Open Source

Program Chatter

by

Got into a random conversation with a co-worker today about Adobe products, and how the creative landscape has shifted over the last decade. I remember when Adobe was the king of video editing, but now with so many other options it doesn’t make sense to buy Creative Cloud anymore and their monthly subscription service. He has a subscription and even he was questioning why. I told him the only Adobe tool left in my arsenal is After Effects, and even then I’ll eventually try to learn the compositing side of Blender.

There was once a time when I would go between Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects and Audition. Now it’s Krita, Shotcut/KdenLive, Audacity and every once in awhile After Effects. Now if they could implement HDR video editing into one of these Open Source programs that would be metal af.

The Evil Plotting Begins… Again

by

I’ve been using Mastodon at least once a day, and so far it’s been working out pretty well other than the occasional server hiccups and downtime. All the more reason for me to build my own Mastodon instance, my new year’s resolution. I plan to build it on AlmaLinux. It would solve these downtime issues and I would free up resources for the current instance I currently reside in. I’m sure there will be some issues, there always seems to be with this stuff. But it’ll be worth it just for my own customization! 😛

I Have Achieved Blogception

by

I’ve added an RSS feed from my Mastodon to my WordPress! If you look to your left on desktop, or scroll to the bottom on mobile – you’ll find my Mastodon feed! I’m starting to get a modest follower base on there! Lots of fellow users of the Deck of Steam, and Linux nerds. So far my overall experience with it has been good, even boosted a celebrity or two. 😉

Social Butterflying

by

I’ve been keeping tabs on Mastodon for the last week, and so far I’ve been enjoying it! They rolled out an update yesterday that allows you to translate a foreign post (or toot! as they call it) with the press of a button! Now I can understand what people around the world are saying, whether it be someone from Japan wanting to chill, or if it’s someone in Mexico questioning if potatoes are more fattening than bread. You do have the option of only allowing certain languages, but I’m fine with all of them active. It’s interesting to see perspectives from around the world, and it shows me there’s a bigger picture.

I’m still planning on building my own instance. It will not be open to the public to join, but those who are allowed will still be seen by the other instances if they so choose. I’ve been seeing instances get temp blocked for having too many asshats join up just to be asshats until the admins get their instances under control.

In the meantime I have been experimenting with a new plugin that will allow me to automatically cross post to Mastodon. I’ve only used it once, it seems to work for now. The only thing it doesn’t post is an image from a blog post, but other than that it’ seems to work right out of the box. I might look more into other plugins once I get my instance up and running, give the devs time to update their plugins.

Social Sunday: Mastodon

by

Most people who know me are aware of my stance on social media. I’ve basically hated the idea since MySpace, and have always preferred self hosted options. One of my friends put together a small mastodon test server recently, and that gave me a good enough excuse to play around! Sometime in the not too distant future (this will have to be a weekend project) I will be looking into building one with my current domain behind it, but until then you can find me here. I plan to put smaller posts there that don’t really belong here, plus syndicating some of my content and other weird ideas. Feel free to follow me there if you use Mastodon!

Pining For Pine!

by

One of the many things keeping me from investing in a proper smartphone is the severe lack of control for the end user; you either have to sign up with Apple or Google if you want to use any apps, or you sideload all of your apps from an outside source (which can be risky if you don’t know what you’re downloading). I want a phone that functions like all of my other devices, and when Android was announced in what feels like an eternity ago I thought it was a novel idea to carry around a Linux powered phone. Of course, Android is just Creepy Uncle Google’s competitor against iOS, a version of Linux turned evil by those who claimed not to at one point. If there was a smartphone that offered the same level of customization without rooting/jailbreaking I would of have jumped on the smartphone bandwagon an eternity ago… and now something interesting this way comes.

I’ve been following Pine64 for awhile now, and so far the PinePhone seems to be the most viable option. It doesn’t offer much for the built in camera, but I wouldn’t really be using a phone for a camera when I prefer using kick ass cameras, but I do admire the idea of having physical kill switches for the microphone and camera functions. Of course, the best part for me is being able to swap out a MicroSD card with any Linux OS of my choice! By default it comes with Manjaro, and powered by KDE Plasma for the interface. I’m not ready to drop the cash on this project just yet though… I like the idea, but it’s still in the beta phase. I’ll be keeping an eye on things, and if it meets my standards in reviews I’ll snag one before it rolls out of beta. I would like a phone that I could just update via a main repository (and any other swag) like under typical desktop Linux.

That said… I am in need of a watch! and the smartwatch business never really interested me for a lot of the same reasons that persist with smartphones and most tablets: having to sign up for shit. FitBit, Apple, and others all track your steps and other analytical data that your device is capable of picking up. I’m well aware that the PineWatch isn’t as sophisticated as such other devices, but for what I want a smartwatch is going to be overkill. Give me something that tells time, tracks steps, and lets me program the shit out of it! The watch itself is a decent $26 at the time of writing about this, and if you want to do extra level tinkering, you can also purchase the devkit version containing a regular watch and an unsealed version for you to perform mad science experiments upon. For now I don’t think I don’t think I’ll be doing anything outside of swapping firmware depending on what version of infinitime the watch is running. I’ve also been hearing good things about WaspOS, as well.

I’ll do a follow up once the latter device is in my possession. 😀

Praise The Penguin!

by

I got Linux back up and running on the desktop! This time I’m up and running on the KDE spin of Manjaro, and so far everything seems to be running fine on a newer kernel and set of Open Source drivers. All of my programs are reinstalled and ready to go! I can finally move my projects back to Linux, and even see how my new graphics card performs on the Linux side of things! I launched AMID EVIL just to see if the drivers were working properly, and it ran with flying colours of blood!

I think that earns me a good passing out! I’ll need more energy before I continue further tweaking. I’ve also done more tweaking to my Manjaro on my Surface Pro; added Shotcut, Audacity, and I already had Krita installed for drawing and photo editing. I’m thinking these programs might come in handy if we go traveling this year; it would be nice to be able to do some small video editing or photo tweaking while traveling in motion, especially during long drives. It would be nice to have a video or photo of something ready to deploy as soon as I’m in range of some semi-decent internetz. My next plan for the tablet is to install some light duty games, and maybe a couple of emulators. It won’t be nearly as good as my gaming systems, but during travel it can help kill a little time. 😛

My 6800XT Is Making Linux Suicidal

by

My plans to reinstall Manjaro have hit a brick wall… Updating to Manjaro 21 didn’t fix anything, in fact it wouldn’t even let me into the operating system and produced the same result as yesterday when I tried to login. I tried installing ArchLinux, but the installer decided to throw auditing errors just as it seems to want to do under Manjaro. I also decided to give Solus a whirl, but that just ended up freezing the fucking installer. I finally got Mint to install, but now I’m having issues installing drivers via PPA.

I forgot to factor in the GPU shortage makes it difficult for Linux developers to code for them. This is going to require more research; I’ll have to rely on Windoze until I can find time to get it sorted. But I’ll get it working at some point… I always do.

Typical Day Under Linux

by

I’ve been chatting here and there about my Linux adventures at work, especially to those who aren’t aware of how much it’s evolved over the years. One of my co-workers was even inquiring about good video/paint/audio software, and I named my current favourites (audacity, shotcut, krita, etc), he was quite happy to see all the alternatives we have nowadays. We both agreed that it was nice to finally live in a digital age where Adobe is no longer the king. We even talked Linux distros for a few, apparently he’s a Mint user. I’ve surprisingly met quite a few old guys that are also Mint users, which is kinda funny and cool at the same time. They have a minty taste for distros. 😛

Could Krita Be My Photoshop Replacement?

by

I’ve been striving for years to use more Open Source programs when applicable, especially when it comes to production purposes. I was happy when I could happily say that I no longer needed to install Premiere Pro when I stumbled onto Shotcut as a worthy free and Open Source alternative. Now I think I’ve possibly found an alternative for my Photoshopping needs.

From Krita’s Website

I’ve been bouncing back and forth between GIMP and Krita for a number of years now, and I could never really get used to GIMP, and I preferred Krita in terms of layout and additional options that are very similar to Photoshop IMO (and in some cases even better). I’ve been using it for basic image resizing, playing with filter options, and tonight I did some slight retexturing to a model in SFM. I’ve also been meaning to set aside time to try playing around with Krita and my Wacom tablet. Linux has support for Wacom drawing peripherals, and Krita seems to have a good target focus on drawing; they even have options for comic panels!

Even when I’m in Windows I’m using it Krita in place of Adobe. In fact; under Windows I don’t even have Photoshop installed; kinda funny considering I have CS5 installed and working under Manjaro. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re looking for an Open Source alternative, or if you want to ween yourself off of Adobe’s overrated swag.