1   27 September, 2019
 2
 3Weekly status update, 09/17-09/27
 4
 5Alpine Linux shenaningans and more
 6
 7   It's a lazy Friday afternoon here; yet another off day this week thanks
 8   to my uni's fest. My last "weekly" update was 10 days ago, and a lot
 9   has happened since then. Let's get right into it!
10
11My switch to Alpine
12
13   Previously, I ran Debian with Buster/Sid repos, and ever since this
14   happened
15$ dpkg --list | wc -l
163817
17
18# or something in that ballpark
19
20   I've been wanting to reduce my system's package count.
21
22   Thus, I began my search for a smaller, simpler and lighter distro with
23   a fairly sane package manager. I did come across Dylan Araps' [1]KISS
24   Linux project, but it seemed a little too hands-on for me (and still
25   relatively new). I finally settled on [2]Alpine Linux. According to
26   their website:
27
28     Alpine Linux is a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution
29     based on musl libc and busybox.
30
31   The installation was a breeze, and I was quite surprised to see WiFi
32   working OOTB. In the past week of my using this distro, the only major
33   hassle I faced was getting my Minecraft launcher to run. The JRE isn't
34   fully ported to musl yet.^[3]1 The solution to that is fairly trivial
35   and I plan to write about it soon. (hint: it involves chroots)
36
37   rice
38
39Packaging for Alpine
40
41   On a related note, I've been busy packaging some of the stuff I use for
42   Alpine -- you can see my personal [4]aports repository if you're
43   interested. I'm currently working on packaging Nim too, so keep an eye
44   out for that in the coming week.
45
46Talk selection at PyCon India!
47
48   Yes! My buddy Raghav ([5]@_vologue) and I are going to be speaking at
49   PyCon India about our recent smart lock security research. The
50   conference is happening in Chennai, much to our convenience. If you're
51   attending too, hit me up on Twitter and we can hang!
52
53Other
54
55   That essentially sums up the technical stuff that I did. My Russian is
56   going strong, my reading however, hasn't. I have yet to finish those
57   books! This week, for sure.
58
59   Musically, I've been experimenting. I tried a bit of hip-hop and
60   chilltrap, and I think I like it? I still find myself coming back to
61   metalcore/deathcore. Here's a list of artists I discovered (and liked)
62   recently:
63     * [6]Before I Turn
64     * Conform � (couldn't find any official YouTube video, check Spotify)
65     * [7]Treehouse Burning
66     * [8]Lee McKinney
67     * [9]Berried Alive (rediscovered)
68
69   That's it for now, I'll see you next week!
70     __________________________________________________________________
71
72    1. The [10]Portola Project
73
74References
75
76   1. https://getkiss.org/
77   2. https://alpinelinux.org/
78   3. https://icyphox.sh/home/icy/leet/site/build/blog/2019-09-27/temp.html#fn:1
79   4. https://github.com/icyphox/aports
80   5. https://twitter.com/_vologue
81   6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3uKGwcwGWA
82   7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66eFK1ttdC4
83   8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-w3XM2PwOY
84   9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUibXK7F3PM
85  10. https://aboullaite.me/protola-alpine-java/