UNIX

Useful Unix Utilities

Nameless

What are some useful Unix utilities you've been using lately?

Something that's entered my toolbox in the last few months is `just`.
https://github.com/casey/just

They're kind of like Makefiles but simpler, because it's not trying to be a build utility. It just runs commands. After a few months of use, I have justfiles sprinkled all through my system to run various project-specific shell commands. It hits a sweet spot between one liners and dedicated scripts, and it has really enhanced various workflows for me. Things that I wouldn't have automated before (because it feels too small), I *do* automate now, because these justfiles feel like an appropriate place for those little tasks.

To install, or not to install

Nameless

ima linux user and ive been recently thinking about instaling unix on a vm to try it
how does it compare to gnu/linux?
i know linux was based on how unix works so i expect some similarities but i also know that its propably another thing to learn from scratch
any advice?

ive bean thinking...
████████ / _______________________
██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒██ / /
██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒██ / /
██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ ▒▒▒▒▒▒██ \/
██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ ▒▒▒▒▒▒██
██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒████
██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒██
██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒██
████▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒██
██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒██
██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒██
██▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒██
████▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒██

Text Editors

Nameless

What text editor do you use and why?

Resolution

Nameless

What is your current screen resolution?
Mine is 1024x768, I've used larger displays in past but I've noticed that most of that space is usually empty and I prefer information density. 1024x768 was also the standard when most of the software I use was made, so things tend to fit neatly.

late.sh

Nameless

https://late.sh/ - You ssh in to participate. I'm reminded of pre-internet BBSs.
Hitting ? will show you the keybindings.

Invasion of privacy in the name of "protection"

Nameless

ITT we discuss the ongoing destruction of online liberty through government datamining efforts. Systemd, which is used by many linux distros, has already crumbled to the age verification laws (´・ω・｀).

Scripting for Fun

Nameless

Using Elisp, calculate how many days it's been since world2ch.net went offline.

(defvar world2ch-offline-date "2026-01-18"
"Date that world2ch.net went offline.")

(defun today ()
"Return today's date as an ISO-8601 date string."
(format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d"))

(defun days-offline ()
"Print and return the number of days since world2ch.net went offline."
(interactive)
(let* ((math (format "<%s> - <%s> + 1"
(today)
world2ch-offline-date))
(answer (calc-eval math)))
(message answer)
answer))

(days-offline)

Operating Systems

Nameless

So, what OS do you use? Do not reply if you use Windows, unless it's pre-xp.
I use slackware linux, and have tampered with NetBSD. I hate BSDs with a passion

A New Language Called Strada

Nameless

https://strada-lang.github.io/
It's like Perl 5 with types.

Secure Networking Retrofit

Nameless

This probably exists already, but I am considering making software that lets you connect a classic OS such as Windows 95 or very early Linux with modern HTTPS or SSH by acting as a translation layer to convert the connection to HTTP or insecure Telnet.

I'm probably going to write this using Java 1.0.2, which allows for you to use it on the mass majority of 32-bit operating systems. Is there any reason not to do this beyond "the usecases are very limited?"