Launchy is better than Gnome

Site transfer. Original publication date: July 13, 2009

While I prefer Linux to Windows, on my netbook (where I've switched back to Windows XP; more on that later), I'm using Launchy, while on my desktop I'm using GNOME Do. Given that Launchy seems to learn while GNOME Do does not, victory goes to Launchy on this one.

Now, to see if I can get Launchy to work on Linux...

Giving up on Ubuntu, Going Back to Windows

On my netbook, that is. I have no intention of returning to Windows on my desktop :)

I'd like to keep running Ubuntu on my netbook, but today was the last straw, when an update hosed my sound again. I know sound is an issue with Ubuntu on the netbook, but I was able to get it working. A couple of updates (or more; I wasn't paying close enough attention) and it was gone again. I'm tried of screwing around with getting Ubuntu to work decently on my HP Mini. Not to mention, XP (the original installation, which I left on) runs much more zippier than the Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04, which is a little odd. Though truth be told, Ubuntu 8.10 - plain old desktop version - worked great. 9.04 desktop worked OK, but the netbook remix actually seemed to perform worse.

So, for now, it's back to Windows on the netbook. We'll see how that goes. I am sticking with cross-platform apps as much as possible (Notecase, Adobe Reader, OpenOffice), so I can maintain compatibility with my desktop apps. Not sure what I'll do in place of Tomboy or Exaile...

Windows is Vastly Superior to Linux (Part 2 in a series)

Copying large and/or numerous files from a Linux disk to another: Transfer time slowly degrades until it's virtually slower than moving data across a 10 baud modem. An hour to copy a 30GB file? Really?

And from reading the on-line forums, the summary seems from the developers to be: "Works for me. You newbies/Ubuntu users suck. Don't bother us." Excellent way to draw people away from Windows.

Yes, I'm oversimplifying. And no, I don't care.

Ubuntu Crash Log

Since the bullet-proof Ubuntu went down on me again, I figured I'd start logging the occurrences; I created a spreadsheet for this purpose. Hopefully it'll help me determine what the issues are.

Now, I've never had Ubuntu crash on me (that I can remember...maybe once or twice?) on my old laptop or so far on my netbook. Now, that's 32-bit and my desktop is 64-bit, so that may be an issue. I'm also not entirely convinced it's not my "bleeding edge" (or was when I bought it) hardware, specifically the mobo and more specifically the RAM. Given that Vista 64-bit usually bluescreens on me when I use it for an extended period of time on the same box, I suspect it's a hardware issue. Though in Ubuntu, I've noticed that the one constant tends to be Firefox and VirtualBox open at the same time. So, we'll see.

If I finally succumb to temptation and re-activate my WoW account, I'll definitely need to look at replacing my hardware. Probably the mobo and RAM; I suspect the processor is fine.

Windows is Vastly Superior to Linux (Part 1 in a series)

Upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04. Now my sound doesn't work half the time.

Thanks, hippies.

Chrome for Linux: Faster, Please

While I much prefer Firefox to the alternatives (on Windows, at least), on Ubuntu (64-bit, at least), it's really buggy. Google - hurry up on Chrome for Linux please!

Crashes in Ubuntu are supposed to be rare?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=308748

wow a crash in ubuntu. i mean i've seen it before but the hardware was more than a tad shoddy which caused it.

I see it on at least a weekly basis (daily, this weekend). Last time was just a few minutes ago when I was copying files to an external hard drive. Nothing really intensive there.

Shoddy hardware? Nope. And things have been running fine for months. For some reason in the past few weeks I've been getting crashes aplenty. Enough to get me thinking about returning to a more reliable, more stable OS: Windows Vista.

There's no place like GNOME...

Maybe it's just 'cuz I've gotten so comfortable with it, but it's nice getting back to GNOME. It feels...right. It feels right, Brian.

Back to Ubuntu

Editor's Note: This post was written prior to the issues we had today with KDE.

As I may have alluded to already, I've gone back to using Ubuntu as my main OS. A couple years ago I tried to go "full time" with Ubuntu (version 6.04 or 6.10; I don't recall which). I liked it, but after three months of using it for most everything except games I ended up back in Windows. Ubuntu 6.xx was good, but not quite "ready" for my tastes.

Fast-forward to May or so of 2008. I'd heard some good things about Ubuntu 8.04, so I figured I'd give it another try. I was impressed - many of the issues I'd previously had were gone and the OS overall seemed to be much improved. I started using Ubuntu as a secondary OS in a variety of ways, though I was still rooted in the Windows world. Shortly after 8.10, though, I switched over to Ubuntu completely on my desktop (I already was using 8.04 full time on my laptop).

So, I've been running Ubuntu primarily now for about four months - I've exceeded my previous record and I don't see myself going back any time soon. I do boot into Windows when needed (for games, of course, and I can't get certain Web-apps - like Amazon's On-Demand video program or ABC.Com's episode viewer - to run under Linux), and I do have a virtual machine (via VirtualBox) with Vista in it inside Ubuntu for doing certain things. I'll upgrade to 9.04 when it comes out, though I'm not looking forward to it (I've never had a painless upgrade with this OS).

Technically, though, these days I'm not running Ubuntu - a few weeks ago, I switched over to Kubuntu, though I still consider it Ubuntu "under the hood". I'd never had much interest in KDE until I tried Kubuntu with KDE 4.1 and was blown away by how shiny it was :) Seriously, there was a lot of improvement over the more staid GNOME to get me to switch. Unfortunately, I've found a lot of things not to like about KDE, but I'll get into that later...

Editor's Note: As of today, I switched back to GNOME. Of course, compviz isn't working for me though I installed the 177 driver...Mac is looking more and more appealing...

Kubuntu and I are Done Professionally

Not because I had to restart the computer again because the whole system locked up (I thought that wasn't supposed to happen with Linux...?), but I tried to upgrade to the nvidia 180 driver, which hosed everything like the 177 driver had (before I finally got the correct fix in xorg.conf). The driver notes on nvidia's website even state that that shouldn't be an issue any longer!

So, back to GNOME for me. I'll be going back on my laptop too; KDE looks nice but it's too sluggish and problematic on my desktop. Work pretty good on the laptop, but it seems to suck the battery down faster, and task-swapping when I'm DMing seems slower, too.

It's a shame, 'cuz I see a lot to like in KDE. But overall, GNOME just works better for me. And functionality is ultimately more important than aesthetics.

KDE: Looks great, performance sucks

Recently I switched from Ubuntu (GNOME) to Kubuntu (KDE). Lots of cool stuff with KDE - Amarok, beautiful UI, etc.

But, unfortunately, it sucks.

Slow, sluggish, buggy (I'm trying to bring up System Settings right now - appears on the task bar, bouncy cursor icon appears...then, nothing. WTF?).

It appears that part of the problem is the NVidia drivers I'm using, but still...

9.04 comes out next month (with KDE 4.2 included). Hopefully it'll be better, otherwise I'm going back to GNOME.

Living with Linux?

From here:

Could I live without Windows at all and run my life on Linux for two weeks without spending a penny for software?

Uh...sure. I've been doing it for almost 4 months now.

Well, OK, I've used Windows for scanning since there are no Linux drivers for my scanner. And some games, which don't count. But total up the time I've used only Linux since Thanksgiving and it's far more than two weeks.

(Rant) [CENSORED] You, 64-bit Firefox

Seriously, WTF? Click on a link and - boom! Firefox shuts down.

Hopefully things will work better in KDE. Maybe I'll switch to Konquerer...

Looks like I need to install Linux...again

I've been using GNOME on Ubuntu, but KDE? Wow! I tried to get my install to work with both GUIs, but KDE doesn't want to work. Trying out Kubuntu in Virtualbox - that is sweet. Plus, BasKet Note Pads - deal-maker.

Not looking forward to install it on my laptop, which is where I really need BasKet...

Firefox in 64-bit Ubuntu Totally Sucks

And trying to get Flash to work in FF on 64-bit Ubuntu sucks even harder.

Wow.

That is all.

Update: OK, that was before I realised Adobe released a 64-bit Flash Player on Tuesday. This guy has a great little bash script to install it. So far, it seems to be working pretty well.

But still... ;)

I Hate Computers (rant)

So, I'm in Vista in VirtualBox trying to print a document to PDF - and something goes wrong, which locks up the entire computer? OK, so Windows got hosed, that's to be expected. But how does that take down the entire PC? That's not something we should be seeing from Linux. I suppose a virtual machine is a bit different from a typical Linux app, but still - the fanatics act like the OS is the Pinnacle of Creation. Of course, I'm sure someone would claim that a more "hardcore" distribution (I'm using Ubuntu) wouldn't do that. OK, whatever.

Along those lines, I wouldn't have had to print to PDF if the D&D Character Builder would properly print. For some reason, it won't print (or won't print an entire character sheet) in Vista inside of VirtualBox. Other stuff prints fine, but not that. PDFs from the Character Builder don't print either, so I end up having to print the character sheet to PDF, then copy that to Linux, and print from there. Very odd. My wife can print to the printer from her laptop (connected wirelessly) with the Character Builder just fine. Plus, it's a network printer plugged directly into the router so nothing's passing through a particular computer. Odd.

Then there's my fun with 64-bit Vista. Currently, I'm running 64-bit Ubuntu 8.10 with 32-bit Vista in VirtualBox for when I need Windows stuff. I've been pretty happy with this configuration (4GB of RAM helps), and I've been set up that way for over two months now. Last week, however, I realised that I'd probably be better off with Ubuntu inside VB in Vista since I can't really run any even moderately decent game in the virtual Vista. So, to take advantage of the full 4GB of RAM I have, I installed 64-bit Vista. Or started to. Turns out that with certain setups, you can't install 64-bit Vista if you have more than 3GB of RAM in your computer. WTF? So I had to remove 2GB, install Windows, and then put the 2GB back in. But between the blue screens and the instability of VirtualBox inside Vista (including a crash that completely hosed the virtual machine I'd been running Ubuntu on), I couldn't confidently get anything done. After screwing around with the bootloader and eventually just installing another instance of Ubuntu (to get a proper GRUB configuration), I accepted the dual-boot option. Well, triple-boot as it is but I don't envision using the other Ubuntu install.

And Gnome Do is pissing me off. When it works, it's great. But why won't it recognise that I don't want to RUN a PDF, I want to OPEN it. I read on a forum that the author claims the program will "learn" and alter its behaviour accordingly; so how much MONTHS does it take to realise that every PDF I've brought up was OPENed and not RUN? And why does it just disappear or not start up multiple times per week?

And then there's...ah, nevermind. Sometimes it seems like it would just be easier to go with the masses - just run Windows and IE, just buy pre-made PCs from a place like Dell, etc. But that's not in my nature. If I had the money I'd give Apple a try. Perhaps one day...

Ubuntu - It's Windows-rific!

Minor rant...

So, explain to me how closing OpenOffice Spreadsheet can take a 3+ GHz dual core 2 with 4GB of RAM running 64-bit Ubuntu to its knees? Granted, it didn't crash or do a core dump or whatever, but WTF?

Really tempted to just use Excel in my Vista instance in VirtualBox. In every way I've found so far (which, admittedly, isn't a lot but what counts for me), Microsoft Office beats OpenOffice. I realize that MS has far more money and resources than the OpenOffice people, but isn't open source supposed to be totally superior to proprietary software, especially Microsoft's?

Yeah, I know I'm over simplifying; that's what you do when you rant. And it's only with my homemade financial spreadsheet that OpenOffice has a hard time handling; my other ODS files work fine. And, yes, Ubuntu, GIMP, VLC, Bluefish (usually), GNOME Do, Firefox, FileZilla, Rhythmbox, and Virtualbox still rock.

Oh, and while the fonts in OO look fine on my laptop (~13" widescreen), they still suck on my desktop LCD (24" widescreen). Not as bad as they used to, but Vista's screen fonts still look better. But Ubuntu's (or GNOME's) have improved quite a bit.

And in other news, I've switched back to Ubuntu as my primary OS. It's all I have on my laptop (32-bit 8.10) and what I dual-boot into on my desktop (64-bit 8.10). More on my latest experiences with Canonical's version of Linux in another post...

Ubuntu 8.10 Upgrade - Fail

So I have a PC running Ubuntu 8.04. Tried to upgrade to 8.10, but I don't get a GUI. WTF? The initial installation of 8.04 worked beautifully, but now the whole thing is hosed.

Thanks, hippies.

Microsoft 1, Hippies 0

OK, so I'm putting together a new set of spell sheets like those in the Deluxe Character Sheets pack, to include those from the Players Handbook, Players Handbook II, and the Spell Compendium. And I'm doing it in Ubuntu using OpenCalc.

And trying to do some simple filter on my master list keeps causing OpenCalc to crash. Rather ridiculous that OpenCalc can't handle that. So, where do I go? Back to Excel on Windows.

Now, I'd prefer to continue in OpenCalc, but I can't and I don't have time to screw around trying to figure out a workaround for OpenCalc to work the way it should. Excel doesn't require a workaround for what I'm trying to do - it just works.

So, in this round, the Evil Empire wins and the hippies lose.

(Though I should point out that this is the first negative experience I've had with OpenCalc - outside of it's fonts just looking like total crap in Ubuntu - and looking at the big picture the hippies probably have more points than MS...).

Ubuntu + Firefox + Flash = Out-of-Sync Sound

This problem is a type of thing that needs to be overcome to get people away from OSes like Windows: The sound in Flash in Firefox for me is out-of-sync. Things start fine, but eventually the sound gets out of sync on sites like YouTube.

Yes, I've checked various sites on the web, including this one and this one, among others. I've tried everything that's been mentioned - nothing has worked.

YouTube, Google Video (soon to be the same thing?), etc. work fine under Windows.

Is this enough to drive me back to Windows full-time? No, but it is quite annoying.

And Thus Begins Our Journey into . . . Ubuntu

I may have mentioned in the past that I played around a little with Ubuntu, one of the more popular Linux distributions. I used version 5 ("Breezy Badger") for a bit but switched back to Windows, with a minor dalliance with the Vista beta (which has gone untouched on my other computer pretty much since the initial installation). I downloaded version 6.06 ("Dapper Drake"; gotta love them cutesy names I guess), but I'd been holding off on installing it until now. This time, I didn't mess around with using VMWare under Windows, but did a full-blown install into it's own partition (after repartioning my drive with GParted, which was very intuitive and easy to use; of course, I had to defrag the drive first to have a large enough contiguous space to install Ubuntu; unfortunately, neither its installation utility nor GParted informed me of that first).

Despite that initial obstacle and another problem (which I'll cover below), I'd have to say I'm rather impressed. Ubuntu installed much easier than Windows, more quickly, and recognized most of my hardware. I particularly liked the fact that v5 would only give me a 1024x768 resolution, but v6 has no problem seeing that I've got a 1200x800 screen. Though that may have been an issue with the VMWare player rather than v5. In any case, it recognized my video, my Microsoft wireless mouse, my printer (after I set it up - about a 30 second task), and my onboard sound (AC97). I did have a problem with the sound - it recognized the device and installed the proper drivers, but I couldn't hear anything. I tried a bunch of things people mentioned on-line but that didn't help. Finally I found the solution (I double-clicked the speaker icon at the top of the screen to get "Volume Control" (Alsa mixer), selected "Switched", and unchecked "External Amplifier"). Network connectivity worked like a charm. I haven't tried my wireless networking (I'm connected via cable at my desk), so I'm not sure if that works yet, nor have I tried my scanner. I'm sure I can get both to work with Ubuntu somehow - the question is, will they work without a bunch of extra effort on my part?

All is not roses, however. A few issues remain:

• Microsoft seems to have a better handle on readable fonts in the OS, and Firefox's choiced are a bit hit-and-miss. This is something I'll have to play around with for awhile. I've actually turned off the "subpixel smoothing" since I see too much of the color "fuzziness" with it on. Though the "TSCu_Comic" font actually works quite nicely as my system font.
• The extra buttons on my mouse don't work. I generally only use them in Firefox for "back" and "forward", but it's a pain to be without them. Still, I'm sure someone's created a plug-in for Firefox and/or Linux to use them. Just have to find it...
• Hmm...guess that's it at the moment.

There are other things I haven't tried yet - burning a CD or DVD, for instance. One thing that is nice is that the volume buttons built into my laptop not only register with Ubuntu, they show me a visible bar of what my volume is when I use them, unlike Windows XP. Score one for the hippies! All the hardware buttons work, actually, except for the musical note, which is probably because I don't have a default music player set up yet.

For anyone interested, this installation is on a Gateway 7330GZ.

Now, time to see if the scanner works...