Friday, June 27, 2008
More Recording Industry Misdeeds
Just in case you think I've been too hard on Big Media in previous posts, here's a new development that exposes them for the money-grubbers they truly are. The RIAA has actually had the temerity to assert that AM-FM radio play of music without making royalty payments is a form of piracy, according to an article at wired.com. This is all part of a bid by the music companies to find more ways to boost their profits without actually waking up and changing their way of doing business. They've been lobbying Congress to force AM-FM radio stations to pay royalties for music they play on the air, and according to a follow-up article, they're succeeding. I'm sure your local public radio or college radio station will be delighted to receive a $5,000 bill annually to provide a little corporate welfare for Big Media.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Linux Progress and Interesting Reading
I have not yet become sufficiently frustrated with my Linux installation to attempt returning to Window$, I'm pleased to report. I've figured out how to do all the "normal" stuff I do with a computer, and have functioning e-mail, web browsing, instant messaging, media player, and office suite programs installed and running. Some of the more sophisticated things I used to do under Vista, however, remain elusive. I spent hours trying to figure out how to convert an .avi video file encoded with DivX codecs into an SVCD I can play in a regular DVD player, and when I did finally figure it out, I had to run the appropriate program several times to get the format and file size right. When I did finally get the thing burned onto a CD and tried playing it, it didn't play at all in one of my media player programs on my laptop. I watched it with another program and found that the sound had seriously suffered, being now full of what sounded like periodic static bursts. I didn't bother trying it in my DVD player; I have another shiny new coaster. Anyhow, these are the kinds of little things are aggravatingly difficult to figure out under Linux. To some extent, I've been spoiled by certain Window$ programs that automate tasks like that entirely. Getting my webcam functioning will evidently also prove to be a serious challenge, possibly requiring modifications to my Linux kernel itself. Since this carries a risk of seriously screwing up my Linux installation, I'm very, very reluctant to do that for the sake of getting a $10 webcam I hardly ever use working. I am in the market for an inexpensive webcam with native Linux drivers. ;-) I'm still loving my KDE3 desktop in all other respects though. Here, as promised, is a screenshot. (I found out taking screenshots in Linux is absurdly easy since there was already a whole separate application installed just for that.)
In other news, I just finished the book Spook Country, by William Gibson. It was, to me, the most absorbing and provocative Gibson novel I've read to date, not least because it is loaded with references to medieval history and especially medieval heresies. Most of these references are in the musings of one specific character in the book, and I haven't quite decided if Gibson intended them purely as an aid to characterization or if there's something else at work. I listened to an unabridged audio version of the book, but I intend to at least listen to it again and note down these references, some of which are stunningly obscure. There is also reference made to a specific book on medieval heresies; I hadn't heard of it, but that doesn't mean it's not a real book and I'm naturally curious to catch the title again and make note of it. It was strange indeed, surreal actually, to read a novel by one of my personal idols that brings together some of the oddly disparate strands of my own life into one story, and I am not at all limiting myself to the conjunction of medieval history and high technology. Reading fiction has become a rare treat for me over the last few years and I certainly never expected the novel to resonate on so many levels for me. Spooky, indeed.
In other news, I just finished the book Spook Country, by William Gibson. It was, to me, the most absorbing and provocative Gibson novel I've read to date, not least because it is loaded with references to medieval history and especially medieval heresies. Most of these references are in the musings of one specific character in the book, and I haven't quite decided if Gibson intended them purely as an aid to characterization or if there's something else at work. I listened to an unabridged audio version of the book, but I intend to at least listen to it again and note down these references, some of which are stunningly obscure. There is also reference made to a specific book on medieval heresies; I hadn't heard of it, but that doesn't mean it's not a real book and I'm naturally curious to catch the title again and make note of it. It was strange indeed, surreal actually, to read a novel by one of my personal idols that brings together some of the oddly disparate strands of my own life into one story, and I am not at all limiting myself to the conjunction of medieval history and high technology. Reading fiction has become a rare treat for me over the last few years and I certainly never expected the novel to resonate on so many levels for me. Spooky, indeed.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Mission Accomplished
It was even more time-consuming and frustrating than I expected, but I have finally liberated my laptop from the Micro$oft gulag. There are an awful lot of Linux distributions available to choose from (more than I care to count), but as I noted in a previous entry I chose Kubuntu, the version of Ubuntu that uses K Desktop Environment instead of GNOME desktop. For those who don't remember back to Window$ 3.1 days, the concept of a graphical desktop environment separate from the operating system might be confusing, but suffice it to say that KDE and GNOME are two alternative desktop environments a Linux user can choose from. In my previous experiments with Linux installations, I've typically used KDE, so I figured it would be wise to stick with what I do at least know a little about. Furthermore, I knew that Ubuntu would run on my model of laptop and all my laptop's hardware would work. Ubuntu was recommended to me by a geeky friend for a completely different project as well, so the choice of distribution was ultimately pretty easy.
Ubuntu's most recent stable version (a version that's been thoroughly bug tested and known to run without major issues), 8.04, was released in April of this year and is supposed to work even better on my laptop than previous releases did, so that's the version I decided to go with. Much older versions of most Linux distributions continue to be available normally for those who need them, unlike Window$. Try finding a copy of Window$ 3.1 these days should you have a superannuated computer that can't run anything more recent... Anyway, Ubuntu 8.04 is called Hardy Heron in an endearing practice Ubuntu follows of code-naming stable release versions. Lots of people still use Gutsy Gibbon, Feisty Fawn, and Dapper Drake releases. Furthermore, Hardy Heron is available with either KDE version 3 or KDE version 4 and I decided to download the KDE4 package because, well, you know... it's new and cool! I downloaded the newest disk image of Hardy Heron with KDE4 and burned it to CD. Burning a disk image is a little bit more involved than just burning music CDs and requires a slightly more sophisticated burning program like, say Alcohol 120% or Nero Burning ROM or any number of open-source alternatives. After burning the disk, I booted from it into the "live" version... one really cool thing about Linux distributions is that the installation disk almost always doubles as a "live" disk that allows you to actually start up Linux on your computer without actually installing anything and take it for a "test drive."
The hard disk on my laptop was already partitioned, or divided into more than one section, because it had come that way when I bought it. I tried moving around a lot of files between the two main partitions to free up one nice, long continuous space to make a new partition for Linux. You see, just in case I had problems, I didn't want to copy right over Vista right away. This process proved very frustrating because the built-in tools in Vista for managing your hard drive are not really all that great and don't give you much control. For instance, I wanted to try to make some empty space at the beginning of the last partition on the disk but Vista wouldn't let me; it would only let me make space at the end, which was stupid. I did my best then to move a lot of things off the second partition and use the end of that instead.
I went ahead and installed Hardy Heron on the space I'd cleared out. Installing Linux really isn't a particularly complex task; the only part you have to be really careful about it is telling it WHERE to install itself since it gives you several options and unless you've truly backed up everything on your hard drive elsewhere (increasingly unlikely with the size of hard drives these days) you certainly don't want to let it use the entire hard drive. The installation went pretty smoothly and I had a nice new KDE4 desktop to play with. Linux automatically detects the presence of other operating systems on your computer and, assuming you don't copy over them, sets up a nice little menu that you can pick from when starting your computer. The only sort of tricky part is that for my laptop, the piece of software that it installs to run the wireless network card has to be disabled and I had to install a different package to make it work right. From my research before installing, I knew this would be necessary and had instructions available. Other than that, all the hardware functioned perfectly except that stupid sliding switch on the front for turning off your wireless card, which I hate since I'm of course always triggering it accidentally at the worst possible times.
With Linux installed, I did a lot of housecleaning, continuing to move files around and try to salvage some space. At some point, though, I made a fatal mistake; from within Vista I deleted a partition that I thought was just unused space I had cleared out... I think it was actually one of the many partitions that Linux tends to create, however, because when I restarted my computer I couldn't load either operating system. Oops....
I decided at this point that I was already hopelessly confused about what partition was what and that I had moved all the files I needed to the last partition, so it was time to really take the plunge. I erased everything on all the partitions except the last one, including the 10% of your hard drive that laptop manufacturers now hog up with recovery junk since Micro$oft doesn't even want you to have your own disk for the operating system you bought with your laptop. Grrr... Anyway, I reinstalled the whole thing and got back my nice KDE4 desktop. I had to configure the wireless card again, which was annoying, but once that was done I proceeded to what is usually the first task on Linux installations: fetching the enormous list of available updates and installing them. Though I must say, the process still only takes about 15 minutes and that's way faster than on most Window$ versions.
My first hint of problems to come started with installing updates. The application used for managing the programs and similar files on my Linux installation, called Synaptic Package Manager, actually failed to finish the last couple updates and froze. This happened a couple more times when I was installing extra files and programs I needed or wanted. A couple times I had to restart Linux more than once because my wireless internet connection didn't automatically start in KDE4 and I couldn't figure out how to start it manually. I had problems getting Wine, the application for running Windows programs, up and running properly. I had trouble with sound in some programs but not in others. I couldn't figure out the interface for the sound mixer and it didn't seem to be set up right. I had problems with Synaptic Package Manager so many times I eventually started installing everything from the command line if I knew the name of what I wanted. I couldn't get any music to play in Amarok, the premier music player for Linux, and it kept giving me error messages. I tried uninstalling what I thought to be the files responsible for the problem, thinking I would reinstall them afresh after a restart. Restarts really are hardly ever necessary in Linux, unlike Window$, but it's a habit.
I restarted my laptop and noticed a couple error messages and ended up with command line login prompt. This is bad. This is like crashing to the flashing white cursor in Window$. At this point, after the hours I had spent installing my favorite game and getting it to run right, importing my music, etc. I was, well, not happy. VERY not happy. I spent a couple hours searching the Internet on a different computer trying anything I could think of to get KDE4 to load. Nothing doing. I kept getting messages about files being missing. Eventually, I felt I'd exhausted my options, but I decided that rather than reinstall Kubuntu AGAIN right away, I'd try the IRC channel for Kubuntu support, basically a kind of international chat room where nice people try to help you if you are polite and capable of describing your problem well. About an hour of following the directions of a the kindly "mefisto_" got me to the point where I could log into the desktop running KDE3, the next most recent version of KDE. Apparently, the erratic behavior I'd been noticing (not characteristic of Linux typically) was a symptom of the fact that KDE4 is very, very new and possibly not quite ready for prime time. Theoretically, I could try to recover the KDE4 desktop I created and run it, but I really couldn't think of any decent reason to try that. KDE3 is perfectly serviceable; it just lacks some of the high-end, "gee whiz," graphical desktop effects that are, as best I can tell, designed to compete with Vista for sexiness.
Screw that. I decided to stick with KDE3, which worked beautifully. No problems with Synaptic Package Manager, a much easier mixer panel, no problems with Amarok or sound. I didn't have to reinstall many programs, and most of the ones I did have to reinstall found their old settings so I at least didn't have to set them up all over again. I had a lot of fun customizing my desktops. Yes, plural. KDE has long had support for multiple desktops that you can page through. I just use two, but you can use a lot more than that. Anyway, my two desktops have two different wallpapers, just for fun, and I customized the color scheme, window appearance, and icon themes. It's pretty much black, white, and gray now, with these cool black and white icons. KDE menus are much better organized than in Window$, so the desktop tends to stay cleaner; when you can actually find stuff in the menu, you don't need a fistful of desktop shortcuts. One glance at my desktop would be enough to let you know it ain't Micro$oft, though if I wanted to I could also make it so closely resemble Windows XP you might be hard pressed to figure it out. The desktop appearance is far, far more configurable in KDE. Once I figure out how to take a screen shot of my desktop(s) I'll post it up.
I'm still in the learning curve, which is pretty steep for Linux, but this distribution is by far the easiest one I've tried yet. It's already leaps and bounds ahead of the version of Linspire I tried a couple years ago, or the version of Mandriva I tried a couple years before that. After this weekend, a lot of the most common commands are becoming second nature already. I'm still trying to find all the right programs to do all the different tasks I'm used to doing, but making progress. I'm also delighted that my PortableApps flash drive runs beautifully under Wine, which is totally awesome since that's where my Zotero library is and I have no desire to try to synch that between two different machines or any such nonsense. So, though not without boredom, frustration, dismay, confusion, and occasional compucidal urges, I at last have a functioning Linux desktop on my laptop and my copy of Vista has gone to the recycle bin in the sky.
Ubuntu's most recent stable version (a version that's been thoroughly bug tested and known to run without major issues), 8.04, was released in April of this year and is supposed to work even better on my laptop than previous releases did, so that's the version I decided to go with. Much older versions of most Linux distributions continue to be available normally for those who need them, unlike Window$. Try finding a copy of Window$ 3.1 these days should you have a superannuated computer that can't run anything more recent... Anyway, Ubuntu 8.04 is called Hardy Heron in an endearing practice Ubuntu follows of code-naming stable release versions. Lots of people still use Gutsy Gibbon, Feisty Fawn, and Dapper Drake releases. Furthermore, Hardy Heron is available with either KDE version 3 or KDE version 4 and I decided to download the KDE4 package because, well, you know... it's new and cool! I downloaded the newest disk image of Hardy Heron with KDE4 and burned it to CD. Burning a disk image is a little bit more involved than just burning music CDs and requires a slightly more sophisticated burning program like, say Alcohol 120% or Nero Burning ROM or any number of open-source alternatives. After burning the disk, I booted from it into the "live" version... one really cool thing about Linux distributions is that the installation disk almost always doubles as a "live" disk that allows you to actually start up Linux on your computer without actually installing anything and take it for a "test drive."
The hard disk on my laptop was already partitioned, or divided into more than one section, because it had come that way when I bought it. I tried moving around a lot of files between the two main partitions to free up one nice, long continuous space to make a new partition for Linux. You see, just in case I had problems, I didn't want to copy right over Vista right away. This process proved very frustrating because the built-in tools in Vista for managing your hard drive are not really all that great and don't give you much control. For instance, I wanted to try to make some empty space at the beginning of the last partition on the disk but Vista wouldn't let me; it would only let me make space at the end, which was stupid. I did my best then to move a lot of things off the second partition and use the end of that instead.
I went ahead and installed Hardy Heron on the space I'd cleared out. Installing Linux really isn't a particularly complex task; the only part you have to be really careful about it is telling it WHERE to install itself since it gives you several options and unless you've truly backed up everything on your hard drive elsewhere (increasingly unlikely with the size of hard drives these days) you certainly don't want to let it use the entire hard drive. The installation went pretty smoothly and I had a nice new KDE4 desktop to play with. Linux automatically detects the presence of other operating systems on your computer and, assuming you don't copy over them, sets up a nice little menu that you can pick from when starting your computer. The only sort of tricky part is that for my laptop, the piece of software that it installs to run the wireless network card has to be disabled and I had to install a different package to make it work right. From my research before installing, I knew this would be necessary and had instructions available. Other than that, all the hardware functioned perfectly except that stupid sliding switch on the front for turning off your wireless card, which I hate since I'm of course always triggering it accidentally at the worst possible times.
With Linux installed, I did a lot of housecleaning, continuing to move files around and try to salvage some space. At some point, though, I made a fatal mistake; from within Vista I deleted a partition that I thought was just unused space I had cleared out... I think it was actually one of the many partitions that Linux tends to create, however, because when I restarted my computer I couldn't load either operating system. Oops....
I decided at this point that I was already hopelessly confused about what partition was what and that I had moved all the files I needed to the last partition, so it was time to really take the plunge. I erased everything on all the partitions except the last one, including the 10% of your hard drive that laptop manufacturers now hog up with recovery junk since Micro$oft doesn't even want you to have your own disk for the operating system you bought with your laptop. Grrr... Anyway, I reinstalled the whole thing and got back my nice KDE4 desktop. I had to configure the wireless card again, which was annoying, but once that was done I proceeded to what is usually the first task on Linux installations: fetching the enormous list of available updates and installing them. Though I must say, the process still only takes about 15 minutes and that's way faster than on most Window$ versions.
My first hint of problems to come started with installing updates. The application used for managing the programs and similar files on my Linux installation, called Synaptic Package Manager, actually failed to finish the last couple updates and froze. This happened a couple more times when I was installing extra files and programs I needed or wanted. A couple times I had to restart Linux more than once because my wireless internet connection didn't automatically start in KDE4 and I couldn't figure out how to start it manually. I had problems getting Wine, the application for running Windows programs, up and running properly. I had trouble with sound in some programs but not in others. I couldn't figure out the interface for the sound mixer and it didn't seem to be set up right. I had problems with Synaptic Package Manager so many times I eventually started installing everything from the command line if I knew the name of what I wanted. I couldn't get any music to play in Amarok, the premier music player for Linux, and it kept giving me error messages. I tried uninstalling what I thought to be the files responsible for the problem, thinking I would reinstall them afresh after a restart. Restarts really are hardly ever necessary in Linux, unlike Window$, but it's a habit.
I restarted my laptop and noticed a couple error messages and ended up with command line login prompt. This is bad. This is like crashing to the flashing white cursor in Window$. At this point, after the hours I had spent installing my favorite game and getting it to run right, importing my music, etc. I was, well, not happy. VERY not happy. I spent a couple hours searching the Internet on a different computer trying anything I could think of to get KDE4 to load. Nothing doing. I kept getting messages about files being missing. Eventually, I felt I'd exhausted my options, but I decided that rather than reinstall Kubuntu AGAIN right away, I'd try the IRC channel for Kubuntu support, basically a kind of international chat room where nice people try to help you if you are polite and capable of describing your problem well. About an hour of following the directions of a the kindly "mefisto_" got me to the point where I could log into the desktop running KDE3, the next most recent version of KDE. Apparently, the erratic behavior I'd been noticing (not characteristic of Linux typically) was a symptom of the fact that KDE4 is very, very new and possibly not quite ready for prime time. Theoretically, I could try to recover the KDE4 desktop I created and run it, but I really couldn't think of any decent reason to try that. KDE3 is perfectly serviceable; it just lacks some of the high-end, "gee whiz," graphical desktop effects that are, as best I can tell, designed to compete with Vista for sexiness.
Screw that. I decided to stick with KDE3, which worked beautifully. No problems with Synaptic Package Manager, a much easier mixer panel, no problems with Amarok or sound. I didn't have to reinstall many programs, and most of the ones I did have to reinstall found their old settings so I at least didn't have to set them up all over again. I had a lot of fun customizing my desktops. Yes, plural. KDE has long had support for multiple desktops that you can page through. I just use two, but you can use a lot more than that. Anyway, my two desktops have two different wallpapers, just for fun, and I customized the color scheme, window appearance, and icon themes. It's pretty much black, white, and gray now, with these cool black and white icons. KDE menus are much better organized than in Window$, so the desktop tends to stay cleaner; when you can actually find stuff in the menu, you don't need a fistful of desktop shortcuts. One glance at my desktop would be enough to let you know it ain't Micro$oft, though if I wanted to I could also make it so closely resemble Windows XP you might be hard pressed to figure it out. The desktop appearance is far, far more configurable in KDE. Once I figure out how to take a screen shot of my desktop(s) I'll post it up.
I'm still in the learning curve, which is pretty steep for Linux, but this distribution is by far the easiest one I've tried yet. It's already leaps and bounds ahead of the version of Linspire I tried a couple years ago, or the version of Mandriva I tried a couple years before that. After this weekend, a lot of the most common commands are becoming second nature already. I'm still trying to find all the right programs to do all the different tasks I'm used to doing, but making progress. I'm also delighted that my PortableApps flash drive runs beautifully under Wine, which is totally awesome since that's where my Zotero library is and I have no desire to try to synch that between two different machines or any such nonsense. So, though not without boredom, frustration, dismay, confusion, and occasional compucidal urges, I at last have a functioning Linux desktop on my laptop and my copy of Vista has gone to the recycle bin in the sky.
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