The Diversity Of Linux Window Managers

A misconception among most Windows and Mac users is that an Operating System and a desktop environment are the same. Linux users have the opportunity to know better. Linux users have the advantage of using several desktop environments/windowmanagers  like Gnome, KDE, Fluxbox, XFCE and Openbox to name only a few. Alot of new converts to Linux will start with Ubuntu as their Linux distribution of choice therefore they will start with Gnome for a desktop environment. A few years back when I switched over from the dark side, Windows, to Linux I started with OpenSuse and the KDE desktop environment. I did enjoy my time with KDE and OpenSuse until I decided to try Ubuntu with Gnome. I also install the KDE desktop environment as a safety net.

At first I did not like Gnome as much as KDE, but I have to say that I only used it 30% of the time. When I decided to give Gnome a full hearing I got rid of KDE completely and go with Gnome. I have been using Gnome ever since. I had Kubuntu on a computer that I rarely use.  Well I decided to get reacquainted with KDE. I installed Kubuntu 8.10 with KDE 4.1.3 on my number two computer, I use this computer everyday. What I have seen so far of KDE 4.1.3, I like. KDE looks a lot more polished than Gnome. I can’t wait to see the improvements the KDE developers have instore for us when KDE 4.2 comes out in January.

I have also installed CrunchBang on my eeePC. CrunchBang have OpenBox as a desktop environment. I wanted something lite on resources on my eeePC 701, CrunchBang fits the bill perfectly… well almost perfectly, Thunar does not play well with SMB network shared files. I found a post on how to set up fuseSMB, it worked until I restarted the eeePc and I could not get it working again. I tried PyNeighborhood that also worked until I restarted the computer now I can see the files on the other computers but I cannot access them.  Before you say anything I set up the correct user and password. I finally decided to install Nautilus along with all the necessary packages for network shared files. Now it works fine. CrunchBang is based in Ubuntu and it is perfect for a netbook being a lightweight OS.

There is a Linux window manager for all types of users. I recommend everybody to try something new once in a while. Open up your mind a give it a go, you may find something better for your specific needs.

Ibex Quite Mundane To Install

I have installed Ubuntu 8.10 code name Intrepid Ibex on three computers. I upgraded two computers from Ubuntu 8.04. I installed Kubuntu 8.10 on a computer. No major situations to report. It has become very mundane to install Ubuntu or even upgrade. There is no reason for the regular Joe not to install Ubuntu on their “Windows” computer. Come on haven’t you heard we are living in a new era first Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, now switch to Ubuntu!

I have two computers that I still have not did the upgrade; the eeePC, I’ll do it when I can spare time. The other I will not upgrade until the gpac package is fixed. I use this computer to remux HD movies so that my Xbox 360 can play them and with mp4box that is included in the gpac package available with Ibex I cannot remux the HD movies

I almost forgot to mention that I have installed the 64 bit version of Ibex on most of the computers. 32 bit computing is so twentieth century

On an other note here is a great Matrix/Windows parody, I know that most of you must have seen it, this is for those who haven’t, enjoy.

Converting One Person At The Time

On Sunday I installed Ubuntu 8.04.1 AMD on my friends laptop, an Acer.  I won’t go into detail how easy the installation and tweaking was.  I was done within an hour.  I have been trying to convince Jacques since he got his laptop in 2007 to try Ubuntu.  He finally asked me to do it last week, I think he was tired of me bugging him.

Before I did his upgrade to an operating system that works out of the box and is very secure and looks great, I had been wanting to update my Dell Vostro laptop’s BIOS and I had to this from a bootable DOS disk since the BIOS is only available as an .exe file.  I decided that I would create a DOS bootable USB stick.  I found a few how to’s on how to do this from a linux based computer.  Nothing I tried worked.  I took the decision that in October when I would upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10, I would either install XP and have a dual boot or install XP just for updating the BIOS then format the hard drive and install Ibex.

With Jacques laptop at home I had another option to update the BIOS.  I removed both hard drives from the two laptops, placed Jacques’ HD in my Vostro 1500 and installed the BIOS updates from XP.  It worked.  It took less time than trying to create a bootable DOS USB stick.  I think that I’ll create a USB with XP that is bootable with my eeePC just in case there are more updates to the BIOS.  Problem solving is my forte.

Getting You Up To Date

I have gone missing for over two weeks, I was on vacation and I sort of took some time off of working on my computers.  I have now returned and my post will be more frequent.  The first thing on my agenda  is the Dell RAM situation I told you about in my last post.  Last week when I got home I called the Dell service line to get them to ship me the replacement RAM for my Vostro laptop.  They told me that I would get the 1 Gb RAM card within 10 business days.  The courier tried to deliver it to me 18 hours after I hung up with Dell.  I was not at home so I called them and got it delivered to my place of work the following day.  I still have to return the defective part.

Before I had the problem with my Vostro 1500 laptop, I was thinking of getting a MSI Wind netbook.  My eeePC is still working fine but I find the keyboard painfully tiny, it is hard to type with accuracy since I have normal adult hands.  I think the keyboard was designed for child.  The service that I got from Dell was great so I might wait until the release their mini Inspiron which wil be release, hopefully, in the near future.  I have a suspicion that when it is releases it will have ubuntu’s netbook OEM pre-installed.

I have also read  somewhere on the Internet that Apple will have a true netbook in 2009.  I used to have an Apple Macintosh which I really liked at the time.  I would keep OS X but I would have a dual boot with Ubuntu as my main OS.

I am not sure what I will do but I will keep you in touch.  Tomorrow is m day off so I intend to remove OpenSuse and Install Kubuntu on one of my computer I want try KDE 4.1.  I am sure They have made improvements to 4.0.

This evening I tried to get Goblinx on my eeePC but I could not get X to start.  I think that the screen resolution is what is preventing X to work.  I am tired so after an hour I have decided to take a break.

I guess that is it for today I sit back and watch the Olympics on television

Solving eeePC Fan Noise Confirmed

I did the Ubuntu updates on my eeePC this morning knowing that I would have to recompile madwifi yet again, since there was an update to the kernel. I did not realise that I would have another small problem.

After compiling madwifi I restart the eeePC and the fan noise is back again, damn, damn, damn!  Will the fix that I wrote about in this post work?  I hope so.  I am already late for work, I have to wait until the end of the day to confirm or debunk that if you turn off the eeePC, unplug the power cord and remove battery and install battery solves the loud fan noise.

This is the first thing I do when get home from work and I am glad to tell you that it works.  I turn on the eeePC before attempting the fix to see hear if the fan is loud, it is.  When I start the netbook after installing the battery again The fan cannot be heard.

Glad To Be Invited To The Party

I am very happy that my little blog is now aggregated on Planet Ubuntu Users.  I am sad that my first post is about getting rid of Kubuntu in favour of openSUSE.  I was pissed off at Kubuntu at the time of writing that post, now that I have calmed down I may change my mind.

I had tried to get on PUU a month ago or so but was not accepted because I had sent a picture of the back of my head instead of a proper hackergotchi.  I was to lazy busy to create one, so yesterday I finally decided to do it and try again.  I am glad that I did. There are lots of how-to’s on the ‘net you can follow that can help you if you don’t know what to do, I used Nicu’s How-to as a guide.  I was going to write a how-to on using gimp but there are so many of them already I decided against it.

While I was looking for a picture of myself to change into a hackergotchi, I decided to change two of my computers desktop backgrounds.  The first one is “kramer”, my laptop.

The second one is “babu”, my eeePC.

I’ll leave you with that.  The next post should have more substance.

Solving Fan Noise on eeePC

In April when I purchased my eeePC I noticed that I was very quiet, whisper quiet would probably be a better way to describe it.  After I had installed Mandriva on it, the eeePC became “Homer Simpson whisper quiet”!  For those of you that do not enjoy watching The Simpsons, when Homer Simpson whispers you can hear him miles away.  I searched the Internet and found out that this fan noise in the eeePC occurs in a lot of them.  I was not impressed, I almost returned it to the store.I learned to live with it.  I like everything about the eeePC except the loud fan noise.

I decided to update the kernel, I had put it off because I did not want to re-configure the wireless since every time we update the kernel in Ubuntu on the eeePC we lose the wi-fi.  It is very easy to configure but I felt lazy.  Back to the topic in hand, I update the kernel re-booted the eeePC no wireless.  I plug in a land line still no Internet connection.  I had read about this minor inconvenience, the solution is to turn off the eeePC, remove the battery, install the battery, boot the computer and voila Ethernet works again.

I got a surprise when I booted the eeePC, no fan noise!  Being a realist, not a pessimist, I taught to myself that the fan had burnt out.  It was working to hard and it burnt out, damn, damn, damn.  The second taught I had was maybe it is fixed and is working like before.  Wouldn’t that be nice?  So I decided to work with the eeePC a little to see if I had a problem or a solution.  After 20 minutes or so the fan kicked in and it was whisper quiet.  The good whisper quiet.  I quoted Homer J Simpson “Woo Hoo”.

I am wondering if this would solve other peoples fan noise problems.  I hope that you try it out and works for you like it did for me.  Now I can really say that I like everything about my eeePC.

Avant Windows Navigator on The eeePC

I decided to try Avant Windows Navigator on my laptop and eeePC.  I sort of like Apple’s dock.  After working with it on my laptop for a day I installed it the eeePC.  I figured that it would give me more real estate on the small desktop. It did.  Do I like it or not?  That is the question.

I was undecided if I would keep it or not on both computers until I tried to play video on the eeePC.  The eeePC froze!  I could move the mouse but if I clicked on something nothing happened!  At first I didn’t know what was the cause but when I asked myself what did I change that could have caused this to happen the only answer I could come up with was Avant.  Before I removed Avant I had to make sure that was the cause.  After I turned off the computer by holding down the power button, I turned it back on and tried the video again and it froze.  Turn off, turn on computer quit Avant Windows Navigator tried video and it works perfectly like before.  I knew then without a doubt that Avant was the problem.  I decide to turn avant back on one more time and try playing video before taking drastic measures.  The eeePC froze again.

I had to make a decision.  Do I keep Avant or not.  If I keep it on the eeePC I have to spend sometime trying to fix it so that I can enjoy video on the small PC or completely forget watching video on the eeePC.  I chose the easiest option for myself, I removed Avant from the eeePC.  I did not like it enough to convince me to invest the time debugging it.

I do not have this problem with my laptop, so as I am writing this it is still on that computer.  I have been using it for that last few days and will leave it on for at least a complete week before I make my final decision if I keep it or not.  At the moment I don’t see any advantage to keep it maybe I will change my mind later on I have been known to do that at times.

Ubuntu Works Just Fine On The eeePC

Earlier this week I played around with eeePC.  I had Ubuntu 8.04 and I decided that I would go with Xubuntu to see if it would be faster.  I installed Xubuntu, tweaked it so that everything worked (wireless, function keys and the like).  I then tried to configure Thunar for samba browsing.  I screwed up and it did not work.  After a few hours of trying to fix it I gave up and reinstalled Xubuntu.  This time I got it right and I could my other computers while using Thunar.  I was tweaking the system and I lost my two panels.  Piss me off!  I was not impressed.  At the same time as this I could not connect to my wireless network with my full size laptop, what the hell?

I had to erase my wireless password on the laptop and enter it again to get it to work.  I figure this out after a few minutes.  The eeePC was a bit harder.  After playing with it for an hour or so I got back my panels but I could not get Samba browsing with Thunar.  Damn, damn, damnation!  I was tired off all this bull and I decided to take the easy way out:  I installed Ubuntu again and after tweaking the system everything works fine.  The moral of this story is if it works don’t fix it.

I’ll just add that I have gotten rid of a panel to give me more “space” for applications.  I also tried the new Ubuntu netbook remix that we all have been hearing about the last few weeks and it promising.  It is not yet ready so I uninstalled it.

Back in June 2006 I posted a picture along with “Procrastination” I guess that I am either a visionnary or psycic since it features a Heron and now I am using Hardy Heron on several computers.

Install Fest Part Two

A week ago tomorrow I installed Ubuntu on a friends computer. I also had to install a DVD burner in my friends computer. I had issues with the new DVD writer and the CD writer. After screwing around with them I figured that I did something stupid and I should not have made this stupid mistake. Both the DVD writer and the CD writer were set as masters. All my ROM issues were resolved when I set the CD to slave. What a stupid mistake on my part.

After this install I decided to take a break from computing. I can be quoted as saying “I hate computers”. I have taken a break from working on computers. This has lasted until Saturday. I survived five days without working on my computers. After work on Saturday I installed Ubuntu 8.04 64 bit on one of my computer and the eeePC also has Ubuntu 8.04 on it.

I had tried the Ubuntu server kernel on a 32 bit install so that I could use all of my 4GB RAM. I could not get the goodness of desktop effect because I could not get the Nvidia driver to work. This computer being very vain, needed the Compiz-Fusion effect.

I did not like that when I was using my eeePC every time I booted the laptop I had to mount my samba shares. This computer has only 8 GB of memory so I use the hard drive of another computer to save my large files. Ubuntu does this automatically so I switched it to Ubuntu. I have noticed that with the desktop effects on UbuntuI can pay video and there is no jerkiness like there was on Mandriva.  There are quite a few How-To guides out there so do a google search and you’ll have a brand spanking new Ubuntu OS on the eeePC.

I have also installed DSL (Damn Small Linux) on an older IBM notebook. There is a learning curve here.  I might install it on an other older computer that only has 32 MB of RAM and I can’t find anything else that will install on it.

eeePC Video With Compiz-Fusion

Last time when I left you I still had to figure out how to get my video working on the eeePC when with either the Metisse or Compiz-Fusion activated in the Mandriva 2008.1 operating system.  I am glad to say that after a bid of searching I figure it out thanks to the Compiz-Fusion forum and google.  I should really say that I got it working with Compiz-Fusion not Metisse yet.  After using it for a little while I turned of the 3D effects because it was slowing down the eeePC.  I’ll only use it to impress friends, family and people that I`ll try to convert to GNU/Linux from Windows.

I’ll never go back to Windows in its present form.  Next Month will mark two full years with a GNU/Linux operating system as my personal choice.  I’ve tried a few distribution, starting with openSUSE and at the moment using Ubuntu and Kubuntu and Mandriva.  I’ve tried Fedora, Elive, GoblniX, openGEU, linux mint and Foresight.  I even tried the Xandros on my eeePC.  I have tried a few BSD Unix distributions.  All these “alternative” operating systems are a lot more secure than Windows.  They are cheaper than Windows.  Almost every applications in Linux are free, well the ones I use are.  No anti virus to install.  Computers that are older than five years are still usable. With that said I can safely say that their is no way that I’ll return to Windows in its present form.

The main reason that a lot of people hate Windows Vista so much is that it is different from Windows XP and a lot of computer users do not want to learn how to do things differently.  They want to use the path with the least resistance.  This is also the major reason that GNU/Linux is still a marginal operating system.   It is great that eeePC comes with Linux.  Dell comes with Ubuntu pre-install.  I think that if Windows does come out with Windows 7 next year it will get a lot of people switching to Linux. 

The time is now to switch to a GNU/Linux operating system.  If you are on the fence trying to decide just go for it, and stick with it for a few months and you will be glad you did.  It does not matter which one you choose they are all fine distributions.  With the money you save by not buying software you can buy a Video Console for all your gaming needs.  This is the only shortfall Linux has in my opinion.  It is getting better but it is not there yet.

Mandriva 2008.1 On eeePC

I finished the internet install of Mandriva 2008.1 on my eeePC.  I ended the last post with 2hrs and 43 minutes left in the install of Mandriva according to the GUI.  I think that I have been through a time warp because it only took an hour to finish the install.  It took a total of 2hrs and 15 minutes for the install.  I tried it out and almost everything worked.  I did not realise that the internet install was the free install and instead of having the nonfree-flash application it had the gnash.  Gnash still has bugs.  When I was trying the Metisse window manager I could not play video, all I got was a black screen, the same can be said when I was using Compiz-Fusion.

I took a break and went to donate blood.  Please do the same.  When I got back home I decided to re install Mandrake 2008.1 the One version not the Free version.  I used an external CD this time and the install only took about 10 minutes.  This time I can view video on YouTube but I still did not have video when I used Metisse or Compiz-Fusion.  I disabled the 3D effects since the eeepc will be my portable video player.

My first impressions of Mandriva is nice looking and seems to do everything I want in a ultra portable notebook.  I have to figure out what to do with the video problem and that seems to be the only tweaking to be done.

eeePC Operating System Switching

I finally broke down and got myself an Asus eeePC 8G.  I actually got it last week.  I tries the Xandros Operating system that came with it for about 30 minutes and decided I wanted to be able to do more so I converted it to the advance desktop by following the instructions found here.  After a day with Xandros advance desktop, I decided to switch to eeeXubuntu.  I read several places that there were no updates available for the Xandros version on the eeePC, so I went with an Ubuntu derivative since I am well versed with Ubuntu.  If you need help install eeeXubuntu there is a great how to at eeeuser.com.

The first day I had eeeXubuntu I decided that I would try Compiz-fusion to get all the effects.  I don’t know what I did wrong but I lost all my borders and after playing with it for a few hours I got rid of the effects and back to the plain-jane XFCE desktop.  Everything works fine with eeeXubuntu after the user does a few tweaks.

The last few days I have been reading that Mandriva 2008.1 has complete eeePC support out of the box.  So today I decided to switch to Mandriva.  I have no USB DVD/CD drive therefore I have to do a network install.  Mandriva has instructions here and so does eeeUser.  I decided to go with the KDE desktop and I am installing it over the internet.  My internet speed is fast 5 Mbps but it is still going to take hours for the install.

Once the install is done I will have to trim it done by getting rid of application I will not use or cannot use like k3b the burning application.  I had some misgiving about installing Mandriva because it uses rpm packages and I did have dependencies problems in the past.  That was the main reason why I switched to Ubuntu from openSuse almost two years ago.  I am a glutton for punishment.

It has been one hour since I started the install and according to the install window on the eeePC I still have to wait 2hrs and 43min before the install is done.  I don’t think it’ll take that long, but what do I know?  I leave on this note and I will post the results when the install is done.

Tough Decision: EeePC or iMac…or Both?

Last week I was on vacation, I did not have time to play/work with my computers. Then why am I writing a post on this computer related blog? I have promised you that I would write four posts a month. Today is the last day of the month and I only have three posts this month so do the math: This is a filler post. On Thursday of last week I was in an electronics store and I was on the verge of buying myself an iMac computer. I had asked the clerk to get the iMac ready and I would be back in 15 minutes to pick it up. 15 minutes later I was back in the computer section of the store and the clerk I spoke with was with another customer, so I decide to go and look at computer switches since I would need one because my router was all plugged out. I chose a switch but there was no price on it, so I put it back on the shelve and head back to the computer department to pick up the Apple computer but the clerk is still busy with another customer. The other clerks are speaking among themselves. My conscience kicks in and I ask myself “Do I really need another computer?” I answer “Yes, of course”. My second question is “Do I need it now?” “Yes” my heart says “No, it can wait” my brain says, and I decide that since nobody at the store wants to help me at that moment, they do not deserve my business. So I left with no computer. I’ll have to wait for the next generation of iMacs before I purchase one.

I now have to decide if I should get an Asus EeePC or wait a bit and get the iMac and either an iPod touch or an Arcos 605. The way I see it at the moment the EeePC will act as a portable media player so I do not need the iPod Touch or Archos 605 and I would like to install Xubuntu and try that for a while. All I’ll need are some memory cards to be able to save data and put entertainment on. At this moment The EeePC is winning the battle, but will it win the war? Only time will tell, and knowing myself I’ll end up with an iMac and an EeePC.

I know not a lot of you leave comments but if you have suggestions noe is the time to tell me before I make up my mind. That is it for this filler post. I promise that next month all the post will be all killers and no fillers.

p.s. In the near future I’ll have some somewhat important news on something I am working on, so keep coming back to see what it is.