Setting Up Conky System Monitor Utility

Conky is a system monitor for X originally based on torsmo (see conky(1) manual). In this tutorial you will learn how to setup conky on both Archlinux and FreeBSD. Here’s what mine look like in FreeBSD. In my Archlinux machine it looks pretty much the same.

Install Conky 1.10.x

In Archlinux:

$ sudo pacman -S conky

In FreeBSD via package manager:

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Wireless Connection Using Broadcom BCM4313 (Archlinux)

I had an old laptop that I tried installing FreeBSD, unfortunately, I totally forgot it uses an old Broadcom BCM4313 chip for a wireless network. This chip for some reason is a pain in the rear in FreeBSD mainly because Broadcom doesn’t consider much writing an open-source driver for this chip. Anyway, so I just installed Archlinux with it.

By the way, for those who would like to get a new laptop and install FreeBSD in it, I would strongly advise you to find one with either Atheros or Realtek chip in it. Saves you some headache.

Here’s how to make the Broadcom BCM4313 working for Archlinux. There are some other ways to do it for sure but in my case, I just went with the broadcom_wl_dkms and wpa_supplicant packages. You would also need to install linux-headers if you don’t already have it.

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Going back to what works: the MATE Desktop Environment

Gnome Shell on Fedora 16

OK, the title may be a little harsh. Sure, Gnome Shell and Unity work for some, but I’m writing this in my point-of-view. Anyway…

I have recently upgraded switched my netbook distribution from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to Fedora 16. Personal reasons pushed me to do this, though one main factor is I wasn’t really keen on using Unity. Maybe not for now.

Without really doing much research (I know, I know, my bad) I found out too late, when I already had Fedora installed (it ships with Gnome Shell by default) that I wouldn’t be able to get Gnome Classic.

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