George’s Wonder Blog

I was looking at replacing my current linux machine with a hopefully more powerful one, and after loading a Linux distro onto it I found it had a 650MHz CPU with only 128MB of RAM. Needless to say I was disappointed. According to a badge on its case it was built by Quest, or the tower case is by Quest. I really don’t know much about it besides I’m taking its 16GB drive to use as a scratch drive for Photoshop on my work machine and the rest is going into the trash can.

After using the Linux Hardware Lister tool on the other one, I ran it on my current Linux machine, a Pavilion 8766C.

To run Linux Hardware Lister, open a console and  type:

sudo lshw

I was glad to see I had upgraded the RAM significantly, so all in all this 900 MHz P3 with 128MB of RAM, onboard video, onboard sound (Rockwell Chameleon combo card) has been upgraded with a total of 512MB of RAM, a 128MB GeForce4 MX4000 video card and a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Ensoniq ES1371 sound card.

Today should have been really easy, but it was a bigger deal than I expected. It should be easy to figure out how to get your NUMLOCK key to be on when you boot up right? Wrong. In all of the Windows PC’s I’ve used NUMLOCK is always onwhen booting up, so I expected to find a simple checkbox somewhere in Ubuntu for this simple feature. Nope.

GDM and GNOME

After looking around here’s what worked for me. I run Gnome sessions, so that means I run GDM (I learned form some quick reading). According to Gnome.org’s GDM page , GDM is the Gnome Display Manager that presents you with a graphical logon screen like this one:

If you like it, you can find this login screen at http://art.gnome.org/themes/gdm_greeter/1374

Ubuntuguide to the Rescue

You can click on the link above and do a lot of scrolling or just use the steps below. For some reason I could not do an apt-get install to install numlockx, here’s what I did:

1) In Synaptic, install numlockx

2) Make a backup of the file you are about to edit. In your console window type:

sudo cp /etc/gdm/Init/Default /etc/gdm/Init/Default.bak
_________________________________________

3) Now back into the console window to edit your file:

gksudo gedit /etc/gdm/Init/Default
_________________________________________

4) Now your file opens in gedit. Scroll down to the very bottom, and just above the bottom line that says “exit 0″ add this and save, then close the file:

if [ -x /usr/bin/numlockx ]; then
/usr/bin/numlockx on
fi
_________________________________________

5) Now if everything’s gone well when you reboot next time you will see your NUMLOCK key is ON.

Just a quick note with more detail later…..

I’ve installed Wine, and to test it installed Notepad++. That seems to have gone well.

Also since my Linux machine only has 128MB 512MB of RAM with a PIII 900MHz CPU, and because I wanted a larger monitor with higher resolution I’ve installed BFG Technologies ASLMX4000 GeForce4 MX4000 128MB AGP (GeForce4 MX 4000) and a Philips Brilliance 202P4. This seems to be working well so far.

Oh and how about a cool screenshot:

Okay, I’ve gotten started with the Quanta HTML editor because Bluefish just didn’t do it for me. Mainly there was no color picker, and I’m not going to use an external program, my memory, or a website for colors.

So Quanta is installed and in action here:

This is pretty cool because its also my first time using GIMP. Simple image re-size was the order for the day, but it was pretty cool to be using 100% free software to do all of this. SO here are the beginnings of my web design suite on my linux machine:

• Quanta HTML Editor
  http://quanta.kdewebdev.org
  installed with command line:
  $ sudo apt-get install quanta
• GIMP (came pre-installed on my system)
  http://www.gimp.org/
  can be installed from command line:
  $ sudo apt-get install gimp
• gFTP
  http://gftp.seul.org/
  $ sudo apt-get install gftp

The workflow is different with Quanta + gFTP + Photoshop than it is for Dreamweaver, but its easy enough to get used to. First off, I don’t have a dual monitor setup on my linux machine yet, so I’ll rely on virtual desktops to separate Quanta + gFTP from GIMP.

More later, I think this is off to a decent start.

More on my monitor resolution again, and its not good news (though not terrible). I booted up today to check for updates when I got an 800×600 screen resolution again. After a reboot (no changes, just a restart) I’ve again got 1280×1024. I’m going to guess that I need to look into turning off the restricted drivers.

I decided to get some work programs on the linux machine here, so decided to install Bluefish HTML editor, and GIMP. So, I jumped into Synpatic:

System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager

As I was about to install GIMP, it occurred to me I hadn’t checked the menus yet. A quick look at Applications > Graphics showed it was already installed. Cool. Next onto Bluefish. I didn’t even check, I just installed it via Synaptic and I have it opened now.

Next, I am thinking about installing Wine (Windows Emulator) to run Internet Explorer because sadly there are some sites you *must* rely on Internet Explorer to visit because the developer doesn’t know what their doing, or its done on purpose because Microsoft if evil. Well, okay maybe not evil, but you get the idea. More on Wine later.

FLASH INSTALLED

Finally! I found a working HOWTO for installing Adbobe/Macromedia Flash 9 for Linux, and more specifically Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). First, open your favorite console. Next, visit this Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) How-To page. Once you get to the instructions (below) its a simple matter of copy/pasting 4 lines of commands, or if your console doesn’t support paste, typing them in by hand (not so fun):

• direct link: http://www.funnestra.org/ubuntu/gutsy/#flashplayer
• OR scroll down to the Useful Packages section, and click “Adobe Flash”

Either way, ignore the instructions 1 & 2 at the top since they do not work at this point due to a bug. Follow the instructions below that start 1. Manually download and… to get Flash installed and running.

PRINTER INSTALLED
I installed an Epson Stylus Photo 820, and it worked right off, not counting that I need new ink cartridges. The physical install was the easiest, power plug and parallel cord. Next, System > Administration > Printing, then click New Printer. It did a quick search returning several options of which I chose LPT:1. Going from memory now, the next choice was the brand of printer, Epson. After that I was presented with a list of Epson printers and selected the Epson Stylus Photo 820 from the list and finished.

Next was the part I’m having trouble with, ink. The ink cartridges are old and dry and the printer was given to me with a refill kit. The refill wasn’t too difficult after I figured the was ink for black, blue, light blue, red, light red and yellow. The blues and reds looked alike butthe light-colors were marked with a capital “L” on top. After refilling, including many ink spills on my hand its done, but not printing very well. I’ll give it some more time before I give up an attempt to buy new ink cartridges.

Recently I powered on my Linux machine to show it off to my Dad, and the drivers weren’t playing nicely. For some reason the screen looked exactly the same as when I was using the Nvidia Drivers (see My Linux Journal Day 2 for more), and it booted into an 800×600 screen. Lucky for me simply turning it off and then back on later in the day somehow fixed the issue. So, if you change your video drivers and decide to change back, and find later that your monitor has reverted to the undesirable state, try powering off and back on and maybe you’ll get lucky, too.

I set up Pidgin today, very nice program (Applications > Internet > Pidgin Instant Messenger). It came pre-installed with Ubuntu 7.10, and was very easy to setup and begin running. Pidgin supports AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, and Yahoo IM accounts among others. Plus simply right-clicking it on the menu, and selecting “Add this to launcher panel” put it right up on top of my launcher panel at the top of my screen. Next, a right-click on each item on the launcher panel allowed me to unlock it from the panel (click the “Lock to Panel” menu item to toggle on and off). Then some simple dragging and dropping to re-order my launcher panel and voila!

Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon, Day 2

Today I tried setting Visual Effects from none to normal to see some cool visual effects (System > Preferences > Appearance > Visual Effects tab). I was disappointed when it didn’t work due to my system specs (the 2nd paragraph on the Upgrading from 7.04 to 7.10 post mentions some) but I was pleased when I realized Linux was getting more out of my NEC Multisync 70 monitor than:

• Windows with the Nvidia driver or…
• Linux with the Nvidia Legacy drivers

The max screen resolution using the Nvidia drivers was 800×600. But Linux, without the Nvidia drivers, runs the monitor at 1280×1024, the maximum resolution recommended by the manufacturer!

I also decided to subscribe to an RSS feed, so for expediency I used Mozilla Thunderbird which is already installed. I googled for a ubuntu tips and ended up choosing http://www.ubuntugeek.com/ as my first RSS.

I’m a novice Linux user, although I’ve used Linux on and off for about 10 years. Most of that 10 years has been OFF without Linux, so each time I start over I have to learn everything all over again.

The history with my Linux machine… where to start? Its an HP Pavilion 8766c (an old PC with a 900MHz P3, and 128 to 256 512MB RAM). It has had about 5 different distros of Linux on it during the past several years. Right now its running Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) but I’ve been getting error messages while updating packages recently. A couple of months ago the Linksys EtherPCI LAN Card II network card died on me.

Well recently I installed a Network Everywhere NC100U-WM network card ($15 at Wal-mart) and it got right back online with no configuration! I was pleasantly surprised, and ready to do some updates. Naturally I got some error messages. that’s when I saw the “Upgrade” button to upgrade to 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). The upgrade attempt was riddled with error messages so I decided to “wipe the system clean”. Last time I tried installing Ubuntu on Ubuntu it didn’t work for me. So I decided to install another distro (temporarily) and then re-install 7.04 fresh right back on top of it all, giving me a clean, “factory fresh” install.

After my re-install of 7.04 I did an update, about 266 updates to be exact, and I had no error messages. Great start! Next I clicked that “Update” button again and the system has now successfully been upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibson).

Now I have to get ready to install all of the items I need (Adobe Flashplayer, Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc…) and other software packages later.

Throughout the 1990’s Linux evolved into, been packaged into, a desktop Operating System, and into the new millennium its become more and more user-friendly. At some point it became an operating system no longer relegated to just us “computer geeks”, it became a viable alternative desktop operating system for the masses.

More recently Linux has gotten cool. How you ask? Big business has had an eye on Linux for years now, and more recently realized if it was ignored it could become a competitor in one way or another. In 2001 Unix-based Mac OS X (okay that’s not Linux, but its close enough) hit the market in new Macintosh computers. According to Wikipedia.org, Apple has also customized versions of its Unix-based OS X in Apple TV, iPhone and the iPod touch.

More recently computer maker HP introduced its first laptop with Linux, and since has also begun offering Linux Servers. HP has even done some custom deals with Linux Desktops, and may offer factory installed Linux Desktops down the road (well of course, right?).

What’s next, Microsoft and Linux? Yup. Just this year Microsoft partnered with Novell (makers of Suse Linux). Microsoft and Linux? Maybe the next version of Windows will be called Windows TUX, who knows?

So how cool is Linux? Well, including Unix-based OS X you’ve got installations in Macintosh Desktops, Apple TV, iPhone, iPod touch, plus computer maker HP and Microsoft also jumping on board the “Linux train”. Oh yes and lets not forget the server this blog runs on is a Linux server! Cool, eh?

UPDATE: 1/17/2008 - A Step Closer to Linux

I just found out today that Max OS X is, in part, based on Darwin/Rhapsody/OPENSTEP which are open source versions of Unix, some developed by Apple, Inc.