Did some further testing of MacPup 550 the other evening. Enough to know that it's not overly fond of the Dell XPS. The trackpad is sluggish, and I had a devil of a time in ALSA getting the sound to work properly. But, for now, I'll restrict its usage to the Thinkpads. (Of course, I haven't really played with it on all of them yet, so stay tuned...)
In other news, last night I downloaded yet another Puppy distro, this one entitled Puppy Slacko 5.5 XL. This one is sort of along the lines of PhatSlack, basically a really tricked out version of (as the name implies) Slacko 5.5. The distro was put together by a gentleman going by the handle "koulaxizi" over on the Puppy Linux Discussion Forum. The cool thing about this is that "koulaxizi" is not a professional developer, etc., but just a typical user who decided to play around and see what he could do in the line of making a distro. That I find quite cool. (Here's the discussion thread so you can read what he has to say. The download link is there, as well.)
I've burned a CD and did a test live boot with great success, so I went ahead and did a frugal install to a 16 GB thumb drive. He has done an exceptional job, especially for a first shot at a distro. I'm sure they'll probably be some teething problems along the way, but I certainly have run across any. He's using Openbox plus Extras for his interface, and has included a very snazzy collection of software.
It's a slick distro, well worth a look. I'm running it right now, and am looking forward to tooling around with it for a while.
Also, I did a bit of an impulse download earlier today. Grabbed a copy of Trisquel 6.0 LTS. I've been wanting to try some of the FSF-approved systems, just to see how they ran. Ages back, I downloaded a copy of gNewSense, but I just never got 'round to burning nor installing. My inherent laziness and desire to follow the herd kept me from doing so. But Trisquel looks to be a bit...well, a little bit better for work-averse herdlings like me...
Unfortunately, the Trisquel .ISO is in the download folder on my desktop at the moment, and I think I used my last CD-R for the Slacko XL burn. (I know I've got some DVD-Rs about, but I obviously don't want to use those on an .ISO specifically set to burn to CD.) I may have to make a store run tomorrow...
All in all, a good Linux week. I am, of course, still waiting for the new battery for the T410s, which will allow me to go fully mobile with it. I'm beginning to get impatient.
I'm going to try to spruce the old blog up here soon. I need to start doing some screen shots and the like, to show what I'm doing. My entries tend to be a bit spur of the moment (bet no one has noticed that), with me just jumping on and writing. But, I'm going to actually try to put some real effort into it.
As for now, it's getting a bit late, so I'm off to veg out a bit...
Monday, August 26, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
New Pup on the Block
Finally got round to downloading MacPup 550, the latest. Been wanting to ever since running across SneekyLinux's teaser preview over on YouTube. (He's since done several videos on the new release.)
Normally, I download new distros on my desktop computer, the Acer running Mint 13. However, this time I got a wild hair and downloaded via the T410s, just to see how it would handle the job. (The answer there: brilliantly. I did a straight download, as I'm not much of a Torrent'er. And, to be honest, I didn't see a Torrent option available.)
I also used this opportunity to test the T410s DVD/CD-RW drive, which worked fine. I used PBurn, which comes with Lighthouse 64, and that worked fine. (I really don't have any preference in burning software. I've used Brassero quite a bit, simply because that's what Mint comes with.) A quick test live boot showed everything working well. MacPup 550 was up and running, detecting everything on my system with alacrity.
So, I decided to take the plunge and do a USB thumb install while I had MacPup up and running. I dug out the thumb drive that had my MacPup 529 install on it, and proceeded to fire up GParted. (I wanted to re-partition the drive, as I'd felt I'd given a bit too much space to the swap file.) Everything worked fine till I went to set up said swap file. Then GParted would gag and give an error message.
About 10 minutes of this, and I'd just about had it. I ejected the thumb drive and shut down MacPup. Back into Lighthouse 64. Remount the thumb drive, and fire up that version of Gparted. After a few moments which felt longer than they should, the repartitioning worked fine. Rather than relaunch the CD, I simply mounted it, did a straight copy over to the thumb, and then ran Grub4Dos config from Lighthouse.
Worked like a charm. Booted fine. I didn't play with MacPup 550 too long last night, but everything seemed in order. I'll give it a whirl over the next week.
I do have one problem with the T410s that I have since addressed, and am now awaiting the solution. The battery. The system was sold as refurbished, and that it is. But this is a case of "refurbishing" simply meaning, "we checked to see that it simply holds a charge", which is pretty normal, mind you. And the battery included does hold a charge. But only about a 57% one. Sooo... I had to put a battery on order. Hopefully it'll be here next week.
It's too nice an evening here to do anything even vaguely resembling work. Time for some rest. the work week is coming on far too quick...........
Normally, I download new distros on my desktop computer, the Acer running Mint 13. However, this time I got a wild hair and downloaded via the T410s, just to see how it would handle the job. (The answer there: brilliantly. I did a straight download, as I'm not much of a Torrent'er. And, to be honest, I didn't see a Torrent option available.)
I also used this opportunity to test the T410s DVD/CD-RW drive, which worked fine. I used PBurn, which comes with Lighthouse 64, and that worked fine. (I really don't have any preference in burning software. I've used Brassero quite a bit, simply because that's what Mint comes with.) A quick test live boot showed everything working well. MacPup 550 was up and running, detecting everything on my system with alacrity.
So, I decided to take the plunge and do a USB thumb install while I had MacPup up and running. I dug out the thumb drive that had my MacPup 529 install on it, and proceeded to fire up GParted. (I wanted to re-partition the drive, as I'd felt I'd given a bit too much space to the swap file.) Everything worked fine till I went to set up said swap file. Then GParted would gag and give an error message.
About 10 minutes of this, and I'd just about had it. I ejected the thumb drive and shut down MacPup. Back into Lighthouse 64. Remount the thumb drive, and fire up that version of Gparted. After a few moments which felt longer than they should, the repartitioning worked fine. Rather than relaunch the CD, I simply mounted it, did a straight copy over to the thumb, and then ran Grub4Dos config from Lighthouse.
Worked like a charm. Booted fine. I didn't play with MacPup 550 too long last night, but everything seemed in order. I'll give it a whirl over the next week.
I do have one problem with the T410s that I have since addressed, and am now awaiting the solution. The battery. The system was sold as refurbished, and that it is. But this is a case of "refurbishing" simply meaning, "we checked to see that it simply holds a charge", which is pretty normal, mind you. And the battery included does hold a charge. But only about a 57% one. Sooo... I had to put a battery on order. Hopefully it'll be here next week.
It's too nice an evening here to do anything even vaguely resembling work. Time for some rest. the work week is coming on far too quick...........
Friday, August 23, 2013
And the Winner IS...
I really toyed with the idea of doing the "Deep Thought" thing from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You know, "I have the answer, but I don't think you're going to like it..." But I didn't think anyone would dislike the answer, and it's not really an answer, it's more of a revelation... But really doesn't have the impact of a REVELATION...
OK, I'll stop...
I put Lighthouse 64 on the T410s.
Yeah, I did. Honest.
The touchpad still won't accept taps, and moves the cursor like the touchpad on the CF-29, but it DOES scroll. The trackpoint works fine, though. As does the 'Suspend' command. And the wireless.
So, on a leap-of-faith whim, I just did a frugal install. I can play with it for a while, get the feel of it. I like the looks of Lighthouse, and (beyond the touchpad oddness) the system works smoothly. And it's 64 bit, so it's quite spry on the i5. (Or at least it feels that way to me.)
And, after all, it's not like this is permanent.
This is Linux. You can do anything you like... ;-)
OK, I'll stop...
I put Lighthouse 64 on the T410s.
Yeah, I did. Honest.
The touchpad still won't accept taps, and moves the cursor like the touchpad on the CF-29, but it DOES scroll. The trackpoint works fine, though. As does the 'Suspend' command. And the wireless.
So, on a leap-of-faith whim, I just did a frugal install. I can play with it for a while, get the feel of it. I like the looks of Lighthouse, and (beyond the touchpad oddness) the system works smoothly. And it's 64 bit, so it's quite spry on the i5. (Or at least it feels that way to me.)
And, after all, it's not like this is permanent.
This is Linux. You can do anything you like... ;-)
Bleak Week
This hasn't been the best week.
My small canine friend of 17 years left us Tuesday. Seventeen good years. The rest of the week has just been trying to figure out what to do with our lives, now that the little boss of the house is no longer here to tell us what to do. Dog owners everywhere will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Today, a minor distraction from it all. A little bartering and twisting, and I am now the proud owner of my first Intel Core system. A Thinkpad T410s with a Core i5 at 2.4 Ghz. It's a bit of a replacement for some other stuff, but that's sort of a private deal, so... (This was sort of worked out at the same time as the Dell XPS, but I'm going to hold onto both of these systems...)
I was out for most of the day, and just got it out of the box. It's still packing Windows 7 Professional, which I just went through the setup options on. Yeah...
Usually I can handle Win7. But this time around...well, not happy. The damned thing took forever to set up, and then it wouldn't show me the wireless. At all. It was like there was no wireless card in the system. I was, shall we say, not happy, as I thought I might have been conned.
A quick trip to the Grand Packet of OS Drives, and I fired up Upup Raring. In the few moments to boot up, everything was recognized. Bang, there's the wireless card. Bang, online. I didn't even need to do the normal "play with the ALSA setup" that one normally has to do with a Puppy variant, as the sound worked without a hitch.
Needless to say, I don't have the qualms about removing Windows from this system that I had with the Dell. I'm thinking Kubuntu, though I'm going to bounce through my options. Until I make the final decision, this cool devil of a machine will be booting off of a USB drive.
The Dell XPS is a slick system. (Again, you won't hear me say that about a Dell often.) The Thinkpads 61 and 400 are pretty damned awesome. But this is ubercool. We're into the MacBook level of coolness here. Lenovo definitely had a hit when they went to the thin form. And it still packs an optical drive. That, and the i5, puts it ahead of the X60s
So, we'll see what this baby can do. I think this might become my work computer for the time being.
I can definitely use the distraction. I'm still missing my canine buddy. He was never overly fond of the computers, as I think he thought they took up too much of my time. And he was probably right. But I think he would've liked this one.
At least a little...
My small canine friend of 17 years left us Tuesday. Seventeen good years. The rest of the week has just been trying to figure out what to do with our lives, now that the little boss of the house is no longer here to tell us what to do. Dog owners everywhere will know exactly what I'm talking about.
Today, a minor distraction from it all. A little bartering and twisting, and I am now the proud owner of my first Intel Core system. A Thinkpad T410s with a Core i5 at 2.4 Ghz. It's a bit of a replacement for some other stuff, but that's sort of a private deal, so... (This was sort of worked out at the same time as the Dell XPS, but I'm going to hold onto both of these systems...)
I was out for most of the day, and just got it out of the box. It's still packing Windows 7 Professional, which I just went through the setup options on. Yeah...
Usually I can handle Win7. But this time around...well, not happy. The damned thing took forever to set up, and then it wouldn't show me the wireless. At all. It was like there was no wireless card in the system. I was, shall we say, not happy, as I thought I might have been conned.
A quick trip to the Grand Packet of OS Drives, and I fired up Upup Raring. In the few moments to boot up, everything was recognized. Bang, there's the wireless card. Bang, online. I didn't even need to do the normal "play with the ALSA setup" that one normally has to do with a Puppy variant, as the sound worked without a hitch.
Needless to say, I don't have the qualms about removing Windows from this system that I had with the Dell. I'm thinking Kubuntu, though I'm going to bounce through my options. Until I make the final decision, this cool devil of a machine will be booting off of a USB drive.
The Dell XPS is a slick system. (Again, you won't hear me say that about a Dell often.) The Thinkpads 61 and 400 are pretty damned awesome. But this is ubercool. We're into the MacBook level of coolness here. Lenovo definitely had a hit when they went to the thin form. And it still packs an optical drive. That, and the i5, puts it ahead of the X60s
So, we'll see what this baby can do. I think this might become my work computer for the time being.
I can definitely use the distraction. I'm still missing my canine buddy. He was never overly fond of the computers, as I think he thought they took up too much of my time. And he was probably right. But I think he would've liked this one.
At least a little...
Sunday, August 18, 2013
More Silly Season
I won't tell you what I was searching for, but I recently ran across this rather odd discussion of the operating system on Tony Stark's office desktop.
OK, I'll admit it. Stuff like this does occasionally cross my mind. It's a way to waste the time. And indulge in a little serious fantasizing.
And note that I am typing on a Dell XPS (though sadly not a M2010), and I do have a USB "dongle" (OK, it's a thumb drive) sticking in the side...
Sadly, I don't have the super-powered exoskeleton in the closet. Nor the billions of $ in my bank account that might help me move closer to creating said exoskeleton...
No cute personal assistant to send off to hack the office computers... No super-plane to carry me off to exotic locations around the world...
Sigh. Back to the fantasizing...
At least I have my laptops to keep me warm.... ;-)
OK, I'll admit it. Stuff like this does occasionally cross my mind. It's a way to waste the time. And indulge in a little serious fantasizing.
And note that I am typing on a Dell XPS (though sadly not a M2010), and I do have a USB "dongle" (OK, it's a thumb drive) sticking in the side...
Sadly, I don't have the super-powered exoskeleton in the closet. Nor the billions of $ in my bank account that might help me move closer to creating said exoskeleton...
No cute personal assistant to send off to hack the office computers... No super-plane to carry me off to exotic locations around the world...
Sigh. Back to the fantasizing...
At least I have my laptops to keep me warm.... ;-)
Morning After
OK, bad title... But it's in the morning, and I really am lacking in creativity right now...
So far, Kubuntu has been doing OK. I did have a nice fight yesterday evening with the "Wallet" function. I don't use that feature on any system I have (I know, I'm such a Luddite). Apparently, instead of dismissing it yesterday, I must've hit a very wrong button, because the system locked me out of the wireless. I couldn't get on in the office, nor at home. I finally had to dig through the system control panel till I found the way to disable Wallet, then had to reboot. But I'm able to access my wireless now without any further happy dancing...
I did have to download another web browser, as Rekonq has issues with Hotmail. Sort or reminds me of Midori, though Rekonq will fully log into Hotmail (Midori won't), but once you're in, you can't do anything, not even log out. So, I sort of bit the bullet and downloaded Chromium. Yeah, Chromium. I decided to be a little different and see how it handled being my full-time browser for a while.
Otherwise, everything has been uneventful. Used the T400 here for a good bit last night, then switched over the Dell XPS with PhatSlacko. The bulk of the evening was spent just grazing on YouTube videos. Mostly rehashing stuff I've seen a dozen times before, thought occasionally hitting different stuff. (Why I sat and watched videos on the Lemote Yeelong notebook I'm not sure. RMS flashbacks?)
Today looks to be a rainy, hazy day. Might try to get out a bit. Sort of let the computers cool off.
Let us see where the day takes us...
So far, Kubuntu has been doing OK. I did have a nice fight yesterday evening with the "Wallet" function. I don't use that feature on any system I have (I know, I'm such a Luddite). Apparently, instead of dismissing it yesterday, I must've hit a very wrong button, because the system locked me out of the wireless. I couldn't get on in the office, nor at home. I finally had to dig through the system control panel till I found the way to disable Wallet, then had to reboot. But I'm able to access my wireless now without any further happy dancing...
I did have to download another web browser, as Rekonq has issues with Hotmail. Sort or reminds me of Midori, though Rekonq will fully log into Hotmail (Midori won't), but once you're in, you can't do anything, not even log out. So, I sort of bit the bullet and downloaded Chromium. Yeah, Chromium. I decided to be a little different and see how it handled being my full-time browser for a while.
Otherwise, everything has been uneventful. Used the T400 here for a good bit last night, then switched over the Dell XPS with PhatSlacko. The bulk of the evening was spent just grazing on YouTube videos. Mostly rehashing stuff I've seen a dozen times before, thought occasionally hitting different stuff. (Why I sat and watched videos on the Lemote Yeelong notebook I'm not sure. RMS flashbacks?)
Today looks to be a rainy, hazy day. Might try to get out a bit. Sort of let the computers cool off.
Let us see where the day takes us...
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Happy International Geocaching Day!
Yes, it's International Geocaching Day!
Yeah, I didn't know it either, till I heard the story on National Public Radio... I guess this is the Third Annual, so, congrats!
And, before anyone asks, no I don't partake. Though I did know what it was well before I heard of IGC. I always thought it was a fascinating idea, and I'd love to give it a go someday. But... Time and money restraints raise their ugly heads. (I'd rather be spending my spare dimes on old computers, you know...)
So, to all you 'Cache'rs out there, enjoy! Search away!!
Yeah, I didn't know it either, till I heard the story on National Public Radio... I guess this is the Third Annual, so, congrats!
And, before anyone asks, no I don't partake. Though I did know what it was well before I heard of IGC. I always thought it was a fascinating idea, and I'd love to give it a go someday. But... Time and money restraints raise their ugly heads. (I'd rather be spending my spare dimes on old computers, you know...)
So, to all you 'Cache'rs out there, enjoy! Search away!!
Funky
So, after boiling and toiling for a
while, I finally made a decision.
OK, I reinstalled Fuduntu on
the T400 first, then I made a decision. I decided to try out Kubuntu
13.04.
Oh, I did do a quick check of the
Fuduntu repositories. Dead as a door knob. So...
Somewhere in my pile of
burn-then-forget CDs and DVDs, I found a copy of Kubuntu Raring
Ringtail. Off to the races we go!
The installation is, of course,
Ubuntu-like. Very slick, very complete. Took a bit longer
than I've become used to, but once it's done...
Wow. I've never used Kde, nor
Plasma, before. It's...uhm... different. Very different.
In fact, it's kind of like relearning the computer again. Took me a
second or so to get oriented. Finding out where everything is took
some time. But things seem to work OK. It's a wee bit sluggish,
but... Everything works. That's a plus. And a blessing, after all
the fighting with OS's I've been forced to do as of late.
I'm not overly sure about Rekonq
as a web browser. It seems to work OK, but I'm such a FireFox
drudge... Haven't played with Dolphin, but it seems quite
competent a file manager. LibreOffice is LibreOffice,
and I quite like it, so we're good there. I really can't say on
anything else.
Right now, I'm considering this
installation experimental. My thoughts are to transfer Kubuntu
over to the Dell XPS, and install Lubuntu 13.04 on this
system. (Yeah, I have a burned copy of it, too.) I still haven't
worked myself up (are you ready for this?) to remove Windows 7
from the Dell. (?!!?) Of course, I haven't even
tried a live boot on the Dell yet.
I've been running PhatSlacko5.5
off of my old PNY thumbdrive on the Dell, which has worked great. I
may try my thumb install of Saluki later on, just to see how
it does. If all goes well there, I'll give it a run with MacPup
and Upup Raring.
And I'm actually considering doing a 16
GB thumb drive install of Lighthouse 64, just to play with it.
I know that'll be a shock to some, given my ranting about it, but it
is an interesting system, and I think it needs to be experimented
with more. Just not installed on a hard drive. (And I want freedom
to modify, which I can't really do on the CD.) I'm also going to set
up a thumb drive with FatDog64, as an alternate OS for the 64
bit systems.
Oh, and as a side note, I'm actually
typing this entry in LibreWrite on the T400, while sitting in
my local library. I wanted to do some testing of the wireless setup
in Kubuntu, to make sure it did handle various wireless setups
correctly and easily. So far, so good. I'll probably swing by the
office later on, test it there. (That's one I really do want it to
work on.)
So, now, let me see about copying and
pasting into the web browser...
Yep, guess it works... ;-)
Friday, August 16, 2013
ARGH-ing
My soul is in no better shape than last night.
I decided to try Lighthouse64 out on the Thinkpad T400. I probably don't need to tell that I had the same success as with the Dell XPS...
Well, I went a step further. I decided to try an install to the hard drive. (After all, I can always quickly restore to Funduntu, so...
The install went fine. Everything was working OK. Then I tried the trackpad.
Yeah. No tapping nor scrolling. And the thing was so sluggish it began to remind me of the trackpad on the CF-29... Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe... Just to get halfway up the screen... And nothing seems to work in the trackpad control... I started using the trackpoint, just because it was faster. (The scroll didn't work with it, either.)
Otherwise, things seemed...OK. Until I went to test the 'Suspend' feature.
There was no 'Suspend' feature.
Now, Lighthouse is based on FatDog64, which definitely does have 'Suspend' capability built in...
Not happy. Not happy at all.
I had, by this time, found the Puppy Package Manager, which was in a...well... Not exactly intuitive location. I'd been searching for any type of restricted driver, etc., that might help with the trackpad. So, in a fit of desperation, I went looking for acpitool, which I've used on my Precise Puppy install on the Sony Vaio to successfully give me suspend capability.
I was a bit leery of finding it, as Lighthouse apparently is using the Slacko repositories. (I'd looked for it previously in PhatSlacko, and had found a variation I wasn't familiar with.) But, low & behold, there it was. A quick download, and there it be, fully installed. Cool. I did a quick -h help check, and then typed in 'acpitool -s".
And I was informed that I didn't have "write access" to whatever the file was needed for the suspend.
Herewith followed a string of commands, followed by a string of profanities, followed by...
I went to just shut the damned thing down, and noticed an odd icon on the shutdown menu. Clicking on it took me to a "suspend" menu...
Clicking on the "Suspend" button got me absolutely nothing. The conky showed the processor spiked slightly. Clicking on the "Hibernate" button got me a big error message.
Slamming the computer lid shut got me a very great, but entirely transitory, feeling of satisfaction. Or at least a bit of pseudo-cathartic release...
Yeah, I know...............
I decided to try Lighthouse64 out on the Thinkpad T400. I probably don't need to tell that I had the same success as with the Dell XPS...
Well, I went a step further. I decided to try an install to the hard drive. (After all, I can always quickly restore to Funduntu, so...
The install went fine. Everything was working OK. Then I tried the trackpad.
Yeah. No tapping nor scrolling. And the thing was so sluggish it began to remind me of the trackpad on the CF-29... Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe... Just to get halfway up the screen... And nothing seems to work in the trackpad control... I started using the trackpoint, just because it was faster. (The scroll didn't work with it, either.)
Otherwise, things seemed...OK. Until I went to test the 'Suspend' feature.
There was no 'Suspend' feature.
Now, Lighthouse is based on FatDog64, which definitely does have 'Suspend' capability built in...
Not happy. Not happy at all.
I had, by this time, found the Puppy Package Manager, which was in a...well... Not exactly intuitive location. I'd been searching for any type of restricted driver, etc., that might help with the trackpad. So, in a fit of desperation, I went looking for acpitool, which I've used on my Precise Puppy install on the Sony Vaio to successfully give me suspend capability.
I was a bit leery of finding it, as Lighthouse apparently is using the Slacko repositories. (I'd looked for it previously in PhatSlacko, and had found a variation I wasn't familiar with.) But, low & behold, there it was. A quick download, and there it be, fully installed. Cool. I did a quick -h help check, and then typed in 'acpitool -s".
And I was informed that I didn't have "write access" to whatever the file was needed for the suspend.
Herewith followed a string of commands, followed by a string of profanities, followed by...
I went to just shut the damned thing down, and noticed an odd icon on the shutdown menu. Clicking on it took me to a "suspend" menu...
Clicking on the "Suspend" button got me absolutely nothing. The conky showed the processor spiked slightly. Clicking on the "Hibernate" button got me a big error message.
Slamming the computer lid shut got me a very great, but entirely transitory, feeling of satisfaction. Or at least a bit of pseudo-cathartic release...
Yeah, I know...............
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Going to the Dogs
So... Setting up oddball Puppy distros.....
Well, I thought I'd give the new Dell a bit of a tryout with the distros I was thinking about installing. You know, sort of a auditioning......
With that in mind, I went ahead and burned a copy of Lighthouse64 6.02 Beta 2, which I'd downloaded a couple nights ago. Then I dug out my copies of FatDog64 621 and Simplicity Linux 13.4.
First up, Simplicity, which fell very quickly because it wouldn't see the wireless network. Yeah, I know, I have no idea. I couldn't even find the bloody wireless controls. Nothing. Nada. I took it no further, shutting down the system, and rebooting with Lighthouse.
The folks who set up Lighthouse did a wonderful job in the visually appealing department. It is a beautifully done system. Sadly, it won't "read" the touchpad on the XPS properly. It told me it was set up for tapping, but won't accept taps. I turned it on, turned it off, tried 1, 2, and 3 finger tapping. Nothing. So, I thought I'd look in the package manage to see if there might be some proprietary drivers or some such. But, and this is damned embarrassing, I COULDN'T FIND THE DAMNED PACKAGE MANAGER! I know it's there, it's just buried under a submenu I didn't click, but...
Deep breath. Shut down the system.
The system tells me to eject the CD before shutting down. OK, select eject...
It won't eject the disk. Tells me that some process is using the disk. OK, select unmount. Nothing happens. OK, select eject...
I sense an infinite loop starting... Desperate maneuvers begin to take shape in the back of my mind... And then all hell breaks loose... kee-RASH!
This was all very good for my soul.
Desperately practicing some calm breathing techniques, I booted up FatDog64. It boots. But I don't remember it being that annoying to set up an accursed wireless connection before. And the cursor moves like it's been smoking meth with the local hooligans, but... The system is working. I'm using it right now.
I'm thinking happy thoughts. I'm thinking of gardens and fountains, and the soft, soothing sounds of running water...
I'm thinking, why can't Saluki still be active... And why doesn't Slacko have a suspend feature...
I really should know better than to start the projects just before going to bed.
Yeah... Really good for the soul........
Well, I thought I'd give the new Dell a bit of a tryout with the distros I was thinking about installing. You know, sort of a auditioning......
With that in mind, I went ahead and burned a copy of Lighthouse64 6.02 Beta 2, which I'd downloaded a couple nights ago. Then I dug out my copies of FatDog64 621 and Simplicity Linux 13.4.
First up, Simplicity, which fell very quickly because it wouldn't see the wireless network. Yeah, I know, I have no idea. I couldn't even find the bloody wireless controls. Nothing. Nada. I took it no further, shutting down the system, and rebooting with Lighthouse.
The folks who set up Lighthouse did a wonderful job in the visually appealing department. It is a beautifully done system. Sadly, it won't "read" the touchpad on the XPS properly. It told me it was set up for tapping, but won't accept taps. I turned it on, turned it off, tried 1, 2, and 3 finger tapping. Nothing. So, I thought I'd look in the package manage to see if there might be some proprietary drivers or some such. But, and this is damned embarrassing, I COULDN'T FIND THE DAMNED PACKAGE MANAGER! I know it's there, it's just buried under a submenu I didn't click, but...
Deep breath. Shut down the system.
The system tells me to eject the CD before shutting down. OK, select eject...
It won't eject the disk. Tells me that some process is using the disk. OK, select unmount. Nothing happens. OK, select eject...
I sense an infinite loop starting... Desperate maneuvers begin to take shape in the back of my mind... And then all hell breaks loose... kee-RASH!
This was all very good for my soul.
Desperately practicing some calm breathing techniques, I booted up FatDog64. It boots. But I don't remember it being that annoying to set up an accursed wireless connection before. And the cursor moves like it's been smoking meth with the local hooligans, but... The system is working. I'm using it right now.
I'm thinking happy thoughts. I'm thinking of gardens and fountains, and the soft, soothing sounds of running water...
I'm thinking, why can't Saluki still be active... And why doesn't Slacko have a suspend feature...
I really should know better than to start the projects just before going to bed.
Yeah... Really good for the soul........
A Bit Over the Top
I'm a little bit embarrassed, but I have to tell you... I'm writing this on yet another laptop... And this one is a total departure for me...
People are going to start to think that I'm off the deep end, and am able to throw money away like a crazy person... Not true. I do get a little crazy at times, but I try to only pick up stuff if the deal is good. This one was, even if it was a little on the odd side.
I managed to grab a Dell XPS M1530. Now, I'm normally not the biggest fan of Dells, and I'm well aware of the GPU problems the XPS series has had. But this is one of the few Dells that I actually like (the other being the XPS M2010, which I do not own, but would love to have), and things seem to be OK on the GPU front. (And I'm not one to push the graphics system anyway...) The price was far lower than I thought I could ever get one for, so...
I'm still an idiot, but hey...
So, anyway, this is a nice little system, Core2Duo, running at 2.4 Ghz. 4 GB of RAM, 500 GB HD. Right now, it has Win7 on it, but I'm not really sure how long that will last. (At the moment, I'm running PhatSlacko 5.5 off of a thumb drive.) The previous owner installed a new battery, but it's a 6 cell instead of the 9 cell I prefer. (I'm just doing battery tests now.)
I had planned, after picking this system up, to install Simplicity Linux on it. Right after I got the thing set up, I did a live boot into SL 13.4 from CD. However, all didn't go smooth. For some reason, there were problems with the wireless. (It had worked fine in Windows.) I fought with it for a while, then decided to do a quick experiment. I jumped over to my older PNY install of Phat, booted up, and was online in a snap. Everything configured fine...
Sooo... I'm now thinking strongly about Lighthouse64 for this system. I have the latest beta .ISO sitting on my desktop, but just haven't burnt to CD yet. However, I'm also going to run a test on FatDog64 621, as I do have that on CD We shall see how things go.
Slacko is running fine, though. I'll probably run through all my thumb drive collection, just to see how each looks. I haven't really had this long enough to say yay/nay, but I like it so far.
Yet another "we shall see." I'm hoping for good things...
Now, off to more playing...
People are going to start to think that I'm off the deep end, and am able to throw money away like a crazy person... Not true. I do get a little crazy at times, but I try to only pick up stuff if the deal is good. This one was, even if it was a little on the odd side.
I managed to grab a Dell XPS M1530. Now, I'm normally not the biggest fan of Dells, and I'm well aware of the GPU problems the XPS series has had. But this is one of the few Dells that I actually like (the other being the XPS M2010, which I do not own, but would love to have), and things seem to be OK on the GPU front. (And I'm not one to push the graphics system anyway...) The price was far lower than I thought I could ever get one for, so...
I'm still an idiot, but hey...
So, anyway, this is a nice little system, Core2Duo, running at 2.4 Ghz. 4 GB of RAM, 500 GB HD. Right now, it has Win7 on it, but I'm not really sure how long that will last. (At the moment, I'm running PhatSlacko 5.5 off of a thumb drive.) The previous owner installed a new battery, but it's a 6 cell instead of the 9 cell I prefer. (I'm just doing battery tests now.)
I had planned, after picking this system up, to install Simplicity Linux on it. Right after I got the thing set up, I did a live boot into SL 13.4 from CD. However, all didn't go smooth. For some reason, there were problems with the wireless. (It had worked fine in Windows.) I fought with it for a while, then decided to do a quick experiment. I jumped over to my older PNY install of Phat, booted up, and was online in a snap. Everything configured fine...
Sooo... I'm now thinking strongly about Lighthouse64 for this system. I have the latest beta .ISO sitting on my desktop, but just haven't burnt to CD yet. However, I'm also going to run a test on FatDog64 621, as I do have that on CD We shall see how things go.
Slacko is running fine, though. I'll probably run through all my thumb drive collection, just to see how each looks. I haven't really had this long enough to say yay/nay, but I like it so far.
Yet another "we shall see." I'm hoping for good things...
Now, off to more playing...
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
NIghtly oddness
Just doing some testing with the "new" Toshiba Sat L305D. Wanted to see how it handled USB booting, so last night I had Upup Raring up and running, and it worked like a flying charm. So, tonight, thought I'd fire up MacPup and see how that went.
Everything worked OK. Had the normal odd little bit getting the sound going, but everything else was great. But, as I was watching a video on YouTube, I noticed the fan running. Hard. And quite early on.
Now, of course, I've heard the fan run on this system. But it usually takes a bit before it kicks on. This was kick on early, and keep running. And running.
Hmmm...
My first impulse was Enlightenment. For whatever reason, I have a slight suspicion of Enlightenment when it comes to overworking processors. Every system I had Bodhi Linux (which is, of course, built to order with Enlightenment) on tended to run a bit hot. My feeble, jump-to-conclusions mind immediately made the connection.
So, I shut MacPup down and pulled out PhatSlacko. Booted up, and everything seemed fine. I went through the usual Puppy-on-a-new-system sound thing, and had to enable tapping on the touchpad, but other than that...
And then the damned fan kicked on.
A quick check of Htop showed next to no load on the cores. And, jeez, this is running JMM, so the graphics drag shouldn't be much of anything. So...
I really should find the compressed air can, and give the vents a good going over. But I really just don't feel like opening the system up to give it a real dusting.
I don't know. I'll just have to keep an eye on it. I'm not working in a hot environment, and there's plenty of ventilation around the system...
This, on top of the little Sony Vaio suddenly developing heavy fan use syndrome...
Another thing for the obsessive-compulsive to worry about...
I'll just have to keep an eye on it, see what happens next......
Everything worked OK. Had the normal odd little bit getting the sound going, but everything else was great. But, as I was watching a video on YouTube, I noticed the fan running. Hard. And quite early on.
Now, of course, I've heard the fan run on this system. But it usually takes a bit before it kicks on. This was kick on early, and keep running. And running.
Hmmm...
My first impulse was Enlightenment. For whatever reason, I have a slight suspicion of Enlightenment when it comes to overworking processors. Every system I had Bodhi Linux (which is, of course, built to order with Enlightenment) on tended to run a bit hot. My feeble, jump-to-conclusions mind immediately made the connection.
So, I shut MacPup down and pulled out PhatSlacko. Booted up, and everything seemed fine. I went through the usual Puppy-on-a-new-system sound thing, and had to enable tapping on the touchpad, but other than that...
And then the damned fan kicked on.
A quick check of Htop showed next to no load on the cores. And, jeez, this is running JMM, so the graphics drag shouldn't be much of anything. So...
I really should find the compressed air can, and give the vents a good going over. But I really just don't feel like opening the system up to give it a real dusting.
I don't know. I'll just have to keep an eye on it. I'm not working in a hot environment, and there's plenty of ventilation around the system...
This, on top of the little Sony Vaio suddenly developing heavy fan use syndrome...
Another thing for the obsessive-compulsive to worry about...
I'll just have to keep an eye on it, see what happens next......
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Run Rabbit...
And, just to follow up my my earlier silliness, I used Fuduntu on the T400 till I ran the battery down. I even sort of enjoyed using Chromium, which usually isn't my favorite web browsing choice. (I'm such a traditionalist, you know...)
But, the race is sort of on to find a replacement for when Fuduntu starts to get a little crusty. I mentioned Manjaro early on, but that seems to have slipped by the wayside.
Out of nowhere (actually after browsing through that stack of CDs/DVDs earlier in the day), I got to thinking about FatDog64. Back when I was having some USB stick problems with FD, I'd downloaded/burned a copy of the 621 release and...well, yeah, forgot about it. But, there it was in the stack of disks, so I thought, why not...
But...
Yeah, I got to looking through online info to make sure I did have the latest version of FatDog. Eventually, I made my way to Multi-Core Puppies, and while there immediately hit the listing for Lighthouse64, which may actually look cooler than FatDog...
So...
Here we go again...
I do promise to make a solid decision. Sometime.
At least before men set foot on Mars............
But, the race is sort of on to find a replacement for when Fuduntu starts to get a little crusty. I mentioned Manjaro early on, but that seems to have slipped by the wayside.
Out of nowhere (actually after browsing through that stack of CDs/DVDs earlier in the day), I got to thinking about FatDog64. Back when I was having some USB stick problems with FD, I'd downloaded/burned a copy of the 621 release and...well, yeah, forgot about it. But, there it was in the stack of disks, so I thought, why not...
But...
Yeah, I got to looking through online info to make sure I did have the latest version of FatDog. Eventually, I made my way to Multi-Core Puppies, and while there immediately hit the listing for Lighthouse64, which may actually look cooler than FatDog...
So...
Here we go again...
I do promise to make a solid decision. Sometime.
At least before men set foot on Mars............
Silly Rabbit...
This is one of those "it figures" things...
I was fiddling about on my desktop, doing some Mint updates, when I glanced at the laptop pile next to the desk. Oh yeah, the T400...
I think I mentioned the problems the Thinkpad T400 had a while back. I'd been using it on the road, loaded up with Bodhi Linux, and had just finished out the project I was on, when I started having odd problems. Turned out it was a graphics thing, and needed some tweaking. When I got it back from the shop, I fiddled with it for a bit (I'd installed Zorin on it to replace Bodhi, which I'd just never really been happy with), then set the thing aside, moving on to whatever else was floating on the agenda.
Well, having nothing better to do with a Sunday, I decided to drag the 400 out and give it a run. My initial thought was to install Manjaro with OpenBox on it, and see how that worked. However, while digging through my stack of CDs/DVDs, I ran across a copy of Fuduntu 2013.2, which I'd downloaded/burned, and forgotten about. (Do you see a sort-of behavior pattern emerging?)
Oh, what the heck? I remembered reading about Fuduntu, and thought it'd be cool to fiddle with, as I have nothing even remotely close to Fedora on any of my systems. So... I did a liveboot to test, and everything worked fine... Next stop, full installation.
Not bad, I must say. The installation was fast and painless. everything worked right out of box. I was impressed.
Until I pulled up the terminal and entered "sudo yum update". I get back an odd message about being unable to connect, etc. For giggles, I enter "sudo yum upgrade". Same deal.
A quick run to the GUI software update yields a single package, and that's it.
Hmmm... Something's starting to click here...
Now, of course, the more observant out there are already chuckling at my expense. A quick trip to Distrowatch showed that, as I'd begun to suspect, Fuduntu has been discontinued. A little further research confirmed. Fuduntu is no more.
Big sigh.
I guess I'll have to start looking for something else to put on the ol' T400 here. Manjaro is still an option, but if I do, I think I'll go for a version other than the OpenBox one...
But, for now, I'm going to leave Fuduntu on here. I rather like what I'm seeing. And this is the latest version, so it's still up to date. I'm not sure if any of the repositories are still on line or not (as they are for Saluki, which I can still get software for).
I seem to have a knack for picking the winners here, don't I? I find something I like, and find it's been discontinued.
Oh well...
I was fiddling about on my desktop, doing some Mint updates, when I glanced at the laptop pile next to the desk. Oh yeah, the T400...
I think I mentioned the problems the Thinkpad T400 had a while back. I'd been using it on the road, loaded up with Bodhi Linux, and had just finished out the project I was on, when I started having odd problems. Turned out it was a graphics thing, and needed some tweaking. When I got it back from the shop, I fiddled with it for a bit (I'd installed Zorin on it to replace Bodhi, which I'd just never really been happy with), then set the thing aside, moving on to whatever else was floating on the agenda.
Well, having nothing better to do with a Sunday, I decided to drag the 400 out and give it a run. My initial thought was to install Manjaro with OpenBox on it, and see how that worked. However, while digging through my stack of CDs/DVDs, I ran across a copy of Fuduntu 2013.2, which I'd downloaded/burned, and forgotten about. (Do you see a sort-of behavior pattern emerging?)
Oh, what the heck? I remembered reading about Fuduntu, and thought it'd be cool to fiddle with, as I have nothing even remotely close to Fedora on any of my systems. So... I did a liveboot to test, and everything worked fine... Next stop, full installation.
Not bad, I must say. The installation was fast and painless. everything worked right out of box. I was impressed.
Until I pulled up the terminal and entered "sudo yum update". I get back an odd message about being unable to connect, etc. For giggles, I enter "sudo yum upgrade". Same deal.
A quick run to the GUI software update yields a single package, and that's it.
Hmmm... Something's starting to click here...
Now, of course, the more observant out there are already chuckling at my expense. A quick trip to Distrowatch showed that, as I'd begun to suspect, Fuduntu has been discontinued. A little further research confirmed. Fuduntu is no more.
Big sigh.
I guess I'll have to start looking for something else to put on the ol' T400 here. Manjaro is still an option, but if I do, I think I'll go for a version other than the OpenBox one...
But, for now, I'm going to leave Fuduntu on here. I rather like what I'm seeing. And this is the latest version, so it's still up to date. I'm not sure if any of the repositories are still on line or not (as they are for Saluki, which I can still get software for).
I seem to have a knack for picking the winners here, don't I? I find something I like, and find it's been discontinued.
Oh well...
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Following Up
Yeah, I am on the Panasonic CF-29, and no I haven't installed Puppy yet. Though I did just have Precise 5.6.1 livebooted, and it ran fine. Save, of course, for the trackpad and the touchscreen. I have yet to figure out how to deal with either. (Though I seem to have accidentally spruced up the trackpad in XP. That's mildly embarrassing. To be honest, I'm not even sure what I did...)
The CF-29 is such a big, clumsy, lumbering beast, you just have to like it. And it is built like a tank, which would make it a great system for carrying it around in the boonies, where I like to lurk on my time off. But I would soooo prefer some version of Linux on it. Especially given Microsoft's idiotic (for their consumers) plan to kill off XP. (Yeah, I know... I'm not thinking corporately... But... Geez...)
In any event, it's getting kinda late, and the CF-29's battery is getting a little low. Probably switch over to the Toshiba for the rest of the evening. Maybe do some research...
The bumbling tech noob's work is never done...
The CF-29 is such a big, clumsy, lumbering beast, you just have to like it. And it is built like a tank, which would make it a great system for carrying it around in the boonies, where I like to lurk on my time off. But I would soooo prefer some version of Linux on it. Especially given Microsoft's idiotic (for their consumers) plan to kill off XP. (Yeah, I know... I'm not thinking corporately... But... Geez...)
In any event, it's getting kinda late, and the CF-29's battery is getting a little low. Probably switch over to the Toshiba for the rest of the evening. Maybe do some research...
The bumbling tech noob's work is never done...
Never satisfied
The "new" Toshiba is cruising along merrily, and I couldn't be happier. I've been wanting to take it "out on the road" today, but it's a Saturday, and I really don't want to be toting a fairly large laptop about. Not only that, but it's boiling hot and humid out, not the best weather to drag our electronic friends out in.
While cruising around online, I dropped into Carl Draper's Tech Thoughts blog. He's much more knowledgeable than I'll ever be, and has some truly cool stuff going on, so I like to drop in every now and then and check things out.
One of his entries was on getting Linux up and running on an older Panasonic Toughbook, which of course got me thinking about my Toughbook, which has been sitting, forlornly waiting ever since I installed its new CD/DVD drive ages back.
I did a quick CD test of Puppy on it (Precise 5.6, I believe) right after installing the new drive, and things worked fairly well. Puppy at least recognizes the touchscreen, and I seem to remember it also saw/recognized the wireless. However, the touchscreen calibration is off (I gather this is a common problem when going to Linux on these systems). And I really need to use the touchscreen, as the touchpad seems to be overly slow.
I was quickly browsing through some old entries on installing Linux on Toughbooks, and noticed a possible cure for the touchpad calibrations. It also reminded me to go in a check the acceleration settings on the touchpad. I've still got Windows XP on the CF-29, and was having trouble updating (due to having FireFox as the default browser; you know that story), so I'd be glad to get something more workable (and up to date) installed.
So, there's the next project, when I work up the motivation: Get Linux up and running on the Toughbook. All the while playing with the Toshiba.
I think my materialism is getting the better of me.......
While cruising around online, I dropped into Carl Draper's Tech Thoughts blog. He's much more knowledgeable than I'll ever be, and has some truly cool stuff going on, so I like to drop in every now and then and check things out.
One of his entries was on getting Linux up and running on an older Panasonic Toughbook, which of course got me thinking about my Toughbook, which has been sitting, forlornly waiting ever since I installed its new CD/DVD drive ages back.
I did a quick CD test of Puppy on it (Precise 5.6, I believe) right after installing the new drive, and things worked fairly well. Puppy at least recognizes the touchscreen, and I seem to remember it also saw/recognized the wireless. However, the touchscreen calibration is off (I gather this is a common problem when going to Linux on these systems). And I really need to use the touchscreen, as the touchpad seems to be overly slow.
I was quickly browsing through some old entries on installing Linux on Toughbooks, and noticed a possible cure for the touchpad calibrations. It also reminded me to go in a check the acceleration settings on the touchpad. I've still got Windows XP on the CF-29, and was having trouble updating (due to having FireFox as the default browser; you know that story), so I'd be glad to get something more workable (and up to date) installed.
So, there's the next project, when I work up the motivation: Get Linux up and running on the Toughbook. All the while playing with the Toshiba.
I think my materialism is getting the better of me.......
Friday, August 9, 2013
Well...
Yeah, I did it again... I found another clunker laptop to add to the "fleet." I tripped across this one a while back, and was able to snag it for a really low price. It's another Toshiba, a Satellite L305D with an AMD Turion X2 processor, 3 GB of RAM, and a 250 GB hard drive. Not exactly cutting edge, but... And, unlike the last Satellite I picked up, this one is in great condition. Only a little wear on the keyboard.
Came to me with Windows 7 on it, which went the way of the dodo very quickly.
I had in mind to put Linux Lite on it, which may come as a surprise to those who remember my last go 'round with that distro. However, probably to the surprise of many, I actually like that OS. It has trouble with some of my Thinkpads, but runs fine on my older Toshiba.
However...
Yeah, I did. When I went looking for my LL disk, I couldn't immediately find it. So, I grabbed something else.
Netrunner.
I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a try. Second chances are all the rage these days.
And so, apparently, are repeat performances. Other people swear by Netrunner, but I can only swear at it. It runs perfectly (if slowly) from live boot, but when it's fully installed to the hard drive... aaaAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!
Luckily, I found my 64-bit version of Linux Lite just as I was about to approach internal self-combustion... A quick installation later, and ka-ZAM! I was up and running. I was also testing a new battery I got for the system (a 9 cell, replacing the 6 cell the system came with), and all seems well. It's giving good performance.
I think I'm going to gently begin retiring the older Toshiba Satellite, and move this one into its slot. And bring Linux Lite up into my front line OS list (alongside OS X, Puppy, and CrunchBang). I think it'll work quite well.
I'll give it a workout over the weekend, and see how things go...
Came to me with Windows 7 on it, which went the way of the dodo very quickly.
I had in mind to put Linux Lite on it, which may come as a surprise to those who remember my last go 'round with that distro. However, probably to the surprise of many, I actually like that OS. It has trouble with some of my Thinkpads, but runs fine on my older Toshiba.
However...
Yeah, I did. When I went looking for my LL disk, I couldn't immediately find it. So, I grabbed something else.
Netrunner.
I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a try. Second chances are all the rage these days.
And so, apparently, are repeat performances. Other people swear by Netrunner, but I can only swear at it. It runs perfectly (if slowly) from live boot, but when it's fully installed to the hard drive... aaaAAARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!
Luckily, I found my 64-bit version of Linux Lite just as I was about to approach internal self-combustion... A quick installation later, and ka-ZAM! I was up and running. I was also testing a new battery I got for the system (a 9 cell, replacing the 6 cell the system came with), and all seems well. It's giving good performance.
I think I'm going to gently begin retiring the older Toshiba Satellite, and move this one into its slot. And bring Linux Lite up into my front line OS list (alongside OS X, Puppy, and CrunchBang). I think it'll work quite well.
I'll give it a workout over the weekend, and see how things go...
Thursday, August 8, 2013
In the Boonies
Well, I've been a bit lax again. But it's been work that's intruded. I'm still on the road, but soon to be home, and hopefully doing some computerized stuff.
I did tote the my X60s along with me as a bit of amusement in the evenings. (The heavy lifting was the "new" MacBook Pro, which provided service above & beyond. And totally Microsoft Office-free, I might add.) I also brought along a selection of thumb drives with various Puppy Linux distros loaded up.
I think I mentioned in the last few entries that I'd botched up a frugal install of PhatSlacko. Well, I just decided to do a complete reinstall on the thumb drive, as I wanted to alter the size of the swap file I'd set up. Of course, there's no CD/DVD drive on the X60s, and I wasn't carrying my external, so I did the somewhat clever thing and downloaded a fresh copy of the .ISO. Everything went fine till I used the Grub4Dos configuration tool (I follow the IcyOS installation model) under Saluki... Well, when I went to boot up, I got a nice Saluki splash screen with Grub, even though it was listing Puppy Slacko 5.5 (which, of course, is what PhatSlacko is) in the menu. However, it wouldn't boot... Just sat on a blank screen after I selected Puppy Slacko from the menu...
Sigh.
Back to the drawing board. And remembering that I still had the PNY micro thumb with my first copy of Phat on it with me. Which made me want to beat my head into the desk, as I could've just installed from it using the "Universal Installer", rather than waiting for the .ISO to download...
Deep sigh.
But I now have a fully functional new install of PhatSlacko on a newer thumb drive. Which, of course, is why I'm running MacPup 529 right now...
Bigger sigh.
I have also been running UPUP Raring, which I dearly love. Smooth as glass. Yeah, it does have the older-style, cartoon-y, almost BeOS-ish (well, to me anyway) looking icons and all, but... Smooth as glass. If I were handing a version of Puppy to someone who'd never used it before, I honestly thing this would be the version I'd set up and give them.
Smooth. As. Glass.
While cruising through the Puppy Linux forums, I ran across an older listing for a version of Puppy designed to run on the OLPC, the "One Laptop Per Child", XO system. And I felt like an idiot, because that had never crossed my mind. Of all the Linux distros out there, Puppy would be perfect for OLPC. Absolutely tiny, even with huge amounts of bundled software. Able to run entirely in RAM. Screaming fast on lower-power processors. Egads! Perfect!
And then I remember, with abject horror, Nicholas Negroponte announcing that we really should have a version of Windows running on the OLPC system...
Uh.... No.
I have my sneaking suspicions about where that blindingly dull-headed idea came from. But, then again, I doubt my opinions really matter, me being one of the "little people who don't understand the 'bigger picture' ", and all.
I think I'm going back to playing with MacPup...
I did tote the my X60s along with me as a bit of amusement in the evenings. (The heavy lifting was the "new" MacBook Pro, which provided service above & beyond. And totally Microsoft Office-free, I might add.) I also brought along a selection of thumb drives with various Puppy Linux distros loaded up.
I think I mentioned in the last few entries that I'd botched up a frugal install of PhatSlacko. Well, I just decided to do a complete reinstall on the thumb drive, as I wanted to alter the size of the swap file I'd set up. Of course, there's no CD/DVD drive on the X60s, and I wasn't carrying my external, so I did the somewhat clever thing and downloaded a fresh copy of the .ISO. Everything went fine till I used the Grub4Dos configuration tool (I follow the IcyOS installation model) under Saluki... Well, when I went to boot up, I got a nice Saluki splash screen with Grub, even though it was listing Puppy Slacko 5.5 (which, of course, is what PhatSlacko is) in the menu. However, it wouldn't boot... Just sat on a blank screen after I selected Puppy Slacko from the menu...
Sigh.
Back to the drawing board. And remembering that I still had the PNY micro thumb with my first copy of Phat on it with me. Which made me want to beat my head into the desk, as I could've just installed from it using the "Universal Installer", rather than waiting for the .ISO to download...
Deep sigh.
But I now have a fully functional new install of PhatSlacko on a newer thumb drive. Which, of course, is why I'm running MacPup 529 right now...
Bigger sigh.
I have also been running UPUP Raring, which I dearly love. Smooth as glass. Yeah, it does have the older-style, cartoon-y, almost BeOS-ish (well, to me anyway) looking icons and all, but... Smooth as glass. If I were handing a version of Puppy to someone who'd never used it before, I honestly thing this would be the version I'd set up and give them.
Smooth. As. Glass.
While cruising through the Puppy Linux forums, I ran across an older listing for a version of Puppy designed to run on the OLPC, the "One Laptop Per Child", XO system. And I felt like an idiot, because that had never crossed my mind. Of all the Linux distros out there, Puppy would be perfect for OLPC. Absolutely tiny, even with huge amounts of bundled software. Able to run entirely in RAM. Screaming fast on lower-power processors. Egads! Perfect!
And then I remember, with abject horror, Nicholas Negroponte announcing that we really should have a version of Windows running on the OLPC system...
Uh.... No.
I have my sneaking suspicions about where that blindingly dull-headed idea came from. But, then again, I doubt my opinions really matter, me being one of the "little people who don't understand the 'bigger picture' ", and all.
I think I'm going back to playing with MacPup...
Saturday, August 3, 2013
A Little Follow-up
I said in the last post that I was running through all my Pups on thumb drives. Well, some of them just didn't make the cut. The old copy of Precise Puppy 5.6, and the 8 GB drive copy of Saluki didn't pass the muster. For some reason, Precise was having trouble with the sound system on the X60s. (Very unusual, as I'd had no trouble in the past.) And, obviously, I had multiple copies of Saluki floating around, so... (The copy loaded onto the X60s, and a copy on a 32 GB thumb drive that's my Virtual Box testbed.) So, GParted did its brutal work, and I soon had 2 blank 8 GB thumb drives to play with.
My first idea was fairly practical. I did up a new copy of PhatSlacko 5.5. My current copy is on an old PNY thumb drive. It's the smallest thumb I have (which was sort of amusing... you know, Phat Slacko on a small drive... yeah, never mind...) It's also the most fragile of the bunch, not even having a metal cover over the business end. And I've had it for ages. So I figured I ought do up a newer version, which I did. I now have a version on a much newer Sandisk, which I feel a bit safer with. I just tested it on the T60, and it boots fine. (Though, yeah, I botched the shutdown, and didn't specify my save file properly. Have to work on that later. What I get for being impatient...)
The second thumb got a bit different use. Let me preface by saying that I usually always download an .ISO, and then burn it to CD or DVD. I'm not a big Unetbootn user. And I usually burn all my Puppy .ISOs, just so I'll have them on CD. It's a bit expensive in the number of CDs used, but...
Well, I changed my SOP this time around. I was searching for another Puppy Distro to try, with an eye towards the Panasonic CF-29 I just fixed up a while back. While doing so, I ran across UPUP Raring, which looked rather interesting. I noticed it didn't have a PAE kernel, which would be necessary to try to run it on the CF-29. So I downloaded the .ISO on my Mint desktop, booted into PhatSlacko from CD to do that particular installation, and while I had Slacko up, mounted my desktop HD, and the UPUP .ISO, and did an install to the other other thumb drive. A run through with Grub4Dos, and...
It worked. Very well, as a matter of fact. I am running it right now on the T60, and it actually did its initial boot better than Slacko. I had to set up the trackpad under Slacko (scrolling and tapping), but UPUP had it set out of the box. Granted, the desktop has a cartoon-y, BeOS-ish look to it, but I don't mind. In fact, I kind of like it. Like the old Puppy days, it's distinctive.
I'm going to be doing some more fiddling (can't really call it testing), but I'm pretty sure this one is going to get burned to disk. May be a good choice for the Panasonic. We shall see...
For now, I need to reboot the T60 and upgrade its copy of CrunchBang. (Yes, I still have #! on here. It runs sooooo well, I just hate to replace it.)
And then...?????
My first idea was fairly practical. I did up a new copy of PhatSlacko 5.5. My current copy is on an old PNY thumb drive. It's the smallest thumb I have (which was sort of amusing... you know, Phat Slacko on a small drive... yeah, never mind...) It's also the most fragile of the bunch, not even having a metal cover over the business end. And I've had it for ages. So I figured I ought do up a newer version, which I did. I now have a version on a much newer Sandisk, which I feel a bit safer with. I just tested it on the T60, and it boots fine. (Though, yeah, I botched the shutdown, and didn't specify my save file properly. Have to work on that later. What I get for being impatient...)
The second thumb got a bit different use. Let me preface by saying that I usually always download an .ISO, and then burn it to CD or DVD. I'm not a big Unetbootn user. And I usually burn all my Puppy .ISOs, just so I'll have them on CD. It's a bit expensive in the number of CDs used, but...
Well, I changed my SOP this time around. I was searching for another Puppy Distro to try, with an eye towards the Panasonic CF-29 I just fixed up a while back. While doing so, I ran across UPUP Raring, which looked rather interesting. I noticed it didn't have a PAE kernel, which would be necessary to try to run it on the CF-29. So I downloaded the .ISO on my Mint desktop, booted into PhatSlacko from CD to do that particular installation, and while I had Slacko up, mounted my desktop HD, and the UPUP .ISO, and did an install to the other other thumb drive. A run through with Grub4Dos, and...
It worked. Very well, as a matter of fact. I am running it right now on the T60, and it actually did its initial boot better than Slacko. I had to set up the trackpad under Slacko (scrolling and tapping), but UPUP had it set out of the box. Granted, the desktop has a cartoon-y, BeOS-ish look to it, but I don't mind. In fact, I kind of like it. Like the old Puppy days, it's distinctive.
I'm going to be doing some more fiddling (can't really call it testing), but I'm pretty sure this one is going to get burned to disk. May be a good choice for the Panasonic. We shall see...
For now, I need to reboot the T60 and upgrade its copy of CrunchBang. (Yes, I still have #! on here. It runs sooooo well, I just hate to replace it.)
And then...?????
Touching bases...
OK, that title really doesn't sound right, does it? But you know what I mean...
I've been going 'round the computer corral, trying to make sure everything is up to date while I have the chance. So far, several Macs have been brought up to speed, my old Acer's copy of CrunchBang has been brought up to date, and I even managed to fire up the old Toshiba and make sure Linux Lite was copacetic.
The past couple evenings, I've been digging through the thumb drive case and testing out the various Puppy distros I have there. Was running PhatSlacko all last night. Enjoyable, with no problems whatsoever. I had actually thought about just grabbing a copy of Puppy Slacko and fooling with it, but why? Phat has everything there already, and it's up-to-date. (I do notice the slightly slower boot-ups that people have been complaining about with the Slack versions of Pup, but it doesn't really bother me. The thing that does kind of get me is the last of a sleep/hibernate feature. I'm not sure about the version of acpitool that's in the Slackware archives, so I haven't installed it.)
This afternoon, I've been playing with MacPup, USB booting onto my X60s. Everything was/is pretty well kosher, save for a slight bobble with my wireless (I'd been using at the last hotel I was in, so it was looking for the open hotel wireless), and some strange issue with the sound system, where it boots up with everything muted... Weird. While I was using FireFox, I clicked on the "About" option, and the system immediately informed me that there was an update available. I'm now using version 22, which makes me very happy.
So, all in all, a pretty slow computer day. I need to go out into the "big room" for a bit, and get some fresh air. And actually try to get some real world stuff done. Monday is another work week.
Run, run, run...
I've been going 'round the computer corral, trying to make sure everything is up to date while I have the chance. So far, several Macs have been brought up to speed, my old Acer's copy of CrunchBang has been brought up to date, and I even managed to fire up the old Toshiba and make sure Linux Lite was copacetic.
The past couple evenings, I've been digging through the thumb drive case and testing out the various Puppy distros I have there. Was running PhatSlacko all last night. Enjoyable, with no problems whatsoever. I had actually thought about just grabbing a copy of Puppy Slacko and fooling with it, but why? Phat has everything there already, and it's up-to-date. (I do notice the slightly slower boot-ups that people have been complaining about with the Slack versions of Pup, but it doesn't really bother me. The thing that does kind of get me is the last of a sleep/hibernate feature. I'm not sure about the version of acpitool that's in the Slackware archives, so I haven't installed it.)
This afternoon, I've been playing with MacPup, USB booting onto my X60s. Everything was/is pretty well kosher, save for a slight bobble with my wireless (I'd been using at the last hotel I was in, so it was looking for the open hotel wireless), and some strange issue with the sound system, where it boots up with everything muted... Weird. While I was using FireFox, I clicked on the "About" option, and the system immediately informed me that there was an update available. I'm now using version 22, which makes me very happy.
So, all in all, a pretty slow computer day. I need to go out into the "big room" for a bit, and get some fresh air. And actually try to get some real world stuff done. Monday is another work week.
Run, run, run...