The penguin and me - Show me some cool Linux-only games.

[obediah]

Linux is fantastic. I just dumped the first 446 bytes (=the bootloader) of my father's hard drive's MBR to a file using a single command. I'd have no idea how to do this in Windows.

I love dd. Once, in the before time, I was writing a floppy image I downloaded. But I typed hda instead of fd0, and was too young/stupid to double check the command. I learned a lot that day.

The text editor is better than VIM (which one isn't?)

Thanks! Anyone that puts Vim at the bottom of text editors really isn't worth talking to about computers. You're either an idiot or your needs in a text editor are so different than mine that we lack the common ground to have a conversation.

 

[cardtrick]

Thanks a bunch for the link to that exposè clone, that's pretty much the only thing I really love about OSX. A real shame that it isn't free.

You could try Dexpot. I haven't used it much myself (since I already paid for TopDesk) but it seems like a solid choice. It's apparently not quite as pretty as Expose or TopDesk, but it has much the same functionality, plus some additional features like a desktop manager and a menu-based task switcher. Maybe worth checking out.

If you were willing to switch to Vista there are some far better free alternatives -- the Aero interface makes them very easy. I use one on my Vista laptop.

Sorry, but I don't know the answers to your Launchy questions. I use it mainly for launching programs and opening media files, and I never needed to use any of the plugins. Launchy's not a perfect program -- I definitely wish it had "Open with..." functionality, and also the ability to set priority for programs so that the programs you use most frequently or consider most important appear first in the list when you type only a couple of letters. Oh well, maybe someday . . . but for now Launchy is definitely inferior to Quicksilver, which is the other thing I miss most from my Mac.

For anyone interested in free software, Lifehacker often posts some great stuff.

EDIT: Oh, I stupidly forgot about your portability requirement, even though that was the majority of your post. I have no idea whether or not Dexpot is portable.

 

[Hory]

The text editor is better than VIM (which one isn't?)

Thanks! Anyone that puts Vim at the bottom of text editors really isn't worth talking to about computers. You're either an idiot or your needs in a text editor are so different than mine that we lack the common ground to have a conversation.

You're like one of those religious fanatics.
First of all, I need a text editor that has common tasks at one (intuitive) keypress away. But that's too much to ask from VIM. LAFF0

 

[obediah]

The text editor is better than VIM (which one isn't?)

Thanks! Anyone that puts Vim at the bottom of text editors really isn't worth talking to about computers. You're either an idiot or your needs in a text editor are so different than mine that we lack the common ground to have a conversation.

You're like one of those religious fanatics.

I have no faith in vim. What I do have is an editor that lets me open files, edit them, and save them in less time than most editors take to open the file. Including edits with regular expressions and even more crazy stuff. I use emacs for composition or programming, but for a quick edit vim slays emacs.

First of all, I need a text editor that has common tasks at one (intuitive) keypress away. But that's too much to ask from VIM. LAFF0

What editor other than vi(m)/ed has any commands that are accessed with one keypress? Being intuitive is too little to ask from vim. There is very little room for intuition on a keyboard, and a whole lot of things you can do to a text file. If all you need to do is write 1 paragraph e-mail, spell check and send, then by all means use pico or notepad or whatever, but don't presume to condemn more feature rich editors as if there is no need for them.

For example - I am an irc n0ob, despite having used it off and on for 15 years. I freaking love XChat because it is so very easy for a noob to click through and do very simple things. I don't understand any of those terminal based ninja irc clients that can do anything in 3 arcane keystrokes. That doesn't mean they suck, just that I'm happy to remain an IRC idiot. If I ever had to be neck deep in irc all day, you bet your ass I'd drop a GUI client and learn the keystrokes to save my ass quite a bit of time.