August 2026 - luv-main

email width
by Russell Coker 23 Aug '26

23 Aug '26

HTML email is useful for advertising, but has no benefit for the vast majority of the use of email. Plain text email (the standard that even most programs that compose HTML mail send out) has traditionally been based around monospaced fonts to permit indenting and ASCII art diagrams. It has also traditionally had line lengths a bit less than 80 columns, initially because in the early days 80 column displays were a standard and in modern times because people still have email display configurations based around a lot of ~76 column email and the noteworthy corner case of Braille displays which are 80 column. For things which can't cope with >80 columns nowadays the common case seems to be phones which mostly can't properly cope with even 80 columns - the portrait layout for the terminal window on my current phone is 52 columns. So we can ignore phones when considering whether to use more than 80 columns. How to make email work on phones is a separate issue. HTML mail often works best for phones. Most programming is done on monitors significantly larger than 80 columns and expressive function names are a good thing to make things easier to understand. So line lengths in programming often exceed 80 columns through constructs like if(func1(func3(param1)) || func2(func4(parm1)) ) for which each of the 4 functions could have names >20 chars and the param could have a name of similar length giving a line length of 130+ characters for a rather simple logical operation. Even outside from direct code there are situations where longer lines are needed. The below is a comment I've just put in some SE Linux policy showing the call graph for user domains which is clearer without wrapping words at <80 columns. A line length of 120 columns would be significantly better for reading code, as a lot of stuff is in the 80-120 range. But it would really suck for Braille having half-length lines and also not be great for quoted text, it would be like the common experience of plain-text 80 column email on a 52 column phone display. A line length of 160 characters would display the vast majority of source code without wrapping and on a Braille display it would cleanly wrap into 2 lines provided that the MUA doesn't try to split on a word boundary. A line length of 152 characters would allow a MUA that splits a line on a work boundary to cleanly fit into 2 lines in the vast majority of cases while not having the second slightly shorter line look too ugly. A text file attachment is one way around the problem but most MUAs don't allow viewing it inline. A phone MUA will often launch a separate program and even if it's a separate window of the same program that is unpleasant to read for a phone display and often annoying for a desktop PC configuration. What do you think? # userdom_login_user_template() -> userdom_base_user_template() # userdom_restricted_user_template() -> userdom_login_user_template() # userdom_restricted_xwindows_user_template() -> userdom_restricted_user_template() # userdom_restricted_xwindows_user_template(xguest) # userdom_unpriv_user_template() -> userdom_restricted_user_template() # userdom_unpriv_user_template(user/staff/secadm/auditadm) # userdom_admin_user_template() -> userdom_login_user_template() # userdom_admin_user_template(sysadm) # userdom_common_user_template() -> userdom_basic_networking_template() # userdom_unpriv_user_template() -> userdom_common_user_template() # userdom_admin_user_template() -> userdom_common_user_template() -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Fwd: New Contact Us Form: Linux Users of Victoria
by phil＠philfixit.com.au 12 Aug '26

12 Aug '26

Hi All, We have had an enquiry from the luv website, it is as follows: ########################################################################### Linda --- Email --- ag.t1(a)icloud.com --- Comment or Message --- HI, I have been a MacOS user for 12 years (loved it at the beginning) & at 81 yo & health issues, haven't got the time to continue pushed upgrades of software & hardware & total control & continually having to learn new stuff. and cyber security. I accept that it is hard to live in this world without IT, but with little life left, I want to minimise it. Wondering if you have any members who have a lot of experience with MacOS various vintages and hardware, who would like to earn a bit of money installing & maintaining the most suitable Linux distribution on one of my od MacBook Pro & MacBook Airs (all top of the range for their era - 2013-2014 vintage with thunderbolt 2 ports and requiring everything permanently cabled: keyboard, mouse, superdrive, USB-A & USB-C, 2 time machine backup external 4TB drives, Brother & HP Lazer printers, sound system, iPhone sync cable due to my EMF hypersensitivity which prevents me from using bluetooth & wifi). Whatever distribution it is, needs to have the briefest learning curve because although I was an IT expert 50 years ago, I have significant health problems & brain fog now so want something simple safe and reliable which does all the necessary computing to participate in this world, ie. communicate with my home care package provider (SAH now) and my friends, family, health professionals, regular support workers, buy all my food & other needs online, do all my banking & listen to my favourite music. Have also fpiund it difficult to buy a Linux book that doesn't just pay lip service to Mac Users - they are all highly windows user focused. If you know of some that is for the layman, not compute geeks, that woudl help me, I'd love to know. Linda ########################################################################### Linda has about 3 or 4 and are 2013 or 2014 macs If anyone has experience with linux os's on apple macs and would be willing to reach out to her and assist her it would be most welcome. Cheers Phil in Sunny Mildura

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Don't you hate it when the install works better than the distro?
by Piers Rowan 11 Aug '26

11 Aug '26

Hi there, Things are much better now but many graphics installer booted right away, looked good and got the job done - often better than the distro they installed. Well I had too much time on my hands and wanted to try LFS (Linux From Scratch) again. Result: - CLI and GUI tools - Boots in 10 seconds - Useful as a live / recovery system, headless server and desktop. - KVM with GUI controls https://www.webgen.com.au/linux/ Things got out of hand quickly because when things aren't working and you need a toolkit to boot to something to fix a server invariably you will need a browser to download drivers and manuals and a PDF reader to view them, and, and ,and. Building in Chrome or FF for a live distro was going to be a big build. No bother I just wrapped wrapped the relevant library in GTK and added some controls and called it an app. Yes I used AI. (My first browser was MDI based of VB6 with ie.dll running it in the 90's; never thought tabbed browsers would take off so didn't bother with it). I need help because I can't test this on hardware I have. If you have millions of dollars then send me most of it so I can buy some. Or perhaps download the 1.5GiB and spin it up in 10 seconds and see if you can connect to your Enterprise hardware, your extra monitor, anything that works or breaks will be great to hear about. There is a "Bug Submit" under Utilities. Many thanks Piers

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Don't you hate it when the install works better than the distro?
by Piers Rowan 02 Aug '26

02 Aug '26

Hi there, Things are much better now but many graphics installer booted right away, looked good and got the job done - often better than the distro they installed. Well I had too much time on my hands and wanted to try LFS (Linux From Scratch) again. Result: - Runs in UNDER 400MB - CLI and GUI tools - Boots in 10 seconds - Useful as a live / recovery system, headless server and desktop. - Untested base VM / Container OS. Things got out of hand quickly because when things aren't working and you need a toolkit to boot to something to fix a server invariably you will need a browser to download drivers and manuals and a PDF reader to view them, and, and ,and. Building in Chrome or FF for a live distro was going to be a big build. No bother I just wrapped wrapped the relevant library in GTK and added some controls and called it an app. Yes I used AI. (My first browser project was MDI based of VB6 with ie.dll running it in the 90's; never thought tabbed browsers would take off so didn't bother with it). I need help because I can't test this on hardware I have. If you have millions of dollars then send me most of it so I can buy some. Or perhaps download the 1.5GiB and spin it up in 10 seconds and see if you can connect to your hardware, your extra monitor, anything that works or breaks will be great to hear about. There is a "Bug Submit" under Utilities. WebGen Linux: https://www.webgen.com.au/linux/ 379 Packkages: https://www.webgen.com.au/linux/packages.html My Apps Shipped https://www.webgen.com.au/linux/apps.html Ubuntu / Debian Builds (How I test them before shipping them to WebGen's repo): https://www.webgen.com.au/linux/deb.html I am going to add more and more features as I get time because I learn a great deal and enjoy it. Currently I am running it on an Acer 4GiB laptop, a router I use a set top box and a VM in Binary Lane's cloud. AI and software development isn't everyone's cup of tea. I get it. What I am not doing is re-writing TCP via AI. I am using AI to put wrappers on proven libraries and enable CLI system admins and GUI users to work on their distro as they see fit. TL/DR ~ Give it a spin. 10 sec boot from USB / SDD. Submit a bug and I will install your favourite app for you. Thanks for reading. P Updates shipped daily. Still Linux under the hood so you can work with it as you normally would.

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