Sorry Linux, I have no more use for you.

See, Old Bessie, the Coal Fired Pentium finally gave up the ghost. I had been running Crunch Bang Linux, A lightweight Ubuntu Variant, trying to get the last little bit of productivity out of the old workhorse before she died for good. But years of dust and heat, reformats and hard stops on the drive had finally taken their toll. The disk controller melted: nothing was readable and I couldn’t even boot to BIOS.

I ran out and got a new state of the art machine. Well, State-of-Last-Year’s-Art at my budget anyway. This was in October, which meant Ubuntu 9.10 was out, And all teh internet based Hubbub that THAT entailed. So I used Windows 7 Disk Management Utility to make some space, and installed a fresh Ubuntu AMD64. I couldn’t wait until I got my new screaming machine up and screaming.

But then IT happened. I couldn’t connect to my Wireless Network. The new computer is an Acer, with an Atheros Wi-fi card that didn’t work. Packet Loss, Disconnection, You Name it. I couldn’t even satay online for more than 5 minutes and once kicked off, could not get it to re-connect. A look at the Forums showed lots of possible solutions, none of which worked and lots more problems.

So I installed Fedora- screaming technology for my screaming machine. Same issue. And now my machine seemed to be half-asleep all the time. It was sluggish, crash prone. What should I Do? I didn’t want to go back to CrunchBang. What was the oint of having a new machine if I couldn’t get it up to speed?

But something else was happening. I began to enjoy using Windows. I found myself at work trying to drag and “snap” maximized XP programs into separate windows. I began to use Windows Media Player instead of Rhythmbox. I could find Photos and Music in different libraries without having to worry too much about where they were actually located, something anathema to the Unix based Linux world.

In short, I began to ENJOY Using Windows 7. Shudder.

Then Urban Terror. I Downloaded Urban Terror on the sluggish, have working Linux partition, at this point running an older copy of OpenGeu so I could show off some graphic whiz bang. I started it up and had about three frames per second. Same with Glest. Sure this was a cheap Acer Computer with an out of date graphics card, but what gives, man? Surely these programs could run on a new machine in their native environment?

Then I made the final Mistake. I downloaded and installed the Windows Installer for Urban terror. The same game that barely ran under Linux, now screamed. 60 frames per second. This was what i was looking for. Glest works. And it goes on and on. Gimp 64? Doesn’t crash. Open Office 3.2? Piece of Cake.

Now, I Know the arguments. Acer’s Windows is heavily modifiedfor sale with their machines. They have to work out of the box. They can’t afford to ship a generic Windows Upgrade in their machine and tell you to optimize it. Linux, even modern Linux, needs a little hand holding. It has a learning curve. Tough. I’m pretty good. i can fix most anything on my computer given enough time and Googling.

But enough is enough. Windows 7? It just works. Better than Vista? Definitely. Better than Linux? Yes. And I still Support and Use Open Source. I Just want it to work.

Elegy for Linux ©, .

Always Innovating’s new ARM Netbook looks like A Cyberpunk Device right Out of William Gibson:

Right Now the ARM processor is the sticking point- Nice for Linux and Android, but if it’s just a glorified iPhone….Well, Who Knows? The Magnetic back and internal Dongles are interesting.

Check Out Always Innovating for more info.

Oh Good Lord I Want This to Be Real and Not a Scam ©, .

I’m Gonna Start Working on Byzantine Roads Again: It’s been a while since I seriously tried to develop this site: I overextended myself over the winter and had a few health problems. But I think I’ll Give it another Shot.

In the meantime, I’ve been playing with Open Office again. I had switched to AbiWord, but have recently Stumbled across a couple of websites that I Like:

First, Justine Larbalestier has a nice article on how to write a novel., focusing on Mental preparation. She Talks about setting up a Spreadsheet in open office and tracking Plots and characters. All around a Nice Article and very motivational. This One’s Been Floating around for a while and deserves to be read if you’ve been having trouble getting started.

Next, R.L.Copple gives us extensive directions on setting up a Open Office Writer Template to format your Manuscript and Organise your notes. Follow this step by step and all you have to do is sit down and type.

And Finally, StephenW has uploaded an Open Office Template for Novel Writers. This template is a work in progress, but Stephen is looking for members of the Google Group to help him extend it. I’ve been playing with it for a couple days and am really impressed with the work that’s already gone into this project. Give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Using Open Office to Write a Novel: Quick Links ©, .

Ready To go All the way into themed Operating Systems? How about a Dark Metal skin for the Popular Ubuntu Operating System? I’ve sound this neat little thing called Ubuntu Satanic Edition.

Awesome.

Ubuntu Satanic isn’t really a remix. It’s a series of Well executed screensavers, splash screens and desktop themes that change your linux box into a horror themed monstrosity. Fun for the entire family, if your family’s like mine.

Here’s a couple Screen Shots:

^One of Two desktop Themes. One Dark, One Light.

^KDE Destop

^Background. One of Several

^One of the Login Screens

^A Compiz Cube

If you have ubuntu, follow the directions on the Satanic Edition Download page for your packages. If you Don’t Give the Live CD a try.

This is also the last Post I’m Taken from my dead site, so that Means I hae to start thinking of pushing some content out for Byzantine Roads. Any Ideas?

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• Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope hits beta, full release in April (downloadsquad.com)

Spread Evil for Free: Ubuntu Satanic Edition ©, .

One recipe, many flavors of the the popular linux distribution

One of the reasons Newcomers to Linux are scared off is the sheer number of choice-Ubuntu, Fedora, SUSE, Arch, Debian, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS…And all the variants and forks and amateur releases and specialties and on and on…

So Let’s take a look at one popular branch and see if we an figure some stuff out-

Debian- Our tour starts with Debian. The new release, Debian 5.0 was just released as of this writing, so it’s a good place to start.

Linux distributions are built around certain core projects- They have a charter to provide a certain experience.The Debian Project’s focus is on stability. They update their distribution once in a blue moon. Debian seems to be known for their extensive packages-25,000 and more everyday, and that none of them are the latest and greatest. Debian is Unix-y. Like most Major projects its available on a wide variety of systems- 13 different processors actually.

The ability of these Core Distributions to be all things for everybody means they’re really not for casual users- Installation can be tricky, with lot’s of strange decisions to be made, any one of which could render your machine unusable( Although to be fair, Debian allows you to choose an installer that makes it a lot easier. So, Over time, other projects have cropped up to try to build consumer systems from these projects. Things Like–

Ubunutu- comes from Canonical and wants to be a universal, free operating system. Ubuntu starts with Debian, and makes a lot of the hard decisions that you can’t because you don’t have a computer degree. For example, Ubuntu only works on three different computer architectures instead of 13. That means some packages from Debian aren’t used, but Ubuntu can add some extra that they determine work well enough on their supported platforms.

Ubuntu also makes installation a breeze. It comes on a live CD, which means you can try it without installing anything. It has WUBI, the Windows installer which puts it on your drive with windows, giving you access to both. And finally, if you do decide to do a full install, it asks only a few basic set up questions before taking over and doing it itself.

Ubuntu also tries to be user friendly. It does away with root accounts, has the Mac like GNOME desktop, and has lots of little tweaks� and behind the scenes goings on to make it work well out of the box. True Linux geeks hate all this hand holding, but hey..Who listens to them?

Ubuntu has been an extremely popular distibution for a while now. It’s well supported- Type” Ubuntu” and your problem in Google and chances are you’re answer will pop right up.

But still… There’s more we can do. See, Debian and Ubuntu are free, and customizable. Take either, and we can create and distribute our own Linux systems that have what we want. This is where the power and flexibility of Linux start to show. It goes beyond just changing startup sounds and backgrounds. Any User can literally create whatever operating system works for them:

Xubuntu- Replaces GNome with the Lightweight XFCE Desktop.This Means You give up some Flash, some usability for a faster, more responsive system

ElBuntu- Replaces GNOME with the lighter, experimental E17 Desktop. This means you get to keep the flash, get the performance boost, but lose some stability.

Kubuntu- Replaces the Mac look of Gnome for the Windows look of KDE. Although KDE itself is being transformed into something else entirely…

Edubuntu- Designed for School and classroom use. With Educational packages and user management

All Of the above packages still look and feel a lot like Ubuntu- most of the changes are cosmetic. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take what they’ve built on and go even farther:

gOS- A pared down version of Ubuntu for Netbooks and “cloud” Computing. Designed to use online applications and widgets as integral to the operating system.

LinuxMint- Mint originally was designed to add multimedia codecs to the Ubuntu distribution that the original lacks due to legal/philosophical problems. However, their clean, well designed interface won raves and is what sets them apart the most now.(note: These codecs are available as part of the restricted set of packages off the regular Ubuntu repos)

So,� really, It’s not that hard. I started experimenting about a year ago, picked up a couple of different Distributions, and taught myself what to, how to use common terminal commands and simple scripts. And You Know what? My computer is still Running.

See, the thing is, Linux is the Kernel, not the operating system. They all run the same commands the same way. All the differences? Those are just personal choices. Skins. Packages, applications. What you like and what works for you. That’s how to grok Linux. It’s not about the choices. It’s about what works for you.

Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and More ©, .