This will probably be the final post here on The Liberator "classic." As you can see, I've dumped the old theme and opted for something simple. As planned, it will remain here indefinitely as an archive.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, I've moved over to a new blog that you should shuffle on over to: The Liberator Reloaded.
If you're curious, here are the feeds for the new blog:
Thanks to those who have followed me thus far. Now please follow me a bit further over to the new one!
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
Peace Out, Blogger
[cross-posted at Doors of Deception]
I mentioned earlier that I would be switching to a new domain and using different blogging software.
I have now switched, and will probably not be posting anything new on either The Liberator or Doors of Deception any more. Both of those will stay online indefinitely as "archives," but new content will not be appearing here or there! (As you may have noticed, managing Doors of Deception has taken on "back burner" status - if it hasn't been removed from the stove altogether.)
I have registered my domain, taken out web server space, and have configured Wordpress. It is now online, and I have named my new blog "The Liberator Reloaded" because, well, you get the picture.
Anyway, here's the essential information:
URL: http://thomasvanwyk.com/blog/
Feed (RSS): http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLiberatorReloaded
Feed (Atom): http://feeds.feedburner.com/thomasvanwyk/TheLiberatorReloaded2
[Tagged: wordpress blogging web CMS blogger internet teh+intarweb]
I mentioned earlier that I would be switching to a new domain and using different blogging software.
I have now switched, and will probably not be posting anything new on either The Liberator or Doors of Deception any more. Both of those will stay online indefinitely as "archives," but new content will not be appearing here or there! (As you may have noticed, managing Doors of Deception has taken on "back burner" status - if it hasn't been removed from the stove altogether.)
I have registered my domain, taken out web server space, and have configured Wordpress. It is now online, and I have named my new blog "The Liberator Reloaded" because, well, you get the picture.
Anyway, here's the essential information:
URL: http://thomasvanwyk.com/blog/
Feed (RSS): http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLiberatorReloaded
Feed (Atom): http://feeds.feedburner.com/thomasvanwyk/TheLiberatorReloaded2
[Tagged: wordpress blogging web CMS blogger internet teh+intarweb]
Sunday, February 25, 2007
My Blogger Days are Numbered
I suppose I should announce that my Blogger days are numbered. Remember that job I got? Well, the first thing I've bought was a domain name and some web server space/bandwidth through GoDaddy. (Yes, I'm aware of the consternation some people have with regard to GoDaddy. But, they're cheap. I hope I'm not getting what I'm paying for.)
So, I'll be migrating over to Wordpress as my CMS pretty soon. I'll be sure to post the full domain name of the site and blog when the time comes.
Unfortunately, I should also mention that it's going to be a bit until the switch takes place. Unfortunately, when I uploaded some files with gFTP to my web server, the permissions of the directory on the server were changed such that they cannot be accessed at all - read, write, and everything; the files are there, but I just can't do anything with them. So, though the file transfer part of the Wordpress installation went off without a hitch, it was something after that that has delayed me. I sent off an email to support at GoDaddy to get a superuser to chmod the directories and files, and to ask if it was something I did wrong.
Anyway, stay tuned. Look for it within the next couple weeks. This blog will probably stay online as an archive.
[Tagged: wordpress blogging web CMS blogger internet teh+intarweb]
So, I'll be migrating over to Wordpress as my CMS pretty soon. I'll be sure to post the full domain name of the site and blog when the time comes.
Unfortunately, I should also mention that it's going to be a bit until the switch takes place. Unfortunately, when I uploaded some files with gFTP to my web server, the permissions of the directory on the server were changed such that they cannot be accessed at all - read, write, and everything; the files are there, but I just can't do anything with them. So, though the file transfer part of the Wordpress installation went off without a hitch, it was something after that that has delayed me. I sent off an email to support at GoDaddy to get a superuser to chmod the directories and files, and to ask if it was something I did wrong.
Anyway, stay tuned. Look for it within the next couple weeks. This blog will probably stay online as an archive.
[Tagged: wordpress blogging web CMS blogger internet teh+intarweb]
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The Return of Prol Rock? Redux
So, I'm admittedly a late on this, but I just heard today on the radio that Chris Cornell of Audioslave is leaving that band "permanently," citing "creative differences" or something. Or at least that's what these artists always say - it's rarely "personal differences" or what have you. Sounds a lot like the breakup of Rage Against the Machine back in the day.Speaking of Rage, I must say that the combination of Commerford, Wilk, and the great Morello with former Soundgarden frontman Cornell always felt a bit off, even if they did make some great songs like "Cochise," "Show Me How To Live," "Set it Off," and a newer favorite of mine, "Revelations" (those YouTube links will probably be dead soon enough for copyright reasons). Maybe it's that Morello's idiosyncratic guitar wizardry and the acidic, political lyrics delivered so damn well by de la Rocha were meant to go together (of course, that's not to dis' the bass guitars of Commerford or the drumming of Wilk).
But anyway, this Cornell announcement comes not long after it was announced that Rage will be playing an allegedly one-off show at Coachella Valley.
But it makes you wonder. Cornell out, de la Rocha in? Morello (guitarist) apparently said:
"To me, it seems that the world needs songs of rebellion and revolution right now. It's exciting, man," he said of the Coachella gig.
That sounds encouraging as well as exciting, I must say.
See also: the MTV story
[Tagged: Coachella+Valley music marxism Rage+Against+The+Machine audioslave tom+morello zach+de+la+rocha prol+rock]
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Confessions of a Linux Turncoat, Part 8
...and other stuff.
Remember that DNS server problem? Fixed. And better yet, it seems I didn't really need to manually edit resolv.conf, either, to chance my preferred DNS servers:
In the first place, manually editing resolv.conf only temporarily resolved (Ha. Ha.) the issue in the first place. Now that I changed the config with the "System > Administration > Networking" deal, it seems my DNS server problem is fixed.
Other than that, my brain has been brewing now that I've got a job and have some disposable income (or really will have some soon). I'm thinking about registering a domain name, buying some server space and transfer bandwidth from somebody reputable, and putting my blog on my own personal web space with a real domain name.
At least I'd look less like an amateur blogger, I suppose. Does this mean I am getting serious as a blogger? Well, maybe more serious, but I don't harbor any delusions: I know that my blog will probably never be popular, but having a non *.blogspot.com or non *.wordpress.com domain can enhance one's ethos.
Or at least that's my guess.
(Either that, or I could just turn myself into yet another mainstream pundit blogger, as if the world needs another - it seems there are plenty of overrated or even downright shitty blogs out there run by mainstream pundits, and they are for some reason extremely popular despite their rank shittiness. Oh well. Woes of the only-half-serious anarchist blogger, I suppose!)
Other than that, I've been impressed by WordPress ever since Rob at Strike the Root was gracious enough to add me as a contributor to the STR blog (unfortunately, time has been scarce and I haven't had much time to post there - or here, for that matter, as my few regular readers may have noticed).
More than that, WordPress is licensed under the GNU GPL, and as you may have noticed I've become somewhat of an amateur open-source advocate and muser since I decided to pitch myself headlong into the open source world by switching to Linux. So, since WordPress is open source, and since I've been impressed by it, I figure it's worth a go, no? (I don't know if Blogger is open source but I doubt it...)
So, anyway, if there are any folks out there reading who have suggestions as far as domain name registrars or reliable web service hosts, do tell!
Other than that, since this is another installment in COLT, I suppose I should talk about my Linux exploits since the last update.
I've fallen in love with Beryl. Nope, Beryl's not a girl: she, according to the Beryl website, "is an OpenGL accelerated desktop that seeks to provide a free, open source desktop experience to the community that reflects the wishes of the users. Above all else, the project seeks to listen to and respond to the requests of the user base."
The cool thing is, she allows 3d organization of one's workspaces by putting each workspace on one face of a cube (or really a 2d representation of a 3d object, if you want me to get all surrealist on you). Here are some YouTube vids:
Unfortunately, my computer is a bit on the marginal side as far as hardware is concerned. Running Beryl along with GNOME is way too chunky to be usable on this computer. I have tried it in conjunction with KDE, and it runs better (a bit slow when I have several apps open), but it tends to send my computer into forced hard shutdowns due to overheating (I assume it's my video card that's overheating), even when I do something as innocuous as streaming a low-res YouTube video.
I've also tried XFCE + Beryl, but unfortunately it (the combo, that is) seems buggy. When I launch Beryl, my icons on all four faces of the cube rapidly blink on and off. (I know, it's weird.)
So, guess I'll be waiting to run Beryl regularly until I get that new Dell Open Source desktop!
Until then, I can say that there's something about Beryl that makes it more than useless eye candy. Maybe it's that the human mind thinks better in 3 dimensions, but for some reason it seems much easier to manage lots of apps when they're on the faces of a 3d cube. It just seems easier to mentally keep track of which windows are where when using the cube, rather than if your brain visualizes them as being in four workspaces arranged on a 2-dimensional continuum.
Or something like that.
[Confessions master post]
[Tagged: Linux Ubuntu Beryl XFCE GNOME KDE desktop+environment GNU GPL Wordpress Blogging web+hosting domain+name+registry]
Remember that DNS server problem? Fixed. And better yet, it seems I didn't really need to manually edit resolv.conf, either, to chance my preferred DNS servers:
System > Administration > Networking > DNS tab, change the DNS servers as appropriateDuh! I should have been smart enough to notice the DNS tab...
In the first place, manually editing resolv.conf only temporarily resolved (Ha. Ha.) the issue in the first place. Now that I changed the config with the "System > Administration > Networking" deal, it seems my DNS server problem is fixed.
Other than that, my brain has been brewing now that I've got a job and have some disposable income (or really will have some soon). I'm thinking about registering a domain name, buying some server space and transfer bandwidth from somebody reputable, and putting my blog on my own personal web space with a real domain name.
At least I'd look less like an amateur blogger, I suppose. Does this mean I am getting serious as a blogger? Well, maybe more serious, but I don't harbor any delusions: I know that my blog will probably never be popular, but having a non *.blogspot.com or non *.wordpress.com domain can enhance one's ethos.
Or at least that's my guess.
(Either that, or I could just turn myself into yet another mainstream pundit blogger, as if the world needs another - it seems there are plenty of overrated or even downright shitty blogs out there run by mainstream pundits, and they are for some reason extremely popular despite their rank shittiness. Oh well. Woes of the only-half-serious anarchist blogger, I suppose!)
Other than that, I've been impressed by WordPress ever since Rob at Strike the Root was gracious enough to add me as a contributor to the STR blog (unfortunately, time has been scarce and I haven't had much time to post there - or here, for that matter, as my few regular readers may have noticed).
More than that, WordPress is licensed under the GNU GPL, and as you may have noticed I've become somewhat of an amateur open-source advocate and muser since I decided to pitch myself headlong into the open source world by switching to Linux. So, since WordPress is open source, and since I've been impressed by it, I figure it's worth a go, no? (I don't know if Blogger is open source but I doubt it...)
So, anyway, if there are any folks out there reading who have suggestions as far as domain name registrars or reliable web service hosts, do tell!
Other than that, since this is another installment in COLT, I suppose I should talk about my Linux exploits since the last update.
I've fallen in love with Beryl. Nope, Beryl's not a girl: she, according to the Beryl website, "is an OpenGL accelerated desktop that seeks to provide a free, open source desktop experience to the community that reflects the wishes of the users. Above all else, the project seeks to listen to and respond to the requests of the user base."
The cool thing is, she allows 3d organization of one's workspaces by putting each workspace on one face of a cube (or really a 2d representation of a 3d object, if you want me to get all surrealist on you). Here are some YouTube vids:
Unfortunately, my computer is a bit on the marginal side as far as hardware is concerned. Running Beryl along with GNOME is way too chunky to be usable on this computer. I have tried it in conjunction with KDE, and it runs better (a bit slow when I have several apps open), but it tends to send my computer into forced hard shutdowns due to overheating (I assume it's my video card that's overheating), even when I do something as innocuous as streaming a low-res YouTube video.
I've also tried XFCE + Beryl, but unfortunately it (the combo, that is) seems buggy. When I launch Beryl, my icons on all four faces of the cube rapidly blink on and off. (I know, it's weird.)
So, guess I'll be waiting to run Beryl regularly until I get that new Dell Open Source desktop!
Until then, I can say that there's something about Beryl that makes it more than useless eye candy. Maybe it's that the human mind thinks better in 3 dimensions, but for some reason it seems much easier to manage lots of apps when they're on the faces of a 3d cube. It just seems easier to mentally keep track of which windows are where when using the cube, rather than if your brain visualizes them as being in four workspaces arranged on a 2-dimensional continuum.
Or something like that.
[Confessions master post]
[Tagged: Linux Ubuntu Beryl XFCE GNOME KDE desktop+environment GNU GPL Wordpress Blogging web+hosting domain+name+registry]
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Confessions of a Linux Turncoat, Part 7
You know, troubleshooting is really great when your work pans out. Those two problems I had mentioned before have been fixed (well, the browsing one not completely).
It seems that I had the same problem another poster on the Ubuntu forums had:
The poster's solution also identified the culprit in my case:
And, with regard to the slow web browsing problem, I found out that it was as I had suspected a problem with DNS lookups. The config file resolv.conf was set to use the IP of our wireless router as the default nameserver. I changed it to my ISP's DNS server and it fixed the problem...
...at least in GNOME, and there only partially. I still have some substantial slow down problems browsing in GNOME sessions, but not all the time and not as severe. I'm still having the same browsing slowdowns in Xfce all the time, so I'll have to look into it more.
[Confessions master post]
[Tagged: OS Linux Ubuntu Xubuntu GNOME XFCE XFCE4 firefox browsing internet DNS nameserver config wireless wifi troubleshooting]
It seems that I had the same problem another poster on the Ubuntu forums had:
On XUbuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft), after changing window decorations using User Interface Settings, Xfce crashed.Same here, except when I logged in under an Xfce session I at least got my desktop background for a second before my session was automatically logged out.
When I try to login normally Xfce crashes and throws me back to the login screen. When I login in failsafe mode I can run xfce4-session from xterm but with lots of errors (see below).
The poster's solution also identified the culprit in my case:
It seems that Xfce's list of available themes do not take into account the different types of themes (cursors, icons, widgets etc). What happened was that I selected a cursor theme to be a widget theme.That did it. I also deleted some of the offending theme types (in my case, a cursor theme) so that I don't have a repeat.
So, I manually edited ~/.config/xfce4/mcs_settings/gtk.xml to themes I know work correctly...
And, with regard to the slow web browsing problem, I found out that it was as I had suspected a problem with DNS lookups. The config file resolv.conf was set to use the IP of our wireless router as the default nameserver. I changed it to my ISP's DNS server and it fixed the problem...
...at least in GNOME, and there only partially. I still have some substantial slow down problems browsing in GNOME sessions, but not all the time and not as severe. I'm still having the same browsing slowdowns in Xfce all the time, so I'll have to look into it more.
[Confessions master post]
[Tagged: OS Linux Ubuntu Xubuntu GNOME XFCE XFCE4 firefox browsing internet DNS nameserver config wireless wifi troubleshooting]
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Confessions of a Linux Turncoat, Part 6
I've been thinking about switching distros already. From what I understand, my computer's hardware specs are better than those of some people who manage to use Ubuntu, but my desktop performance is still marginally sluggish to badly slow at times.
In other words, it's marginal for my liking. And, of course, the YMMV factor may be involved.
So, I've been thinking about switching to Xubuntu (I'm actually posting this while booted from a live CD of Xubuntu 6.10), as I mentioned the other day, because it uses the XFCE desktop environ which is comparatively light compared to GNOME.
I should be able to leave Ubuntu on my computer and instead install the Xubuntu desktop environment on my computer using Synaptic, and then log in under an XFCE session rather than a GNOME session; but for some reason the XFCE environ isn't running right. Specifically, xfce-panel is either a) not launching on session startup or b) is launching but immediately crashing. I don't get a bug report or crash notifier, so I think it's the former.
I've tried reinstalling everything Xubuntu and xfce-related in Synaptic, and I've tried completely removing everything related to the Xubuntu desktop environment and then reinstalling. Same problem in both cases. I may try another approach soon...
Other than that, I'm still having problems with slow internet browsing while all other network-related tasks are blazing fast (such as transferring via BitTorrent and using Gtk-Gnutella). I've been poking around, and it seems that with wireless there are lots of Ubuntu users who have the problem, but other peoples' problems seem limited to going through a wireless router.
For me, it's not an IPv6 problem - I have disabled that in Firefox (see here for this and other Firefox speed tweaks). Besides, it's not just a problem with wireless - I have the same problem when browsing through the wired NIC as well, and the other Linux box in the house has the same problem when browsing on its own wired NIC.
Anywho, here's a good article on Xubuntu: "Xubuntu offers appealing desktop environment"
[Confessions master post]
[Tagged: xfce gnome ubuntu xubuntu linux OS troubleshooting desktop+environment user+interface]
In other words, it's marginal for my liking. And, of course, the YMMV factor may be involved.
So, I've been thinking about switching to Xubuntu (I'm actually posting this while booted from a live CD of Xubuntu 6.10), as I mentioned the other day, because it uses the XFCE desktop environ which is comparatively light compared to GNOME.
I should be able to leave Ubuntu on my computer and instead install the Xubuntu desktop environment on my computer using Synaptic, and then log in under an XFCE session rather than a GNOME session; but for some reason the XFCE environ isn't running right. Specifically, xfce-panel is either a) not launching on session startup or b) is launching but immediately crashing. I don't get a bug report or crash notifier, so I think it's the former.
I've tried reinstalling everything Xubuntu and xfce-related in Synaptic, and I've tried completely removing everything related to the Xubuntu desktop environment and then reinstalling. Same problem in both cases. I may try another approach soon...
Other than that, I'm still having problems with slow internet browsing while all other network-related tasks are blazing fast (such as transferring via BitTorrent and using Gtk-Gnutella). I've been poking around, and it seems that with wireless there are lots of Ubuntu users who have the problem, but other peoples' problems seem limited to going through a wireless router.
For me, it's not an IPv6 problem - I have disabled that in Firefox (see here for this and other Firefox speed tweaks). Besides, it's not just a problem with wireless - I have the same problem when browsing through the wired NIC as well, and the other Linux box in the house has the same problem when browsing on its own wired NIC.
Anywho, here's a good article on Xubuntu: "Xubuntu offers appealing desktop environment"
[Confessions master post]
[Tagged: xfce gnome ubuntu xubuntu linux OS troubleshooting desktop+environment user+interface]
Monday, February 12, 2007
24 predictions
For the record:
Creepy servant-of-Vigo dude (what is his name, Lennox?) actually redeems himself and becomes one of the loyalists in the coming coup d'etat.
Rob-Lowe's-Little-Brother dude succeeds in his assassination attempt. Big conspiracy between: Rob-Lowe's-Little-Brother, the current VP who will take over after Palmer II gets iced, a pardoned Logan (pardoned by the current VP), Fayed, Philip Bauer.
Oh, and remember that ex-terrorist (the one Jack shot Curtis to save)? He'll be in it, too. He has no interest in change, and he's still in cahoots with the Russian dude and Fayed.
God orchestrates the conspiracy.
Conclusion: Jack slays all of the conspirators. Including God.
Future seasons: well, since God is dead, new enemies are needed. I suppose Jack can start with having to deal with Cthulhu.
Still waiting for: appearances by Kim Bauer and Audrey Raines.
[Tagged: 24 Jack+Bauer entertainment TV spoilers predictions]
Creepy servant-of-Vigo dude (what is his name, Lennox?) actually redeems himself and becomes one of the loyalists in the coming coup d'etat.
Rob-Lowe's-Little-Brother dude succeeds in his assassination attempt. Big conspiracy between: Rob-Lowe's-Little-Brother, the current VP who will take over after Palmer II gets iced, a pardoned Logan (pardoned by the current VP), Fayed, Philip Bauer.
Oh, and remember that ex-terrorist (the one Jack shot Curtis to save)? He'll be in it, too. He has no interest in change, and he's still in cahoots with the Russian dude and Fayed.
God orchestrates the conspiracy.
Conclusion: Jack slays all of the conspirators. Including God.
Future seasons: well, since God is dead, new enemies are needed. I suppose Jack can start with having to deal with Cthulhu.
Still waiting for: appearances by Kim Bauer and Audrey Raines.
[Tagged: 24 Jack+Bauer entertainment TV spoilers predictions]
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Confessions of a Linux Turncoat, Part 5
I decided to break down and get a Linux book, and opted to get Linux Complete. I opted for it over Linux for Dummies basically because a quick thumbing through of that one left me with the impression that it was mostly "this is how you navigate your GUI" type stuff. I can navigate the GUI. I need to know how to navigate the command line and do all that geeky Linux stuff. Still, in the future I might think about getting Ubuntu for Dummies.
Second, I've finally managed to install from my first Tarball. It happened to be Songbird. From the Songbird website:
Songbird is also available for Windows and Mac, but at present is only available as a developer's preview. Download it here for all OSs.
So far, I look what I see. It feels a lot like iTunes. (As an aside, am I the only one who's wondering when the #@&% iTunes is going to be ported to Linux? I love iTunes but don't want to be bothered running it through an emulator.) I've been using Amarok, as I've mentioned before, but I've found Amarok to be a little sluggish when searching my library, even if I like pretty much everything else about it.
Props to Ubuntu Geek for the mention of the program and the install how-to.
Other than that, unfortunately it seems xfce4's official status on this box is "moderately FUBAR." It seems that xfce4-panel is not launching on startup, so the Xubuntu desktop environment is, until I figure this whole Linux thing out better, inoperable for my purposes.
[Confessions master post]
[Tagged: xubuntu xfce xfce4 Amarok Ubuntu howto tarball linux iTunes Songbird mp3 media music player]
Second, I've finally managed to install from my first Tarball. It happened to be Songbird. From the Songbird website:
Songbird™ is a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and
skinsfeathers. Like Firefox®, it is built from Mozilla®, cross-platform and open source.
Songbird is also available for Windows and Mac, but at present is only available as a developer's preview. Download it here for all OSs.
So far, I look what I see. It feels a lot like iTunes. (As an aside, am I the only one who's wondering when the #@&% iTunes is going to be ported to Linux? I love iTunes but don't want to be bothered running it through an emulator.) I've been using Amarok, as I've mentioned before, but I've found Amarok to be a little sluggish when searching my library, even if I like pretty much everything else about it.
Props to Ubuntu Geek for the mention of the program and the install how-to.
Other than that, unfortunately it seems xfce4's official status on this box is "moderately FUBAR." It seems that xfce4-panel is not launching on startup, so the Xubuntu desktop environment is, until I figure this whole Linux thing out better, inoperable for my purposes.
[Confessions master post]
[Tagged: xubuntu xfce xfce4 Amarok Ubuntu howto tarball linux iTunes Songbird mp3 media music player]
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Confessions of a Linux Turncoat, Part 4
Well, time for the next installment, I suppose.
First, I downloaded and installed (via Synaptic Package Manger - a beautiful thing I might add) both the Xubuntu and Kubuntu desktop environments (which run XFCE and KDE, respectively).
I especially want to try Xubuntu/Xfce because it supposedly flies (see the sys reqs) compared to GNOME, the desktop environ of Ubuntu "vanilla." Speed is always good, and I really don't need to do that much fancy stuff with my desktop - for instance I tried Beryl and it slowed things down too much for my liking, even though my system has plenty of guts given the listed sys reqs.
I haven't had much of a chance to use Xubuntu, so hopefully I'll get a better chance this weekend.
What's nice about Ubuntu is that it's so easy once you have it (or Xubuntu or Kubuntu) installed to download and install the different desktop environments, and switching between them is as easy as switching sessions (which takes all of 30 seconds, at most - and I tend to overestimate things).
Second, I was maybe a little bit of a factor in my Dad putting Ubuntu on a hosed laptop from his work. In actuality, it wasn't hosed - but he was told it was having hardware problems so he was allowed free reign over it. He put Ubuntu on it (I should have tried harder to get him to put Xubuntu on it instead, out of curiosity), and it seems that the problem was just that Windows was hosed. So, two Linux boxes in the house and counting!
Third: Dell's n series desktop.
See, I'll probably be getting a job (unfortunately, with it I don't think I'll have time for the MLL groupblog thingy). It's probably a good thing to not be such a bum any more. Besides, there's stuff I want to buy - like this, or one of these, or this. Interestingly, for a part time job, I have to be drug tested. Which is odd, because I know I'm going to be submitting cloudy piss (easy - they're subscriptions), and my potential employers apparently know already.
Dumb policy.
In any event, I'm more than a bit late on this, but I heard about these open source desktops not long ago. Granted, it's been a few years since I've bought a desktop computer (say 3-4 years). And, granted, when you don't have to shell out ~$300 for a MS operating system, a computer gets a lot cheaper.
Still, I was surprised at just how much computing power you can get packed into a Dell open source desktop for so little money - for instance, go here, check out the E521n, and customize it to see how much hardware you can get for, say, $800.
If I bought one - and I'm thinking I might maybe this summer, tricked out with a speedy dual-core Athlon, 1GB of RAM (perhaps to be upgraded later), a 250GB HD, a widescreen flat panel, and a 256MB video card, I'd probably think about putting on Fedora Core 7 (slated for release soon, I think?) which I've tried already, and then maybe dual-boot with XP ("just in case").
And, maybe do this idea that I happened upon somewhere - make the new computer (remember, it's got a 250GB harddrive?) a sort of file server (say with Samba), dump your mp3 library on it, and then stream your music from it when using other computers so you don't have to put your music on multiple computers.
[Confessions master post]
[Tagged: Linux ubuntu xubuntu kubuntu xfce GNOME KDE operating+systems Fedora Athlon dell open+source]
First, I downloaded and installed (via Synaptic Package Manger - a beautiful thing I might add) both the Xubuntu and Kubuntu desktop environments (which run XFCE and KDE, respectively).
I especially want to try Xubuntu/Xfce because it supposedly flies (see the sys reqs) compared to GNOME, the desktop environ of Ubuntu "vanilla." Speed is always good, and I really don't need to do that much fancy stuff with my desktop - for instance I tried Beryl and it slowed things down too much for my liking, even though my system has plenty of guts given the listed sys reqs.
I haven't had much of a chance to use Xubuntu, so hopefully I'll get a better chance this weekend.
What's nice about Ubuntu is that it's so easy once you have it (or Xubuntu or Kubuntu) installed to download and install the different desktop environments, and switching between them is as easy as switching sessions (which takes all of 30 seconds, at most - and I tend to overestimate things).
Second, I was maybe a little bit of a factor in my Dad putting Ubuntu on a hosed laptop from his work. In actuality, it wasn't hosed - but he was told it was having hardware problems so he was allowed free reign over it. He put Ubuntu on it (I should have tried harder to get him to put Xubuntu on it instead, out of curiosity), and it seems that the problem was just that Windows was hosed. So, two Linux boxes in the house and counting!
Third: Dell's n series desktop.
See, I'll probably be getting a job (unfortunately, with it I don't think I'll have time for the MLL groupblog thingy). It's probably a good thing to not be such a bum any more. Besides, there's stuff I want to buy - like this, or one of these, or this. Interestingly, for a part time job, I have to be drug tested. Which is odd, because I know I'm going to be submitting cloudy piss (easy - they're subscriptions), and my potential employers apparently know already.
Dumb policy.
In any event, I'm more than a bit late on this, but I heard about these open source desktops not long ago. Granted, it's been a few years since I've bought a desktop computer (say 3-4 years). And, granted, when you don't have to shell out ~$300 for a MS operating system, a computer gets a lot cheaper.
Still, I was surprised at just how much computing power you can get packed into a Dell open source desktop for so little money - for instance, go here, check out the E521n, and customize it to see how much hardware you can get for, say, $800.
If I bought one - and I'm thinking I might maybe this summer, tricked out with a speedy dual-core Athlon, 1GB of RAM (perhaps to be upgraded later), a 250GB HD, a widescreen flat panel, and a 256MB video card, I'd probably think about putting on Fedora Core 7 (slated for release soon, I think?) which I've tried already, and then maybe dual-boot with XP ("just in case").
And, maybe do this idea that I happened upon somewhere - make the new computer (remember, it's got a 250GB harddrive?) a sort of file server (say with Samba), dump your mp3 library on it, and then stream your music from it when using other computers so you don't have to put your music on multiple computers.
[Confessions master post]
[Tagged: Linux ubuntu xubuntu kubuntu xfce GNOME KDE operating+systems Fedora Athlon dell open+source]
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