Over the last month, I’ve return to a project I worked on in the fall — making a theme for the CTWM window manager for Linux. I started working on it in October, and reached a point where it looked nice enough, but it wasn’t finished. The config was messy, and I planned to revisitContinue reading “Revisiting a Retro Linux Desktop”
Tag Archives: Linux Mint
Coding Myself a VPN Toggle
At fifty, I am becoming the Linux nerd I feel I should have been at twenty-five. I had a problem. I wanted an easy way to connect and disconnect from Diamond’s VPN. Yes, I could use the Network Connections interface in Linux Mint, but sometimes it expands while I was navigating to the VPN toggleContinue reading “Coding Myself a VPN Toggle”
Building a Dock in Linux Mint Cinnamon
One of the cool things about Linux Mint is that the Cinnamon desktop environment is built from CSS, and with a little custom code you can do some interesting things, like turn a panel — in Windows parlance, a taskbar — into a dock. Like here! That dock at left? It’s CSS, and not veryContinue reading “Building a Dock in Linux Mint Cinnamon”
Going Retro
As we approach the year 2024, there’s really no need for this. I installed CTWM, an old X11 window manager from the early early 90s, on Linux Mint, and it’s not the first time I’ve done this. CTWM is the sort of thing I read about in Byte in those days and never experienced forContinue reading “Going Retro”
Setting Up a New WiFi Dongle in Linux from the Command Line
I ran into a problem recently. I’d bought a new Wi-Fi USB dongle for my computer. Windows picked it up immediately and connected to my router. My Linux installs did not. Oh, the dongle worked. My desktop and my notebook (a rehabbed Chromebook) could see the router it had connected to before. But I hadContinue reading “Setting Up a New WiFi Dongle in Linux from the Command Line”
So Smart I’m Dumb
Let’s begin with this: Windows XP, running in a virtual machine on Linux Mint. Hell, I even configured the Quick Launch toolbar, and the single screenshot I have of my XP days shows I never used the Quick Launch toolbar. So, why do I have a Windows XP virtual machine running under Linux? Yesterday morning,Continue reading “So Smart I’m Dumb”
Office Space, Three Years On
Last week, Diamond entered the fourth year of work-from-home. I work out of the offices two or three days a week — it depends on the kind of work I’m doing and the projects I’m working on — and have, honestly, since the end of March 2020, but full time in the office, for mostContinue reading “Office Space, Three Years On”
Changing up the Desktop
Discovering NASA’s Flickr photo archive this week was nice, as it game me an opportunity to update a desktop wallpaper. Notice the use of a. Manjaro My Manjaro installation probably could have used a refresh. Now it looks like this. It’s KDE with the Sweet Ambar Blue theme, the Candy icon set, and the PlankContinue reading “Changing up the Desktop”
Retro Cool Computing
I am a well-known crazy person. Normal people do not install WindowMaker on a perfectly fine Linux Mint installation just for kicks. Nor do they then make an icon for their work VPN connection with the company logo so it looks nice in the dock. Out of the box, so to speak, WindowMaker had theContinue reading “Retro Cool Computing”
Falling Victim to the Classic Blunder
Guess who rang in the new year by falling victim to one of the classic blunders, the eBay scam? Okay, okay, technically, it was two weeks ago. We got a small bonus check at work, and I spent it on a 2TB SSD drive on eBay. I’m not hurting for storage — I have fourContinue reading “Falling Victim to the Classic Blunder”