D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Sat, 8 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Fri, 7 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

Yeah---there's a fine line between incrementing language and sticking >>>>>> with the previous, well-established vocabulary. That's particularly >>>>>> important for hackers because they have an imense amount of vocabulary >>>>>> to manage and great fluency is essential to their day-to-day operations. >>>>>

Another example from hell for me is powershell. I've never seen such long >>>>> command! Microsoft powershell gurus must really enjoy typing!

Besides, it's yet another shell. Even if it were really great... Have >>>> you seen Plan9's rc? It's a very neat shell. But it's not Bourne's sh. >>>> It's hard to overcome the inertia of a large body moving at high speed. >>>

Never seen. How does it differ from plain old bash?

The thing I recall was that rc had a native list data structure. I
don't recall much more than that; the feeling was that it was neat,
tidy, more concise, more elegant. It felt closer to a general-purpose
programming language, while still supporting the loved Bourne syntax.

It's a shame it died. =( Wasn't the idea to refine the good, old, Unix
ideas, and improve on lessons learned?

I wouldn't say it died. I believe Plan 9 is doing pretty well, but I
don't think they're trying to compete with popular systems. It's a
research system, I'd say. OpenBSD is a research system, even though
it's totally usable. In fact, it's the one I like to use.

To take the idea of everything as a file, to the extreme?

I think Plan 9 is the most UNIX system ever. I think it takes everything-is-a-file to as far as it has been.

I often fantasize if I will see another OS revolution like Linux in my lifetime. That would be awesome!

I feel the revolution is not Linux per se. Surely Linux is sound---no
doubt there. But it's also quite clear that Richard Stallman had the
*whole* idea in mind easily before Linux. Without Linux, for example,
the GNU project could have taken the FreeBSD kernel and made a complete
system out of it. In fact, they did. So, the revolution OS is not
quite Linux. Even because Linux did not bring anything really new back
in the 90s.

Perhaps the novelty of the GNU project was that it was Free Software.

What I think it's hard to do even today is to think of an operating
system for microcomputers that's really different from UNIX. It's UNIX
that's the revolution. And now it's stuck in system developers' mind so
much that I think they hard time coming up with something new.

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On Mon, 10 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

It's a shame it died. =( Wasn't the idea to refine the good, old, Unix
ideas, and improve on lessons learned?

I wouldn't say it died. I believe Plan 9 is doing pretty well, but I
don't think they're trying to compete with popular systems. It's a
research system, I'd say. OpenBSD is a research system, even though
it's totally usable. In fact, it's the one I like to use.

Would be nice if someone took Plan 9 and managed to get it to run natively on servers and laptops, or even one brand of server and one brand of laptop. I would definitely try it!

How is openbsd as a daily driver? I've been close to replacing my opensuse with freebsd. It wasn't quite there in terms of hardware support (it lacked anything beyond G wifi, which is too slow). Maybe openbsd is better than freebsd?

I often fantasize if I will see another OS revolution like Linux in my
lifetime. That would be awesome!

I feel the revolution is not Linux per se. Surely Linux is sound---no
doubt there. But it's also quite clear that Richard Stallman had the
*whole* idea in mind easily before Linux. Without Linux, for example,
the GNU project could have taken the FreeBSD kernel and made a complete system out of it. In fact, they did. So, the revolution OS is not
quite Linux. Even because Linux did not bring anything really new back
in the 90s.

Perhaps the novelty of the GNU project was that it was Free Software.

What I think it's hard to do even today is to think of an operating
system for microcomputers that's really different from UNIX. It's UNIX that's the revolution. And now it's stuck in system developers' mind so
much that I think they hard time coming up with something new.

That's why I think it would be awesome! If someone would be able to come up with
a complete paradigm shift in operating systems. Unix won, windows is getting closer and closer to unix every year, and I would expect them to just drop windows in a few years when WSL has taken over "ship of theseus" style.

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D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Mon, 10 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

It's a shame it died. =( Wasn't the idea to refine the good, old, Unix
ideas, and improve on lessons learned?

I wouldn't say it died. I believe Plan 9 is doing pretty well, but I
don't think they're trying to compete with popular systems. It's a
research system, I'd say. OpenBSD is a research system, even though
it's totally usable. In fact, it's the one I like to use.

Would be nice if someone took Plan 9 and managed to get it to run natively on servers and laptops, or even one brand of server and one brand of laptop. I would definitely try it!

I've ran Plan 9 on an x86 virtual machine, which means it will probably
install okay on popular hardware. I think some people do run Plan 9 as
their daily system.

How is openbsd as a daily driver? I've been close to replacing my
opensuse with freebsd. It wasn't quite there in terms of hardware
support (it lacked anything beyond G wifi, which is too slow). Maybe
openbsd is better than freebsd?

I got in the BSD world by way of FreeBSD. What attracted me to FreeBSD
was the documentation in the system---manuals in particular---and I also appreciated the ports collection. (It was so much easier to compile and
run an application back then than it was to hunt for sources in the GNU
systems worlds. That allowed me to make small changes in the software I
was running to learn about how it worked.) In more recent years I had
switched to Windows due to working with companies that required me to
run a Windows system. (Also due to personal reasons: when I was in
graduate school, I wanted to keep all my software in a single directory,
which was easy on Windows and hard on UNIX. But to use Windows, I
needed a GNU EMACS packed with other programs such as cat, grep, find,
awk, sed, ...) The work and personal reasons have gone away, so I
decided to go FreeBSD again. But ever since hibernation was implemented
in Windows XP that I love the feature. It turns out FreeBSD doesn't
hibernate, but OpenBSD does (on my amd64 computer). And then I
discovered that OpenBSD is as impeccable in the documentation as FreeBSD
is. So I went with OpenBSD. I have not found a way to run OpenBSD in a battery-saving mode, though, so my entire battery last about an hour
with OpenBSD, while it would likely last the entire day with Windows 10,
say. There's probably things I can do that I don't know how to do at
the moment. I'm hardly ever in need of a battery, though. So I'm a
pretty happy OpenBSD user.

I also learned about cwm, the ``calm window manager'', which I think it
was built by the OpenBSD people. It's the window manager that has
enchanted me the most.

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onion@anon.invalid (Mr Ön!on) writes:

Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

I believe Plan 9 is doing pretty well ...

<https://youtu.be/-zNSQmS2gls>

Thanks! Have you watched? Can you explain why they choose the name?

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Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

onion@anon.invalid (Mr Ön!on) writes:

Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

I believe Plan 9 is doing pretty well ...

<https://youtu.be/-zNSQmS2gls>

Thanks! Have you watched? Can you explain why they choose the name?

<https://plan9.io/wiki/plan9/lfaq/index.html>
|
| * Where did the name come from?
|
| It was chosen in the Bell Labs tradition of selecting names that make
| marketeers wince. The developers also wished to pay homage to the
| famous Ed Wood's film, Plan 9 From Outer Space, which is about aliens
| who bring earthly corpses back to life.
.

--
I do not bite, I just want to play.

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In article <87o6y7bomx.fsf@example.com>,
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

onion@anon.invalid (Mr Ön!on) writes:

Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

I believe Plan 9 is doing pretty well ...

<https://youtu.be/-zNSQmS2gls>

Thanks! Have you watched? Can you explain why they choose the name?

The operating system or the movie? I don't know why the movie
was called that; perhaps Ed Wood just thought it was clever. It
refers to a plot point, the 9th extraterrestrial plan to destroy
earth.

At Bell Labs, in the 1127 research group, it was something of a
tradition to give things names that were a bit of a joke, and
also gave others headaches. The original name for "Unix" was
UNICS, as a pun on Multics, for example (and some have claimed
it had a double meaning as an off-color joke making reference to
a "castrated" version of its predecessor, especially given that
the usual pronunciation was aliterative with the word "eunuchs".
I'm not sure I believe that, though).

Anyway, Plan 9, the operating system, was named in a similar
vein after the movie. There are a few other historical movie
references associated with it, as well: the original window
system was named "8 1/2" (though using the Unicode code point
for the fraction 1/2), in reference to the Fellini film. In
between the 2nd and 3rd Editions, the working name for the
system at the Labs was "Brazil", in homage to the Terry Gilliam
dystopian cult classic. While the name was changed back to Plan
9 for the open source 3rd Edition release, a small reference to
this is left in the name of the current window system, "rio",
presumably a reference to Rio de Janeiro.

- Dan C.

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In article <1r91h98.25ytyrndpbdbN%onion@anon.invalid>,
Mr Ön!on <snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:

Addendum: 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' is widely thought to be the worst
movie ever made. I do hope that this does not reflect anybody's adverse >opinion of Plan 9 OS . . .

Heh; I've got to admit: I've seen it, and I didn't think it was
_that_ bad. Sure, it wasn't what I'd call a _good_ movie, but I
am pretty sure that I've seen worse.

- Dan C.

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On Mon, 10 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

I wouldn't say it died. I believe Plan 9 is doing pretty well, but I
don't think they're trying to compete with popular systems. It's a
research system, I'd say. OpenBSD is a research system, even though
it's totally usable. In fact, it's the one I like to use.

Would be nice if someone took Plan 9 and managed to get it to run natively on
servers and laptops, or even one brand of server and one brand of laptop. I >> would definitely try it!

I've ran Plan 9 on an x86 virtual machine, which means it will probably install okay on popular hardware. I think some people do run Plan 9 as
their daily system.

Interesting! I'll have to look into that to see if it would run on an older laptop. That would be awesome!

How is openbsd as a daily driver? I've been close to replacing my
opensuse with freebsd. It wasn't quite there in terms of hardware
support (it lacked anything beyond G wifi, which is too slow). Maybe
openbsd is better than freebsd?

I got in the BSD world by way of FreeBSD. What attracted me to FreeBSD
was the documentation in the system---manuals in particular---and I also appreciated the ports collection. (It was so much easier to compile and

I agree! The documentation and the community is outstanding!

run an application back then than it was to hunt for sources in the GNU systems worlds. That allowed me to make small changes in the software I
was running to learn about how it worked.) In more recent years I had switched to Windows due to working with companies that required me to
run a Windows system. (Also due to personal reasons: when I was in
graduate school, I wanted to keep all my software in a single directory, which was easy on Windows and hard on UNIX. But to use Windows, I
needed a GNU EMACS packed with other programs such as cat, grep, find,
awk, sed, ...) The work and personal reasons have gone away, so I
decided to go FreeBSD again. But ever since hibernation was implemented
in Windows XP that I love the feature. It turns out FreeBSD doesn't hibernate, but OpenBSD does (on my amd64 computer). And then I

Hmm, really? I think I got it to work on Freebas 14.x or a snapshot of 15 a long
time ago, but I don't quite remember, so could very well be that I tricked myself with suspend. Since I only used it for a week, I didn't check too deeply.

discovered that OpenBSD is as impeccable in the documentation as FreeBSD
is. So I went with OpenBSD. I have not found a way to run OpenBSD in a battery-saving mode, though, so my entire battery last about an hour
with OpenBSD, while it would likely last the entire day with Windows 10,
say. There's probably things I can do that I don't know how to do at
the moment. I'm hardly ever in need of a battery, though. So I'm a
pretty happy OpenBSD user.

Freebsd I got 13-14 hours out of, and my current opensuse running on a 1.5 year old laptop still sits at around 12-14 hours.

I also learned about cwm, the ``calm window manager'', which I think it
was built by the OpenBSD people. It's the window manager that has
enchanted me the most.

Yes, I've heard about it. I like the concept! I run XFCE, since it is a nice compromise between batteries included, and some kind of lightness. For business it works great. If I only did development, I'd look at cwm or perhaps dwm.

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In article <87o6y7bomx.fsf@example.com>,
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

onion@anon.invalid (Mr Ön!on) writes:

Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

I believe Plan 9 is doing pretty well ...

<https://youtu.be/-zNSQmS2gls>

Thanks! Have you watched? Can you explain why they choose the name?

"Plan nine? Isn't that the plan which involves the resurrection of
the dead?"
-- The Leader
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) writes:

Anyway, Plan 9, the operating system, was named in a similar
vein after the movie. There are a few other historical movie
references associated with it, as well: the original window
system was named "8 1/2" (though using the Unicode code point
for the fraction 1/2), in reference to the Fellini film. In
between the 2nd and 3rd Editions, the working name for the
system at the Labs was "Brazil", in homage to the Terry Gilliam
dystopian cult classic. While the name was changed back to Plan
9 for the open source 3rd Edition release, a small reference to
this is left in the name of the current window system, "rio",
presumably a reference to Rio de Janeiro.

And now we have Peter Thiel highjacking the Tolkien world with
mil- and spook-tech Palantir (as well as Valar, Mithril, Lembas,
Rivendell and Arda.)

He's seems to have overlooked that in the story, it was a palantir
that Sauron used to totally corrupt Saruman and another to utterly
demoralize Denethor, Steward of Gondor. It's not clear to me whether
Thiel thinks of himself as Sauron or as a more resilient Saruman.

The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which
one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920,
the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of
the franchise to women -- two constituencies that are
notoriously tough for libertarians -- have rendered the notion
of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron.
-- Peter Thiel, in CATO Unbound

I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.
-- Peter Thiel

Okay, Sauron it is.

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

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On Wed, 12 Mar 2025, Sn!pe wrote:

Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

And now we have Peter Thiel highjacking the Tolkien world with
mil- and spook-tech Palantir (as well as Valar, Mithril, Lembas,
Rivendell and Arda.)

He's seems to have overlooked that in the story, it was a palantir
that Sauron used to totally corrupt Saruman and another to utterly
demoralize Denethor, Steward of Gondor. It's not clear to me whether
Thiel thinks of himself as Sauron or as a more resilient Saruman.

The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which
one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920,
the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of
the franchise to women -- two constituencies that are
notoriously tough for libertarians -- have rendered the notion
of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron.
-- Peter Thiel, in CATO Unbound

I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.
-- Peter Thiel

Okay, Sauron it is.

Exactly so. Thiel's use of the name 'Palantir' for his all-seeing eye
has always struck me as being in excruciatingly bad taste.

I always thought it was great humor! =)

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candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Is it so bad it wraps around to being good,

Yip. The overflow flips the sign bit.

--
I do not bite, I just want to play.

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Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote at 17:30 this Tuesday (GMT):

In article <1r91h98.25ytyrndpbdbN%onion@anon.invalid>,
Mr Ön!on <snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:

Addendum: 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' is widely thought to be the worst >>movie ever made. I do hope that this does not reflect anybody's adverse >>opinion of Plan 9 OS . . .

Heh; I've got to admit: I've seen it, and I didn't think it was
_that_ bad. Sure, it wasn't what I'd call a _good_ movie, but I
am pretty sure that I've seen worse.

- Dan C.

Is it so bad it wraps around to being good, or is it just flat bad?
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

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In article <slrnvt42jn.3c0ba.candycanearter07@candydeb.host.invalid>, candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote at 17:30 this Tuesday (GMT): >> In article <1r91h98.25ytyrndpbdbN%onion@anon.invalid>,

Mr Ön!on <snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:

Addendum: 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' is widely thought to be the worst >>>movie ever made. I do hope that this does not reflect anybody's adverse >>>opinion of Plan 9 OS . . .

Heh; I've got to admit: I've seen it, and I didn't think it was
_that_ bad. Sure, it wasn't what I'd call a _good_ movie, but I
am pretty sure that I've seen worse.

Is it so bad it wraps around to being good, or is it just flat bad?

I just remmeber it being kind of, well, inane. I don't know if
I thought it fit into the "so bad it's good" category at the
time, but thinking of it now, that may not be a bad way to
describe it.

"When you have the Solarmanite, you have nothing!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InO2o5KHPiY

- Dan C.

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yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> wrote at 22:41 this Wednesday (GMT):

candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Is it so bad it wraps around to being good,

Yip. The overflow flips the sign bit.

Good to know :D
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

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yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> writes:

candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Is it so bad it wraps around to being good,

Yip. The overflow flips the sign bit.

Lol! Let me also take the opportunity to thank everyone for this
thread. I don't feel like watching Plan 9 From Outer Space, but if they
had a plan to revive dead corpses on Earth, I believe they mean that
Plan 9 could be seen as a way to revive UNIX? But UNIX isn't dead! :P

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D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Mon, 10 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

I wouldn't say it died. I believe Plan 9 is doing pretty well, but I
don't think they're trying to compete with popular systems. It's a
research system, I'd say. OpenBSD is a research system, even though
it's totally usable. In fact, it's the one I like to use.

Would be nice if someone took Plan 9 and managed to get it to run natively on
servers and laptops, or even one brand of server and one brand of laptop. I >>> would definitely try it!

I've ran Plan 9 on an x86 virtual machine, which means it will probably
install okay on popular hardware. I think some people do run Plan 9 as
their daily system.

Interesting! I'll have to look into that to see if it would run on an older laptop. That would be awesome!

Give it a try? I think if it you were to specify the hardware here,
someone would tell you what would happen. For instance, Dan Cross. :)

How is openbsd as a daily driver? I've been close to replacing my
opensuse with freebsd. It wasn't quite there in terms of hardware
support (it lacked anything beyond G wifi, which is too slow). Maybe
openbsd is better than freebsd?

I got in the BSD world by way of FreeBSD. What attracted me to FreeBSD
was the documentation in the system---manuals in particular---and I also
appreciated the ports collection. (It was so much easier to compile and

I agree! The documentation and the community is outstanding!

run an application back then than it was to hunt for sources in the GNU
systems worlds. That allowed me to make small changes in the software I
was running to learn about how it worked.) In more recent years I had
switched to Windows due to working with companies that required me to
run a Windows system. (Also due to personal reasons: when I was in
graduate school, I wanted to keep all my software in a single directory,
which was easy on Windows and hard on UNIX. But to use Windows, I
needed a GNU EMACS packed with other programs such as cat, grep, find,
awk, sed, ...) The work and personal reasons have gone away, so I
decided to go FreeBSD again. But ever since hibernation was implemented
in Windows XP that I love the feature. It turns out FreeBSD doesn't
hibernate, but OpenBSD does (on my amd64 computer). And then I

Hmm, really? I think I got it to work on Freebas 14.x or a snapshot of 15 a long
time ago, but I don't quite remember, so could very well be that I tricked myself with suspend. Since I only used it for a week, I didn't check too deeply.

Yeah, I believe FreeBSD can suspend to RAM, but not to disk.

discovered that OpenBSD is as impeccable in the documentation as FreeBSD
is. So I went with OpenBSD. I have not found a way to run OpenBSD in a
battery-saving mode, though, so my entire battery last about an hour
with OpenBSD, while it would likely last the entire day with Windows 10,
say. There's probably things I can do that I don't know how to do at
the moment. I'm hardly ever in need of a battery, though. So I'm a
pretty happy OpenBSD user.

Freebsd I got 13-14 hours out of, and my current opensuse running on a 1.5 year
old laptop still sits at around 12-14 hours.

That's impressive. If I could get some 3 hours with OpenBSD, I'd be
very happy. But, honestly, I hardly ever need it and when I'm on the
go, there's usually an outlet where I need.

I also learned about cwm, the ``calm window manager'', which I think it
was built by the OpenBSD people. It's the window manager that has
enchanted me the most.

Yes, I've heard about it. I like the concept! I run XFCE, since it is a nice compromise between batteries included, and some kind of lightness. For business
it works great. If I only did development, I'd look at cwm or perhaps dwm.

I remember I thought XFCE was very ``beautiful''. But I think after it
went down with GTK, it lost its feeling of new kid on the block. So the definition of ``beautiful'' here is just ``different from the same
old''. That's likely a problem I have with graphical interfaces: I get
tired of them. Text interfaces, though, don't seem to bother me at
all---on the contrary, I tend to get addicted to them. For instance, I
love the GNU EMACS and software like slrn, which I don't use anymore
(due to Gnus).

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In article <8734fgvdzr.fsf@example.com>,
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> writes:

candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote:

Is it so bad it wraps around to being good,

Yip. The overflow flips the sign bit.

Lol! Let me also take the opportunity to thank everyone for this
thread. I don't feel like watching Plan 9 From Outer Space, but if they
had a plan to revive dead corpses on Earth, I believe they mean that
Plan 9 could be seen as a way to revive UNIX? But UNIX isn't dead! :P

"Not only is Unix dead, it's starting to smell really bad."
(from Rob Pike (author of, "The Unix Porgramming Environment"
...and much of the Plan 9 operating system. :-D)

I've never found the original reference for that quote, for what
it's worth, but Rob has never denied it, either.

- Dan C.

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cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) writes:

In article <8734fgvdzr.fsf@example.com>,
Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

yeti <yeti@tilde.institute> writes:

candycanearter07 <candycanearter07@candycanearter07.nomail.afraid> wrote: >>>

Is it so bad it wraps around to being good,

Yip. The overflow flips the sign bit.

Lol! Let me also take the opportunity to thank everyone for this
thread. I don't feel like watching Plan 9 From Outer Space, but if they >>had a plan to revive dead corpses on Earth, I believe they mean that
Plan 9 could be seen as a way to revive UNIX? But UNIX isn't dead! :P

"Not only is Unix dead, it's starting to smell really bad."
(from Rob Pike (author of, "The Unix Porgramming Environment"
...and much of the Plan 9 operating system. :-D)

I've never found the original reference for that quote, for what
it's worth, but Rob has never denied it, either.

But I'd bet he means it research-wise. I meant it in how popular UNIX
systems are, even though I still think Windows is the most popular on
people's notebooks. (And Paul Graham claimed in 2007 that Microsoft is dead---but he meant it creatively, not in market share.)

Microsoft is Dead, Paul Graham, 2007
https://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

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On Thu, 13 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

Hmm, really? I think I got it to work on Freebas 14.x or a snapshot of 15 a long
time ago, but I don't quite remember, so could very well be that I tricked >> myself with suspend. Since I only used it for a week, I didn't check too deeply.

Yeah, I believe FreeBSD can suspend to RAM, but not to disk.

That was probably the mistake I made. Not checking if it was to RAM or disk!

Freebsd I got 13-14 hours out of, and my current opensuse running on a 1.5 year
old laptop still sits at around 12-14 hours.

That's impressive. If I could get some 3 hours with OpenBSD, I'd be
very happy. But, honestly, I hardly ever need it and when I'm on the
go, there's usually an outlet where I need.

Only 3 hours? How old is your laptop? Sounds like you should at least be able to
get 7-8 hours out of a new one, unless you are running enormous amount of VM:s or scientific calculations.

I also learned about cwm, the ``calm window manager'', which I think it
was built by the OpenBSD people. It's the window manager that has
enchanted me the most.

Yes, I've heard about it. I like the concept! I run XFCE, since it is a nice >> compromise between batteries included, and some kind of lightness. For business
it works great. If I only did development, I'd look at cwm or perhaps dwm.

I remember I thought XFCE was very ``beautiful''. But I think after it
went down with GTK, it lost its feeling of new kid on the block. So the definition of ``beautiful'' here is just ``different from the same
old''. That's likely a problem I have with graphical interfaces: I get
tired of them. Text interfaces, though, don't seem to bother me at
all---on the contrary, I tend to get addicted to them. For instance, I
love the GNU EMACS and software like slrn, which I don't use anymore
(due to Gnus).

True.

I have 4 virtual desktop. On 1 lives the web browser, 2 alpine email (terminal based email client), 3 qpdf a pdf reader with session support and on 4 my neovim
with aout 18 buffers saved in a session file.

When I was young(er) I fiddled around a lot with GUI:s, but somewhere the past 10 years or so, I just wanted something minimal with all batteries included so that scanning, printing, wifi etc. just work our of the box. Xfce fulfilled that
for me, and I have never bothered to change it. I did have a quick look at i3 and dwm, but I would still have to keep xfce around for print/scan/wifi so in the end, what's the point?

My latest revelation (a few years back) was alpine email, it probably doubled my
email productivity compared with thunderbird, and is a "all in one" solution that comes with a lot of help included. Still flexible and extensible though, but probably not as much as mutt or neomutt, but it strikes a beautiful balance for me. =)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

Freebsd I got 13-14 hours out of, and my current opensuse running on
a 1.5 year old laptop still sits at around 12-14 hours.

That's impressive. If I could get some 3 hours with OpenBSD, I'd be
very happy. But, honestly, I hardly ever need it and when I'm on the
go, there's usually an outlet where I need.

Only 3 hours? How old is your laptop? Sounds like you should at least be able to
get 7-8 hours out of a new one, unless you are running enormous amount of VM:s
or scientific calculations.

Right now I get 1 hour, so 3 is a major upgrade. My notebook is quite
new. It's a Lenovo 15IMH05 with 24 GiB of RAM.

I also learned about cwm, the ``calm window manager'', which I think it >>>> was built by the OpenBSD people. It's the window manager that has
enchanted me the most.

Yes, I've heard about it. I like the concept! I run XFCE, since it
is a nice compromise between batteries included, and some kind of
lightness. For business it works great. If I only did development,
I'd look at cwm or perhaps dwm.

I remember I thought XFCE was very ``beautiful''. But I think after it
went down with GTK, it lost its feeling of new kid on the block. So the
definition of ``beautiful'' here is just ``different from the same
old''. That's likely a problem I have with graphical interfaces: I get
tired of them. Text interfaces, though, don't seem to bother me at
all---on the contrary, I tend to get addicted to them. For instance, I
love the GNU EMACS and software like slrn, which I don't use anymore
(due to Gnus).

True.

I have 4 virtual desktop. On 1 lives the web browser, 2 alpine email (terminal based email client), 3 qpdf a pdf reader with session
support and on 4 my neovim with aout 18 buffers saved in a session
file.

That's very close to my what I do here. The web on 2. My 1 is work. :)
On 3 is USENET and 4 is literature---PDF.

I run cwm, which is known as not having a virtual desktop thingies, but
it's actually does. When I press super-1 I go to desktop 1. I created
4 virtual desktops (which is enough), but I think I could have at least
9 of them.

When I was young(er) I fiddled around a lot with GUI:s, but somewhere
the past 10 years or so, I just wanted something minimal with all
batteries included so that scanning, printing, wifi etc. just work our
of the box. Xfce fulfilled that for me, and I have never bothered to
change it. I did have a quick look at i3 and dwm, but I would still
have to keep xfce around for print/scan/wifi so in the end, what's the
point?

Yeah, these things are important---printer, scanner and wifi. Although
I think wifi is a lot less important than it seems. I've read this
article yesterday called ``the computer built to last 50 years'' and
offline mode is quite an important part of it. I agree with that.

The system would be designed to usually function offline. It's when you connect to the Internet that it does its pull and pushes. With a system
like that, wifi is less important---you connect your system to the
router once a day, say, and, just like pumping gas into a vehicle, you
get everything you need. Now you can go back to your desk, after
unplugging the cable from your router.

I like that.

Clearly, these are people trying to work without distractions and interruptions. I am one of them.

My latest revelation (a few years back) was alpine email, it probably
doubled my email productivity compared with thunderbird, and is a "all
in one" solution that comes with a lot of help included. Still
flexible and extensible though, but probably not as much as mutt or
neomutt, but it strikes a beautiful balance for me. =)

Now I would really look into alpine, but I'm a Gnus user, so I'm
forbidden from performing heretic research.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 16 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

Only 3 hours? How old is your laptop? Sounds like you should at least be able to
get 7-8 hours out of a new one, unless you are running enormous amount of VM:s
or scientific calculations.

Right now I get 1 hour, so 3 is a major upgrade. My notebook is quite
new. It's a Lenovo 15IMH05 with 24 GiB of RAM.

Hmm, sounds like something is wrong somewhere. I'd install powertop and/or tlp and also make sure to disable Intel VMD in case it is enabled in your bios.

With those three, you should be able to double your battery time at least.

For me, the biggest difference was disabling intel VMD in the bios, that made a huge difference.

True.

I have 4 virtual desktop. On 1 lives the web browser, 2 alpine email
(terminal based email client), 3 qpdf a pdf reader with session
support and on 4 my neovim with aout 18 buffers saved in a session
file.

That's very close to my what I do here. The web on 2. My 1 is work. :)
On 3 is USENET and 4 is literature---PDF.

You are a wise man!

I run cwm, which is known as not having a virtual desktop thingies, but
it's actually does. When I press super-1 I go to desktop 1. I created
4 virtual desktops (which is enough), but I think I could have at least
9 of them.

...

Yeah, these things are important---printer, scanner and wifi. Although

I wonder if it is easy to get p/s/w on cwm without having to pull in all of xfce
under the hood? That would be awesome!

I think wifi is a lot less important than it seems. I've read this
article yesterday called ``the computer built to last 50 years'' and
offline mode is quite an important part of it. I agree with that.

The system would be designed to usually function offline. It's when you connect to the Internet that it does its pull and pushes. With a system
like that, wifi is less important---you connect your system to the
router once a day, say, and, just like pumping gas into a vehicle, you
get everything you need. Now you can go back to your desk, after
unplugging the cable from your router.

I like that.

True. But it would not be convenient for me. The wife would be angry with network cables everywhere. ;)

Clearly, these are people trying to work without distractions and interruptions. I am one of them.

My latest revelation (a few years back) was alpine email, it probably
doubled my email productivity compared with thunderbird, and is a "all
in one" solution that comes with a lot of help included. Still
flexible and extensible though, but probably not as much as mutt or
neomutt, but it strikes a beautiful balance for me. =)

Now I would really look into alpine, but I'm a Gnus user, so I'm
forbidden from performing heretic research.

Haha... true. Well, if you are already into tui email, I think the gains will be
less. I suspect that alpine is not the most efficient one. But I think it is perhaps a bit easier to get started with.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Sun, 16 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

Only 3 hours? How old is your laptop? Sounds like you should at
least be able to get 7-8 hours out of a new one, unless you are
running enormous amount of VM:s or scientific calculations.

Right now I get 1 hour, so 3 is a major upgrade. My notebook is quite
new. It's a Lenovo 15IMH05 with 24 GiB of RAM.

Hmm, sounds like something is wrong somewhere. I'd install powertop
and/or tlp and also make sure to disable Intel VMD in case it is
enabled in your bios.

I run OpenBSD and I believe we don't have programs such as powertop or
tlp around here. I'm going to look into the BIOS. There are some Intel features there that I could disable. Some virtualization technology. I
have enabled them and I saw that the OpenBSD kernel notices them. But I
doubt I use any of that.

With those three, you should be able to double your battery time at least.

For me, the biggest difference was disabling intel VMD in the bios,
that made a huge difference.

You give me hopes. :)

I run cwm, which is known as not having a virtual desktop thingies, but
it's actually does. When I press super-1 I go to desktop 1. I created
4 virtual desktops (which is enough), but I think I could have at least
9 of them.

...

Yeah, these things are important---printer, scanner and wifi. Although

I wonder if it is easy to get p/s/w on cwm without having to pull in
all of xfce under the hood? That would be awesome!

What's p/s/w?

I think wifi is a lot less important than it seems. I've read this
article yesterday called ``the computer built to last 50 years'' and
offline mode is quite an important part of it. I agree with that.

The system would be designed to usually function offline. It's when you
connect to the Internet that it does its pull and pushes. With a system
like that, wifi is less important---you connect your system to the
router once a day, say, and, just like pumping gas into a vehicle, you
get everything you need. Now you can go back to your desk, after
unplugging the cable from your router.

I like that.

True. But it would not be convenient for me. The wife would be angry with network cables everywhere. ;)

That was not the image I had in mind. I had in mind plugging an
appliance into the outlet on a wall. I could perhaps take my computer
from my desk and lay on the couch with it while I plug it to the outlet
near the couch. Then it downloads and uploads stuff (like,
automatically) and then I watch a little TV, say. It would take a
little while because with my new offline-designed system, the downloads wouldn't take just a few seconds for USENET and community messages and
e-mails; it would also download a few websites (up to a certain depth)
and videos [interviews, conversations, lectures] and also songs (so that
now I'd have them offline). So after, say, half an hour, I'd unplug it
and get back to my desk to continue work. So maybe I'd only connect
again the next day or whenever.

I really enjoyed this picture.

The author used words like connecting your computer to an outlet like a
vehicle that stops by a gas station to pump fuel.

Clearly, these are people trying to work without distractions and
interruptions. I am one of them.

My latest revelation (a few years back) was alpine email, it probably
doubled my email productivity compared with thunderbird, and is a "all
in one" solution that comes with a lot of help included. Still
flexible and extensible though, but probably not as much as mutt or
neomutt, but it strikes a beautiful balance for me. =)

Now I would really look into alpine, but I'm a Gnus user, so I'm
forbidden from performing heretic research.

Haha... true. Well, if you are already into tui email, I think the
gains will be less. I suspect that alpine is not the most efficient
one. But I think it is perhaps a bit easier to get started with.

It's probably easier than Gnus, but in my case I think investing even
more into Gnus is the way to go. I wish it were easier to use. The
best thing about Gnus is not actually Gnus itself, but the fact that
it's well integrated with the most pleasurable text editor ever.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 21 March 2025 16:26 Salvador Mirzo, wrote:

Right now I get 1 hour, so 3 is a major upgrade. My notebook is quite
new. It's a Lenovo 15IMH05 with 24 GiB of RAM.

Hmm, sounds like something is wrong somewhere. I'd install powertop
and/or tlp and also make sure to disable Intel VMD in case it is
enabled in your bios.

I run OpenBSD and I believe we don't have programs such as powertop or
tlp around here.

Perhaps you could take a look at `obsdfreqd'.
It is available as package.

Put the following in your /etc/rc.conf.local:

apmd_flags=-L
pkg_scripts=obsdfreqd

Best regards,

Matto

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 21 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

Right now I get 1 hour, so 3 is a major upgrade. My notebook is quite
new. It's a Lenovo 15IMH05 with 24 GiB of RAM.

Hmm, sounds like something is wrong somewhere. I'd install powertop
and/or tlp and also make sure to disable Intel VMD in case it is
enabled in your bios.

I run OpenBSD and I believe we don't have programs such as powertop or
tlp around here. I'm going to look into the BIOS. There are some Intel features there that I could disable. Some virtualization technology. I
have enabled them and I saw that the OpenBSD kernel notices them. But I doubt I use any of that.

Best of luck! OpenBSD is strange. On some things it is far ahead, while on others, it is hopelessly antiquated if things are as you say. =(

With those three, you should be able to double your battery time at least. >>
For me, the biggest difference was disabling intel VMD in the bios,
that made a huge difference.

You give me hopes. :)

Let me know if it makes a difference for you! =)

I run cwm, which is known as not having a virtual desktop thingies, but
it's actually does. When I press super-1 I go to desktop 1. I created
4 virtual desktops (which is enough), but I think I could have at least
9 of them.

...

Yeah, these things are important---printer, scanner and wifi. Although

I wonder if it is easy to get p/s/w on cwm without having to pull in
all of xfce under the hood? That would be awesome!

What's p/s/w?

Print/scan/wireless.

True. But it would not be convenient for me. The wife would be angry with
network cables everywhere. ;)

That was not the image I had in mind. I had in mind plugging an
appliance into the outlet on a wall. I could perhaps take my computer
from my desk and lay on the couch with it while I plug it to the outlet
near the couch. Then it downloads and uploads stuff (like,
automatically) and then I watch a little TV, say. It would take a
little while because with my new offline-designed system, the downloads wouldn't take just a few seconds for USENET and community messages and e-mails; it would also download a few websites (up to a certain depth)
and videos [interviews, conversations, lectures] and also songs (so that
now I'd have them offline). So after, say, half an hour, I'd unplug it
and get back to my desk to continue work. So maybe I'd only connect
again the next day or whenever.

I really enjoyed this picture.

Ahh got it! Yes, that makes much more sense. I wrote a script that plugs into my
email program that enables me to download any link in an email and get the download as an email itself. It's great! I get an email with a link to an article, then I do not need to leave my email program. I just highlight the link, press a button, and a minute later the article comes in text only mode, as
an email. Pure bliss! =D

The author used words like connecting your computer to an outlet like a vehicle that stops by a gas station to pump fuel.

Good analogy!

Haha... true. Well, if you are already into tui email, I think the
gains will be less. I suspect that alpine is not the most efficient
one. But I think it is perhaps a bit easier to get started with.

It's probably easier than Gnus, but in my case I think investing even
more into Gnus is the way to go. I wish it were easier to use. The
best thing about Gnus is not actually Gnus itself, but the fact that
it's well integrated with the most pleasurable text editor ever.

This should not be underestimated! It is a powerful feature indeed!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Sun, 16 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

Only 3 hours? How old is your laptop? Sounds like you should at
least be able to get 7-8 hours out of a new one, unless you are
running enormous amount of VM:s or scientific calculations.

Right now I get 1 hour, so 3 is a major upgrade. My notebook is quite
new. It's a Lenovo 15IMH05 with 24 GiB of RAM.

Hmm, sounds like something is wrong somewhere. I'd install powertop
and/or tlp and also make sure to disable Intel VMD in case it is
enabled in your bios.

I run OpenBSD and I believe we don't have programs such as powertop or
tlp around here. I'm going to look into the BIOS. There are some Intel features there that I could disable. Some virtualization technology. I
have enabled them and I saw that the OpenBSD kernel notices them. But I
doubt I use any of that.

With those three, you should be able to double your battery time at least.

For me, the biggest difference was disabling intel VMD in the bios,
that made a huge difference.

You give me hopes. :)

I run cwm, which is known as not having a virtual desktop thingies, but
it's actually does. When I press super-1 I go to desktop 1. I created
4 virtual desktops (which is enough), but I think I could have at least
9 of them.

...

Yeah, these things are important---printer, scanner and wifi. Although

I wonder if it is easy to get p/s/w on cwm without having to pull in
all of xfce under the hood? That would be awesome!

What's p/s/w?

I think wifi is a lot less important than it seems. I've read this
article yesterday called ``the computer built to last 50 years'' and
offline mode is quite an important part of it. I agree with that.

The system would be designed to usually function offline. It's when you
connect to the Internet that it does its pull and pushes. With a system
like that, wifi is less important---you connect your system to the
router once a day, say, and, just like pumping gas into a vehicle, you
get everything you need. Now you can go back to your desk, after
unplugging the cable from your router.

I like that.

True. But it would not be convenient for me. The wife would be angry with network cables everywhere. ;)

That was not the image I had in mind. I had in mind plugging an
appliance into the outlet on a wall. I could perhaps take my computer
from my desk and lay on the couch with it while I plug it to the outlet
near the couch. Then it downloads and uploads stuff (like,
automatically) and then I watch a little TV, say. It would take a
little while because with my new offline-designed system, the downloads wouldn't take just a few seconds for USENET and community messages and
e-mails; it would also download a few websites (up to a certain depth)
and videos [interviews, conversations, lectures] and also songs (so that
now I'd have them offline). So after, say, half an hour, I'd unplug it
and get back to my desk to continue work. So maybe I'd only connect
again the next day or whenever.

I really enjoyed this picture.

The author used words like connecting your computer to an outlet like a
vehicle that stops by a gas station to pump fuel.

Clearly, these are people trying to work without distractions and
interruptions. I am one of them.

My latest revelation (a few years back) was alpine email, it probably
doubled my email productivity compared with thunderbird, and is a "all
in one" solution that comes with a lot of help included. Still
flexible and extensible though, but probably not as much as mutt or
neomutt, but it strikes a beautiful balance for me. =)

Now I would really look into alpine, but I'm a Gnus user, so I'm
forbidden from performing heretic research.

Haha... true. Well, if you are already into tui email, I think the
gains will be less. I suspect that alpine is not the most efficient
one. But I think it is perhaps a bit easier to get started with.

It's probably easier than Gnus, but in my case I think investing even
more into Gnus is the way to go. I would like it to be easier to use.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Matto Fransen <mattof@sdf.org> writes:

On 21 March 2025 16:26 Salvador Mirzo, wrote:

Right now I get 1 hour, so 3 is a major upgrade. My notebook is quite >>>> new. It's a Lenovo 15IMH05 with 24 GiB of RAM.

Hmm, sounds like something is wrong somewhere. I'd install powertop
and/or tlp and also make sure to disable Intel VMD in case it is
enabled in your bios.

I run OpenBSD and I believe we don't have programs such as powertop or
tlp around here.

Perhaps you could take a look at `obsdfreqd'.
It is available as package.

Put the following in your /etc/rc.conf.local:

apmd_flags=-L
pkg_scripts=obsdfreqd

Thanks a lot. I'm trying it out. My apmd_flags were -A -Z 6. It seems
adding -L didn't play well together, but, instead of figuring it out
what's exactly wrong, I just added -L alone to let obsdfreqd run in
peace.

I'm using the battery right now. It used to last an hour. Let's see
how much it lasts now. With the naked eye, it seems we got a slight improvement, but it could be an illusion.

$ sysctl hw | grep perf
hw.setperf=0
hw.perfpolicy=manual

$ ps ax | egrep apmd'|'obsdfreqd
31819 ?? SU 0:00.00 /usr/sbin/apmd -L
60082 p2 R+/4 0:00.00 egrep apmd|obsdfreqd
68196 C0- S<U 0:00.12 /usr/local/sbin/obsdfreqd

Thanks!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Fri, 21 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

Right now I get 1 hour, so 3 is a major upgrade. My notebook is quite >>>> new. It's a Lenovo 15IMH05 with 24 GiB of RAM.

Hmm, sounds like something is wrong somewhere. I'd install powertop
and/or tlp and also make sure to disable Intel VMD in case it is
enabled in your bios.

I run OpenBSD and I believe we don't have programs such as powertop or
tlp around here. I'm going to look into the BIOS. There are some Intel
features there that I could disable. Some virtualization technology. I
have enabled them and I saw that the OpenBSD kernel notices them. But I
doubt I use any of that.

Best of luck! OpenBSD is strange. On some things it is far ahead, while on others, it is hopelessly antiquated if things are as you say. =(

I doubt OpenBSD was actually designed to save battery. I think secure /servers/ are their target. I think best system is the one you know
best and like best. OpenBSD has been very comforting because you read
their documentation and you just understand everything. OpenBSD has
been giving me a strong sense of control, which is what makes software
use pleasurable. (See Donald A. Norman.)

With those three, you should be able to double your battery time at least. >>>
For me, the biggest difference was disabling intel VMD in the bios,
that made a huge difference.

You give me hopes. :)

Let me know if it makes a difference for you! =)

I don't have VMD actually. What I could disable (that was enabled) was
a virtualization feature. It doesn't feel like it's doing much, but
let's until for a few more days.

True. But it would not be convenient for me. The wife would be angry with >>> network cables everywhere. ;)

That was not the image I had in mind. I had in mind plugging an
appliance into the outlet on a wall. I could perhaps take my computer
from my desk and lay on the couch with it while I plug it to the outlet
near the couch. Then it downloads and uploads stuff (like,
automatically) and then I watch a little TV, say. It would take a
little while because with my new offline-designed system, the downloads
wouldn't take just a few seconds for USENET and community messages and
e-mails; it would also download a few websites (up to a certain depth)
and videos [interviews, conversations, lectures] and also songs (so that
now I'd have them offline). So after, say, half an hour, I'd unplug it
and get back to my desk to continue work. So maybe I'd only connect
again the next day or whenever.

I really enjoyed this picture.

Ahh got it! Yes, that makes much more sense. I wrote a script that
plugs into my email program that enables me to download any link in an
email and get the download as an email itself. It's great! I get an
email with a link to an article, then I do not need to leave my email program. I just highlight the link, press a button, and a minute later
the article comes in text only mode, as an email. Pure bliss! =D

Wow. :) What is this e-mail client again?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Mon, 24 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

Best of luck! OpenBSD is strange. On some things it is far ahead, while on >> others, it is hopelessly antiquated if things are as you say. =(

I doubt OpenBSD was actually designed to save battery. I think secure /servers/ are their target. I think best system is the one you know
best and like best. OpenBSD has been very comforting because you read
their documentation and you just understand everything. OpenBSD has
been giving me a strong sense of control, which is what makes software
use pleasurable. (See Donald A. Norman.)

This is the truth!

You give me hopes. :)

Let me know if it makes a difference for you! =)

I don't have VMD actually. What I could disable (that was enabled) was
a virtualization feature. It doesn't feel like it's doing much, but
let's until for a few more days.

Oh well... it was worth a try. =/

Ahh got it! Yes, that makes much more sense. I wrote a script that
plugs into my email program that enables me to download any link in an
email and get the download as an email itself. It's great! I get an
email with a link to an article, then I do not need to leave my email
program. I just highlight the link, press a button, and a minute later
the article comes in text only mode, as an email. Pure bliss! =D

Wow. :) What is this e-mail client again?

Alpine. Check it out here: alpineapp.email. Eduardo, the current maintainer is active from time to time on the usenet group for alpine, and gives great help!

It's written in C, compiles very easily (at least for me), and is quite "hackable". =)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Tue, 25 Mar 2025, Scott Dorsey wrote:

Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

I run OpenBSD and I believe we don't have programs such as powertop or
tlp around here. I'm going to look into the BIOS. There are some Intel
features there that I could disable. Some virtualization technology. I
have enabled them and I saw that the OpenBSD kernel notices them. But I
doubt I use any of that.

There is something similar available for BSD called powermon(1). As much
as I am a fan of BSD and as much as I bemoan the horrible linux bloat and linux's move away from modularism, I have to say that in general BSD is
a poor choice for laptops, if only because ACPI support for BSD isn't
very good.
--scott

I don't know how applicable it is to openbsd, but for freebsd, I used this article with good results:

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2018/11/28/the-power-to-serve-freebsd-power-management/
.

Enjoy!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

I run OpenBSD and I believe we don't have programs such as powertop or
tlp around here. I'm going to look into the BIOS. There are some Intel >features there that I could disable. Some virtualization technology. I
have enabled them and I saw that the OpenBSD kernel notices them. But I >doubt I use any of that.

There is something similar available for BSD called powermon(1). As much
as I am a fan of BSD and as much as I bemoan the horrible linux bloat and linux's move away from modularism, I have to say that in general BSD is
a poor choice for laptops, if only because ACPI support for BSD isn't
very good.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Mon, 24 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

Ahh got it! Yes, that makes much more sense. I wrote a script that
plugs into my email program that enables me to download any link in an
email and get the download as an email itself. It's great! I get an
email with a link to an article, then I do not need to leave my email
program. I just highlight the link, press a button, and a minute later
the article comes in text only mode, as an email. Pure bliss! =D

Wow. :) What is this e-mail client again?

Alpine. Check it out here: alpineapp.email. Eduardo, the current
maintainer is active from time to time on the usenet group for alpine,
and gives great help!

It's written in C, compiles very easily (at least for me), and is
quite "hackable". =)

It's a TUI, right? I kinda like to compose a message, stop on it, keep
it open, visible, get back to the the inbox, search some stuff, open
other messages, perhaps compose new (quick) messages, send them out,
look at my previous message being composed and continue with writing
it...

So a TUI usually means I must draft the on-going message, get it out of
the way so I can continue the use the application. For that reason
alone, I think I need a GUI one.

I used to love slrn for the USENET, for example. I had not discovered
Gnus back then yet, so I would draft one article, look at another, draft
the new one, edit the previous... I did a lot of that at times. It's definitely okay, but with Gnus around...

But I'm glad to know that Alpine has been going great.

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kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) writes:

Salvador Mirzo <smirzo@example.com> wrote:

I run OpenBSD and I believe we don't have programs such as powertop or
tlp around here. I'm going to look into the BIOS. There are some Intel >>features there that I could disable. Some virtualization technology. I >>have enabled them and I saw that the OpenBSD kernel notices them. But I >>doubt I use any of that.

There is something similar available for BSD called powermon(1). As much
as I am a fan of BSD and as much as I bemoan the horrible linux bloat and linux's move away from modularism, I have to say that in general BSD is
a poor choice for laptops, if only because ACPI support for BSD isn't
very good.

Even NetBSD? (I never tried NetBSD.) I probably agree with you. What
I don't like about GNU systems is the quality of manuals. On OpenBSD,
there's a manual for every driver in the system. There are the manuals
called intro (for each section of the manual system).

But maybe I should really run a GNU system that can be well tuned to a
notebook such as mine. It would be hard to say good-bye to OpenBSD, but perhaps I should only run it on a desktop system.

By the way, I can't find a program called powermon on OpenBSD. Perhaps
OpenBSD doesn't have it.

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D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Wed, 26 Mar 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:

Alpine. Check it out here: alpineapp.email. Eduardo, the current
maintainer is active from time to time on the usenet group for alpine,
and gives great help!

It's written in C, compiles very easily (at least for me), and is
quite "hackable". =)

It's a TUI, right? I kinda like to compose a message, stop on it, keep
it open, visible, get back to the the inbox, search some stuff, open
other messages, perhaps compose new (quick) messages, send them out,
look at my previous message being composed and continue with writing
it...

So a TUI usually means I must draft the on-going message, get it out of
the way so I can continue the use the application. For that reason
alone, I think I need a GUI one.

Ahh... yes. The closest you can get in alpine is "postpone"
messages. So I write, then I postpone it, which means it gets saved in
a special folder. I can then continue to do other stuff, and once I
hit "C" for compose, alpine asks if I want to compose a new message or
finish a saved on, and I have then a list of saved messages. It is a
TUI in the terminal, so not possible to have several open messages in parallel I'm afraid.

Nevertheless, this idea of showing a menu of saved drafts to continue
the composition is quite a nice workaround.

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