I have been running the box for over 2 and a half months now. (Notice that Linux machines are always called Boxes for some reason) Things were really shaky at first and it continues to be a struggle when I try to do new things for the first time. If this were my only computer, I think I could manage to find the programs and resources I need to become as proficient with the operating system and applications as I am on my windows machine, but at this time I do not see the need to spend the time doing so. Other than the fact that it is all supposed to be free (as I learned the things I REALLY want aren't so "free") I see no valid reason to switch from the windows environment to the Linux world.
For the benefit of anyone that doesn't want to read through everything I have posted, the following 9 posts are the ones I have deemed most noteworthy. They are in reverse order so that they can be read by going through the blog from top to bottom. (or thanks to a suggestion by Jennifer L, you may click the links)
1. Memory Fun
2. Network Folders
3. Becoming a Linux Geek
4. I commited a CRIME
5. A Little R&R
6. Something Cool
7. Zip ping along
8. A Noble Thought A Royal Pain
9. Hardware / Drive Tests
To my loyal reader, (I only had 1) I hope you have enjoyed my blog as much as I have enjoyed creating it. There are no guarantees as to the next time I will post here or how long this information will remain so enjoy it while you can.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Faster Boot Time
I put a new CD Drive in the computer to see if it would work. Two things happened. The first is that my computer loads much much faster now. It boots in under 2 minutes instead of taking well over 5 minutes. Also, the CD drive works again. Not sure what was wrong with the other drive or why it was slowing the whole boot process down, but since it works, I don't REALLY need to know.
Also, while I was going through the process of swapping out CD drives, on one of my boots I got a display that informed me that the computer was checking my Hard Drive since it had been mounted 30 times without being checked.
Also, while I was going through the process of swapping out CD drives, on one of my boots I got a display that informed me that the computer was checking my Hard Drive since it had been mounted 30 times without being checked.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Back to Blogging
So it's not that I haven't used the UNIX machine in the last 16 days... I have used it the couple of days that I was actually in my office. There was a Holiday for Good Friday on the 6th, Then I was out of work the 12th-16th. The rest of the days were the same boring stuff it has been for a while now. There were more updates and I did some web design. I printed a few handouts from the mapped drive. Other than that there was nothing exciting (or abnormal) until today.
I brought in some CDs to listen to while at work and it turns out that my CD drive is no longer mounted. The disks don't even spin in the drive. It still appears in the PLACES->Computer window, but when I click on it is says it can't mount it because no media was found. I even tried rebooting. O'well... I'll let you know if I find a solution.
I brought in some CDs to listen to while at work and it turns out that my CD drive is no longer mounted. The disks don't even spin in the drive. It still appears in the PLACES->Computer window, but when I click on it is says it can't mount it because no media was found. I even tried rebooting. O'well... I'll let you know if I find a solution.
Monday, April 2, 2007
A few things
Four updates this morning. 2 security, 1 recommended, and 1 back port.
gFTP was giving me problems. Turns out it is not a DRAG and DROP interface like SSH. In any case, every time I go Drag and Drop it generates error messages.
Going back to playing with the memory (see previous post) after using the computer for 5 hours, I did a FREE command. It is using 17620 of the Swap memory. The only thing I have open that I am using is Firefox to type in the blog. I closed everything else.
Looking at the System Monitor, Firefox is taking up 40.9 MG there are 18 applications taking up between 1 and 10 and 9 applications taking up less than 1.
gFTP was giving me problems. Turns out it is not a DRAG and DROP interface like SSH. In any case, every time I go Drag and Drop it generates error messages.
Going back to playing with the memory (see previous post) after using the computer for 5 hours, I did a FREE command. It is using 17620 of the Swap memory. The only thing I have open that I am using is Firefox to type in the blog. I closed everything else.
Looking at the System Monitor, Firefox is taking up 40.9 MG there are 18 applications taking up between 1 and 10 and 9 applications taking up less than 1.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Memory Fun
I saw the article http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linux-memory.html? which discusses how to reduce your memory footprint in Linux. I decided to check it out and play around. I booted my computer and issued the free command.
I had 385876 available, 266060 used and I had 851404 in my swap and 0 being used
I then launched GAIM, Firefox, and Evolution. My used jumped to 343732 but still nothing in the swap.
I then launched a streaming radio station, gFTP, and Text Editor. These are the things I typically run when I edit webpages (the majority of what I do on the computer) My used memory jumped to 374880 and there still was nothing in the swap, but I was getting close.
Based on the article, I use the biggest memory hogs... Firefox, OpenOffice, and Gaim, but they don't seem to be a problem. My system doesn't go REALLY fast, but it isn't unbearably slow either.
I checked out the system monitor and it showed only a few items using over 1 mg. Firefox was the worst at almost 20mg. The other thing was that the applications still took up memory, but they were "sleeping" after I closed them.
So I didn't get anything really useful out of the article, but maybe someone reading this will.
I had 385876 available, 266060 used and I had 851404 in my swap and 0 being used
I then launched GAIM, Firefox, and Evolution. My used jumped to 343732 but still nothing in the swap.
I then launched a streaming radio station, gFTP, and Text Editor. These are the things I typically run when I edit webpages (the majority of what I do on the computer) My used memory jumped to 374880 and there still was nothing in the swap, but I was getting close.
Based on the article, I use the biggest memory hogs... Firefox, OpenOffice, and Gaim, but they don't seem to be a problem. My system doesn't go REALLY fast, but it isn't unbearably slow either.
I checked out the system monitor and it showed only a few items using over 1 mg. Firefox was the worst at almost 20mg. The other thing was that the applications still took up memory, but they were "sleeping" after I closed them.
So I didn't get anything really useful out of the article, but maybe someone reading this will.
Today the Gnome can Kiss my ###
Okay, so I thought we still had to do the class assignment where we play with the Mapping Tools. I tried to use the two programs (other than inspiration) that we had in class. These things just don't work in Linux. I could not get CMAP tools because the retarded thing would not get past the registration page. FreeMind has two installs. Being familiar with Debian I clicked on that one and was taken to a page where I would have to download and figure out 5 different files. So I said screw it to both of them and went into the Synaptic Package Manager. I did a search for Freemind and it returned a package called Kdissert. I installed it and checked it out.
Kdissert was not very intuitive, but after a quick look into the help file things started to roll along. I got the things added that I had on the map that I created in class and used the program to "create documents" I told it to create a single page HTML which I posted at http://web.utk.edu/~jrieger/cookies Check it out, it looks like crap!
So I wanted the picture... this thing only exports PNG files... I can create a PNG, take it into GIMP, make a jpg, and share that... sounds like a waste of effort to me so I made a JAVA applet. That was a big mistake. I created the files, read the readme file, compiled the applet and opened the main.html in Firefox. Apparently Firefox did not have the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and it refused to install it. I tried a manual install, but got lost when the directions told me to go to the folder with mozilla plugins and make a symbolic link from there to the JRE folder. Why in the world can't they just make the %*^&ing thing work in the first place?
Undaunted but saying things that would make a sailor blush, I returned to the Synaptic Package Manager and performed a search for JAVA. From there I installed all the JAVA Environments I could find (like 20 files 186 Meg...) and then tried my file in firefox...
I got the message HOSTILE APPLETS WILL STEAL AND/OR DESTROY YOUR DATA!! I thought what the hell, if it breaks then at least I will have an excuse not to finish figuring this out so I added it to my White list. There it was, my pretty picture.
I uploaded it to my Unix account with several problems which I'm not going to detail here because I really have no idea what the problem was. It involved me getting disconnect several times and having to reconnect before things just worked. You can TRY to view it at http://web.utk.edu/~jrieger/cookies2 but I tried it in I.E. on my Windows machine and it decided not to work.
While I am at it, I might as well also mention that the idiot that programmed the Kdissert to make main.html the default file name for the webpage files needs to be tarred and feathered. I know... It is open source, if I had the time and knowledge I could just re-write the program and fix it, but I don't have the time or the knowledge.
So, something that would not have been a problem and would have worked in less than 15 minutes in a Windows environment took me almost 2 hours in Linux and is still not right.
Kdissert was not very intuitive, but after a quick look into the help file things started to roll along. I got the things added that I had on the map that I created in class and used the program to "create documents" I told it to create a single page HTML which I posted at http://web.utk.edu/~jrieger/cookies Check it out, it looks like crap!
So I wanted the picture... this thing only exports PNG files... I can create a PNG, take it into GIMP, make a jpg, and share that... sounds like a waste of effort to me so I made a JAVA applet. That was a big mistake. I created the files, read the readme file, compiled the applet and opened the main.html in Firefox. Apparently Firefox did not have the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and it refused to install it. I tried a manual install, but got lost when the directions told me to go to the folder with mozilla plugins and make a symbolic link from there to the JRE folder. Why in the world can't they just make the %*^&ing thing work in the first place?
Undaunted but saying things that would make a sailor blush, I returned to the Synaptic Package Manager and performed a search for JAVA. From there I installed all the JAVA Environments I could find (like 20 files 186 Meg...) and then tried my file in firefox...
I got the message HOSTILE APPLETS WILL STEAL AND/OR DESTROY YOUR DATA!! I thought what the hell, if it breaks then at least I will have an excuse not to finish figuring this out so I added it to my White list. There it was, my pretty picture.
I uploaded it to my Unix account with several problems which I'm not going to detail here because I really have no idea what the problem was. It involved me getting disconnect several times and having to reconnect before things just worked. You can TRY to view it at http://web.utk.edu/~jrieger/cookies2 but I tried it in I.E. on my Windows machine and it decided not to work.
While I am at it, I might as well also mention that the idiot that programmed the Kdissert to make main.html the default file name for the webpage files needs to be tarred and feathered. I know... It is open source, if I had the time and knowledge I could just re-write the program and fix it, but I don't have the time or the knowledge.
So, something that would not have been a problem and would have worked in less than 15 minutes in a Windows environment took me almost 2 hours in Linux and is still not right.
UGGG Updates
So I must admit I have neglected my computer since Friday. I wasn't at work Monday and I attended and taught class on Tuesday. Today there were 40 updates waiting!!! 87.6MB... 24 security updates and 16 recommended updates. One of the "Recommended" updates was for a thing called "Popularity Contest" which "Votes for your favourite packages automatically" This was an UPDATE so someone decided to put the stupid thing on there without my knowledge. Next task... turn it off!!
I'm getting a little tired of all the updates. I know they are supposed to keep me safe and secure, but all I ever do anymore is perform updates!
I'm getting a little tired of all the updates. I know they are supposed to keep me safe and secure, but all I ever do anymore is perform updates!
Friday, March 23, 2007
And the Updates Keep Coming
7 updates this morning... well at least that was the claim. The really wierd thing though is that it claimed there were 7 and it said it downloaded 7 files, but it only listed 5 updates in the update manager.
There were 2 security updates and 3 backports. I'm not sure what the other two files were. I guess for now I just have to trust that everything is safe. Of course it would be kind of interesting to see what a virus does to this computer...
There were 2 security updates and 3 backports. I'm not sure what the other two files were. I guess for now I just have to trust that everything is safe. Of course it would be kind of interesting to see what a virus does to this computer...
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Again with the Updates
This morning there were 3 more updates, a total of 1.2MB. All three of them were recommended updates that updated the English Language Pack on various applications.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Updates gone wild
I had another update when I logged in today. This one was a security update and was a whopping 167Kb. There seem to be lots of updates here lately. I remember when I first set up and went almost a week without updates and now there are new ones almost every time I turn on the computer...
Monday, March 19, 2007
Fixed it
Okay, so in the software updates window I clicked on help. When that loaded I selected the Setting Preferences Option. It talked about the "Update Manager Preferences button" which I could not find anywhere. Being aware of stuff like this, I right clicked on the little update manager icon that comes up and alerts me that I have updates. One of the menu options was "Preferences" I clicked on this and went through the tabs along the top. Under Third Party I found an entry for Automatix. I removed the entry from the list and applied the changes. Now it does not look to update Automatix when it does a search for new updates. Not the most intuitive solution. Even Microsoft has a "Don't show this update again" option, but it worked so I can't complain to much.
Now what else can I break...?
Now what else can I break...?
Back At It
Okay, so I spend the first half of last week sick. When I finally returned to work, I spent the rest of the time working on converting some of the websites I am in charge of to the new UTK Templates. It was all pretty boring from a discovery of Ubuntu standpoint.
In any case, when I got back to work this morning, I noticed that I had updates. There were 6 of them totaling 5.4MB. However, there was a new twist to the updates this morning. I no longer only have security updates, I now have multiple categories of updates. Today I had
1 Security Update, 2 recommended updates, 2 Backport updates and 1 "other" update.
I told it to go ahead and perform all of the updates and I got a warning message: Warning you are about to install software that can't be authenticated! Doing this could allow a malicious individual to damage or take control of your system.
Well of course this doomsday message is not what you want to see first thing on a Monday morning so I canceled the install and told it not to install the software it could not authenticate (Automatix 2 - that piece of software I installed because it was recommended, but then got rid of because it was worthless...) and let it do the rest of the updates. They went smooth, but now my computer always alerts me to the fact that I have an update available. I can't figure out how to tell it I don't want the update and I don't want to know about the update anymore either...
Guess I have some digging to do.
In any case, when I got back to work this morning, I noticed that I had updates. There were 6 of them totaling 5.4MB. However, there was a new twist to the updates this morning. I no longer only have security updates, I now have multiple categories of updates. Today I had
1 Security Update, 2 recommended updates, 2 Backport updates and 1 "other" update.
I told it to go ahead and perform all of the updates and I got a warning message: Warning you are about to install software that can't be authenticated! Doing this could allow a malicious individual to damage or take control of your system.
Well of course this doomsday message is not what you want to see first thing on a Monday morning so I canceled the install and told it not to install the software it could not authenticate (Automatix 2 - that piece of software I installed because it was recommended, but then got rid of because it was worthless...) and let it do the rest of the updates. They went smooth, but now my computer always alerts me to the fact that I have an update available. I can't figure out how to tell it I don't want the update and I don't want to know about the update anymore either...
Guess I have some digging to do.
Friday, March 9, 2007
Finally a new post
It has been over a week since my last post and I must admit that that is due to the fact that I really haven't done much. Most of my week was spent running around in circles. I did some web page updates but nothing new there.
I played with Open Office Chart as part of the spreadsheet assignment for class. I found that it was just as easy to use as Excel. I don't like the graph creator in Chart as well as the one in excel, but the functions that I use on a regular basis were all there and easy to use.
This week also had an unusual number of updates. There were 11 updates totaling 14.2 MB. That was up quite a bit from the previous weeks.
In any case, unless I find some more fun and exciting things to do and play with, I will probably drop down to only one or two posts a week for the duration of this project.
I played with Open Office Chart as part of the spreadsheet assignment for class. I found that it was just as easy to use as Excel. I don't like the graph creator in Chart as well as the one in excel, but the functions that I use on a regular basis were all there and easy to use.
This week also had an unusual number of updates. There were 11 updates totaling 14.2 MB. That was up quite a bit from the previous weeks.
In any case, unless I find some more fun and exciting things to do and play with, I will probably drop down to only one or two posts a week for the duration of this project.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Early End of Week
I am not going to be at work tomorrow so this is the end of the week for me. I did some work on some images in GIMP today. Nothing note worthy occurred. When I got ready to shut down the computer two updates were waiting (7.3 Mb). I am a little curious about these ones though because they were labeled Non-Free Linux 2.6.17 Modules... I didn't supply any credit card information though. Hopefully I won't get a bill either!
I'm going to enjoy a weekend in Pigeon Forge. And you (my loyal fan(s)) enjoy your weekend wherever you are.
I'm going to enjoy a weekend in Pigeon Forge. And you (my loyal fan(s)) enjoy your weekend wherever you are.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Digital Camera Magic
I took a few pictures with a digital camera last night and decided to try to pull them onto my Ubuntu machine. I plugged in the USB cable and turned the camera on then crossed my fingers. After a few seconds, a window popped up and alerted me that the OS had found a digital image card and wanted to know if I would like to import the images or ignore the card. I told it I wanted to import the images and it brought up a program that looked like the file viewer (places). When I went to the file menu though, there was an import option. I selected this and filled in the dialog box. I was able to pull all the images over to a folder on my HD. I got yelled at by the software when I disconnected the camera though because I didn't unmount the device before I turned it off. That is a "Serious Risk to my Data"... Anyway, it all worked out okay.
Network Folders
We have a network drive that my team uses to store all the handouts we use in our training classes. Today I needed access to one of the handouts so it was time to learn how to map a drive in Ubuntu. I started by going to google and searching for "mapping network drive Ubuntu" There was what appeared to be a very useful link on how to do it except that the mount command did not work. I got a random OR error which told me nothing. I looked some more on Google but could not find anything useful. I sent an e-mail to the only person on campus I know that uses Linux and he replied with the same mount command. When I told him I was getting errors he told me to try a different file system type. I had tried cifs and he recommended I try smbfs. I got the same error message and stopped pursing it from that angle. The error message for the curious (or helpful although I don't think many of them read this page) was
*****
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock
on //cygnus.cas.utk.edu/common$,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so
*****
Having failed to mount the drive, I went under places and started playing with the Connect to Server Option. After four different configurations, I figured out how to connect to the server. I would like to figure out how to mount it so I don't have to connect to it each time I need it, but I only need it a few times a month anyway so no great deal of pain suffered from that.
*****
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock
on //cygnus.cas.utk.edu/common$,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so
*****
Having failed to mount the drive, I went under places and started playing with the Connect to Server Option. After four different configurations, I figured out how to connect to the server. I would like to figure out how to mount it so I don't have to connect to it each time I need it, but I only need it a few times a month anyway so no great deal of pain suffered from that.
Becoming a Linux Geek
First off, a little house keeping...
Updates: When I was ready to shut my computer down last night there were 4 updates totaling 9.8Mb waiting. When I booted up this morning there was an additional update (192Kb) waiting.
GAIM: Found an annoying quirk. When it goes into away mode, it does not automatically bring me back to available. The result is that I do not have alerts when I receive a message. I have to manually place myself into away mode then put myself back on available for things to work again.
Evolution: I took me a few minutes of searching to discover that the option for showing pictures in an e-mail is under "View" then "Load Images" I expected to be able to right click or click somewhere in the message like with other mail programs. When it wasn't that way, I looked under the "Message" menu first then went to searching all of the menus. I also received a meeting request yesterday that I clicked on accept multiple times, but nothing happened.
Now for the exciting news (okay, it really isn't, but I was pleased with myself). Armed with the knowledge from the website I cited yesterday (see A GREAT SITE) I decided to use the terminal to uninstall Licq. It worked out very well and, to me anyway, was more efficient then going into the package manager to remove it. It took out three of the components then gave me instructions on how to remove the last component that was no longer needed.
I issued the command 'sudo apt-get remove licq' The terminal window came back with some information among which was the line "The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer needed use apt-get remove automatic to remove them" so I issued that command and it removed the remaining package. It took alot less time than firing up the SPM and letting it refresh from the repositories, finding the application in the menu, applying the changes then letting it refresh again.
Updates: When I was ready to shut my computer down last night there were 4 updates totaling 9.8Mb waiting. When I booted up this morning there was an additional update (192Kb) waiting.
GAIM: Found an annoying quirk. When it goes into away mode, it does not automatically bring me back to available. The result is that I do not have alerts when I receive a message. I have to manually place myself into away mode then put myself back on available for things to work again.
Evolution: I took me a few minutes of searching to discover that the option for showing pictures in an e-mail is under "View" then "Load Images" I expected to be able to right click or click somewhere in the message like with other mail programs. When it wasn't that way, I looked under the "Message" menu first then went to searching all of the menus. I also received a meeting request yesterday that I clicked on accept multiple times, but nothing happened.
Now for the exciting news (okay, it really isn't, but I was pleased with myself). Armed with the knowledge from the website I cited yesterday (see A GREAT SITE) I decided to use the terminal to uninstall Licq. It worked out very well and, to me anyway, was more efficient then going into the package manager to remove it. It took out three of the components then gave me instructions on how to remove the last component that was no longer needed.
I issued the command 'sudo apt-get remove licq' The terminal window came back with some information among which was the line "The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer needed use apt-get remove automatic to remove them" so I issued that command and it removed the remaining package. It took alot less time than firing up the SPM and letting it refresh from the repositories, finding the application in the menu, applying the changes then letting it refresh again.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
A Great Site
While browsing through the list of top ten Ubuntu apps, I saw many command lines for apt-get. I decided to try some of the commands out in a terminal window. I was given permission denied on everything. The terminal returned an error message that it could not open a locked file. The last line stated Are you Root?
So doing the logical thing, I maneuvered through the directories until I got to the root directory and ran the command again. It didn't work. I remembered from installing other things that many of the commands I used before had sudo before them so I tried sudo apt-get and it asked for my password then it performed the install.
I was curious now. What on earth did SUDO do? I did a Google search on the subject (sorry don't remember what I typed and didn't write it down) and found this GREAT page. http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing/ It explains the different ways how to install things in Ubuntu. I wish I had been told about this site before I started out! It would have saved me light years of trouble.
In any case, I still don't know exactly what SUDO means, but it grants the command temporary Super User administrator rights provided that you supply the correct password.
So there you go... I thought that was cool and you definitely want to check out the page if you are going to use Ubuntu.
So doing the logical thing, I maneuvered through the directories until I got to the root directory and ran the command again. It didn't work. I remembered from installing other things that many of the commands I used before had sudo before them so I tried sudo apt-get and it asked for my password then it performed the install.
I was curious now. What on earth did SUDO do? I did a Google search on the subject (sorry don't remember what I typed and didn't write it down) and found this GREAT page. http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing/ It explains the different ways how to install things in Ubuntu. I wish I had been told about this site before I started out! It would have saved me light years of trouble.
In any case, I still don't know exactly what SUDO means, but it grants the command temporary Super User administrator rights provided that you supply the correct password.
So there you go... I thought that was cool and you definitely want to check out the page if you are going to use Ubuntu.
I commited a CRIME
Remember back the first week when I was trying to get my DVD player to work and I mentioned that I went to a site and installed the libdvdcss2 codecs and made my DVD player work. Remember how even back then I questioned the legality of it? Well today I downloaded a piece of software that informed me that downloading those codecs and installing them without paying to do so was a CRIME in the US (see post on Automatix for details). Isn't it nice how we can commit computer crimes every day without warning even when we are using free software. There was certainly nothing anywhere telling me that it was a crime to use those files when I was downloading them. And to top it all off, I'm not sure I can undo it. I also don't know who I would need to "pay" to make it legal... O'well... If the computer police come knocking on my door I will simply do like everyone else... pass the blame off on ignorance and hope for forgiveness. Anyone following in my footstep though YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Automatix not worth it
So I logged into my computer at the house last night and launched Internet Explorer. It is set to the Google Homepage I set up since it has RSS feeds for the news on it and that is the only time I catch any news. For some reason an RSS feed from del.icio.us caught my eye. It was a link to Hack Attacks top 10 Ubuntu apps and tweaks. Of course with my project in mind I had to check it out. The url is
http://lifehacker.com/software/ubuntu/hack-attack-top-10-ubuntu-apps-and-tweaks-195437.php
The first thing it listed was Automatix which it claims would get your system ready to play nice with codecs but also allows you to download a variety of other applications. I decided to try it out. It was easy to download and install. There is a link on the page to the automatix website which provides links to files (for Intel or AMD processors) that you click on and open with the default package installer. It installs without a problem.
When you launch the program you get a big screen with red text that states "Please NOTE that downloading and installing u32codecs, libdvdcss2, and other non-free codecs without paying a fee to the concerned authorities constitutes a CRIME in the United States of America" more on this in another post...
I launched the program and it updated repositories and then went and looked to see what I could install. It was a stripped down version of the Synaptic Package Manager. It was easier to browse through since it had less stuff, but many of the items had already been offered to me through the SPM.
I would not consider this an essential tool. I also browsed the other tools available, but didn't see anything really worthwhile except for the command to turn off the system speaker.
http://lifehacker.com/software/ubuntu/hack-attack-top-10-ubuntu-apps-and-tweaks-195437.php
The first thing it listed was Automatix which it claims would get your system ready to play nice with codecs but also allows you to download a variety of other applications. I decided to try it out. It was easy to download and install. There is a link on the page to the automatix website which provides links to files (for Intel or AMD processors) that you click on and open with the default package installer. It installs without a problem.
When you launch the program you get a big screen with red text that states "Please NOTE that downloading and installing u32codecs, libdvdcss2, and other non-free codecs without paying a fee to the concerned authorities constitutes a CRIME in the United States of America" more on this in another post...
I launched the program and it updated repositories and then went and looked to see what I could install. It was a stripped down version of the Synaptic Package Manager. It was easier to browse through since it had less stuff, but many of the items had already been offered to me through the SPM.
I would not consider this an essential tool. I also browsed the other tools available, but didn't see anything really worthwhile except for the command to turn off the system speaker.
Open Office Word Processor
As part of a class assignment, we were required to find out three new things about a word processor. Of course Open Office Word Processor was my processor of choice for this assignment.
The neatest concept I found was that Open Office has a link to Bibliography Database. There are 32 resources already in the database, but the user can add to this. This provides the user with an excellent research resource for current and future use.
I also liked that the header and footer information was under an insert menu rather than a view menu. They just make more sense being there.
The neatest concept I found was that Open Office has a link to Bibliography Database. There are 32 resources already in the database, but the user can add to this. This provides the user with an excellent research resource for current and future use.
I also liked that the header and footer information was under an insert menu rather than a view menu. They just make more sense being there.
Friday, February 23, 2007
End of Week 2
Two weeks into the project and I am okay with the OS and software on this machine. The machine itself is slow so I still revert to my other computer when I need things fast, but that has nothing to do with Ubuntu. I have found several pieces of software or things that I do with software that just are not quite duplicated with the software that is on this machine.
I like the GAIM Chat module okay. It has a built in spell checker which is an advantage over ICQ, but it is still lacking in many ways. Licq was just terrible.
Open office is okay, but there are a few things I am use to in MS Office that don't work the same in OO.
Evolution is just not very good. If it wasn't for the fact that my calendar and contacts actually work in there as opposed to Thunderbird, I would revert to Thunderbird without a second thought.
The videos on this thing are still grainy. Pictures appear okay, but it looks like there is something in the video decoder that is still lacking and I can't figure out what that is.
I don't like that I know very little about the actual OS. I am comfortable in the Windows environment and understand how to fix most of the things that go wrong. When things go wrong with this machine I have no idea where to even start to try to find a solution. I guess if I were new to computers and not already comfortable with Windows, I might find this all more appealing than I do, but that is not the case.
So far Edubuntu has been a fun new toy to experiment with, but the novelty is starting to wear off and some things are starting to really annoy me.
I said that I would continue to use the system and Blog my progress until the end of the semester so that is what I will do. If you (my loyal fan(s)) have any words of encouragement such as something I said actually helped you or if you have any sage advise to administer, feel free to post it. Until next week... adieux
I like the GAIM Chat module okay. It has a built in spell checker which is an advantage over ICQ, but it is still lacking in many ways. Licq was just terrible.
Open office is okay, but there are a few things I am use to in MS Office that don't work the same in OO.
Evolution is just not very good. If it wasn't for the fact that my calendar and contacts actually work in there as opposed to Thunderbird, I would revert to Thunderbird without a second thought.
The videos on this thing are still grainy. Pictures appear okay, but it looks like there is something in the video decoder that is still lacking and I can't figure out what that is.
I don't like that I know very little about the actual OS. I am comfortable in the Windows environment and understand how to fix most of the things that go wrong. When things go wrong with this machine I have no idea where to even start to try to find a solution. I guess if I were new to computers and not already comfortable with Windows, I might find this all more appealing than I do, but that is not the case.
So far Edubuntu has been a fun new toy to experiment with, but the novelty is starting to wear off and some things are starting to really annoy me.
I said that I would continue to use the system and Blog my progress until the end of the semester so that is what I will do. If you (my loyal fan(s)) have any words of encouragement such as something I said actually helped you or if you have any sage advise to administer, feel free to post it. Until next week... adieux
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Licq not so good
Now that I have had some experience with setting up the GAIM client I went back and tried to setup the Licq. It wasn't too hard to setup since I knew what to put in the boxes this time. It was much easier to experiment with the settings in GAIM so I figured them out in there and then duplicated them in Licq.
I can see why the program only got one star in the rating system on the Add/Remove program menu. It was impossible to setup without knowing the settings from the other program. It doesn't have anywhere near the options / capability of GAIM. It doesn't alert me when a new message comes in and if I close the Buddy List it closes out all chat windows that are open.
So, I'll just remove Licq from my computer and continue to use GAIM. I was hoping that by using the ICQ mock client I would regain some of the functionality lost when I switched from ICQ to GAIM, but I actually got less.
I can see why the program only got one star in the rating system on the Add/Remove program menu. It was impossible to setup without knowing the settings from the other program. It doesn't have anywhere near the options / capability of GAIM. It doesn't alert me when a new message comes in and if I close the Buddy List it closes out all chat windows that are open.
So, I'll just remove Licq from my computer and continue to use GAIM. I was hoping that by using the ICQ mock client I would regain some of the functionality lost when I switched from ICQ to GAIM, but I actually got less.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Open Office Not Impressive
A new phenomenon occurred when I booted my computer this morning. I got an error message stating "There was an error starting the GNOME Settings Daemon" Then it gave possible causes and effects of the error followed by the reassurance "GNOME will still try to restart the Settings Daemon next time you log in". I told it okay and went about my business without any hitches. Again mostly e-mail since I had meetings and taught a class today.
I went back and did the presentation assignment from class and used Open Office Impress to do it. At first glance this was a very much PowerPoint environment, but when I got to playing with the addition of new slides, things fell apart. The easiest way I found to add a new slide was to right click on the slide layout I wanted and select new slide. I had a slide with one layout and forgot to right click. It applied a new layout over top of the previous layout. The result was that I had a slide with text at the top and a chart then over top of that I had a title slide (i undid it before filling in the title, but I could have)
The chart was not intuitive on first glance. Since there wasn't a requirement to figure out how to use the chart I just exited out keeping the default data. I might have to use a chart at another date and if I do I'll let you know how it goes.
So it wasn't a bad experience, but I didn't see any major benefit to swapping from the evil poison that is PowerPoint to the equally bad if not worse poison that is O.O. Impress.
I went back and did the presentation assignment from class and used Open Office Impress to do it. At first glance this was a very much PowerPoint environment, but when I got to playing with the addition of new slides, things fell apart. The easiest way I found to add a new slide was to right click on the slide layout I wanted and select new slide. I had a slide with one layout and forgot to right click. It applied a new layout over top of the previous layout. The result was that I had a slide with text at the top and a chart then over top of that I had a title slide (i undid it before filling in the title, but I could have)
The chart was not intuitive on first glance. Since there wasn't a requirement to figure out how to use the chart I just exited out keeping the default data. I might have to use a chart at another date and if I do I'll let you know how it goes.
So it wasn't a bad experience, but I didn't see any major benefit to swapping from the evil poison that is PowerPoint to the equally bad if not worse poison that is O.O. Impress.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Nothing New
Between classes, the only thing I really had time to do was check and respond to e-mails. I did play with the Rythmbox music player. It is a nice easy to use utility for organizing music. It helps that the only music I have is from 3 CDs I brought in, but that's beside the point. I pretty much have the things I use working the way I want them to. (except Evolution, but we're not going there today)
Monday, February 19, 2007
Another Day... not much to say
As I become more comfortable with the items in Edubuntu, things are going to become more common place which means there is going to be less to write about. Today I worked on some updates for a website, did some research on the Internet, and worked on getting Evolution to work a little better.
Evolution still beeps all the time for no apparent reason. I was told that it will not connect to the LDAP server in versions greater than 2.4 I am running 2.8. It was defaulting to my personal contacts folder and the anniversary category. I was able to make it default to my UT Exchange contacts by going under the contact tab and right clicking on the contact item under UT Exchange in the left column. I selected properties then clicked the "Mark as default" check box. This now uses those contacts as the default, but it still defaults to the anniversary category because it comes first in the alphabet! I could not figure out how to change that.
Aside from Evolution continuing to suck (it locked up and I had to use the system monitor to make it go away) everything else seems to be running pretty well. As far as evolution goes, I guess it has more functions than Thunderbird so I am at least able to operate a little better, but I wouldn't use that as a selling point when trying to convince people that Open Source is the road to glory.
Evolution still beeps all the time for no apparent reason. I was told that it will not connect to the LDAP server in versions greater than 2.4 I am running 2.8. It was defaulting to my personal contacts folder and the anniversary category. I was able to make it default to my UT Exchange contacts by going under the contact tab and right clicking on the contact item under UT Exchange in the left column. I selected properties then clicked the "Mark as default" check box. This now uses those contacts as the default, but it still defaults to the anniversary category because it comes first in the alphabet! I could not figure out how to change that.
Aside from Evolution continuing to suck (it locked up and I had to use the system monitor to make it go away) everything else seems to be running pretty well. As far as evolution goes, I guess it has more functions than Thunderbird so I am at least able to operate a little better, but I wouldn't use that as a selling point when trying to convince people that Open Source is the road to glory.
Friday, February 16, 2007
End of Week 1
Nothing much special today. Evolution continues to be a pain in the neck and two other joints. I tried to download some images from the Internet today. I got them on the computer without a problem. I used GIMP to crop them then I tried to print them. They didn't print as well as I wanted them to so I took them to another computer that was running photoshop. Photoshop was not happy with the files and I could not figure out how to make it happy. I ended up re-downloading the images and modifying them in photoshop. They printed out much better. It was probably cheating but I didn't have the time or the patience to try to figure out how to do it a new way when the old way still works.
I solved lots of issues this week and created some new ones. Hopefully anyone that is following along has been amused by my assessments of my triumphs and failures. And maybe (just maybe) someone that is as foolish as I am is going through the same issues and has learned a thing or two... or can tell me a thing or two to fix some of my issues.
In the meantime... farewell my loyal fan(s)...
I solved lots of issues this week and created some new ones. Hopefully anyone that is following along has been amused by my assessments of my triumphs and failures. And maybe (just maybe) someone that is as foolish as I am is going through the same issues and has learned a thing or two... or can tell me a thing or two to fix some of my issues.
In the meantime... farewell my loyal fan(s)...
Getting Comfortable
For most people the longer they use something the more comfortable they become with it no matter how alien it seemed at first. After a full week of using Ubuntu I am starting to feel comfortable with my common work tasks. I spent the morning responding to e-mails on various subjects and performing updates on a website I work on. I really liked the tab environment text editor for modifying the HTML files. In windows I would have several bars in the task bar and sometimes they would group without my wanting them to. Having the tabs built into the program is much better.
When I was done updating the files I needed to back them up to a re-writable CD. This is the first time I burned a data CD using the programs in Edubuntu. It worked very nicely. I inserted the CD and it asked me if I wanted an audio or data cd. I picked data and the CD/DVD creator File Browser appeared. I dragged the files I was working on into the window and once I had everything there I clicked the "write" button.
I still have complaints with Evolution. I have not heard back yet on getting the GAL to work. It beeps every time I get mail, but I liked the pop up preview that Outlook provided. Now I have to go into Evolution and scroll down to see my new messages which are mostly just junk anyway. It also beeps every time I delete a message!! It also did not import my distribution list which is not a big deal for me since I only have one and it only had 6 people in it, but that could be a much bigger problem for most of the people I know.
When I was done updating the files I needed to back them up to a re-writable CD. This is the first time I burned a data CD using the programs in Edubuntu. It worked very nicely. I inserted the CD and it asked me if I wanted an audio or data cd. I picked data and the CD/DVD creator File Browser appeared. I dragged the files I was working on into the window and once I had everything there I clicked the "write" button.
I still have complaints with Evolution. I have not heard back yet on getting the GAL to work. It beeps every time I get mail, but I liked the pop up preview that Outlook provided. Now I have to go into Evolution and scroll down to see my new messages which are mostly just junk anyway. It also beeps every time I delete a message!! It also did not import my distribution list which is not a big deal for me since I only have one and it only had 6 people in it, but that could be a much bigger problem for most of the people I know.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
A Little R&R
Okay so maybe it isn't the best idea to admit on a public forum that you spent the last 20 minutes of your work day testing out the games on your new operating system, but at least it was educational. After all the crap with Evolution I needed something to unwind before heading home for the day so I decided to check out some of the long list of games that came with Edubuntu by default.
I started out with my childhood favorite Connect Four (or four in a row as it is called). The computer cheats! I was very good at this game in my prime and lost four straight to the computer. Any little kid would have punched it and walked off if it had been a person!
Next I tried a classic called nibbles. It is a game where you run around as a little worm and collect food and numbers. I had the game on my cell phone my senior year and was playing it during history of Jazz. I actually filled the entire screen with the worm. EVERY SINGLE PIXEL. Well, this one has color and changes levels and stuff. I got bored after a bit (you probably will too) and moved along.
The potato guy was fun to revisit. I had played with him when I was trying out the CD to make sure it would work on this computer. It was better this time since I put powered speakers on my computer and could turn up the sound and hear what each piece was.
I tried Tetravex and set a record for the fastest time on the first puzzle. Even though I was the only one to complete it, 1 minute 29 seconds is still fast. I gave up on the second one after about 3 minutes. My brain hurt before I started and I wanted to relax, not give myself a headache.
I finished off with gcompris. This was awesome. If I let my kids (not that I have any of those) have a computer to play on, I'm going to put Edubuntu on there so they have a hard time screwing it up. They won't need all the stuff I do so Ubuntu will be fine. And this software package is just the kind of educationally mind numbing stuff I was looking for. I played kickball (click on the ball and try to get it in the hole) and find the strawberry before moving on to the classic grid lock game. I have seen this game many times, but in this one you had to move the "cars" (read colored rectangles) around to get the red "car" out of the notch on the right hand side. It was cool. I beat the first five then moved on to Sudoku. I liked the pretty pictures, but then it was time to do my evening write up and go home for the night.
Maybe I will have better luck with Evolution tomorrow, but if not I will just have to continue to use Outlook on my other PC to manage Exchange specific tasks.
I started out with my childhood favorite Connect Four (or four in a row as it is called). The computer cheats! I was very good at this game in my prime and lost four straight to the computer. Any little kid would have punched it and walked off if it had been a person!
Next I tried a classic called nibbles. It is a game where you run around as a little worm and collect food and numbers. I had the game on my cell phone my senior year and was playing it during history of Jazz. I actually filled the entire screen with the worm. EVERY SINGLE PIXEL. Well, this one has color and changes levels and stuff. I got bored after a bit (you probably will too) and moved along.
The potato guy was fun to revisit. I had played with him when I was trying out the CD to make sure it would work on this computer. It was better this time since I put powered speakers on my computer and could turn up the sound and hear what each piece was.
I tried Tetravex and set a record for the fastest time on the first puzzle. Even though I was the only one to complete it, 1 minute 29 seconds is still fast. I gave up on the second one after about 3 minutes. My brain hurt before I started and I wanted to relax, not give myself a headache.
I finished off with gcompris. This was awesome. If I let my kids (not that I have any of those) have a computer to play on, I'm going to put Edubuntu on there so they have a hard time screwing it up. They won't need all the stuff I do so Ubuntu will be fine. And this software package is just the kind of educationally mind numbing stuff I was looking for. I played kickball (click on the ball and try to get it in the hole) and find the strawberry before moving on to the classic grid lock game. I have seen this game many times, but in this one you had to move the "cars" (read colored rectangles) around to get the red "car" out of the notch on the right hand side. It was cool. I beat the first five then moved on to Sudoku. I liked the pretty pictures, but then it was time to do my evening write up and go home for the night.
Maybe I will have better luck with Evolution tomorrow, but if not I will just have to continue to use Outlook on my other PC to manage Exchange specific tasks.
Instant Messaging
My wife also works on campus and we communicate through out the day with ICQ (an instant message program that we started using when I was in High School still). Today I decided to try to mimic that functionality in Ubuntu. I had seen a few chat protocols while trying to get other useful things to work so I went to the Applications -> Add/Remove and took a look under Internet I noted that GAIM was on there and it claimed to be a multi protocol chat client. I also found LICQ which looked promising. After about 20 minutes I wasn't making any head way with LICQ so I decided to remove it. It was OH SO EASY to add, but I had to go into the Synaptic Package Monitor and perform a search for it to remove it (had to do the same with Thunderbird, so no sweat really). Then I tried GAIM. I added a user and put in my user name and password for ICQ under screen name and password. This came back with an error so I put my ICQ number under username and moved my user name to the alias box. This worked and that quickly I was back on chat.
ICQ has made some major improvements over the last year and none of those are available in GAIM. It makes the chatting less fun, but I guess it still serves its purpose.
ICQ has made some major improvements over the last year and none of those are available in GAIM. It makes the chatting less fun, but I guess it still serves its purpose.
Evolution (more of a backward progression)
I knew there was a reason why I had cringed when I saw "Evolution" as the e-mail client on Edubuntu. I had heard the name before but could not place it. Jay mentioned in class today that it worked better with the exchange system than Thunderbird and Bells went off. I had heard horror stories about trying to configure this client when we were working on migration tools. I found the online instructions at http://oit.utk.edu/exchange/unix/evolution_setup.php I couldn't follow the directions exactly because I had not set up Evolution previously, but I skipped to step 4 in the directions and everything was the same from there. I went through the steps and thought I had everything setup.
I launched Evolution and things looked okay. My mail came in as did my contacts. Things went quickly downhill from there. While trying to access my calendar and contacts the program froze up and Ubuntu generated a bug report for me. I launched it again and made it into my calendar, but could not open the GAL to view a shared calendar. I went back through the directions to make sure I had not missed something and could not figure anything out. I googled GAL over LDAP in Evolution and found nothing of use. I finally e-mailed the person that wrote the original directions and asked him for help. I haven't heard back yet.
So I am not at all pleased with Evolution. It looks like crap, runs like crap and probably isn't much more than that. I created another calendar just to play around and it won't delete it even though it says it is going to. It is slow. I get multiple errors almost every time I exit.
If you do not use the calendar in exchange, stick with Thunderbird. It was harder to install in Ubuntu, but is a much much nicer mail client!
If this is evolution, we are all doomed!
I launched Evolution and things looked okay. My mail came in as did my contacts. Things went quickly downhill from there. While trying to access my calendar and contacts the program froze up and Ubuntu generated a bug report for me. I launched it again and made it into my calendar, but could not open the GAL to view a shared calendar. I went back through the directions to make sure I had not missed something and could not figure anything out. I googled GAL over LDAP in Evolution and found nothing of use. I finally e-mailed the person that wrote the original directions and asked him for help. I haven't heard back yet.
So I am not at all pleased with Evolution. It looks like crap, runs like crap and probably isn't much more than that. I created another calendar just to play around and it won't delete it even though it says it is going to. It is slow. I get multiple errors almost every time I exit.
If you do not use the calendar in exchange, stick with Thunderbird. It was harder to install in Ubuntu, but is a much much nicer mail client!
If this is evolution, we are all doomed!
Listening to Music Online
So the CD is good, but listening to the same CD over and over again gets annoying after a few loops so I decided to try using the radio locater http://www.radio-locator.com to find an oldies station that I like to listen to. I was a little nervous that I would have to try to find something to decode the streaming signal, but it turned out once again to not be an issue. I wonder if going through the process of getting the other audio and video formats to work also helped with this issue. Anyway, it worked without a problem and I can listen to music while I work. I downloaded a form from my e-mail, modified it and put it back on the web. I also pulled an XLS file out of my E-mail and used CALC to modify it. I then saved it in Excel format and returned it to the person that sent it to me. It all seemed to work pretty well.
Something Cool
I booted up my computer this morning and found there were no updates. Since I had ripped one of my CDs to test out the program, I decided to listen to some music while I was checking my e-mail. When I opened the folder that my files are in, it started to play a snippet of the first song. Moving the mouse I discovered that if you hold the mouse over an audio file (a .ogg file at least, the coolness was not duplicated with MP3 files) it will play the song as long as the mouse is over it. This was something I thought was pretty nifty since there have been many times when I wanted to figure out what a song file was without having to open it in a player. If it worked for MP3s, it would make going through my music collection lots easier.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Almost Converted
Well with the exception of a few things that are still on my primary computer, I have almost completed the conversion to the computer running Edubuntu. I spent most of the day looking stuff up on the internet and responding to e-mail, but I did edit a script for a webpage and upload it without a problem.
I rebooted the machine to see if the ZIP drive would work without a disk in it at boot and it does not. I'll just have to leave the disk in the drive or re-boot the machine when I need access to it. I really should transfer my files off those things, but they are still nice large floppy disks for holding my projects.
I tried to increase my display settings, and I figured out how to change the resolution SYSTEM -> PREFERENCES -> SCREEN RESOLUTION, but my monitor is already set to the highest resolution. Pictures and video look grainy at best. Maybe I'll lower it and see if it improves...
Anyway, after I post this I'll be shutting my computer off for the day. But I'm willing to bet there is no end to the fun and adventure in store when I boot it up tomorrow!
I rebooted the machine to see if the ZIP drive would work without a disk in it at boot and it does not. I'll just have to leave the disk in the drive or re-boot the machine when I need access to it. I really should transfer my files off those things, but they are still nice large floppy disks for holding my projects.
I tried to increase my display settings, and I figured out how to change the resolution SYSTEM -> PREFERENCES -> SCREEN RESOLUTION, but my monitor is already set to the highest resolution. Pictures and video look grainy at best. Maybe I'll lower it and see if it improves...
Anyway, after I post this I'll be shutting my computer off for the day. But I'm willing to bet there is no end to the fun and adventure in store when I boot it up tomorrow!
ZIP ping along
When I booted the computer this morning, there were no updates waiting so I launched my e-mail and took care of a few things there. After a while, I decided to tackle the daunting task of making the ZIP drive work. I referred to http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=29441
which contains a ubuntu forum with directions on how to get the ZIP drive to work. The directions were slightly hard to understand. First I don't know if I am using hoary or warty (and personally neither of those sounds very good) and it didn't tell me how to check. I just rolled with it anyway, couldn't make it worse than not working so... Some of the steps were a little confusing so I have re-written them here without the extra info. Read the original article for details.
1. Open up a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal)
1a. At the prompt, type "sudo mkdir /media/zip0" without quotes
2. Next type "sudo ln -s /media/zip0 /media/zip (can be skipped if you don't mind having the 0 on the end of your drive reference)
3. Look in System -> System Administration -> Device Manager. Scroll down and find the ZIP drive. Click the Advanced Tab. There should be a line that says 'block.device' and something like '/dev/hd*4' (Where * depends on what IDE control your drive is on) Write this down but replace the * with (a,b,c, or d) the correct letter.
4. There is not a step 4 on this page...
5. In the terminal window, type "sudo gedit /etc/fstab follow the logic given, you will see lines for /dev/hd* There will be two or three of them depending on how many other IDE Drives are in the system. Going in alphabetic order, add a line
/dev/hd*4 /media/zip0 auto rw,user,noauto,sync 0 0 (replace the * with the correct letter)
Save the file and quit Gedit to return to the terminal window
NOTE: I had problems on this step. I started out with the line at the bottom of the list and tried to format it like the other lines. It did not work. I moved it to its alphabetical order location and formatted as shown above and it worked.
6. At the terminal prompt, type "sudo mount -a" (without the quotes)
If you have a disk in the ZIP drive when you boot the computer then you are ready to go (that means put a disk in and reboot the computer now to get it to work) There is a solution to this problem, but it did not work for me and it appears that you have to implement it every time you reboot the computer so I just ignored it. It is easier just to make sure I have a zip disk in the drive when I boot.
It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, but even with the more detailed explanations I have no idea why what I did works. There are several commands in there that I do not understand since I have never worked with a LINUX KERNAL before. People without much computer experience would be completely lost and I doubt they would feel very comfortable following these directions.
which contains a ubuntu forum with directions on how to get the ZIP drive to work. The directions were slightly hard to understand. First I don't know if I am using hoary or warty (and personally neither of those sounds very good) and it didn't tell me how to check. I just rolled with it anyway, couldn't make it worse than not working so... Some of the steps were a little confusing so I have re-written them here without the extra info. Read the original article for details.
1. Open up a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal)
1a. At the prompt, type "sudo mkdir /media/zip0" without quotes
2. Next type "sudo ln -s /media/zip0 /media/zip (can be skipped if you don't mind having the 0 on the end of your drive reference)
3. Look in System -> System Administration -> Device Manager. Scroll down and find the ZIP drive. Click the Advanced Tab. There should be a line that says 'block.device' and something like '/dev/hd*4' (Where * depends on what IDE control your drive is on) Write this down but replace the * with (a,b,c, or d) the correct letter.
4. There is not a step 4 on this page...
5. In the terminal window, type "sudo gedit /etc/fstab follow the logic given, you will see lines for /dev/hd* There will be two or three of them depending on how many other IDE Drives are in the system. Going in alphabetic order, add a line
/dev/hd*4 /media/zip0 auto rw,user,noauto,sync 0 0 (replace the * with the correct letter)
Save the file and quit Gedit to return to the terminal window
NOTE: I had problems on this step. I started out with the line at the bottom of the list and tried to format it like the other lines. It did not work. I moved it to its alphabetical order location and formatted as shown above and it worked.
6. At the terminal prompt, type "sudo mount -a" (without the quotes)
If you have a disk in the ZIP drive when you boot the computer then you are ready to go (that means put a disk in and reboot the computer now to get it to work) There is a solution to this problem, but it did not work for me and it appears that you have to implement it every time you reboot the computer so I just ignored it. It is easier just to make sure I have a zip disk in the drive when I boot.
It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, but even with the more detailed explanations I have no idea why what I did works. There are several commands in there that I do not understand since I have never worked with a LINUX KERNAL before. People without much computer experience would be completely lost and I doubt they would feel very comfortable following these directions.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
End of Day 3
I didn't really try anything much new with the computer today so things worked pretty well. I was worried about the USB drive working but it turned out to be not an issue.
I found a website that gives 10 cryptic steps for mounting the Zip drive properly. I have to figure out which IDE position it is on. I think it is the Primary Slave. Anyway, I'm saving that for tomorrow when I have more time. If the instructions work, I'll post the URL with the results.
I didn't get around to looking into the display today. That is on my list of things to do before this project ends though.
Before shutting down I checked for updates and there weren't any so I will probably not do that again unless I install new packages or Ubuntu alerts me that they are available.
Something that I find rather annoying is that when I tell Ubuntu to shut down my computer it powers off the hard drives and other resources, but it does not turn the computer completely off. The computer stays on and the Edubuntu splash screen remains displayed on my monitor until I hit the power button on the computer.
O'well Windows did that for a while too.
I can't wait to see what kinds of problems I can create when I try to get the ZIP drive working, but you know I'll share them here. Until then... so long.
I found a website that gives 10 cryptic steps for mounting the Zip drive properly. I have to figure out which IDE position it is on. I think it is the Primary Slave. Anyway, I'm saving that for tomorrow when I have more time. If the instructions work, I'll post the URL with the results.
I didn't get around to looking into the display today. That is on my list of things to do before this project ends though.
Before shutting down I checked for updates and there weren't any so I will probably not do that again unless I install new packages or Ubuntu alerts me that they are available.
Something that I find rather annoying is that when I tell Ubuntu to shut down my computer it powers off the hard drives and other resources, but it does not turn the computer completely off. The computer stays on and the Edubuntu splash screen remains displayed on my monitor until I hit the power button on the computer.
O'well Windows did that for a while too.
I can't wait to see what kinds of problems I can create when I try to get the ZIP drive working, but you know I'll share them here. Until then... so long.
An afternoon with Open Source
I spent the afternoon doing research and printing items out. My first task was to get an excel spreedsheet off my thumb drive to record my findings. I put in the thumb drive and it popped up on the desktop pretty quickly. I double clicked on it and located the spreedsheet. When I double clicked the spreedsheet, it opened up in OpenOffice.org's Calc. Calc operted very similiar to Microsoft Excel for the operations I needed to perform. I modified borders, inserted and deleted rows, and highlighted some cells. It took me a minute to figure out how to highlight cells. It ended up being a button in the toolbar labeled Background Color. Calc would not allow me to modify the borders on multiple selections either. I (later) ended up putting the file back in Excel to perform this function.
Next I launched Firefox and located some resources on the internet. The only problem I encountered with that is Firefox does not have an option that I could find to do a print right from the print preview screen. I had to close the screen and then go to the file menu again to print the page out. I also could not do a print preview on a page while something was printing.
Overall there were not many quirks in the process though.
Next I launched Firefox and located some resources on the internet. The only problem I encountered with that is Firefox does not have an option that I could find to do a print right from the print preview screen. I had to close the screen and then go to the file menu again to print the page out. I also could not do a print preview on a page while something was printing.
Overall there were not many quirks in the process though.
Edubuntu Continued
When I got to work this morning, I pushed the button to start the computer. 5 minutes later (you can almost set your watch to it) the computer was up and running. There were no updates waiting so I was able to go right into checking e-mail and burning the CDs that I had tried to make yesterday. So far it is working well and I actually like the audio CD creating software better than what I had in Windows. I'll be out of my office for most of the day so I probably won't get much done, but I'll put it here if I do.
Monday, February 12, 2007
End of Day 2
I resolved a lot of the issues I had on the first day with the fix I found trying to burn the Audio CD. I appreciate what they are trying to do with Edubuntu, but it almost seems not worth the time and trouble one has to go through to get the things they need to be productive. My display (the wall-paper, movies, etc) is really pixelated so I am going to try to improve that tomorrow.
Once again before shutting down I am checking for updates. It claims my system is up to date, so down it goes and we will see what kinds of problems I can find with it tomorrow.
Once again before shutting down I am checking for updates. It claims my system is up to date, so down it goes and we will see what kinds of problems I can find with it tomorrow.
A Noble Thought, A Royal Pain
My next task in Edubuntu was to burn an audio CD from a few MP3s files obtained from the project gutenburg. I inserted a blank CD-R into my drive and was prompted to Ignore it, Make an Audio CD or make a Data CD. I selected Audio CD and a program called Serpentine came up. I dragged the first file to the program and immediatly received an error stating that I had an unsupported file type and to make sure I had the GStreamer Plugins needed to decode it.
I tried to simply play the MP3 file and Totem came up and said it did not have the proper decoder installed. I decided to try the online help accessible from the Help menu in Totem and it took me to a page that said "Soon this page will contain support options specific to totem in Ubuntu. In the meantime you can get help for Edubuntu in general from..." REAL HELPFUL!
There was a menu on the left side of the page and one of the options was Support so I clicked on it. The 6th issue down in the list was about files and DVDs not playing in Totem. Clicking on the link took me to a page that had a URL that describes why totem does not play most files by default.
Due to license agreements and issues with them, Edubuntu does not come packaged with the goods to decode certain file types. The page also included detailed instructions (that worked! ...imagine that) on how to fix this. I followed the instructions and added a few packages to my OS.
The next step was to get a package called libdvdcss2. The link for this took me to a site with over 50 files that I could not see the complete labels on. I played around and clicked on different files until I found one that the Edubuntu Package Installer liked. When I went back and looked a little more closely, they appear to be broken down by Machine Architecture since the have things like HPPA, PowerPC, SPARC etc in the names. The one I found that works is libdvdcss2_1.2.5.1_i386.deb (there is an older version that also works with _i386 at the end of the file name).
After I installed this package, GXine didn't have a problem with store bought DVDs. (though the display is horrible) Totem Movie player played the MP3 files, and I was able to use Serpentine to create a music CD from the MP3 files.
Not having these features bundled due to user agreements is a noble idea (and some claim a legality) but it is also a royal pain in the neck. I did not have to agree to anything when I installed the extra packages and am not sure if that is completely legal or not. If it is legal, why can they not be include in the first place without a seperate license agreement...???
I tried to simply play the MP3 file and Totem came up and said it did not have the proper decoder installed. I decided to try the online help accessible from the Help menu in Totem and it took me to a page that said "Soon this page will contain support options specific to totem in Ubuntu. In the meantime you can get help for Edubuntu in general from..." REAL HELPFUL!
There was a menu on the left side of the page and one of the options was Support so I clicked on it. The 6th issue down in the list was about files and DVDs not playing in Totem. Clicking on the link took me to a page that had a URL that describes why totem does not play most files by default.
Due to license agreements and issues with them, Edubuntu does not come packaged with the goods to decode certain file types. The page also included detailed instructions (that worked! ...imagine that) on how to fix this. I followed the instructions and added a few packages to my OS.
The next step was to get a package called libdvdcss2. The link for this took me to a site with over 50 files that I could not see the complete labels on. I played around and clicked on different files until I found one that the Edubuntu Package Installer liked. When I went back and looked a little more closely, they appear to be broken down by Machine Architecture since the have things like HPPA, PowerPC, SPARC etc in the names. The one I found that works is libdvdcss2_1.2.5.1_i386.deb (there is an older version that also works with _i386 at the end of the file name).
After I installed this package, GXine didn't have a problem with store bought DVDs. (though the display is horrible) Totem Movie player played the MP3 files, and I was able to use Serpentine to create a music CD from the MP3 files.
Not having these features bundled due to user agreements is a noble idea (and some claim a legality) but it is also a royal pain in the neck. I did not have to agree to anything when I installed the extra packages and am not sure if that is completely legal or not. If it is legal, why can they not be include in the first place without a seperate license agreement...???
The GIMP
I needed to resize an image to go on a website and I have heard of The Gimp as being the tool for image editing if you don't want to pay the money to buy Photoshop. I had noticed the GIMP was installed under Applications -> Graphics while looking through the menus to see what I had. I went into the menu and launched the GIMP. At first I was a little ticked because I could not drag and drop the image into the program, but then I realized I could if I dragged it to the menu pallete rather than the information pallete.
Being familiar with photoshop and having never used GIMP, I used my photoshop skills to locate a SCALE IMAGE option under the IMAGE menu. I clicked on this and entered the new deminsions in the boxes provided then clicked the SCALE button. It resized the image and I saved it. I used GFTP to upload the image as well as the new webpage and everything looks good. I'll have to test GIMP out on a more serious project some time.
Being familiar with photoshop and having never used GIMP, I used my photoshop skills to locate a SCALE IMAGE option under the IMAGE menu. I clicked on this and entered the new deminsions in the boxes provided then clicked the SCALE button. It resized the image and I saved it. I used GFTP to upload the image as well as the new webpage and everything looks good. I'll have to test GIMP out on a more serious project some time.
Web Page Updates and FTP
The first task I had this morning was to make some updates to a couple websites I maintain. I checked under the Network Menu under Applications and did not see an FTP client under there. Having learned from past experiences, I checked the ADD/Remove option first and performed a search for FTP. Several results were returned and I picked Gftp since it supports both SSH and FTP transfers. I applied the changes and it installed the program and alerted me that it had been added to Applications -> Internet.
I launched the program and filled out the boxes across the top with the requested information. I had a few problems with the Port number at first since it appears that it requires 21 for FTP and 22 for SSH. Once I figured that out though it was pretty easy to perform file transfers. I discovered that if I leave the port blank, it will choose the correct one. It was fairly easy to create folders and subfolders on the local disk and there were two clearly marked arrows in the middle of the window between the remote and local host for performing transfers.
I had noticed the "Text Editor" program under Applications -> Accesories when I was playing around earlier so I opened this application to modify the HTML files I had downloaded. The program was easy to use and it color coded the HTML tags as I worked with them. I could not get it to open a file by dragging and dropping unless another file was already open, but it remembered the last location I had opened from when I clicked the open button so it was easy to locate the files I was working with.
I did not encounter any errors or problems with the Web page update process.
I launched the program and filled out the boxes across the top with the requested information. I had a few problems with the Port number at first since it appears that it requires 21 for FTP and 22 for SSH. Once I figured that out though it was pretty easy to perform file transfers. I discovered that if I leave the port blank, it will choose the correct one. It was fairly easy to create folders and subfolders on the local disk and there were two clearly marked arrows in the middle of the window between the remote and local host for performing transfers.
I had noticed the "Text Editor" program under Applications -> Accesories when I was playing around earlier so I opened this application to modify the HTML files I had downloaded. The program was easy to use and it color coded the HTML tags as I worked with them. I could not get it to open a file by dragging and dropping unless another file was already open, but it remembered the last location I had opened from when I clicked the open button so it was easy to locate the files I was working with.
I did not encounter any errors or problems with the Web page update process.
Update Errors
I booted up my computer (which still takes an average of 5 minutes) and was alerted that there were now 5 updates available. I hit the status icon and it pulled up the update manager. I told it to check for updates and it reported an error. It could not download all repository indexes. It said I had 5 updates for 2.1 MB. I told it to apply the updates and it reported another error that it could not fetch the updates. When I clicked okay, it checked for updates again and did not report an error so I told it to apply the updates again. It applied them without an error and reported that there were no additional updates available.
Friday, February 9, 2007
End of Day 1
I have been running Edubuntu for about 8 hours. So far it has been rather frustrating any time I want to install something that did not come with the default install. The directions for using the stuff is cryptic if it exists at all. Even Mozilla fell flat when it came time to try to install their products. Things were broken out of the box and there isn't very much information out there on how to fix it. Most of the applications assume you have some idea of what you are doing with LINUX. Even the most basic install instructions that I have found are hard to follow if you don't have a background in computers.
Before I turn my computer off and go home for the weekend I am checking for updates. Seems that about 8 of them manifested themselves during the day. So I am waiting on another 30 MB worth of downloads and updates. Maybe one of them will fix the DVD player!!!
Before I turn my computer off and go home for the weekend I am checking for updates. Seems that about 8 of them manifested themselves during the day. So I am waiting on another 30 MB worth of downloads and updates. Maybe one of them will fix the DVD player!!!
It's beginning to look BAD
Being equipped with the internet, a printer, and e-mail I decided to try to fix some of the problems I encountered with the hardware. First on the list was to fix the DVD player. I went to Source Forge and browsed through the multimedia section under video. I found a good looking application called Xine that claimed to play all kinds of DVD, VCD, and other video files. I clicked the "Download" button where I was taken to a screen with 6 files on it. I downloaded each of the six files and extracted them. Again I was at a loss. At least this one had an install text file that gave directions for installing the file so I tried to follow along.
I opened the terminal, changed directories to the folder the file was in and typed the first command in the instructions. I promptly got an error message stating that I had no valid C compiler. I checked the FAQ but to no avail so I fell back on looking in the Synaptic Package Manager.
Armed with the knowledge of what program I was looking for I quickly found it in the multimedia section. I checked Gxine and applied it then waited for it to download and install the package. When it was done, gxine was one of the options in my Applications / Sound & Video.
I put in the store bought DVD and it promptly crashed the application. I got a blank error box which I had to force quit. I tried the home-made DVD and it worked like a charm except that Totem Movie Player comes up and gives me an error saying it can't play DVDs every time I put one in the DVD player.
I tried a second store bought DVD. It too causes Xine to crash. Looks like I still need to find a DVD player that works.
I opened the terminal, changed directories to the folder the file was in and typed the first command in the instructions. I promptly got an error message stating that I had no valid C compiler. I checked the FAQ but to no avail so I fell back on looking in the Synaptic Package Manager.
Armed with the knowledge of what program I was looking for I quickly found it in the multimedia section. I checked Gxine and applied it then waited for it to download and install the package. When it was done, gxine was one of the options in my Applications / Sound & Video.
I put in the store bought DVD and it promptly crashed the application. I got a blank error box which I had to force quit. I tried the home-made DVD and it worked like a charm except that Totem Movie Player comes up and gives me an error saying it can't play DVDs every time I put one in the DVD player.
I tried a second store bought DVD. It too causes Xine to crash. Looks like I still need to find a DVD player that works.
What is OpenPGP?
When I tried to respond to an e-mail I received using Thunderbird, I had to go through a 10 minute setup for a thing called OpenPGP. Apparently it stands for Pretty Good Privacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy and allows me to encrypt messages I send to people. Only problem is I also have to give them a key and keep a key for myself. I have a file to kill my key if it is compromised and I can make a new one, but mine is good for 5 years if I don't kill it. Other people can also use this and create a key to share with me so they can encrypt stuff to me. It helps the world know that the e-mail was sent from you. It would probably be a nice tool if it wasn't such a pain in the neck. I set it up and told it to leave me alone. If I am still using FireFox in five years I hope I can remember my Keyphrase...
2 hours later - E-MAIL!
Upon reflection I have no idea why I did not just use the Evolution Mail package that came with edubuntu. I instead decided that I would go all out Mozilla and set up Thunderbird. The bird would of course give the fox someone to play with assuming fire and thunder mix... In any case.
I opened up FireFox and typed Thunderbird e-mail into the URL window. I was magically whisked to the download page for Thunderbird. I clicked on the button and told it I wanted to save the file. I tried to create a folder in the File System folder, but it would not let me do it so I created a new folder in my home area instead a saved the file to it.
When it was done downloading, I double clicked on it and it opened the contents of the archive in Archive Manager. There was one folder. I right clicked on it and selected Extract and placed it in the folder I created during the download process. Well, then I was stuck. There was not a file called INSTALL or SETUP or anything like that. I double clicked the readme file. It opened up blank. I double clicked the icon labeled Thunderbird. It had three little gears on it and looked like a good possibility. I was told it was a script file and asked if I wanted to open it as text, open it in a terminal window or just open it. As Text it appeared blank, just opening it did nothing. Selecting in terminal window actually launched the Thunderbird program.
I went through the configuration and since I was setting it up to interact with our exchange server I modified the server settings and it connected and brought down the mail in my inbox. I then clicked on the icon that would collapse the folder tree and selected "Manage Folder Subscriptions" I picked the folders I wanted to subscribe to and everything was good. I pulled a few pictures from e-mail to play with then a student showed up and I closed the mail program.
When I went to get into again I thought it was ridiculous to have to browse to the folder and double click the icon then select to run in terminal window so I tried to set up a shortcut. I broke everything. By the time I got done, Thunderbird refused to even open!
I did the unthinkable and went looking for HELP. The Thunderbird download page had a "step-by-step" instruction page for getting started. It said download and run the install file... (Real Helpful since there wasn't an install file).
Pissed off and ready to change to something else I took a peek at the applications menu and saw an ADD/Remove option so I clicked on it. It said for more complex jobs I should try something called the Synaptic Package Manager. Sounded cool so I went looking for it.
The Synaptic Package Manager was located under the System menu then the Administration option. It gave me a huge list of things I could install. Under the MAIL option were five things labeled Thunderbird so I checked all 5 of them and hit apply. It downloaded 5 "packages" for installation and installed them. I looked under Applications then Internet and there it was. I had to re-configure everything, but at least now I have a quick way to get to my mail.
I opened up FireFox and typed Thunderbird e-mail into the URL window. I was magically whisked to the download page for Thunderbird. I clicked on the button and told it I wanted to save the file. I tried to create a folder in the File System folder, but it would not let me do it so I created a new folder in my home area instead a saved the file to it.
When it was done downloading, I double clicked on it and it opened the contents of the archive in Archive Manager. There was one folder. I right clicked on it and selected Extract and placed it in the folder I created during the download process. Well, then I was stuck. There was not a file called INSTALL or SETUP or anything like that. I double clicked the readme file. It opened up blank. I double clicked the icon labeled Thunderbird. It had three little gears on it and looked like a good possibility. I was told it was a script file and asked if I wanted to open it as text, open it in a terminal window or just open it. As Text it appeared blank, just opening it did nothing. Selecting in terminal window actually launched the Thunderbird program.
I went through the configuration and since I was setting it up to interact with our exchange server I modified the server settings and it connected and brought down the mail in my inbox. I then clicked on the icon that would collapse the folder tree and selected "Manage Folder Subscriptions" I picked the folders I wanted to subscribe to and everything was good. I pulled a few pictures from e-mail to play with then a student showed up and I closed the mail program.
When I went to get into again I thought it was ridiculous to have to browse to the folder and double click the icon then select to run in terminal window so I tried to set up a shortcut. I broke everything. By the time I got done, Thunderbird refused to even open!
I did the unthinkable and went looking for HELP. The Thunderbird download page had a "step-by-step" instruction page for getting started. It said download and run the install file... (Real Helpful since there wasn't an install file).
Pissed off and ready to change to something else I took a peek at the applications menu and saw an ADD/Remove option so I clicked on it. It said for more complex jobs I should try something called the Synaptic Package Manager. Sounded cool so I went looking for it.
The Synaptic Package Manager was located under the System menu then the Administration option. It gave me a huge list of things I could install. Under the MAIL option were five things labeled Thunderbird so I checked all 5 of them and hit apply. It downloaded 5 "packages" for installation and installed them. I looked under Applications then Internet and there it was. I had to re-configure everything, but at least now I have a quick way to get to my mail.
Setting up the Printer
The setup for the printer would have been easier than Windows if I had known what I was looking at. I selected the System menu from the top nav bar then picked Administration from the drop down menu. From here I selected Printing and a new window popped up. I double clicked the new printer icon and a dialog box appeared. I selected Network Printer from the options since the printer is not attached to the computer.
Disaster struck when I changed the network option from CUPS since I don't have a clue what that means and selected Windows instead. I was bombarded with pop up windows asking me for the user name and password that I used to access various systems it was finding on the network. After cancelling many of them, I changed the option back to CUPS and decided to wing it.
In the box for URI, I put the IP address assigned to my printer and then clicked the forward button. I selected my printer manufacturer then the model from the drivers select window and clicked forward. It claimed my printer was all ready to go. I thought it was too easy so I told it to print a test page. The test page printed off the top of the sheet so I launched Firefox and browsed to a website and printed it. It printed very nicely.
I am quite surprised at how easy and fast it was. Plus one for Edubuntu...
Disaster struck when I changed the network option from CUPS since I don't have a clue what that means and selected Windows instead. I was bombarded with pop up windows asking me for the user name and password that I used to access various systems it was finding on the network. After cancelling many of them, I changed the option back to CUPS and decided to wing it.
In the box for URI, I put the IP address assigned to my printer and then clicked the forward button. I selected my printer manufacturer then the model from the drivers select window and clicked forward. It claimed my printer was all ready to go. I thought it was too easy so I told it to print a test page. The test page printed off the top of the sheet so I launched Firefox and browsed to a website and printed it. It printed very nicely.
I am quite surprised at how easy and fast it was. Plus one for Edubuntu...
Sound Juicer
When I inserted a music cd, sound jucier popped up and when I clicked the play button it began to play the CD. It was horrible. It skipped every 3 seconds or so. To make sure it wasn't the CD, I put in a second one and the same thing happened. There wasn't a volume control button and when I wanted to go to another track, I could not double click on it. I had to pause the current track, select the new track, then click the play button to swap tracks. One good thing it has though is an extract button. When I clicked this, it extracted all of the selected tracks to my Hard Drive. It created a folder with the artist name then a sub folder with the album name and put each song in there. It pulled them as OGG files and these files play skip free in Totem Movie Player 2.16.2.
Totem Video will not play the files directly from the CD though.
I'll have to look for a new CD player...
Totem Video will not play the files directly from the CD though.
I'll have to look for a new CD player...
Hardware / Drive Tests
Obviously the Video card and Monitor worked because I could see the Edubuntu desktop. Also the network card worked because it downloaded the updates. I clicked on the Places menu at the top of the screen then selected Computer to see what was there.
I had two floppy disks (only one actually installed in the computer), the Zip drive, the CD drive, the DVD drive, and a system drive.
System Drive - opened without a problem. Was able to see my files although I have no clue what any of them are.
Floppy Drive 1 - would not open Unable to Mount
Floppy Drive 2 - Opened without a problem. All files were accessible that were on the disk.
Zip Drive - Would not open Unable to Mount
error: Device /dev/hdb4 does not exist
error: Could not execute pmount
CD-Rom drive / Sound Card - I inserted a Music CD that also had video files. The system recognized it and asked which I wanted to play. I played the music files and the sound card was working. Next I inserted a CD-RW with some pictures on it. The system was unable to mount the drive claiming no medium was found.
DVD-RW - I moved the CD-RW to the DVD-RW drive were the system opened it and began displaying thumbnails of my pictures. I put a home-made DVD into the drive and Totem Video player came up but stated it could not play the DVD
error: No URI handler implemented for "DVD"
So I tried a DVD I had bought from the store. I got the same error.
With the exception of the ZIP drive, all of the hardware seems to work. I still don't know why I have two floppy drives listed and I will need to see if I can find a DVD decoder to play DVDs.
PS, the keyboard works fine so I got off the hook for not testing it. The mouse also operates as expected.
I had two floppy disks (only one actually installed in the computer), the Zip drive, the CD drive, the DVD drive, and a system drive.
System Drive - opened without a problem. Was able to see my files although I have no clue what any of them are.
Floppy Drive 1 - would not open Unable to Mount
Floppy Drive 2 - Opened without a problem. All files were accessible that were on the disk.
Zip Drive - Would not open Unable to Mount
error: Device /dev/hdb4 does not exist
error: Could not execute pmount
CD-Rom drive / Sound Card - I inserted a Music CD that also had video files. The system recognized it and asked which I wanted to play. I played the music files and the sound card was working. Next I inserted a CD-RW with some pictures on it. The system was unable to mount the drive claiming no medium was found.
DVD-RW - I moved the CD-RW to the DVD-RW drive were the system opened it and began displaying thumbnails of my pictures. I put a home-made DVD into the drive and Totem Video player came up but stated it could not play the DVD
error: No URI handler implemented for "DVD"
So I tried a DVD I had bought from the store. I got the same error.
With the exception of the ZIP drive, all of the hardware seems to work. I still don't know why I have two floppy drives listed and I will need to see if I can find a DVD decoder to play DVDs.
PS, the keyboard works fine so I got off the hook for not testing it. The mouse also operates as expected.
The First Boot
After a short meeting I was ready to boot my computer with Edubuntu for the first time. It took a full 5 minutes to get to the desk top. Once there, a little box popped up and let me know that I had software updates available. There were 115 updates taking up 183.8mb I browsed through them, couldn't understand half of them so I left it with the default selected updates and told it to install.
It prompted me for my Admin Password and that is when I discovered that something had once again turned of the num-lock on me. I use the number pad all the time and am very annoyed when it turns off by magic. Anyway, I turned it back on and put in my password.
The downloading and install fest then began...
30 minutes later it had downloaded and installed the updates. It checked for new updates and only found the two that it did not install by default the first time. It asked me to restart the computer for the changes to take effect.
It prompted me for my Admin Password and that is when I discovered that something had once again turned of the num-lock on me. I use the number pad all the time and am very annoyed when it turns off by magic. Anyway, I turned it back on and put in my password.
The downloading and install fest then began...
30 minutes later it had downloaded and installed the updates. It checked for new updates and only found the two that it did not install by default the first time. It asked me to restart the computer for the changes to take effect.
Installation in 6 not so easy steps
I created a backup DVD with all of the files I needed from the computer while it was runing Windows XP so that I could do a complete format of the hard drive before installation. After I had the DVD, I inserted the Edubuntu CD and rebooted the computer. When the desktop finally came up (about 5 minutes later) I double clicked the install icon on the desktop. There were 6 steps to the installation
Step 1 - I selected English from the list of languages and clicked the forward button
Step 2 - I tried to select a time zone, but the menu was a pain in the neck. It scrolled the entire height of my screen and continued down through several countries for about a mile. Tennesse was not in there so I picked Detriot which is on the same time zone. After I got mad at the menu, I started clicking on the map and learned that I could zoom in on an area and click a time zone node from the map. Next I tried to set the time. It was set to 3:00AM and it was already after 8:00 so I clicked on the 3 and typed 8 which it accepted. I then click ok and it set the time back to 3:00. I tried again with the same result. The third time I used the up arrow button and set it to 8:00. It liked that. With the time zone and time finally set, I clicked forward to continue
Step 3 - I selected the English Keyboard layout (actually that was the default) and hit forward to continue without making sure the keyboard worked as expected.
Step 4 - I filled in all the form fields (with top secret information that I can't tell you) to establish a user account on the computer and clicked the forward button to continue
Step 5 - I selected the option to erase the entire hard drive. (I don't think it did it because it was aweful quick about it. I think it just scratched the File System and Boot Partitions.) Then I clicked Forward to Continue
Step 6 - 10 minutes from the start of step 1 I was ready to confirm the setting and tell it to perform the install. I had to click next twice to get it moving. Maybe I missed the first time...?
The install took about a half hour to complete.
Step 1 - I selected English from the list of languages and clicked the forward button
Step 2 - I tried to select a time zone, but the menu was a pain in the neck. It scrolled the entire height of my screen and continued down through several countries for about a mile. Tennesse was not in there so I picked Detriot which is on the same time zone. After I got mad at the menu, I started clicking on the map and learned that I could zoom in on an area and click a time zone node from the map. Next I tried to set the time. It was set to 3:00AM and it was already after 8:00 so I clicked on the 3 and typed 8 which it accepted. I then click ok and it set the time back to 3:00. I tried again with the same result. The third time I used the up arrow button and set it to 8:00. It liked that. With the time zone and time finally set, I clicked forward to continue
Step 3 - I selected the English Keyboard layout (actually that was the default) and hit forward to continue without making sure the keyboard worked as expected.
Step 4 - I filled in all the form fields (with top secret information that I can't tell you) to establish a user account on the computer and clicked the forward button to continue
Step 5 - I selected the option to erase the entire hard drive. (I don't think it did it because it was aweful quick about it. I think it just scratched the File System and Boot Partitions.) Then I clicked Forward to Continue
Step 6 - 10 minutes from the start of step 1 I was ready to confirm the setting and tell it to perform the install. I had to click next twice to get it moving. Maybe I missed the first time...?
The install took about a half hour to complete.
Edubuntu 6.10 Live Install / Usage - System Specs
I have decided to install and use Edubuntu 6.10 Live on my computer at least for the rest of this semester. I will keep a record of my progress in my blog since I set it up and don't really have another use for it.
To start, the computer I am using is a Gateway E-4200
Processor - P III 700 Mhz
RAM - 483 MB
IDE DRIVES
----------------
Iomega Zip 250
Quatum Fireball LM20.5 (20.5 GB)
Plextor DVDR PX-708A
Toshiba CD-Rom XM-5702B
Video - ATI Rage 128 on a Dell D1126 H Monitor
Sound - Creative Audio PCI
Ethernet - SMC EtherPower II 10/100 Ethernet Adapter
To start, the computer I am using is a Gateway E-4200
Processor - P III 700 Mhz
RAM - 483 MB
IDE DRIVES
----------------
Iomega Zip 250
Quatum Fireball LM20.5 (20.5 GB)
Plextor DVDR PX-708A
Toshiba CD-Rom XM-5702B
Video - ATI Rage 128 on a Dell D1126 H Monitor
Sound - Creative Audio PCI
Ethernet - SMC EtherPower II 10/100 Ethernet Adapter
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