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Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

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Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#181

Post by peterwwillis »

chungy wrote: post #12
bscphil wrote: post #3

> Who knows how far down the stack this could go? Seems to be like the obvious initial way to up the ante would be to get rid of the compiler. How would you go about bootstrapping your way out if all you had was the Linux kernel, glibc, and the Bourne shell?

You basically just have to know the tricks of inputting binary data through the shell. Learn how the ASCII table works, what the ctrl and shift keys do (setting/unsetting bits 5-7, in particular), and how the Alt key enables the 8-bit. You could even go a little further. the printf command should be a built-in with just about any shell, so even lacking the `cat` program, you can output arbitrary data to a file. Almos…

If you have a shell or standard POSIX tools you'll have printf, which supports hex and octal formatting, and often C modifiers, so you can encode it as one long-ass integer and save keystrokes.

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#182

Post by tom_mellior »

lwh wrote: post #172
tom_mellior wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt they wrote ed in cat.

sorry I was unclear. I assumed those who created ed knew how to use it - but regular people not familiar with ed would tend to use cat and echo when stuck in a broken / bare system.

Of course they knew how to use it. But I don't think they wrote the first lines of ed in ed-on-the-live-system. It is much much more likely that they wrote them offline and imported the code from punched cards or via tape or whatever from another system.

For whatever it's worth, Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix) says: "In about a month's time, in August 1969, Thompson had implemented a self-hosting operating system with an assembler, editor and shell, using a GECOS machine for bootstrapping." I'm sure there are more details to be had somewhere.

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#183

Post by oefrha »

ubercow13 wrote: post #173
oefrha wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> kind of block on movement after a click that was far to long There are two modes of operation, what you dislike is the default; the other is called tap-to-click, which doesn’t give you haptic feedback and you can click however fast you want. Opinion is divided on this, with many diehards swearing by the haptic feedback. I prefer tap-to-click.

Tap-to-click is slower though, if I understand correctly. Imagine clicking three adjacent buttons in a row as fast as possible. If you tap each one you have to lift your finger off the trackpad 5 times.

I can lift my finger just a tiny bit to register another click way faster than the haptic feedback would allow me.

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#184

Post by hedora »

recrof wrote: post #116
vinay427 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For you, maybe. I think a TrackPoint (ThinkPad) is far superior to a trackpad, MacBook or otherwise.

Not when you want speed and precision. the area of touchpad is far greater and it shows when you want to draw something, or move cursor between edges of the screen. that's the same as playing first person shooter on console controller vs the mouse.

My old correctly calibrated trackpoint (on Linux, even) was better at precision movement than any track I’ve used since (including all the major vendors).

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#185

Post by linux2647 »

yashap wrote: post #180
CM30 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, speedrunning communities (for games and other things) already bar tricks and strats that require setup on an external file/system. For instance, you can't carry hearts/stamina from one file to another in a Breath of the Wild speedrun, or use wrong warping to instantly go to a location saved on an alternate save file. There are exceptions in certain scenes (in speedruns for Banjo-Kazooie, a glitch is used o…

Would this rule also invalidate the OP’s approach of getting to the point where you can download wget, then using that to download other programs? wget, and the things you’d download with it, would live on external systems.

I would say not. Those programs are general purpose. The programs GP and GGP are referring to would be specifically designed to assist a speed run.

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#186

Post by lcall »

dylan604 wrote: post #178
lcall wrote: post #169

This is a very cool idea. I have thought similarly, but for a "create current civilization from scratch" game (edit: this is a real-life challenge, not on a computer, and maybe not even as a competition): Start in an empty open area, with nothing but nature and the low-tech clothing you wear and means of communication with outside. The only things you can exchange with outside are: any information at all (so, maybe u…

http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/ sounds like the beginning of the game A Dark Room

Thanks. I edited my comment to clarify that I meant doing it in real life, out in nature.

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#187

Post by DeathArrow »

danpalmer wrote: post #120
DeathArrow wrote: post #90

>" So here's the pitch: Linux speedruns. By that, I don't mean "speedrunning a game on a Linux box" (like emulation, or something). Nope. I mean speedrunning the Linux situation itself. Start with a minimal system and get yourself to the point where you can do something meaningful (like reading cat pictures on Reddit). " I'd rather do something useful or at least pleasant. I don't have an infinite amount of time and…

Looking at your comment history I fear this may not be the community for you. Constructive criticism is valued, but negativity and sarcasm bordering on racism are not. Please try to enhance the community rather than detract from it.

The fact that I don't consider building a Linux system from scratch neither useful nor pleasant is somehow negative or sarcastic bordering on racism?

Should I explain why I don't consider it useful or pleasant?

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#188

Post by dylan604 »

lcall wrote: post #186
dylan604 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://adarkroom.doublespeakgames.com/ sounds like the beginning of the game A Dark Room

Thanks. I edited my comment to clarify that I meant doing it in real life, out in nature.

still reminds me of the game. gather wood. start a fire. gather wood. build a shelter. gather wood. build some tools. gather wood.

i'd suggest watching lots of YouTube videos before embarking on this in real life though. my "i must be crazy" idea is living in a cabin in the mountains during winter. given the fall to stock up on supplies.

Re: Bored? How about trying a Linux speed run?

#189

Post by aruggirello »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #156
tiborsaas wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how I learned web development in the 2000s. I downloaded stuff at school on floppy disks and took them home to inspect them. I had cool gifs, midi files, html files and I had Home Site 4.0 which had a great documentation about HTML and some basic JS.

Sadly, for me in the late 90s, it was learning the ins and outs of how to modify Win95 UI. Turns out a whole lot of those skills were total dead-ends. But I can help you make your Win95 look and feel however you like! Need your cursor to be animated but change animations depending on what you're doing? You got it! Find that editing .ini files lacks a certain flair? No problem! Prefer a fuchsia screen of death, or a "…

Cool times anyway. Windows 95 brought back the fun I was missing so much since when I reluctantly moved from my beloved Amiga 4000 to an anonymous Pentium PC circa 1994 - I had been programming under Windows 3.11 for a while when Commodore went down the drain.
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