Big Fat Ostrich

It’s done.

I wrote about how I was going to remove Ubuntu 11.10 and install Arch Linux instead and I did it.

The experience was nowhere near as painful as installing Gentoo, and as I suspected, it would be a little bit closer to an older Debian installation. You really do have complete control over what to install. Yes, you have to specify that you want xorg, or else you’ll end up with a headless install.

The first time logging in was clumsy as hell.

I get the desire to have a minimal installation. Really, I get it. Logging in for the first time and seeing 3.9 Gigs of RAM free out of 4Gigs was a thing of beauty. But do I really have to install ‘ifconfig’ separately? It’s really not included in the base install?

Choosing which packages to install is fine, but having to install sshd and ifconfig separately? Now you’re just wasting my time. Seriously, I’m getting angry again just thinking about it!

And what about the stuff I DID choose? Like Libre Office, Rhythmbox and VirtualBox? Even though I specified those, they were never installed. No biggie, since I just installed them myself afterwards.

But what about important stuff, like fonts? Don’t get me started on the fonts or the complete absence of them. Yep. Have to install those too.

So, to figure out which fonts you need, you can do the following:

pacman -Ss font

Install those net-tools as well. You’ll need them:

pacman -S net-tools

Do you need ssh? Of course you do!

pacman -S sshd

And so on.

Getting my xorg nice and slick and spanning across two monitors using the proprietary Nvidia drivers took some work. I installed the drivers like this:

pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils

Anyway, I’m not going to go into a huge how-to for Arch Linux here. It’s way too involved for that. Plus, they have a wealth of documentation which you can find on the Arch Linux Wiki. It’s long and involved, but all of the answers are there.

With all that said, if you don’t like documentation or reading/learning something new, Arch Linux is probably not for you. It’s definitely not for the impatient. I will say that now that I’ve got everything working, my system is faster than it’s ever been. I don’t have the fonts just right yet so it kind of looks like it’s been up all night drinking vermouth, but it sure runs fast. Everything is super snappy like and good.

I’ll be back with one more post about this, after a week of regular use. If things don’t work out with Arch-Linux, I’ll either be going back to an apt-get based system or Red Hat Fedora.

I was going to list a whole bunch of reasons why I’ll be switching from Ubuntu 11.10 to Arch Linux, but my decision really just comes down to 1 thing:

Ubuntu has gotten fat and lazy.

Actually, Ubuntu always was fat. It’s just that each subsequent install/upgrade seems to add more and more weight to the overall operating system. I may have said it before, but Ubuntu is starting to feel like the Windows of Linux distributions: bloated.

So, we’ll be test driving Arch Linux and its minimalist approach. Since I’ve never installed it before, I’m kind of expecting the process to be somewhere between Gentoo and Debian, but hopefully more Debian. Gentoo was a great learning experience, but god was it painful to install back in the day. Anyway, I’ll write about the experience next week or something. And if that doesn’t work out I might just drop everything and try a Hackintosh install.

One other reason why I think moving to Arch Linux will be a good thing: more focus on scripting and command line functions. See, as fat and lazy as Ubuntu is, it’s made me fat and lazy too. I need some more sweet command line action to sharpen my skills.

Later

Hello everyone.

Yeah, I’m still alive. More alive than ever actually. And I got a shitload of things to talk about. Starting with Android. I’ve been a happy iOS/Mac OS user for quite some time now. 4 years or so? Anyway. What I always loved about my iPhone and my Macbook is the elegance, reliability and simplicity of the whole deal. I’ve been working in IT for more than a decade now, forced to implement, support and use shitty, out of date software every single day. Let’s just say, the appeal of recompiling my Gentoo kernel has faded a little at this point. I’m still a geek but I really really appreciate the Apple way of doing things. You know, when you just get used to doing stuff in the apps, completely oblivious to the OS because it’s so fuckin tight and out of the way.

Up until a couple of months ago, I was the happiest camper on the campground. But then I got bored. There I said it; perfection is boring. So I bought me an Android handset and decided to spend a whole month with it. “If it doesn’t pass the test” I said to myself, “I’ll sell it or make it my Android iPod touch or something”. After all, my iPhone was still right there, ready to be reactivated.

After a couple of weeks, I almost wrote a very negative review about it (lack of polish, crashes, shitty audio quality during calls, etc). THEN I DISCOVERED NES AND SNES EMULATORS AND SIXAXIS CONTROLLER SOFTWARE!!! That’s right, my LG Optimus 2X has an HDMI port so I can connect it to the TV and play all my favorite NES and SNES games using my PS3 controller via blue tooth. I also found fixes for microphone shitty performance during calls and an SMS app that lets me draw penises and send them to Mike, just like in the old days with MSN messenger. I also ordered better batteries (2 of them, since they were only 14 bucks each). They’re like 1800 mah instead of only 1500. That’s 300 more mah!! I don’t have the slightest idea of what a “mah” is and how much longer my battery will last with 300 more of them. But I don’t give a fuck. NES GAMES! ON MY TV! WITH MY PS3 CONTROLLER! AND SMS PENISES!!!

So yeah. My conclusion is: Android is not quite there yet but the possibilities and freedom it offers make up for it. Also, the LG Optimus 2X is a stunning piece of hardware. The HDMI port and Gorilla Glass are awesome. I also love the fact that I can upgrade the battery and storage memory (micro SD) up to 32 GB.

OK, now, on another topic, the Smashing Pumpkins are back. These past years, Billy Corgan had kind of, lost his way. And I guess someone told him. And he fuckin listened. Their actual tour kicks ass. The new drummer is a machine. The other 2 are also very good (the new bassist is not Melissa Auf Der Maur, but she totally rocks in her very own way),  most of all, they sound and feel like a band again. Billy seems to be enjoying himself, he’s all fat n bald now but he plays the shit out of that signature strat of his. And as a long time fan, I couldn’t be happier.

Dark Souls is like Demon’s Souls except more beautiful and with more complex maps and better AI, bent on destroying the shit out of you. Even though I hate it with all my heart, it definitely is my game of the year.

I started training at a crossfit place. Every single time feels like I’m getting a solid beating in an alley. And for some reason, I want more. Seriously, those guys are fucking awesome.

Other than training in a place where they hurt me, I’ve also been trying to eat healthier. And after years of reading about different healthy options and theories, this is pretty much the least shitty I could find on the nets. Thanks Mark.

On a less healthy note, I baked awesome apple muffins last weekend and I am totally gonna share the recipe with you guys… BUT IN A DIFFERENT POST! Because this is way too long. So stay tuned. Stay healthy. Stay fit. Keep listening to good music. And keep using Android. (see what I did here?!?!)

LAT0RZ

-D

Continuing with the joy that is Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot and how it completely messed up my previously working wireless, here’s a solution. Note that I’m currently using a Dell Core i3 Inspiron using the following Broadcom network adapter:

Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4353]

You can run lspci -nvn | grep -i net from a shell console if you want to find out which card your machine uses.

Anyway, long story short, you may need to remove the wrong drivers and install the correct ones. This solution worked but may not work for everyone depending on your hardware:

Remove and uninstall the drivers:

sudo apt-get purge broadcom-sta-common broadcom-sta-source bcmwl-kernel-source

Install the correct one:

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer

Enjoy and let us know if this solution worked for you. Found a different solution? Tell us about it!

Yes, today was the day of the upgrade from Ubuntu 11.04 to Ubuntu 11.10, so let’s talk about that.

Ubuntu 11.10′s friendly alliterated animal name is Oneiric Ocelot. Oneiric is defined as dreamy, which brings me to the riddle I just made up:

Q. Why is Ubuntu 11.10 called ‘Oneiric Ocelot’?
A. Because they were asleep when they made it!

Stop laughing. I’m not joking.

The Upgrade
First of all, the upgrade took over 2 hours! Why? Because we all know that Ubuntu is not known for it’s slim girlish figure anymore. A few nicknames came to mind while watching some of the many packages get installed: Bloatbuntu, Ubun Too Goddamn Fat, and Moo-buntu. Yes, this is one fat OS.

The upgrade itself was smooth. After all, you can’t do anything but make dinner or watch T.V. while the packages are installed and downloaded. Why? Because networking is disabled throughout the whole process. Well done.

Ubuntu 11.10 boasts a hideous new login screen
I noticed two things once the upgrade was complete and I logged in for the first time: Oneiric Ocelot is incredibly sluggish when launching apps. 4 gigs of RAM should be more than enough on a linux system, but not here. Ubuntu has become the Windows of linux distros. Fat, bloated and with way too many processes eating up your cpu.

2nd thing: NO WIRELESS.

Well done Canonical/Ubuntu. Maybe I’m being harsh, but can you have everything work out of the box for once? Least of all the wireless. I’m pretty sure that in 2011, wireless technology is kinda a requirement. Jesus. I kind of expected to have to re-configure the desktop environment after upgrading, but the network settings? You’re kidding, right?

As I write this, I can connect to my wireless network so the driver seems to be fine, but I can’t ping anything. Yep. I get an ip address from DHCP, but no ping and no internet. Yes, it’s back to wired for now. Slow clap.

3.0 Kernel
Oneiric Ocelot uses kernel 3.0. In honor of the 20th anniversary of Linux. It was Linus Torvalds‘ idea or something like that. It’s kind of cool to see 3.0 after seeing 2.6 for so long, but it’s not making much of a difference, yet. We’ll get a better idea after some testing.

Desktop environments and Unity
Unity is “cute” but not something I’ll be adopting anytime soon. It’s clean but not necessarily optimal. It’s just sluggish. Gnome 3 is not much better, so I switched to Gnome with no effects. Decent, but not great. It should be faster once I tweak the performance. Again. Like after every upgrade. Probably should have forced it to leave my previous settings.

The Verdict: Oneiric Ocelot is a lazy cow. Arch Linux is starting to look more attractive. Or maybe a clean Debian install.

P.S. After using Ubuntu 11.10 for awhile I’ve come to really hate the Ubuntu Software Center. It’s ok and does the job eventually, but I feel that Synaptic Package Manager was cleaner, faster and more robust overall. It feels like aesthetics were the main reason that they replaced  the old Synaptic Package Manager with the Ubuntu Software Center.

Oh yeah, this week my Nexus S received an update from Android’s Gingerbread version 2.3.5 to 2.3.6.

Here’s the changelog:

1.Voice search bug fixed

That’s it.

Kind of anti-climactic and even more so since I haven’t used the voice search feature yet. Then again, up til now I haven’t run across any other bugs or functionality issues.

Guess we’ll have to wait until Honeycomb is released before we see some real changes to an otherwise rock solid OS.

Even better, I really cannot wait for Ice Cream Sandwich aka Android 4.0, the tastiest of all operating systems.

Awhile back, I raved about MediaTomb and how great it was but there was one little issue that made me try Serviio: streaming subtitles support.

Being able to actually see the subtitles is sort of a big deal when you’re watching someone scream craziness in a Takashi Miike film, so I killed an evening learning how to install Serviio on my Debian LAMP server.

Here are a few preliminaries:

Download and install Serviio:

wget http://download.serviio.org/releases/serviio-0.5.2-linux.tar.gz

Unpack it. I did this from my home directory for the hell of it (but you can unpack it anywhere):

tar xvf serviio-0.5.2-linux.tar.gz

Install java and ffmpeg if you haven’t already

apt-get install default-jre
apt-get install ffmpeg

Now for the fun part and the major fail of Serviio. Serviio’s one major flaw is that it doesn’t have a web interface. This means that you have to configure it FROM the place that you installed it. Basically, if you’re serving movies or music with Serviio on your network, you have to configure it ON the machine where it’s installed. What is this, 1994? You can workaround this by using VNC or connecting a monitor to your server or whatever your setup is. Up to you.

First run Serviio from the bin directory (you should create an init script for this later)

/serviio-0.5.2/bin/serviio.sh

Now launch the serviio console:

/serviio-0.5.2/bin/serviio-console.sh

When the console launches, you can configure the paths to your media folders, i.e., video, music and photos. Pretty straightforward.

And that’s it! You don’t even need to configure Serviio’s profiles.xml, where you need to tweak mediaTomb’s config.xml to get it to work properly.

Now someone please tell me: How is it that mediaTomb hasn’t figured out how to stream subtitles AND have a kick ass web interface, yet, Serviio DOES support streaming subtitles but DOESN’T have a web interface? How is this possible? Please, someone introduce the mediaTomb people with the Serviio gang so that they can have sex and give birth to a fully functioning piece of software.

Ubuntu 11.04 has changed some of its default applications one being the move from Open Office to Libre Office and the other being a move from Rhythmbox music player to Banshee. I don’t really care which Office application Ubuntu uses, but to play music, the application actually needs to perform properly.  Let me list some of the issues I have with using Banshee to play and manage your mp3 collection:

1. Banshee 2.0 crashes often: If you have a large music collection (over 10000 songs) expect Banshee to freeze. I’ve never had this problem with  Rhythmbox. I’d rather use a stable Rhythmbox than wait for Banshee to figure this out.

2. Guitar Tabs: This is one of THE most important plugins for me. The Banshee music player doesn’t seem to have a guitar tab add on. Rhythmbox uses the tab-rhythmbox-plugin to query the guitar tab archive and displays them right alongside your music library, in the same window. No brainer for me.

3. iPod Support: Banshee seems to detect my old 3rd generation iPod without a problem, but so does Rhythmbox. Not enough reason for me to switch.

4. Naming your software Banshee: Have you tried using Google to search for “Banshee music player”. Yep, you’re going to get a a lot of results for “siouxsie and the banshees“, which I don’t mind all that much since they were kind of a cool band anyway. With Rhythmbox, your search results will be more precise and therefore, easier to find support. I’ll admit that this was a bit of a stretch.

In the end, all I want is a music player that just plays music. I don’t care what it looks like as long as it indexes my collection fast and efficiently.

Honorable mention goes to Clementine which would give Rhythmbox a run for its money if it also had…you guessed it…a Guitar Tab plugin. It doesn’t from what I’ve seen, but Clementine 0.7 does pretty much everything else. They’re at version 0.7, so they’re obviously very new. If you can prove me wrong and they do have a guitar tab plugin, let me know! Overall, I find using a combination of rhythmbox and mplayer works out just fine. Or you could use VLC if that’s your thing.