Bernaard.Iceleaf.NET

Ubuntu has become my favorite Linux distro, mostly because of its simplicity, its continuity and the fact that most problems are easily solved by a Google search. The community is active and helpful.

So, I installed 8.04 (“Hardy Heron”) on my HP Compaq nc6320 – after a happy time with 7.10. Everything went well, as it usually does with Ubuntu, except for the configuration of my wireless network card (the built-in Intel 3945-card). It turns out that Ubuntu no longer uses Intel’s ipw-drivers, but a new completely opensourced iwl-driver, which for some reason fails to do its job. I had to connect/disconnect to my WPA-encrypted wlan a lot of times after each boot to reach the internet. In addition to that the blue light on the wireless button did not work.

1. The solution is to change to the Wicd Network manager, which so far does its job much better than the default Network Manager. The installation of wicd is explained on the Wicd download page.

2. For the blue light on the network button to work, I found out that I had to enable Bluetooth in the BIOS. That’s a bit annoying since I don’t use it, but anyway…

Quite frankly I am a bit critical to the change from the ipw-drivers to iwl, since the ipw-drivers worked fairly well for me, and the iwl-drivers seem to be on a rather early stage of development.

I have a Dell Optiplex GX 270 in my office, with a Dell 1703 FP flat panel screen. When I installed Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04), the splash screen never turned up. Few of the video modes you specify in Grub will work, except from vga=773. This problem occurs with some other computers from Dell – and other vendors, perhaps? Although it is not a huge problem, it is annoying. Continue reading ‘The Disappearance of the Splash Screen in Ubuntu’ »

This is not a Linux-is-better-than-Windows thing. I am not very ideological when it comes to computers and software. I am pragmatic. The reason I left Windows 98 was that it made me crazy. I wanted to do things and Windows 98 didn’t let me do those things. Since I have a fairly good understanding of how my computer works, and since I consider myself the owner of my computer, I wanted the possibility to control it on all levels. The blue screens, the “illegal operations” and the destructive waves of viruses made me turn to Linux. To me Microsoft had become a word associated with Windows 98, an operating system which was hopelessly insecure, ugly, slow and annoying in most ways. (Sorry Bill, that is my honest opinion…)

Certainly, Linux had what I wanted. The internet developed a large reservoir of instructions on how to do almost everything in Linux, and once again I became the master of my computer, not its slave. For six years Linux and open source software has brought me what I want: An excellent tool to do my job with, a functional access to all kinds of non-drm-media, and something very nice to play around with. However, tempus fugit. XP has been out for years, and finally Windows Vista (aka Longhorn) appears on my brand new HP-laptop. I could simply burn the system recovery disks, delete the whole thing and install Linux, but why the hell, I give Vista a try! And yes, both the world and Windows have changed.

An immediate crisis occur when I realise that there is still no native support for multiple virtual desktops in Windows. That is a problem to me, because I need several desktops. One for surfing and reading mail, one for writing, one for a media player, and one for bashes and system things. Bill, you have to admit that multiple desktops are not only nifty, they are necessary! I don’t know who invented them, it was certainly not Microsoft, but kill your pride and enable multi-threaded brain work!

The media situation is really a dream in Windows Vista. To configure my TV was easy with nVidia’s control panel. (I do think that Ubuntu 7.10 will include a similar tool.) On this point Linux has been a nightmare of editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf and restarting the X server hundreds of times. I was also surprised to realise that, unlike Windows 98, there are no problems playing an encrypted DVD on my box, with one simple click. Good. To import my Music collection and playing it all randomly, as I always do, was very straightforward in Windows Media Player. Good.

Then of course the drm system enables access to online movies and lots of wonderful material. It is certainly nice, although I do have problems with it. It closes a wall around the proprietary operating systems which looks as nothing else than a good old monopoly strategy. Money talks. It would be easy to develop a digital rights protection (drp) system which could be binary distributed to Windows, Linux and Mac users. The long haired freaks in sandals might preach on the evilness of closed source software, but let them preach, I only want to watch all the wonderful movies legally!

The ability to control file and folder permissions properly (I know that it was there in NT and XP) is a huge step compared to Windows 98 (which made my grandmother a potential evil hacker). The multiuser system is satisfactory. Although I do suspect that ordinary ignorant users will create one account with administrative privileges and use it for all purposes. That is a very bad idea: “Hey! Let’s all be root!”

And since Gimp and Openoffice works in Windows I somehow manage to feel home in Vista. But I miss my virtual desktops, and I do not want to use the visually unripe Vista Virtual Desktop Manager. Neither do I feel like buying one of the countless proprietary alternatives. This should be a part of the operating systen, at least as an option.

I have to say that after a week with Vista I think I could survive using it. However, maybe my impression will change after a month or half a year?

OpenDNS is a miracle. I wonder when there will be too many using their effective DNS-servers:

208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

These servers respond much faster than those provided by my DSL supplier (NextGenTel, Norway).