the-codex/003/codex-003.tex

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\author{Kenneth John Odle}
\title{
 {\Huge the codex} \\
 {\footnotesize Life with Linux — A Zine \\
 \bigskip
 Typeset in \LaTeX{} \\
 Issue \#003}
}
\date{\begin{small}\today{}\end{small}}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\section*{Impressum}
All contents  \copyright2023 Kenneth John Odle

Although this is now in your hands, and it's also on the web, so if you really wanted to steal this, I've made it pretty darn easy. I can't imagine why anyone would want to, though. However, you don't need to, because this is licenced under a CC BY-NA-SA 4.0 Creative Commons license. More information is at \href{https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/}{\texttt{https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/}} \includegraphics[scale=0.30]{ncsa4-0}

FYI, this is made in \LaTeX \,using the report document class. It then gets exported to a letterhalf (5.5 in x 8.5 in) pdf, which then gets made into a booklet using PDF Booklet (\href{https://pdfbooklet.sourceforge.io/wordpress/}{\texttt{https://pdfbooklet.sourceforge.io/word \\ press/}}).

I'm pushing this to my own git server as I write this. You can find it \href{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex}{here}: \texttt{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex}. New issues will be pushed after they are complete.

You can just skip over all the diversions in here if you want. It's just how my mind works. (And yes, there will be politics in this. \textit{You have been warned.}) Also, I use a lot of em-dashes, parentheses, and footnotes because that is also how my mind works. It's just one big long stream of consciousness up in here most days.

\medskip

\noindent \textbf{Errata:} To err is human, to document those errors is divine. A list of errata can be found at \href{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex/wiki/Errata}{\texttt{https://git.kjodle.net/kjodle/the-codex/wiki/Err \\ ata}}.

\medskip

\noindent \textbf{Credit where credit is due:} A lot of people have come forth (mostly from Reddit) to help me out in various ways. See the preamble to this document in the source code to see them. One aspect of our society is that nobody \textit{has} to help you. It is wonderful when it happens, and I am grateful for their help.

The picture of a VT100 terminal is courtesy of Jason Scott. It was published at \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100\#/media/File:DEC_VT100_terminal.jpg}{\texttt{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100\#/media/File:DEC\_VT \\ 100\_terminal.jpg}} where you can also find the Creative Commons 2.0 license it was licensed under. (By Jason Scott - Flickr: IMG\_9976, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29457452)

\tableofcontents

\chapter{The Final Salad Days}

\section{College}

\subsection{1986}

I went to away to college in the fall of 1986. Personal computers were still very much on my mind, but I still only owned a Commodore 128. We were still typing papers on electric typewriters at that point, and the height of that technology was correction paper.\footnote{This was a very convenient alternative to a product called "Liquid Paper" (also called "whiteout") which was essentially paper-colored paint in a small bottle with a brush in the cap. When you made a mistake, you shook the bottle and brushed a very thin layer over the mistake. You then waited for the whiteout to dry, backed up, and typed the correct letter. The fluid contained a lot of solvent, and as this was the time of the Satanic Panic, parents were warned that their kids could be huffing whiteout. As you used the product, more and more of the solvent evaporated out of the bottle, meaning that it eventually became a gloopy, chalky mess, meaning you could only use half of what was in the bottle—it was not very efficient. With correction paper, you just backed up to the mistake, put a bit of correction paper on top of the paper, typed the mistake again, removed the correction paper, backed up and typed the correct letter. It was much neater, had no terrible fumes, and you didn't have Fundies chasing you down the street accusing you of being a devil-worshiping drug addict because you had a bottle of correction fluid in your pocket. (Liquid Paper was invented by Bette Nesmith Graham, who also happened to be the mother of Mike Nesmith of the Monkees. The world is much smaller than we think it is.)} 

We did have computers available to us, however. Our college owned two mainframe systems: a DEC-10 and a VAX 9000. As I remember, you had to go down to the basement of the science building to use them, where they had a room filled with VT100 terminals.

I wish for the life of me that I remember this experience better. The ``computer room '' (nobody thought of it as a ``lab''—it would be many years before I heard that term applied to it) looked a lot like what one might think: a windowless room with concrete block walls, tile floors, fluorescent lights buzzing away angrily overhead, and lots and lots of terminals.\footnote{There is a pdf of the VT100 manual available at \href{https://vt100.net/dec/ek-vt100-tm-002.pdf}{\texttt{https://vt100.net/dec/ek-vt100-tm-002.pdf}}. It makes for fascinating reading, assuming you are into that sort of thing.}

\begin{wrapfigure}[]{l}{0.34\textwidth}
\vspace{-8pt}
\includegraphics{vt100}
\vspace{-12pt}
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People didn't really know much about these two mainframe systems, although I remember hearing the few computer people who were around praising the VAX as being far superior to the DEC-10. (A bit of internet research confirms this—the VAX line of mainframes was intended as a replaced for the DEC line of mainframes.) Everything was from the command line. If you saved a file (and I tried for a few weeks to type up some of my notes from class, but quickly realized that this was pointless, as I couldn't take the digital files with me) and wanted to print it, you had to send it to the print queue, and then go to a different room in the building where the line printer was located.

At this point, it was possible that your printout was ready. But it was also entirely possible that it wouldn't be ready. Everything was printed on unperforated continuous feed paper that was 15 inches wide.\footnote{See the Wikipedia entry on ``'continuous stationery'' to see what I'm talking about.} The problem was someone had to be there to tear off your printout after it was completed—the printers had no way of doing this automatically. Somebody had to be there when the printer was done printing your job to tear it off, take it out of the printer's tray, figure out that it belonged to you, and set it on a shelf for you to pick up later. 

And if nobody was there, the printer just kept printing, and someone would have to separate possibly dozens of different print jobs. If your print job was small, it was entirely possible that someone would miss it and it would be stuck on to the end of someone else's print job. If the paper ran out of paper and nobody was there to replace it, your file just went into the printer memory (or somewhere into the ether if the printer's memory was full) until the paper was refilled. Printing anything was a big investment of time and energy (not to mention hope) and I will gladly take the occasional printer jam over that experience any day.

The only other remarkable thing I remember about that early college experience is that everybody had to take a basic computer course. This was a single, university-level course that all freshmen had to take.

I hate these sorts of things.

I get the point—computers are going to be a thing in everybody's lives, so lets make sure all our future graduates have a solid background in them. The problem is that information technology moves at a pretty rapid pace, and college students have a wide variety of backgrounds and career plans, and as a result, it's difficult to create a course like this that is in any way useful to every single student who takes it. 

And I found that I knew much of the material anyway. It was taught in a large lecture hall, and there wasn't really any point for the instructor to hold up a hard drive in her hand and announce ``This is a hard drive.'' Unless you were in the first ten rows, she could have been holding up a brick. I'm sure that what she said after that sentence was informative, but I'm also sure I already knew it.

Sometime during the third week we had an entire lecture about modems (``\textit{modem} stands for \textit{modulator-demodulator}'' I remember hearing before I dozed off\footnote{Which is true, but means absolutely nothing to anyone who just wants to get on the internet. Modems were designed to transmit digital data over analog telephone lines, and they accomplished this by \textit{modulating} a carrier wave to carry digital information before sending it, and \textit{demodulating} a received carrier wave to recreate the original digital information. I don't miss 4,800 bps speeds, but I do miss that modem login sound. Apparently other people do as well, because you can hear it at \href{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0}{\texttt{https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0}}}) and I decided to just stop attending class. I showed up for the exams, rushed through them, got a C in the course, and decided to never take another computer course ever again.

I should mention that I went to college with the goal of becoming high school biology teacher. Over time, I realized how valuable this computer course was to me, because it made me realize that no matter who you are or where you are in life, any class should be valuable to you in some way. (This is a lesson that the modern educational-industrial complex has not, and will never, absorb.)

\subsection{2008}

Bush II decided to tank the economy for ordinary people so that rich people could get richer.\footnote{This is the second of three "once in a lifetime" recessions I have lived through. Yay, capitalism!}




\section{Teaching Computers}

I graduated from college with a B.S. in Biology and a teaching certificate. I could not find a job teaching biology—as it turns out, biology teachers are a dime a dozen.\footnote{This was a huge surprise to me, because all through college, whenever I told someone I was a biology major, they seemed really impressed and said something like "oh gosh, biology—that's really hard." But note—these were non-science people. If you want to study science, but don't want anything too hard, apparently biology is the default.} As it turns out, chemistry teachers are about ten bucks a dozen, and if you majored in physics with a goal of teaching high school science, you would have your choice of any teaching position you wanted.

Of course at this time (the early 90s), lots of people still wanted to be teachers, unlike now, because teachers still garnered respect from the public, parents, and administrators., and teaching jobs were hard to combine by, unlike now. So I started substitute teaching and doing whatever I could to pay the bills. 

I eventually managed to find a job at my old high school teaching what used to be called ``night school''\footnote{I have no idea what this is now called, or if it is even still a thing.} and what is still called ``community education''. But names are only labels and are usually irrelevant. My night school students had dropped out of a traditional high school education and were now in search of a GED\footnote{General Equivalency Degree—aka ``high school diploma in a box''.} to help their job prospects. I was there to teach them just enough Earth Science to enable them to pass the science portion of the GED exam.\footnote{There is so much that I could say here, but it is completely irrelevant to our current purpose and so belongs to an entirely different zine.}

More relevant to the purposes of this zine were the community education classes which were your basic ``Introduction to Computers'' class.

I really wish I could remember how I got this job. I would like to think that I had a very long, very detailed job interview which I simply aced, but I very much doubt it. I don't remember meeting with an administrator at all. The only person I can remember interacting with was a much pressed-upon administrative assistant named Geri. (I would not have been surprised to discover that she supplemented her income by delivering pizza on the weekends.)

So yeah, an interview in which I was grilled about my knowledge of both computers and pedagogical theory did not happen. What probably happened was that I applied for the position teaching Earth science and submitted a paper resume written on a Commodore 128 and printed out on an Okidata dot-matrix printer, and they saw that dot-matrix printing and thought ``This guy knows how to use a computer. We should ask if he can teach our community education computer course as well.'' In fact, I'm quite sure that is what happened. Dot-matrix for the win!\footnote{I have no problems with this. Sometimes low expectations work in your favor. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.}

I don't remember much about this ``Introduction to Computers'' class. It took place in the same room my high school computer class had been in, but all the previous computers were gone and had been replaced by shiny new computers running Windows. As this was around 1992, this would have been some version of Windows 3.

What I do remember the most about this class was that the best way to teach anybody anything about computers was to maintain a completely hands-off policy. That is, if somebody asked me how to do something, rather than grab their mouse and \textit{demonstrate} how to do it, I found that it was better if I stood back, told the student to grab their mouse, and then told them where to point it and where to click. I confess this was partly laziness on my part—you can only \textit{show} someone so many times how to do something as simply as printing a file or turning the computer on before you are completely done with it.

But I discovered a wonderful thing about this: \textit{telling} is very different than \textit{showing}. When I show someone something I tend to use words like ``here,'' ``over here,'' etc. But when I \textit{tell} someone something, I have to use much more specific terms like ``upper-left hand corner'' and ``half way down''.

This meant that telling someone how to print a file meant that I ended up saying something like ``move your mouse\footnote{i.e., cursor. To someone who is new to computers, the two are one} to the upper left-hand corner, find the File menu and click on it, and then go about half way down until you see the word 'Print and click on it.'' 

And this worked. My students were not familiar with a ``File'' menu, but they were familiar with the concepts of ``up,'' ``down,'' ``right,'' and ``left''. This led me to realize something that I had not been taught in college—you have to work with students where they are, rather than where you wish they were. You can't play the ``if only'' game. (``If only my students knew where the File menu is…'')

I know that the usual dictum is ``show, don't tell''. But what's really happening here is that by \textit{telling} my students, they were then \textit{showing} themselves, and developing some muscle memory along the way. 

Although I thoroughly enjoyed teaching this class, nothing good can last forever. A new Republican governor was elected and he slashed funding for community education and adult education programs. (A less-educated populace is easier to control, I guess.) I taught this course for a year, had a great time, and would gladly teach it again, even with the miserable wages. Hell, I'd do it now as a volunteer. Knowledge should be shared, not horded and sold.



\chapter{Music (\twonotes) in \LaTeX{}}

\section{Standard Notation}

I have a couple of guitars in the corner of my living room that I keep intending to dust off and play again someday. Of course, with the way my mind works, I thought I should also brush up on some music theory. Because I am an inveterate note-taker, but also have less-than-ideal penmanship, I thought I should figure out if it's possible to write music (and also guitar tablature) in LaTeX, and if so, how much work is it?

As it turns out, there are a number of packages that enable you to include music in a LaTeX document.\footnote{For much of this early research, I am highly indebted to Martin Thoma, who has an excellent introduction at \href{https://martin-thoma.com/how-to-write-music-with-latex/}{\texttt{https://martin-thoma.com/how-to-write-music-with-latex/}}.}

\subsection{wasysym}

First, there is the \texttt{wasysym} (or Waldi Symbol font) package, which is basically a symbol font for LaTeX. It includes a lot of different symbols, including some interesting circles (\Circle{}, \leftturn{}, \rightturn{}) that I could have used on a different project had I known about this then. It's a symbol font, so when it comes to music, what it offers is rudimentary: you can add an eighth note (\eighthnote), a quarter note (\quarternote), a half note (\halfnote), a whole note (\fullnote), or two joined eighth notes (\twonotes). In math mode, you can also add a natural symbol ($\natural$), a flat symbol ($\flat$), or a sharp symbol ($\sharp$).

\subsection{harmony}

There is also the \texttt{harmony} package, which offers up some additional symbols:

\medskip

\AAcht ~~~ \Acht ~~~ \AchtBR\AchtBL ~~~ (which is actually two symbols stuck together:  \AchtBR ~~ and ~~\AchtBL ) ~~~ \AcPa ~~~ and a whole lot of very tiny notes: ~~~ \Acht ~~~ \Sech ~~~ \Zwdr ~~~ and some very tiny rests: ~~~ \ViPa ~~~ \AcPa ~~~ \SePa ~~~ \ZwPa

And it also has what I believe is chord notation (although I could be—and probably am—wrong; it has been a \textit{very} long time), some of which can be quite complicated: 

% Define a couple of new commands
\def\h#1h{\hspace*{#1em}}
\newcommand{\Str}[2][0.5]{\raise#1ex\hbox to #2em{\hrulefill}}
\newcommand{\ST}{\h0.03h\Str[0.65]{0.27}\h0.03h}
%

\medskip

\h0,5h\HH.D..8\Str[0,65]{1,2}7\ST6\ST5.8\ST6\ST4\Str[0,65]{2}3.6\ST5\ST8%
\Str[0,65]{3}7.%

I didn't create that. (I don't even know what it means.) I just copied it verbatim from the \texttt{harmony} guide. In reality, it looks like this:

\begin{verbatim}
%
\def\h#1h{\hspace*{#1em}}
\newcommand{\Str}[2][0.5]{\raise#1ex\hbox to #2em{\hrulefill}}
\newcommand{\ST}{\h0.03h\Str[0.65]{0.27}\h0.03h}
%
\h0,5h\HH.D..8\Str[0,65]{1,2}7\ST6\ST5.8\ST6\ST4\Str[0,65]{2}3
.6\ST5\ST8%
\Str[0,65]{3}7.%
\end{verbatim}

What this tells me is that the \texttt{harmony} package is very good at positioning things around other things. I may just have to tuck that in the back of my mind for later. The guide document for \texttt{harmony} is only five or six pages, but there is a lot of information to absorb there.

\subsection{musixtex}

And then there is the \texttt{musixtex} package. It makes use of a \texttt{music} environment, with your relevant code (of which there is a lot). I've copied this bit from the \texttt{musixtex} documentation:

\begin{verbatim}
\begin{music}
	\parindent10mm
	\instrumentnumber{1} % a single instrument
	\setname1{Piano} % whose name is Piano
	\setstaffs1{2} % with two staffs
	\generalmeter{\meterfrac44} % 4/4 meter chosen
	\startextract % starting real score
		\Notes\ibu0f0\qb0{cge}\tbu0\qb0g|\hl j\en
		\Notes\ibu0f0\qb0{cge}\tbu0\qb0g|\ql l\sk\ql n\en
	\zendextract % terminate excerpt
\end{music}
\end{verbatim}

which produces this bit of music:

\begin{music}
\parindent10mm
\setname1{Piano} % whose name is Piano
\instrumentnumber{1} % a single instrument
\setstaffs1{2} % with two staffs
\generalmeter{\meterfrac44} % 4/4 meter chosen
\startextract % starting real score
\Notes\ibu0f0\qb0{cge}\tbu0\qb0g|\hl j\en
\Notes\ibu0f0\qb0{cge}\tbu0\qb0g|\ql l\sk\ql n\en
\zendextract % terminate excerpt
\end{music}

What strikes me most is that most of that code is not in any way intuitive. The package is well-documented, but at 166 pages, it's going to take some work to become proficient. There's no reason you \textit{couldn't} learn this, but it's not something you're going to do overnight.

\subsection{ABC}

The \texttt{abc} package allows you to use the ABC language to create snippets of music directly in your LaTeX document, using the \texttt{abc} environment. Unfortunately, while I can get this to work in standalone documents, I have not been able to figure out how to incorporate into a regular LaTeX document like this one. For example, this bit of code:

\begin{verbatim}
\begin{abc}
X:4
T:Cronin’s Hornpipe
R:hornpipe
S:Keenan and Glackin
E:7
M:C|
L:1/8
K:G
BA|GABc dBde|gage dega|bage dBGB|cABG A2BA|!
GABc dBde|gage dega|bage dBAB|G2G2 G2:|!
fg|afd^c d2ga|bged e2ga|(3bag (3agf gedB|(3cBA AG AcBA|!
GABc dBde|~g3e dega|bage dBAB|G2G2 G2:|!
\end{abc}
\end{verbatim}

should produce a lovely little bit of music, but all it produces is this:

\begin{abc}
X:4
T:Cronin’s Hornpipe
R:hornpipe
S:Keenan and Glackin
E:7
M:C|
L:1/8
K:G
BA|GABc dBde|gage dega|bage dBGB|cABG A2BA|!
GABc dBde|gage dega|bage dBAB|G2G2 G2:|!
fg|afd^c d2ga|bged e2ga|(3bag (3agf gedB|(3cBA AG AcBA|!
GABc dBde|~g3e dega|bage dBAB|G2G2 G2:|!
\end{abc}

\section{Tablature}


\chapter{What's to Like About Linux}

\section{Open Source}

This doesn't come up for me every day as I use Linux, but one of my favorite things about Linux is that it's open source. That is, the source code is easily and freely available, provided you know where to look for it. This means two primary things:

\begin{enumerate}
\item I can download the software for free and install and use it on as many machines as I choose to.
\item I can download the source code and make whatever changes I like. I can then keep them to myself, or release those changes to the world for other people to use.
\end{enumerate}

We'll look at each of those two things in turn. But first, read the back cover and then come back here. 

\medskip

\noindent{}Let's start with point \#1.

\medskip

The two main commercial alternatives to Linux are macOS (Apple) and Windows (Microsoft). 

macOS is expensive. The only to get it is to buy an Apple product. I admit, Apple products are \textit{gorgeous} and the hardware is usually designed to last for a long time.\footnote{iPhones may be the exception to this.} But it is also \textit{expensive}. I've done a bit of research and the cheapest Macintosh laptop I can buy is easily five times the price of the cheapest Windows laptop I can buy.

That actually makes Windows sound cheap in comparison. But is it?

\medskip
\hrule
\medskip

\noindent\textbf{Oh look, it's our first diversion.}\texttt{<rant>}

\begin{multicols}{2}

We are in Late Stage Capitalism. That is, we have reached a stage of capitalism which is unsustainable on this planet alone. The entire point of capitalism is ``growth'' but when you are limited to an existence on a single planet that has no trade with other planets, that growth is limited by the amount of whatever resources that planet has. And when those resources run out—or it becomes impossible to make a profit by exploiting them—capitalism will collapse, and it will very like take billions of us with it.

These resources have always been \textit{physical} resources—wood, coal, oil, rare-earth elements, and the labor of the working classes to extract and process them.

Because those resources are finite, we've seen capitalism go off in other directions to find other resources to exploit. This explains why rich white guys with entirely too much time on their hands want to ride their penis-rockets into space—because asteroids are out there and they're just full of iron, cobalt, and other metals just waiting to be mined.

But we've also seen capitalism go in a hitherto new direction: the digital direction. Capitalism is no longer interested in just mining iron or coal; it's also interested in mining \textit{data}. Data, it seems, is the one resource we can never run out of.\footnote{When I worked in retail, I was always told to push the extended warranties whenever I could. This was partly because the profit margin on them was incredibly high (extended warranties are basically a legal scam because there are so many terms and conditions you'll never be able to cash in) and ``they're the one inventory item we never run out of.''}

The primary kind of data they want is information about what we are interested in: what we want to buy, because if they know what we are interested in, they can then sell that information to advertising platforms who will slug your user experience full of advertisements for those exact things. 

Order a ham sandwich for lunch online? That is now data. We know you like both ham and sandwiches. (Okay, this is really an \textit{assumption}, but algorithms are built by people, and they are only as good as the people who built them. In short, algorithms make the same assumptions as the people who built them.)

Order a ham sandwich on Monday, but order a turkey sandwich on Friday? That is also data. Now I know lots of things about you:

\begin{enumerate}
\item You like sandwiches.
\item You sometimes order out for lunch.
\item You prefer pork-based products early in the week.
\item You prefer poultry-based products later in the week.
\end{enumerate}

That is now four data points that can be sold to companies that will direct advertising at you for those items. And they will combine that data with other things they know about you (where you live, how old you are, your marriage status, your income, etc.) to come up with a list of stuff they think you'll \textit{probably} be interested in and slugs those ads in front of you.

Of course, they aren't selling that data to a local mom-and-shop sandwich shop down the road that cures their own meats and bakes their own bread according to a 100-year-old family recipe. They're selling that data to multi-million dollar corporations whose success will be built on the corpses of little mom-and-pop shops.\footnote{Oh wait, that's already happening.}

As a result (because when it comes to both hunger and money, your big huge mammalian brain depends on that little tiny reptilian bit at its core) when you think ``I could really go for a sandwich right about now'' you automatically think of the nearest evil international sandwich shop and not the local mom-and-pop sandwich shop, simply because you saw an ad for the EISS. You \textit{think} you are choosing, but you are not. Like a rat in a Skinner test, you are merely being rewarded for pushing the button that capitalism wants you to push.

And this is what Windows does. It gathers your data and ``shares'' it with other companies it has paid agreements with.

\noindent\texttt{</rant>}

\end{multicols}

So, Windows may appear to be low-cost or even free when you buy that new computer, but it does have a cost—your privacy. And because advertisers use some pretty sophisticated techniques to get you to buy their stuff, there is an additional cost—your ability to truly choose for yourself.


\chapter{Coda}

\section{What I Learned About \LaTeX{} While Creating This Issue}

\subsection{Image Sizes}

A few people have noted on Reddit that the images I include are far larger than I need them to be. This is true. I had a lot of things like this in issue \#2:

\begin{verbatim}
 \includegraphics[scale=0.5]{paper_cutter}
\end{verbatim}

\noindent{}And it seems that the worst offender was this line:

\begin{verbatim}
\includegraphics[scale=0.13]{c128}
\end{verbatim}

This is a problem because that \texttt{paper\_cutter.jpg} image is 136kb in size and that \texttt{c128.jpg} image is 2.3 mb in size. Because these get included in \LaTeX{}, which then handles the scaling, the resulting pdf file is rather bloated, which is the exact opposite of what you want when you are distributing something via the internet. 

Because I am scaling the paper cutter image by 0.5, the resulting file size should be about a fourth of that, or 34 kb. And because I'm scaling the c128 image by 0.13, the corresponding file size should be about 0.0169 of that, or roughly 40 kb in size. That's a huge difference.\footnote{Roughly, the size of your file should be approximately reduced by the square of your scaling factor. But these are jpg files, which are lossy, so it's never exactly that amount.}

The problem is that I always envisioned this zine as being a physical object, not a digital one. I only uploaded it to my git repository because this is a learning project for me, and I wanted to keep track of any changes I made. 

But yeah, you should definitely resize your images before including them in any document you intend to distribute digitally. (Thank you, GIMP.) You'll notice that the image of the VT100 terminal on page 5 clocks in at a very sensible 79 kb. That's more like it.

\subsection{Install \LaTeX{} Packages on Ubuntu}

\subsubsection{Method 1}

Every once in a while I run into a package that I want to use with LaTeX that is not installed on my system. Alas, there is no easy way to do this, at least that I found. \textit{Later}, I always thought. I'll figure that out later.

\textit{Later} became \textit{today} when I wanted to use the \texttt{harmony} package to produce some music symbols but couldn't, because it wasn't installed on my system. It took some doing, but I finally figured it out. Here's what I did:

First, I downloaded the \texttt{harmony} packaged from \href{https://www.ctan.org/pkg/harmony}{\texttt{https://www.ctan.org \\ /pkg/harmony}} and unpacked the archive. That was easy enough.

Next, I had to figure out where to put it. I ran this command: 

\begin{verbatim}
$ kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFLOCAL
\end{verbatim}

which gave me this location:

\begin{verbatim}
/usr/local/share/texmf
\end{verbatim}

Following the directions I found at \href{https://jvgomez.github.io/pages/manually-install-latex-packages-in-ubuntu.html}{\texttt{https://jvgomez.github.io/page \\ s/manually-install-latex-packages-in-ubuntu.html}} I entered that directory using \texttt{sudo} and created the following directory structure:

\begin{verbatim}
/usr/local/share/texmf/tex/latex/harmony
\end{verbatim}

I then copied my files over from the unpacked \texttt{harmony} files:

\begin{verbatim}
$ sudo cp * /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/latex/harmony
\end{verbatim}

I then had to update the search path to make my system aware of the new package:

\begin{verbatim}
$ sudo mktexlsr
\end{verbatim}

This should have been the end of it, but the \texttt{harmony} packages requires a certain set of fonts to do its work. After a bit of searching, I found them at \href{https://ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/musixtex-fonts}{\texttt{https://ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/musixtex-fonts}}.

Fortunately, that package had a pdf document that described how to install the fonts. I started by copying the ``fonts'' folder over the \texttt{texmf} directory:

\begin{verbatim}
$ cp fonts /usr/local/share/texmf
\end{verbatim}

And then I updated the search path and then the font-map files with these commands:

\begin{verbatim}
$ sudo mktexlsr
$ sudo udpmap-user --enable MixedMap musix.map
\end{verbatim}

Like I've said elsewhere, I'm running a recently updated Ubuntu 22.04 system, and this worked for me. It may work for you, it may not. I can't even guarantee that it will work for me next time. (I suspect having a generic folder name like ``fonts'' may cause me issues down the road if I ever want to install some other LaTeX fonts.) But if I got it to work once, I'm pretty sure I can get it to work again. We shall see.

\subsubsection{Method 2}

A perhaps easier (and certainly more \textit{portable}) way of installing LaTeX packages is to add them to a local directory along the lines of:

\begin{verbatim}
/home/user/texmf
\end{verbatim}

This is how I installed the \textit{musixtex} package, and it far simpler than what I have described in method 1.

First, I downloaded the package and unpacked it. Then I copied its contents into my \texttt{texmf} directory, and finally updated the filename database:

\begin{verbatim}
$ cp * ~/texmf
$ sudo ~/texmf
\end{verbatim}

Mischief managed!

\end{document}