Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Go To adventuresincomputing.wordpress.com

I've decided to stop publishing this blog on blooger, but I will continue to publish it on wordpress. The main reason I have made this decision is a lot less work. I often make mistakes when I write these blogs and I tend to read them at the wordpress address and when I make corrections I only do them there also.

Please update your bookmarks/favorites to: http://adventuresincomputing.wordpress.com/ if you want to continue reading this fantastic blog.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Blogging While Pissed Off

Yesterday I was reading posts on Planet Ubuntu and Stephan Hermann had two post about the plagiarism of his blog on linuxindex.com just got a glance 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. Maybe when I calm down, if I calm down, I'll edit out the nasty word.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

VirtualBox Bug in Ubuntu and GoblinX

As you know, being a faithful reader of Adventures in Computing, last weekend I wanted to try GoblinX but the CD I burned was corrupt and I did not have anymore at home. Well after writing the last post I tried GoblinX in a virtual cd drive in VirtualBox and VirtualBox could not capture my mouse. After googling it, I found out that their is a bug in the latest version of VirtualBox when it is used in Ubuntu with desktop effects and according to VirtualBox there is no solution to this critical problem. I have a very simple solution: turn off desktop effects and it works fine.

I have tried GolblinX as a liveCD and I like what I saw and what it did. I did try to install it using the HDinstaller that comes on the disc and I could not I did not have root privileges. I did not feel like work hard that night so I did not fool with it like I should have. I will work on it this weekend when I have more time. GoblinX looks good no matter which desktop environment you prefer. I have never used fluxbox so this is what I am going to try.

I am going to cut this post short because my supper is ready and I am hungry, hungry like the wolf as some would say.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

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.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Problem Solving and Not Installing GoblinX


I did not use my Kubuntu computer for over a week until my previous post on Tuesday. I booted it up and updated it and since there was an update to the kernel I decided to restart the computer. I logged in as usual and the KDE was going through its logging routine and low and behold I am back at the logging screen. I logging again same thing, what the hell? I change sessions to KDE 4.0.1 and I log in properly. I search the Internet to find out if I am the only one with this problem. I find nothing. I have a headache and must go to work. I start downloading GoblinX to try and to have something to write about in this post. I leave everything until I get back from work.

GoblinX is done downloading. I decide to search for a solution to my problem and decide that if I can't fix it I would try GoblinX. I find a solution. Apparently using Kubuntu is not recommended for English Canadians. The en-ca language pack is what was screwing up my Kubuntu logging. To fix this I had to remove the English Canadian language pack from my computer and everything now works fine.

Now my adventure with my OpenGEU computer. Last week I had lost sound on this box and after 30 minutes of searching I find out that I had to reinstall emodule-mixer and alsa, remove the mixer from the shelf it was one, restart the computer and when the computer was back on put the mixer back on the shelf. The sound was back. After an update on Wednesday I had no sound again. I repeat what I did last week and I have sound again. I hope I don't have to do this after every updates. I decided that if I have to do this I'll install GoblinX on this computer.

GoblinX will be installed on a virtual machine this weekend because I am intrigued with it. I'll let you know about it in a future posting.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Nothing Going On

Why did I promise to write 4 posts a month one one blog and at least a post a week on another? Damn myself! I have written anything on this blog for so long because I have nothing new to write about. I still have four posts to write. I haven't really tried anything new since the last time. KDE 4.0.1 is slowly evolving but to be honest with you I haven't even touched KDE for over a week.

I did reformat the computer that I had elive installed on. Now it has OpenGEU, which for those of you that don't know is the re-vamped version of Geubuntu. This computer I have been using on a daily base. It is a fine environment for a computer with limited resources. Everything else is the same.

Friday, January 18, 2008

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.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

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.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

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.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

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 1440x900. 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 1280x800 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 1440x900 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.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

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.