Working online: December 2009 Archives

Have you read the past 25 or so entries in this blog?

Once I finally solved all my issues with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, I decided to start the upgrade path to version 9.10.

I wanted newer applications. I needed better hardware drivers.

But especially with 9.10, nicknamed Karmic Koala, I've had to deal with too many issues. I'm tired.

And aside from the laptop on which I'm running Ubuntu beginning its own hardware death spiral, its CMOS battery long dead, LCD screen sprouting a half-dollar-sized black blotch and taking the lower right half of the screen with it, I have what I always seem to have.

X issues.

Finally things seemed to be going well. A kernel update took my shutoff of kernel mode setting out of /boot/grub/menu.lst and I could miraculously run X with the aforementioned kernel mode setting, no xorg.conf file needed.

Then an Xorg update rolled in, and suddenly the screensaver, if let run too long, would render the Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptop inoperable. The machine was running, but the mouse and keyboard were dead to it.

Even returning ctrl-alt-backspace X-killing had no effect. (Note to self: Even though X works with kernel mode setting, could KMS be responsible for the keyboard/mouse death?)

I enjoy debating the removal/inclusion/reimagining of the GIMP, F-Spot, Pidgin, Empathy, Mono and Ubuntu One as much as the next blogorrhea-striken geek, but as Linux Outlaw Fab and Jermaine of "Flight of the Conchords" say, it's business time

I didn't know exactly when it would happen, but with 8-year-old laptops running on glue, various varieties of tape and other household sundries, it pays to have a backup.

And this post comes to you from that backup, the "other" Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101, which has had a fully encrypted LVM installation of Debian Lenny — the project's current stable distribution — on it for a number of months.

Sure, this Toshiba hasn't had working sound almost since I first grabbed it out of a pile of to-be-recycled laptops in various states of dismemberment.

And its space bar is a little flaky.

And the display's inverter is intermittent, requiring frequent manual presses of the lid-closing switch to bring the display back.

But the X issues that plagued my Intel-running laptops since Lenny was in Testing have long since been mastered (again, thank you Arch Linux Forum members, who've given me many an xorg.conf hack, most of which have worked).

I've been reluctant to switch laptops because I'm always midstream. I have over 2 GB of POP mail in Thunderbird on the Ubuntu laptop and another 3 GB or so of other files.

Sure, I could install Debian (or Slackware or fill-in-your-favorite) over Ubuntu, but I'm not yet ready to take that step.

I can and probably will update my rsynced backups in Ubuntu and move everything over to this Debian Lenny machine.

I didn't think it was "ready" for my work flow. The biggest problem is that I've started using Audacity, and that won't go so well on a laptop with no sound.

But otherwise I've got Iceweasel (which sends its name out to the Webby world as "Firefox," as one of my SAAS applications requires), I'll bring the mail from Thunderbird to Icedove (although the new year ahead is as good a time as any to start piping my mail through Gmail and leaving it in the cloud).

I have Flash installed, which I need semi-frequently. Same for Java. And I'll need to add MP3 support. Even if I can't hear the files, every once in awhile I have to verify that they'll play.

I've been using gThumb as my main image editor. Yes, it's that good. And luckily gThumb, not Ubuntu's favored (and much less capable) F-Spot, is in the Debian Lenny default desktop install.

All the rest of the GNOMEish tools I use in Ubuntu are here. Gedit (which is really growing on me and would grow even more if there was a keyboard shortcut to change the case of letters), Epiphany (again, I've really enjoyed using the Webkit version in Ubuntu, but Epiphany is still a great browser with Gecko), the GNOME terminal, the Nautilus file manager, Synaptic (although I've pretty much abandoned it for Aptitude, especially with Ubuntu's cryptic method of having an Update Manager window "magically" appear at seemingly random times).

I finally figured out how to get my Cnet CWD-854 USB WiFi adapter to work using the rt73 driver.

NetworkManager, despite not being the newer and greatly improved version I first saw in Ubuntu 8.10, is working fine.

I have gFTP, even though I've started using Nautilus for FTP. Yeah, I don't have OpenOffice 3.1 for the occasional .docx file sent my way, but I've got plenty of other machines that do have OO 3.1.

I need the basics to work. And I need them to keep on working. I can't keep fixing things every time there's a software update.

Nowhere does the phrase, "Your mileage may vary," apply more than in the world of Linux and BSD operating systems.

But in the case of this hardware and my workflow, it's Debian time.