Sunday, June 22, 2008
On the Rainslick: PoD. Yes, my children, there is a Linux version.
If you haven't already, give the game from the Penny Arcade guys a try. I just played through their demo and it's pretty fun. I'm considering buying the key needed for the full version for 20 dollars. There is, after all, a Linux version, and I'd like to support the idea of cross-platform gaming.
The only thing stopping me from buying is I'm wondering if the key can be used multiple times. I do have a few computers and I wouldn't mind installing it more than once.
The only thing stopping me from buying is I'm wondering if the key can be used multiple times. I do have a few computers and I wouldn't mind installing it more than once.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Sweet Neptune's Ghost!
I got wireless setup at a family friend's house. FINALLY. I come here (to their house) every once in a while to watch after their kid while they have work, and I usually bring my laptop. I would normally leech off the neighbor's 10% signal, and that was getting old fast. They were originally using just a straight connection from Modem to Desktop. I noticed, though, that they had a Netgear router lying next to the computer, completely untouched and packaged in original store packaging. "Hmm..." I thought, "A wonderful opportunity to help both them and myself out at the same time. Excellent!"
So it's done. I'm getting about a 60% signal one floor up from the router which really isn't that bad when you consider I'm running my wireless with ndiswrapper. Now I'll just have to help them out with setting up their computer on the third floor. They plan on running a wire all the way up through their house. Whatever the case, I'll be helping them out with that, too.
So it's done. I'm getting about a 60% signal one floor up from the router which really isn't that bad when you consider I'm running my wireless with ndiswrapper. Now I'll just have to help them out with setting up their computer on the third floor. They plan on running a wire all the way up through their house. Whatever the case, I'll be helping them out with that, too.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Slowly Educating Myself (Learning Bash, part 1)
Last night I decided that I would finally "teach" myself bash. That may sound kind-of odd, as most know that by default, most Linux distros use bash at the command line, and more than likely, I understood a decent bit about it already. This may be true, but I need to learn syntax for things like for loops, if loops, basic commands, etc.
A few helpful sites that I'm using right now:
The Linux Document Project's tutorial for Bash Scripting. TLDP taught me about Logical Volume Management, so this was the first place I looked for a basic introduction to Bash. It's not quite as in-depth as I was hoping, but that's OK; I still learned some valuable info related to syntax and HOW to write code in bash. Good stuff.
hypexr's documentation is also very informative. I learned about two different "modes" for bash: emacs and vi. This info will DEFINITELY come in handy. I feel a inclined to install emacs so I can have a useful text editor for editing scripts. Sorry vi guys, I'm not up to your standards yet. EDIT: On second thought, maybe I will use vim afterall.
Now what I really need is to think up some reasons to write scripts. I already have some basic ideas, one of which is for backing up my home directory:
Weekly (or so) backups of my home directory in /var/. I'll need to exclude the .wine folder, as this hosts a fair amount of space that really doesn't need to be taken up in a backup. I can also exclude .Virtualbox for the same reason. If there are more than 2 backups in my /var/backups folder after a backup, I'll remove the oldest one.
We'll see how it all goes.
A few helpful sites that I'm using right now:
The Linux Document Project's tutorial for Bash Scripting. TLDP taught me about Logical Volume Management, so this was the first place I looked for a basic introduction to Bash. It's not quite as in-depth as I was hoping, but that's OK; I still learned some valuable info related to syntax and HOW to write code in bash. Good stuff.
hypexr's documentation is also very informative. I learned about two different "modes" for bash: emacs and vi. This info will DEFINITELY come in handy. I feel a inclined to install emacs so I can have a useful text editor for editing scripts. Sorry vi guys, I'm not up to your standards yet. EDIT: On second thought, maybe I will use vim afterall.
Now what I really need is to think up some reasons to write scripts. I already have some basic ideas, one of which is for backing up my home directory:
Weekly (or so) backups of my home directory in /var/. I'll need to exclude the .wine folder, as this hosts a fair amount of space that really doesn't need to be taken up in a backup. I can also exclude .Virtualbox for the same reason. If there are more than 2 backups in my /var/backups folder after a backup, I'll remove the oldest one.
We'll see how it all goes.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Another failure and a first run with awesome
My step mother has decided that Linux isn't right for her. She has her reasons, I'm sure, so I'm not going to fight her (especially since it's her computer). I'm fairly sure the kernel panics have something to do with it. Allow me to explain:
Every once in a while, her computer would freeze while in X. This means nothing could be entered via the keyboard, mouse, etc. Nothing would respond, including switching terminals. At first I thought it was the leaky Firefox. I told her to make sure she closed out after every session, just to be on the safe side. A few days later, though, she informed me that the problem still persisted.
I'm going to copy her logs tonight and just see if I can make any sense of obvious failures/errors. Hopefully something will point me in the right direction. Tomorrow, though, I will sadly install Windows XP on her old old old computer. One can only breathe a heavy sigh and accept defeat. I will take a page out of K.Mandla's book and not install antivirus on her computer. I will just do a vanilla install, wash my hands of the situation, and she'll figure out the rest.
On the brighter side, I tried awesome for the first time two nights ago. It was an interesting experience, and I think I'd vastly enjoy the window manager if I had a keyboard that had a super key ("windows" key). I use a model m, so I had to re-map Mod4 to Caps Lock. I don't consider this elegant, but it still did the trick.
I dropped learning kind-of quickly as I was extremely tired when I tried it and didn't want to have a majorly bad impression of the program. In the future I hope to be able to pull away from floating WMs and use tiling full time.
Every once in a while, her computer would freeze while in X. This means nothing could be entered via the keyboard, mouse, etc. Nothing would respond, including switching terminals. At first I thought it was the leaky Firefox. I told her to make sure she closed out after every session, just to be on the safe side. A few days later, though, she informed me that the problem still persisted.
I'm going to copy her logs tonight and just see if I can make any sense of obvious failures/errors. Hopefully something will point me in the right direction. Tomorrow, though, I will sadly install Windows XP on her old old old computer. One can only breathe a heavy sigh and accept defeat. I will take a page out of K.Mandla's book and not install antivirus on her computer. I will just do a vanilla install, wash my hands of the situation, and she'll figure out the rest.
On the brighter side, I tried awesome for the first time two nights ago. It was an interesting experience, and I think I'd vastly enjoy the window manager if I had a keyboard that had a super key ("windows" key). I use a model m, so I had to re-map Mod4 to Caps Lock. I don't consider this elegant, but it still did the trick.
I dropped learning kind-of quickly as I was extremely tired when I tried it and didn't want to have a majorly bad impression of the program. In the future I hope to be able to pull away from floating WMs and use tiling full time.
Labels: awesome, failure, linux, windows, windows manager
Friday, May 23, 2008
LEEEXXXMMMAARRRRKKKKK! and other fist shaking
Here's another story about a guy who would really like to install Linux on a computer but is limited by non-working peripherals that the client considers essential.
I've been talking up how I'm going to install Arch on my mother's computer in almost every other post it seems. It seems like these plans have fallen through; her printer, a Lexmark Z1300, currently is garbage under a Linux OS. Their drivers page was one of the things that made me say "oh sweet lord no". Notice how they (Lexmark) completely disregard the fact that anyone uses something other than a MAC or, heaven forbid, Windows. I dislike this company right now to a degree unthinkable by any living being.
Anywho, my mother was, to say the least, displeased that she would not be able to print things with her computer, an action considered a given by present day computer users (and it should be). Ah well. I'll just let them stick with what they have for now (XP) until the printer kicks the bucket OR until I find a sub $50 printer that works flawlessly in Linux. First and foremost, though, I need money.
And now, more adventures with the VirtualBox. Oh MAN do I love this program.
Let the official record state that I do not like Slackware. It's package management (can we even call it that?) is not to my liking at all. Packages are downloaded from their website (or cd) rather than a program such as pacman or apt/aptitude. YOU must do all dependency checking for the program. This does not please me. I understand that this may be that I'm spoiled by my nice programs that check and automatically download dependencies for me, but seriously, that one little thing, to me, makes or breaks whether or not I ENJOY building a system. I don't want to spend more time tracking down dependencies and having sub-par package management than I do using my system.
I've been talking up how I'm going to install Arch on my mother's computer in almost every other post it seems. It seems like these plans have fallen through; her printer, a Lexmark Z1300, currently is garbage under a Linux OS. Their drivers page was one of the things that made me say "oh sweet lord no". Notice how they (Lexmark) completely disregard the fact that anyone uses something other than a MAC or, heaven forbid, Windows. I dislike this company right now to a degree unthinkable by any living being.
Anywho, my mother was, to say the least, displeased that she would not be able to print things with her computer, an action considered a given by present day computer users (and it should be). Ah well. I'll just let them stick with what they have for now (XP) until the printer kicks the bucket OR until I find a sub $50 printer that works flawlessly in Linux. First and foremost, though, I need money.
And now, more adventures with the VirtualBox. Oh MAN do I love this program.
Let the official record state that I do not like Slackware. It's package management (can we even call it that?) is not to my liking at all. Packages are downloaded from their website (or cd) rather than a program such as pacman or apt/aptitude. YOU must do all dependency checking for the program. This does not please me. I understand that this may be that I'm spoiled by my nice programs that check and automatically download dependencies for me, but seriously, that one little thing, to me, makes or breaks whether or not I ENJOY building a system. I don't want to spend more time tracking down dependencies and having sub-par package management than I do using my system.
Labels: apt/aptitude, arch linux, lexmark, linux, pacman, printers, slackware
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Goodbyes and Hellos
Today I say goodbye to VLC. It's been a nice run, old friend, but since you broke in the last update, I decided to try out mplayer. You're good, but mplayer is better, especially since it can be run in screen (usually only useful when using it as a music player). Fare thee well.
I also gave spookyet's compilation of firefox3 a run through (firefox-spookyet). Infact, I'm still using it. I haven't noticed a definitely speed boost yet, but there's nothing wrong with it. I think after I run it on some older computers I'll start noticing a larger difference in performance.
The time to install Arch on the family computers is nearing. At my father's more space is needed for everyday tasks (he uses the computer as a personal dvd copier. Nothing illegal, just home videos). Not only this, but they've got Ubuntu installed on it, and if you hadn't noticed, I'm through with Ubuntu and am currently on the Arch love train. At my mother's, the computer is SLOWWWWWWW. It shouldn't be so darned slow, though. Sure it has 192 Megs of ram, but that's no excuse. It's currently running under Windows XP along with antivirus I installed for it which heavily weighs it down. It's like attaching a friggin' cement block to one's feet and telling them to run a marathon.
Now that that's out of the way, I'm once again perusing the internet looking for some fun little time wasters. To be specific, I'm looking for some nice browser based mmos to sooth the savage beast. The usual meet the guidelines: Civilization/Management based, Pokemon-esque (c'mon, who doesn't like pokemanz), or... well, actually, everything else is close to utter crap. I ran across Urban Rivals, but I didn't end up enjoying it very much. I also found Pokemon World Online, which will DEFINITELY be worth (to me) doing once their Java client is released.
I also gave spookyet's compilation of firefox3 a run through (firefox-spookyet). Infact, I'm still using it. I haven't noticed a definitely speed boost yet, but there's nothing wrong with it. I think after I run it on some older computers I'll start noticing a larger difference in performance.
The time to install Arch on the family computers is nearing. At my father's more space is needed for everyday tasks (he uses the computer as a personal dvd copier. Nothing illegal, just home videos). Not only this, but they've got Ubuntu installed on it, and if you hadn't noticed, I'm through with Ubuntu and am currently on the Arch love train. At my mother's, the computer is SLOWWWWWWW. It shouldn't be so darned slow, though. Sure it has 192 Megs of ram, but that's no excuse. It's currently running under Windows XP along with antivirus I installed for it which heavily weighs it down. It's like attaching a friggin' cement block to one's feet and telling them to run a marathon.
Now that that's out of the way, I'm once again perusing the internet looking for some fun little time wasters. To be specific, I'm looking for some nice browser based mmos to sooth the savage beast. The usual meet the guidelines: Civilization/Management based, Pokemon-esque (c'mon, who doesn't like pokemanz), or... well, actually, everything else is close to utter crap. I ran across Urban Rivals, but I didn't end up enjoying it very much. I also found Pokemon World Online, which will DEFINITELY be worth (to me) doing once their Java client is released.
Labels: arch linux, linux, mmos, mplayer, vlc
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Rockbox on my Newly Used H10
Someone in the arch IRC channel pointed me in the direction of Rockbox back when I was toying around with a borrowed iPod. It's a cool concept, especially if you're like me and are into customizing everything you get your grubby little hands on. Unfortunately I didn't have a compatible mp3 player at the time, so Rockbox sat in my bookmarks bin collecting dust. Luck was in my favor though, as my friend recently offered me his slightly used iRiver H10 at a heavily discounted price. I immediately bought it and installed Rockbox on it.
The install was super simple, especially since the Rockbox devs have created a nice looking GUI for the install process. I went with a full install; if I'm going to use a 20GB music player with a color screen, I'm going to go all out.
What I thought was really cool was that the install didn't disturb the music my friend had on it. Every song was left untouched after the installation. This would probably be a selling point for most mp3 player owners.
The only real problem with the h10 (20GB model) is that when connected via a USB cable, it's placed into MTP mode by default instead of UMS. Basically UMS mode means the player will connect as a USB Mass Storage Device while MTP will not. Click this link for a full explanation. Luckily one can force the player to enter UMS mode just by holding down the select button and then turning on the player. This is annoying, but it's a small price to pay, IMO. With that said, there's probably an option in Rockbox to enable UMS by default. Then again, perhaps Rockbox isn't able to do this. Looks like I have a new mission.
The install was super simple, especially since the Rockbox devs have created a nice looking GUI for the install process. I went with a full install; if I'm going to use a 20GB music player with a color screen, I'm going to go all out.
What I thought was really cool was that the install didn't disturb the music my friend had on it. Every song was left untouched after the installation. This would probably be a selling point for most mp3 player owners.
The only real problem with the h10 (20GB model) is that when connected via a USB cable, it's placed into MTP mode by default instead of UMS. Basically UMS mode means the player will connect as a USB Mass Storage Device while MTP will not. Click this link for a full explanation. Luckily one can force the player to enter UMS mode just by holding down the select button and then turning on the player. This is annoying, but it's a small price to pay, IMO. With that said, there's probably an option in Rockbox to enable UMS by default. Then again, perhaps Rockbox isn't able to do this. Looks like I have a new mission.
Labels: H10, iRiver, linux, mp3 player, Rockbox
Friday, April 25, 2008
Post First Year Thoughts / Brain Dump
I just finished out my first year at college here in the US. Whew... what a year it was. In that time I've met new people, experienced new cultures, and learned many new things. I'm looking forward to my second year in the next 4 months. In the mean time, though, it's time for summer, and I won't be doing much in the way of school work for quite some time. But I digress.
In my first year at college, I committed myself to running Linux full-time. I started out with Ubuntu, worked my way up to using Openbox, then decided to go for broke and install Arch Linux. I'm extremely happy with that switch. Using Arch has enabled me to learn much much more about Linux than I could have with Ubuntu.
Next year I'm considering migrating to a no Pencil/Paper system of note-taking. While some will argue that this isn't the best decision, let me reassure you that I'm not totally sure this is the direction I want to take yet. Aside from math classes in which I'd more than likely have to write equations rather than dictate a lecture, I'd use Google Notebook as my note taking device, Google Docs as my Office Suite, and Google Calendar as my schedule manager. In the mean time, I'm hanging on until Google moves more, if not all, of its applications to Google Gears. Also, I'm waiting for Google Notebook to become a bit more flexible, resembling an actual notebook (with margins, diagram making (yikes), quick comment -> content linking, etc.). Until these things happen, I'm not sure I can confidently use my computer for EVERYTHING just yet.
All good things in time, I suppose.
I also introduced a few of my floormates to the Linux world while I was out at college. My roommate, who had already adventured into Linux a tiny bit, is really loving Arch Linux. He still runs a dual boot so that he can play his favorite video games to their full potential (it is possible with Wine, but the quality difference is extremely noticeable). Another friend was sick of Vista, so he tried Ubuntu, and then Arch. I'm not sure if he likes it as much as a Window environment, though. I also offered to install Arch on a third friend's older laptop (an Inspiron 510m, I believe). He said the speed difference is incredible. He seemed extremely interested in learning the Linux environment, so I introduced him to the Unix for the Beginning Mage ebook which I find a pleasant and informative read. My friend said he enjoys it, as well.
Also, I found out it's really a bother to mess around with wireless in Linux. However, the wicd program makes it extremely easy. If you're trying to connect to your University's wireless and you have a wpa_supplicant.conf file all set up, you're halfway there (well, more than halfway). You need to plop that script into /usr/lib/wicd/encryption/templates/ (some people report this folder is actually in /opt/wicd/encryption/templates, so this fact may vary across systems). After this, just add the name of that file into /usr/lib/wicd/encryption/templates/active and you should be able to select your template as an encryption type when connecting to a network. You'll need to modify the beginning of your new template a tiny bit, so just look at one of the other templates in that directory and see what you're missing.
Finally, I should mention that I changed some of the items in about:config in Bon Echo. I modified general.useragent.extra.firefox to have the value Firefox/ so that I wouldn't run into websites telling me that I don't have a compatible browser (ie Google Gears). I also changed middlemouse.contentLoadURL to false, because that error message is really annoying sometimes.
This post is more-or-less a brain dump, so please forgive its large size and lack of cohesion.
In my first year at college, I committed myself to running Linux full-time. I started out with Ubuntu, worked my way up to using Openbox, then decided to go for broke and install Arch Linux. I'm extremely happy with that switch. Using Arch has enabled me to learn much much more about Linux than I could have with Ubuntu.
Next year I'm considering migrating to a no Pencil/Paper system of note-taking. While some will argue that this isn't the best decision, let me reassure you that I'm not totally sure this is the direction I want to take yet. Aside from math classes in which I'd more than likely have to write equations rather than dictate a lecture, I'd use Google Notebook as my note taking device, Google Docs as my Office Suite, and Google Calendar as my schedule manager. In the mean time, I'm hanging on until Google moves more, if not all, of its applications to Google Gears. Also, I'm waiting for Google Notebook to become a bit more flexible, resembling an actual notebook (with margins, diagram making (yikes), quick comment -> content linking, etc.). Until these things happen, I'm not sure I can confidently use my computer for EVERYTHING just yet.
All good things in time, I suppose.
I also introduced a few of my floormates to the Linux world while I was out at college. My roommate, who had already adventured into Linux a tiny bit, is really loving Arch Linux. He still runs a dual boot so that he can play his favorite video games to their full potential (it is possible with Wine, but the quality difference is extremely noticeable). Another friend was sick of Vista, so he tried Ubuntu, and then Arch. I'm not sure if he likes it as much as a Window environment, though. I also offered to install Arch on a third friend's older laptop (an Inspiron 510m, I believe). He said the speed difference is incredible. He seemed extremely interested in learning the Linux environment, so I introduced him to the Unix for the Beginning Mage ebook which I find a pleasant and informative read. My friend said he enjoys it, as well.
Also, I found out it's really a bother to mess around with wireless in Linux. However, the wicd program makes it extremely easy. If you're trying to connect to your University's wireless and you have a wpa_supplicant.conf file all set up, you're halfway there (well, more than halfway). You need to plop that script into /usr/lib/wicd/encryption/templates/ (some people report this folder is actually in /opt/wicd/encryption/templates, so this fact may vary across systems). After this, just add the name of that file into /usr/lib/wicd/encryption/templates/active and you should be able to select your template as an encryption type when connecting to a network. You'll need to modify the beginning of your new template a tiny bit, so just look at one of the other templates in that directory and see what you're missing.
Finally, I should mention that I changed some of the items in about:config in Bon Echo. I modified general.useragent.extra.firefox to have the value Firefox/
This post is more-or-less a brain dump, so please forgive its large size and lack of cohesion.
Labels: Archlinux, brain dump, college, Google, Google Docs, Google Gears, laptop, linux, wicd, wireless
Friday, February 15, 2008
Networking Justice
If you like to configure systems from the cli up, these links will tell you about setting up networking on Ubuntu + Archlinux.
Archlinux Networking
Ubuntu Networking (Skip that gui crap and cut straight to "Configure Network Interface Using Command-Line")
Debian Networking (Similar if not the same as the Ubuntu Networking procedure above)
I'm a bit struck that Arch and Ubuntu are completely different procedures. I know I shouldn't be, but it just goes to show why some people tend to stick with one flavor of Linux.
Archlinux Networking
Ubuntu Networking (Skip that gui crap and cut straight to "Configure Network Interface Using Command-Line")
Debian Networking (Similar if not the same as the Ubuntu Networking procedure above)
I'm a bit struck that Arch and Ubuntu are completely different procedures. I know I shouldn't be, but it just goes to show why some people tend to stick with one flavor of Linux.
Labels: Archlinux, Debian, linux, networking, Ubuntu
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Poking around
I decided to give PCManFM a whirl after twiddling around with XFE for a while. I'd give both managers a thumbs up, XFE for speed, and PCManFM for (slightly less) speed, being built on gtk2 (yay for matching my others apps), and having more features.
One of PCManFM's features is the ability to display icons on the desktop from the ~/Desktop directory. This is all well and good, but it seems that PCManFM insists on also managing the wallpaper display. Once again, all well and good, but if you're like me and use something like feh to display your background image, this is a tad of a turnoff. It's also a turnoff if you use a WM such as Fluxbox which relies on having the ability to right click the desktop to display a menu for programs.
On the other hand it is extremely responsive. Very fast at loading up, cruising files, etc. Besides, who could argue with tabbed browsing?
Features (that I like):
- Tabbed browsing
- Drag & Drop support
- File association support
- GTK+ 2
- Bookmarks support
If you don't use a WM like Fluxbox (if you use gnome, kde, or something that doesn't heavily rely on right clicking the desktop) and you can stand the fact that you can't re-arrange how the icons are displayed, it's not that big of a deal. In fact, I'd recommend using this over nautilus any day.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Doin' The Samba
So as of yesterday morning, I've had both the samba server and smbclient/smbfs working correctly. I decided to go the graphical route on this one and use pyNeighborhood. It's a nifty little gtk route for mounting samba shares instead of having to cli everything. I assume I'll eventually break away and start finding it easier to type out the mount commands by hand, but for now I'm satisfied.
Getting Samba working correctly has always been a bit of a problem for me. I'm not entirely sure what aspect I didn't understand; Install samba, write a config file (after reading the man page, of course), restart the daemon. Why did I find this so hard before? The world may never know.
I also uninstalled xdm. I found that using a GUI login manager kind of limited me to only using the gui and a terminal emulator, instead of going pure cli. Now I can log in and start up some music without having to start x (even though the start times are minuscule).
I've been turning over the idea of learning some basic bash stuff as well, just so I could write an automated install script if I ever decide to start a fresh install. Besides, everyone who's anyone (that uses linux) knows at least SOME bash stuff.
Next Project: iDesk
PS., This mac keyboard is a piece of trash. How anyone could sacrifice THIS much comfort for looks is beyond me.
Getting Samba working correctly has always been a bit of a problem for me. I'm not entirely sure what aspect I didn't understand; Install samba, write a config file (after reading the man page, of course), restart the daemon. Why did I find this so hard before? The world may never know.
I also uninstalled xdm. I found that using a GUI login manager kind of limited me to only using the gui and a terminal emulator, instead of going pure cli. Now I can log in and start up some music without having to start x (even though the start times are minuscule).
I've been turning over the idea of learning some basic bash stuff as well, just so I could write an automated install script if I ever decide to start a fresh install. Besides, everyone who's anyone (that uses linux) knows at least SOME bash stuff.
Next Project: iDesk
PS., This mac keyboard is a piece of trash. How anyone could sacrifice THIS much comfort for looks is beyond me.
Screenshots
Desktop:
Laptop: