Well with all this Ubuntu news I thought I'd post something about another distribution I take part in using now and then.
Fedora. Yes the other Free Distribution that is floating around the Internet. And it even has a Free DVD program similar to Ubuntu Shipit called The Fedora Free Media Program which I've only recently found and decided to help out with by sending some copies of the o/s out.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
iPhone Dead Phone
Well today I spent the morning driving around the bay to look at an engine job, but that flaked halfway through so i came home and got online for a bit to do some research.
With my mobile phone contract being up soon I've been researching on a new phone to get but cabn't fully decide yet. The iPhone so far is my bets bet but there are more drawbacks then any other phone, but more features also.
The biggest of which is no GSM service here in Newfoundland, that's a downside I'd have to deal with with the carrier, also no 3G or any G internet from Rogers Canada either.
Negatives
* No SDK (an SDK for mac doesn't count as smart people don't use mac's)
* non-removable battery
* Wifi range
* no iTunes for Ubuntu
* no way t sync with ubuntu
* no java flash, so no webbrowser essencially in this case as ALL websites use java or flash nowdays
* camera suck, 2 mp ain't worth nothing with 5 MP on phones now and 14 on digital cameras
* no video record
* no front facing camera for video calls
* no wireless syncing with bluetooth or wifi even
* no camera flash
* no voice dialing
* no memory cards, AT ALL
* no skype/voip/vonage at all or even rogers home phone sync thing they got going on
* no wifi sharing or images, ringtones
* no mp3 ringtones, no ringtones at all unless purchased
* no modem config for dial up networking from laptop
* no voice memos
* no instant messaging, msn/yahoo
* no MMS, so no sending pictures to friends
* no editing word documents
* no ringtones from Purchased songs EVEN
* non changeable sim card
*** WOW, might have to stick with my E815, it has about 1/3 of these features and is 4 years old even
With my mobile phone contract being up soon I've been researching on a new phone to get but cabn't fully decide yet. The iPhone so far is my bets bet but there are more drawbacks then any other phone, but more features also.
The biggest of which is no GSM service here in Newfoundland, that's a downside I'd have to deal with with the carrier, also no 3G or any G internet from Rogers Canada either.
Negatives
* No SDK (an SDK for mac doesn't count as smart people don't use mac's)
* non-removable battery
* Wifi range
* no iTunes for Ubuntu
* no way t sync with ubuntu
* no java flash, so no webbrowser essencially in this case as ALL websites use java or flash nowdays
* camera suck, 2 mp ain't worth nothing with 5 MP on phones now and 14 on digital cameras
* no video record
* no front facing camera for video calls
* no wireless syncing with bluetooth or wifi even
* no camera flash
* no voice dialing
* no memory cards, AT ALL
* no skype/voip/vonage at all or even rogers home phone sync thing they got going on
* no wifi sharing or images, ringtones
* no mp3 ringtones, no ringtones at all unless purchased
* no modem config for dial up networking from laptop
* no voice memos
* no instant messaging, msn/yahoo
* no MMS, so no sending pictures to friends
* no editing word documents
* no ringtones from Purchased songs EVEN
* non changeable sim card
*** WOW, might have to stick with my E815, it has about 1/3 of these features and is 4 years old even
Friday, June 13, 2008
Update Day
Well today was update day, spent most of the day playing GH3 though :)
So I decided to update some software and install the rest of my most used applications. Starting with, Banshee, songbird, mp3 support, preload, prelink, thunderbird, freepats, gcc, build-essntial, clusterssh, rkhunter, chkrootkit, htop, bmpx, vlc, emacs and abiword. Who has the time for open office to load ehh???
So first things first, protect myself, installed firestarter, then enable highest protection settings allowing only minor services like ident though with httpd being redirected by my hardware router anyway to another box itś not a lot of things I need to allow software wise. rkhunter and chkrootkit are nice malware scanners that I run quite regularly to be sure I safe, itś not like windows where popup start going everywhere when something goes wrong, itś more hidden in OSS software as hackers want to stay hidden form view.
Songbird actually installed flawlessly now in two simple commands unlike before.
Preload helps with cache speed as I low on ram, same with prelink but they only make minor differences,, which are noticed when running on only 512 mb ram of course.
X-chat on the other hand is another story, simple binary works fine, but no luck on the newest build, tried compiling with all kinds of errors, might take a little while to work on that one.
Another Day of Ubuntu, another day of pleasure of not having all kinds of issues :D
So I decided to update some software and install the rest of my most used applications. Starting with, Banshee, songbird, mp3 support, preload, prelink, thunderbird, freepats, gcc, build-essntial, clusterssh, rkhunter, chkrootkit, htop, bmpx, vlc, emacs and abiword. Who has the time for open office to load ehh???
So first things first, protect myself, installed firestarter, then enable highest protection settings allowing only minor services like ident though with httpd being redirected by my hardware router anyway to another box itś not a lot of things I need to allow software wise. rkhunter and chkrootkit are nice malware scanners that I run quite regularly to be sure I safe, itś not like windows where popup start going everywhere when something goes wrong, itś more hidden in OSS software as hackers want to stay hidden form view.
Songbird actually installed flawlessly now in two simple commands unlike before.
Preload helps with cache speed as I low on ram, same with prelink but they only make minor differences,, which are noticed when running on only 512 mb ram of course.
X-chat on the other hand is another story, simple binary works fine, but no luck on the newest build, tried compiling with all kinds of errors, might take a little while to work on that one.
Another Day of Ubuntu, another day of pleasure of not having all kinds of issues :D
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Conky
Well today I went for a walk first thing in the morning as it wasn´t raining for once amazingly!
So I decided to get conky up and running today after much work I did. Well editing it is almost done, need to get temps working and a mp3 player status message.
Here´s a screenshot so far.
Once I get this done and running smoothly I won have to worry about runaway processes or overloading my system. If I just had a bit more ram it might be nice. But my Raid is running nice and smooth, to bad I never did it with a pair of 120´s as originally planned. space may be an issue after a bit of downloading, better keep offloading torrents to my Etch box from now on.
Tomorrow I may tackle system security and get a firewall up and running to keep me protected as I now have firefox running the way I like.
So I decided to get conky up and running today after much work I did. Well editing it is almost done, need to get temps working and a mp3 player status message.
Here´s a screenshot so far.
Once I get this done and running smoothly I won have to worry about runaway processes or overloading my system. If I just had a bit more ram it might be nice. But my Raid is running nice and smooth, to bad I never did it with a pair of 120´s as originally planned. space may be an issue after a bit of downloading, better keep offloading torrents to my Etch box from now on.
Tomorrow I may tackle system security and get a firewall up and running to keep me protected as I now have firefox running the way I like.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
New O/S
Yes you heard right. I now have a new O/S. Well technically it´s the same version just a re-installation.
I finally broke down and decided to install RAID. After what appeared to be hours of searching for information on setting up mdadm and how to use software raid in Ubuntu I decided to flatten my system and do a complete installation.
It took me about an hour to do the full installation and get most if not all of my main applications up and running the same way they were before.
Steps:
I finally broke down and decided to install RAID. After what appeared to be hours of searching for information on setting up mdadm and how to use software raid in Ubuntu I decided to flatten my system and do a complete installation.
It took me about an hour to do the full installation and get most if not all of my main applications up and running the same way they were before.
Steps:
- BACKUP
- BACKUP EVERYTHING in you home directory to another location. In My case another system I have running Samba on here.
- Make another backup using Home System Backup Application found in Add/Remove
- Do an installation and choose text mode
- When you get to the Hard Drive partition section following tutorial after adapting it to me needs.
- Copy you home directory back over and get all you settings back.
- You are COMPLETE
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Kernel
Well today I decided to do something useful with my time. And no I didn't go outside in the sunlight.
I decided it was time to upgrade my Kernel, so I downloaded the newest 2.6.25 kernel source and compiled it and installed it. Wow that was really really easy. Took me all of an hour maybe, including the 50 minutes to compile it on my 2400+. So now I no longer have 2.6.20-16 any longer, well i do but I'm not using it. If you think that compiling a new kernel is hard, think again, it's easy.
Now I just have to learn more about compiling it and all the options I can use to make it faster, then I'll compile a new version and try it with all my improvements to see if it actually makes a difference.
New post in a few hours after I try again.
I decided it was time to upgrade my Kernel, so I downloaded the newest 2.6.25 kernel source and compiled it and installed it. Wow that was really really easy. Took me all of an hour maybe, including the 50 minutes to compile it on my 2400+. So now I no longer have 2.6.20-16 any longer, well i do but I'm not using it. If you think that compiling a new kernel is hard, think again, it's easy.
Now I just have to learn more about compiling it and all the options I can use to make it faster, then I'll compile a new version and try it with all my improvements to see if it actually makes a difference.
New post in a few hours after I try again.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
code::blocks ide
Well today I decided to crack open my old C++ books and to try and learn something new with all my free time ;) .
From what I read in the Ubuntu forums it would be an issue to install it, seems to be hard. Well first thing I found was a .deb , bypassed that not even trying it, found the source code, configured that, got a few errors about missing packages, downloaded a few of them with apt-get,. Then a few more were missing, so more apt-get, after about 5 or so I had everything I needed and a compile went flawless. Perfect install and runs nice a smooth to. Goodbye Visual Studio .Net.
Now I just have to learn a bit more about coding and get on my way.
From what I read in the Ubuntu forums it would be an issue to install it, seems to be hard. Well first thing I found was a .deb , bypassed that not even trying it, found the source code, configured that, got a few errors about missing packages, downloaded a few of them with apt-get,. Then a few more were missing, so more apt-get, after about 5 or so I had everything I needed and a compile went flawless. Perfect install and runs nice a smooth to. Goodbye Visual Studio .Net.
Now I just have to learn a bit more about coding and get on my way.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
nVidia
Well I got my repaired video card back from BFG Technologies today by courier. All I can say is wow, did they ever do a good job in repairing it, a brand new heat sink and fan combo with a metal shroud was put on it replacing the cheaply looking plastic fan that fell off it before. Also I got a free t-shirt from them.
After installing it and restarting Ubuntu it picked it up and worked perfectly. Now that I had a decent video card, a FX5500 256 MB, I decided to give the restricted drivers a try, what a mistake. After downloading them with apt-get and running the install of nvidia-xconfig i ended up with only 800x600 resolution and no acceleration. So I tried both the legacy and the new glx drivers along with the regular ones but they all gave the same result. So I then gave up and downloaded them directly from the nVidia website, the installer had me kill x by stopping gdm and then installing them, no precompiled binari3es were available so I had to build from sources which ultimately failed as when windows started up I had three desktop images overlapping on screen, thought the resolution was wrong so I checked and it was 800x600 @ 85 hz which my monitor can handle without trouble, so I even tested it on my 19" NEC to no avail.
The monitor was using the corrected drivers even, all the same the login screen loaded fine, never started getting multiple images until i logged in. So I turned the drivers off and went back to the way it was, good ole 1024x768 @75 hz and all is back the way it was.
Maybe I'll try them again later on after the next upgrade in 10 days to Hardy.
Good luck to anyone who does get them working, I bet it looks nice using them with compwiz.
After installing it and restarting Ubuntu it picked it up and worked perfectly. Now that I had a decent video card, a FX5500 256 MB, I decided to give the restricted drivers a try, what a mistake. After downloading them with apt-get and running the install of nvidia-xconfig i ended up with only 800x600 resolution and no acceleration. So I tried both the legacy and the new glx drivers along with the regular ones but they all gave the same result. So I then gave up and downloaded them directly from the nVidia website, the installer had me kill x by stopping gdm and then installing them, no precompiled binari3es were available so I had to build from sources which ultimately failed as when windows started up I had three desktop images overlapping on screen, thought the resolution was wrong so I checked and it was 800x600 @ 85 hz which my monitor can handle without trouble, so I even tested it on my 19" NEC to no avail.
The monitor was using the corrected drivers even, all the same the login screen loaded fine, never started getting multiple images until i logged in. So I turned the drivers off and went back to the way it was, good ole 1024x768 @75 hz and all is back the way it was.
Maybe I'll try them again later on after the next upgrade in 10 days to Hardy.
Good luck to anyone who does get them working, I bet it looks nice using them with compwiz.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
CNR
Well I decided to give Click N' Run a try and see how it works or if it works on Ubuntu. Well low and behold it the install ran flawlessly. Now it's a simple click in the menus and a website launches showing me a large list of software.... Some of it free, didn't seem like much though, everything i seemed to click it wanted to charge me for, including wallpaper packs.
Guess they do believe i the motto, you get what you pay for.
I'll keep it going for a few weeks and try it out instead of compiling from source like i usually do, just to say I tried it. But unless the selection becomes easier to browse and filter by free only, it may now get much use.
Sorry I haven't updated in a few days, been busy helping a friend move, never really been on the computer all that much, only a few minutes each night. Oh well, I'll try harder to ge t this Ubuntu downpath and let you guys really know if it's worth the switch...
Guess they do believe i the motto, you get what you pay for.
I'll keep it going for a few weeks and try it out instead of compiling from source like i usually do, just to say I tried it. But unless the selection becomes easier to browse and filter by free only, it may now get much use.
Sorry I haven't updated in a few days, been busy helping a friend move, never really been on the computer all that much, only a few minutes each night. Oh well, I'll try harder to ge t this Ubuntu downpath and let you guys really know if it's worth the switch...
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Value of Switching?
Yes The value of switching to an Open Source O/S is quite appealing, and still is baby.
After about 2 seconds I was able to find a nice tutorial or two about how to make DVD's from some xvid's I have lying around still. After just three or four clicks and a quick install from a .deb file I was up and converting my xvid's to DVD burnable iso's and burning them in no time. What a difference from say having to go out and purchase ConvertXDVD like I did back on my *Other* operating system.
Managed to find the alternative programs to just about everything I've used on windows now, including Pidgin which is practically windows live messenger on steroids and supports a dozen different instant messaging program. My GMail Notifier is running in the system tray just like windows and Deluge is very similar if not identical to uTorrent. XChat is fairly simple,I've used it before on windows and it's idential, not as sweet as good ole mIRC,but hey it's free. Even have my system monitor now running, so I can see tasks and give them priority the same as I would in winderz.
Switch worthwhile??? Heck yeah in my opinion, how about yours?
After about 2 seconds I was able to find a nice tutorial or two about how to make DVD's from some xvid's I have lying around still. After just three or four clicks and a quick install from a .deb file I was up and converting my xvid's to DVD burnable iso's and burning them in no time. What a difference from say having to go out and purchase ConvertXDVD like I did back on my *Other* operating system.
Managed to find the alternative programs to just about everything I've used on windows now, including Pidgin which is practically windows live messenger on steroids and supports a dozen different instant messaging program. My GMail Notifier is running in the system tray just like windows and Deluge is very similar if not identical to uTorrent. XChat is fairly simple,I've used it before on windows and it's idential, not as sweet as good ole mIRC,but hey it's free. Even have my system monitor now running, so I can see tasks and give them priority the same as I would in winderz.
Switch worthwhile??? Heck yeah in my opinion, how about yours?
Monday, April 7, 2008
Music
Well it seems today that I couldn't make without music being apart of my online life. So I tried a few different Music Players that came with Ubuntu. Audacious and XMMS seems to both be identical and be very very similar to WinAMP. After a few moments I was able to change the font in both of them to make them readable, the biggest other difference is the file browser, but you can even change that luckily in the preferences options.
By God I think I found heaven. Yes it's true, there is a player out there comparable to WinAMP if Not Better! I shortly after getting XMMS working correctly the way I like it found Amarok, the all in one home listening studio. By Default it even shows the song in a similar way to the WinAMP popup when the player is not on screen so you now what song is coming up next in case you want to skip it. A few quick changes and it shows the OSD in the bottom right corner the way I like and without the Album or file location info. It shows the album art perfectly by downloading it itself and another tab shows the Wikipedia info about the artist your listening to, amazing for quick research if you want to know if they did indeed sing that song your thinking of.
Last night before I went to nadaland I did mange to get a very simple looking Conky install working since I don't like the builtin task manage I needed something to show processes simply to know if something has stopped responding or is a memory hog.
By God I think I found heaven. Yes it's true, there is a player out there comparable to WinAMP if Not Better! I shortly after getting XMMS working correctly the way I like it found Amarok, the all in one home listening studio. By Default it even shows the song in a similar way to the WinAMP popup when the player is not on screen so you now what song is coming up next in case you want to skip it. A few quick changes and it shows the OSD in the bottom right corner the way I like and without the Album or file location info. It shows the album art perfectly by downloading it itself and another tab shows the Wikipedia info about the artist your listening to, amazing for quick research if you want to know if they did indeed sing that song your thinking of.
Last night before I went to nadaland I did mange to get a very simple looking Conky install working since I don't like the builtin task manage I needed something to show processes simply to know if something has stopped responding or is a memory hog.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
The sWITCH
Well I decided to make the switch from windows to another operating system finally, permanently. Occasionally I've used other open source o/s such as Debian or FreeBSD, Slackware, Fedora, RedHat you name it, but only in short increments and never on my main system. Well today I flattened my main system and installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu 7.07 Feisty Fawn then updated to 7.10 Gusty Gibson. It went flawless, no issues, no errors, no useless junk like I'm so used to dealing with.
I decided to create this blog to track my daily awareness of the new, exciting and other useful things I learn to deal with using this new Operating System.
Hope You Enjoy
Jordan
I decided to create this blog to track my daily awareness of the new, exciting and other useful things I learn to deal with using this new Operating System.
Hope You Enjoy
Jordan
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