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Build the Same LaTeX Input File Differently According to Command-Line Options

10 minutes to read

You might have encountered situations where you would like to produce different versions of the same document or create several related documents from a single source, such as: All your document versions have exactly the same content, but each version is formatted differently. Example: In parallel with a standard version of your document, you might also want to create a more accessible version of it that uses a larger font size. …

Framework Laptop 13 with AMD Ryzen 7 7840U

16 minutes to read

Framework Laptops are a series of laptops designed with user repairability, configurability, and upgradability in mind. After two years of launching exclusively models using Intel Core processors, Framework started to ship laptops with AMD Ryzen processors, which are what I looked for since I had heard of Framework. So, I purchased a Framework Laptop 13 with AMD Ryzen 7 7840U, received it in November 2023, and have been using it ever since, but only recently have I found time to write an article about my experience with it. …

Minimize Steam When Launching a Game Shortcut on Windows

5 minutes to read

The recent Steam client major update has brought predominant user interface changes as well as a regression in user experience: if the Steam client is not running, and the user launches a Steam game from its desktop or Start menu shortcut, then the Steam client window will show up before the game launches; prior to the update, Steam would start minimized in this case, thus the window would not show up on its own. …

Avoid Creating -9999-only Gentoo Packages

Updated: 21 minutes to read

Some Gentoo packages provide a special 9999 version; by convention, the ebuild that bears the 9999 version is a live ebuild, which builds the package from its “live” sources in the project’s version control system (VCS) repository – e.g. a Git repository – instead of “non-live” sources in a .zip or a .tar.* archive. The project’s sources in the VCS repository are usually subject to frequent changes due to development activities, hence they are “live”. …

Installing Gentoo via Asahi Linux on an Apple Silicon-based Mac

20 minutes to read

When Apple launched Macs with Apple silicon, people speculated that a revolution in desktop computing had started. I saw on Reddit a GNU/Linux user claimed that GNU/Linux distributions should start to worry about the potential transition from x86-64 to ARM64 and do something about it to survive. What they might have not realized was that common software packages that constitute GNU/Linux had been long prepared for ARM64 thanks to portability of high-level programming languages. …

Using New Feature While Maintaining Backward Compatibility in Hugo Templates

Updated: 8 minutes to read

In the recent v0.109.0 release of Hugo, a new .Ancestors page variable was added to make it easier to implement a breadcrumb navigation template. The new variable’s usefulness is clearly shown by how the example breadcrumb template in Hugo documentation has been simplified and become easier to understand, as presented below (code modified for readability). It is no longer necessary to create a helper inline partial (i.e. breadcrumbnav in the following example) and call it recursively. …

Run Windows 98 in Vanilla DOSBox

14 minutes to read

As a DOS emulator, DOSBox is theoretically capable of running DOS-based versions of Windows, like Windows 3.1, 95, and 98. Certainly, the compatibility list on DOSBox official website classifies Windows 3.1 and 95 as supported; but for Windows 98, it is just rated runnable – even lower than the intermediate playable tier. Perhaps for this reason, most people would just resort to other DOSBox forks that offer better support for Windows 98, like DOSBox-X, when they want to run this version of Windows. …

Gentoo Configuration Guide: Full Disk LUKS2 with GRUB and systemd

This collection is a tutorial which provides instructions to set up LUKS2-based full disk encryption on a Gentoo system using GRUB as the bootloader and systemd as the init system. In particular, setting up LUKS2 for use with GRUB is especially tricky, and this tutorial addresses any intricacies there. This tutorial aims to support both new Gentoo installations and existing ones, so it can be used to encrypt an unencrypted system too. …

Use Git to Manage Kernel Sources on Gentoo

Updated: 12 minutes to read

Gentoo offers its users a wide array of Linux kernel packages in the sys-kernel/* category, each of which may install the kernel in a different way. In particular, the sys-kernel/*-sources packages (such as sys-kernel/gentoo-sources, sys-kernel/vanilla-sources) install only the kernel’s source code and do nothing else. This is suitable for users who prefer to compile and install the kernel on their own but still would like to let the system package manager update the kernel sources automatically. …

Refine Gentoo on Windows Subsystem for Linux

8 minutes to read

This article covers some information that can help perfect a Gentoo installation on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) to maximize its performance, improve its interoperability with Windows, and even unlock new system capabilities. Originally, I had been planning to write a full Gentoo on WSL installation tutorial during September of the last year, but that tutorial was only halfway done before I had to move on for something more important in my real life, which is why I have disappeared from my personal site for almost another half of year (though you could find my development activities on GitHub if you looked at my profile). …