When I last talked about my computer it was on the problems and progress with using Gentoo Linux. I’ve since switched, first to Ubuntu and then to Xubuntu. Xubuntu is a light-weight version of Ubuntu that uses Xfce as its window manager instead of Ubuntu’s GNOME.
I recently switched once again, when Xubuntu 7.10 was released. I figured, since I have a 64-bit AMD processor I could try the 64-bit version of the operating system. Last time I tried was Gentoo a year ago, and I had trouble with getting flash to work in Firefox, plus a lot of other things that just weren’t mature enough. This time I haven’t had any problems yet, and I think 64-bit Linux has come a long way.
One of the main features of Ubuntu/Xubuntu is that everything works out of the box: you get Firefox and Thunderbird, it detects printers and scanners automatically and so on. But you also get a lot of stuff you don’t need, like media players and word processors you don’t always want anyway. I’ve wanted the option to choose what’s installed when installing Ubuntu, and this time I found out how. If you use the alternate CD you can install a basic command line system, without a graphical interface or any programs, and then complete the installation with the things you need. With one command from the freshly-installed command line I had Xfce, Firefox, Thunderbird and so on, without the extra media players and stuff. This slimmed the installation size and the system will hopefully run faster without extra processes running in the background.
I’ll list some pages that helped me, for later reference. Maybe I’ll add some more later.
If you’re curious about Linux and want to try something easy I recommend the Ubuntu default installation. You’ll get a complete system that keeps updating installed programs without nagging like that other operating system about authentication or illegal unlicensed downloads.
It’s well known that Linux requires some knowledge of your computer and its hardware. One pitfall is dependencies, where a program requires certain other programs or libraries to function, and often a specific version of them. Fortunately Gentoo has a very nice system for handling software installs and upgrades called Portage. Let’s say you want to install the web browser Firefox; you simply write “emerge mozilla-firefox” in a terminal and Portage checks dependencies, downloads, compiles and installs the program for you. The dependency check is very nice, as the risk of breaking already installed programs are less.
I’m going to make three lists of problems: solved, “patched” and stuff that’s still a problem. The patched problems are things that are working, but is either cumbersome to use or gives less performance than a full solution.
Solved problems
- Hard drive - I had to download a program from the hard drive manufacturer to do a “low level format”, putting zeroes in the MBR, for the partitioning program to like it.
- Network card - I had to put my DNS server in /etc/conf.d/net, something that wasn’t covered in the online install manual for Gentoo. The required file resolv.conf gets overwritten each boot, so it would otherwise forget the nameserver.
- Sound card - Installed and configured ALSA for Linux, and after some troubleshooting found that I’d plugged the speakers into the wrong port.
- FTP - I run Pure-FTPd with virtual user authentication and Pureadmin as a graphical front-end. I had to read up on active and passive FTP transfers and configure the router to send the correct ports my way.
- File sharing - A MLDonkey client with Sancho providing the graphics works surprisingly well. I tried KMLDonkey, written specifically for KDE, but I didn’t get it to work and the latest news on the site are over a year old so I don’t think it’s being developed.
Patched problems
- Graphic card - I have a VIA K8M890 card that doesn’t seem to be that well supported with drivers. openChrome is an open source project for VIA cards, but I haven’t got the card working yet. There are also drivers included in X, and drivers provided by VIA themselves, but none of them detects the graphic card. What I’m using now is VESA drivers, but they’re non-3d and have a maximum refresh rate of 60 Hz.
- DVD burner - I have to start the burner program K3b as root for it to agree that the device is writable.
- VLC - I have a video player but with text-based controls and it doesn’t have enough codecs to show avi files.
Still problems
- Firewall - I want to use Firestarter, but it complains that it doesn’t find a system log file and won’t let me add any filtering rules. I think I have to set up iptables first.
- Flash graphics - I run a 64-bit kernel and compile my files for the 64-bit architecture. Unfortunately some closed drivers doesn’t work in 64 bits, for example Macromedia’s flash plugin. There’s a workaround where you install a 32-bit Firefox version, but I haven’t bothered yet.
- Keyboard - One key is missing! I don’t know if it’s because I’ve chosen a 104-key layout when I have 105 keys or what it is, but I can’t press the “|” key. I have to copy and paste it from the internet, which is a bit tedious, especially since the pipe sign is quite useful on Linux systems.
Last week I bought a new computer and have since spent time installing stuff. After ordering it I chose between an all-Windows installation, a dual-boot Windows/Linux machine (like my last one with Windows XP and Slackware Linux) or an all-Linux computer. You can say a lot of bad stuff about Microsoft Windows, but it’s usually easy getting stuff to work, while Linux requires more intimate knowledge of the inner workings of your computer and doesn’t have the same amount of software and device drivers.
Still, I settled for an all-Linux computer running Gentoo for a couple of reasons: I use it in my office at school as do the rest of the computer technology department, you download small packages of programs and utilities and can compose your own system and you compile the code locally which make it easier to optimize for your specific hardware. The downside of Gentoo is that it takes some time and requires some knowledge to get all you want working, but it can also be seen as an upside as you learn a lot along the way.
Maybe writing down what problems I have and how I solve them, if I solve them, will help someone else. I also know I have at least one regular (or semi-regular?) reader who is more into Linux than he is in roleplaying games so this new category will initially be for him.
