Division By 0

Acabo de terminar de visionar este magnifico anime de 26 27 episodios y no puedo dejar de recomendarlo a todos, llegando incluso a volver a escribir en este trozo de chatarra blogil solo para comentarlo a los que de alguna forma sigan entrando, sabe Dios el por qué, en este recóndito lugar de la telaraña.

Como iba diciendo, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, recomendación por cierto de Raingna es un anime sencillamente magnifico que coloco a la altura de Berserk y Full Metal Alchemist no por estilo, sino por su capacidad de transmitir mucho más que mera diversión. De hecho, no es casualidad la comparación, ya que como las dos anteriores, hace falta terminarla para apreciarla adecuadamente y parece ser en general incomprendida.

Lo dicho, no dejéis que cualquiera de las apreciaciones sobre cosas de escasa importancia os echen para atrás y disfrutad lo que de verdad importa.¡No os la perdáis!

This last weekend there was quite a blackout for 2 days where I live, and it seems one of its consequences was internet not working anymore. I hate calling customer support of ISPs. They are prepared to solve some problems sequentially but it is difficult to step right into the real problem when you think you know what happens. Let’s see how the call would have worked in a typical scenario… Based on a similar call I made some time ago.

Customer support: Hello, I am xxxxxxxx. How may I help you?
crimsomshadow: Good morning. Internet has stopped working yesterday, but my router configuration is ok. Could you check if connection reaches here?
Customer support: Could you tell me your router’s color?
crimsomshadow: I think my router is ok. Could you please check if connection reaches here?
Customer support: The only possible problem can be your router. Please tell me your router’s color
crimsomshadow: Black and grey…
Customer support: So it is a “Insert brand name here” ZX4815162342. Can you confirm that?
crimsomshadow: Yeah, it is. I tell you I already checked it
Customer support: Please, go to a computer, click “Start-Run” and type cmd. A black window should appear. You must type “ping 192.168.1.1″. Please tell me what do you see after that
crimsomshadow: (Thinking: My router IP isn’t that one…) It pings back
Customer support: You really did as I told you?
crimsomshadow: I checked before calling
Customer support: Please do it now
crimsomshadow: Ok, it still pings back
Customer support: Then your router is not broken. It must be a configuration problem. Please push the reset button for 10 seconds and check if you can connect to the internet
crimsomshadow: (Thinking: Oh man…) Done. Still not working
Customer support: Wait a moment, sir
…
…
…
…
…
Customer support: Sorry for making you wait, sir. It seems there is a connection problem in our side. It will be solved in the following 24/48 hours. Thank you

I know I should just follow what customer service says, but it was worth trying. Let’s see how it fared this last time…

Customer support: Hello, I am xxxxxxxx. How may I help you?
crimsomshadow: Good morning. Internet stopped working this weekend with the blackout and is still doesn’t work
Customer support: Ok, let’s check it… Could you tell me your router’s color?
crimsomshadow: The thing is, my router is not the one you sent me… We bought a different one
Customer support: … I see. Ok, can you click “Start-Run” on a nearby computer…
crimsomshadow: Well, you see, I am a Linux user, but I can follow…
Customer support: Please wait a moment, sir
…
Customer support: Sorry for making you wait, sir. It seems there is a connection problem in our side. It will be solved in the following 24/48 hours. Thank you.

Funny.

Once upon a time there was a young man that worked a lot on christmas with his laptop. Of all christmas there was one only that on which he had so much work he just needed to get all done in no time. It could be destiny or just bad luck, but just when those christmas days were beginning, the laptop stopped working and the young man had to send it to costumer service. Even without his laptop, the young man worked as hard as he could.

The laptop was one of a kind. Robust, powerful, beautiful. As the man usually worked with virtual machines he needed a lot of memory, so he bought 4GB RAM when he started working with that laptop. That didn’t work out of the box because of some memory mapping problems with the graphics chip, but there was a official bios update that fixed the problem, so nothing could go better.

When he got his laptop back, the young man was very happy. But happiness usually doesn’t last too much. The memory mapping bug was back, and when he tried to update the bios, he found out the motherboard was different and there weren’t any compatible bios updates. When looking for a solution, he discovered this problem was unsolved since 9 months ago, and the manufacturer remained in silence, ignoring their costumer’s requests. When he read the four character name of the manufacturer he felt hatred. Not only against them, but against all manufacturers in general. It happened with one manufacturer this time, but previously it was with other, and sure it will happen again and again.

And thus this tale ends with a laptop that feels horribly different to how it felt before supposedly getting repaired.

Moral: You cannot trust any manufacturer, it always comes down to this as they grow.

In one of the last posts we saw how to achieve a lightweight Debian installation with LXDE, a Desktop Environment with netbooks in mind. But there are a lot of reasons to get simple and let behind the Desktop Environment concept (DE from now on) for a Window Manager (WM from now on). The step we are taking now is Openbox.

Openbox is a WM, and just to keep the record, it is the WM LXDE uses (so if we followed the last how-to we are somehow familiarized with it). What is a WM? It is an application that manages the position, size, movement and usually, the decoration (title bar) of windows, besides cool features. The smartest will probably understood by now that every DE uses a WM. There are two types of WM; floating and tiling. The first one is similar to what we can find on DEs: overlapping floating windows we can drag and drop with our mice. The second one is geared towards keyboard users and tries to share the screen space amongst windows following user specified rules, so when the user runs applications the WM adjusts all windows size and position. Openbox is of the first type.

One thing users must deal with with WMs is that a lot of them haven’t panel as is. It is possible to install a lot of different panels, though, but as I see it, Openbox is nearly perfect without one. To realize this, we must think about for what we use panels and how this tasks are accomplished with Openbox:

• In panels we have menus -> In Openbox we can right-click (default) anywhere to get a configurable menu where we clicked.
• In panels we have a list of opened applications -> In Openbox we can middle-click (default) anywhere to get a list of applications in each virtual desktop.
• In panel we have a tray notification area -> In order to achieve this we need to install other software like docker
• In a panel we have widget-like elements like clocks, mixers… -> For this we have to install additional software too, like conky or lal.

Most common features of panels are not only already present in WMs, but usually are better and more usable. Given WMs are simpler than DEs, they are usually more configurable.

The curious thing about this is that as time goes by as a GNU/Linux user and you understand better how things work, you find new ways to achieve what you need easier, getting your user experience better. Those of us who have used Windows for a long time are usually used to getting things in a static, non-customizable way, ad I think it is important to understand what you need and how you can adapt the system to work like you want it to. Habits aren’t that good usually!

Soon I’ll write a Openbox how-to. Stay tuned

Sorry, but this post is not available in english