voidlinux remove old kernels & modules

I noticed while updating my void that kernels were being updated, but old ones weren't being removed. Removing orphan packages didn't remove those old files either. I looked for those packages, but they weren't even listed in either the local or the remote repository. It seems kernel packages seem to be a one-way install, and the old package disappears when a new update appears. No wonder I couldn't remove them.

git repos online

An not-so-recent discussion on various repositories, led me to the GNU Ethical Criteria.

This prompted me to re-evaluate what I use myself, and I have ended up reordering my preferences to

Cancer in our Communities

Communities can contain cancer cells too!

Just like the cancer cells in human bodies, there can be individuals/cabals cancerous to communities.. online and offline. Some say that cancerous cells are present in all bodies, but remain mutant and repressed in healthy bodies. When the body loses control over cancerous cells, they can take down the entire body, even to it's death. This similarity extends to communities too.

Google News redesign?

Google News^[2] redesign is awful, atrocious, not fit for purpose... and the internet is fuming, just like when the much loved Google Reader was killed. But does the Big G care? Apparently not! We noticed that attitude, when Google Plus was imposed on everyone. As Google effectively deprecates all devices on older Android versions, with every new Android version.

That's the price for wanting to live with Google. It's their road, or the highway. Use them, but don't depend on them. Yeah, and before you forget.. Don't be evil!

ccze making console life colourful

I discovered ccze a few days ago, while looking for something else. And suddenly my console experience has become more richer and fruitier ;) Like me, if you too (like to) spend more time on the console, and like a little bit of colour, you will love ccze.

gentoo low-power binary-package server

I want to setup a low-power device like the Pi perhaps, to compile and distribute gentoo packages to other computers on the local network at home. Almost all devices are mobile/laptop devices, much more powerful than the Pi, but only online occasionally.

Trying to be All Things to All People

You can't please all the people all the time.

If so, what are the implications, particularly in an open-source world? Trying to please everyone might be a noble ambition. But is that realistic enough and practically achievable? If yes, then all is well! If not, then what..?

Gentoo Portage emerge TMPDIR extending zram btrfs volumes

You can probably see I was heading this way. This post follows a series, and you should read those posts again if you haven't done so recently. This blog post follows my journey through btrfs to gentoo to portage to tmpfs to zram back to btrfs again to finish a circle.

Discovering zram and replacing all tmpfs

I have just discovered zram^[2] :) woohoo... and what a thing that is!

I was so sold on tmpfs, that I used it for everything I possibly could. Since discovering zram, I am using tmpfs for nothing. All my tmpfs needs are met by zram much more efficiently.

Blogger blogspot full-width fluid-design

In this day and age, there is no excuse for webpages to be designed for any particular screen size, other than web-developer apathy, laziness, and/or sheer ignorance (read arrogance). In fact, there never was any reason in the past either.. Just that most developers of yore hand-coded html/css. These days most script-kiddies don't know anything beyond what their point-and-click tool can provide.

gentoo emerge in tmpfs

One of my gentoo pain points has been the extremely (long and) resource intensive emerge for large packages. However, it is expected and many have come up with their own tricks to make this more efficient.

For me, this has been a gradual step-by-step approach, as I encountered these issues and discovered more about Gentoo.

I stated out with my portage configured as default -- compiling everything on the same disk/filesystem mount on my rotating (not ssd) disk. Any emerge affected everything else, which was too invasive to ignore.

I want emerge to run gently in the background, not affecting any foreground tasks.

Devuan releases a candidate.. finally!!?

The Register has just published⁴: "systemd-free Devuan Linux hits version 1.0.0".

My views on systemd still stand. I was hoping to be proved wrong, perhaps in the long-run. But sadly what I see, has only just served to entrench those views.

Ubuntu Phone is dead.. Long live The Phone!

Mark Shuttleworth writes² about the end of Ubuntu Phone: apparently NOT "widely appreciated both in the free software community and in the technology industry... In the community, our efforts were seen fragmentation not innovation."

I think he refers to the Gnome community.

busybox .config in gentoo

busybox can be configured, just like the kernel :)

Phasing out Arch Linux

ref: Phasing out i686 support

Arch Linux is great at what it does.. always chasing that elusive bleeding edge and providing no other choices to users. I don't want either of that, and I am now phasing out arch from my stacks.