Well, I decided to upgrade my version of Awesome 2.3.4 to v 3.4.1.

This was by far a bigger task than i had envisioned. The configuration file has had a major overhaul since the 2.3 version, although the new version has much more customization abilities. First off, I had to enable the ppa – http://ppa.launchpad.net/aguignard/ppa/ubuntu, to install the latest version. Once installed, I was clueless on how to customize it for my liking.

Thanks to darthlukan @ desktopevolution.org, the main customizing was very easy. He has laid out the different steps, from enabling wallpaper to adding widgets in three different posts, starting here- http://www.desktopevolution.org/archives/6.

The only other issue I had after I followed the great posts by darthlukan, was that my open programs on the taskbar had icons. I hated that. After using my google-fu to the best of its abilities, I still had no solution. I then posed my question to the great minds at Linuxquestions.org, and very promptly I was responded to by antegallya. They proposed a patch to the /usr/share/awesom/lib/awful/widget/tasklist.lua that would enable disabling the taskbar icons. I gave it a shot, and it worked perfectly.

If you are wanting to try this, navigate to the above listed file, and locate the following section:

@@ -95,6 +95,10 @@
     local text = "<span font_desc='"..font.."'>"
     local name
     local status_image
+    local c_icon
+    if not args.hide_icon then
+        c_icon = c.icon
+    end
     if client.floating.get(c) and floating_icon then
         status_image = capi.image(floating_icon)
     end

The above lines with the + symbol need to be manually inserted into the file.

The next section the – symbol means to remove the line, replaced by the line with the + symbol.

@@ -120,7 +124,7 @@
         text = text .. name
     end
     text = text .. "</span>"
-    return text, bg, status_image, c.icon
+    return text, bg, status_image, c_icon
 end

If this were to brick your install, I claim no responsibility. Please backup your files prior to editing.

With Statler, CrunchBang has decided to leave the Ubuntu base and switch to the grandaddy distribution,  Debian. They have also decided to provide a version with the XFCE desktop and one with the Openbox window manager.

Release announcement here: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/6843/crunchbang-10-statler-alpha-1-released/

Decision to switch from Ubuntu to Debian explained : http://reddevil62-techhead.blogspot.com/2010/03/interview-crunchbang-creator-explains.html

I have installed Arch on a desktop and I must admit, it feels really awesome once you complete it. You feel like you accomplished something. I have yet to take the plunge on a laptop, mainly since I have a Dell Studio 1735 which has the notorious Broadcom wireless chip. If you have dealt with getting one of these to work with Linux, you know what I am talking about.

But Archbang takes all of the work out of installing the base Arch from scratch, and uses a LiveCD setup. I ran the liveCD on my Dell laptop, and it ran like a dream. It even recognized my wireless chip (although I had to manually set up the network which is no biggee) and I don’t think it broke 150MB of RAM usage while I was checking it out. That is impressive.

The ArchBang team just recently released RC2, which shows much improvement from RC1. I definetly recommend checking it out if you want to give Arch Linux a try without spending the time to install it the usual way.

Homepage: http://www.archbang.org/

http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic/365/crunchbang-web-badge/

Direct Link : http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/5701/crunchbanggm6.jpg

Star Wars IV/V/VI – The original series, not the re-hashed garbage from the early 00s. This movie trilogy did more for geek culture than any in history. If you haven’t seen these, stop reading now, and go buy the box set.

Office Space – any office worker should be able to appreciate this movie. From the ‘case of the Mondays’ lady to Lumberg, we all have experienced this.

War Games – What? Matthew Broderick a hacker? Even if that is as hard to believe for you as it was for me, this movie showed society that hacking was a ‘real thing’. He played wargames against a government simulation computer, for goodness sake.

Hackers – As cheesy as this movie is (I watched it today, lol). It really brought the hacking culture to the big screen. It delved into the roller-blading, tight shirt wearing, fire-alarm setting persona that all of us strive to have. Plus, Angelina Jolie with short hair. RAWWWRR.

The Fifth Element – How could this one not be on this list? You have Bruce Willis as a futuristic cab-driver that stumbles upon the ‘supreme being’ played by Milla Jovovich (omg). From the four element stones, to the Opera-singing alien, to the flamboyant DJ, and the loveable bad guy ‘Zorg’, this movie oozes geekness.

The Matrix – The first one. I was in awe when I saw the first, and it went steadily down hill with each installment. You’ve all seen this one, you know why it’s on the list.

Alien /1/s/3 – The essential sci-fi film. Sigourney Weaver is the baddest woman on the planet, evidenced by these films.

Lord of  the Rings 1/2/3 – The majority of movie-goers flooded the theaters when these were released, for good reason. This series demonstrated CGI that we have not seen before, and still is comparable to whats being shown today. If you haven’t seen these, call in sick one day, and lay on the couch to watch all three. It’s worth it.

Bladerunner – Harrison Ford stars as a cop who hunts down and terminates ‘replicants’ or artificial humans.  What about that is not to love?

Anti-trust – Ryan Philippe plays a programmer light years ahead of his age, and is recruited by the biggest software company on the planet. If you’re brain-dead, then the movie is an obvious jab at the Microsoft anti-trust suits back in the day. Regardless, this is a really enthralling suspense movie, which would probably be enjoyed by your non-geek counterparts.

Honorable Mention:

These could be substituted for a few of the ones above:

Sneakers – For some reason, this movie went undetected by my geekyness until last year, and I loved every minute of it. Robert Redford is the leader of a rogue squad of ex- important guys that stumble across some big stuff. They have to use their skills to save their collective butts. (Sorry for the ‘laymans’ terms, just dont wanna give out spoilers).

P.S. – I have seen Tron and 2001. Neither deserved to be on this list. Sorry.

If you have any to add, feel free to post them. I always look forward to expanding my geekiness

I have been running Linux in one form or another since 2006, mainly running Debian-based distros. I discovered #!Crunchbang Linux in 2008, and have been running it exclusively on my laptop.

I have tinkered with tiling WMs before, mainly Xmonad, wmii, and awesome. I’ve recently become bored with my Openbox setup on #!, so I decided to mix it up, and install a tiling WM. I gave the usual suspects a try and decided to stick with Awesome.

Awesome gave me everything I needed without too much configuring (wallpaper, statusbar, customization). I worked with it a bit this afternoon and was able to get it the way I liked it (so far).

Here is a screenshot of my current setup with just the terminal running:

http://yfrog.com/gi040510j

Here is a screenshot with firefox and a terminal running:

http://yfrog.com/jx0405210j

It took my a little while to get the clock working on the statusbar, but I finally got it working. I used the following script to start the clock when Awesome is started, along with adding the few lines to the .awesomerc.

Clock entry:

iconbox logo
{
image = “/usr/share/awesome/icons/awesome16.png”
mouse
{
button = “1″
command = “spawn”
arg = “exec x-terminal-emulator -e man awesome”
}
}

textbox clock
{
text = “-”
align = “right”
}
}
}

Clock script:

#!/bin/sh
while true
do
echo “0 widget_tell mystatusbar clock text ” \
“`date +”%A %B %d, %Y %l:%M %p”`” | awesome-client
sleep 1
done

.Xsession file:

gnome-power-manager &
nm-applet &
gnome-screensaver &
feh –bg-scale /home/path/to/the/image/ &
sh /home/lance/.awesome/awesomeclock.sh &

exec awesome

# The above file starts  the gnome power manger, network manager applet, gnome screensaver, sets the wallpaper, and the clock script. This file needs to be placed in your home folder, or ~/.Xsession.

Choose the Xsession session during login, or the ‘Xclient script’ startup.

Another thing that was driving me crazy was that the icons were being displayed for each open program in the status bar. After some intensive googling, I found the following entry to be placed in the .awesomerc.

mouse
{
button = “5″
command = “tag_setlayout”
arg = “-1″
}
}
tasklist mytasklist
{
show_icons = false

mouse
{
button = “4″
command = “client_focusnext”
}

That was a really easy fix for all of the time I spent googling. I must tune up my google-fu.