the friday blog

Server/Workstation Linux Build

Just a few weeks after rebuilding my small 600MHz Celeron it started making strange noises.

She was on her original disk which had been spinning, on and off, for the last ten years!

Although I was confident that she was being backed up correctly I couldn’t take the noise any more (I think it was coming from the power supply – being small form factor I would find it difficult to replace) and so I decided to retire her gracefully rather than get stressed when she finally died.

Rather than add another machine to the network I though it might be a good idea to utilise the Server as a writing machine.

After doing a full back up of the server (an old dual Xeon Dell Graphics Workstation with 2GB of ECC Ram and a 72GB SCSI hard drive) I started off by installing Debian Squeeze.

Actually, that’s a lie!

I first had a good play around with the latest version of Crunchbang and was very, very impressed!

There and then I decided that Openbox was going to be the window manager that I’d use on my eventual Writing Machine/Server!

Seriously, Crunchbang is extremely fast and very simple to use – it’s a candidate for my main PC already!

One of my many New Year’s Resolutions has been to rebuild my writing PC and get down to some serious writing again.

Because the PC is rather old and not very high powered this has restricted the options available to me.

None the less, I was confident that I could build a working machine from an 11 year old 600MHz Celeron with 256MB of RAM.

I started by downloading the latest Debian Squeeze Beta from here.

I should say here that even though it’s officially a Testing release, it is , I have found, more stable than many final distributions.

The objective was to build a machine that would allow me to write efficiently but not offer any distractions to the writing process.

Thus, I decided just to install the base version of Squeeze and add then only those components that I needed.

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As a writer, albeit a writer who has to squeeze in his writing in between web design and website update duties, I tend to be quite passionate about the technology that I use to assist myself in my creative efforts. I’ve already mentioned (in Q10 – a minimalistic word processor) that my personal writing process tends to involve writing the original draft longhand, then transcribing the draft using a distraction free text editor (I’m currently using PyRoom – it does all that I need) during which, the word count tends to double. Finally, I import that text into a proper word processor (such as Open Office Writer) for the final printable draft. This then gets printed out, double spaced with 1″ margins on all sides, and edited. I use a red pen to indicate spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. A blue pen suggests additions or changes and a green pen is for notes or messages to myself.

These notes and messages might be as follows…. “Make this more fluid. It’s all stop/start!”

“He would never say something like that! Put yourself into his shoes and say it as he would!”

“Need to develop this. This nasty habit could come in useful later on?”

The editor in me can be quite critical (and often very rude) to the writer side of my personality!

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When I started The Friday Blog I wanted to have an outlet for my varied ponderings that didn’t seem to fit in anywhere else. In fact, initially the blog was going to be called Ponderings for Ponderers. I prefer The Friday Blog as a name though, as it does encourge me to publish on a regular basis. Anyway, I write about my life as an expat living in rural Brittany, France over at  www.BretonDiary.com and I waffle on, in my amateurish way, about IT at www.kmeckstein.com. I detail my mushrooming forays at www.MushroomDiary.com and I also review other people’s Life in France blogs at www.aTasteOfGarlic.com. The Friday Blog is more of a place where I can investigate the creative process and, perhaps more importantly, the layers of technology that sit (sometimes uncomfortably) between me and the desired aim – a few words, good and true.

Last week I spoke briefly about how, for me, Gnome is my effective operating system.

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I touched briefly upon OS independence when I wrote a little bit about the Q10 minimalistic word processor a few weeks ago and PyRoom, another minimalistic word processor, last week. Or, if I didn’t, then I certainly should have done. The point that I’m trying to make is that as both of those applications save their data as straight unmodified text files; those file are obviously readable on pretty much any system out there, from computers to word processors, tablet devices to  mobile phones – hell, I think that even my Microwave displays text files.

Perhaps I exaggerate slightly?

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Wow, first I find one good writer’s editor and then I trip over another. Last week I wrote a little bit about Q10, a minimalistic word processor for Windows users that can also be used on Linux machines using Wine emulation. This week I would like to talk a little bit about the word processor that has taken my fancy and replaced Q10 on the desktop of my main machine. And, with no further ado, I’d like to say…. Welcome to PyRoom PyRoom, is functionally very similar to Q10in that it provides the minimum of screen clutter an just lets you get on with the job of writing.

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Over the last 10 years, I must have googled linux console wordprocessor at least a dozen times.  You’d think there would be loads about – after all, I first installed Linux in 1994 – that’s 16 years ago – surely someone would have written or ported something by now? I’ve played around with DOS versions of WordPerfect and Microsoft Word under DosBox and I’ve tried to streamline AbiWord, Writer and TextMaker to suit my needs.  Nothing but nothing made the grade.

To put it simply, all I wanted was a simple wordprocessor that would allow me to write and not get in the way of that writing.  Of course, if it used a simple file format that didn’t tie me to any particular operating system or software provider, all the better.

Looking back at it, most of what I have written over the last 15 years (and certainly the best of what I’ve written over that period), has been written by pen on paper or on an electric typewriter.

I know that there’s a certain psychology at work here.  The words come the most freely when using a cheap ink pen and a lined A4 pad; there’s nothing to get in the way, you see.  On the other hand, with a typewriter the words come out slowly but ordered, under control and, one hopes, conforming to the rules of grammar.

Sooner or later though, the words have to go onto a computer and most of mine have done so via AbiWord.

It does what most of us require from a word processor, it runs fast and, best of all, is free.

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Although I have a number of other blogs where I can express myself, I felt that there was a need for yet one more – somewhere where I could pick on one subject close to my heart, once a week, and hammer it to death for all the world to see.

Well, this is that place. It’s here that I’ll be talking about writing and reading and all those things that don’t fit in elsewhere. I do hope that you enjoy your time looking round here; you may even want to take a look at some of my other sites.

All the best

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