Arch Linux

gammel.holte

Member

Registered: 2010-02-01

Posts: 53

Help migrating from OS X to Arch

Hi Arch users,

I'm using Mac OS X as my primary OS. Certain constraints on my job don't hold anymore, so I have regained freedom of choice and I'm looking forward to switch back to Linux. I have already installed Arch on an old laptop, the distro of my choice.

The main pieces of my tool chain are free (as in freedom), so in that aspect switching is a no brainer. I'm referring to Emacs, Git, TeX and MediaWiki.

However, I'm struggling to find some applications that offer me:

* An address book that syncs with cell phones
* An email client integrated with the address book

* A simple GTD task and project manager
* A calendar application
** Syncing of the previous two among them and with cell phones

I know Evolution might offer some of the above functionality. I would prefer a more Unix-like solution, though. I mean, small programs that do one thing and do it well, e.g. mutt, alpine or vim.

I'm looking for suggestions as what to try in order to achieve that functionality.

Thanks in advance.

PS: I might also add that Emacs may offer some of what I'm looking for, but I'd prefer not ending up making Emacs my whole OS. Org Mode might be a good choice for GTD, though.

If anyone knows OS X, just for reference, I'm using: Address Book, iCal, Mail, Actiontastic and Quicksilver.

DeeCodeUh

Member

From: Michigan, USA

Registered: 2007-11-27

Posts: 176

Re: Help migrating from OS X to Arch

KDE's PIM suite offers a lot of that, it's beyond anything I've ever used before. I'm not sure about being able to sync with a cell phone though.. never tried it.

Profjim

Member

From: NYC

Registered: 2008-03-24

Posts: 658

Re: Help migrating from OS X to Arch

You could use mutt,abook (I have an evolved, abook-devel version if you're interested), and something like remind/wyrd. Then if you could get access to the right framework, write your own scripts to synch the cell phone with your text databases. If you're comfortable with scripting, that shouldn't be at all hard. What seems trickiest about this is getting connected to the cellphone and its database. Would be nice to have some library to abstract that away.

gammel.holte

Member

Registered: 2010-02-01

Posts: 53

Re: Help migrating from OS X to Arch

Thanks for the replies. As expected, the phone syncing will be the trickiest part, but hopefully not too difficult to get done with some work. Perhaps something like http://www.opensync.org/ will do.

Yes, I'm interested in your abook-devel version, where can I grab it?

Regards,

Profjim

Member

From: NYC

Registered: 2008-03-24

Posts: 658

Re: Help migrating from OS X to Arch

Hadn't posted it anywhere before.

Here you go: http://www.jimpryor.net/linux/abook.html.

AlexS

Member

From: Munich, Germany

Registered: 2009-05-16

Posts: 114

Re: Help migrating from OS X to Arch

* A simple GTD task and project manager
[...]
** Syncing of the previous two among them and with cell phones

An option worth considering is MonkeyGTD, adapted from TiddlyWiki, a javascript powered wiki. It's easy to sync (just one file), but your phone must be able to cope with javascript.

gammel.holte

Member

Registered: 2010-02-01

Posts: 53

Re: Help migrating from OS X to Arch

Hadn't posted it anywhere before.

Here you go: http://www.jimpryor.net/linux/abook.html.

Thanks!

Thanks also for the tip regarding MonkeyGTD.

Another question, is it possible to sync abook birthday fields with remind/wyrd?

Profjim

Member

From: NYC

Registered: 2008-03-24

Posts: 658

Re: Help migrating from OS X to Arch

Possible, sure. In each case, I think they're just lines in text files. You could write a script to do this:

1. pull each birthday from the abook database, save it in an associative array1 keyed by names.
2. Also pull the last modtime from the abook database, call it modtime1.
3. pull each birthday from the remind database, save it in an assoc array2 keyed by names.
4. Also pull the last modtime from the remind database, call it modtime2.
5. the synch script has its own assoc array3 and array4, keyed by names, which it reads/writes to disk. array3[name] is a birthday. array4[name] is a last modtime.
6. for each name in the union of array1's keys and array2's keys:
    set array1_is_newer to false, and array2_is_newer to false
    if array1[name] != array3[name] and modtime1 > array4[name] then array1_is_newer = true end
    if array2[name] != array3[name] and modtime2 > array4[name] then array2_is_newer = true end
    if array1_is_newer and array2_is_newer then
        prompt the user what to do
    else if array1_is_newer then
        array3[name] = array1[name]
        array4[name] = modtime1
        update the remind database with array1[name]
    else if array2_is_newer then
        ...similarly
    else
        do nothing
    end
7. at the end, write array3 and array4 back to disk.

Anyway, that's the basic idea. Now, has someone already written and debugged and polished such a script? I dunno. Let us know if you come across it. But it wouldn't be hard if you're comfortable scripting.

Last edited by Profjim (2010-02-02 21:32:33)

enr1x

Member

From: Girona, Spain

Registered: 2006-11-09

Posts: 29

Re: Help migrating from OS X to Arch

Hi guys. I switched from Arch to OS X a few years ago but my MacBook Pro's logic board (ie. the main board) stopped working and while waiting for it to be repaired (for four months now) I am using Arch/PPC in an old but in good working condition iBook G4.
I use Awesome WM, and most of the apps I use run in the CLI. I used to be a KDE guy and must admit that it has great PIM features, but now the tools I use are:
- Calcurse: Ncurses-based calendar tool, with export features.
- Abook: text-mode address book.
- echo and grep for a to-do list.
- MOC Player for music playing.
- Feh (Image viewer), Mplayer (for playing video), Uzbl (www browser) and Zathura for PDF.

Profjim, let me grab that abook version .

Hopefully I will get my MBP back, but my main machine will be this iBook, which (don't ask me why) is more optimized ATM. Let me know If i can help you.