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Going a bit off the beaten path for #FreeSoftwareAdvent, today I get to appreciate HaikuOS¹.

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    Today in #FreeSoftwareAdvent, I want to appreciate OfflineIMAP/mbsync. Both have served me well for bringing a remote IMAP mailbox locally and keeping it in sync across multiple machines, allowing me to mow through mail even when offline, and then have reasonable confidence that everything will just sync back up when I go online again.
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    Today in #FreeSoftwareAdvent it's ZFS. It gives me• all in one volume management (no volume-groups and logical volumes and manually resizing partitions on those logical volumes with a dozen different commands, no playing the "oof, need more space on partition A and have too much free space on partition B, back up all the files, nuke both, shuffle partition-sizes/locations, restore the files" dance)• transparent file compression• transparent volume encryption• fast and effectively free snapshots and clones (you start paying the cost if they diverge or deleting files that remain in a snapshot, but that's to be expected)• same-disk redundancy with copies=2 to help prevent against bitrot, and multi-disk redundancy with effectively zero effort• the CoW means no need for fsck(8) horribly slowing my boots or finding orphaned fragments of files and shunting them into a lost+found/ directory (my biggest frustration with OpenBSD's FFS2) in the event of an abrupt power loss• efficient send/receive (beats rsync hands down in terms of speed)• fine-grained quota/reservation control• utilities make scripting easy with output-formatting options• cross-OS support in a way that very few other filesystems provide (other than FAT 😆)I'm sure there are additional reasons that didn't percolate to the top of my brain, but it's just so much more pleasant than any other disk management I've done on any OS.
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    Today's follow-up #FreeSoftwareAdvent entry is vi/vim.Which I use depends on the situation. Classic vi/nvi tends to be lighter weight and start faster, while vim offers extra features that I find particularly useful). I usually just type `vi` which gets me `vi` on OpenBSD, `nvi` on FreeBSD, and `vim` (or `vim-tiny`) on most flavors of Linux. If I specifically want vim features, I'll invoke it as such directly.I could go on for ages about favorite features, but a select few:• the ability to keep my hands on the home row and not use a mouse is helpful for preventing RSI symptoms• it's a language¹ of editing, involving counts, verbs/commands, and objects/motions, so I can express my editing *intent* and then use the period command to re-issue that same editing *intent*• the :global or :substitute commands can make massive-yet-precise edits across huge files• the :*do commands extend that power across multiple files, allowing me to precisely edit millions of lines across thousands of files with targeted precision• it's ubiquitous—even as some Linux distros have started removing ed(1) from the base installs , relegating it to packages, I can always type `vi` on any Unix-like/POSIX system and be editing with a powerful editor. And with builds for Windows and my phone, I can use it everywhere. No need to install anything• they work just fine over a SSH connection without a GUI, and use minimal resources so they work even on that old hardware from the 90s.⸻¹ https://gist.github.com/nifl/1178878
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    Today's #FreeSoftwareAdvent entry: ledger(1) & hledger(1)I primarily use ledger use for my #plaintextaccounting purposes¹ but try to mostly keep my data-files in a form that hledger can process them too.Getting started involved a crash-course in accounting terms, but the use of positive/negative numbers (rather than "debits" and "credits" which always bugged me; though both have ways of specifying that output should be in credit/debit format) eased the transition.While it started a little tedious, a few helper-scripts and shell-functions simplified adding new common entries and gave me lazy access to common reports.I still struggle a little bit with closing the books (I though I'd figured it out, and documented it², but had some hiccups so I'll need to revisit my documentation in January)But it's been incredibly helpful to see and track our household net worth, spot trends, keep tabs on gift-card balances that would otherwise get forgotten, track invoices sent to clients, and it simplifies balancing the checkbook monthly.⸻¹ http://plaintextaccounting.org/² https://blog.thechases.com/posts/closing-out-the-books-in-ledger/