Post by @paul
It's very early days, but #AlpineBSD has returned some joy of computing to me
Granted, this could also be done with #NetBSD, on which AlpineBSD is based.
But having the tainted repo, where tools like git and curl exist has forced me to consider alternatives. I can install from tainted, but I have it configured that any apps here require me to use apk add git@tainted rather than apk add git so it's a great control measure.
For curl alternative, I'm struggling right now, and if I dare say so, Daniel has been open about LLM use for a long time and is probably the closest we have to "responsible use"
Git however, I can try alternatives, and I'm now using got - game of trees. I barely scratch the surface in my git usage, so got is probably going to be easy to switch to, and so far it's working great. I will use this more often across all PCs I think.
Now, I need to try a new shell... 😬
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@kinger@bsd.cafe
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@amin@polymaths.social well one of my joys with got is firstly you clone the repo... which you'd think is just what you do with git, but it isn't. You clone the actual repo structure into a folder - basically like the .git folder within a git repo - then you can got checkout ./project.git ./project to get a regular repo you can work on
It's a simple change, but what it means is you could have the actual git structure on a separate device to the files you're actually working on. I like this.
And when you checkout the message at the end is "Now shut up and hack". This makes me happy :-)
@paul ooh, nice 👌. I'll be keeping a keen eye on AlpineBSD. I like Alpine Linux (of the Linux's) and NetBSD. Keep me updated with how you get on Paul.
@GreyUnix@bsd.cafe yep, will do.
I'm using Alpine Linux as my daily driver these days, so having a very strongly anti-AI alpine-like BSD is very appealing.
I've been watching it for a few weeks now and I think the Wiki went live in the last day or so, so very early days!
https://alpinebsd.org
@paul Is got a replacement for git in such ways that you can use it for git repos? Or is it just a general alternative for version control systems? If it's the latter, why not use some of the more common alternatives like cvs?
And what shell are you using that (I assume) is now AI slop?
@hund@fosstodon.org I wouldn't say replacement as such, but yes got uses git repos. In fact, you can use got and git on the same repo, in case there's some functionality you need that got doesn't support (submodules for example).
It's pretty decent overall I think.
For a shell I use zsh, no package available for alpineBSD yet but that could just be an early days thing.
In fact the only shells I can find are sh and ash, maybe I've missed the rest somewhere.
@paul I'm a super basic git user. It should be enough for me then.
Oh! I see. I'm a long time user of zsh, but I have actually stuck with ash when I switched to Alpine on my desktop. While it lacks a lot of fluff, I have actually not missed anything enough that I can't live without. :)
@hund@fosstodon.org yep, I'm a basic git user too so it works quite well. a few different steps I need to get used to (I.e. push is send, pull is fetch and merge) but all good.
I think the only things I "need" from a shell is a decent history, command completion from history and really a friendly enough view like a basic theme. zsh just conveniently has this, but I could probably learn to do it myself in something else.
@paul What is decent history?
I miss the feature where I can type say "rsync" use arrow up and browse history that starts with that word. However. I find ^R to work good enough. I also have the alias `hg` which let's me grep my history. :)
It feels like ash forces me to actually remember stuff and to be less lazy. :D
@hund@fosstodon.org 10000 commands or so I think is reasonable 🤣
I think ash history is good in this regard.
Yep, backward history search is good, but Ctrl+r is decent too.
I've been trying to find ways to grab the arrow up keypress and run a different script, but that doesn't seem possible in ash. Nevermind.
Case sensitivity might be a minor problem, but I'm just have to work with that.
Anyway, I've got my PS1 variable set nicely now with got status and the current time, so I'll just slowly progress and see what else i can do
@paul Hah! That's a lot! :D Can't ash handle that? What happens when you set `SAVEHIST=10000`? Doesn't it respect that?
Case sensitivity is something that I miss as well. Sometimes. It can be equally annoying as not having it. I haven't decided what I dislike the most yet. :D
I always forget about those modern fancy pants prompts with, er.. clutter, from git and what not. I use a static promt that doesn't distract me. :D
@hund@fosstodon.org yeah, I think it can, I just haven't used it enough to have that many saved yet
It's surprising how often I need a command I typed.once 3 years ago 😁
Agree RE: case insensitivity. I've decided I'm going to use it an see how annoyed I get.
The one thing I need in a prompt is the time, I like to see roughly how long a command took to run. Annoyingly \t in ash doesn't give seconds so I've just got a function that uses date instead.
The git/got stuff was more a "I wonder if I do this" thing.
@paul How about documenting the command you might need 3 years later? :D
Time! That's something I had totally forgot about. I used a plugin with zfs that printed it took to run something (if it was longer than 3 seconds or whatever).
Hm.. I haven't missed it so far, but now when you reminded me about it.. I really want it.