maybe we can start a religion around it?

okay.. shatner's roast is on and i am dying after a weekend involving wine sans sleep so i'll be brief.. maybe wax poetic later... so i was searching for how to fix my MP3 problem and saw a reference to an article called Ubuntu's Missing Batteries about a third party program that basically is a collection of scripts that (supposedly) install the most common apps that the Ubuntu Package does not. In their own words:

Automatix
Automatix is a graphical interface for automating the installation of the most commonly requested applications in Debian based linux operating systems.


Well i followed the directions on www.getautomatix.com, picked a dozen packages including the MP3 and amaroK update and other things i cannot remember at this point (hey, i drink daily and it was like 16 minutes).. but here is the point.. the install was point and click and didn't ask me anything complex... and at the end after a restart.

I am listening to Kings of Leon.

Tomorrow i am buying their album

maybe it's not a problem

well the bit of searching i did on my error message make me think that may have just been an artifact of calling an x-server app (Kate) from the command line... (here is where i expose that i really know nothign about how this really works)... um. yeah. well i'm going back to attempting to get my computer to sing to me!

this blows the dolphin

i'm getting a bit too frustrated to log this anymore. something that i did in the last few steps f'ed up the system a bit... check this out

syr1mph@blanix:~$ sudo kate /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Password:
Link points to "/tmp/ksocket-root"
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

kdeinit: Can't connect to the X Server.
kdeinit: Might not terminate at end of session.
Link points to "/tmp/kde-root"
Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
Xlib: No protocol specified

kded: cannot connect to X server :0.0
DCOP aborting call from 'anonymous-5154' to 'kded'
kded: ERROR: Communication problem with kded, it probably crashed.
ScimInputContextPlugin()

I'm going see if i can fix this and if i can explain how in less than 5 words, i'll log it leter... F U world!

look what you've done

Installing MP3 Support seemed like something that should be so straight forward.
So straight forward that i wouldnt even write the blog realtime--i'd just do it and send up a note saying "yeah, installed these packages and now i'm rocking out to some Hot Rod Circuit. Done"
Didn't go like that.. so i googled "ubuntu mp3" and found a couple webpages just saying to install gstreamer package and all would be right. easy.
installed "gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg (0.10.1-0ubuntu2) and got a message saying
X Error BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 168
  Major opcode: 145
  Minor opcode: 3
  Resource id: 0x0
Failied to open device
All that and my MP3s still didn't play

okay.. lets go to the source https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats to see what they say... ah

Grr.. damn.. this looks easy and straight forward. it stated Audacity was a nice conversion program between MP3 and the non-propriatary OGG.. meh, might as well.. so i marked it in Synaptic and it waaanted to install:
audacity (1.2.4b-2ubuntu2)
libglib1.2 (1.2.10-10.1build1)
libgtk1.2 (1.2.10-18)
libgtk1.2-common (1.2.10-18)
libid3tag0 (0.15.1b-8)
libmad0 (0.15.1b-2.1)
libwxgtk2.4-1 (2.4.4.1.1ubuntu2)
*FECEPLOPPIE*
It didnt even install. it claimed that failed to open device shit.
okay... lets figure out..
a bit of searching and i find that it's due to some watcom devices in my xorg.conf... as per ubuntu, i commented it out and all will work... well i just did that and am about to restart.. i don't have faith for some reason.. wish me luck

not all fixed - mp3s?

so my old friend, miso, came to visit this weekend and suggested i check out a band called Kings of Leon. In short order i had a mp3 of theirs "Kicks" (i believe) that would decide what proportion of my income would be spent on the KoL discography. It it went the way of Stablio, it would save me from blowing $15 of a CD i really didn't like. If it was like Pedro the Lion, well... i'll get another job. anyway.. i have their song and a open up amaroK (Kubuntu's default player) and hit play.
nothin.
it seems to recongnize the mp3 as a valid music file and knows it is 2:09 long... it just won't play. I tested it in Kaffeine too and that didnt work.
alas. this could be a deal breaker. Music is the thing i use my computer for the most.
[shakes fist menecingly]

everything works! (?)

first of all, I am an experienced internet searcher. I can almost always find exactly what I need in a few short minutes.
all I did for hours was search for a solution to my resolution program that I hadn't tried.
First of all, System Settings:Display:Hardware doesn't do shit except create tons of xorg.conf files.
I backed up the current one and renamed (sudo cp xorg.conf.BU xorg.conf) the original xorg backup so it was as it had been immediately after the install and then did some more searching. on some forgotten site I saw a reference to a miracle cure. some Canadian mentioned "915resolution"
It was a package that he said was the only universal solution to my intel 8xx/9xx 1280x768 resolution product. Soooooooooooooo...
I found the package through my package manager, downloaded it and followed the pretty simple readme.

Worked like a dream! I went back into System Settings:Display and 1280x 768 was a choice!!! After selection I restarted my xserver (restart and then one of the choices under menu is restart xserver) and it worked.

I danced and enjoyed my new resolution for days.

disaster averted

well.. im back to my original resolution of 1024x768... when i ran that last command i didn't really see anythign happen.. so then i started fing with the Display settings under System Settings. I tried all kinds of different monitors and resolutions and flipping on and off the widescreen and i got fing 800x600 as a result for the last 1/2 hour.. so.. i finally got it back to 1024x768.. if i can make it work (right after i turn water in to bourbon) i'll let you know.

i miss squares

okay.. i'm surprised i'm this far this fast.. i really thought straight configuration would take me weeks more than it has but here i am.. shit is working and i'm at my favorite step (which i was never successful at before)...

fixing my video resolution...

when i bought this laptop (Medion Akoya Ex) i was all proud of myself for having a a nice little 14" wide screen, 1280x768 in effect!

well although i never even thought about dealing with the resolution in windows... Linux doesn't love it... i can't convince it to believe me about the resolution.. best it even offers me is 1024x768...

well i found a little suggestion on the kubuntu forums (http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=6622.0) that said to run this in the terminal..
"sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg"
well i did..
blindly.. so i just wanted to leave this short note before i fried my display.. i'll let you know if me and my little laptop are functional after this.

only god knows

so.. my wireless works
ask me what i did.. ask me what i did..
um.. nothing.. i went to System:Network tools.. chose eth1 (my wifi card) and it worked
damn.
apparently kubuntu has kickass support for my internal wireless card (2200bg).. so yeah.. short story, happy life now i'll go see if i can get this resolution fixed

one more quick note

when you logout of gnome to restart in k=goodness.. remember you have to select kde from the button labled "menu" when you login.. the defualt value is just the display manager you used last... in that case gnome.. well regardless.. i have a beautiful blue kde up right now.. and i likey.. i kinda miss the shades of brown but i can deal.. until later.

when at first you fail...

give the f up...
I spent a couple minutes attempting to get my wireless to work.. it appears to be the same problem I had with my last debian install which means it can be fixed.. I think it only took me.. erm.. a month to get it to work.. but.... ubuntu seems to have a much nicer help doc on it and maybe if I can figure out what's wrong with me I'll find it useful.. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=26623
so anyway, I started following it and had no troubles adding the additional packages but then when I was trying to copy the unzipped drivers over to the hotplug um.. well.. I had not hotplug directory.. arg.. so rather than try and figure out why I didn't have it I gave up, got drunk and went to bed..
well since then I read an article on extremeTech (see the links to the right) reviewing ubuntu and the reviewer found the KDE version to be "snappier" (Linux has three main GUIs to my knowledge, Gnome, KDE and X[something]... I personally prefer KDE (it's more windows like).. there are other places to read more about it.. [insert more places to read about it here-- f that.. check wikipedia.. ]) anyway.. between the review saying KDE was nicer and my personal preference for it.. I'm going to try and install it...
Here's how it goes:
1) I went to http://kubuntu.org/ ... the kubuntu home page.. hmm... then to the FAQ... 2from its description, kubuntu is ubuntu exactly with KDE as its GUI rather than gnome.. rock and roll.. we're still on the same page...
2) Nice.. a beautiful step by step guide... https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingKDE I'll stop documenting every step assuming it goes exactly as they say it does.. once something breaks, I'll let you know you aren't the only one with that problem
{start following directions}
------
Nice.. aside from a bit of alcohol induced confusion where i searched for the wrong package in Synaptic (the package manager.. in gnome, under system:Administration.. oh yeah, i searched for kde-desktop.. not the more appropriate kubuntu-desktop) anyway after teh 499mb of downloads were
------
done.. (which took like 3 mins!) it installed KDE then automatically brought up a alert called Debconf which asked me which display manager i wanted! this is fing genius! now i'm clicking "kde"... lets see if i have any computer after this...
------
well.. there is no smoke.. i'm still in gnome... i guess i'll restart.. the next post hopefully wil be from kde and will be regarding how well my wifi fixing is going

damn that was easy

The part that took me a long time when I last tried to put Linux on my laptop was figuring out how to do a non-destructive repartitioning. I wish I remembered exactly how I did it but I was successful and I didn't lose any data. Anyway.. I still had a couple 10gb partitions and a half gig swap directory available. For people that may want to do this here is what I remember give yourself as much swap as you have RAM and the rest of the partitioning is just how you feel comfortable with organizing it. on this computer where I have a bit over 20 gigs dedicated to Linux I split the 20 gigs in half. making 10g the root (/) and 10g the home (/home/) I figured that as I'm figuring out this whole Linux thing I'll leave windows available on the other 50g and when I am sure I am past the point of needing it I'll reformat the entire computer with some other partition scheme.

Here is my favorite thing about Ubuntu so far. When I threw in the image I burned to CD it immediately booted to a usable gnome (one of the two major Linux graphical user interfaces) and it did a great job detecting my hardware. This was even better than my experience with knoppix live (which I used to steal setting for my old mythbox when fedora coudlnt figure it out). On the desktop there was an "Install" icon that I assumed installed the OS on the harddrive if you were not a big fan of the whole live CD idea.

The install was absurdly simple. All it asked me was my keyboard layout, timezone and which partitions I wanted to install on. As I mentioned earlier, I had existing partitions to use so I didn't have to deal with the joy of partitioning.

Next thing I knew the computer was restarting and it was shoving the install CD back at me telling me it wasn't needed anymore. it adjusted the grub bootloader that was still on the laptop from the Debian install I attempted about a year ago (and have been ignoring since) so I chose ubuntu and it went right to a functioning GUI that I am currently writing this blog in.

One of the first things that it did was tell me there were 170 something updates. Blind user I am.. I said hell yeah, I trust you computer do all your updates. about 20 minutes and then requested another restart. My only complaint about this entire process (and it is one I believe I can fix by editing the grub config file) is that when it rebooted after the updates I had two copies of each the ubuntu choices (the regular 686 and the safe mode one)...

So after the default install and doing nothing special, here is the status of my laptop as I know it:

Gnome works wonderfully with it's desktop default packages
My wired lan card works well but the wireless the intel internal 2200BG (I think? it took me almost a month to get the wireless card working in debian (sarge) and I had to know the driver name then)
my laptop is a wide screen 14"... something like 1280x 738.. well everything looks stretched so it looks like it failed to figure out the correct resolution...
The trackpad seems to work flawlessly (I meant to mention that I noticed this during my previous attempt: the trackpad seems to be more responsive and accurate under Linux than under windows.. it's sweet).
also, I had all kinds of fun installing a battery icon in Debian KDE... in ubuntu gnome there appears to be a working battery meter by default.
um.. That's all I can think of right now and I have just left like 4 entries... so... I'll update you when my computer is updated. my goal is to tell you all those things that you never can seem to find googling the problem.. (you'd think that you were the first one to ever get that error when you are attempting to follow some online guide...)
buybuy

third time's the charm?

so i am tryign to get to the present so i don't gloss over the coming troubles being too lazy to go back and document problems i had already solved. be patient with me i just want to set the stage for my coming frustration (is this the wrong attitude to have on the eve of sucha project?)
Anyway. My fried finally got a replacement motherboard and is continuing (restarting?) hi project to build a mythbox. well he decided to try the ubumtu distro and i was amazed with how smooth his install looked. This will be the perfect opportunity to try linux... again...

So here i am. 6pm on a sunday, sucessfully having installed Ubuntu 6.06. well, successfully as far as it is currently running on my laptop and i am able to get to blogspot to send these posts... lets talk about the install next

am I like you?

I'd say that I am mildly intelligent. I got a degree in engineering and even spent some of that time studying computer science. I currently do some amount of programming almost every day and I work on a huge datawarehouse for a big-ass company. Point being: I should be able to follow simple instructions and get a system working with little trouble. Didn't I mention I wasn't able to follow simple instructions and get a system working with little trouble twice before? Yeah.

Here's my OS experience
my first computer was a 286 around 1990.
It ran windows 3.0.
Since then I've exclusively used Microsoft Windows OSes. Let's see, 3.0, 3.11 then the magical Windows 95. My next PC ran a pirated copy of Windows 98. Finally XP came out and I loved it (aside from that search function...) through different PCs and my laptop I've hit most the flavors of XP, Home, Pro and for the last six months, MCE (the savior of all my entertainment needs.. more on that later).. ah yes, and at work I used an NT box.
The point being aside from moving the turtle thing around in grade school on a apple IIe, a short affair with a Mac (2 weeks?) while doing some design work and the previously mentioned two previous Linux attempts. I am a windows boy. Do you think I can be a Linux boy?

a simple premise

So here is said premise: can I move my non-work digital life from pure windows dependence to Linux?

I've heard plenty of people insist that Linux is no harder to setup and use than my precious windows and infinitely more stable. I've also heard that almost any piece of software you could want is available for Linux and almost all of it is free. Damn. Where do I sign up.

Now that is what I had heard. Now here is the reality. I've attempted to install and run Linux twice before. Once on my laptop and once for the purpose of a PVR MythTV box. I eventually got both running but little beyond that. I want to become comfortable in Linux and have little things like my screen resolution working. Let's see if it can be done.