The Wheatland Linux User's Group Weblog

How well did PC-BSD 1.5 work for me?

ccna01 — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:53:55 +0000

Pretty well actually. The system was stable, I had few problems, except for the fact that I always had to run PC-BSD in safe mode. I wonder what the difference between starting up normally and starting up in safe mode is? I also managed to fail in installing the Nvidia graphic driver, so I was unable to take any screenshots of playing a video or DVD.

I was able to find enough programs to get some use out of BSD. I went to pbidir.com that are easy to install since all you have to do is double click on the PBI file to install it, which is much easier than dealing with a tarball. Some of the programs I had installed were K3B, OpenOffice, Firefox, KTorrent, Kaffeine, Amarok, JRE 1.5and a few other things that just come with the KDE desktop environment.

It was also nice that with PC-BSD some codecs and Adobe Flash Player(only 7 though) was already installed and set up for me. It was mostly effortless to use PC-BSD 1.5, although I wish that I did not have to start it in safe mode on the system I was able to use it on. So if you also would like to try PC-BSD 1.5 just go to pcbsd.com. You can also find my screenshots here.

Sin Cere,

Dirk Limon

Ubuntu 8.04 on a laptop

ccna01 — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:27:50 +0000

For a few short weeks I was doing a few tasks that required me to use Windows, but I am finally using Linux again. I am currently running Ubuntu 8.04 on a laptop, the Toshiba Satellite 1135-S125. It runs pretty well, I should hope so considering that most of the hardware in this computer is from Intel.

Unlike many people I seem to have no trouble using two screens. Another really cool thing that happens for some reason is that Ubuntu 8.04 somehow manages to get around the school’s web filter and proxy server, and ISA server without even being asking for authentication. I have no clue as to why this happens though.

A few problems though, the mouse on the laptop does not work and the hardware switch to turn on an internal wireless NIC is broke, I can switch it on and the wireless NIC would still stay off. The sound card also decides to put out gargled and incomprehensible sound sometimes. I shall write more on this later and put up a few new screenshots too. Those can be found here, but I prefer you to go http://ccna01.oxyhost.com/blog/?page_id=32.

Sin Cere,

Dirk Limon

Running Packet Tracer 4.11 in Wine

ccna01 — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:59:21 +0000

I am so glad that I got Packet Tracer 4.11 to run in Wine. That gives me one less reason to have to use Windows. I am guessing that many of you reading this do not know what Packet Tracer is, so I shall explain it to you. Packet Tracer is a network simulator put out by Cisco for free. Here are a few screenshots. Forgive me for such a short post but I must get back to work now. Have a good night everyone.

A few final thoughts on Xubuntu 8.04

ccna01 — Mon, 05 May 2008 04:24:21 +0000

It was a few weeks ago that I decided to use Xubuntu just to play around with it some more. It works well, all of the programs work, yet I cannot get Xubuntu 8.04 to go into standby mode. But since I can get Ubuntu to use almost as few resources as Xubuntu does I see no reason not to just use Ubuntu. That, and the fact that at least Ubuntu 8.04 can go into standby mode while when I click on standby in Xubuntu 8.04 the system just sits there and mocks me. That, and I also that Ubuntu is more stable than Xubuntu. I have also posted a few new screenshots of Xubuntu 8.04 up. Before I finish, please visit what will soon be the replacement to this site at http://ccna01.oxyhost.com/blog/ Well, this post was short and simple unlike the last one, that is all for now.

Sin Cere,

Dirk Limon

Possible new hosting site

ccna01 — Sun, 04 May 2008 20:32:39 +0000

I am soon be using oxyhost.com. If you want to see it go to ccna01.oxyhost.com/blog. For now it is the same but the Oxyhost servers have far fewer restrictions so it may be worthwhile to make the switch.

More than a few criticisms of Linux

ccna01 — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:46:57 +0000

A few days ago I stumbled onto this website called Planete Beranger, and read some of this man’s mostly accurate problems and criticisms of Linux. You can read his post here, but I think that I can accurately sum up most of it. I would also be very grateful if you either leave a comment of your thoughts on this or e-mail them to me.

The first and main point of his was that bugs often never get fixed in many versions of Linux, Gnome, KDE, etc. because for some reason a completely new version has to be released every six months even though often times it takes a couple of months for a “stable” version to be working properly. I also fail to understand why the system needs to be completely redone every six months. Another one of his complaints (the one I agree with the most) is that there is essentially no consistency and/or real organization in the open source world. Another problem he mentions is that many programs built for KDE have a hard time running in Gnome and vice versa.

A part of this man’s argument that many Linux user’s will probably not like is there really is hard to give good reasons for Windows user’s to use Linux. I have also found it rather hard to promote Linux to anyone. There are also no really large commercial backers of desktop environments which is a great hindrance to (coherent) development. And if you have looked around the Gnome and KDE websites they could use a lot of work. He also goes over the fact that visual effects like a spinning cube are really not that important especially when the actual features required to do work often break in the newest release of something.

It also seems that distrobutions of Linux that use Gnome are using only single-panel layout(I did not know this one) which makes no sense considering that now you generally need to have two panels to hold everything.

He was also talking about Hans Reiser a little. It seems he was convicted of murderering his wife. I have no real information on this so I will not say much about it.

After this he goes off on a few different topics such as: problems with sub-pixel rendering, inconsistent patent policy in some versions of Linux, an article Britannica, and a few other things.

Mr. Beranger also got his Bugzilla account banned (look here) after asking for some documentation and offending some Gnome developer who would no just write up some short documentation. From what I read on the previous link I cannot blame Mr. Beranger for being angry at the Gnome developers.

It seems that he also used KDE 4 and found it to be rather annoying to use. I guess that I am not alone in thinking that maybe KDE 4 should have been released at least six months later.

My article about Chess in Linux also got mentioned in his website. Again, I do not fault him for saying that those chess games were not very good, that is why I stated that the games I went over needed a lot of work.

After this he goes over a few applications, how the internet is not going to shut down because it is unlikely that we will not have enough IPv4 addresses. There are these little things called Variable Length Subnet Masks, NAT, private addresses, and IPv6 is slowly being adopted. I am a CCNA, I like to at least think that I know something about networking.

Before I close this, I read a few other interesting things on this site. If you go to ubuntustats.com you will see that there are so many bugs in Ubuntu 8.04, this really should have been released in another six months to a year. And it seems I am not the only one who’s keyboard and mouse would just stop working for some odd reason.

To sum up, I believe most of his criticisms of Linux to be well-founded and accurate, although I wish that he did not bring politics into it (I am far more conservative than Mr. Beranger). Mr. Beranger wrote a pretty good article, at least I think so anyway. Please let me know what you think. I have some trigonometric identities to verify now, some other work to do, and I will be watching Ironman in a few hours, so that is all for now. Good day.

Sin Cere,

Dirk Limon

Chess in Linux

ccna01 — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 04:47:02 +0000

There are many (not all are very good) chess games in Linux. There is the one installed by default with the small game packages that come with Ubuntu and most versions of Linux that use Gnome, but I do not like this one very much. It is ok for basic play, but it is really not that good.

Another chess game that is slightly better is Dreamchess. This one looks fine and plays decently, but I do not really care for the pictures that represent those playing. There are also far better chess games in Linux. For an some reason though, I cannot get Dreamchess to load on the system I am currently using. Maybe it is because I am using the ATI Rage 128 Pro and the fact that this card has no driver in Linux. I should still be able to play a game of chess though.

PyChess is another chess game in Linux. I do not like either of the chess engines that PyChess can use (GNUChess and PyChess), but maybe it was just the way that PyChess used them. The computer made decisions to quickly and did not play very well. I also believe that the artists for this program could have made the pieces look nicer and appear more physically attractive.

Brutal Chess is actually pretty good. The board and pieces look nice, the AI is good, it actually take time to make a move. Alas, this game will also not load correctly. I imagine that I am having the same problem that Dreamchess is giving me, which is to bad.

3D Chess is an odd, yet interesting game. You have three boards upon which to play, a few new pieces, and no manual to tell me how the new pieces work!!! But this game looks quite cool though, a bit like chess in Star Trek. All it needs is a manual or a link to a website containing documentation. Also, there is no AI to handle this game, so you must have another person to play with. I also like the board names which are x, y, and z.

My favorite chess game in Linux though is pouet Chess. The computer fights quite effectively in this. Depending on the setting of difficulty, the system can take anywhere from two to ninety seconds to make a decision on a move. Playing against pouet Chess is harder than other game or person that I have ever played. I personally recommend this game for anyone really interested in chess. The board and pieces are also beautifully designed, more so than in any of the other chess games, including the two that refuse to run on my current system. I will probably add more to this review later, but for now I will just add a few pictures. Have fun everyone.

Playing Pychess How do I play 3D Chess again? My favorite, pouet Chess(now only if I cold beat it)

HPLIP troubles in Ubuntu 8.04

ccna01 — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:54:21 +0000

I had some problems with my HP Deskjet F4180 All-in-One, the scanner part anyway. I downloaded the HPLIP utility through Synaptic, installed it, and set up my printer using “sudo hp-setup“. The printing part worked fine, but scanning to my computer always failed in Ubuntu 8.04. There was no such problem in earlier versions of Ubuntu. So I looked around at ubuntuforums.org, then went to hplip.sourceforge.net, and downloaded HPLIP 2.8.4(automatic installer), saving it to my desktop.

To installed this utility, first run the command “cd” in whatever directory you saved the HPLIP utility in (example: “cd /home/dirk/desktop”), and then run “sh-hplip 2.8.4.run“. Make sure that you have your Linux installation disc ready. Once running the last command given in the terminal, you have a few different installation options which are: automatic, a web installer, and custom(what I used). You should be able to figure it out from here but I have attached many pictures just in case some part of my instructions made no sense. Godspeed to you.

Installing HPLIP 2.8.4

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5

part 6 part 7

I can finally use XSane.

A few more thoughts on Kubuntu 8.04 KDE 4 Beta

ccna01 — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:18:34 +0000

I have been using Kubuntu 8.04 KDE4 for a week now it runs better than Kubuntu 7.10. Kubuntu 7.10 was so horribly slow and full of bugs. I fail to understand how anyone could have used it. But the newest version of Kubuntu is actually nice. For the most part it runs well, but sometimes the KDE 4 programs just sort of “stick”, I guess that would be the best way to put it. I open say, Dragon Player, click on something in it and it just freezes for a few moments. But the KDE 3.5 programs do not do this, they run a little slow but they do not just freeze on me at least. And for some reason the Konsole/KDE4 does not work and KsCD will not play a CD. I also see no standby option for Kubuntu for some reason.

Now I have a few good things to say about KDE 4. It seems to run quite faster than KDE 3.5, the Application Launcher is far better organized, the desktop and menu bars look much nicer, and as I have already said, it runs much faster. I am for once not reviling how Kubuntu works(or does not work). I actually like KDE and Kubutu now. But of course I still like Ubuntu and Xubuntu better, and therefore Gnome and Xfce. In case you are interested in Kubuntu 8.04 or KDE 4 I have posted many new screenshots up of these items. And of course, if you want to download any version or derivative of Ubuntu 8.04 go to http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/beta.

Before I finish writing this, I guess that I should state why you should use Ubuntu 8.04. The main reason is that Ubuntu 8.04 has much better hardware support. As I have said before my system can finally go into standby mode properly, except for the sound card not waking back up when coming out of standby mode, instead of just getting stuck trying to turn off some hardware devices and going into a zombie state. My ATI video card also works much better. I guess that this is the only real reason to upgrade to the newest version of Ubuntu. I would really like to know what all of you reading this think of KDE 4 and Kubuntu 8.04. What have your experiences been? Alas, it is time for me to get back to work now so that is all for now.

Sin Cere,

Dirk Limon

Java problems in 8.04

ccna01 — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:55:58 +0000

Based upon some of the search terms that have been used to reach this site I guess I should write up a short post on how to get Java working in Ubuntu 8.04. One way is to symbolically link the proprietary version of Java you are using to your web browser. The other option is to install the open source version of Java, IcedTea.You can run the command “sudo apt-get install icedtea-java7-jre” to get it. It is also possible to get Java 6 to work correctly by linking it symbolically to Firefox, but for me this failed. I would lookin the ubuntu forums here at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=62186 if you wanted to use Java 6 and get it up and running correctly. Maybe you will have better luck than I did in getting it to work.

Sin Cere,

Dirk Limon