friend of the family from the US came over to visit, he was a programmer working for IBM. Little me back then told him that I wanted to make video games later, because I had played some games on a NES at a friend's house. He told me that if I wanted to do that, I would have to learn programming.

Later he would talk to my mother, offering to give us his IBM computer since he was going to be getting a ThinkPad soon anyway; my mother agreed to pay for the overseas shipping costs and a month or two later a couple of massive boxes arrived at our house. Inside of it were the following:

* An IBM Personal Computer 350
* An assortment of floppy disks with software: a Linux distribution, and a C compiler
* A copy of K&R's C Programming Language book

The book had a note written inside of it too: "If you want to make games, you better begin early."

The PC was preinstalled by him with the Linux distribution that was on the floppy disks, I think it was Yggdrassil but I am not sure, but I do know it was running WindowMaker as the desktop environment; or at least something close to it.

That gift changed my life, I am a programmer these days and do indeed make small games in my spare time, though my day job is much more boring than that! I grew up in a family where opportunities were rare and we barely got by, but thanks to his generosity I stood a chance at making something of myself; rather than going outside in a crime ridden neighbourhood.

But not just him, but all the developers who made the Linux kernel, GNU and all the many projects I relied on. I was much too poor to afford things like Windows back then; and I didn't need to. Thanks to the free software movement I was not only liberated in my freedoms, but it also gave opportunities to people like myself who didn't have many; and continues to open opportunities for many poor people to this day.

Without GNU and Linux, I wouldn't be where I am today, and I am not sure I'd like to know where I would be.

Thank you.

https://redd.it/cztidt
@r_linux

Why do you use linux as a casual user?Do you use linux only or do you dualboot?

there are obvious benifit to linux such as The linux kernel for exemple. The customisability and (for some distro) ability to install and get all your things updated with a single command. But do you think you miss something from windows? if so do you dualboot?

https://redd.it/czv05f
@r_linux

State of touch support on linux in 2019

I've been using linux for a few years already, but none of my laptops had touch capability. I've been thinking about getting one with touch and 2-in-1 abilities. How is touch integration in linux? I mainly used GNOME over the years and it seems to be designed for touch, and the scaling is also good at least for integer sizes. I also wonder if it works at all on other environments like KDE or WMs like i3.

https://redd.it/czvwcv
@r_linux

Unboxing MYD-JX8MQ6 Dev Kit Based on NXP i.MX 8M A53 Quad Processor
https://youtu.be/KoeGNd2iDno

https://redd.it/czyrea
@r_linux

How does the Italian public sector implement and use Free Software? Leonardo Favario, leader of Team Digitale and keynote speaker at Akademy2019, explains in this interview.
https://dot.kde.org/2019/09/05/developers-italia-and-new-guidelines-let-open-source-revolution-start-interview-leonardo

https://redd.it/czzf72
@r_linux

Pine64 September Update: The PinePhone is real & shipping soon
https://www.pine64.org/2019/09/05/september-update-the-pinephone-is-real-shipping-soon/

https://redd.it/czzb9c
@r_linux

[OC] code and comment weight: linux kernel 5.1.14 source code (link to used noscripts in comments)
https://redd.it/d00c3c
@r_linux

We are living in the strangest of times.
https://twitter.com/ItalyPaleAle/status/1169354916281778176

https://redd.it/d00tdl
@r_linux

Linux in the Porsche Taycan

A little nugget in yesterday's news about the launch of Porsche's electric car, the Taycan: its information and entertainment system is [built](https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/4/20849437/porsche-taycan-turbo-ev-photos-mission-e-car-hands-on) on Linux.

https://redd.it/d019gy
@r_linux

Librem 5 Shipping Announcement – Purism
https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-shipping-announcement/

https://redd.it/d02qrq
@r_linux

Trying to VNC to a Cinnamon Desktop.

I'm trying to set up vnc server access on my Fedora 30 install w/Cinnamon. When I log into the remote connection, all I'm getting is a background... no taskbar access. I've tried refreshing Cinnamon Desktop, and I've looked at my \~/.vnc/xstartup configuration... seems ok?


Any input is appreciated.

https://redd.it/d03qyz
@r_linux

KLFC - the only way I've found to edit the keyboard layout and preserve your sanity (works with XKB and other systems)
https://github.com/39aldo39/klfc

https://redd.it/d040gq
@r_linux

First batch of Purism Librem 5 Linux smartphones ships in late September - Liliputing
https://liliputing.com/2019/09/first-batch-of-purism-librem-5-linux-smartphones-ships-in-late-september.html

https://redd.it/d05a2m
@r_linux

pkgtop v1.8 update (xbps, portage, nix support)

**pkgtop: Interactive package manager and resource monitor designed for the GNU/Linux.**

**GitHub:** [**https://github.com/keylo99/pkgtop**](https://github.com/keylo99/pkgtop)

https://redd.it/d067d6
@r_linux

Linux and Lynx sites

I have created to sites that folks might be interested in:

- [A Unix/Linux site](http://crn.hopto.org/unix/)
- [A *text* only Lynx start page](http://crn.hopto.org/lynx/)

The first one has some UNIX history stuff, noscripts, links, and some fun historical files of note. *Enjoy!*

Mitch - *"In case of rain, the *war* will be held in the auditorium"*

https://redd.it/d011yy
@r_linux

What happened to Akira?

There are no news since July:

[https://github.com/akiraux/Akira](https://github.com/akiraux/Akira)

[https://www.patreon.com/akiraux/posts](https://www.patreon.com/akiraux/posts)

Anybody has some news?

https://redd.it/czxx4u
@r_linux

RUNNS - simple network namespace manager.
https://github.com/dalegr/runns

https://redd.it/d092mp
@r_linux

Why is it not possible to start X in the background?

If you start the X server, you will always switch to the VT where it is started. You cannot start X on VT 1, but stay on VT 2, you will switch to VT 1. You can pass the `-novtswitch` option which affects what happens when the X server is stopped. With this option, stopping VT is done without the VT switch.

Why is this not possible to start the X server without switching VT?

https://redd.it/d0ahic
@r_linux

Mirror: Low-resource file editor
https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxadmin/comments/d08mza/i_have_created_low_memory_file_editor_for/

https://redd.it/d0ajcw
@r_linux

GUADEC 2019 – Space and Meaning
https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2019/09/05/guadec-2019/

https://redd.it/d0bq0j
@r_linux

Dipping Toes into Bash Scripting

I'm slowly moving away from Medium as a medium of blogging due to their absurd paywall system. Either you make a product free or you don't. Now greedy authors are hiding their garbage writing behind a paywall and people are falling for that. So I built a blog with Hugo and started blogging there. Lately, been brushing up some bash noscripting skill and thought why not just document the whole process there and share it with the community. Be lenient.

[https://rednafi.github.io/post/brisk\_bash/](https://rednafi.github.io/post/brisk_bash/)

https://redd.it/d0c91o
@r_linux