Notices by djinn & juice (ieure@retro.social)

CRT: the world's most advanced solid-state display technology.

e-ink displays are mechanical, because the microcapsules physically move around inside the display.

LCDs are also mechanical, since the liquid crystal molecules have variable twist depending on the current through them -- which is why response times drop when they get cold.

CRTs have zero moving parts, thus are solid-state.

@foone Often! I repair old arcade game PCBs and the 2114 RAMs are a common failure point. The hoard of new old stock ones I've got needs to have their leads formed to fit in the board.

@foone Gotta do an original Space Command type clicker next. The ones where pushing a button made a hammer strike a tuned metal bar, which made a sound the TV could hear. I'd think those would be made to work on any computer with a microphone.

@foone I once had a job interview where the CTO & cofounder told me that toning down my Twitter posts was a requirement for the job.

this truck is cooler than you

@foone I'm mildly aware that there is Keyboard Nerd Controversy, because Cherry retooled their MX Black line and the modern ones aren't quite like the vintage ones.

Gonna have to start hoarding 2004 Honda Accords just so I have enough non-shitmobiles to last the rest of my driving life.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/01/volkswagen-is-adding-chatgpt-to-its-infotainment-system/

I am, once again, attempting to use Guix.

This time, I'm starting with the forbidden System Crafters install image, which ships with the firmware needed to use WiFi.

...it still tells you it won't work, but that's a lie.

...it had WiFi during the install, but the installer installed Linux-Libre, so it has no WiFi after the install. Fixing that requires an internet connection.

I don't know what I expected.

Why do I keep pushing this particular boulder up this particular hill? It comes down to a few things:

- I think packaging stuff for Guix is easier than other distros. At least, there's a huge package-to-contributor ratio I've never seen in other distros, and it has a ton of software for a relatively new (and very niche) distro.
- All the packaging and system config is in Scheme, and I like Lisps.
- The way you can create profiles of installed software obviates the need for language-specific version & environment manager tools. When the distro natively supports installing/running multiple versions of things side-by-side, you don't have to care about crap like rbenv, nvm, or pyenv.
- It's very easy to host your own package repo. It's very difficult to host a Debian package repo.

Oh, I see. The instructions for actually using the installer[1] -- which aren't mentioned in the repo containing the installer images[2], much less linked from it -- tells me that, during the last step of the install process, I have to switch to another virtual terminal and hand-edit the configuration. And if you don't do that, you get a probably-unusable install.

Awesome, great.

[1]: https://systemcrafters.net/craft-your-system-with-guix/full-system-install/
[2]: https://github.com/SystemCrafters/guix-installer

That's enough Guix for today.

Okay, I installed again, but I don't know if WiFi works or not, because I can't log in.

Okay, so. I was able to log into the Guix install on this laptop, because I reset my password after logging into a virtual terminal as root, which I was allowed to do with no password whatsoever, despite the installer asking me for a root password.

So, uh.... be aware of that, I guess.

First thing driving me up the wall: The caps lock key is acting as the caps lock key (wrong, bad) instead of the control key (pure, good), so I can't type anything without scrabbling at the keyboard like a helpless squirrel.

Changing this one setting requires reconfiguring the entire system. In case I changed something else completely different at the same time, I guess.

Reconfiguring the system requires running `guix pull`, so it knows about the nonguix channel that has the kernel that supports WiFi.

I can't pull because something in nonguix is broken. I have no idea what, or whether I could fix it if I did.

So I keep waiting a day or so and retrying `guix pull` in the hopes that someone has noticed that this is broken, and fixes it, and then I can configure my keyboard.

And the build log it mentions is /two lines long/ and states in full:

(repl-version 0 1 1)
(exception unbound-variable (value #f) (value "Unbound variable: ~S") (value (linux-libre-6.4)) (value #f))

The error I get when I run `guix pull` doesn't tell me anything helpful about what's wrong:

building /gnu/store/zlsavr3sd9wl8i9l9ps0hpk1j0wjkak6-nonguix.drv...
|builder for `/gnu/store/zlsavr3sd9wl8i9l9ps0hpk1j0wjkak6-nonguix.drv' failed to produce output path `/gnu/store/sailxjc3lnd9rylm2x9795x0j0cgcgxl-nonguix'
build of /gnu/store/zlsavr3sd9wl8i9l9ps0hpk1j0wjkak6-nonguix.drv failed
View build log at '/var/log/guix/drvs/zl/savr3sd9wl8i9l9ps0hpk1j0wjkak6-nonguix.drv.gz'.
cannot build derivation `/gnu/store/imiaxn32kiv9fdifqgajmm7ggpf8b100-profile.drv': 1 dependencies couldn't be built
guix pull: error: build of `/gnu/store/imiaxn32kiv9fdifqgajmm7ggpf8b100-profile.drv' failed

So like, I more or less understand what the error is saying, but unfortunately, it gave zero information to help me identify the code causing it.