Re: [Trisquel-users] Tehnoetic X200 Tablet and T500 now available

[silentdreamer]

Thanks.

Peace.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Could a Lutris fork be used to create a libre replacement for SteamOS?

[taknamay]

> Sure, the command line package manager is always the back-end for  
downloading and installing application software. At that level, I presume  
Lutris is just running APT commands, the same way Add/Remove Applications  
does, right?


I suppose so, is Lutris specifically designed to work well with gamepads?

Regarding the "desktop environment" that is really not what I mean. I am not  
sure how to fully explain what I am referring to here, are you familiar with  
the "Steam Overlay"? In the middle of a game, you can instantly access  
certain Steam functionality while pausing the game. The whole environment is  
kind of tied together. Your example of Kodi is a good one, though I am not  
sure how you could tie it together on the technical side.


> What about gaming control software developed for libre game consoles like  
the Ouya and Pandora? Could that be adapted for more general use with  
joysticks and other controllers?


I was not talking about these lower-level hardware issues -- I was talking  
about interfaces appropriate for a television screen and gamepad experience.  
My experience is that gamepads work pretty well, and it's not hard to program  
for them. Maybe an improved interface for mapping the gamepad to keys would  
be welcome (such as what Antimicro does).


BTW let me just say I like the idea. It's something I have considered but  
wasn't sure how much the free software community would benefit from it.

Re: [Trisquel-users] What other forums so you use and recommend?

[jason]

I think there is supposed to be a gnu in there somewhere...

https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html

[Trisquel-users] What other forums so you use and recommend?

[mkl80]

Hello forum.
That's my question as in the title. Imagine that I want to became more pro in  
linux, linux Sysadmin, programmer and so on... what forums do you use? what  
do you recommend?


note: more like technical linux forums not chats, I don't have much time to  
waist.


Best regards to all
Hugs.

Re: [Trisquel-users] interview with alimiracle

[jbar]

Thanks for the link and thanks, alimiracle, for all your work in free  
software.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Tehnoetic X200 Tablet and T500 now available

[onpon4]

> Whatever FUD means, I just know it's bad, as in, BS, but I assume the first  
letter represents a certain four letter word.


You know, you can look these things up rather than making assumptions. You do  
have the Internet at your disposal, after all. And yes, the first letter does  
happen to represent a certain 4-letter word. That word is "fear". The other  
words are "uncertainty" and "doubt".


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt

Re: [Trisquel-users] Tehnoetic X200 Tablet and T500 now available

[silentdreamer]

this is so sad, especially to someone who doesn't understand all this stuff,  
to have to sift through a bunch of info to try to determine WHO'S telling the  
truth! Knowing RMS has commented on the situation, it seems I should consider  
his words, which I will read again.


I don't know if there's a way to truly know if this thing is Libre or not,  
without testing it myself, which is something I don't know how to do if I had  
one. I'd hate to get one to find out it isn't, then have to get help fixing  
it, or sending it to someone who can free it for me.


Whatever FUD means, I just know it's bad, as in, BS, but I assume the first  
letter represents a certain four letter word. Until I'm sure I understand  
what's going on, I keep quiet.


I'd hate to see the free software community become split because of what's  
being said here. Rather than getting caught up in it, I'd rather walk away  
and wait till the situation is settled.


Whatever's going on, it's extremely unsettling. I was shocked to see  
Strypey's response to me, but I also appreciate it. Hopefully the facts will  
become obvious to me soon.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Tehnoetic X200 Tablet and T500 now available

[calmstorm]

How Interesting, here is my response,

[Trisquel-users] Re : backup software

[lcerf]

What error message do you get?  Are you restoring the whole backup (I  
successfully did that the last time I changed my laptop) or just part of it  
from Nautilus contextual menu ("Restore Missing Files..." or "Revert to  
Previous Version...")?

Re: [Trisquel-users] backup software

[davidpgil]

I like backintime. Has a GUI and CLI and easy to use and just works. It use  
this for backup and restoring individual files. For a disk image backup I use  
clonezilla.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Could a Lutris fork be used to create a libre replacement for SteamOS?

[onpon4]

> What about gaming control software developed for libre game consoles like  
the Ouya and Pandora?


I don't know about Ouya, though I'm pretty sure that software is all  
proprietary, but the Pandora doesn't offer anything special on that front.  
The "MiniMenu" interface isn't all that useful, so the normally used desktop  
environment is just Xfce. "MiniMenu" doesn't use an actual gamepad, anyway  
(the Pandora's game controls are all mapped to keys, with the exception of  
the analog nubs which are mapped to mouse controls).


> More detailed questions; what standards are there covering what physical  
ports can be used and what control protocols regulate signals for the gaming  
controller to the OS? How many of these are implemented in mature or even  
usable libre libraries?


I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here, but this sounds to me like  
something the Linux Joystick Driver takes care of. The joystick driver  
figures out how to communicate with the gamepad and abstracts it into a  
number of axes, hats, and buttons. I know that the Linux Joystick Driver  
works with USB-HID (the only actual standard that exists for gamepads) and  
XInput (the non-standard protocol Xbox 360 controllers use). It does not work  
with DirectInput, the obsolete protocol of DirectX, but there aren't a whole  
lot of controllers that use that.


The actual thing you have to worry about isn't the low-level technical  
details of how the controllers work, but rather the layout of controls, which  
there isn't any particular standard for. In some cases you just have to  
recognize specific controllers because their layouts are so bizarre (*cough*  
Dualshock 3 *cough*).


> There would also needs to be a concerted effort to develop fully-functional  
libre drivers for all the hardware in Steam Machines, especially the graphics  
chipsets.


That might not always be possible. Recent Nvidia cards do signature checking,  
so it's not possible to replace the proprietary firmware on them. In cases  
where a Steam machine uses such a GPU, the most we can do with it (without  
replacing the GPU) is get it running without hardware graphics acceleration.


> immersive VR takes off

I seriously doubt there will ever be a libre VR game worth mentioning. Never  
mind whether or not there's a libre library for VR, it's just going to be too  
expensive to be a realistic project for any libre game developer, especially  
if (as I suspect) VR is just a passing fad.

Re: [Trisquel-users] backup software

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

I currently have a backup script that runs once a month in the first
Friday from my user's crontab.

The script is short, and uses:

* Rsync (latest versions downloaded from Guix).
* GNU Tar.
* Whiptail (for dialog boxes).
* mktemp (from GNU Coreutils).
* basename (from GNU Coreutils).

The crontab entries use:
* GNU Screen (so that I can answer to the dialog box after the job started, 
because cron starts it in the backgroud).
* date (from GNU Coreutils).

# Begin of script
#!/bin/sh
# # Copyright (C) 2016  Adonay "adfeno" Felipe Nogueira 
 
# 
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, version 3 of the License.
# 
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
# 
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program.  If not, see .

temporary_directory="$(mktemp --tmpdir -d "rsync-backup.XXX")"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  whiptail --yesno \
   "Start backup with rsync?

Target directory:

$temporary_directory" 0 0
  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
cd "$1"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  "$HOME/.guix-profile/bin/rsync" -v \
  -aERS --no-D \
  --delete-excluded \
  --include-from="$2" \
  "./" "$temporary_directory"
  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
cd "$(dirname "$temporary_directory")"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  echo "Packing temporary directory: $temporary_directory"
  tar -cpz -f "$3" "$(basename "$temporary_directory")"
  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
rm -fR "$temporary_directory"
  else
echo "Packing failed! Keeping temporary directory."
  fi;fi;fi;fi;fi;fi
# End of script

The crontab entries follow the following model:

# Begin of crontab entry
00 13 * * 5 [ $(date '+\%d') -le 7 ] && screen -dm -S "rsync-backup-Projects" 
sh "$HOME/Software/backup.sh" "$HOME/Projects" 
"$HOME/.config/Backup/Projects.txt" "$HOME/Projects.tar.gz"
# End of crontab entry

For at least one of them that runs in the same time as the others, I use
this instead:

# Begin of crontab entry
00 13 * * 5 [ $(date '+\%d') -le 7 ] && screen -dm -S "rsync-backup-home" sh -c 
'"$HOME/.guix-profile/bin/mpv" "$HOME/Music/Wildfire Games - 0 A.D. Original 
Soundtrack/Omri Lahav - Eastern Dreams (CC BY-SA 3.0).opus"; sh 
"$HOME/Software/backup.sh" "$HOME" "$HOME/.config/Backup/home.txt" 
"$HOME/$(basename "$HOME").tar.gz"'
# End of crontab entry

... This uses mpv (downloaded from Guix) to play a music that can also
be heard by the same user (even though mpv was started by crontab
entry).

When the backup starts, since it tells me where the backups will be
done, I can put a previously-made backup there making sure GNU Tar
preserves permissions, ownership, and strips the first component (this
last part is needed if you want to "re-enable" the tarbomb that my
script tries to disable). All of which is documented in GNU Tar
manual. This allows me to do incremental backups and also keep the
.tar.gz compression and archiving, at the expense of having to extract the 
previous .tar.gz archive myself.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Could a Lutris fork be used to create a libre replacement for SteamOS?

[strypey]

I'm quite serious about trying to get this up and running over the course of  
next year. Anyone keen to get onboard? For now I'm going to go with the  
working title GOLD GNU/Linux:


Gaming
On
Libre
Distribution

>> I think the backend should just be your package manager. > I think there  
are not satisfactory apps that work with a controller > Desktop  
environment/shell 

Re: [Trisquel-users] Introduction

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

Welcome PeaceGuy!

Greetings from Brazil. :)

I also do some digital painting, although I'm not a professional, and
although I don't have those digital drawing tables (I plan to buy one
someday too, :D).

I use MyPaint, but I have seen artists doing awesome paintings with GIMP
and Krita.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Could a Lutris fork be used to create a libre replacement for SteamOS?

[Adonay Felipe Nogueira]

Note that, for free/libre software to be considered as such, society
must be able to build and run it using **at least** solely free/libre
software.

Also, for a game (or software, in general) to be allowed for inclusion
on a free/libre system distribution,  their non-functional data (in
short: art, but some art can also be functional) must **at least** give
society the freedom to share **and** sell copies of the original
non-functional data (freedom 2 entirely). Note that, if they don't want
their project to be included in free/libre system distributions, then
making sure that these non-functional data is **at least** shareable
(half of freedom 2). This paragraph is an important distinction between
the free/libre software philosphy and definition in general (which is
more "permissive" in this regard) and the GNU Free Distribution
Guidelines (GNU FSDG) (which is more strictier).

If those "libre" games you said aren't available in free/libre system
distributions, it can be either due to the above; due to lack of time
for packaging; or due to the project goals.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Ututo XS: what about non-free software

[stas . mihaylenko]

Yes.

Re: [Trisquel-users] Tehnoetic X200 Tablet and T500 now available

[tct]

I'm sorry to see yet another ThinkPenguin minion trying to convince people  
that it's "FUD" what others and I have proved with facts.


FYI, Parabola (the only free distro installed on EOMA68-20 computers) had to  
update their article about EOMA68 because the original article was  
propagating the false claim that it's "libre hardware".


https://lists.parabola.nu/pipermail/dev/2016-August/thread.html#4341
https://www.parabola.nu/news/new-ryf-seeking-hardware-crowdfunding-project-with-parabola-pre-installed/

And RMS also agreed with me that's it's not "libre hardware" (free-design  
hardware).


On 28.08.2016 22:30, Richard Stallman wrote:
>   > But since FSF also encourages people to free the design of their
>   > hardware, wouldn't be important to tell them that if they promote their
>   > hardware as "libre hardware" they should distribute the free PCB design
>   > sources along with the hardware? Or to stop saying their computer is
>   > "libre hardware" until it actually is?
>
> Yes, and I am saying that to them.

On 29.08.2016 23:52, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Please stop attacking them publicly, for the next week or two.  You
> are right, but attacking them harshly hurts the community.  I think I
> can get them straightened out on these issues in a gentler way,
> and that will result in a better outcome for the community.

If EOMA68-A20 computer will be released as free-design hardware sooner rather  
than later, it's thanks to activists (including me) that have warned people  
about the false claims and demanded a deadline for the release.


The EOMA68 crowdfunding campaign hasn't offer and still doesn't offer any  
deadline for the release of free PCB files:


"The only exception to this rule to release everything in advance is the PCB  
CAD files for the Computer Card. We’re planning to release the PCB CAD  
files for the Computer card once sufficient units are hit that ensures any  
third party manufacturing runs will not undermine the project’s development  
or stability." -- https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop


And the campaign text still falsely claims that EOMA68 "has been a Libre  
Hardware and Software project right from the beginning".


And when the EOMA68-A20 PCB source files will be released under a free  
license, the free software community will have to reimplement it in a free  
CAD software, because the board was designed in proprietary CAD software and  
can be modified only in its proprietary format.


Unlike EOMA68, Olimex provide free PCB source files developed with a free CAD  
software (KiCAD) for the boards they market as "open hardware" (free-design  
hardware).