David Versus Two Goliaths

Apple will release its OS X 10.6 “Snow Loepard” in September and not long after, on October 22nd, Microsoft’s  Windows 7 will be released. A week later Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” is scheduled to be unleashed. We all know that Windows 7 will be used by more people than Ubuntu and OS X but will it be a better operating system?

I have tried the beta & the release candidate of Windows 7 and from what I have seen it is a far better OS than the doomed Vista. I do not own an Apple computer so I have not tried OS X. For those users that are still using Windows XP and do not want to leave their comfort zone, October will be a great month for updating to Windows 7, so save up your money kiddies because a full fledged copy of Windows 7 will cost you between $49.99 and $199.99 US, if you believe the rumours flying on the web. OS X is reported to cost $29.99.

I have chosen Ubuntu almost 3 years ago and I will keep on using it. I use Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Ubuntu netbook remix. I use Ubuntu more often but I seem to prefer the feel and look of Kubuntu. I prefer the professional look of KDE 4.2.4 over gnome 2.26, that is my opinion and we are all allowed to have opinions. One of the advantages of Ubuntu is that it is free.

I will not run out and purchase a copy of Windows 7 when it does come out in October and chances are that I will not purchase a Mac just to try out OS X, but I will update my Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10. I hope more people try Ubuntu and stick with it because it is a great operating system with a lot of advantages over the other two I have mentioned.

As a member of the Ubuntu community I must, as we all should, help new users with any problems they may have switching from Windows and OS X. We must be patient if we want Ubuntu or any other version of GNU/Linux to make it in the mainstream. It can be done, strike that, it will be done. All we need is educating the general public and perseverance.

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.

iPod Classic And GTKpod Revisited

Rhythymbox is great for importing and exporting music to the iPod.  The only situation I encountered with using Rhythymbox as an iPod management tool is that it has a few problems with album art.  To get album art to the ‘pod we must play a song from the album.  The problem that I have is that if Rhythymbox is play music it somehow screws up alot of the album art, what I mean is, the album art I am trying to import on the iPod is wrongly associated to other albums.  I have had this problem in Ubuntu 7.10, 8.04 and the newest 8.10.

I have been trying gtkpod and gtkpod-acc to see if it now works and when I turn it on everything is fine but the second I click on the iPod directory, to manage it, The gtkpod GUI freezes and my CPU goes to 100% usage and after a little while it starts overheating.  Last night I let this go on for about 15 minutes and I killed the process fearing damage to my laptop.

I have told you a few posts back that I have the 64bit version of Ubuntu 8.10 on “kramer” my laptop.  So I decided to try gtkpod on my Wind netbook, which runs the i386 version of Ubuntu 8.10.  Gtkpod works fine on this installation.  I guess I will have to file a bug report stating that the gtkpod 64bit package is broken.

I can now manage my iPod using “blizard” with the correct album art.  I can also import video to the ‘pod again, since RhythymBox does not support video.

Banshee 1.4 And iPods Are Like Mixing Oil And Water: It Does Not Work!

I’m not a happy camper as I am writing this.  I simply wanted to add some music to my iPod.  Gtkpod froze and my computer was heating up.  Must be a bug.  Rhythymbox works but I decide to try Banshee 1.4, Bad idea!  I am able to load new music fine.  I unplug the iPod after it says that I can disconnect it.  No music on the ‘pod.  What is going on?  Plug the iPod and I can see the music so I disconnect it once more and still no music.  I restart the ‘pod by pressing the “Menu” and “Select” buttons simultaneously.  The iPod restarts, still no music.  I am pissed off!

I connect the iPod back to the computer and  I “Drag’N'Drop” the songs, all 11016 of them, on my laptop.  I don’t feel like pulling out all my CDs and ripping them again so that I can place them in the ‘pod.  I boot Windows XP from the only computer that I own which still has Windows on it and do a factory reset on the iPod using iTunes.

I spend several hours, over several days loading up my iPod with music.  I used Rhythymbox Music Player to load the music in the ‘Pod.  I have to mention that this post has been written in three steps:  the first paragraph was written when my iPod “lost” all of it’s songs two weeks ago.  The second paragraph and the first sentence of the third paragraph was written a week later.  The rest was written today the day I published the post.

I now know that Banshee 1.4 is the culprit in losing all the songs.  I taught that maybe gtkpod was since it had frozen and I had to terminate it because my computer was overheating.  It took all my courage to try uploading songs in my iPod using Banshee and it worked but when I eject the ‘Pod it says that I have “0 songs”.  I know for a fact that I have 11037 on it since I just loaded 21 songs using Banshee 1.4.  Damn, damn, damn.  I plugin the iPod to my laptop.  I launch Rhythymbox.  I see all 11037 songs.  I play one of the songs I just uploaded using Banshee.  It plays fine.  I unplug the iPod and low and behold all my songs are there.  I am so glad, that I am glad, that I’m glad; to quote Cream.  I must dig out their CD and add that song to my iPod.  So I have learned that I cannot use Banshee as my all purpose music player/iPod loader.  I must keep on using Rhythymbox.

I really liked Banshee 1.4 but I cannot use it because of this problem.  If you do not have an iPod I whole heartily recommend it, but if you do I cannot recommend it. Apparently I am the only person that has this problem since I cannot find anybody else on the web with the same problem.  I wonder if it is because I have the 64 bit version of intrepid installed?

If you know of a solution please leave a comment, thanks.

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.

Intrepid Ibex Officially Released

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex has been officially released.  I am downloading, via torrent, the 64 bit version as I am writing this.  I hope to be installing it on my laptop and main computer Saturday or Sunday at the latest.  I have already installed the release candidate on my relatively new MSI Wind I have also installed the Kubuntu Release Candidate on another box. I will do the updates on these tomorrow morning and everything will be up to date.  This will be the first time which all my computers that support 64 bit will have the 64 bit Ubuntu installed, I believe that now is the time for 64bit computing to shine.

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.

Microsoft Fires Seinfeld?

The new Microsoft ad was aired yesterday.  They have gotten rid of Jerry Seinfeld and they are going after Apple.  You can judge for yourself.

I wear glasses, I wear jeans, I have a ring, I blog, I shave, I have one ring, I am connected to a billion people world wide, I’m a PC and I am a human being, I use linux for human being, I use Ubuntu.  I am not a stereotype.

What is the point they are trying to push across?  All the attributes they mention in this latest commercial can be said of Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD users.  Even none computers users.  It seems to me that they are afraid of losing their consumer base and they are trying to convince them not to leave for a better system.

I wonder if they will go after Linux?  I guess we will have to wait.

Shuttleworth: Ubuntu As Pretty As Apple In Two Years

With Mark Shuttleworth’s commitment to have Ubuntu out do Apple within two years (see Information Week article, see Mark Shuttleworth blog), he proves to us that he doesn’t have cold feet.  He has decided not to thread in the kiddies pool, instead he is jumping in with both feet in the deep end.  I applaud this since I can’t tell enough people about the virtues of Ubuntu and Linux in general,  I do try though.

I hope we, the present users of Ubuntu, will be happy with the results because we have supported Ubuntu since almost the begining (In my case two years ago yesterday), we have invest so much time getting everything right on our computers while using Ubuntu.  I am sure we will be getting more Ubuntu users and we will lose some.  I guess that is the nature of the beast.

Ubuntu Has To Become Boring To Succeed

I took a break from blogging last month, in fact I took a break from using computers other than work and simple Internet surfing.  Last week I “fixed” a friends computer that was infected by a rogue virus.  Of course that computer has XP as the operating system.  While I was scanning and removing the virus’s from that computer I was thinking of how we could get Ubuntu as the most used operating system.  We can tell everybody the advantages of an open source OS for one reason or another this is not enough.  Most computer users do not want their OS to change.  They want it to be the same all the time, that is why Windows Vista is failing to capture the hearts of Windows users.

I think that if Ubuntu wants to succeed as a Desktop OS for everybody, there should be a everything works version that is released every two years.  This new version would be the least cutting edge of the family with only security updates.  The LTS version for the commercial users still continues to come out every two years, but not the same year as the new Ubuntu.  The October releases (X.10) for advanced users (make this one bleeding edge).  I think that it might work.  For Ubuntu to succeed as a mass market desktop it has to be “dummied” down.

I will be posting again at a regular pace again.

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.

Goodbye Kubuntu, Hello OpenSUSE

I removed Kubuntu 8.04 KDE 4 remix and installed openSUSE with KDE 4.  My first impression was:  Wow this looks great.  OpenSUSE looks very polished compared with Kubuntu.  Everything works as it should,  I am impressed.  I have been using it for a few days and I was thinking off going back to Kubuntu because I know it better and can get things done faster with it until today.  On my Kubuntu box with KDE 3.5.8 I can’t get my Kafeine player to do anything.  This bug only affects Kubuntu, why?  I tried every fix I could find on the net, nothing works.  OpenSUSE works, why not Kubuntu?

I decided to keep openSUSE 11 KDE 4 on one box, Ubuntu on the laptop, Ubuntu on the eeePC and on the last box I’ll be getting rid of Kubuntu 3.5.9 and going with something else.  I am debating between GoblinX and Elive.  Both of them have new releases this week and I have been waiting for both of them to try them out.  One of them will be left on a computer for longer than a few days, I don’t know which one yet but I will find out pretty soon.

I really like Ubuntu they have a fine product but I cannot use Kubuntu anymore or until Canonical decides to put more resources towards it.

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.

My Linux Anniversary

As of today it has been two years since I changed from Windows XP to GNU/Linux. I started my Linux experience with OpenSuSE. I remember after formating my computer I could not get my Internet connection working. I work a few hours to get it. If you have been reading this blog you know that I am now using Ubuntu/Kubuntu and I remember that right after installing Ubuntu I did not have to do anything the internet worked right out of the box.

It has been a very interesting two years, I have a lot about computer since the switch. I could do almost anything when I used Windows XP and it took maybe one year for me to be able to say that I could do anything with Linux. I got a lot of help from Google, forums, various Wikis, How-Tos and several blogs. When I am unsure I just search the internet with Google and most of the time someone else has had the same problems before and a solution has already been found.

Two weeks ago I installed Ubuntu on a friends computer and he is having problems with the computer freezing. I think his problem is faulty RAM because the computer had these same problems using Windows XP. He is now shopping for RAM. There are several reasons for switching over to a GNU/Linux systems, the main reason that I upgraded to Linux was no more software piracy for me. Two years ago almost all the software on my computer was downloaded using P2P software and being a cheap SOB I did not pay when I could get it free. I felt somewhat guilty and to get rid of the guilt I either had to spend thousands of dollars or go with free open source software. I chose the cheapest path and I did the right choice.

Most people will use their computers only to surf the Internet and do a a bit of word processing. GNU/Linux is perfect for these users. If you don’t mind using “non-free” codecs, most users fall in this category, you can watch DVD’s and listen to music. I have stated before that where GNU/linux is lacking, is in the gaming area. With the money you have saved (Vista $239, Nero $99, Microsoft Office $179…) you can buy either an Xbox 360, Playstation 3 or a Wii. Maybe you can purchase two of the three gaming console if you use Gimp instead of Adobe Photoshop ($699).

If you are willing to do things differently and you are ready to learn something new you should start thinking of switching to something better, why settle for mediocrity when the alternative is so much better?

Back To Firefox

After a few days of using Epiphany on my laptop I decided to go back to Firefox 3. I can live without all the extensions but I can’t live with the random crashes. While using Epiphany with several tabs open it crashes for no reason. As I stated in the last post Firefox 3 beta 5 freezes but not as often as Epiphany crashes.

Ideally I would prefer to use Epiphany because it is the web browser designed specially for gnome, but because of an annoying bug I have to use something else. Once the bug is fixed I won’t hesitate changing back to it.

Epiphany in Ubuntu

I have written about browsers before. Now that I am using the newest versions of Ubuntu, it is time to speak about them once again. In Ubuntu Firefox 3 beta 5 is the default web browser. Before I updated my Ubuntu computers I was using epiphany. The reason I was using Epiphany because I found it faster than Firefox and less memory use. The only issue I have with Epiphany is less extensions than Firefox. I had run the Betas of Ubuntu and had freezes and crashes both with Firefox and Epiphany. When I did a fresh install of Ubuntu on three computers, I decided to give this newer version of Firefox a chance. After two weeks I’ll be going back to Epiphany. Firefox still freezes and I prefer the feel of Epiphany, maybe I’ll go back to Firefox once they are done testing it and are in the official release.

In my Kubuntu installs I am using Konqueror. I had said that Konqueror is slow. Not anymore, Konqueror is faster than anything I have tried. I don’t know what the did but it worked. I do have issues with the KDE 4 version on Konqueror, such as not being able to play streaming audio. I have no such problems with Konqueror in KDE 3.5.9. At work I have installed Safari from Apple to give it a go, but I haven’t done any thing with it yet.

I haven’t been using Opera since updating my computers, but as soon as I finish this post I’ll be installing it on the KDE 4 computer and hopefully It’ll have streaming audio working. I’ll let you know.

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.

Hardy Install Fest

The Heron was released last week and I haven’t said a word about it.  Well I have a bit busy installing it on several computers. I have installed Ubuntu on three computers. I have installed Kubuntu on two computers, one with KDE 3.5.9 and the other with KDE 4.0.2.  All went well with the installations except for a stupid mistake I made because I was not paying attention.  I accidentally erased a drive containing data that I wanted to save.  I checked of ext2 instead of ext3 on this drive and lost all the information on it.  I was fairly pissed off at myself at the time but there is nothing I can do now.  What is done is done.

One of the installs was for another co-worker and I am glad that I did not have to install Windows again. GNU/Linux is a pleasure to install whilst Windows is hard work to install.  By the end of the weekend I have two more installs to do and then I rest for a while.

If you haven’t tried Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Mythbuntu/…buntu now is the time.  It is a great distribution.

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.

Hardy Heron Another Step Forward For Linux

Thursday after work I updated my laptop from Ubuntu 7.10 to Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron beta.  Everything went fine with the update.  I like the new Clock in which we get the weather and we can add cities from different time zones.  Transmission is the new bit torrent client, I haven’t tried it here But I had used it when I was running Elive on one of my computer.  I beleive that the powers that be who decides which applications should be installed by defaults, should look at Deluge as the bit torrent client of choice.  It is a full featured client and it is easy to use.  About two minutes ago I started using Gnome-do and I like it very much.  It is sort of like Katapult on the KDE desktop.  There are still some bug, like no hibernation on my laptop & Epiphany crashes for no apparent reason.  It is going to be a fine release once all the bugs are worked out.  If you are adventurous install it now but if you want to wait until it is perfected you only have to wait until April  24 2008.

After the seeing how smoothly Ubuntu was updated on my laptop, I decided to update my Kubuntu 7.10 to 8.04 beta.  I already am using the KDE 4.0.3 version of Kubuntu 8.04 so the next step was the KDE 3.5.9 version of Hardy Heron.  This time the update was very painful.  I had to install it from scratch after the update because I could not do anything with it.  Thank God for live cd’s because there were some data that I had not backed up before attempting this update.  From what I have been experiencing Kubuntu is buggier than Ubuntu.  The KDE 4 version of Kubuntu has less bugs from my experience.  Everything will be fixed by April 24th and both Kubuntu distros will be great.

Re-Arranging My Computers

Last week I installed GoblinX on one of my computer and after a few hours experimenting with it I decided that it was not for me.  The only time I could get things done I had to run it as root.  I did not like the fact that I had to run it with this lack of security.  I’ll be using the live Cd thought it has some interesting features like HDremaster.  I also like that I can use what ever desktop environment I want.  I think that GoblinX is designed to be used as a live CD.

I installed Foresight 2.0 for another few hours.  I like the new features in Gnome 2.22, but since I am already using Gnome in Ubuntu I decided to remove Foresight and wait for Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron to try out Gnome 2.22, only a bit more than a month to wait.

I settled with the installation of Kubuntu 7.10. So I now have KDE 4.0.2 with Kubuntu 8.04 Alpha, I am going to use both new releases of Kubuntu when they come out until I can truly say that KDE 4 meets all my requirement.  Well that is it for this installment.

Trying Hardy Heron KDE 4.0 Style and GoblinX Replace OpenGEU

What have I been doing since my last outburst? Well I formated my Kubuntu komputer with the Hardy Heron alpha KDE 4. I might as well immerse myself in this new desktop environment because in a years time KDE 3.5 should not exist anymore. I know that everything does not work properly since it is still in Alpha release, but all I have to do is wait a few days and the developers will fix what has been broken, thanks guys and gals. Case in point this weekend I updated the system and I lost the sound. I found out that it was the new kernel’s fault and they recommended to boot with the earlier version of the kernel. In my case I got back sound but could not run Konqueror. So I decide to live without sound. On tuesday I updated the komputer and the sound was fixed, Woopie! KDE 4.0.2 is growing on me, like a strange fungus and this will be a great desktop environment in the near future.

Today I updated my OpenGEU computer and this broke two packages. This is the second time that I have broken packages with this Operating System once when it was call GEUbuntu and today. I restarted the computed and now I can’t log on! I don’t have the time to fool around with this so I try to install GoblinX on this computer, the gtkHDIstall is broken so it does not install unless we edit it there is a typo in the code. I fix this and I am installing as I am writing this.

If you have read my last post you will know that I was very pissed off that some schmuck copied my blog without giving me credit for writing it. Now I don’t mind that it was copied and I will allow anybody to copy this blog just as long as I am credited in writing the blog and you must have a link to this blog.

GoblinX is done installing I am booting up, it works! I’ll explore it and tell you about it in a future post because I have a ton of things to do.

Blogging While Pissed Off

Yesterday I was reading posts on Planet Ubuntu and Stephan Hermann’s two post about the plagiarism of his blog on linuxindex.com just got two quick glances from me. I did not really think it was important but this afternoon I was searching for a few tips on installing GoblinX on a virtual machine and in my search I found my complete post “Problem Solving and Not Installing GoblinX” on linukx.com and it was not mentioned anywhere that I was the writer of this post, apparently it was written by linux guy. My first reaction was “You fucking bastard”. This was also my second reaction and third and fourth reaction. I am bit pissed off, no I am a livid. If linux guy was in front of me right now, he’d be laying down in a pool of his blood.

How do we protect ourselves from these no good cocksucking sons of a bitches? I think that there is no way we really can. I know that my posts are not the best there is, and that should be protection enough. No one would really want to plagiarize an average blog. All these rip off artists are what is wrong with the internet today.

I guess I have vented enough for today, I sure hope that linux guy (AKA Motherfucking Bastard) sees this post and chokes on it, but before he does I want him to remove all my post that he copied and all other post that he has stolen and that he can choke on this post and dies a long painful death.

p.s. I apologize to all of you reading this expecting no swear words but I could not express the way I feel at this moment without them. Maybe when I calm down, if I calm down, I’ll edit out the nasty word.

Bad CD Changes Plan

This weekend I tried to install GoblinX on Virtualbox and it did not work out. I think that the CD I burned was corrupt. I am out of discs so I couldn’t burn another one and try this one. I’ll try again when I get the chance to buy some discs. I’ll keep you posted on the GoblinX front. Maybe I’ll try again tonight because I am intrigued by GoblinX.

On my OpenGEU box I installed some updates this weekend and I did not lose sound, whoopee! OpenGeu will live to see another day. Unless I decide to install GoblinX on this computer. The next time I format my computers I’ll set them up so that I can install more than one GNU/Linux OS so that I can try more than a few distro at the time.

That is it for this short post. I only have one more to write before the end of the month and I hope it is about installing GoblinX on a virtual machine.

KDE 4.0: A Stepping Stone

Last year at the end of January an operating system was release which a lot of people were disappointed with and refusing to change over to it. You all know that I am talking about Vista. When it came out there were no drivers for existing hardware. It took to much space on the hard drive. It basically takes a super computer for all its features to work properly. It doesn’t work the same as Windows XP, etc… etc… etc… A lot of people in the linux camp and even the Windows camp were saying that Microsoft released an Operating System that should not have been release before they worked out all the kinks.

Fast forward a year. Last week KDE 4.0 was released and there are a few things that are missing. We the users of KDE have lost options that we had in the 3.5.8 version of KDE 4.0. For example I can’t figure out how to add another panel on the desktop. I can’t even re-size the existing panel. The new menu system is horrible. There are a lot of Linux users complaining and there are as many Linux users defending the new KDE 4.0. Last year the same was being said about Vista. I think that we are too fast at complaining, we want instant results. I have been playing a bit with Vista and it is not as bad as everybody says it is, there are a lot of stuff I don’t like about it but there is some that I like. With that said I would not choose it as my OS.

KDE 4.0 is a stepping stone for greater things to come. If you are switching from Windows or Vista to Linux and you want to work with KDE I strongly recommend you go with KDE 3.5.8 for now and hopefully within a year KDE 4.1 will be out and will have a few of its annoyances worked out.

I have to say to the KDE 4.0 developers you can’t satisfy everybody all the time, we end users are bastards, when something is not to our liking we will complain until the cows come home and when it works fine we usually don’t say a word. I would like thank all the developers of KDE 4.0 for all your hard work and dedication to the cause of free open source software, keep up all the good work.

Edit:  I’ve added in the comments a link to a tentative releases schedule for KDE4.  I did not have this information when I wrote this post.

KDE The Next Generation

Yesterday KDE 4.0 Was unleashed to the world. I got home from work late last evening so all I did was install it using this guide from Kubuntu. I checked if it was working, it was. I decided to rest and keep my adventurous soul in check and wait until this evening to check it out. After trying it out for the last hour or so I like the look of it and I have a lot of forgetting how KDE 3.5.8 works and learn a new way of doing things if I am going to use KDE 4.0. I find it harder than Enlightenment at the moment and Enlightenment is very different than anything else out there.

I won’t get rid of my trusty KDE 3.5.8 yet but I’ll use KDE 4.0 from now on to get used to it because KDE 3.5.8 will be forgotten by next year? Maybe, maybe not, only time will tell.

The Geubuntu Failure

In Geubuntu, for one reason or another, the repositories for Geubuntu and Enlightenment are not there. Last night I added them and updated my system. I also screwed up my system. The Gnome panel at the top of the desktop was hiding but not coming back. I was pissed off because I could not get it back so the simplest thing to do was to re-install and start over. I am used to this so I decided to give Elive another chase. I shouldn’t says another chance, I should say a fair chance. I installed it and low and behold the screen resolution was perfect. I followed the same instructions as with Geubuntu to get the Thunar File Manager able to view the other computers in my network.

I’ll continue to “play” around with Elive and keep you up to date.

The Elive Failure

Thank goodness one of my resolutions for this year was not to run Elive for six month. Yesterday I got rid of it and replaced it with geubuntu. This was all the Thunar file manager’s fault. Thunar has no native network ability. As you regular readers know I have several computers and I want to be able to use any file from any computer no matter which computer I am using at the time. With Thunar I could not do it, at first. I found a helpful guide that explained how to do this for Xubuntu. I wanted a quick fix to this situation and when after about 15 minutes of trying to change my previlege I simply gave up and said to myself “self, this guide is for Xubuntu it should work for Geubuntu,” I did not have to twist my arm within 20 minutes I had Geubuntu installed. After another half hour, I had to install all the updates and nvidia driver, I had the same problem.

At this point I should mention that I had another situation with elive that at first I was going to live with but with the “non”-file sharing between computers made this unacceptable. For one reason or another I could not get the screen resolution to work with elive. On this computer I am using a LCD monitor that has a resolution of 1440×900. In elive when I set this as my resolution my monitor was to small, what I mean is that I was not seeing the complete screen. As I moved my cursor to the edge of the screen I would see that part of the screen. I had tried changing the video driver but to no avail so I set it up to 1280×800 and only at this resolution was I able to see the complete desktop on my screen. It looked distorted of course. In Geubuntu after installing the “resricted” nvidia driver I could see the desktop as it should be in wonderful wide screen 1440×900 resolution. Just this has made it worth while to switch to Geubuntu. Now back to the Thunar situation.

I followed the instructions that I had found for Xubuntu, until it says to go in the Users and Group. Geubuntu has no Users and Group in the system menu. I screwed around a bit and figured how to change my previlege so that I could use the fuse file system. I haven’t figured out how to auto start fusesmb yet, all I have to do is run the command: “fusesmb /media/network” and it works. I have to remember to do this when I start up the computer.

Fully Enlightened

As previously reported I was trying Geubuntu and Elive-Gem on virtual machines. Now I decided to take a bigger step: I have just installed Elive 1.2.4 on one of my computers. Why did I choose Elive over Geubuntu? I must say that Ubuntu and Kubuntu are my operating system of choice and that is the reason that decided to go with Elive, Geubuntu would have been another Ubuntu flavour. I know that Elive is based on Debian as is Ubuntu but Elive does not depend on Ubuntu as Geubuntu does. So the next few weeks I will be learning to do things slightly differently and I shall keep you updated.

Installing Elive on the computer was very easy even an amateur could do it. It is as simple as pooping in the install CD in the tray, rebooting the computer from the CD ROM/DVD ROM a few clicks to choose language video driver and you have the live desktop working. Clicking on the install icon will get you to partition your hard drive and decide where to install the root directory and if you want to create other file directories. You then choose passwords for root and users when all this is done you have to restart the computer. As with all Linux systems you have to log in the system when it starts and you will be asked to enter the root password to “tweak” the system and voila it is done. Now let the fun begin.

I don’t know if the previous paragraph constitute educating you, the reader, something about Linux as mandated in my previous post, for now it will have to do. I have not broken any of my new year resolutions yet but the new year is only 13 hours and 33 minutes old at the time I am writing this.

I have to mention that every time I try a new Linux distribution it takes less time to install than ever, pretty soon we will find that waiting more than five minutes for an installation a tedious affair.

I will call this post, the first of many for 2008, done. So I’ll keep you updated in my computing affairs.

Out With The Old In With The New

Everybody has new years resolution and I am no exception. The problem with resolutions is that almost everybody keep their resolution for a few days and then they give up. I have done this and so have you, don’t deny it it’s not becoming of you.

I have a few that I hope I will not break them. You might be asking yourself what this has to do with this blog. Well one of my resolution concerns this blog. I hope not only to tell you of my adventures with computing, I will try to educate you in the ways of linux. I will try to have one post a month explaining how I did something with linux.

Well with that out in the open I have to do it now. That is it for this time. I guess this will be the last post for 2007.

Happy New Year everybody and I will forgive you if you don’t keep your resolutions because heaven knows I might not keep mine.

I Have Seen the Light with Enlightenment

I have been experimenting with both Geubuntu and Elive-Gem the last few days and I am quite intrigued. I have been using Virtualbox trying them out and I like what I have seen so far. Yesterday I was off from work and played around with both and I was so impressed with Geubuntu that I was one mouse click away from installing it one my laptop. I was to lazy to back up the files from my /home directory to my /storage one, so I did not install it. I wait a bit before I decide to take the plunge. I can’t install Elive-Gem on the laptop because it won’t support my wifi or audio card.

Both these operating systems use Enlightenment as there windows manager and it is different from everything I have seen so far. Maybe I’ll install it on my eldest desktop, but not now, I wanted to try KDE 4.0 first when it comes out in January.

In the last two post I mentioned that I have been trying out other web browsers than the top two. Here are my finding. On the laptop I am using Epiphany with a bunch of there extensions. On this computer I am not missing Firefox at all, to tell you the truth I prefer Epiphany. On my Kubuntu box I have been using Konqueror which I find slow but I still enjoy it. I would choose Firefox over it. On my Ubuntu 64bit computer I have kept Firefox but I installed the 32bit version so that the flash player plug in could work. I might switch over to Epiphany on this computer. On this same computer I have XP with which I tried Maxthon and since I don’t use XP often I find alright but I haven’t used it to its full potential. At work I now use Opera and I am very impressed with it, it is very fast I would recommend it to anybody wanting to get rid of bloated browsers.

I guess my time is up for today.

Gutsy Again

I don’t remember if I mentioned in one of the Gusty Gibbons posts that when one of my computer was freezing with Ubuntu installed on it I switched it to Kubuntu before I found out that it was a freak combination of my video card and motherboard. I was a bit disappointed because I wanted Ubuntu and Gnome on my newer desktop computer and Kubuntu on my oldest computer. On Monday I decided to switch them over with a complete Installation.

On the oldest computer, Newman, everything went fine as expected. This is the computer on which I am try Konqueror as a web browser, a bit more on that later. I am pretty much an expert on installing Kubuntu/Ubuntu and setting them up the way I like ‘em. Installing Ubuntu on the newer desktop was another story.

I Had been thinking of trying the 64bit version of Ubuntu. On monday a few hours after switching Newman from Ubuntu to Kubuntu I decided to Sidney, the desktop, to Ubuntu 7.10 64bit. I downloaded the installation cd, popped it in and restarted the computer. After choosing to install I get a black screen, no signal detected, damn. After a few Google searches I found out there is a bug. I decide to install using the alternative CD, I hope this will work. It does install. I won’t go through it step by step because we would be here for hours and we don’t want that do we?

The screen resolution was screwed up! I have a 1680×1050 screen but all I was getting was 640×400! After fooling around with it a while I finally get to change it to the correct setting but I only get to see about a quarter of the screen and when I move my mouse to one of the edge I can view another part of the screen. I try several ways to fix this but to no avail. Being a fairly good problem solver, in my own mind, I decide to fix this in an unorthodox way. I decide to remove my video card and replace it with an older one.

During the installation I rechristened it Bubble Boy to continue the tradition of naming my computers after Seinfeld characters. My iPod is named after George’s Alis Art Vandelay. Anyway, Ubuntu was installed without a hitch. I installed nVidia propriety driver and a few other packages and then turned of the computer and replaced my new video card and voila everything works as it should. I should mention that Bubble Boy froze twice when I had the older video card in it and it never froze with the newer card.

Now I will be trying everything I can with the 64bit edition of Ubuntu and if anything interesting happens I be sure to mention it to you. The first step is to get flash player to work in FireFox.

I can’t install Opera since they don’t have a 64bit version but I have installed it the computer I use at work. I like it. I like it so much that I installed it in my Kubuntu box, Newman, along side Konqueror. I tried making Konqueror faster by following a few tweaks I found on the net. That did make Konqueror faster but Konqueror was so slow that it is still slow. I now use both Konqueror and Opera on that computer. On my laptop I am using Epiphany 95% of the time and 5% is FireFox. I am getting used to not using my FireFox extensions and learning to use Epiphany’s extension. I just added a few third party extensions and I am liking Epiphany more and more.

Well I have to call it a day if I want to get some work done on Bubble Boy tonight. I’ll keep you posted.

Browser Wars: The Unknowns

Before I start with this post I’ll just say that this is not the post that I was supposed to publish today. I had told you in a previous post that I was converting some Seinfeld episodes into iPod ready files. I decided to write a step by step account of this so that my fellow Ubuntu users could do the same thing whitout searching the web trying something and if that didn’t work search again. Well let me tell you That post was so long I think I could actually publish it as a book. My experience in reading blogs is that if a blog is overly long the reader tends to lose patient and not read it completely, so I decided to shelve it until I cut it down to a respectful size.

With that said on with this shorter post. I already mentioned in the past that I was trying out the Epiphany browser instead of my beloved Firefox. Lately I found that firefox was a behemoth of a browser almost as bad as Internet Explorer from our “friends” at Microsoft. Firefox in a linux environment is now slow as molasses. It actually works faster in Windows than Linux! I guess Firefox should be considered a Windows Browser that is ported to Linux.

Epiphany is a small web browser designed to work with the Gnome desktop. My first impressions of Epiphany is “damn this is fast”! It is a hell of a lot faster than Firefox. It has it’s own extensions, but not as many as Firefox. After using it a week I don’t miss my Firefox extensions, much. There is a short learning curve when changing to Epiphany but I think it is worth it. Today I decided to try Konqueror, as a web browser, on my Kubuntu computer, in fact I am writing this using Konqueror. Another learning curve. My first impression of Konqueror as a web browser is “damn this is slow”!

I still use Firefox on one of my computer and at work. At work we use Windows so I have to use something else than Internet Explorer. I was thinking of installing the Opera Browser. I think I’ll do that tomorrow since there is supposed to be a snow storm starting this evening and going through the night. Tomorrow it is going to be windy and I think that we won’t be busy. Maxthon is another alternative for Windows users. It uses the Explorer engine but it improves on it.

Who will win the browser wars? I certainly don’t know, but what I know is that Internet Explorer as all to lose and nothing to gain. It has already lost quite a bit and if Firefox improves itself when 3.0 comes out it has a fighting chance. I only hope they don’t forget us Linux users because without us firefox would not have had a fighting chance at the beginning.

A Formatting We Will Go…

Last week was a hectic week for my laptop. A very stressful week also. On Tuesday I had an appointment for an oil change and brake check up for my car. After this appointment I stopped at the cemetery where my father was buried. That night I had disturbing dreams of when my father was in the hospital and I couldn’t sleep anymore. So what did I do? I did something that I had been thinking about doing that last few weeks. I installed LinuxMint on kramer, the laptop.

By the time I had to go to work I had everything set up the way I liked it. I would put it through its pace that evening after work. After a few hours of “playing” with my new install and setting the layout as I liked it, I realised that It was exactly the same as Ubuntu once I had tweaked it. Why change Operating System when I was using the perfect one for my usage? So I flushed LinuxMint and installed Ubuntu once again.

I don’t know what I did but my laptop was sluggish and when I played video, the video was jerking and I tried a few things to repair it but to no avail. Friday evening I again re installed Gutsy Gibbon and now everything is up to par.

If you are switching to Linux for the first time I huge you to try out LinuxMint because it has everything you need installed. I you want a bit more control in what you are running go for Ubuntu.

Parking Is Dangerous For Your Hard Drive

Three days ago on October 26th, I read about a bug with Ubuntu that would kill my hard drive within a year if left unchecked. I read someplace where someone says that it is the fault of the BIOS vendor and another place it is the fault of the hard drive vendor, yet another place says that it is Ubuntu’s fault. I don’t care who’s fault it is, we have to fix it and fix it ASAP.

The bug is that in laptops the HDD parks itself once a minute and according to most of the articles I read a HDD can do this 600000 which means that a hard disc drive will last a little less than 167 hours. In my case it is not as bad as that but my hard drive will only last 1 year if it continues at this rate.

When I first read this article I did not think that I was affected and that it was just a freaky thing happening to a few laptops. Yesterday I read more and started wondering if my computer was affected with this bug. I checked it and my computer was cycling once every two minutes or so, as I said not as bad as once a second but worrisome. I read of a few fixes but I didn’t really have the time to try them so I waited until this evening to give it a go.

Let me tell you that I was really worried this afternoon, not because that my hard disc drive might fail within a year but because I might have to remove Ubuntu and install XP on my laptop. I have tried the fixes and thank God they are working on my desktop. I am very happy right now, so happy that I want to jump around and yell “hee hah”, but I won’t.

Almost all the information I got to fix my problem I got it from here, thank you Roald Hopman (AKA Ubuntu Demon) if it wasn’t for you I would never have known what happenned to my HDD in a years time.

Gutsy Gibbon Up And Running

Gutsy Gibbon is up and running all the three musketeers, yeah that right I installed it on my lap-top, Kramer, last evening. Everything that I use regularly works, hee haa little doggies. I am very happy with this version of Ubuntu.

I had a freezing problem with one of my desktop computer, new-toy to be precise. I had installed Ubuntu on it Saturday and nVidia’s propriety driver and the computer was freezing. I found out Sunday that my graphic card (EVGA 7300GS) and motherboard (E9N) for one reason or another were not really compatible. When I installed the drivers for Windows XP there was a patch for the graphic card so XP works correctly. I tried a few fixes and they seemed to work, but after a while the computer freezes again.

I did not have this problem when I had Kubuntu on it, so guess what? I reformatted it with Kubuntu and christen it Sidney, and what the hell I reformatted precious with Ubuntu and named that one Newman. I did all of this Monday evening.

Today I finished tweaking all three computers and Sidney froze again. I removed the nVidia propriety drivers. It still froze. I was getting pissed off. I read in the nVidia forums that there is no solution for this problem. I have a solution I go and buy myself another video card a GeForce 8500GT. Now Sidney does not freeze. I am a few dollars poorer but I am Video rich.

I am tired so I’ll take a break and watch television and not touch any of my computers this evening. See you later.

Gutsy Gibbon Second & Third Steps

First off I’d like to say that I am sorry that I did not write on Friday, or yesterday, as promised in Gutsy Gibbon’s First Step. Friday was a very hectic days so when I got home I decided to take it easy and not work to hard on the computer, so all I do is transfer some files from New-Toy to Precious so I don’t have to do this on Saturday.

Yesterday when I got home from work I went back at it. My goal was to complete the Kubuntu 7.10 installation on Precious, install Windows XP (for Games) and Ubuntu 7.10 on New-Toy and if I still had it in me to install Ubuntu in Kramer the laptop.

The first thing I do is start my XP installation on New-Toy and while this is going on and on and on and on and on (get the point it is slow, painfully slooooooww) I install all the packages I can think of that I’ll need. Stuff like Samba, ssh, x2x (to be able to use one keyboard and mouse for more then one computer), gstreamer plugins, flash player, mencoder, mozilla-mplayer, gtkpod (for the iPod), GPixPod (again for the iPod), unrar, etc, etc, etc I am sure that I have forgotten a few packages but it is quite easy to install them when I’ll need them. I set up the desktop the way I like it. I don’t really like the wallpaper/desktop art but no more time to waste to change it at the moment.

I have to mention that when I used Dolphin, the new KDE file manager, I like the look and feel of it but there is no tab option like in Konquerer, the consolation is that there is split view where I can open two folders at the same time. I guess I’ll have to make due with that. In Konqueror I usually opened up to four folders at the time.

When XP is done installing I try to install NOD32 on it but my back up copy of the anti-virus is on Precious and I don’t have my Ethernet drivers installed. New-Toy as never had XP installed on it and I did not expect to install it on that computer so all the CDs are put away God knows where. So I have to download all the drivers I need from the net. I start the downloads and I start installing Ubuntu 7.10 on New-Toy. Same thing happened with the “Scanning the Mirror” being stuck at 82%. I watch television while I wait. When I go back to the computer everything is done in less time that Windows XP was “completely” installed.

I log in and I again get a restricted driver notice. I do install the nVidia driver so that I can use the desktop effects. The basic setting is, let us say, basic. I install the CompizConfig Settings Manager and set up the desktop effects to my liking. I again install all the packages I’ll be needing. I have to mention that both New-Toy and Precious had the correct screen resolution when the were turned on. This is the first time this happens for me since I apparently have abnormal monitors. Everything else is working, sound, Ethernet, modem, printers. I have to download and install drivers for my XP installation, which is simpler? My choice, on three computers, is easy.

I do change the wallpaper on New-Toy to Elephant, note to self find a blue Elephant wallpaper for Precious. Once everything is done on New-Toy Ubuntu. I restart the computer with XP to install the drivers. I spend the rest of the evening/night installing drivers, anti-virus, anti-spyware, a good firewall, burning software, updates and a secure web browser (Firefox). Time is up it is 11:30 and I call it a day.

This morning after I get home from my morning walk I decide to install Battlefeild 2 and Bioshock and a few more game on the XP partition. I try them out for several hours,in fact about 4 hours. I don’t play computer game very often but when I do I play them for way too long. Nothing creative done yet today except that now I am transfering files back to New-Toy from Precious and I am putting yet more music in my iPod, when will I listen to these songs? Soon I hope.

I decided not to install Gutsy on my laptop at them moment I wait until I have more time to devote to this endeavour. I guess that is it for this overlong post. From what I have seen Ubuntu has another great release under their belt. Now we have to get ready for Hardy Heron Ubuntu 8.04 when it comes out in April.

This has been posted to both my blogs, Adventures in Computing and No Name Blog. Usually this would only have been posted in the Adventures blog but I wanted to see how much traffic it would create on the No Name Blog.

Gusty Gibbon’s First Steps

Kubuntu 7.10, code name Gutsy Gibbon, is now installed on my oldest computer, code name precious. I bought the computer after seeing Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Rings when it was at the theatres. I have to say that the installation was slow this time around since I believe that a lot of people could not wait to install it and the repositories are swamped by us impatient nerds.

I popped in the installation CD chose to manually partition my hard drives. I did this because I used to have windows on this computer and I decided to ditch it. I’m ashamed to say that I will install it on my other desktop computer to try out Bioshock and a few other games.

The installation was going fine until it got to 82% a was taking a lot of time “scanning the mirror”. After waiting fifteen minutes I stopped timing and went to watch some television. I watched The Office after I checked to see if the installation was done. It was. I did a reboot. When the computer came back on, my log in screen was slightly different from Feisty (Kubuntu 7.04). I now can choose which user to log in with. There is not much choice since I’ll be the only person to use this computer.

I notice that when I am logged in my screen resolution was correctly detected. I also have a notice that there are some restricted drivers available. All I have to do is click on the Restricted Icon to see which one. The nvidia driver is the only one available for this computer. I choose to install it. It takes 15 minutes to download and install (again because all us nerds want gutsy now).

I then decide to install gstreamer plug ins so that I can watch video on the computer. This again takes time, It is fine wanting to update as soon as possible, but next time I’ll wait a few days before doing the install.

This is where I end tonight because it is getting late. I’ll continue tomorrow and keep you updated.

Boring Update

In the last post I told you that I was upgrading to Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon Beta release. The upgrade went fine. The only problem I have is that I don’t have the time to try it out. Maybe I should have upgraded my laptop instead since I use this one everyday.

Last time I said that I’ll be installing Gutsy on my three computers the 20th and 21st of October, this hasn’t changed. What I decided to change is I’ll be installing Kubuntu on my older computer and Ubuntu on my newer desktop computer and both on my laptop.

I guess this is it for this post, I know it was a boring post but you know what they say: “Life is a Bitch and so is Britney Spears.”

You Have To Be Gutsy To Try This

As I am writing this I am upgrading my old computer to Ubuntu 7.10 code named “Gutsy Gibbon” beta. I have waited longer this time around to do the switch. I had switched over to “Edgy Eft” Ubuntu 7.04 when it was still in its alpha stage. I can’t wait to try it out.

In the Ubuntu communities everybody has been posting about Ubuntu Install fests around the date of 18th of October since this is when 7.10 is coming out. I am going to have one on the 20th and 21st since I’ll be doing 2 fresh installs, maybe three. My old computer, named Precious, will have Ubuntu. My newer desktop, named New-Toy, will have Kubuntu, and the lap top, named Kramer, will have both version of the distribution. I am getting giddy with the anticipation.

I hope that they work out all the kinks out before I upgrade my new vostro laptop, since the hardware in it is relatively new and as I am writing this there are some issues. This is the main reason why I did not do the upgrade yet. I am using the lap top 60% of the time, so I don’t want to use a buggy system.

I invite you all to go to The No Name Blog for a good time and a less serious blog. I warn you that you may be offended by the content and/or the sarcasm. Thanks again for reading my musings. See you later.

Procrastination Works Again

My compiz-fusion desktop effects on my lap top are working again. As you know after an update on the 13th of September it had stopped working. Last week another update still not working. This morning another update to compiz and shazam it works. I was hoping this was going to happen, since compiz-fusion is still in development.

So the power of positive thinking wins again. I believed that compiz-fusion would fix itself and voila it happened. Buy the the book “The Secret” and wonderful stuff will happen to you, better yet just think and believe you will get “The Secret” and you get the book just by the power of wishful thinking.

Enough of this bull.

New Name Blog

For those of you that are regular readers of this blog, you will have noticed the new name. I have gotten rid of the “… and life” in the title of this post. If you want to read my quirky views of life, you’ll have to go to the No Name Blog.

You’ll notice that there are a lot more posting on that blog than this one, and that is because I have less time than I used to with which to experiment with my computers.

Anyways there is nothing new on the compiz-fusion front. It still does not work on my lap top. I have tried Foresight linux for about half an hour last night, I wanted to see and try gnome 2.2. It is alright, but for some reason I was not comfortable with its package manager. I’ll try to work with it some more at a later date.

I guess that is it for today. Go to the No Name Blog later today for a brand new post. I have Posted four times this week already, it is a marathon of posts. Will I stay the course. Go and see. Bye.

A Quick One

Just a quick one to keep you up to date. I still haven’t gotten compiz-fusion working on the lap top. I haven’t really tried to do anything about it yet.

I like what I can do with Rockbox on my iPod but after trying it for half a day I noticed that it is harder on the battery that the original firmware from Apple. I’ll be using the original from Apple for my everyday use, and Rockbox will be to impress people and something to do in my spare time. I hope that we can update our firmware so that we have the same as the iPod classic.

As I said this is a quick post. No pictures this time.

Damn Those Updates

Last post I was proud to announce that I finally got compiz-fusion working on my lap top. Yesterday their was an update for compiz-fusion. It don’t work no more! I haven’t taken the time to try and fix it, hopefully it is nothing major. I can turn it on but after a few seconds it kicks me out back to my regular metacity windows manager with no eye popping desktop.

The desktop effects the compiz-fusion are totally useless for productivity but they keep me amused and happy, and you know what they say: “an amused and happy Norm is a lot better than a pissed off and angry Norm.” It’s true they all say that, I’m not lying. Check it out you’ll see.

That it for now. I had a long day and in a few hours I have to be at work.

With A Little Help From My Friends

I finally have gotten compiz-fusion working on Kramer, my Dell Vostro 1500 laptop (as if you didn’t already know). I hadn’t tried installing it until yesterday because when I tried running the desktop effects I lost the borders and headers, so I knew that I would lose them again if I tried compiz-fusion. Also this is the second computer that I have installed the nVidia drivers through Envy and when I try compiz-fusion my computer freezes. Kramer was no exception. I had almost decided to give it a rest and try another day when I found this site (click here). I try the few trouble shooting he has at the end and low and behold everything works. Thank you Kevin van Zonneveld, I am happy and so is Kramer.

Now that I have started writing more, the thing that annoys me the most about a laptop is that when I am typing and I accidentally brush the touch pad I change the cursors’ position and I am typing at the wrong place. The Vostro does not have a “turn off” function key for the touch pad so I had to find something else. With the help of Christer Edwards I have a solution for this. You have to make sure that in the xorg.conf you have SHMConfig “On”. The run the command: syndaemon -d -t -i 2 which basically turns off the touchpad 2 seconds after the last keystroke, so no more accidentally moving the cursor when typing.

From these two examples of solving annoyance in Ubuntu you can see that the is community support. If you are willing to try Ubuntu and willing to stick with it for a few weeks you’ll be glad you tried.

On to other matters, since I started writing the No Name Blog this one has no contained allot of life segment, only the computing segments are present. I’ll sorta want to keep it this way, but let me mention that tomorrow I’ll be giving blood and I would like it if most of you could donate when you can. During my fathers last few month he was getting at least 2 pints a week so I intend to pay the Canadian Blood Services back with interest. 26 weeks time 2 pints equals 52 pints. I can give 1 pint every 3 months so that is 4 pints a year, so in thirteen years I’ll start paying the interest. Please give.

Last week I decided to lose weight and I’ve started. I want this out there so that I cannot deny it in a few weeks if I don’t see results. If there was a Canadian Weight Services I would be glad to them some of mine.

That’s it for now, see you next time.

Rockbox and iPod

Today I was going to tweak the Rockbox installation on my iPod. My Plan Changed. Rockbox is a firmware for iPod and other media players. I had installed it four days ago and I installed a few themes. I expected to install patches to show album covers and stuff like that. The Rockbox firmware allows users to drag and drop files directly in the iPod. Rockbox users can play more music formats then with the original iPod firmware, more games (Doom), even screen savers. If you have a mp3 player you should try Rockbox. For those of you that are not sure you want to switch over when you install Rockbox you don’t get rid of the original iPod firmware you can switch from one firmware to another quite easily.

I have learnt something new today. One must at least learn something new everyday or everything becomes stagnant. I learnt that when you plug in your iPod to your computer and on the iPods screen you see displayed “Do Not Disconnect”, well follow that instruction to the letter, even if you have waited half an hour for some date to be written on the iPod. My iPod could not read the information that was on it. I had 25GB that was on the iPod but I could not play it. Can you believe it I crashed my iPod. At first I decided to drag the music files out of the iPod and on to my computer, but when I saw that it would take 7 hours I decided to revert my iPod to factory state and start anew.

At this point of the day about six hours have past and I am currently installing songs on the ‘Pod I ‘ve already installed Rockbox and while I was waiting for songs to upload to the iPod I found a build of Rockbox already patched with a few. You can find it at this link: here. I have a bunch of work to do since I have to go throu my CD collection and convert some files to mp3 again. I guess I’ll have my hands full for the next few days.

I really enjoy my new laptop, aka Kramer, but I am disappointed with Dell. I also ordered a carrying case and a wireless mouse which originally should have been shipped on August 29. Dell pushed back the shipping to September fourth. Then to September 14th and yesterday when I checked they delayed it once again, this time until October 16th. I guess I’ll have to wait. I am very happy that it was not my computer that was delayed for so long. I’ll still recommend Dell for their computers, this is my second one from them and so far I am satisfied with their products.

Well I guess I’ll call it quits for today and upload more music to the ‘Pod. Until next time.

That’s One Small Step For A Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind

After long deliberations I have decided. I am happy with my decision. My decision was to simply install Ubuntu 7.04 on my new Vostro 1500 from Dell. Since most of the hardware is relatively new the Linux kernel does not support it all. With a lot of hard work from my Ubuntu Community friends I was able to do it in a very short amount of time. I started the installation a 8:30 pm and finished at 10:30 pm. I installed Ubuntu with the Alternate install CD, which basically means no fancy live CD or GUI, all was done in text mode, like it was done in the old days, two – three years ago.

One of the reason it took so short a time is the fact that my Internet Provider, Aliant, has finally given me what I was paying for a fast Internet connection. My Internet connection is now at 5Mbps instead of 1.5Mbps, what a difference? I could not believe it.

Anyway I still have a few issues with my laptop, which I have called Kramer, The Web Cam is not functioning and when I turn off the computer I have weird colours on my screen and I have to completely shut it of by pressing the power button. I’ll be trying to fix these issues in the near future. I don’t think that these can be considered major problems. If I can’t find solutions for these inconveniences I believe that I can live with them until the next release of Ubuntu in October.

You might be asking yourself why I decided not to do a dual booth with XP? Well when I was doing a system back up the damn thing froze. It also froze another time which I can’t recall what I was doing. What is the point of have an Operating System that freezes all the time? I can’t see why myself.

I guess that is it for now. Thanks for all you faithful readers and I hope you’ll join me at the other blog because that one is more fun to read and write. Just click the No Name Blog link.

The Eagle Has Landed

I have received my brand spanking new laptop from Dell today, Woo-Hoo! Mmmmmh laptop. The estimated shipping date was supposed to be September 3 but to my amazement it was shipped on the 20th of august instead. I am so happy right now, I am just like a pig in shit. This is the best thing since slice bread. I have a shit eating grim. Enough of the cliches. My first impression is that it is thicker than I expected but it feels very solid.

I haven’t decided if I dual booth Ubuntu and XP yet, but as you can see I have decided to install Ubuntu as my GNU/Linux operating system. I am not going to do anything until the beginning of next week, so I still have time to decide what exactly I’ll be doing.

I’ve installed security programs on the computer and I will be doing a back up so that I can revert it to almost the condition I received it in.

My fake cnet.com review would be 10 out of 10 because I receive it two weeks before I was supposed to. This review is not based on any of the computer’s performance what so ever(Please refer to “We have Lift Off” post for reference).

I am using Internet Explorer 6 right now and being so used to Firefox I don’t know how people can use a browser without tab browsing. I had to open another window to remind me of the title of a previous post! If you are still using IE 6 change to Firefox or Opera or even IE 7 and get with the times.

It is getting late so I’ll call it a day and early next week I’ll tell ya what i am doing with the laptop.