[Pan-users] Re: Pan 0.120 won't start from Applications menu after crash

[Duncan]

"Roger T. Imai" <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sun, 29 Jul 2007
17:16:57 -0500:

> Duncan:
> 
> Thank you so much for your well-considered help. It's great to see that
> the high quality of communications survives in private mailing lists,
> when it's gone down the toilet on Usenet discussion forums.

Thanks. =8^)  

It does depend a bit on the group, tho, and actually, the line blurs 
somewhat between group and list, too.  If like me you don't particularly 
like all the mail from a list in your mailbox and prefer a news 
interface, you may be interested in gmane.org, the list2news gateway.  I 
participate in most of my lists (including this one) as newsgroups, using 
gmane. =8^)

> As I had already saved all my attachments [] I didn't hesitate to
> delete the contents of the .pan2 folder, and as you predicted, I was
> able to start Pan normally from the Applications menu! I recreated my
> newsgroup subscriptions within minutes. Thanks again SO MUCH!

Glad to see it worked for you! =8^)

> I remember providing support for Windows users who'd never seen the DOS
> command line, or knew what directories were, or even how to use Windows
> Explorer, and now I feel like them, bewildered by all these
> cryptic-looking folder names, and not knowing their purpose. In Windows
> up through XP, I knew what every single folder was for.

> One of my reasons for using Pan in the first place was to borrow
> Ubuntu/Debian/Linux manuals from alt.binaries.ebooks.technical. There
> were a couple that discussed the philosophical differences between *nix
> and Windows, which I think will be a boon to my learning Linux. I am a
> confirmed Linux convert, and have no intention of ever going back to
> commercial software, which is becoming more and more bloated with
> user-accountability features (not to mention security concerns.)
> OpenOffice.org, which I switched to while still running Windows (and now
>   replaced by the Linux version) does everything that I need to do in
> Office 2007 at work.

You sound /so/ much like me, only about four years later.  I was pretty 
good on MS, very active in the MSIE/OE public beta groups for IE/OE 4 and 
5, and in fact was in line at midnight for Win98 and was even getting 
into programming a bit (only VB, but it could have gone farther, only I 
ultimately headed for Linux instead).  I was really looking forward to 
the union of the home and biz kernels with what ultimately became XP, 
too.  By the time it came out, however, it was blindingly obvious MS was 
going somewhere I could never go, as XP was for me eXPrivacy. I had been 
looking at Linux, but with a decade on MS, I had been a bit reluctant to 
leave it all behind.  The ironic thing is that had MS not pushed me, I 
might still be with them, but with eXPrivacy they crossed a line I could 
not and would not cross, so Linux it was.  I have MS to thank for finally 
pushing me to Linux. =8^)

They may have pushed, but my, what a pleasant landing it was!  Now, I 
look back on my time on MS and proprietaryware much like a defector might 
look back on his home country.  As with a defector, I left many friends 
and loved ones behind in the old country, still slaves in that land of no 
freedom.  Every day, I awake to the knowledge that I'm now living in the 
land of freedom, and savor every moment of it!  As that defector, I still 
talk to those still in the old country.  They invite me back.  Most don't 
understand why I left, pointing out all the glittery "good" things, all 
the proprietary games, the flashy media codecs (flash itself!), 
everything I left behind.  What they don't understand, however, is that 
it's not FREE.  That freedom means the world to me, and asking me to give 
it up, to go back and accept a life of non-freedom, glittery tho it may 
be... it's just like asking that defector to leave freedom behind once 
he's tasted it.  It's not going to happen!

Let me mention some books that helped me.  On the practical side, and I 
had these recommended to me so I'm simply passing on the favor, two books 
by O'Reilly publishing stick out, Linux in a Nutshell and Running Linux.  
When I asked, those were the two recommended by multiple people.  That 
was after I had realized MS was a deadend for me, so I was serious about 
getting up to speed ASAP and I bought them both.  I am SOOO glad I did!  
Together, they cost me ~$75, but I believe that was the single best 
investment I've ever made, and likely WILL ever make!

Both books emphasize the command line, and tools generally common to all 
distributions, over those specific to one or another (with an exception 
for package managers, where they cover Debian's deb format and tools, and 
Red Hat's rpm format and tools).  Running Linux is structured much like a 
textbook or tutorial.  While you can skip around a bit, the stuff in the 
front is generally easy, the stuff in the back rather more advanced.  600 
plus pages, I read it nearly cover to cover.  Linux in a Nutshell is more 
of a reference book, for the most part designed for those that know in 
general what they want to run, but don't know its command line that 
well.  It's similar to a stack of manpages, but simplified somewhat, and 
DEFINITELY easier to handle than a hundred pounds of printouts, yet it's 
more convenient to reach for the book than to constantly switch between 
virtual terminals or windows, reading a bit, then putting it on the 
command line.

Together, I figure the two books saved me at least 3 months' equivalent 
of full time 8-hr/day work, stumbling about learning it on my own.  A 
quarter of a year full time equivalent.  How much is that worth to you?  
Now you can see why I consider that $75 likely the best investment of my 
life!  I believe they'll run a bit more now, probably roughly $100, but 
it's still so well worth it words really can't convey...

On the theory side, pick up or at least read online, the Eric S Raymond 
series of essays The Cathedral and the Bazaar, and its successors.  Many 
people say what he described is somewhat idealistic, and that it may be.  
Some of the examples are now slightly dated as well.  However, at least 
here, the general idea rang /so/ true.  For brevity above I left out that 
I had almost come to releasing my own app sometime earlier.  Having never 
heard of the GPL, I still wished there was some way I could share the 
code, without fear of some claiming it was theirs, copyrighting it, and 
making it illegal for me to work on my own code!  I never resolved the 
issue at the time, and got involved with the IE betas soon thereafter, 
and then ultimately switched to Linux.  However, reading ESR's essays, it 
was as if he had read my mind and began from there, expanding and 
developing my thoughts.  By the time I read the book of course, I knew 
all about the FLOSS community, Linux, GNU, and the whole world of freedom 
I had earlier had no inkling of, but reading his essays on the subject, I 
began to understand many of the implications and gained a new 
understanding of the social dynamic and infrastructure of my new adopted 
community, in my new home, this marvelous land of freedom.  So take it 
with a grain of salt if you wish, but his work on the subject is 
definitely worth reading, as the dynamic he describes is what motivates 
at minimum, a not insignificant fraction of the FLOSS community.  
Understand that, and you'll have a whole new appreciation for how truly 
wonderful and marvelous our community is.

> Thanks so much for your help again. You'll see me on the Linux forums
> eventually, I'm sure.
> 
> Oh yes, the Ubuntu repository doesn't list higher than Pan 0.120 (Plate
> of Shrimp,) where do they get these names from, anyway. When I figure
> out how to upgrade to 0.130 I'll do it.

Someone already pointed you toward Darren Alber's packages.

As for the names... most of them are phrases out of various literature 
Charles has read over the years.  It's often fun too google them to see 
where they DID come from.  One of them was the "Their stomachs will roast 
in hell" quote from the Iraqi Minister of Information, during the initial 
takeover of Iraq.  My favorite was "She had eyes like strange sins", a 
quote from a mystery novel. (The quote still sends shivers down my 
spine... So much unstated meaning... in such a short phrase...)  There's 
even a now long outdated but still interesting list of the (to then) pan 
versions and their version strings, on the net.  [Drag the link out of my 
bookmarks, confirm it still works.]  

http://molelog.molehill.org/blox/Computers/Software/PanVersions.writeback

Sadly, while the announcement at the top points at the guy's new blog, 
last I looked, I couldn't find that he had continued the list.  With the 
nearly weekly betas after 0.90 for almost a year, he'd have quite a list 
by now, if he had continued.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman