Posts
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(Linux) Setting up Ruby on Rails using RVM
In this post I’ll go over how to install Ruby on Rails on Linux using Ruby Version Manager, or RVM.
RVM simplifies maintaining one or more independent Ruby environments, which can be helpful for development and testing. You can run builds on multiple gemsets this way, and if you so choose you can set up self-contained environments for each project.
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Ruby on Rails not so slow on Unix
I’ve been starting to work in Ruby on Rails, and the Rails experience seems to be much smoother on Linux than on Windows.
More tools work out of the box, and there are significant performance improvements. Search for “rails slow on windows” and you’ll find many results, with the most common suggestion being to move to Unix.
For instance, test builds that take a few seconds to run on Linux often take up to a minute on Windows. The difference for general Ruby tasks is supposedly closer to 70% - 100% faster on Linux than on Windows. (http://programmingzen.com/2009/08/10/how-much-faster-is-ruby-on-linux/)
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Upgrading to Debian Testing
Last time I went over Debian’s releases and reasons to either upgrade to Debian Testing or remain on Debian Stable.
In this post I’ll go through the steps I took to upgrade to the current Debian Testing release.
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Debian releases and deciding to upgrade
Debian Stable, or just “stable”, is the default release for new Debian installs, with “testing” and “unstable” being the next releases along the development pipeline.
Debian Stable is the rock-solid release with few major changes going in and slightly older supported packages, while many downstream distributions like Ubuntu pull from Debian Testing, which gets more action throughout the year.
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Creating Git aliases
A few months ago a friend introduced me to Git aliases, and I’ve come to enjoy using them enough to set them up on every workspace I use.
Aliases are customizable shortcuts for full or partial commands, allowing the user to enter something like “git ci” instead of “git commit -m”.
git ci 'User can edit display name'git commit -m 'User can edit display name' -
(Debian) Setting environment variables
In this post we’ll set up environment variables for Debian, using Golang as an example.
I’d like to be able to run Go programs easily from terminal, and also have Golang environment variables accessible from applications such as Sublime Text Editor.
Environment variables can be set globally (/etc) or for individual users (~ is a shortcut to the current user’s home directory). I’ll set up these environment variables for my user.
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(LXDE) Monitoring battery life
I’ve noticed that my battery’s lifetime decreases by quite a bit when I run Debian. I’ll look into improving this in a couple days, but for now I’ve installed fdpowermon as a graphical battery life monitor.
In this post I’ll show how to set up .desktop files for processes such as fdpowermon, and how to update your system to run fdpowermon on session start using the new fdpowermon.desktop file.
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(LXDE) Customizing key bindings
A few key bindings are helpful to save time, especially for tasks such as changing volume or screen brightness settings. These key bindings did not work out of the box for me, so this was one of the first things I wanted to set up.
I’ve verified these steps on Debian GNU/Linux 8.3 (jessie) using the LXDE desktop. Other desktops may have their own locations for key bindings.
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