This is a followup to another recent post discussing bash aliases meant to make your web-developer life easier. If this is your first Tango with Bash Aliases, head to that post for an intro to working with aliases. Otherwise--the list goes on!
You may or may not find this script particularly useful--this post is really about the power of bash scripts to help manage workflow. I do, however, find myself checking out new Git branches somewhat frequently. So, with the extra time in my schedule, I decided to have a little fun and see if I could automate some of that Git workflow with a simple script. Checking out a branch with git isn't a particularly complicated process: git checkout -b <branchname>.
If you've ever used removable devices across multiple user profiles, you might have noticed that, once mounted, the path to the drive changes depending on user. Here's a quick example: suppose I have two users/profiles on a computer and one removable disk named "Extras". For each user, once the disk is mounted, the path to the disk would vary--like this:
I recently talked about bash aliases for managing XAMPP more efficiently. Here are a few more fun ways you can optimize your development workflow on the command-line using aliases. None of this is rocket science, by any measure. Still, if you're new to bash aliases this brief article will hopefully act as an introduction to a new way of using the command-line (and a new way of thinking about workflow, hopefully).
You've installed XAMPP for Linux! Congratulations! Now that it's installed, how do you get it running? ApacheFriends has you covered for the basics, of course, but their methods make use of the command line, and aren't exactly efficient in terms of keystrokes.
If all you need to do is get services (Apache, MySQL, ProFTPD) started or stopped, ApacheFriends suggests you use the following:
I should know better than to mess with drivers on my old Mac Pro -- the hardware is finicky at best. Out of curiosity, though, I decided the other day to switch to an Nvidia driver. Big mistake!--I soon found myself unable to get to the login screen, and attempts to even get into the command line weren't particularly fruitful (an issue, I suspect, with the boot disk being encrypted).
One of the big concerns with the Raspberry Pi 4 as a daily driver is, of course, whether the hardware can handle the comparable workload of a desktop computer. I've already touched lightly on overclocking the Pi and optimizing a boot disk. The final question is whether the little SBC actually has enough software support to be productive--in any effective sense.
I previously posted on the feasibility of the Raspberry Pi 4 as a desktop computer--particularly in regard to whether it could handle my web-development workflow; there are really three major issues at stake with regard to whether the Pi 4 can pull it off:
When creating a partition, the "Disks" application/utility sets permissions to 700 by default (read/write/execute access for the disk owner only). You'll want to change that if you've got multiple users who need to access the disk on your computer. I'll discuss solutions below.
Okay... BIG qualifier here: this post pertains to a 2008 Mac Pro running Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS. If you're expecting some sort of cutting edge hardware review, this isn't it. However, I fetishize old computers and my 2008 Mac Pro holds well enough against contemporary computers that it can handle just about anything I throw at it as a web-developer in 2021. This computer has been an ongoing project, and I enjoy tweaking it here and there to see just how well it can keep up. I recently purchased some PCIe cards (adapters, really) to run hard-disks on, and in this post I'd like to casually review which card, which drive, and which connection gets me the best performance. I'll also discuss what kinds of tools on Ubuntu/Linux help me assess this.
Now, technically speaking, most of the information in this review could easily be found in product descriptions. Product descriptions, however, aren't always what they're cut out to be. I really prefer not to take it for granted that the maximum throughput listed on a product is the same as what you'll get on your own computer. It seems like there are enough variables in data throughput (reading and writing hard disks) that use-case is inevitably a factor. If my testing turns out to be redundant, that's fine.