The Zen Cow Says Mu

Ed is the standard editor

unfortunately there’s no rhyme or reason to the naming. which came first: bookworm, buster, or bullseye? They should just use numbers.

It was 1993, so not super impressed, but I needed a tex distribution, and PC dos tex sucked. The best option was a Nextcube, but that was a little out of reach being as much as tuition. Or use the x terminals in the crowded computer lab (shudder).

But I was able to keep that slackware install up and working just long enough to get my thesis done.

It’s a contemporary 4 core processor. It can run anything.

Heck, my 8gig 2010 MacBook with a core duo runs gnome on Debian without any issues.

Separating the function of the backend out from the frontend

this is the way.

home server in basement running almalinux, which provides mythtv, plex library, homeassistant, calibreweb, podcast management

desktop/gaming pc in home office

chromecast/google tv in living room with kodi, plex, other streaming apps, steam link for streaming games from downstairs and using bluetooth xbox controllers

Way back in the early 90s I needed to use LaTeX for university. The dos version was awful and couldn’t handle large documents. So the options were (1) a nextcube for $$$$, (2) Nextstep 3.3 for PCs for $$$ (some faculty had this), or (3) linux. So I downloaded slackware on dozens of disks.

You had to configure the kernel, which wasn’t too hard since the autoconfig walked you through it. The hardest part was setting up X11, which required a lot of manual config, and if you screwed up the timings you could destroy a CRT monitor. OpenStep was an option, so there was a moderately friendly windowmanager available.

Learning Emacs was also fairly unpleasant, but that was the best option for editing TeX at the time.

Everything would work, until it suddenly would break. But nonetheless I was somehow able to get that thesis done.

Ugh, modern linux is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better