Well, in 8 minutes, this x86_64 KDE Live CD for Fedora will be fresh off the torrent, and I'll see if I "really" want to use openSUSE some more, or just try out KDE 4 on my current distro of choice.
I noticed that I've got a lot of CDs printed here, and I figured I'd try to use Flickr to post to my blog. I'm currently running off of my Fedora 8 i686 Live CD, and I just took a picture, hooked it up, and here we go.
Yeah, not needing the photo gallery function of FastMail so much.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
How to be a distro junkie
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
openSUSE is looking good
Okay, I'm writing this from openSUSE 11. I wanted to write a quick note to let all my faithful blog readers know how I liked the experience so far. I'm burning DVD images that I downloaded in KTorrent, which is a nice application. K3B is as awesome as everyone says it is.
I installed from a LiveCD, but I had the same problem I had with RC1 on all but one machine. The install image copies to the hard drive and boots, but the user setup doesn't take. I'm logged in as "linux" and the "mvpittman" user I set up isn't available.
The K-Menu makes it really easy to find applications I need though... typing "user" took me to the yast setup for users.
I'm writing this message in KMail, which is also a nice application. In particular, I like it not *sucking* and being *slow* and bloated like Evolution. Also, it has support for Managesieve, which would let me change the filtering rules on my mail server, without logging into a web interface.
Too bad FastMail messes up the inbox hierarchy, and doesn't have managesieve support. I think I'm going to trial TuffMail again.
I'm writing this message in KMail because I didn't find a blogging application, like maybe Kblogger, I think I could deal with that. A template would work just fine to let me get all the extra crap I'd normally select using logjam.
I'm going to install GimP (again, a positive nod to the search at the top of the KDE Slab menu -- "install" got me to the place to add repositories, and search for programs).
Maybe I'll get the printer set up enough to print these DVD labels I downloaded in openSUSE. (Searching for "printer" got me started again with YaST.)
So far, I haven't done anything that I couldn't have done in Fedora, unless that KDE slab/search thing isn't availble in Fedora. So if this printer works all funky, and a DVD install messes up like the Live CD did, then I might just switch back.
Oh yeah... one-click-install pwns you. Going to http://www.opensuse.org/nvidia/ was pretty simple.
However, I had to run nvidia-xconfig to get it to actually take, which wasn't really documented anywhere. I finally figured that out when some attempt to get compositing effects got me to the NVIDIA configuration utility and let me know that the driver wasn't active.
Oh, and once I got that running... The tiny fonts that I really didn't mind so much... they just sprung to life. And then there's the CCSM goodness... "Hollywood got nothing" indeed. I'm liking this alot... I'm going to move on to re-installing from the 64-bit DVD and see how that goes.
I installed from a LiveCD, but I had the same problem I had with RC1 on all but one machine. The install image copies to the hard drive and boots, but the user setup doesn't take. I'm logged in as "linux" and the "mvpittman" user I set up isn't available.
The K-Menu makes it really easy to find applications I need though... typing "user" took me to the yast setup for users.
I'm writing this message in KMail, which is also a nice application. In particular, I like it not *sucking* and being *slow* and bloated like Evolution. Also, it has support for Managesieve, which would let me change the filtering rules on my mail server, without logging into a web interface.
Too bad FastMail messes up the inbox hierarchy, and doesn't have managesieve support. I think I'm going to trial TuffMail again.
I'm writing this message in KMail because I didn't find a blogging application, like maybe Kblogger, I think I could deal with that. A template would work just fine to let me get all the extra crap I'd normally select using logjam.
I'm going to install GimP (again, a positive nod to the search at the top of the KDE Slab menu -- "install" got me to the place to add repositories, and search for programs).
Maybe I'll get the printer set up enough to print these DVD labels I downloaded in openSUSE. (Searching for "printer" got me started again with YaST.)
So far, I haven't done anything that I couldn't have done in Fedora, unless that KDE slab/search thing isn't availble in Fedora. So if this printer works all funky, and a DVD install messes up like the Live CD did, then I might just switch back.
Oh yeah... one-click-install pwns you. Going to http://www.opensuse.org/nvidia/ was pretty simple.
However, I had to run nvidia-xconfig to get it to actually take, which wasn't really documented anywhere. I finally figured that out when some attempt to get compositing effects got me to the NVIDIA configuration utility and let me know that the driver wasn't active.
Oh, and once I got that running... The tiny fonts that I really didn't mind so much... they just sprung to life. And then there's the CCSM goodness... "Hollywood got nothing" indeed. I'm liking this alot... I'm going to move on to re-installing from the 64-bit DVD and see how that goes.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Fedora 9 upgrade, successful openSUSE... eh, not so much...
I'm posting this from a Fedora 9 desktop. I had some issues upgrading before, but I did an install of Fedora 8 (after a quick battle with openSUSE 11 KDE Live CD) and burned and printed DVDs for Fedora 9 on both x86 and 64-bit arches...
Rather than try preupgrade again, I just did the Anaconda upgrade with the DVD.
Turns out the problem I was having with the monitor going out of sync was because my xorg.conf file was using the "vesa" driver, rather than the "nv" driver or "nvidia" driver... weird... vesa should *always* work. Changing it to "nv" got me up and running.
I still have the NetworkManager circular dependency issue.
Oh, and I think I understand why distributing an SVG of CD artwork is desirable. I can import to the GIMP at whatever resolution and dpi that I want... in this case a 4000x4000 pixel image at 1440 dpi, rather than the default 480x480px, 90dpi... much better printout. Might actually be time to contribute some instructions.
Looks like the cups server is all foobar too. Damn. Did I say something like, "I'm going back to Fedora because of the easy printer configuration"? I hope not.
Rather than try preupgrade again, I just did the Anaconda upgrade with the DVD.
Turns out the problem I was having with the monitor going out of sync was because my xorg.conf file was using the "vesa" driver, rather than the "nv" driver or "nvidia" driver... weird... vesa should *always* work. Changing it to "nv" got me up and running.
I still have the NetworkManager circular dependency issue.
Oh, and I think I understand why distributing an SVG of CD artwork is desirable. I can import to the GIMP at whatever resolution and dpi that I want... in this case a 4000x4000 pixel image at 1440 dpi, rather than the default 480x480px, 90dpi... much better printout. Might actually be time to contribute some instructions.
Looks like the cups server is all foobar too. Damn. Did I say something like, "I'm going back to Fedora because of the easy printer configuration"? I hope not.
Friday, June 20, 2008
I don't blog about my family much ... Scott sleeping in his bed.
I'm sure 4 out of the 8 people who actually read my blog wonder why I don't talk about my family much... or rather, "why are all your posts about computer hardware?" Well, I don't really want my family exposed to the Internet. It's vicious.
However, I'll share this tidbit. We finally got Scott back to sleeping in his bed. We visited the pediatrician for shots and a checkup on Wednesday, and he recommended we just hold the door closed until he went to sleep. That was long. He got up again around 4:00 AM, and I repeated. Celebration!
Holly's "on duty" tomorrow night.
However, I'll share this tidbit. We finally got Scott back to sleeping in his bed. We visited the pediatrician for shots and a checkup on Wednesday, and he recommended we just hold the door closed until he went to sleep. That was long. He got up again around 4:00 AM, and I repeated. Celebration!
Holly's "on duty" tomorrow night.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Firefox 3, FoxMarks, Compiz-Fusion, and Fedora 8
I needed to do some actual work with my computer, and needed a computer up and running. I also needed to print out a bunch of documents. My old crappy CRT had some sync issues with Fedora 9 after install, my laptop test machines were running openSUSE, where I didn't know how to setup my printer properly... so I wiped and installed Fedora 8, and got it done.
Too bad Firefox 3 isn't available on Fedora 8 from any "official" source. I guess there's the remi repo, but I assume there's reasons it isn't in the base repo for Fedora 8... might be time to try Fedora 9 again, because FF3 is about five times as awesome as 2. One thing I did notice on goin back to 8 was that I had forgotten how to get CCSM working on Fedora 8. I thought I needed to add something to my session so that it would run on startup, and my Google-fu failed miserably on finding that. Turns out Foxmarks has old copies of my bookmarks stored... scary... but useful in this case... I had a bookmark once to the blog post and the bug that gave me in the information, but I had deleted it.
I haven't been home on my PC to enable it again, but I'll probably beat on my computer some more to try and get Fedora 9 behaving properly. We'll see. I checked for the openSUSE release this morning before work, hoping to let the torrent ride out while I was away for the day, but no dice. Oh well. I'll probably go back to Fedora anyway, since my printer works by simply plugging it in, which is awesome.
Too bad Firefox 3 isn't available on Fedora 8 from any "official" source. I guess there's the remi repo, but I assume there's reasons it isn't in the base repo for Fedora 8... might be time to try Fedora 9 again, because FF3 is about five times as awesome as 2. One thing I did notice on goin back to 8 was that I had forgotten how to get CCSM working on Fedora 8. I thought I needed to add something to my session so that it would run on startup, and my Google-fu failed miserably on finding that. Turns out Foxmarks has old copies of my bookmarks stored... scary... but useful in this case... I had a bookmark once to the blog post and the bug that gave me in the information, but I had deleted it.
I haven't been home on my PC to enable it again, but I'll probably beat on my computer some more to try and get Fedora 9 behaving properly. We'll see. I checked for the openSUSE release this morning before work, hoping to let the torrent ride out while I was away for the day, but no dice. Oh well. I'll probably go back to Fedora anyway, since my printer works by simply plugging it in, which is awesome.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Kodak EasyShare 7.0, ehh... no.
I got an e-mail about Kodak EasyShare 7.0 being released... I'll have to e-
mail Deb and let her know, since she's still on Windows.
I guess I need to investigate digiKam on this OpenSUSE installation. Maybe it
has a flickr export. If it doesn't suck, maybe I'll just switch her to Linux...
or not. We'll see.
mail Deb and let her know, since she's still on Windows.
I guess I need to investigate digiKam on this OpenSUSE installation. Maybe it
has a flickr export. If it doesn't suck, maybe I'll just switch her to Linux...
or not. We'll see.
Holy Release Candidate, Batman! It's supposed to work?
I've been trying out this release candidate for openSUSE. Certainly not any kind of formal testing, or preparation for a review, or with positive intent to switch from Fedora.
Mostly, I wanted to try out KDE 4, on a distribution where it is a first-class citizen (not Fedora, not Ubuntu... not Mandriva either).
So, some time ago, I burned a 32-bit KDE Live CD. The media I used is printable, but I didn't print a label, I just wrote on it with a sharpie... the media seems questionable, since Fedora always tripped out a little bit when I ran Live CDs from it. Maybe the stack is warped or something.
I tried it on the quad-core box, it ran so slowly, I thought it didn't work. Turns out I was wrong.
I tried it on the Compaq laptop I got form the Weldy Family, because it had their Windows Install on it, and I didn't know the password... It worked... sort of. I think the automatic configuration at the end of the install didn't work, because the desktop I got still had the "Install" icon, and a reboot after that said that the Installation didn't complete.
I tried it on the quad-core box again, and got similar results. I finally got my head wrapped around LVM and the Expert partitioner too.
I tried it on a Compaq Evo N600c this morning, and boom -- Install icon is gone, sexy desktop is there, prompted to configure for updates by adding repositories... This might go well. The release is in a day or two. I'm going to give it an official shot on some more machines... maybe write up a review.
Mostly, I wanted to try out KDE 4, on a distribution where it is a first-class citizen (not Fedora, not Ubuntu... not Mandriva either).
So, some time ago, I burned a 32-bit KDE Live CD. The media I used is printable, but I didn't print a label, I just wrote on it with a sharpie... the media seems questionable, since Fedora always tripped out a little bit when I ran Live CDs from it. Maybe the stack is warped or something.
I tried it on the quad-core box, it ran so slowly, I thought it didn't work. Turns out I was wrong.
I tried it on the Compaq laptop I got form the Weldy Family, because it had their Windows Install on it, and I didn't know the password... It worked... sort of. I think the automatic configuration at the end of the install didn't work, because the desktop I got still had the "Install" icon, and a reboot after that said that the Installation didn't complete.
I tried it on the quad-core box again, and got similar results. I finally got my head wrapped around LVM and the Expert partitioner too.
I tried it on a Compaq Evo N600c this morning, and boom -- Install icon is gone, sexy desktop is there, prompted to configure for updates by adding repositories... This might go well. The release is in a day or two. I'm going to give it an official shot on some more machines... maybe write up a review.
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