Showing headlines posted by Steven_Rosenber

I've been running OpenBSD off and on since the 4.2 release, but I've never taken the leap to following -stable (aka "the patch branch"). But with this OpenBSD 4.7 installation on the Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptop, I decided to give it a try. After so much building from source in FreeBSD 7.3/8.0, I figured a little patching in OpenBSD couldn't kill me.

My question: How do you take a second (or 10th) look at the messages (generally configuration hints) that output in the terminal after using pkg_add to add a package to your OpenBSD system?

You've got to love OpenBSD's install process. OK, you don't have to love it, but it has its advantages. Whether it's painless or painful (and that depends on your perspective and familiarity with it), it is over quickly. Very quickly. You can probably go from boot to Fvwm2 desktop in less than 10 minutes. Take that (fill in the blank)!

The Western Digital 320 GB Scorpio Black hard drive I bought from NewEgg.com more than a month ago (and which I only recently got around to breaking out of the box and installing) is dying. This is the drive from which I've been running Fedora 13. Those annoying clicks when the drive first boots (and occasionally thereafter) are not normal. The smartctl utility hasn't provided much help, nor has the diagnostic image that WD offers on their Web site (which runs with Dr. DOS — who remembers Dr. DOS??)

Whenever I make a major jump to a new computer and/or operating system, there's usually quite a bit of distro-hopping instability as I try to figure out what works best for my hardware, my work and my moods. After I had Fedora 13 x86_64 with Xfce firmly planted on my new Lenovo G555 laptop, I (presumptively) attributed problems (on which I'll elaborate in a future post) with a couple of applications to either Fedora 13 or the Fedora-packaged applications, deciding to wipe F13 Xfce and try a couple other things.

My first install of Fedora 13's Xfce spin didn't go so smoothly. During the initial (and lengthy) software update, something apparently went wrong and the system wouldn't reboot to a desktop. It might have had something to do with a very vertical window opening on my very horizontal screen instructing me to do something about OKing some dependencies for new packages. I tabbed my way through and did it by "feel," rather than by sight, and I guess it didn't work.I didn't have a whole lot invested time-wise, so I reinstalled and then used yum in a terminal window to update the box.

Now that I'm back from vacation, it's time to actually start using my new $329 Lenovo G555 laptop. Yep, that's cheap for new hardware, and that's what prompted me to spend the money in the first place. My goal: Install and run the 64-bit version of Fedora 13 with Xfce.

Ubuntu, it's been a nice ride, and I fully support what your doing in terms of spreading the full-custom gospel sounds of the free desktop (apologies to the Rev. Horton Heat). I'm OK with the desktop innovation — the "social from the start" initiative, the Ubuntu One integration. It's just not for me. It's mostly not for my hardware, but I'll extend that to me, the user.

I can't say that Xfce spin is slower or faster than the LXDE spin of Fedora 13. The thing to remember about both of these Fedora spins is that it's easy enough to add any or all of the applications from one spin to another. I'm not sure exactly what the LXDE spin's policy on GTK 1/2 apps are, but on my hardware it looks like it'll come down to personal preference and not vast performance differences. The more I think about it, I'd be very happy to have both of these "spins" on one installation, and if there are metapackages for both the Xfce and LXDE spins (and I'm fairly sure there are), that's just what I might do.

I'm calling this the tip of the year because it's easy to do and dramatically improves the Web-browsing experience in Firefox for users of Fedora, Red Hat and CentOS. I wish I had figured it out years ago because it's a simple way to increase your scrolling speed in the browser.

Sure, Ubuntu Lucid is running OK on my aging 2002-era Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptop. But I feel the strain of all that gwibber-service/desktop-couch activity in the Ubuntu LTS. So I've been looking around for my next distro. I'm running Fedora 13's LXDE spin from the live image right now, and I have the Xfce spin ready to test.

After my last pronouncement that I had sound in Tiny Core, upon further examination I only had test sound out of OSS through my USB Headphone Set sound module. Real sound from applications eluded me in OSS. While creating a second user account in Ubuntu, I discovered by accident that my Toshiba laptop's long-dead internal sound module was somehow working. I tried Tiny Core again. I rolled in OSS and Flash and tried a YouTube video in the Minefield/Firefox 3.0.4 browser. It worked.

One of the hiccups in Bordeaux, a for-profit, costs-$20 implementation of Wine that allows for easy installation of a variety of Windows applications in Unix/Linux environments, is that while installing the IrfanView image editor is clickably easy, users are on their own when it comes to the IrfanView plugins. Thankfully that's no longer the case.

Ubuntu lives in a special place between Windows and Mac OS X reserved only for Linux: more shine than Windows, less than OS X, resulting in a steaming pile of mediocrity. Since I've been involved in the Ubuntu world, I've witnessed countless examples of settling for the middle ground - it works, it does what it's meant to, but it doesn't stretch that extra bit further to make the user experience more enjoyable and hence the customers happier.

My Ubuntu rants hold not a candle to this reasoned, impassioned commentary on what's wrong with open-source software in general — and the Ubuntu project in particular — from Benjamin Humphrey, who just happens to be a Ubuntu contributor. It appears in the nearly never-negative OMG! Ubuntu! blog with the title "Many hands make the light work; few make it shine."

How many Linux/BSD distros/projects have slogans? And what do those slogans say about the software projects they represent? Some of these slogans are more "official" than others, but whether sanctioned or not, they all do say something about the code and people behind them. Do you think the projects live up to their slogans? If not, what should their real slogans be?

It's not usually a big deal, getting sound working in Linux or BSD. In my case, however, my laptop's internal sound module is dead, and I've substituted a USB sound module from DealExtreme.com that costs about $2. It works, but it can be hard to get a given distribution to pipe the sound there rather than to the dead internal sound system. I installed the OSS app in Tiny Core, ran osstest in a terminal, and the app proceeded to send sound to both of my sound modules. When it got around to the one that is working, I heard some lovely piano music.

Do you really think Sheldon from "The Big Bang Theory" would pick Ubuntu as his "favorite Linux-based operating system"?

I knew I could get Java working in Firefox on my Tiny Core Linux 2.11 installation. I just had to think about it for a while.

I genuinely like Ubuntu. I agree with its stated mission, and I believe it's the best hope we have for general uptake of Linux/Unix as a desktop operating system. Right now I'm happy with how my Lucid install is performing. I'm using the "social desktop" features even though their design and implementation leave much to be desired. The Ubuntu community, from developer to forum participant, doesn't have to do anything I suggest, implore or cajole. (There may be some transitivity issues in that last sentence, but I'm just letting it flow.) I'm just a user. But don't dismiss me because I'm critical.