TeX, LaTeX and Friends

Dr. Manuel Kuehner

4:33 AM

@Rmano Thanks again for the hint, see topanswers.xyz/tex?q=1518.

Rmano

6:00 AM

@Dr.ManuelKuehner you're welcome!

Skillmon

6:58 AM

@PauloCereda actually she used Linux before I did (her father's fault), but since she's not computer-versed herself, she never bothered setting up a Linux on her new Laptop herself. But Windows was failing so much lately that it became close to unusable (wasn't able to connect to wi-fi every other day, for example).

@Rmano would've been just one or two clicks (the import feature...).

Paulo Cereda

8:05 AM

@Skillmon ooh

Paulo Cereda

8:21 AM

@Skillmon mum started to use a computer and she has a Fedora install + Cinnamon. :)

Skillmon

@PauloCereda obviously, she decided to use this herself... :)

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmon ooh :)

@Skillmon she never used computers before, so it was a good approach to show her a good OS from start. :)

Skillmon

@PauloCereda agreed. Though I prefer KDE over Cinnamon, if it has to be one of those big desktop environments :)

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmon ooh KDE

yo'

@Skillmon oh greetings to her!

TeXnician

8:29 AM

@Skillmon You're more of an i3 person or why are they big to you?

Skillmon

@yo' why should I greet @PauloCereda's mum? :)

@TeXnician on my own machines I run Awesome WM (but close enough for a guess)

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmon ooh mum likes rabbits :)

Skillmon

@PauloCereda with pepper cream sauce?

TeXnician

@Skillmon Alright, awesome and i3 are both very minimalist. I guess, nearly every non-tiling system has to be big then :D

Paulo Cereda

@yo' "Oh Tom! Is he and his family well? What a lovely bloke! Send him my greetings to him!"

Skillmon

8:31 AM

@TeXnician obviously :)

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmon oh no

@Skillmon mum thinks they are cute and cuddly and soft

I won't show your avatar to her, though :)

@TeXnician ooh Intel

Skillmon

@PauloCereda :)

Paulo Cereda

(I know it's the window manager and not the processor, but I need to be the resident idiot)

For those running Gnome 3, there's an extension named Material Shell. I ought to try it soon.

yo'

8:48 AM

@Skillmon oh misclicked :( sorry

@PauloCereda awww

Skillmon

10:52 AM

@TeXnician thanks again for encouraging Manjaro Linux. Installation was surprisingly straight forward and the system was running in no time.

TeXnician

@Skillmon Glad to hear that. Installation of an Arch-based distro is one of the main selling points ;)

Paulo Cereda

@Skillmon ooh advanced rabbit skills

I helped too

Skillmon

@TeXnician yes, but comparing to my last Arch Linux installation, it took zero time (but to be fair, my last time installing Arch was trying a new setup for me, with a different encryption setup than I used before, so I took much time to just read stuff). Maybe I'll do it again today (yesterday I didn't set up a disk encryption, but that was a mistake maybe)

TeXnician

@Skillmon Oh, yes, encryption is a must for laptops. Good that most Linux installers nowadays have proper options for LUKS.

Plergux

@TeXnician encrypt...what? I don't even have a password :p

Skillmon

11:03 AM

@Plergux on a mobile device?

Plergux

@Skillmon on anything really

TeXnician

@Plergux Do you sometimes carry your laptop with you (outside)?

@Plergux Oh my :D

Skillmon

@Plergux ooh.

Plergux

@TeXnician yes.

Skillmon

@Plergux on my Laptop I have a fully encrypted disk with a password that is long, plus a user password that is roughly half as long, and a different root password, that is roughly as long as the user password...

Plergux

11:06 AM

@Skillmon mmeeeaahhh... I can't do that. I'd be locked out after five minutes because I've forgotten all of them. :|

Skillmon

@Plergux did I mention that it isn't even bootable without a properly configured USB-stick... :)

Phelype Oleinik

123456 :)

Plergux

@Skillmon jeeez... I would lose that, like, in no time XD (or drop it in my coffeee XD)

@PhelypeOleinik "Incredible! I've got the same combination on my luggage!"

Skillmon

@PhelypeOleinik your password must contain at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, and a number, and be at least 8 symbols long.

@Plergux Spaceballs!

Phelype Oleinik

@Plergux :)

Plergux

11:10 AM

@Skillmon In which case I use the password I got for uni ten years ago and managed to memorise :p

Skillmon

Which reminds me of how stupid my online banking is. The bank does only allow 5 symbols in the password...

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmon MrComplexPassword123

Skillmon

@PhelypeOleinik ABCabc123

@PhelypeOleinik a friend of mine used to have the password "1234567890"

(and yes, I knew his password, and he knew I knew)

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmon What really annoys me are websites that the password “must be up to 8 characters long” (I'm looking at you Brazilian government websites!)

Skillmon

@PhelypeOleinik well. Online Banking. 5 AT MOST. It doesn't get any stupider than that.

Phelype Oleinik

11:14 AM

@Skillmon Yeah. Here banks have a 4, a 6, and an 8 digit password (for different circumstances). Numbers only

David Carlisle

@Skillmon well at least your latex code is secure, even if you lose all your money, so that's OK.

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmon 8 digits is for online banking, because it's ultra secure

Skillmon

@PhelypeOleinik ok, that's worse. At least my bank allows printable ASCII.

@PhelypeOleinik 4 digit password is for the card if you want to pay in a shop or get money from the atm.

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmon Brazil likes to be worse at stuff :)

@Skillmon 4 is for the atm and 6 to buy stuff (and sometimes one and the other to prove you know both)

Skillmon

@PhelypeOleinik in Germany you can even pay by signature, but it is chosen somewhat randomly whether you have to sign or enter the 4 digit PIN. Never both though. And for small amounts it might even happen that you don't even have to do anything except holding the card out for a second...

(small meaning 20 € or below, iirc)

Pablo González L

11:20 AM

@PauloCereda Hello Mr. Duck, have you ever updated the firmware/bios of any laptop from linux?

@PhelypeOleinik Hola :)

Paulo Cereda

@PabloGonzálezL Never needed it. :)

@PhelypeOleinik ooh also install some trusty adware thingy

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda Mmm, I have a new toy, at the first boot with win10 it updates the bios firmware (which is correct and repairs some things), I wonder if it was possible to do it directly from fedora

David Carlisle

@Skillmon in the UK that got increased from £30 to £45 to avoid people having to handle anything in covid era

Skillmon

@PabloGonzálezL wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Flashing_BIOS_from_Linux

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmon That would be a terrible idea. My signature never looks the same (but it always looks like a 5 year old's :)

@PabloGonzálezL Oh, hello Pablo :) How are you doing?

Pablo González L

11:28 AM

@Skillmon Thanks!!!

Skillmon

@PabloGonzálezL your mileage may vary. I'd just update the BIOS under Windows after purchase and then install Linux (and never touch the BIOS again :)

Pablo González L

@PhelypeOleinik Loading fedora into my new toy :)

David Carlisle

@PhelypeOleinik that's OK no one looks at the signature anyway. But you can still use that mechanism when the internet is playing up and the contactless or pin verification not available.

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda Oh, yes. It's like installing a virus on purpose (last time I did it, it somehow changed the permission of a folder in my computer and it kinda stopped working :)

@PabloGonzálezL You and @PauloCereda are almost convincing me to use Fedora :)

3

Pablo González L

@Skillmon This is what I have done... from the official support of acer there is nothing to do from linux

Skillmon

11:30 AM

@PhelypeOleinik no, come to Arch! :)

Pablo González L

@PhelypeOleinik Fedora is the way :D

Plergux

@PhelypeOleinik SuSe!

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmon @PabloGonzálezL @Plergux NOW FIGHT!

Pablo González L

@Plergux SuSe :) the most nice

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmon I think I'm too computer-dumb to use Arch. It seems complicated (am I wrong?)

Plergux

11:32 AM

Nah, that's not fair.
I'd win, hands down. :p

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik Fedora!

TeXnician

@PhelypeOleinik Use Manjaro. It's Arch with easy installer. Afterwards it's not more complicated than any other distro ;)

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik ooh let's set up a chocolate eating contest

I think we all Linux people can safely say, avoid Windows like the plague. :)

Phelype Oleinik

@Plergux I used it once, but didn't like it much (probably because the computer was shitty :)

Pablo González L

@PhelypeOleinik The first installation can be a headache

Phelype Oleinik

11:34 AM

@TeXnician Oh, that sounds good

TeXnician

@PauloCereda You mean it played Corona 30 years ago? Spread everywhere and stay there?

Pablo González L

@TeXnician And I mute creating new pests like "filenames with spaces"

Plergux

@PauloCereda weeeell, personally I'd say "avoid Mac like the plague" :p Windows is more like that annoying co-worker that you can't get away from but annoys the shit out of you on a daily bases. :p

@PhelypeOleinik I have an emotional attachment to SuSe. My first ever linux was SuSe 6.0 :p

Joseph Wright

@Plergux What's wrong with the Mac? Nice Unix-based OS ...

TeXnician

@PabloGonzálezL Oh, yes, filenames with spaces, case insensitive file systems, strange browsers (well, formerly)…

Plergux

11:37 AM

@JosephWright well, it's not so much the OS as the associated, how shall I put it, "cult" :p

Phelype Oleinik

@Plergux It's probably good (after all it has a cute lizard as logo :). My experience was biased (read: school computers)

@TeXnician Try so hard to fix your broken browser that eventually you'll become Chrome :)

Plergux

@PhelypeOleinik ah. Those can be annoying. There was a fairly strange situation in some computer labs at the uni here. When you arrive it's rows and rows of pristine white Macs. Then you turn them on and voila! Microsoft Windows! XD

Pablo González L

@PhelypeOleinik The truth is that new "edge" is not left behind

Phelype Oleinik

@Plergux LOL Tricksy Windowses

@PabloGonzálezL It's based on Chromium, isn't it? (I read it somewhere on the internet, so it must be true)

Plergux

@PhelypeOleinik heh heh heh...

TeXnician

11:48 AM

@PhelypeOleinik Yes, it is.

Paulo Cereda

@TeXnician oh no

Ulrike Fischer

@Skillmon that is not a problem, as they throw you out for good if you enter the wrong password 3 times. You can't do a brute attack there.

Phelype Oleinik

@Plergux In primary school we had “Linux Educacional” (Educational Linux), and the Informatics class was playing Tux-themed games for an hour...

@PauloCereda ^^

Pablo González L

@PhelypeOleinik Yes, with some modifications like the PDF reader

Paulo Cereda

@Plergux Do you know which OS do sheep use? Baaaaaaaaaa-pple :)

@PhelypeOleinik Conectiva?

Phelype Oleinik

11:50 AM

@PauloCereda Don't know that

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik WAIT WHAT

@PhelypeOleinik At least Kurumin?

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda Sorry /shies away

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik oh my

Plergux

@PauloCereda hahahahaha!

@PhelypeOleinik nice! I just had command line windows in primary school. :p

Paulo Cereda

@Plergux did you see my secret thingy in the secret repo thingy related to secrety sheep secret thingy?

Phelype Oleinik

11:55 AM

Nov 13 at 17:36, by Alan Munn

2 days ago, by Harald Hanche-Olsen

Mar 6 '18 at 12:20, by Paulo Cereda

We ducks are not good at keeping secrets

Paulo Cereda

oh no

Plergux

@PauloCereda yes, I've not looked at it closely yet. Been trying to get through six million \index{}es in my thesis. :p (and I need to fix my secret sheep secret thing!)

@PhelypeOleinik LOL

Paulo Cereda

@Plergux there's a reference to you :)

Plergux

@PauloCereda (O.O)

Paulo Cereda

2 mins ago, by Phelype Oleinik

Nov 13 at 17:36, by Alan Munn

2 days ago, by Harald Hanche-Olsen

Mar 6 '18 at 12:20, by Paulo Cereda

We ducks are not good at keeping secrets

Phelype Oleinik

11:58 AM

Jun 9 at 19:33, by David Carlisle

Jan 27 at 15:06, by Phelype Oleinik

Jan 15 at 13:41, by David Carlisle

Nov 15 '19 at 9:45, by David Carlisle

Oct 28 at 22:50, by Phelype Oleinik

Aug 1 at 16:26, by Phelype Oleinik

Jul 3 at 9:43, by CarLaTeX

yesterday, by David Carlisle

Dec 12 '17 at 20:26, by Alan Munn

20 mins ago, by CarLaTeX

Dec 26 '14 at 0:17, by Faheem Mitha

I've got a feeling we had this discussion in this channel before. I'm getting a sense of deja vu.

Paulo Cereda

YES

@PhelypeOleinik <3

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda Dear stackexchange, we are getting out of room to quote the deja vu message. Please fix asap

4

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik See the comments in my question: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/253450/…

David Carlisle

github-actions just released pgf I see (@JosephWright)

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda And did they fix it?

Paulo Cereda

12:04 PM

@PhelypeOleinik nope :)

Joseph Wright

@DavidCarlisle I saw :)

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda “consecutiv” is Romanian, so it isn't entirely wrong

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik you naughty Brazilian

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda QUÊ?

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda you could fix it by going away for a day

Paulo Cereda

12:06 PM

@PhelypeOleinik ó, não

@DavidCarlisle But then I won't be able to say "quack" to you every day

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda good

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oh

@DavidCarlisle quack

David Carlisle

Jan 12 '16 at 12:15, by David Carlisle

@PauloCereda finished your thesis?

@PauloCereda Psmith could do it for you

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle oh no

@DavidCarlisle ooh I could bring him back

Ulrike Fischer

12:28 PM

@DavidCarlisle I guess that means that xelatex gets the shaded itemize balls back ;-)

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer how have we managed all this time without them.

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle @samcarter_preparing_for_xmas even offered a chocolate box to get them back

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer today is a big day

samcarter_preparing_for_xmas

@UlrikeFischer It was getting increasingly difficult to defend the box from the ducks who were trying to eat it - good thing a new version is coming :)

@PauloCereda What makes today big?

Plergux

12:45 PM

@samcarter_preparing_for_xmas Cakeday! :p

samcarter_preparing_for_xmas

@Plergux Ohhhh!

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter_preparing_for_xmas secret ducks :)

samcarter_preparing_for_xmas

@PauloCereda ducks are good a keeping secrets

Paulo Cereda

@samcarter_preparing_for_xmas we are! :)

@Plergux ooh cake

@samcarter_preparing_for_xmas ooh

Skillmon

@TeXnician if it's based on Arch, it's easier afterwards than other distros. Install once, never need to reinstall for a major update.

TeXnician

12:51 PM

@Skillmon Well, there are other rolling releases but I tend to agree ;)

Skillmon

@TeXnician other, not all other :) Of course there are other rolling release distros, but I guess Arch (and derivatives) are the most known and used among those. And the Arch wiki is just phenomenal.

TeXnician

@Skillmon Yes, the Arch wiki is really awesome. Sometimes it even helps the non-Arch users better than their distro's wiki :D

Skillmon

@PhelypeOleinik well, setting up Arch means a lot of decisions to make, as there is no definitive way. Arch gives you all the tools so that you have a free choice of what you want to run on your machine. The result is much work during the setup (including much reading), but the result is that you really know your system. If you have the time to make those decisions, I'd say it is worth it. You learn a lot about Linux on the way, if you don't, stick to more convenient automated installers [...]

Ulrike Fischer

This is e-TeX, Version 3.141592-2.1 (MiKTeX 2.4) (preloaded format=latex
2006.1.25)  19 NOV 2020 19:59
entering extended mode
**NTTest.tex
(NTTest.tex
LaTeX2e <2001/06/01>

Skillmon

@PhelypeOleinik [...] like those provided by Manjaro.

Ulrike Fischer

12:58 PM

@DavidCarlisle ^^^ from a question on d.c.t.t.

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer latex as it should be before you all joined and broke it?

2

Phelype Oleinik

@Skillmon Oh, good to know (and “no reinstall for major update” looks really interesting). I will probably try it out before, so I can get a feeling on how complicated it is (and with no fear of screwing it up :)

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik Fedora is definitely version-based and their rolling release counterpart (Rawhide) is a bit risky for the end user. However, there's always distro-upgrade in which you can move from one version to another.

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle ;-). But isn't it impressing? The format was created in 2006 and it still runs more or less (only with some color error, but this it certainly due to some wrong user input).

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda I don't know why, but I've never trusted distro-upgrade (as a Ubuntu user)

@PauloCereda Not sure how that goes for other distros

Paulo Cereda

1:06 PM

@PhelypeOleinik I think @PabloGonzálezL uses it more frequently than I do. I prefer a clean install, also as a means to clean up my stuff and start fresh everytime.

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda Yeah, cleaning up is good (I always promise myself I won't clutter, and I always fail :), but it's a lot of work

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik Since I know what I want, my post install takes 2 hours max. :)

Phelype Oleinik

@PauloCereda Backing stuff up is a pain (mainly because of the clutter :)

Paulo Cereda

@PhelypeOleinik :)

Rmano

1:25 PM

@PhelypeOleinik mv /home/romano /home/oldromano --- have /home on a separate partition --- reinstall and move things back when you need it. (I have my dotfiles in ~/lib/dotfiles and linked back). I do that once every two LTS (4 years), the other one I just dist-upgrade.

(Ubuntu here)

Joseph Wright

@UlrikeFischer That would have the five-year warning active on format-building

Paulo Cereda

U-boo-ntu

Rmano

@PauloCereda I'd like to change to an arch-based thing but I am lazy --- I do not want to re-learn a package manager

Paulo Cereda

@Rmano Come to Fedora. :)

Rmano

@PauloCereda my process has been slackware -> redhat -> mandriva -> debian -> ubuntu... I do not know if at my age I can survive another change.

Paulo Cereda

1:31 PM

@Rmano ooh Slackware

Rmano

@PauloCereda yes, I jumped on it when it forked from i-do-not-remember-what. Could be 199x with small x. I remember the pile of 40-ish 3½ disks

TeXnician

@Rmano You can learn pacman syntax on ubuntu (see github.com/rami3l/pacaptr) so that you are prepared for the switch later on ;)

Rmano

@TeXnician Arch is appealing, yes. And I have to admit that Arch Wiki is infinitely more useful than Ubuntu docs

Paulo Cereda

@TeXnician ooh pacman is easy, we need to avoid ghosts and eat those pill thingies

3

Plergux

@PauloCereda lol

Phelype Oleinik

1:55 PM

@Rmano Oh, I'm on Ubuntu too, though I'm stuck on 16.04 because the new Gnome desktop looks far too fancy to me (too mobile-like, with swipe things and animations fancier than the games I play), so I'm considering another distro when I stop being lazy and update :)

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda linux kernel 5.10 updates for you: Linux 5.10 will offer the usual grab-bag of goodies. On the serious side, support for Amazon Web Services' Nitro Enclaves isolation technology is on track for inclusion, as is code that will mean forthcoming Intel CPUs work well with Linux. On the sillier side, the kernel will become compatible with the controller of Nintendo's Switch gaming console

Skillmon

@PauloCereda You can configure pacman (the package manager) to have loading bars resembling Pacman (the video game).

Rmano

@PhelypeOleinik well, I admit that after a first rejection I came to like Gnome Shell quite a lot. And 20.04 is leaps and bounds better than 16.04. I upgraded from 18.04 in September without a glitch.

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

@samcarter_preparing_for_xmas ^^

David Carlisle

2:11 PM

@PauloCereda excited about Nitro Enclaves I assume?

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle nah joy-cons :)

(joy-con is the name of the Nintendo Switch controller)

LaTeXereXeTaL

3:56 PM

All this talk about Linux is making me want to use it again. I haven't used it since the very early 2000s.

barbara beeton

4:14 PM

@Plergux c-- I should teach you my password technique. It's easy. Choose a longish word you can remember, and a related word or phrase or idea that nobody else is likely to associate with the word you can remember. Drop some of the letters out of the word, leaving a pattern you can either remember or figure out easily. Choose a number (it has an associated uppercase "special"). Devise a pattern that will insert the number and apply uppercase selectively. (cont'd)

(cont'd) Write down the clue and put that in a place where you won't lose it. The passwords I've created using this method have registered no lower than "strong" when submitted to a checker, and they're all exactly 8 characters long. So I'm set, as long as I don't lose my list of clues.

Paulo Cereda

@barbarabeeton ooh clues

Plergux

@barbarabeeton That sounds very much like something that would work, since some passwords I have been given I have actually remembered by turning them into a phrase! Funny that I never thought to do it the other way around! XD

Paulo Cereda

@barbarabeeton So you are Sherlock Holmes and Gordon is Dr. Watson? But it's Watson that holds a cane...

barbara beeton

@PauloCereda -- Yup, and I bet you can't figure out my actual passwords, even if you know the general method by which I assign them.

TeXnician

Alternative password technique: Apply NATO phonetic alphabet k times on a word and append the number of letters of the output (cf. codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/215436/…) :D

Paulo Cereda

4:19 PM

@Plergux I would use baa as password and add a's to increase strength. :)

David Carlisle

@Plergux the other way is to write the passwords in plain text on a post-it note stuck to your laptop so they are handy.....

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh or refrigerator

Plergux

@TeXnician yipes!

barbara beeton

@PauloCereda -- But it's really hard to carry a fridge when you take your laptop on an airplane.

3

Plergux

@PauloCereda Hahahaha! Don't tempt me. :p

Paulo Cereda

4:20 PM

@barbarabeeton ooh a flying fridge

Plergux

@DavidCarlisle Sounds like me, only I wouldn't be able to see my laptop for post-its :p (I do carry some in my wallet :p)

Paulo Cereda

@Plergux The number of a's could be a prime or a Fibonacci number

David Carlisle

@Plergux fortunately I don't need post-its as the manufacturer kindly added the secret password already onto the lid. I don't know how they knew it was DELL

4

barbara beeton

@Plergux -- What I carry in my wallet is my favorite fortune-cookie fortunes. My absolute favorite is "It's after 5 p.m., and I've run out of funny things to say."

Plergux

@PauloCereda oooh, I like Fibonacci numbers. I crochet them a lot. :p

Paulo Cereda

4:24 PM

@Plergux OOH

Plergux

@DavidCarlisle LOL

Paulo Cereda

This sheep is a national treasure

@DavidCarlisle ooh

Plergux

@barbarabeeton hahahah! My favourite fortune cookie fortune is "Today you will mostly poo candy floss." (Sophie, Bake Off series 8) :p

Paulo Cereda

I like the one: "ignore previous cookie."

barbara beeton

@PauloCereda -- For my retirement, Don Knuth had Duane Bibby make me a drawing, and part of it was the beginning of the Fibonacci series. Don wrote an explanation of how every number in the series was relevant. It's a delight!

Paulo Cereda

4:30 PM

@barbarabeeton ooh!

@barbarabeeton ^^ from my TUG 2018 keynote :)

Plergux

@barbarabeeton aaaw! that's wonderful :D

Rmano

@Plergux that will make a nice "Tywmpcf" base for a password;-)

Plergux

@Rmano :D

Rmano

This is my daughter's technique --- she uses phrases from movies she knows by hearts and uses the initials (adding numbers)

Plergux

Ah, I could do that too:
-That's not the point! It's the principle of the thing!
-I can't make descisions! I'm the president!
-You got to grab life by the limbs and yank as hard as you can!
-Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something!
XD

Rmano

4:35 PM

@Plergux "my name is Iñigo Montoya..." ;-)

Plergux

@Rmano ah, yes. Or "Anybody wanna peanut!?" XD

Paulo Cereda

Or a toast

Unless you are a waffle guy :)

Pablo González L

4:47 PM

@PauloCereda Yes, the clean installation is the best, but, the upgrade that fedora provides is very good, I have used it for years and nothing to say about it, it is more comfortable than moving /home and others

My strategy is a little simpler, you need
1. The initials of the full name
2. The university registration number (I used it a lot, so I know it by heart)
3. Some of the 10 reserved characters of TeX
Then I just mix them up and that's it.

Paulo Cereda

@PabloGonzálezL Agreed. :)

@PabloGonzálezL ooh

Pablo González L

@PauloCereda It has never failed me :)

Paulo Cereda

@PabloGonzálezL :)

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer we broke classicthesis it seems. Now @PauloCereda will never get it finished.

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh I use memoir

Joseph Wright

4:51 PM

@DavidCarlisle ??

David Carlisle

@PauloCereda shh. You have also finished, but that would spoil the message

Paulo Cereda

@DavidCarlisle ooh got it

@DavidCarlisle OH NO

/quacks in despair

oh no oh no oh no

I have a thesis to write

Plergux

@PabloGonzálezL and then I would mix them all up and lock myself out of everything XD

David Carlisle

@JosephWright This:

0

Q: Classic Thesis 4.6 doesn't compile

I have TeX 3.14159265 (TeX Live 2020/W32TeX) kpathsea version 6.3.2 on my pc. I downloaded Classic Thesis .zip from CTAN When I try to compile ClassicThesis.tex in Texstudio with the standard pdflatex command I get these errors: Output routine didn't use all of \box255. \include{FrontBackmatter/D...

Paulo Cereda

et cetera and so on...

I need to resort to cry in the corner while eating chocolate

Joseph Wright

4:53 PM

@DavidCarlisle How's that our fault?

Paulo Cereda

ooh chocolate

Every cloud has a silver lining

Plergux

@DavidCarlisle Another reason why not to use somebody else's template :p

David Carlisle

@JosephWright well it worked before October and hasn't changed for years, so I guess we are probably involved somewhere

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle is this good or bad?

Paulo Cereda

@Plergux procrastination :)

samcarter_preparing_for_xmas

4:57 PM

@Plergux How does one crochet Fibonacci numbers?

Plergux

@PauloCereda I'm a procrastination guru. :p

Paulo Cereda

@Plergux ooh

Plergux

@samcarter_preparing_for_xmas for example with stripes: 1 row yellow, 1 row red, 2 rows blue, 3 rows green, 5 rows yellow, 8 rows red, 13 rows blue, etc. :p

You could also do it with increases/decreases for interesting scarf/shawl shapes. :)

samcarter_preparing_for_xmas

@Plergux Oh, that's a nice idea!

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle prelim2e, but as far as I know it is already in the works.

David Carlisle

5:05 PM

@UlrikeFischer never even heard of that package:-)

Plergux

@samcarter_preparing_for_xmas :D

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle I wrote Martin in july that it will break, and last week I got a question about it from Marei, she will repair it for Martin.

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer thanks for answering as well

Paulo Cereda

@UlrikeFischer ooh Marei

Ulrike Fischer

5:39 PM

@DavidCarlisle at least it has some now use, that I checked all this packages and wrote mails in the summer ;-)

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer yes I suspected that somewhere it was using a package on your list

Paulo Cereda

6:30 PM

ooh business shorts

Szabolcs

6:52 PM

Is there any online service where one can test old versions of TeX Live (2013 or earlier)? I am trying to submit a manuscript to a publisher, and it keeps coming back and a Missing \begin{document} and no clear indication of what's wrong ... Locally it works perfectly, but I have TeX Live 2020. I'm getting desperate.

The weird thing is that the "missing \begin{document}" is in the middle of a bunch of siunitx-related messages.

Paulo Cereda

@Szabolcs we have historic TL Docker images if they could help...

Szabolcs

I knew sooner or later I'd have to learn how to use Docker ...

Let me experiment a bit more first

It seems their system hates siunitx

Skillmon

7:11 PM

@Szabolcs is it really that old (2013)? I can go back until 2018 locally, I think @JosephWright or @DavidCarlisle might keep older versions on their machines.

Szabolcs

That's what the pubisher's log files say

It's clear that it's the siunitx package

I'm trying to rewrite it without that

Skillmon

@Szabolcs I found something you might find interesting :)

Szabolcs

Hm?

Skillmon

@Szabolcs take a look here: tug.org/historic there you can browse some historic archives, and look what I've found: ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/tug/historic/systems/texlive/2013

Ulrike Fischer

@Szabolcs overleaf goes back to 2014, so you could try this.

Skillmon

7:17 PM

The TeX Live 1996 iso is only 320.5 MB.

Szabolcs

maybe I could upload a newer siunitx and hope for the best

Phelype Oleinik

@Szabolcs Sorry to disappoint, but that's unlikely to work. expl3 has evolved a lot since 2013, so the expl3 used by 2013 siunitx is very different from the 2020 expl3

Szabolcs

ok, it's just a table with some S columns and \plusminus .... should be able to get rid of siunitx

Publisher could have mentioned that by "LaTeX" they meant pre-2013 LaTeX

Paulo Cereda

ooh we could get rid of the metric system too

Szabolcs

Is it possible to align on the decimal point in a table, without any packages?

Harald Hanche-Olsen

7:31 PM

@PauloCereda And start measuring distance in multiples of the Planck length?

Skillmon

@Szabolcs by using two columns and putting the dot in as a separator using the @{.} syntax.

@Szabolcs also, there is an oldish package named dcolumn: en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/…

Szabolcs

That one I saw, but didn't dare try, out of fear of another failure. I'm adding some \phantoms to make things line up ... almost done. Now only need to figure out how to increase the inter-column spacing

\tabcolsep

Paulo Cereda

@HaraldHanche-Olsen ooh the evil guy from SpongeBob

@HaraldHanche-Olsen oopsie, sorry, it's the other guy, probably not evil. :)

What if we need something smaller than Plankck? :)

Harald Hanche-Olsen

7:46 PM

@PauloCereda Not likely to happen. The planck length is about 1.6E-35 meters.

Paulo Cereda

@HaraldHanche-Olsen ooh

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@PauloCereda The advantage is that we only need integers. No more floating point! The downside is that 64 bits is not enough.

But we should be able to do astronomy with 128 bits.

No, I take that back. But 256 bits will do.

Skillmon

@HaraldHanche-Olsen I like measuring distances I have to drive by car in pico parsec.

David Carlisle

@Szabolcs everybody does that

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@Skillmon Hmm, one ppc would be almost 31 km. Sounds good for long distances. You'll need femtoparsecs for short trips.

David Carlisle

7:57 PM

@Szabolcs you could switch to dcolumn package for decimal aligned columns, that hasn't changed since the 1990s in any significant way

Skillmon

@HaraldHanche-Olsen driving to my parents takes me about 10 ppc, and from my parents to my wife's parents it's 1 ppc. A very handy unit of length for my everyday life :)

LaTeXereXeTaL

My copy of the latest TUGboat just arrived.

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@Skillmon And do you have your speedometer set to show picoparsecs per fortnight, then?

David Carlisle

@Skillmon oldish, hmph. standard I think you meant (it's part of the core required distribution:-)

Skillmon

@DavidCarlisle well, if my name was @DavidCarlisle all my packages would be in the core required distribution as well, but I'm not that selfish! :P

David Carlisle

8:00 PM

@Skillmon not all of them

Skillmon

@HaraldHanche-Olsen that would be unhandy. Is there some more-or-less standard measurement of time equalling 3 hours?

@HaraldHanche-Olsen or even better, some unit of time equalling roughly 30.857 hours? That would be perfect... :)

Harald Hanche-Olsen

@Skillmon Three hours, that would be about a siesta?

Skillmon

@HaraldHanche-Olsen then, let's change our speedometers to show ppc per 10 siestas.

system uptime comparison. Mine is currently running for 44days, 11 hours, 33 minutes, and 30 seconds.

Phelype Oleinik

8:15 PM

@Skillmon only 17:13:48 up 5 days, 8:22 because we had a power outage last week, otherwise it would be more or less a month, I think

Ulrike Fischer

8:40 PM

@DavidCarlisle it is probably not a good idea to ask how many not ;-)

David Carlisle

9:00 PM

@UlrikeFischer how would you manage without colortbl tables in primary colours.

Phelype Oleinik

@JosephWright Is there a particular reason for expl3's filename parsing turning everything into a string, or is it just because it's the reasonable thing to do?

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle is that the only one????

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer well no, these at least github.com/davidcarlisle/dpctex

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle I thought that there is quite a number ;-) The ctan list looks quite impressive.

@PhelypeOleinik looking at this xkeyval problem? It is really quite a problem.

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer good job ctan doesn't also list all the ones adopted anonymously under the names of made up groups:-)

Phelype Oleinik

9:09 PM

@UlrikeFischer Indeed! I managed to solve it with a de-\detokenize, but it gets things like \input{\jobname-test} with the wrong catcode, so I'd rather avoid unnecessary catcode changes at all

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle yes, like this my list of packages still looks manageable ;-)

Phelype Oleinik

@UlrikeFischer Even though that's very unlikely to bite someone

Ulrike Fischer

@PhelypeOleinik well I thought the logical thing would be to give \@clsextension catcode 12 too, but I'm not sure if I would dare to do it, I bet someone is testing against it somewhere.

David Carlisle

@PhelypeOleinik isn't the thing to do to store the cls and sty extensions as catcode 12 that's what I had to do when adding utf8 support for graphics filenames the filenames got stringified so I had to do the same for the default extensions

as @UlrikeFischer just said

Phelype Oleinik

@UlrikeFischer I thought so too, but I'll let you guess :)

Ulrike Fischer

9:13 PM

@PhelypeOleinik ?

Phelype Oleinik

@UlrikeFischer besides other packages also do \def\pkg@someextension{tfm} and use \filename@parse on the file list and all goes wrong

David Carlisle

@PhelypeOleinik you can allow the public documented macros to be catcode11 but string them before using them in the internal comparison

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle so some extension are already catcode 12?

David Carlisle

@UlrikeFischer @PhelypeOleinik \edef\Gin@gzext{\detokenize{gz}} and \edef\Gin@extensions{\detokenize\expandafter{\Gin@extensions}}%

@PhelypeOleinik we ended up with catcode 12 filenames supporting UTF-8 and not wanting the inputenc utf8 active characters to blow up

Phelype Oleinik

@DavidCarlisle The problem is not comparison in the kernel (I already use \str_if_eq:nnTF for that). The problem are packages that dissect \@filelist (with code similar to this) and use that to compare with \@clsextension. I have to make sure it gets catcode 11 in \@filelist

David Carlisle

9:18 PM

@PhelypeOleinik well as I say for graphics i went the other way and forced the user-supplied default extensions to be resaved as catcode 12

@PhelypeOleinik what catcodes would you put in filelist for a filename like ένα.δύο

Ulrike Fischer

@DavidCarlisle I think saving in \@clsextension cls with catcode 12 is the right thing. But I doubt one can do as a patch release. It is bound to break some package, so it should probably be in a dev release first.

Phelype Oleinik

@DavidCarlisle I'd have to either force everything catcode 12 or leave everything 11. The problem with forcing catcode 12 is that things like this would break:

    \tl_if_in:NnT \@filelist {.cls} { \normalsize }

From fontspec ^^

@DavidCarlisle That would be left as catcode 12, but probably nobody is looking for that in a file extension

David Carlisle

@PhelypeOleinik blame Will? Probably should take to team list so all team in loop

Phelype Oleinik

@DavidCarlisle Sure, I'm writing right now

@DavidCarlisle (to the team, not Will this time :)

Joseph Wright

10:07 PM

@PhelypeOleinik Mainly as it seemed reasonable and consistent with the idea of the str type

@Szabolcs I released the first version in 2009 ....

Phelype Oleinik

10:48 PM

@UlrikeFischer I see you're getting all modern, suggesting youtube links in comments :)

Ulrike Fischer

@PhelypeOleinik it is much faster than writing it all down ;-)

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