Typically, the install process doesn't stop with the installation of the base OS. You've still got to install and configure a lot of programs and drivers, for example: VirtualBox, Flash, LibreOffice, Java, and NVIDIA drivers, to name but a few. That takes time and energy.

Recently I needed a hard drive upgrade, and after trying out Xubuntu 14.04, I decided to stick with Crunchbang 11 . With a fresh installation, I needed to quickly get the applications that weren't an apt-get away. Enter smxi , a handy collection of scripts created to solve the frequent, repetitive support questions that often appear on IRC channels. Here's a guide showing how to set up smxi in Crunchbang.

How do you complete your config and install? What other tools and scripts are out there to ease the pain, particularly for multiple machines?

Forbes has an interesting article today reminding us about Michael Sam and his prospects for being drafted to the NFL . Michael Sam achieved considerable notoriety several months ago when he came out as a gay football player who happened to be the SEC defensive player of the year and who would become the first openly gay man to star in the NFL if drafted by a team this weekend.

My question for Pipedot: regardless of teams' decisions to draft Sam or not, will the decisions be accepted as based on his skills or football ability alone or will they be judged in terms of their support for or avoidance of support for homosexuality in American football? And, what are the central obstacles to people being judged on skills alone when competing for opportunities (I'm thinking about ageing programmers and so on as similar-type challenges)?