I got an opportunity lately to try out and setup an iPad. This was my first time trying an Apple IOS device and I wanted to share a beginner’s perspective for those any who have thought about trying it. I will discuss how to operate it, its design philosophy, and some basic settings that helped me.

Good

• top quality hardware, all of it, runs smoothly and dependably
• software is well designed and the user interface intuitive
• plenty of good apps are available

Could be better

• no file organization, nor file manager
• apps often have to reload every time they are switched to

Interoperability

Almost all interoperability is done with three finger gestures: tap, for buttons; finger pinches, for resizing; and swipes, for page flipping. The Home button is used to return to the Desktop.

Design philosophy

Having used computers since the 1980’s, I expected common computer operations to be carried to the IOS. I had the notion to use my iPad as I had my laptop, hoping to get a likewise functionality out of it. One thing I learned definitively though is that the iPad is designed only to be a companion device. To elaborate: it is designed to be a supplemental piece to a personal computer for the purpose of doing specific tasks in an intuitive manner. I did attempt to add common computer functionality to it through apps and settings but it just isn’t designed to do so.

The following point is an expression meant in a positive attitude. However, just for note, I am very peculiar about how I control my files.

The functionality that I expected, that I considered necessary for any computer user, was to be able to manage files. I thought I would be able to rename, organize, copy…. However, there is no file manager. The design philosophy of the IOS is centered around apps. To open a file a user has to adapt their behavior to first recall the app that created it. To transfer files to/from the IOS device requires the user either to: plug the IOS into the personal computer and use iTunes (if the app has iTunes support built in); or use the iCloud app (which I only learned about after returning the iPad). So the process just appears complicated.

Tips

• a $10 stylus will help keep the screen clean
• a $10 cover will help keep the tablet safe from common bumps
• a $30 tablet-sized keyboard is nice for typing… common keyboard shortcuts may not always be available, for Safari hold Command to see them
• apps can be moved or removed from the desktop, press and hold the app for a few seconds to do so
• close unused apps for better performance (double-click Home and swipe up)
• for *nix tools a remote shell account can be used with a SSH app

Apps I liked

• Apple Store
• Apple Trailers
• CBS, NBC, FOX
• Coda \$10
• Does not Commute
• Microsoft Word is free, but Papers is supposed to be real good if it can be afforded
• Rayman Adventures
• Vim
• Weather Channel
• Wallpapers
• Yahoo Mail

Feedback

For users that have other ideas, consider giving Apple your iPad Feedback.

The only directory in my file system that I’d like to keep track of is my home directory. Here I keep my personal files and the a number of configurations that I love. I write notes of any configuration edits I make and record them here. However, besides the system configurations that I have edited, I also have a few more root directory configurations that I created. I wanted a way to keep track of them.

Getting down with the O C D

Previously I choose to reinstall about every six to twelve months. This allowed me to examine the install process to see if there were any new details about the operating system that I needed to learn. However, doing this procedure caused me to lose some good details I had put in the configurations. After I did this a few times, I began to do backups of them.

To keep the system running as expected, I learned I had to keep track of my configurations. The system configurations that I had edited originally I could keep track of by package updates (where I have to regularly merge the new versions to the old). However for the system configurations I created, I pretty much forgot them. These files occasionally I would rediscover when I had to do some troubleshooting. I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to track them, the best way to do so was to put them in a package`.

(I choose now to avoid installs when I can. These days, researching the install guide is enough to keep me up-to-date of operating system changes.)

Hunter and gatherer

I wasn’t always good at recording what configurations I created — I would test something out, or get excited when an experiment worked… Therefore, I had to search through the file system to re-track these files. This involved me making a list of all the files in the file system and comparing that to a list of files of the packages themselves. This sounds like a laborious process but isn’t terribly difficult and can be trimmed down greatly.

Because configurations are generally only in several directories less searching is required.

A file list of all packages, can be created with:

for p in $(pacman -Qq); do pacman -Qql $p; done | sed 's#/$##g' | sort -u -o pkgs-filelist.txt

A file list of the root directory, can be created with:

find / -not -path "/dev/*" -not -path "/home/*" -not -path "/media/*" -not -path "/mnt/*" -not -path "/proc/*" -not -path "/root/*" -not -path "/run/*" -not -path "/srv/*" -not -path "/sys/*" -not -path "/tmp/*" -not -path "/var/cache/*"  -not -path "/var/lib/pacman/*" -not -path "/var/lib/systemd/*" -not -path "/var/log/journal/*" -not -path "/var/tmp/*" | sed 's#/$##g' | sort -u -o root-filelist.txt

The differences can be viewed with:

vimdiff pkgs-filelist.txt root-filelist.txt

The package please… emmhh!

Creating a configuration package is the same as creating any other package. I put the configurations in the PKGBUILD directory and in it directed where to install them. In the future if an edit is required, I edit them there and rebuild it.