Space Oddity
Sat 07 May 2022 10:08:31 AM EDT
I’ve opened countless writings with the words, “I really don’t know what to write,” or “I don’t know where to begin…”
I guess this is yet another one of those writings…
I suppose the best place to start, at least for now, is with the story of how I discovered gemini–as it does tie into what I’m thinking the whole point of this little capsule will be. But before that, I guess I should give a quick little introduction to what I’m even talking about in reference to gemini and capsules, as I am crossposting this into the web. For anyone not in the know, and somehow reading this nonsense out in the world wide web, gemini is a different kind of text and file transfer protocol–a different way for our computers to link together and share information. Instead of things being written and served up in languages being supported by hypertext–you know, that http:// bit that you might’ve seen or used in your browser’s address bar–stuff here is riding on the “simpler” gemini specification; as such, you’ll see addresses beginning with the gemini:// protocol.
I think that’s about the best and simplest way I can come up with trying to explain it. Yeah, if you’re lost, don’t worry, I can barely understand what I’m talking about, too. Anyway, that’s where this writing currently lives–at least originally–in the gemini universe, or gem-space. The whole “space thing” is also a neat little joke tying into the creation of the protocol’s name–think about NASA’s Gemini capsule… are you seeing a connection in where the different “sites” are referred to as “capsules”?
Yeah, okay, I need to move on, I see I’m losing your attention. But, if you’d like to know more about gemini, then head on over to:
https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
So, anyway, back to the story of this particular capsule’s birth.
A few weeks ago, I’d begun tinkering with an old tablet–a Nexus 7 (“grouper” if that matters to anyone)–trying to find some way to make it useful to me again. The whole problem I was having was that the digitizer was broken–I’d accidentally stepped on the thing about a year ago, after having rediscovered it and having already made it be a useful device again. The Nexus 7 is a pretty old device, and isn’t the easiest thing to use in the present day, due to it’s hardware limitiations. I’d managed to find good use of it as an e-reader, however, and as a quick little tool to do some light browsing. If you want to try to continue to use it today as an android device and not be as limited, I recommend seeking out instructions on changing the OS from ASUS/Google’s installed version to either CyanogenMod or LineageOS. (Personally, I’d tried the latest LineageOS release at the time and found it to be about as buggy and slow as the last “offical” Google update, so I downgraded back to the last build released under the CM name–sorry, can’t remember off-hand the version number.) Anyway…
A curious search led me to discover postmarketOS–a solution! I could install a flavor of Linux on the thing!
Yeah, okay, how’s adding a different operating system to the tablet going to fix the fact that I still can’t interact with the touchscreen, right? Well, my thoughts were that I could have it propped on my desk and remotely control it via my main PC–just kind of using it as a small, separate little PC of it’s own, and using it for only tiny little tasks–weather radar, streaming background music, running a lightweight script or two. Yeah, turning it into a bit more of a novelty, I guess–but one I could actually use!
Shortening the story, I managed to get pmOS installed and set about finding a way to control it. I could’ve went with a regular VNC method–which I did end up having to employ VNC at some point in order to do something–but I wanted something more. I wanted to more directly control the tablet with my mouse and keyboard; and if I could get a solution that would also work on a couple of netbooks I also have sitting on the desk, we’d have a winning solution to my problems. Enter “Barrier”.
Barrier is a nifty little program that does a VNC like connection, acting as an automatic KVM switch–sans the V, I guess–between computers. I’d heard of Barrier years ago on TWiT–or, at least, I think I did–and had toyed with it once before. (Okay, so my memory may be a bit fuzzy, here. It was either Barrier or the program it was forked from–and I know that somewhere in the mix was mention of a Windows PowerToy “Screen Without Borders” or something like that. I dunno. I just remember–or think I remember–that it was stuff mentioned about how Leo was able to interface between a couple of his computers and–again, I think–even the “Skype-asaurus”.)
So, anyway; Awesome. We have Barrier available on pmOS for the asus-grouper. Sweet. Of course we have Barrier for x64 Mint. Sweet. Barrier ports exist for Windows… but not for 32-bit. Well, crap. I just “upgraded” that netbook to Win 8.1, and didn’t want to turn it back into a linux machine, again. (That’s another story.) Well… time for a little lazy research. Synergy–the program that Barrier was forked from–runs on 32-bit Windows. Sweet. Can Barrier and Synergy talk to each other? No–at least not any more. Crap. Keep searching… If it had been possible–or at least this one person said they’d had them talking to each other at one point, maybe I can find where someone said which versions ended up being compatible…
…and here is where I stumbled upon a gemini capsule. (Stumble Upon… wonder if that service still exists… hmm…)
So in my search results I found a gemlog of someone going through something kinda similar. Their post caught my attention–merely because of the odd use of font and color on the page that was served to me; see, I was on the www looking at all this stuff, and I found an html mirror of this person’s gemlog. At first I was like, “Okay, what the heck is this? I’ll need to poke around here, later,” as that’s my usual response to finding geeky looking things on todays modern web. I went to look at the address and got hit with another surprise–which really wasn’t that surprising, given that whole color/font thing–“there’s a port number exposed in the url! Somebody might be serving up stuff from home!” This always excites me; I really don’t know why. I guess it’s a part of me that thinks something like, that’s the way it should be. So, anyway, I made a mental note–because I’m terrible with bookmarks–and went back to searching for an answer to my problem.
To keep you from hanging in suspense, I gave up on my search for a way to have Barrier and Synergy shake hands and went ahead with grabbing compiled Windows builds of Synergy and then building Synergy from source on Mint and pmOS. That was <sarcasm> fun </sarcasm>. (hmm… yet another aside, did the “sarc-mark” ever become a thing?)
…so eventually, I came back around to looking at that mirrored gemlog, and actually read the post, as I’d only skimmed it previously; and there, at the end, was mention of the post being a mirror of a page, revaling to me a URL with the gemini:// protocol. “gemini:// ? What the heck is that?” Needless to say, that’s when I began my search to discover what gemini is, and now Bob’s your uncle.
Wow.
That was seriously one long, rambling, pointless story. I think I’ll end this post here, and pick back up on the rest of this gemini stuff–as well as some of the other things I began to get derailed on–in another post in the near future.
Thanks for reading;
–J
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