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Tonto

Tonto is a personal address-list, calendar, notepad, and so much more.

Tonto is meant to be an always-available amanuensis. It may be started and terminated manually as needed but will usually be left running for the duration of a Gnome Display Manager (GDM) session.

• How to Use Tonto

PythonTidy

PythonTidy.py cleans up, regularizes, and reformats the text of Python scripts.

I intend it to encapsulate the wisdom revealed in:

• Rossum, Guido van, and Barry Warsaw. "PEP 8: Style Guide for Python Code." 23 Mar. 2006. Python.org. 28 Nov. 2006 <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/>.

Python scripts are usually so good looking that no beautification is required. However, from time to time, it may be necessary to alter the style to conform to changing standards.

• PythonTidy.py

VaryOnApplet

VaryOnApplet is a pushbutton process-control applet for the Gnome Panel.

Among all the daemons and processes that support day-to-day use of a Linux system, most should start during the boot procedure and run all the time. However, there are a few, such as fetchmail, which a single user in a desktop environment may wish to start manually. VaryOnApplet acts as a switch to invoke the boot script of such a daemon, starting or stopping the daemon when the user touches the applet face. The applet face changes, providing visual confirmation of the daemon's state.

• VaryOnApplet

Vital Linux Tweaks

This script changes the look-and-feel of bash, GNOME, Firefox, et al in small but significant ways.

It demonstrates how messy life in a GUI world really is.

Rather than configure myriads upon myriads of options, settings, and properties via the GUI interfaces of various applications, this script tweaks their text-based configuration files, which are scattered throughout the user directories.

This script is run from the command line. It solicits no input from the console.

Obviously no single script can set up a Gnome/Linux desktop environment ideally for all users or even for any two users. This script sets up my environment for me. You may be able to use parts of it.

Obviously this script is good only for specific versions of software and is dangerous to run unless you are absolutely certain what levels are installed. It was developed for Debian Gnu/Linux 4.0 r1 Etch i386.

• It makes look-and-feel portable between user accounts and between computers running identical software-revision levels.
• It makes recovery of look-and-feel semi-reliable and quick after reloads.
• It is more-or-less stateless. It can be run and yet re-run when in doubt about the current state of affairs.
• By showing what changes are made where, it documents those changes.
• It is ad hoc. Nobody and no-thing generates a unified log of the changes you make through the GUI interfaces. Instead, you have to scribble each change down, research the impact of it, and replicate its effect on sundry config files.

There are aspects of configuration beyond those that can be addressed by this script.

• A list of required packages should be conjured, and the packages on that list should be installed before attempting any configuration.
• TrueType fonts (folder TTF) should be copied from an old PC to /usr/local/share/fonts to be sure they're available to print any documents brought forward, too.
• Look at /usr/local/bin on the old machine for any programs that are not distributed through normal channels. Things seen here that you nevertheless recognize as being necessary may require special effort to port forward.
• The setups for certain packages ought to be brought forward from an old PC rather than be tweaked or overlaid. Copying all the files in a user's home directory from the previous system takes care of this mostly. Pay special attention, though, to any packages that run at root authority. fetchmail may be the prime example. Its config file is in the root directory.
• Note: HylaFAX emails monthly reports (and notice of FAXes received) to faxmaster. exim4 is typically configured to route all outbound mail through your ISP's SmartHost without attempting any local delivery. Thus, you need to configure at least an alias for faxmaster inbound eMail at your ISP.

• vital_linux_tweaks.py