this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] southsamurai 20 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Man, I've written three novels plus assorted shorter form stories in markdown.

There's a learning curve, but once you get going, it's so fluid. The problem is that when it comes time to format for release, you have to convert to something else, and not every word processor can handle markdown. It's extra work, but worth it, imo.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Just set up pandoc and Bob's your uncle. It'll convert markdown to anything. You'll never have to open another word processor.

[–] southsamurai 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Nice! Thanks for the tip!

Edit: holy shit, how have I never run across that before? That's a brilliant program right there.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Pandoc + [your markdown editor of choice] is magic. Some editors even come with Pandoc as a dependency so you can export to more or less anything from the GUI. I think GhostWriter and Zettlr at least (I honestly can't be sure, I've changed editors so often and now I just have some Pandoc conversion scripts in my file manager menu).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

For sure, I bet full fledged editors like word don't even let you import it.

[–] southsamurai 2 points 7 months ago

Not correctly, no. Librewriter does a bit better, but still misses some bits

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Silly question why can’t you convert markdown to PDF and pass that to publishers?

[–] southsamurai 4 points 7 months ago

Because it isn't doc is docx.

Publishers are pissy about such things. Even self publishing (which is what I do now), the various outlets still have limits to what they will use. Amazon accepts something like three file formats, including their own, and pdf isn't on the list.

I could just do pdf for directly giving them away to people, but even then, epub is usually a better pick in terms of readability since that's the standard for actual books since ereaders tend to display it better than pdfs. Most people reading books via files would be using something that can give a better experience with epub vs pdf.