A brave new world

Another 3 cycle rides in a row this week, covering 256 km distance for the week. This would be about 50 km more than I used to commute each week when working in Central London (before Covid). The first two rides went well, the third was in colder conditions that I prepared for, so I was a little cold during the ride.

Three cycle rides in a row seem to be quite a challenge, although 2 rides in a row seem to be okay.

Started watching Star Trek Discovery from the beginning. I find it a very engaging with an intricate combination of plot lines. The most involved of any series from the Star Trek world.

Hyprlandλ︎

After some experimentation I finally got Thunar file manager dialogs appearing in nice places on the screen.

Experiments with Hyprland window rules

# Practicalli - set Thunar popups to float
# Didnt seem to work
# windowrule = float, initialClass: thunar, title: Rename: .*
# windowrule = float, initialClass: thunar, title: File Operation Progress: .*

# Example windowrule v2
# windowrulev2 = float,class:^(kitty)$,title:^(kitty)$
# See https://wiki.hyprland.org/Configuring/Window-Rules/ for more

# windowrulev2 = float,class:^(kitty)$,title:^(kitty)$

# Practicalli - set Thunar popups to float using windowrulev2

# Make all windows float
# windowrulev2 = float, class:.*

# windowrule = move 100%- 100%-,class:^(thunar)$,title:(Rename.*)$

# popups appear center of display by default
# stays focused until dismissed - not sure if this makes a difference...
# windowrule = float,stayfocused,class:^(thunar)$,title:(Rename.*)$
# windowrule = float,stayfocused,move cursor -50% -50%,class:^(thunar)$,title:(Rename.*)$
# windowrule = move cursor -50% -50%,class:^(thunar)$,title:(Rename.*)$

# Show thunar rename popup at the mouse pointer position
windowrule = float,stayfocused,move cursor -50% -50%,class:^(thunar)$,title:(Rename.*)$

# windowrulev2 = move 100%- 100%-,stayfocused,class:^(thunar)$,title:(Rename.*)$
# windowrule = float,class:^(thunar)$,title:(File Operation Progress.*)$
# windowrulev2 = float,move 100%- 100%-,class:^(thunar)$,title:(File Operation Progress.*)$
windowrule = float,class:^(thunar)$,title:(File Operation Progress.*)$
# windowrule = move onscreen 100%- 100%-,class:^(thunar)$,title:(File Operation Progress.*)$  # wrong format
# windowrule = move onscreen 80% 80%,class:^(thunar)$,title:(File Operation Progress.*)$
windowrule = move onscreen 100%-24 100%-24,class:^(thunar)$,title:(File Operation Progress.*)$

Opinionated Hyprlandλ︎

There is an opinionated Arch/Hyprland distributon (has a maintainer with very dubious opinions). It is available as a self-contained ISO, so no internet downloads should be required during the install.

This does mean a 7 GB download is required, along with a USB stick or suitable SD card of 8 Gb or more.

There are links to the ISO image on the website and in the manual, but I didnt see a link to a checksum file to check the integrity of the download.

Caligula is recommend to burn the ISO to the removable media on a Linux operating system. I like this tool.

Burn opinionated ISO to usb memory stick

caligula burn ~/Downloads/opinionated-3.0.1.iso

Caligula will prompt for a checksum file if one is not found. Unfortunately I did not have time to hunt for one.

Caligula shows a selection list for all the removable media it finds, detailing the size of that media. I recommend only the USB memory stick to be used for opinionated to be plugged into the computer, just in case :)

After 915.3 seconds (caligula shows the times) the opinionated image was written to the USB memory stick and verified the image was written without error. 653.8 seconds to write the image, the rest to verify.

NOTE: I used an old USB Memory Stick (USB-A) which I picked up somewhere for free. Newer USB sticks with USB-C or SD Memory cards may be faster.

Booting from the USB Memory stick displayed a simple opinionated menu system to define key information about the user, login name & password, Full name and email address (used for Git authentication), computer name and finally selecting where to install opinionated.

After 7 minutes 23 seconds opinionated was installed.

Enter to reboot the computer and remove the USB memory stick after the computer shuts down, just before starting again.

opinionated starts with a simple login screen, with a prompt for the users password.

NOTE: I had to login a second time, as a few seconds after first entering the password opinionated returned me to the password prompt.

It will be interesting to see how much tweaking I feel compelled to do over the coming weeks.

Removing softwareλ︎

Super + Alt, SPACE > Remove to remove software not required.

The computer used to test opinionated has 8Gb of memory and 256 Gb or storage, so larger programs and those not otherwise not being tested can be removed.

libre-office - wide range of office documents (I use Google docs, sheets, etc.)
Obsidian - not taking app (I use Neovim instead)
Typora writing tool (commercial)
Dropbox file sharing and syncing
Spotify supports dubious podcasts so philosophically objection al to me

Evaluate softwareλ︎

There are many software packages installed and even more made installable via the opinionated menu.

Kdenlive video editor (an alternative to Blender)
Signal end to end encryption (is there a need for this?)
LocalSend sends files to other devices across the network
mpv is that better than vlc ? - I prefer VLC, but mpv seems quite usable. I will stick with VLC.
Tailscale VPN

Terminalλ︎

Switch to Kitty terminal and reuse the Practicalli dotfiles or appreciate configuration options from there.

Super + Alt Space to open the system menu. Navigate to Install > Terminal and select Kitty.

A prompt shows to enter the sudo password and installs Kitty packages on correct entry.

A Restart Hyprland button appears once install is complete. This sets opinionated to use Kitty as the default terminal, opening all requested configuration files in that terminal (and Neovim).