Hacker News: jrjsmrtn

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Ask HN: If Unix gets more popular would you use it instead of Linux?"

jrjsmrtn — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 23:45:22 +0000

I use macOS. Among other things... :-)

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "One weird trick to making Claude Code palatable to use"

jrjsmrtn — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 12:03:29 +0000

My new system prompt: "No glazing. Just use a Yoda-like appropriate citation as conclusion."

"> What Elixir library could I use for TUI ?

[...]

Much to learn about TUI libraries, you still have. But choose Ratatouille, you should - strong with the terminal, it is."

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Ask HN: Code should be stored in a database. Who has tried this?"

jrjsmrtn — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 18:30:14 +0000

Hmmm... Smalltalk, a pure object-oriented language, stores everything in an image, and has tons of different browsers to inspect its "object soup". Install a Squeak Smalltalk if you're curious :-)

Userland Frontier was a wonderful scripting environment born on macOS and ported to Windows. It was a mix of an object database, storing code and data, an extensible scripting language called UserScript, and very powerful InterApplication capabilities, based on Apple's Open Scripting Architecture. Dave Winer, its author, worked on the XML-RPC standard afterwards.

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "European Union OS – Fedora Linux and KDE Plasma Based"

jrjsmrtn — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 19:59:03 +0000

Oh, and let's move to RISC-V. ;-)

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "European Union OS – Fedora Linux and KDE Plasma Based"

jrjsmrtn — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 19:53:19 +0000

Correct.

But being open source and distributed under the GPL is not enough.

RedHat or SuSE have a more indeterminate future due to their shareholders control, frequent changes of owners, distro licensing or source code availability.

Debian, the distro, is almost boring but has the largest platform scope and one of the largest package base. Debian, the organisation, with its community, its policies, its social contract, its independence, has proven its resilience over and over again.

In addition to Debian's LTS and ELTS support, the Civil Infrastructure Platform (https://www.cip-project.org) provides Super-Long-Term Stable (SLTS) kernels for ten years. Want paid support ? Look at companies like Freexian. Want reproducible builds? (https://reproducible-builds.org) Look at https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds (And yes, I'm very aware of NixOS/Guix).

Thus, why start a new Linux distribution if we want sovereignty?

Let's support and build on the Debian project and community, the Civil Infrastructure Platform, the Linux Foundation, the reproducible builds projects. Let's support Proxmox, a EU-born VMware alternative based on Debian ! :-)

Developer resources are scarce, maintainers burnout is real. Let's not waste energy on futile projects. Let's build our sovereignty on solid, existing foundations.

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "European Union OS – Fedora Linux and KDE Plasma Based"

jrjsmrtn — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 18:54:07 +0000

Debian Stable and Fedora answer to different use cases. I wouldn't use Fedora on any production server.

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "The European Union Has Its Own Linux Distribution and It's Called EU OS"

jrjsmrtn — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 17:29:38 +0000

AFAICT, this is *not* a "European Union's (EU) initiative for developing a new Linux distribution initiative".

This is:

- a "*Community-led Proof-of-Concept* for a free Operating System for the EU public sector" (https://eu-os.gitlab.io/?ref=news.itsfoss.com#what-is-eu-os),

- that community being led by a one person team (https://gitlab.com/eu-os/eu-os.gitlab.io/-/project_members),

- and with only 4 commits in its repository (https://gitlab.com/eu-os/workspace-images/eu-os-base-demo/-/...).

"Can this Linux-powered operating system disrupt Windows' hold in the European Union?"

Can a one-person PoC do that?

"The European Union has its own Linux Distribution and it's Called EU OS"

I cannot find any link to any EU announcements on that subject.

IMO, that article is very naïve...

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Ask HN: Language After Python and C?"

jrjsmrtn — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 21:35:23 +0000

Elixir (https://elixir-lang.org) and its Nx stack (https://github.com/elixir-nx), maybe ?

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Why doesn't Apple do servers?"

jrjsmrtn — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 11:20:45 +0000

They did the popular Xserve, and the AWS before. They did A/UX, AIX (by IBM, of course), MkLinux and even Xenix (on the Lisa) way before OS/X. There was even a version of Netware for Mac. What they don't have anymore are the _enterprise_ sales and support channels.

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Xerox Star 8010 Interfaces, high quality polaroids (1981-)"

jrjsmrtn — Sun, 30 Apr 2023 23:52:08 +0000

Very nice... but the https://www.digibarn.com/collections/screenshots/xerox-star-... picture has a Lisa screenshot ;-)

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Ask HN: Best way to run Linux VMs on M1 Mac with fileSharing/shared networking?"

jrjsmrtn — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 23:57:08 +0000

Although I have a Parallel license, I'm mostly using UTM. I have Debian/Ubuntu, NixOS, SUSE, Windows 11 VMs all running natively on ARM.

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Mac's command key is worse than Window's ctrl"

jrjsmrtn — Sun, 29 Jan 2023 22:36:57 +0000

On a Mac keyboard, you have two Command and Option keys. That means you can combine your (left|right) thumb on the Command key and a (left|right) finger on another . Moreover, you can naturally use Ctrl- as a Control-Character in a Terminal. Which is sometimes a pain on Windows.

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Mac's command key is worse than Window's ctrl"

jrjsmrtn — Sun, 29 Jan 2023 22:32:17 +0000

Moreover: on macOS Cmd[-Option][-Shift][-Ctrl]- is always about a menu item/command shortcut; [Option][-Shift][-Ctrl]- is always about a glyph.

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Mac's command key is worse than Window's ctrl"

jrjsmrtn — Sun, 29 Jan 2023 22:23:42 +0000

Try Cmd-w (close), Cmd-X (Cut), Cmd-C (Copy), Cmd-V (Paste), Cmd-Z (Undo), Cmd-A (Select All), Cmd-Q (Quit) with your left thumb on Command and the left index on the other key. Try Cmd-P (Print), Cmd-, (Preferences) with your left thumb and a right finger. I'm using macOS and Windows since the 80s, Gnome and KDE later; I still think that Windows and Linux are generations away from macOS consistency and ergonomic...

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "What are oneNote alternatives that dont require cloud or signing in?"

jrjsmrtn — Sat, 02 Apr 2022 08:45:24 +0000

Have a look at Zim: https://zim-wiki.org

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Ask HN: Good Postgres Book(s)?"

jrjsmrtn — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 14:53:24 +0000

The Art of PostgreSQL (https://theartofpostgresql.com) by Dimitri Fontaine, also the author of PGLoader (https://github.com/dimitri/pgloader)

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Ask HN: PostgreSQL is such a pain to setup"

jrjsmrtn — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 22:31:58 +0000

What are your pain points, exactly?

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Ask HN: Pros and Cons of Switching from Linux to M1 MacBook"

jrjsmrtn — Sat, 01 May 2021 21:10:23 +0000

You should also give MacPorts a try.

Its heritage is from BSD ports but, contrary to some reports, it's well alive, stable and kicking ;-)

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Ask HN: Pros and Cons of Switching from Linux to M1 MacBook"

jrjsmrtn — Sat, 01 May 2021 21:08:06 +0000

+1 for Moom :-)

As for iTerm2, I found its native tmux integration pretty unique.

New comment by jrjsmrtn in "Ask HN: Pros and Cons of Switching from Linux to M1 MacBook"

jrjsmrtn — Sat, 01 May 2021 21:04:31 +0000

I use dotfiles on both Linux and macOS. From the same repository :-)