Software Thoughts

I've actually done some experimenting with an Aspire One. My brother picked one up a little bit more than a month ago, and I got to toy with it. If memory serves, such exciting things I got to "yum install ..." include:

• GCC, G++
• MESA GL Headers
• GNU Make
• Subversion
  
• SDL (Actually, I downloaded the RPM and installed this one)

I have Ubuntu installed on another machine, so I'm actually more used to using "apt-get ..." to install things. But the Fedora based Linpus isn't too bad... at least once I found out about "yum install". ;)

The reason I mention the above is the Aspire one ships relatively stock, with just the basic functionality to install packages, and no pre-installed compiler. The GL headers I remember being the tricky one to guess the package name for. I'm going to have to look all the exact packages up again, but I wanted to create this reminder list.

Ok, next up some wishlist stuffs.

As I mentioned, I usually work on Windows. My tools of choice include MinGW (GCC/G++), and UltraEdit as my text editor/IDE. The compiler part is a no brainer, but the editor is potentially some work.

A few weeks back I did some searching, to try and find some similar text editor. I have half a dozen names on a stickynote to look in to, but I discovered a possible solution the other day.

UltraEdit in Wine.

According to the Wine website, it's reasonabily compatible with UltraEdit. There's a known crash with one of internet related features, but I don't use those. Really, what I'm after is the IDE part with all my familiar shortcut keys, and column mode.

Man oh man, column mode. There are several 'nix text editors I found that claim to have a Column mode, but the one thing UltraEdit does right that no other does is it's Column mode. One aspect is what I like to call the "Fat Cursor". This lets you select several lines at once, and write on them simultaneously. A must have. Another nicety is number insertion. Create a fat cursor and click a button to insert numbers in a range X to Y, with increments you can set (even negative). Plus the general alignment of how you navigate in column mode changes, for the better. Hehe, yeah, I'm picky, but I'd love to have this.

Word has it that IDM is working on a cross platform UltraEdit. I toyed with the idea of picking an open source editor and reimplementing column mode as I like it, but this Wine solution sounds easier.

Anyways, enough of that column mode rant. In summary, I *really* like it. It's why I still use UltraEdit today.

Aspire One's already ship with Open Office installed. I've been using it as my primary document editor for a number of years, so that works out well for me.

A *fun* thing I also wanted was a Tracker. Renoise the music tracker, runs on Linux now. However, it's requires a minimum resolution about 100 pixels taller than the Aspire One's 1024x600 screen. I put a wishlist request in for a "lite mode" checkbox that removes some unneccisary features for smaller screens, but I'm not holding my breath.

The bulk of the music stuff I do in Ableton Live, with a number of fancy ass VST's like Kontakt/Komplete and Play. But that's some pretty heavy lifting. I figure a tracker might be a nice lightweight way to scribble down song ideas.

If nothing comes of the above, I may try Modplug on Wine, or use a virtual desktop.

Also, I'm a DVORAK keyboard user. From my looking, the Aspire One doesn't include a standard DVORAK layout, so I'll have to learn how to make one. :)

That about covers it.

I don't exepct to do any real image editing on the system. My image editor of choice is Paint Shop Pro, but Wine has poor compatibility with versions above 4. I may install GIMP for simple stuff like image arrangement and resizing, but something about GIMP always turns me off when I use it.

I also tend to sometimes work in ToonBoom, Flash, or Sketchbook Pro, which really aren't suitable for that machine. So I'll probably just accept that content creation will happen on the Workstation, or on the Tablet PC.

Oh right, I have 4 main computers I deal with.

My "workstation" which is a Quad Core desktop with a scanner, tablet, midi keyboard and drums hooked up, plus all my audio software and VST's. My "server" which is a Dual Core desktop that hosts my SVN repository and other files. The "Intel Mac Mini" which is a Dual Core Mac, running the latest OS X and iPhone SDK. And a "Tablet PC" which is a single core Celeryon (heh) that runs my art apps.

I have several more PC's including a Media Center, 3 older laptops (including a Mac), and a PPC Mac Mini, but they're not really important to my development process.

So, I think that covers the wild software configuration ideas I have floating around my head, and then some. I'm not sure what the next post will be. Cracking open the system, or more random tidbits I have the need to splurge. We'll see.