Linux

Arky over at Playing With Sid posted a few months ago on “Reading RSS/XML feeds in Elinks Line Browser”, which he does by running raggle in server mode, inside a screen session. Then he directs Elinks at that via http://localhost:2222 (the default Raggle web UI port). Clever idea — I expect you could do that over SSH and have Raggle running centrally on a server you could access from wherever.

From Mendel Cooper comes the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide: An in-depth exploration of the art of shell scripting.

This tutorial assumes no previous knowledge of scripting or programming, but progresses rapidly toward an intermediate/advanced level of instruction … all the while sneaking in little snippets of UNIX® wisdom and lore. It serves as a textbook, a manual for self-study, and a reference and source of knowledge on shell scripting techniques. The exercises and heavily-commented examples invite active reader participation, under the premise that the only way to really learn scripting is to write scripts.

This book is suitable for classroom use as a general introduction to programming concepts.

Raggle is a swell console/terminal-based RSS client I mentioned a while ago (nearly two years ago to the day — weird!). Like any RSS program, it will allow you to open a link or feed item in a regular web browser. Since it’s in the terminal, that may not work as desired, opening them in a console web browser like ELinks or not opening them at all.

On Mac OS X, getting Raggle to open up those links in your default web browser is easy thanks to the /usr/bin/open command.

Raggle preferences and other files are stored under ~/.raggle so navigate there in your terminal. It doesn’t create your custom configuration file automatically, so just start a new text file there called “config.rb” (Raggle is a Ruby program, thus the .rb).

(You can change pretty much any behavior you want using this file; check out the doc/default_config.rb that came with your Raggle download for full examples.)

Customizing the browser is really simple. Here’s all you’ll need in the config.rb file:

$config = {
    'browser_cmd' => ['/usr/bin/open', '%s'],
}

And that’s it!

A pair of stories on /. today hold a particular fascination for me, particularly when taken together:

“Linux Desktop Distro Shootout”

“War Brewing on the Inexpensive Laptop Front”

They point to a pair of stories:

Infoweek: “Linux Shootout: 7 Desktop Distros Compared”.

We tested openSUSE, Ubuntu 8.04, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva Linux One, Fedora, SimplyMEPIS, and CentOS 5.1. All performed well, and each had at least one truly outstanding feature.

(At the moment, I am veering toward Kubuntu.)

And The Christian Science Monitor: “More computer brands chase the ‘$100 laptop’”.

Bye bye, bulk. New lines of tiny PCs fit both in your purse and into third-world classrooms.

Taken together, I can see my near-future computing needs handled, particularly on the writing front.

If you’re new to Linux and trying to decide what distro is right for you, it can be a bit daunting…as Wikipedia’s Comparison of Linux distributions proves. Asking n Linux users will give you n different answers.

Doing some Googling earlier, I came across this spiffy utility that offers an easy way to figure it out: the Linux Distribution Chooser, which leads you through a sort of Choose Your Own Adventure story/test/wizard. Whether you’re a total newbie or grizzled vet, this looks like it will definitely help you make your choice.