A Conservative Techie

It’s nice to be able to plan ahead for something like UDS.  Jono recently announced the next developers conference for Ubuntu the week of Monday the 8th of December.

The last UDS Mountain View I was just starting a new job, my current job,  and didn’t have any vacation time or the ability to take time off.  The last summit, UDS Prague I missed due to my wife’s pregnancy and the fact it was so close to her due date.

Now I’m looking forward to attending and have already marked my calendar.

It’s amazing the whole let’s fork KDE discussion and keep the 3.5.X series but port to KDE and the hate people have towards the new desktop.

I have been using KDE 4 since the first packages came out for Kubuntu, Gutsy I think.  At first I found there were things I couldn’t get done it, but guess what, it was Alpha at that stage and since then I have grown to love and work better with KDE4. 

I am amazed at the personal attacks that I am seeing levied against some of the developers for the KDE 4 project.  I think it is a great change and is the next step forward.

During my day job I use Vista on my main machine.  I’ve been using Vista since it RTM’d and have grown to enjoy some of the way things are  organized.  Two examples of these are per application sound settings and the way the Start Menu and Search operates.  When I play music, I can keep the sound of the music up loudly while decreasing the sound of the other applications.   On the Start Menu, I simply start typing the name of the application or the name of the file and through the Windows Search, simply hit enter on the file or application I want to use.  I use the start menu, shortcuts on the desktop, and navigate a lot less using Windows Explorer.  These are the two biggest things I miss when I have to work on an XP computer.  To me XP feels outdated and old…. No longer “new” technology, but something I’ve been using for a long time.

Going back to KDE 3.5.X feels the same way.  How long has KDE 3 been in development?  New things come out, technology changes and KDE 4 proves that times have changed.  And for the better…. Going from KDE 4 to KDE 3.5.X is like going back to the past and no longer using the best that’s available

Disagree with what would you like to, but I would like to offer a word of encouragement to the developers and to those that have poured their time, money, and love into the new product.  Keep up the great work.

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Update:  My arguement got lost in translation from my head to the keyboard… I’m not arguing we should KDE 4 cause it’s like Vista… I guess what I was trying to argue was that like Vista, KDE 4 takes some while to get used to and that I don’t want to use KDE 4 jus tlike I don’t want to use XP.  I feel less productive in both.

I’m looking to figure out the best way to manage my music library and be able to use the files on all of my machines.

My setup:  Windows Vista Business Edition Laptop, Windows Vista Business Edition Desktop, with a 500 gig NTSF formatted USB drive, a Mac OS X laptop, and Kubuntu 8.04 workstation.

I am currently using iTunes to manage things, but have contemplated using some other program to control everything.  Also I have shared out my Music folder and so far have mapped drives, but is there a better way to manage my Music so I can play things on all devices?

Thanks in advance

There has been quite the discussion on ubuntu-devel-discuss  in regards to the announcement of Ubuntu Remix and its support for various media codecs including a license for Windows Media.  Most of this discussion comes from this point…that Canonical is now supporting and paying Microsoft.  Of course most rants about this always included the M$ which makes the argument sound much more intelligent.

Anyway, I’m glad to see Canonical and Intel working together to deliver yet another avenue for people to use Linux.  I’m especially glad that on these netbooks people will not be limited by the types of videos they can watch.

I wonder if the amount of people who now have the ASUS Eee PC runing Ubuntu is helping out with this?

Part of the goal of this project is “This interface is optimised for a retail sales environment” which means there were be more and more average users running this device who want and need WMV format.  Should we cripple their experience or should we allow them to have the best possible experience?  I vote for the best format.  Including out of the box MP3 support.

Here are the technical specifications of the Ubuntu Netbook.

Technical specifications

Minimum hardware requirements:

• Processor: Intel Atom processor
• RAM: 512 MB
• Storage: 4 GB Flash disk (SSD) or hard disk

Major open source applications included:

• Web browser - Firefox 3 
• E-mail client - Thunderbird
• Instant messenger - Pidgin
• Media player - Rhythmbox†
• eBook reader - FBReader
• RSS reader - Lifrea
• Photo viewer - F-Spot
• Office suite - OpenOffice.org

Market leading applications included:

• Adobe Flash
• Adobe Reader
• Real Player for MID†
• Java JVM

Licensed audio and video decoders:

• MPEG4 (H.263)
• MP3
• AAC
• Windows Media 
• Real Media*

† Choice of one media player
* Only available with Real Player

—– Updated —-

Check out http://thegabfather.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/ubuntu-netbook-remix/ for more information

I sit in front of my computer take a look at my to-do list and do not do anything with it.  A new email comes in and it is something I need to deal with, so I mark it for follow up and then promptly do nothing about despite countless reminders.  I read through my emails and see various people have responded to bugs that I have asked for more information and I don’t feel like doing anything about them.

I wonder why…. is it because I have to much on my to-do list.  Or is it I’m just sitting here waiting for my wife to go to into labor?  Whatever it is if you were waiting for a response from me, I have marked it for follow-up and will be getting to it when I can.

Sorry about that

THis is probablly posted already to Planet Ubuntu, but in an effort to increase transparency the Ubuntu Server team has created a new blog.

Go visit it to see the minutes of the last meeting.

I wrote earlier that I was having problems with SUSE Enterprise Linux 10.1 and my wireless card working.  I thought it worked out of the box w/ Ubuntu but I was looking for a different network card.  The Dell D830 that I have and use with Kubuntu is the Intel 3985 and not the 4985.  This card works fine. 

Now with the newer card and using 8.04 I can’t get the wireless card to work correctly.  I’ve googled and googled and can’t find a simple and easy step by step guide to get this card to work.

Any help

After hunting around for a quite awhile I figured out how to share my document folders from Kubuntu 8.04 Remix laptop with my Windows XP VM. The current problem with Kubuntu 8.04 is that when you run kcmshell4 fileshare you can’t configure sharing due to not having permssions.  Then if you run kdesudo kcmshell4 fileshare, for some reason that I don’t know of, can’t find the command.  I reported this as a bug on bugs.kde.org, but havne’t heard anything more about that.

This post will be a placeholder to help me find this out later in life.

1.  Install samba

2.  sudo smbpasswd jjesse and enter a password

3.  Install system-config-samba (sudo apt-get install system-config-samba

4.  system-config-samba will not function because there is no file located in /etc/libuser.conf

5.  sudo touch /etc/libuser.conf

6.  sudo system-config-samba to setup your drives

From the VM:

Open up Network Neighborhood and map the drive using the username and the password (password setup in smbpasswd)

If there is a better way to solve this, let me know.

I do a lot of training in my day job and one of the things i have been unable to do with my 8.04 with KDE4 install is to configure the projector to work the way I have it in Windows.  When i attach a projector to my Windows boot, my computer is set to extend the desktop to the projector and automatically adjusts the 2nd monitor (projector) to the correct resolution, which is 1024×768.

However in KDE 4, I have been unable to extend my desktop to the projector.  The desktop becomes mirrored to the projector and the main display of my laptop’s resolution is changed to match the 1024×768.  I have looked into system settings and the Screen Size and Rotate applet but have been unsucessful in finding a setting to extend.  In fact I am unable to adjust the resolution on my main display to the higher resolution.

If somoene could help me figure out what I’m doing wrong, that would be great.

Do I need to be using the restricted nvidia drivers?

Thanks

Jonathan

Yes I admit it, and in fact will probablly write a post about it… Anyways that is not the point of this entry.

I do a lot of Kubuntu/Ubuntu “work” and would like to continue using Launchpad in the way that I use it in my Kubuntu box.  The #1 thing I am missing is ssh keys and how it will work w/ bzr to commit to launchpad.

I have multiple branches that I work on…. Documentation, and 5-a-day, stuff like that.  Bzr works in Windows, I have no problem checking out branches.  it is commiting to those branches that causes problems. 

If someone can help me out or point me in a direction to help out that would be wonderful.  I would prefer to not use cygwin but that may be the only answer?

Thanks,

Jonathan