linux

Chris Siebenmann describes Mike Hoye's (mhoye) Linux setup as deliberately living in the Linux console or close to it. The setup described is out there and everytime I get tempted to do something the same I'm reminded on the following:

If other people in the world have the computer problems I have now, no search has brought me to them. Error messages that do not exist anywhere except my screen and the program source if I’m lucky are part of my life. If something doesn’t work either I deal with it or I don’t. This is not the easy path, and you walk it alone.

Regardless it's worth the read, if not for ore entertainment, there's useful bits if information in there.

Chris Siebenmann on managing personal builds and binaries:

I also have both a general ~/bin directory, for general scripts and other architecture independent things, and a ~/bin/bin. subdirectory, for architecture dependent things. When I install a program into ~/lib// and want to use it, I will make either a symbolic link or a cover script in ~/bin/bin. for it, such as '~/bin/bin./emacs'. This symbolic link or cover script always points to what I want to use as the current version of the program, and I update it when I want to switch.