Posts tagged linux

Wow, I’ve been busy and I’ve continued to use Linux and continue to marvel at its overall stability and amazing uptime. Today I did all of my typed work on my laptop, it was a chore to use a laptop keyboard, but OpenOffice is so much more wonderful on Linux than any other platform I’ve tried it on, and of course I have the typical stand-by, Google Docs. A far I’ve only but this laptop in the name equivalent to ‘sleep’ in Mac terminology or ‘stand-by’ in Windows terminology for the past three days without a single issue, I haven’t done that with Windows since… ever.

I’ve discovered that there is a lot of scripting possibility in Linux, but I still can’t wrap my brain around Python, however Perl scripting should be more than adequate for me. Last time I wrote I mentioned that it doesn’t remember my wireless network password, I discovered why. I had to set up my KDE password wallet (similar to the Mac keychain). It now works fine and can transition from wired to wireless with ease, and contrary to what I originally thought, the wireless on/off switch works fine.

I suppose I should move on to my daily complaints about Linux that I will eventually find a fix for: first, there are no good twitter clients. Second, network printing is less than intuitive and I haven’t got it working yet. Third, Google Docs in Firefox doesn’t display the same font as on Windows. Forth, Flash player sucks. Fifth, flash player REALLY sucks. Sixth, It’s depressingly like Windows.
**You can ignore the sixth reason, it’s not really a legitimate argument.**

You can ignore most of the reasons that I’m hating on Linux as they aren’t that real, Flash Player is a bit slow, but nothing worse than using flash on a Pentium 4, and the font issue is just a slight variance that comes with a different operating system. I can’t encourage readers to give Linux a try, I l-o-v-e Kubuntu. It works well in a virtualization platform like Virtualbox, Parallels, or VMWare (Microsoft VirtualPC is on the fence and not-so good, if you need free, go Virtualbox), but there is nothing like running it actually. Remember that PCs catch viruses, the Macs marketshare is climbing and will soon have viruses, whereas Linux is purely for people in the know and probably won’t have all of the issues, but is at the same time great for just about anyone to use.

Today was not eventful in my Linux journey. I installed Java, not too much of an issue; but word to the wise, the current version which has a file name ending in -rpm.bin didn’t work and I had to go for the regular version entitled “self extractive”. I just used to ./filename.bin command and it installed right away.

I also had sound issues which were mostly unexplained in which I got system sounds (startup, shutdown, error, etc..) but no other sounds. I didn’t know what the issue was so I booted into Windows (gasp) to check if it was hardware and found that all audio stuttered. After about ten minutes of freaking out and drooling over possible replacements for this laptop I returned to Kubuntu and found that the PCM Audio volume was muted while all of the other volumes were set high in the KMix application/control panel. Adjusting this solved the problem entirely (except for that Windows issue, but Windows will be Windows.)

I guess I have this computer running steady and up to what I need; even better because the power management seems to be working a lot better than Windows’ power management. Tomorrow I will set out to solve the problem I have with the wireless manager not remembering my WPA-PSK password. Until then, I can say that Linux does pass the ‘family test’; a few people think it’s prettier than Vista or 7 and has come a l-o-n-g way since the last time I showed them it (Knopix 2.x, years ago). I think Microsoft should be sweating buckets, for about 90% of (home) users, (insert your favorite variety of) Linux is more than suitable… and because it’s a lot cheaper (The cost of Windows + annual subscription to antivirus) it would do just fine on a netbook/top.