norris'gopherspace

10 14 0157_SID_TO_ARCH.txt

2021 00:00:00 +0000

===================================================================
  DATE : 2021.10.14
  TIME : 01:57
AUTHOR : norris@sdf.org
 TITLE : SID TO ARCH
 
===================================================================
I've been using debian linux since 1995; when I say using,
I mean at least one machine in my house has been running debian
constantly during that entire time, be it a server install running
stable, a laptop or desktop computer for the wife or one of my
daughters running stable, or maybe testing, and always my personal
daily driver laptop running sid. So when I changed my two personal
daily driver laptops (not any of my servers or other family
member's computers) from debian sid to arch linux this past July,
it could be asked, why arch and why now?

I know and love debian. It works, I know all the ins and outs,
and it has never once broken, failed to update, or let me down
in any memorable way; these are the reasons debian is the only
distro I would ever install on a server.  Debian is not just
for servers; debian is everything anybody needs, meaning if you
need stable they have you covered, if you need more recent, less
"stale" programs, they have that covered as well, and if you need
the latest and greatest, then they have that too! If you want
a minimal install, or a full fledged out of the box, everything
included, just works distro, you have those options too. And no
matter what you need, they have security covered too. Installing
packages from the appropriate official repo, no matter stable,
testing, or sid, you can rest easy knowing that security has been
handled appropriately.

Debian sid is often called a rolling release, and it's accurate
to do so; outside of the freeze before a stable release, debian
sid is constantly being updated. Other than that, if one sticks to
the official repos, and doesn't mix repos, just about everything
you could possibly need is there, and can be safely downloaded and
installed with almost zero unexpected gotchas to be had.

So why even try something new? Was there an itch that debian
sid wasn't scratching for me? The short and only answer to
the question is that for my personal daily driver computers
running sid, I have been for years maintaining a list (paper
and electronic) of packages that were installed from source and
outside of the standard sid repos. The itch that arch seemed to
scratch that debian sid does not, is a solution for installing
packages outside of the standard repos using the package
manager. Debian doesn't do this as easily, and more times than
not, it's easier to just build and install from source. With arch
however, using the aur, and the pkgbuild system, everything on my
lists of things installed outside the package manager on debain
sid, could be installed using the package manager and the aur.

Is it perfect? Is it safer? No to both questions. The aur doesn't
feel as safe or secure as debian for sure; but it is just a safe
as installing from source on sid, if you take the time to read
the source --which is something you should be doing every time you
install anything from source. The main advantage with arch and the
aur is that you can install from source using the package manager.

So, for me it's a win: if something is not in the official arch
repos, and it's in the aur (which everything on my lists were)
I can install it with the package manger, which with arch is a
superior user experience.

Just from a more nebulous aspect though, having things installed
more close to source (less patches than with debian binaries) my
system seems a little more lean--it's a feel thing but it seems
a little more lean and a little more snappy. One of the things I
really enjoy about a debian sid install is the minimal netinstall,
arch does this in spades, as you only install what you need and
you only enable or start the services you need as well. With arch
I feel more in control of every detail of my system.

Overall I am very happy replacing debian sid with arch, and I
don't regret anything about it. YMMV

--norris

(o\_!_/o)

03 13 1659_PEN_AND_PAPER.txt

2021 00:00:00 +0000

===================================================================
  DATE : 2021.03.13
  TIME : 16:59
AUTHOR : norris@sdf.org
 TITLE : PEN AND PAPER
 
===================================================================
Nothing earth shattering to see here, just a overdue, short
post about two things that I have carried with me everyday since
since graduating college in 1989: a pen and some kind of pocket
notebook.

It really started earlier than that though, around 5th grade;
I evidently was lying about the amount of homework I had, and
my mom made me carry a notebook that I was to use to write down
everything that I had to do. She probably had the teacher sign
it too; I can’t remember the details, but it worked, and I have
used and carried notebooks ever since. In school I would carry it
my bag, but since then it has resided in my back pocket.

I take notes on my computer too of course. I have used a variety
of apps in the past; I am currently using a combination of Vim,
Joplin, syncthing, git, and nextcloud. Notes stored on my computer
are more often for procedural or repetitive task, or things that I
may want to copy and paste. In most cases these digital notes are
as important to me as config files, and other things I routinely
back up, but the pen and paper notes server a different purpose,
and are also just quicker, easier, and more convenient. My analog
notes tend to be more list-like in nature, compared to the ones
I keep on my computer, and almost never need to be digitized, as
they are a mainly a complementary supplement to my digital note
taking.

Since graduating college and entering the work force, I have used
a variety of pocket sized notebooks, spiral bound flip books, pads
of paper in a cover, pocket calendars, and day-timers; but for
the last 20 years or so, I can say that of all the pen and paper
solutions I have carried, the best I have found is simply this:
a Fisher Bullet Space Pen coupled with 3.5“x 5.5” dotted, memo
books, carried in a leather cover.

What I love about this notebook, is that the leather cover makes
it very durable and comfortable to carry in my back pocket, and it
can hold 3, 64 page notebooks. In one leather cover I can carry
one notebook for long term work-related things, one for mostly
linux-related things, and one for archived material from the
previous year.

The Fisher Bullet Space Pen is almost indestructible. The one I
carry now, I found near my driveway after losing it for over a
year. It had been run over by a car and exposed to the elements
and still serves as my everyday pen. It’s not the best writing
pen, but it is small and comfortable, and easily carried.

It may seem trivial, or an insignificant geeky thing, but my pen
and paper pocket notebook make me happy.

--norris

(o\_!_/o)

02 07 1427_MY_GEMINI_CAPSULE_HAS_LAUNCHED.txt

2021 00:00:00 +0000

===================================================================
  DATE : 2021.02.07
  TIME : 14:27
AUTHOR : norris@sdf.org
 TITLE : MY GEMINI CAPSULE HAS LAUNCHED
 
===================================================================
And we have liftoff! I have a gemini capsule now.

If you already have a gemini client enter in the following
address:

gemini://gemini.lottalinuxlinks.com

Gemini is a new privacy-respecting internet protocol that
seeks to fill the space between the web and gopher. It
is still new to me, so I am just getting into it; but
[@Samsai](https://mastodon.social/@Samsai), has a really good post
about what makes gemini intriguing.

  [post]: https://samsai.eu/post/introduction-to-gemini/

Much like gopher, except way more modern, you will need a gemini
client to view gemini content.

Here is a list of clients, proxies, and servers that can be used
with gemini.

  [list]: https://github.com/kr1sp1n/awesome-gemini

If you don’t have a gemini client yet, you can use the gemini
portal to access gemini capsules with a web browser.

  [gemini portal]:
  https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/gemini.circumlunar.space/

There is not a lot of information on the web about it, but Project
Gemini, and of course wikipedia, have a little more information if
you are interested in learning more.

  [Project Gemini]: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ [wikipedia]:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)

Special thanks to [@ecliptik](https://fosstodon.org/@ecliptik) and
his _scripts repository.

  [_scripts repository]:
  https://github.com/ecliptik/ecliptik.github.io/tree/master/_scripts

--norris

(o\_!_/o)

01 31 0555_FOSSTODON.txt

2021 00:00:00 +0000

===================================================================
  DATE : 2021.01.31
  TIME : 05:55
AUTHOR : norris@sdf.org
 TITLE : FOSSTODON
 
===================================================================
I have posted before at about my experiences in the linux and FOSS
community, and specifically about getting in, fitting in, taking
part in, and later dropping out of the community. Since the recent
rebirth of this dormant website, I have revisited mastodon, and
logged back in to my fosstodon account again for the first time. I
say the first time because I honestly cannot remember the last
time I had logged in, but thankfully bitwarden had my password. In
the short two week period, at the time of this writing, that I
have been back on fosstodon, I can say it has been enjoyable and
eye opening.

Mastodon is an open source, and Free as in freedom, privacy
respecting, own your data, social network server and micro
blogging platform. All mastodon servers can communicate with
each other on a federated network of decentralized servers; this
means that if you are have an account on one server, or instance,
you can communicate with all users on the server you are on,
as well as users on other servers. Additionally, mastodon is
part of the larger fediverse and can communicate with the other
non-mastodon parts of the fediverse too. That is the short and
sweet, oversimplified explanation of what mastodon is.

If you want to know why you should use mastodon, please read the
post by @codesections:

~~~~~

at https://www.codesections.com/blog/mastodon-elevator-pitch/

~~~~~

about how and why mastodon is better than twitter; he is one of
the moderators of the fosstodon mastodon instance, and he says it
better than I ever could.

So, after that brief, what, how, and why, I will get back to the
main purpose of the this post, and continue to gush a little about
the fosstodon mastodon instance. One of the things I love about
mastodon and it being federated, is that the instance you choose
to have an account with can, if you find the right instance,
really feel like a community. What I mean by that is if you are a
Free and open source linux geek, the fosstodon instance will feel
like home for you. The fosstodon instance is filled with people
who care about linux, Free and open source software, and all
the various and sundry geeky/nerdy things that those people are
passionate about.  If you are passionate about something, being
surrounded by, and communicating with, people who are passionate
about the same things, puts you in an environment that both
liberates and fosters a healthy, fun, and engaging community.

I am living proof that, even someone like me who has suffered
from occasional impostor's syndrome, can, and will, be accepted
into the linux and Free and open source software community. The
fosstodon instance is a place for people like me; an exciting, and
engaging place that allows anyone and everyone that is passionate
about these things to get in , fit in, and take part in, an
accepting community that feels like home.

Fosstodon, being just one instance of the larger mastodon
federated network, isn't a particularity small instance with over
15,000 users (and don't forget you can still communicate with
the other instances), but it still feels like a community, as
well connected part of a larger unique part of the internet. And
that is because it is part of the fediverse, the larger universe
made up of all the federated networks, that in addition to
mastodon include diaspora, Friendica, GNU Social, Hubzilla,
Misskey, PeerTube, Pleroma, Pixelfed, Funkwhale, and possibly
more. Together, all of these decentralized networks of federated
servers make up the larger fediverse.  It is a small-feeling,
interconnected corner of the internet, that isn't controlled by
giant companies that mine your data for their profits. It sort of
reminds me of the internet before the web became the way it is
today; it somehow reminds me of gopher space and BBSs, when the
internet felt, in a good way, smaller--but more connected.

I told you I was gonna gush.

None of this is rocket science, and it may not even be that
eye-opening for most people reading this, but I have had my eyes
opened, again, by the linux and Free and open source software
community. Thanks fosstodon.

If you don't have a home on mastodon yet, and especially, if you
are passionate about FOSS and linux, just click the link below to
sign up for an account on the fosstodon instance:

Join fosstodon at https://fosstodon.org/invite/XrJRievw

And if fosstodon doesn't sound like home to you, being able to
pick

~~~~~

at https://instances.social/

~~~~~

or even host at

~~~~~

at https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon

~~~~~

your own instance are just two more reasons that make mastodon,
and the fediverse at

~~~~~

at https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse

~~~~~

so awesome.


--norris

(o\_!_/o)

01 29 1143_WELCOME_TO_THE_MODCAST.txt

2021 00:00:00 +0000

===================================================================
  DATE : 2021.01.29
  TIME : 11:43
AUTHOR : norris@sdf.org
 TITLE : WELCOME TO THE MODCAST
 
===================================================================
Shortly after I set up my gopher hole last year, I downloaded all
of the MOD files off of http://artscene.textfiles.com/music/mods/
thinking I would mirror them on my gopher site. I decided not to
once I had finished the 54 gig download of over 140,000 MOD files.
The directory structure of the downloaded files was going to make
it a little cumbersome to be useful on a gopher site. As an aside,
I can't remember the exact details, but I pretty sure I used wget,
or maybe it was curl, to grab the files; either way it was easy. I
kept the files and have enjoyed listening to them as background
music on several occasions since then.

But wait, what are MOD files? MOD is short for module, and
paraphrased from wikipedia at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOD_(file_format) is a file format,
first developed for the Amiga computer in 1987, and is mainly used
to represent music. A MOD file (including files with the extension
MOD, XM, IT, 669, MTM, and S3M) contains a set of instruments in
the form of samples and a number of patterns indicating how and
when the samples are played. More information about MOD files can
be found at the alt.binaries.sounds.mods FAQ at
http://cd.textfiles.com/darkdomain/faqs/faq-mod_v28-part1.txt,
retrieved and stored at http://textfiles.com.

All that aside, MOD files are both plenty fun and geeky; I have
fond memories of editing MOD files back in the day, changing the
instrument samples and completely changing the sound of the music.
And you can still do that today with with the MOD tracking program
MilkyTracker found at https://milkytracker.org/about/.

So, back to the story, a couple of day ago I decided I would
stream a randomly shuffled, continuous playlist of 140,129 MOD
files. That's a lot of MOD files; 309 days, 6 hours, 2 minutes,
and 48 seconds worth of mod files to be exact! With this many
files, there are sure to be some that are not your cup of tea, but
there will plenty of good ones too. So, if you feel so inclined,
tune in and give it a listen.  I can pretty much guarantee you
won't hear the same song twice in 309 day of continuous listening.

Just paste the following stream address in your media player of
choice:


http://lottalinuxlinks.com:8000/stream.m3u


I don't know for sure how much my daily internet usage will affect
the stream quality, but I know there will be times when the stream
is less than ideal. I really don't think this is going to blow
up the internet or anything like that, but if it gets to be a
hassle bandwidth wise (or even if it doesn't), there is a decent
chance that I may end up moving the stream to a slot on SDF's
anonradio at https://anonradio.net/listen/ or maybe tilderadio at
https://tilderadio.org/. We'll see what happens.

tl;dr: I set up a pretty awesome internet audio stream at
https://lottalinuxlinks.com/modcast/ of over 140,000 MOD files

--norris

(o\_!_/o)

01 20 1500_I3_SCRATCHPAD_AND_VIM_LIKE_MARKS.txt

2021 00:00:00 +0000

===================================================================
  DATE : 2021.01.20
  TIME : 15:00
AUTHOR : norris@sdf.org
 TITLE : I3 SCRATCHPAD AND VIM LIKE MARKS
 
===================================================================
I've been using linux a LONG time, and without a doubt the best
and most versatile graphical environment I have ever used is the
i3 tiling window manger. Technically I use a fork called i3-gaps,
but I will talk about that in another post one day. What makes
i3 the best (for me) is that it fits the way I work, is easily
customized, and that all the navigation can be done with the
keyboard. Two really cool features of i3 are the scratchpad and
vim like marks.

The scratchpad is a place you can send floating windows where
you can quickly retrieve them when needed. Think of it sort of
like minimizing a window--except that with i3 windows are not
minimized.  i3 is a tiling window manager and all windows are by
default opened in the largest dimensions possible. If a window
is the only window opened on a workspace, then it is maximized;
and if any more windows are opened on that workspace they are
tiled to take up half the space of the previously opened window
on that workspace. Any tiled window can be turned into a floating
window (and toggled back into a tiled window) with the following
keystroke (where the mod key is either set to the windows key or
the alt key, depending on your i3 config file--in my case I have
the mod key set to the windows key and mod1 set to the alt key):

~~~~~
mod+shift+space
~~~~~

mod+shift+space is a toggle, meaning repeating the keystroke will
disable floating for the window and return it to a tiling window.

Once a window is turned into a floating window it can be sent to
the scratchpad like this:

~~~~~
mod+shift+minus
~~~~~

Technically, you don't have to turn a window into a floating
window before you send it the scratchpad; i3 does that for you
when you send something to the scratchpad. mod+shift+minus will
send any window, whether it is tiled, tabbed, or floating to the
scratchpad; but any window that is retrieved from the scratchpad
is brought back as a floating window.

When a window is sent to the scratchpad it disappears. Like
I said, it is sort of like minimizing a window, except that
status bars in i3 show workspace numbers, not windows; that means
that there is no status bar indicator showing where that window
went. What good is a disappearing window if you can't bring it
back? Any window sent to the scratchpad can be retrieved like
this:

~~~~~
mod+minus
~~~~~

What makes this cool is that you can take any window that you
don't need right now, and set it aside, out of the way, until you
need it again, and then bring it right back to the front, where
and when you need it.  You can even configure programs to start in
a floating window that is sent straight to the scratchpad at start
up. I have my i3 config file set up to automatically start the RPN
calculator orpie, and a urxvt terminal window opened in a floating
window and sent to the scratchpad as soon as I start i3. In the
case of urxvt, my config file has this in it:

~~~~~
exec --no-startup-id urxvt -name scratchterm
for_window [instance="scratchterm"] move scratchpad
~~~~~

What if you decide that you no longer want a program to be in the
scratchpad? Simply retrieve it from the scratchpad (mod+minus),
and do a mod+shift+space to return it to a tiled window.

Once you have sent several windows to the scratchpad, you can
bring them back with a mod+minus; this will bring them back one
(and only one) at a time in a cycling sequence based on the order
that they were sent to the scratchpad. What that means is, if you
have eight windows in the scratchpad, you will have to repeat the
mod+minus keystroke until the one you are looking for cycles back
around.  This can become a little bit of a time waster, and that
is where vim like marks come in.

Why are they called vim like marks? Marks in vim allow you
to record your current position so that you can return to it
later. In i3 marks can be applied to windows that allow you
to directly jump to a specific window. In the case of windows
that don't reside in the scratchpad, going to a marked window
will switch to the appropriate workspace and focus the marked
window. That is cool enough all by itself, but combined with the
scratchpad, it gets even better.

I avoided using marks for a while, because I have i3 configured
to not draw window decorations (title bars and borders), and I
though this meant I couldn't use marks. I have since found out two
things, marks do not have to be drawn on window decorations to use
then, and i3 can even be configured to not show marks in window
decorations.

So, how do you use marks, and what makes using them so great
coupled with the scratchpad?  The way I use marks in i3 is by
using the i3-input tool to assign a mark to a window that can be
used to retrieve that specific window from the scratchpad. This
allows me to assign a keystroke to mark a window and another to
later go to that marked window whenever I choose.  Simply adding
the following to your i3 config file will do the trick:

~~~~~
# read 1 character and mark the current window with this character
bindsym $mod+m exec i3-input -F 'mark %s' -l 1 -P 'Mark: '

# read 1 character and go to the window with the character
bindsym $mod+g exec i3-input -F '[con_mark="%s"] focus' -l 1 -P 'Goto: '
~~~~~

With this, when I type mod+m the i3-input tool will open a
one line terminal to accept input, and I can mark the focused
window with a one character mark.  Then, I can send that
window to the scratchpad with all the other windows that are
already there. Later I can just type mod+g and then input the
one character mark I assigned, and boom, the marked window is
retrieved from the scratchpad. I didn't have to type mod+minus,
8 times to cycle through the scratchpad windows until I found it.

That's just the way I use the scratchpad with marks, and that just
scratches the surface (see what I did there?). You can configure
i3 to move containers and windows to a mark, use marks with a
window's class and title (or named instance like I used in the
urxvt example above) to jump to a specific window, and marks can
be be replaced removed and even toggled.

Scratching the itch where x marks the spot is something that
should never be typed in a phlog.

--norris

(o\_!_/o)

01 18 1731_CHECKRESTART_AND_NEEDRESTART.txt

2021 00:00:00 +0000

===================================================================
  DATE : 2021.01.18
  TIME : 17:31
AUTHOR : norris@sdf.org
 TITLE : CHECKRESTART AND NEEDRESTART
 
===================================================================
I saw a toot on mastodon today talking about the program
checkrestart. checkrestart, which is part of the debian-goodies
package, can check and see which processes need to be restarted
after an upgrade. So why is this cool, what does it do, and is it
worth installing?

Well, in general linux machines get a lot of updates, but don't
need to be rebooted very often. When the ratio of updates to
required reboots is high, as it is especially in the case of
debian sid, there are going to be times where services may still
use old libraries after doing a apt upgrade. Running checkrestart
as su will list what processes and services are still using old
versions of new files. It will also list the total number of
processes, the number of distinct programs and packages affected,
and if any of these contain systemd definitions or init scripts
that can be used to restart them.

Looking into checkrestart, and installing and running it, led me
to finding out about a package, that was inspired by checkrestart,
called needrestart. needrestart checks which daemons need to
be restarted after library upgrades. needrestart, in addition
to scanning processes, will scan containers, interpreter
based-daemons (Java, Perl, Python, Ruby), processor microcode
upgrades for Intel CPUs, and the kernel, for cases where outdated
libraries are being run, and even if there are any user sessions
where outdated binaries are being run.  The coolest part for me
though, is that needrestart is fully integrated with apt/dpkg and
will prompt you with a which services should be restarted dialog
after an apt upgrade.

Even though I have run debian sid on my daily driver for over
15 years, with a potential for available updates every 6 hours,
without either of these programs installed until today, I would
argue, that both of these are worth installing and using. With a
distro like sid, there are some best practices; and while neither
checkrestart or needrestart make this best practice list (like the
must have apt-listbugs, and apt-listchanges packeges), needrestart
(and checkrestart) both provide useful information (and the choice
to act on the provided information) that can help make your high
update to reboot ratio machine more secure. These are good things
to have.

--norris

(o\_!_/o)

01 13 1722_UNDERGROUND_AUDIOBOOK.txt

2021 00:00:00 +0000

===================================================================
  DATE : 2021.01.13
  TIME : 17:22
AUTHOR : norris@sdf.org
 TITLE : UNDERGROUND AUDIOBOOK
 
===================================================================
Underground: Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic
Frontier is a book written by Suelette Dreyfus with research by
Julian Assange in 1997.  The book's title is an apt description
of what the book is about, so I won't go into detail about
that. One of the unusual things about Underground is that the
authors licensed the book as literary freeware, which means that
the book is available to anyone, anywhere at no cost, and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever, except for commercial use of
course. The book is available at Project Gutenburg as well as at
http://underground-book.net.  After reading Underground in 2007,
I tried to contact Suelette Dreyfus about making a festival text
to speech audio version available as a serialized podcast. I never
could get in touch with her, so I emailed Julian Assange about
this:

Tue, Mar 6, 2007, 8:41 PM 

"Julian, I have tried
many time times to contact both you and Suelette
regarding this. I would like very much to make the book
Underground available in festival generated audio in a
podcast format. I have taken the text files available at
http://www.xs4all.nl/~suelette/underground/underground-speech-text/
and have converted them to audio using festival. I would like
very much to make these files available as mp3 and ogg files
(converted from the verbatim text files) available for download on
an individual basis, as well as to allow the end user to subscribe
to an rss feed containing the audio files. My gut tells me that
this is something that I am allowed, but I do not want to assume
the wrong thing. I want to make sure that i have permission to do
this.  Please know that I seek no personal gain from this. I would
just be making the converted files available to people in modern
download-able format. The feed could even be available in iTtunes.
Please let me know if this is something I am allowed to do. Thanks
in advance for your kind consideration of this request."

His reply:

Tues, Mar 6, 2007, 10:04 PM 

"Dear dave. Please do!

Sorry if we haven't been easily available. Busy consulting for
this http://wikileaks.org/

Best, J"

I only included the above exchange for the following obvious
reasons: it was super cool to have talked to one of the authors;
Julian Assange wrote the super cool program surfraw (that I still
use today in a rofi menu); the historical reference to wikileaks
in it's infancy; and Julian Assange is even more (in)famous today.
So please allow my braggadocio, as it was my 15 minutes of fame.

I did make the audio files, and did release them as a podcast,
and made them available for download too.  I hosted these files on
my server from 2007 until 2011 or so, when I sort of took a hiatus
from the linux community.

Anyway, the book is awesome, and you should read it if you
haven't.  Yesterday I generated new festival audio files for the
book and put them on my gopher sites; download and enjoy if you
wish.


--norris

(o\_!_/o)

01 13 1133_FESTIVAL,_OR_THE_MORE_THINGS_CHANGE_THE_MORE_THEY_STAY_THE_SAME.txt

2021 00:00:00 +0000

===================================================================
  DATE : 2021.01.13
  TIME : 11:33
AUTHOR : norris@sdf.org
 TITLE : FESTIVAL, OR THE MORE THINGS CHANGE THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME
 
===================================================================
Many moons ago, I had a podcast that I recorded from my car during
my commute.  As a time saving measure, instead of correcting
mistakes, or even worse, re-recording all or a portion of the
podcast, I would use festival and the festival program, text2wave
to have a computer generated, female voice, interrupt me and read
aloud any corrections that were needed. She more or less became
part of the show and was personified as Lynn. It was silly, and
fun, but it solved a problem, worked for me, and in some way sort
of reminded me of the fun my brother and sister had as kids back
in the 70s using a tape cassette recorder and the heating ducts
in our floor to broadcast our "radio station" from one room to
the other.

Back then, 2005-2010-ish, getting festival to sound "good"
required installing the CMU Artic SLT voices, or better yet the
Nitech HTS voices, and also required compiling and installing the
latest festival from source. It seems to be much easier now, at
least with debian, to get a result almost as good as I was able
to achieve back in 2005 since the festvox-us-slt-hts voices are
in the repo and get me very close to where I was then. Simply
installing the festvox-us-slt-hts deb was enough to pull in
everything I needed to get things working.

Sadly, the Nitech HTS voices are still problematic, in fact even
more so. In 2005 you had to have the latest version of festival
and now in 2020 you have to have an old version since the Nitech
HTS voices are not compatible with versions of festival greater
than 2.1. Ain't that a kick in the head, the more things change
the more they stay the same.

None of this is probably new information, but its sort of news
to me since I am re-visiting festival for the first time in 11
years.  A lot has changed since then and commercial text to speech
solutions are scary good nowadays; but if you want to use FOSS,
festival still foots the bill.

--norris

(o\_!_/o)

01 12 1332_FWUPDMGR_FTW!.txt

2021 00:00:00 +0000

===================================================================
  DATE : 2021.01.12
  TIME : 13:32
AUTHOR : norris@sdf.org
 TITLE : FWUPDMGR FTW!
 
===================================================================
fwupdmgr is awesome. Used to be, updating the bios and firmware on
a computer with linux installed was more difficult than it is now.
Sadly, Dell Poweredge machines aren't on the supported list (yet)
of machines able to use fwupdmgr, and are therefore a real pain
in the neck when BIOS and firmware updates come around; having to
boot off a usb drive and execute a windows .exe file is never fun.
Thankfully, Lenovo Thinkpads are supported and firmware updates
are easy.

What makes this easy is the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS).
LVFS is a secure web service where computer hardware vendors
upload their firmware updates. If your hardware is supported, the
firmware update daemon (fwupd) will connect to the LVFS and notify
you when there are firmware updates. The updates can then be
installed with the command line firmware update manager (fwupdmgr)
client.  There are even GUI fwupdmgr clients, but I have never
used any of them.

For me at least, using fwupdmgr has been simple and, so far has
just worked. The list of supported hardware is long, and chances
are good that your hardware is supported. If your hardware is
not on the list yet, it could be added in the future as the list
grows.

So before ado is anyway furthered, here is the line by line:

Display all devices detected by fwupd:

fwupdmgr get-devices

download the latest metadata:

fwupdmgr refresh

list all available updates for your machine:

fwupdmgr-get updates

and install the updates:

fwupdmgr update

You can even install the updates individually from the command
line , but ONLY of you are SURE you have the correct cab file:
fwupdmgr install name-of-the-file-you-are-sure-about.cab.

--norris

(o\_!_/o)