The Cool Use Of Ubuntu

wftl

2007-08-23T11:44:00.001-07:00

Windows Vista Dilema

2007-02-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

I am currently looking at new laptops again. While in most stores I have found that most sales people will release very little information of what the problems are for this OS, that leads me to believe that they know there is a problem and are not willing to admit it. I am sort of flustered as I sort of need this to happen in the next week or at the most 2, will Vista do what most of my clients need at a reasonable price and reasonable calls into MicroSoft? I don't know, but I do believe that I know the answer.... NO! Why would this corporation make it to where if you upgrade from XP to Vista your XP key is no longer valid? Do they have something to hide? I think maybe. I have worked with Windows for quite sometime now, and don't know where to stand with it, do I tell my clients I no longer support it as the makers don't care enough to make sure that it works before it is released? Or do I continue supporting something that will cost my clients what I feel to be way too much in the way of time and money? I would preffer it if Microsoft would pay the people that have paid for it already and say thank you for being a beta tester, here is a copy of XP as we are pulling it until it is ready for production. That would make the most sense to me, if a distro if Linux did that, it would flop so hard you would never see it again. What makes Microsoft so special? Money, money and more, you got it, money! I will buy Vista only to be able yo provide a proper sense of I know what I am doing, but I will not allow this OS in my home on ANY of my home systems until they can show me that yes we have fixed the driver issues, and program compatibilities.

Pics from Walkerton

2007-02-16T14:15:00.000-08:00

Broadcom Wireless FC6

2007-01-13T15:38:00.000-08:00

I now have my Broadcom 4318 Air Force One working on Fedora Core 6, it took ndiswrapper and a whole lot of patience on my part. Right at this point I am not sure if it works with AP's that have no encryption, that s the problem that I had before. I will post more as I find more out

Gimp

2007-01-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

While working within Moving to Free Software by Marcel Gagne, I cam across working with Gimp. I have always found this to be a little confusing to me because I am too lazy to look things up on the net. I am going to try and write a how to for several different things within The Gimp and we will see what all happens with it. Like right now I need a logo for my site, lets just see if I can get something that I may want to appear in the banner of my site shall we? The above banner was created in basically 5 minutes with this program, and I will recommend it to all whom I know. I will keep expanding this blog as I feel it is a way of getting to the masses w/o much cost except for a few brain cells.
I have also designed a button for my blog, I have yet to be able to get it to link to my site. I will get this done right. Maybe not right now, but I will. As you all know, I don't say give that easily.

Y'all Come Back Now Ya Here?

Thank You

2007-01-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

I must thank WFTL AKA Marcel, and moldor AKA Jon for thier incredible gifts in getting www.kevinspcrepair.ca on the go. I am learning a whole lot in a very small amount of time. As it currently sits, I have had to bug wftl much more than I want to or probably need to, but as you all may or may not know, I am completely erm how should I say "not smart" when it comes to domains. I will get better as time goes by and I read more on Drupal. This is going to happen as I want it to be my main source of income within the next 3 years and would like to take the time now to thank some of the people who have helped me along the way.
So in short. Thanx EVERYONE

The Captain must post an I'm Sorry!

2006-12-20T11:12:00.000-08:00

I must say that I am sorry for letting my best friend Charles down, you see I was supposed to be down helping him and the organization he works for. I was to help him move the work areas over to another building, and for some dumb reason I keep waking up with one bad headache. This is not the first time this has happened when I was to help him, but I am doing what needs to be done to make sure it is the last time.

The Captain has Bombed

2006-12-18T09:33:00.000-08:00

I am officially screwed! I/we IE Charles and I installed Debian Woody on my server (dual p1 200), then went and upgraded to Sarge. My power went off sometime this morning and now Lili will not boot. I know I need to reinstall Lilo, but am more comfortable with Grub.... anyone with some advice and where to get a boot floppy, please just leave a message and I will try.
It has been a couple of hours since I posted the beggining of this one and I have posted to a couple of lists that I belong to. It is looking like I may be able to use the install cd to reinstall LILO. I will post more on this as I do more, right now it is almost 12:30 AM and I am getting rather tired, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.
Y'all come back now ye here!!

Captain Kevin Strikes again

2006-12-11T11:23:00.000-08:00

I am now working with Edgy Ubuntu. So far all has gone well with the exception that I cannot seem to get EasyUbuntu to install on it. This is what I get when I try to run it for some dumb reason.

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "easyubuntu.in", line 81, in ?

main()

File "easyubuntu.in", line 75, in main

gtkfrontend.launcher(datadir, confdir, userPackageListPath)

File "/home/vader/easyubuntu/trunk/EasyUbuntu/gtkfrontend.py", line 196, in launcher

pkglist = minidom.parse(os.path.join(datadir,userPkg))

File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/_xmlplus/dom/minidom.py", line 1915, in parse

return expatbuilder.parse(file)

File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/_xmlplus/dom/expatbuilder.py", line 924, in parse

fp = open(file, 'rb')

IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/vader/easyubuntu/trunk/packagelist-edgy.xml'

I finally got it working a little bit ago and all I had to do was get the nightly snapshot and run it. That fixed the above error's with ease. I have since install Red Hat 7.3 on my server so I have been concentrating a little bit more on it than on this Ubuntu system but I want to learn some o fthe older stuff until I am more comfortable with how things work within Linux. I want to lean where things are and why they are placed there so I may do a Linux from scratch just to learn what all happens and why. I do have an older pc to donate to this project so we will see what happens in the next wee or so seeing as the weather is supposed to be nice and warm which means that I won't need to go into work. Right now I am waiting for someone to restart their router so I can maybe get this document uploaded to the Internet and get some more work done. Until then, have an awesome day and remember.

Here are a few more pics of the server that I have been working with Charles on his site is as follows www.linux-games.ca

Y'all come back now ya here....

Pics From Troy :)

2006-12-10T18:20:00.000-08:00

Working with my server

2006-12-06T20:52:00.000-08:00

I have been working with my dual p1 200 mhz server for the past year or so trying to get a distro of some sort onto it, I/we finally. The we in that is my best friend Charles, we finally got RH 7.3 onto it, so we will see what all can be done with such an old distro. What had to be done to get the distro on to it? Well I am glad that you asked, it was actually funny to me as I had tried all that I knew and nothing would work with the exception of mapping the memory. This is the paramaters for it. linux mem=exactmap mem=640k@0 mem=767M@1M. This got it to install, as soon as I obtain the install disks for it, I will try to install ubuntu server on it and see what all I can learn from it as you all probably know, I suck with the command. So far I have done the following, Gotten Apache running on sort of internal intranet. Almost got Samba working with the emphasis on almost, I cannot get it to show on the workgroup for some dumb reason, I almost think that it has to do with the version that is installed on it. This is the link that I use for my information on it http://redhat.activeventure.com/73/referenceguide/index.html
All has worked well with the above mentioned Samba problem. Here is a pic or two from when we got it all installed.
For the past couple of days, there has been noting new on the server, but I am doing some reading on how to get some newer apps running on it, like linpopup. This may be a good thing for some of the clients i have got in the past as it is an internal messaging system for say a company who has say 2 or more..... hopefully way more computers. So far I have only been able to test from Linux to Windows but the problem so far has been that I can only get messages from Linux to Windows, no the other way around. The message coming into the Linux box does not appear after is says it has been sent successfully. I will continue to work on this in the comming week and see what I can get figured out.
I, along with my friends from the WFTL Lug Nuts wish to extend a hand to all who are experimenting or even using Linux for the first time, This is my attempt at helping anyone who wishes the help or is just afraid to ask for it, I knwo it is sometimes hard to start the conversation. So maybe this will loosen some of the verbal strings and get you all on the same page.
That is it for now, be safe and Y'all come back now ya here!!

Great News From Captain Kevin

2006-11-12T21:14:00.000-08:00

I have been working with Edgy Eft Ubuntu for the past couple of weeks, but with my work schedule it has gotten quite imposible for me to sit down and write anything but the very basics for the past 4 months or so. Maybe next week during my down time I will work with Charles and get another podcast out and then get going on my testing on this unit.

2006-09-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

New post from Captain Kevin

I am doing this from Blog entry poster, available from the Ubuntu Repositories. So far it is pretty cool. I have really been putting in some time looking into working with some of these as I have fallen pretty far behind on my posts.

Blogging

2006-07-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have been sort of lax in my blogging as of late, between the ongoing job searches and taking care of my 2 11 year old nephews, and my 11 year old son. That leaves me with maybe one hour per night for me to work on my blog. As you can tell sleep has been winning. Hopefully over the next 2 weeks things will improve just a little but as I had a pretty good interview today and my sister is off for the next 2 weeks and will be looking after them herself. This should open the door for me to install Suse 10.2 and try it with all of it's glory. We will see what happens with it all. Sorry I have been unable to keep this up to date os of late, I am still have some problems at home. I have howwever found a flaw or 2 with Dapper Drake Ubuntu. It does not seem to like any of the P2 systems I have installed it on. The first one was my dads laptop, it is a P2 366 with 256 MB RAM and it would hang during loading the hardware drivers. I would have to hard crach the system 10 or more times to get it to boot, and then put up with an extremely slow machine. I went back to Breezy Badger on this laptop, and all is well now. I also had a pretty major issue installing Dapper on my brother-inlaws p2 350 with 512 MB RAM. It too would hang during the boot at the same spot. I finally did what I did to the laptop, and it too is running smoothly.
Okay, Okay. I admit that I have been working such long hours that I don't have time to do much blogging, but I am hoping that this will all change as I am getting some shorter shifts now.
Y'all come back now ya here!

Captain Kevin's Best!

2006-07-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

The reasons I like Linux so much is because there is no known Spyware written for it, this could be bcause it is not exactly “main stream” yet, or it could be bcause there has been such wide community support for it that people just don’t care to hack it, I personally believe that it is because that it is a friendly community and the people just want to keep it free. When I do a consultation for someone wanting to switch from Windows to Linux, I sit and watch what they do with Windows before I install anything. Then I install a couple of things on their Windows system to get them used to it before I install Linux, all in all, it takes about a month before I will install anything because when I do something, I like it to be good with little complaints. Personally I have been using Ubuntu Linux for the past 2 years and refuse to switch back to Windows as an OS because it has too many security flaws and I don’t have the thousands of dollars that it would take for me to get all of the software I run to make it a viable option. If someone is classed “low income”, I will always show them my laptop and my wife’s computer. My laptop and her computer are both Dual Booting and I rarely use Windows for the simple reason that when I do decide to use it, I always have to install the latest update, then I have to remember what software I have that I can legally use, which software I would have to register, and then to beat all else, answer 10 dozen questions when I wanted to install anything.

I have since converted my wife to Linux and will put her comments in here as well. The main thing for her to keep using Linux is for me to keep an open mind and do nothing more. Well, I am working on getting my Internet back up and running, One certain phone company is really pissing me off and I will get them fixed one way or the other. They pirated my phone line, and said they had my wife recorded saying that we want their service. Wrong! I will never switch my phone service no matter the situation. What tipped me off is the fact that I noticed Monday last that I had no Internet. I then called my ISP the very next morning and asked me if I had switched my provider recently. Then my wife remembered talking to this company the previous month. Sure enough I had been switched. This is now going on the second week and it is really getting me angry. Bell Canada is doing all that they can to get my line back where it was, and I have no problems with them at this point. My problem is with this company that is somehow allowed to operate within Canada! Can the government do nothing about this? Now I just need to get a few other things done. Sorry for the rant but I had to get it off of my chest just a little bit.

I have been working on getting my wireless to work better under Linux but no such luck as of yet. I am hoping that a fresh install will take care of this, when I do get my Internet back sometime this week I shall try that.

Chatzilla in Dapper

2006-06-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

I have been using this for the past 3 or 4 days, mainly I wanted to see what it was and how to use it. I have now gotten to where is like it more than Xchat because the all important whois works. I am going to use it for a while to see if I get tired of it.
The way to install it;
sudo apt-get install chatzila
How to join wftlchat;
/attach chat.marcelgagne.com
/join #wftlchat

I know this is short post but it will have to do for now.
Y'all come back ya here!

Dapper

2006-05-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

This is the continuation of the Dapper. When I get into a fresh installation of Ubuntu, I will always install the following, Blender 3D, Clam AV, and just a few other things. Then it is usually searching around and deciding if I can make due with what I have or if I want to play and learn something new. I have been sitting in the Dapper channel for the past few days and it seems that all of the upgrading isn't always going so well for some folks. Like I just saw where a guy did an upgrade from Breezy and now his X-Server will bit start. I am one who believes that if you do your homework all will work when you do it. I am in the other background. I don't always do my homework and it does come up and bit me rather hard at times, Like when I first installed Ubuntu on this laptop, The wireless would not work even after following the directions in the Wiki. This was very disappointing to me as I was accustomed to things just working with very little configuration. I am however pleased to report that I do have my Broadcom Wireless adapter working. The way I did this is as following.
1)I go here. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WifiDocs/Driver/Broadcom43xx?highlight=%28Broadcom%29#head-06abfbc9895e3a558cad13518afc671d1b421131
2)Then I follow this Using the bcm43xx driver
3)Then when that is all done, I do this. sudo iwconfig eth1 ap any.
4)Then I type in sudo dhclient eth1
5)Then it should be working for me.

When I do this, it all seems to fall in place and then I can ping out and surf the net. All I have to do now is encrypt a wireless network and get that idea going. This should prove to be quite the goos thing as I want to have a wireless network at home and don't want to do it until I get the rest of it working right.

The Brilliance Behind Ubuntu

When I first started using Ubuntu it was when it was still Wharty Warthog. This was a good distibution as well, the only problem I had was I could not get my sound working. This was solved in Breezy Badger. All is good and well with it until I bought this laptop, I could not get an X-Server happening. This was solved in Dapper Drake and it is the distribution that I continue to use. I do love how easy it is to install and use most software on Ubuntu, there is a few downfalls that I haven't yet found but we will see what happens. I am going to install a firewall this weekend and see what all happens with it. Okay that was fairly painless, I did a sudo apt-get install firestarter. This installed firestarter and then I just went to System>Administration>Firestarter. Set it up for my connection to the internet and Boom! I am protected.

Games I Install Through My Basic Install

Frozen Bubble;
I install this because I love to play it for some giggles and for the days that my son drives me crazy enough to allow him to play on my laptop. This has not happened as of yet.

Battle For Wesnoth;
I install this because I love the challenges of a new world.

Falcons Eye;
I got introduced to this game by my good Friend Charles. I just like to play with all of the different settings in it.

That is all of the games that I install right off the bat. The main problem with having so few games is that I don't always leave myself enough to play.

Desktop Backgrounds;

I always manage to install a few Desktop Backgrounds that are not included, I do this because I like to look at different things. This is always cool and never dull.
http://www.linuxwallpapers.org/ This is where I go to get most of my Backgrounds. Or the next thing I will do is do a Google search for Linux Backgrounds.

Xchat

I am always in one channel in IRC, it is called chat.marcelgagne.com then under join channel #wftlchat
This will allow you to talk with Marcel Gagne, know as WFTL Writer and Free Thinker. You can find him at www.marcelgagne.com and see the books this man has written. If you are into Linux at all, you will love this site. When you do make your way over there make sure you also check out http://linuxredneck.blogspot.com This is mine and my friends blog and where you can download our newest podcast. We take pride in what we do and should have a new podcast every month or we will at least try to.

Cool Software That I Use In Everyday Life.

I always install Audacity, this program allows me to record our podcast. I like it because I can put in the sounds that we usually put into it, and we can also export the file as an OGG or an MP3. Another Cool program that I use a lot is called Xchat, this program allows me to connect to the people who I help and they help me (mostly the ladder). Amsn, this program is quite good and is an MSN messanger look a like program, they have pretty much got all of the little things and most of the major things worked out on it to where it acts and looks like MSN messanger.
One good thing about using Linux is the plain and simple fact that most of the time it runs faster than Windows and there are very few viruses written for it and there are no known Spyware written for it. That just makes me wonder what MS does with all of that money that it makes selling what all it does. This I find funny because most of the Linux Distributions come with so much software, it makes the head spin. What do you get with Windows? A slap to the face the says hello sucker, you just bought an OS that will crash consistently, get infected with Spyware, and make you buy you virus protection. What sense does this make? Knowing that there is better and it is FREE! That just shows what MS does, they buy big business! That is my opinion anyhow, and I will stick to that to my death. This is always going to be my vision, and that is that the world needs to be involved with Linux as most of the documentation for it is free for the taking and will always be!
When I am talking to a client about all that Linux will do for them, they cannot believe that it is all free, when I take them to the sites for downloading it. They always go back to WOW! This is the factor that I live on. The WOW factor.
Now that I have more of your attention, let me introduce you to my version of the wow factor. This is all being done with Dapper Drake Ubuntu, it comes with Open Office 2 installed by default, Evolution Mail, and just a whole slew of other software installed by default! I am completely stoked and ready to roll with this, I just hope that I get this one out before the official release it! When we all get a new distro, we always get into a huff when we cannot find the things we are custom to using. I get all panicky when I cannot find my Open Office, or my Networking Management stuff. This just gets into a bit of frustration, but it does not have to be. If you need to find something, the main thing to do is look it up on line, or maybe even in the MAN pages. I personally get a laugh out of the simple questions I field on a daily basis. Like “how do I get from the command line” This is a simple task. Let me upgrade you from your old DOS or maybe even very old version of Linux. Then let me take an hour or two of your time to show you your new system. This will work on most customers that are open enough to have Linux, if they aren't don't sweat it! Get them using Firefox, instead of IE, get them using Evoluiton instead of Outlook, get them using Kaffine instead of Windows Media player, slowly integrate them into the Open Source world. Don't give up! They do come around eventually. When they do, it is usually in a very big way.

Using Synaptic Package Manager.

Honestly I don't use this much any more just because I prefer to install most of my software through the command line. My friend has gotten me into using that method because to me it is just easier. If you do use Synaptic, it is easy and straight forward to do so. I usually start my session with Mark all upgrade. Don't ask me why, there is no rhyme or reason, it just assures me that I am starting off with an up to date system. The best way I can suggest for you to get used to your system is to play with it, most of the time you cannot mess it up so bad that you would have to reinstall your OS, it is possible but not too likely.

Dapper Drake Ubuntu

2006-05-18T07:06:00.000-07:00

Okay! Enough!! I am officially sticking with Ubuntu! I have tried serveral different things with most of the BIG Distro's and have given up! I have a very hard time getting my proper video driver for most, and the only one to get it right is Ubuntu. Then I cannot get my wireless to work with them. I can at least get it working in Ubuntu.
I now have a good thing happening, I have my wireless going good, the video isn't quite right yet. But the good news is, I can install most anything I want or need to. This is why I have been sticking with Ubuntu. The main thing is I do want to keep current with other Distro's and with me being hooked on Ubuntu, it makes it hard for me to do much with the others. Now, the down side is I am running Dapper Drake which to this date, is still not official, which of course means that things will break. I have been sort of fortunate in that area but still, the team is working hard. The best thing I have found about Ubuntu has been the straight up fact the most things just work with it and all of the information I have read leads to one thing, it is the best Distro that can be found (for the newbie).

Using The Command Line

One of the first things I do after an install of Ubuntu is I put the Terminal on the upper task bar, Synaptic package manager and Oo writer as well. This just makes things a little bit easier. When I fire it up for the first time I always do the following, fire up the Terminal and type the following, sudo apt-get update. Then I type in sudo apt-get upgrade. You can run most any program from the command line by just simply typing it's name. There is a new command that I like pretty well (new to me) try typing in whois or the ip of the address. The best one that I like is traceroute. This one give me more information.

Downloadin And Installing Software

A very handy tool is called apt-get. What I do is I type into the Terminal, sudo apt-get install , or if I do not know the name of the program I am looking for, I always type in sudo apt-cache searc This will list all of the known packages in your sources.list file. Now I am sitting at my sister-in laws house in New Hamburgh. This is kind of cool seeing as I am on line with my wireless connection. This is looking to be pretty promising so far. When you get to the point that I have with this, you will realize what a celebration it is to have this Broadcom wireless working without any sort of problems. The bad part is that I get some fun out of getting all of the knowledge from doing this all. Now that I am having so much fun with all of this, I am getting into lots of trouble with it all. There is another way to get software installed on your system. It is called Synaptic Package Manager. This is a good tool and the way you get to it is to go to System>Administration>Synaptic. Then what I do is search for it. The best thing about all of this is the plain and simple fact that you can add or remove repositories just at the click of the mouse. By clicking on the Setting---->Repositories, you can add a couple of different ones that will enable you to get a whole bunch more software.
The downfall to Linux in my eyes is that people just don't want to go through yet one more learning curve. If they really wanted to get an Operating System, they would put us the technicians through a lot more crap than they actually do. Right now 99% of my clients are running Windows, and I am starting to bring it up more and more to them and some of them really are warming up to the idea that there is something better than windows out there that doesn't cost an arm and a leg to use. Open Office replaces Microsoft Office rather well. The Gimp has come just about far enough to replace Adobe Photo Shop, there are a lot of applications that are really coming close to cutting the mustard and several surpass cutting the mustard and get into the area of bleeding edge. I like the bleeding edge but there are a few problems that they don't really talk about. Like the drivers for a Broadcom 4318 wireless adapter. This can be extremely daunting, especially if you try to rush things, trust me I do speak from a lot of experience.

Using SuSe 10

2006-04-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

Today I installed SuSe 10 and even though my Broadcom wireless is not even detected. I did get my D-Link DWL-G650 card working, I do want to try and get the Broadcom going because I don't like carrying more than I have to. I have installed Kismit. So far it has been pretty cool, but I am still learning what I am doing with it, but I like what I see right now. I have also been looking at a few other things like maybe using XFCE for my desktop as I really want to do some more war driving. The main reason for the war driving is to try and get some more customers when they see what I can do with a bare minimum of effort. Now, as of this afternoon I will no longer be providing Internet to anyone other than my family because I have recieved some complaints that the service is slow. It is slow because I choose to limit the people who don't pay for what they recieve, thus as of this afternoon, they will no longer be able to connect to the wireless aspect of my home network. Maybe now that I will have a secure, (or atleast as secure as wireless is) I will be able to do some of the other things that I would like, such as building a base Comodore 64 Emulator. This has been a goal for a little while but as with most things I get flustered and the idea goes to the waste and the computer just sits there and does nothing. This is going to change as I am going to take that computer to a friend and we will sit there and research which OS to use because SuSe 10 will just be too much for it. The computer is a 466 MHZ with 64 MB RAM that was given to me for the purpose of playing around and seeing what all is possible with older hardware. I may have gotten into some good ideas for getting the wireless to run. I found a setting and am waiting for a reply from one of the lists I belong to as to what to do for what it is asking me for, then maybe I will have it.

Dapper Drake Ubuntu

2006-04-27T18:13:00.000-07:00

I am now using Dapper Drake Ubuntu, installed it last night, got the wireless working well. Went to bed, came out and started the laptop, the wireless adapter was gone! Not in the Networking areas, no where! I went in and reinstalled Dapper, not knowing what I did wrong. Now I have the wireless working well, all I have to do is go to my favorite wireless coffee house and see if I can get it to hook up to the network there. That has been my problem in the past, the inability to hook up to anyone else's wireless network. Keeping in miind that I have the Broadcom 4318 wireless adapter, I would seriously rethink my buying this laptop as I have only been able to get it to work, is with Ubuntu. I am sort of surprised that all of the distributions I have used admitidly is not a lot. FC5, Dapper Ubuntu, SuSe 10, I have not tried Mandriva just yet, but will sometime in the future just to say that I have tried it.
Now on to bigger and better things, I have been working with Blender the 3D rendering program that has been kind of difficult to grasp. I am to the point that I can get a ball to move around the screen fairly smooth, and sometimes get it to bounce. The problem is that it doesn't quite look real as of yet.

Xchat

2006-04-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

To get to wftl-lug nuts using Xchat, do the following, bring up Xchat. Then bring up Xchat, and click on add. Then type in what you want to call the channel. Then click on Edit, and in the servers box, type in chat.marcelgagne.com/6667 then beside channels to join, you will type in #wftlchat. Then you just have to click on close and click on connect. Then you are done.

2006-04-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

More Ideas From Captain Kevin

I have now got my wireless working. Maybe now I can get some fun things done, Like now Charles and I can take the long Easter Weekend to work on getting a few podcasts done.

One of my favorite time killing games in Linux is called Bug Squish, the reason for this is there is next to no violence but maybe a few Skeeters and other little annoying bugs. Or I like to play Gweled a single player, Multi-Level Bejeweled like game. I enjoy this one because it keeps the blood from boiling when you just cannot get an application to compile proper or just need to relax from a hard day at work. Another thing I like to do is play with Audio programs like Audacity which we use for recording the podcasts, or Hydrogen, which you can record your own flavor of music, and then save it as a WAV file and import it to Audacity for adding to the podcast. Now today Charles and I are supposed to work on the new Podcast and maybe the next couple as well. Beamie if you are reading this, yes we are getting ready to stage one good come back! Now all I have to do is work on maybe getting my wireless to work under any circumstances. It is working but I have to bring it up manually and I also have not been able to get it working on any others but my own network. I have grown quite board with the wireless problems, I have now been playing with RDP through Ubuntu, all I have been doing with it is remoting into my wifes computer and running her ant-spyware and anti-virus... and maybe the odd chat program. But if I wasn't such an honest person I could have done lots of things with it. I have just recently gotten laid off from my job, so what I am going to do is take my spare computers, turn them into a few things like email servers, web servers that allows drag and drop from my desktop, into another directory on the server. or allows me to FTP into it and get my files onto the desktops of other clients.

The best thing I think that I could possibly do is get an email server going, maintain it for a while and document the holly terror out of it.

I may even get some things done like maybe getting some things like the email server working and also the web server working. I may even get a true server out of all of this, I just don't know yet. What I feel would be ideal would be a server that combines all of these things. A drag and drop web server. an email server and an educational server . That would host say the Call For Help episodes for me, or really I have no clue as of yet but I am having my brain in overdrive with it all.

Working with RDP in Ubuntu

2006-04-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

Right this moment I am remoting into my wifes Windows XP machine, it is really quite cool to be able to this seeing as I haven't played with this at all in over a year. I am going to try this with my dads computer over this holiday weekend and see what I can do to have some fun with lots of people. It is Sunday morning and I am stuck watching Dotto Tech. I just have one question about this show. Why do they never cover Linux? They allways cover Windows and Mac but why will they never even mention Linux, I think that if we all got together and wrote this show, we would all see this guy start learning the Linux world as we all know it. I went to his web site and found no contact us button to eb able to voice my opinion. I started this some time ago, the problem has been the plain and simple fact that I am testing Fedora Core 5. But I am going to continue with this entry. I use the RDP protocol because I am basically lazy and don't want to get off of my but to deal with my wifes windows computer, I also remote into my desktop from my laptop and so on and no forth. I will leave it at that for now and see what else I see when I finally get the time to reinstall Ubuntu some time in the next week or so.
Y'all come back soon ya heer!

Got it! Broadcom 4318 Wireless

2006-04-12T18:36:00.000-07:00

I now have my Broadcom 4318 wireless adapter working, and am going to describe how I did things.
The first thing I am going to do is direct you to this url https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WifiDocs/Driver/Broadcom43xx?highlight=%28broadcom%29
Then what I have done is everything to the point of the first Now you're ready to skip down to the "Skip down to here!" header.

Then you MUST do
sudo iwconfig eth1 mode auto
sudo iwconfig eth1 rate 11M
sudo iwconfig eth1 ap any

Then what I did was sudo dhclient eth1, then I try to ping say www.google.ca or something to that effect and if it work, then you are now connected through the wireless.

It has been over night now, and I have to bring the wireless up manually for some reason. Other than that it works quite well, the only thing you have to do to bring it up manually is to do this;
sudo iwconfig eth1 ap any
sudo dhclient eth1

Then I ping wwww.google.ca to be sure that it worked and then I am done.

Well, I thought I was done. I went to my favorite coffee house today and guess what.... I could not connect. This is getting to be a funny thing, I have never had this much trouble out of once piece of hardware.

One heck of a good day!

2006-03-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

Working with Ubuntu build 6.0.6.

So far I like this build ok, just I wish that I could get my wireless to work. I have tried all of the wiki's and still nothing, I work on it until I get frustrated then move onto another project. Then when I feel like doing it again, I do. Now I do not know what to try next, all I have done this far has done nothing but frustrate me and my friends. I think what I will do is get the D-link working with Ndiswrapper. Maybe I will have some fun with that next. I think I have named this one wrong, I noticed earlier that it is named 6.04. I don't know why I would have done that other than maybe I saw it somewhere and it just stuck. I will leave as in saying that I am human too.
I have just purchased my own car and will now be able to go around to my customers and get out own groceries with out a taxi or even calling my dad to borrow his van. Maybe now I will be able to get a real job with real income. And now back to the real work, I have been very disappointed with all of the distributions that I have tried this far, I have not been able to get my Broadcom 4318 wireless adapter built in and none of them will use it properly. Dapper Drake Ubuntu, this distro actually detects it, but you have to do some serious amount of toying with it to get it to where it detects the network, but then I haven't been able to get on the network, most of the time it will go through the DHCP steps, then it will give me a temporary failure in name resolution error. This is very frustrating as I cannot get my D-link DWL-G650 wireless to work with it either. When I try for the D-link, the directions tell me to do a lot that I do, then still cannot get it, so I will give up for now, the reason I like Ubuntu so much is I have been using it for the past year and a half now and everything I need is built into the Repositories or very easy to build. But I am officially looking for a distro that I like and that is as easy to use as this has been.
Thanx for reading and y'all come back soon!

Podcasting

2006-03-13T07:12:00.000-08:00

I along with my good friend Charles have been doing some podcasting, it is called the linux redneck podcast. So far things have been good and we really enjoy doing them. I am also working with the program Blender 3D once again now that I find I have some time to put into it. It is wuite a challenging program to use but I feel it will be well worth doing once I get some nice objects drawn with it. Back to the podcasting, we are now working on getting a machine together to try and get the sound quality to where it whould be for an internet radio show. This should prove to an interesting task as we do have fun with the show and I want it to continue. The only draw back is the amount of time it takes to do the shows, first we have to find the time to discusss the topics we would like to talk about, then we have to find the time to be able to sit down and work on the actual recording. Then after all of that is done, we have to sit and get all of the sound effects in and then make sure that it sounds the way that we think it should. After all of that is done, we just have to post it on the net and pray that the good folks like the show that we have done.
Then we just have to play with the next show and keep going the way that we have been. This has been a very good learning experience for myself and Charles as well, and we hope that all of you enjoy it, and don't take us too seriously as we are just a couple of jokers who enjoy what they do. That is it for me for now, have a great day and I will update again in a couple of days.

Dapper Drake

2006-03-11T09:19:00.000-08:00

Running Dapper Drake Ubuntu;
So far I like it better than the other 3 distributions that I have tried but then again this is the first night with it. It is quite nice so far. I have installed KDE desktop on here. It is running rather sweet. When I get all of this stuff working, this will all be posted to my blog to help other Linux users get all of their hardware working with Ubuntu Linux. Thus far there has been very little difference between Breezy Ubuntu and Dapper Ubuntu, other than the plain and simple fact that Dapper seems to have much better detectability in it. Like my ATI video card, in Breezy I could only get a text install, in Dapper and with no special installation method, it installed with the proper video right off the hop. It has also detected my Broadcom wireless adapter, but I have yet to be able to get it working right. It keeps telling me that the information I have put in is wrong for my network. Not right! I will figure this one out when I have enough time to sit and read through some documentation on the net. Something else I have noticed with Dapper is that it really seems to love my hardware. I.E exceleration, this little sucker is quick! Another good thing is I still have my apt-get...this is a real plus over any of the RPM based distributions as I don't really understand how the RPM works. That is what I should do this weekend after I get a few more things done on the desktop pc. That is all for now, I will write more about this when time permits. The best thing about this laptop is the size of the hard drive. It has a 60 Gig hard drive with usb support and also a few other little goodies like it has an AMD Sempron processor, came with 512 MB Ram and I have upgraded it to 7 hundred and some odd MB Ram. It seems to like most RPM based distributions but I don't like them too much, mainly because I haven't used them much, other than to try it for a day then reinstall Ubuntu.
Bonuses of Ubuntu;
As with most Linux distributions, there is no known spyware, and very few viruses. That is what I tell all of my customers who ask me why I switch to Linux. Most of the time they just look at me as if to say yeah right.... and then I have to prove it to them by going to some “dirty” sites and then shutdown and restart the computer. When they see that it has done nothing to the computer, most of them will ask me to make them a dual boot system, if they have the hard drive space I will do it, if not I will give them a live cd and show them how to use it, then when they have gotten the hang of what they are doing I will sit down with them and see what programs they use, make the decision as to what applications they use, and then what other little goodies they will need setup, like what type of Internet they use, if they plan on switching which Internet provider they use and so on. Then I can get on with the installation and show them how to use it and send them on their happy way.
The extra Goodies of Ubuntu.
There is allways one thing or another that I forget to write about, Like in the first section I forgot to put into the apps section Alien. This is an awesome program, not just for Ubuntu or DEB based systems, it can also be used pretty well with most systems that I have seen. I also use Mandriva Free 2006 on my desktop computer. I am going to try and use it on there and convert a .DEB to an RPM and see what happens. I have also been using Gdesklets, this is an awesoem program for keeping an eye on such things as CPU usage, the weather, and other nifty little icons. My favorite little app in this program so far has got to be the weather keeper. It keeps it on the desktop where you don't constantly have to open a web page. I forgot to mention that to make alien work, you need yo have it installed. To do this, you need to open a terminal and type in sudo apt-get install alien. Then you will type in alien -d What this does is it converts your RPM package to a .DEB package. Then to install the newly made .deb package you will type in sudo dpkg -i . This will install the package providing that you have all of the dependacies needed for that program.

Another new Laptop

2006-03-04T06:09:00.000-08:00

I have another new laptop. This one is the Compaq Pressario V2555CA. The main problem I am having with it so far is that after installing SuSe 9.3 on it, is the plain and simple fact that I cannot get Yast 2 to open. When I try, this is the error I get.....Woops! I now know why I couldn't do it from the command line. I was using yast 2. Not yast. But that does not excuse the fact that it will not open with the GUI.I have done an update, but haven't done a system reboot yet. Maybe the update will fix it. Well I figured out that if I will do this from the command line, it will sometimes open yast. sux . Then type in yast2 yast 2 will open. I cannot add any software right now, so I am sort of stuck for an answer right now. Maybe one will come to me over night.

Captain Kevin Continued

2006-02-26T05:08:00.000-08:00

I finally finished a customer computer last night. It started with some basic Spyware removal, the complaint was that she couldn't get her network card to work. Well, I did my best and that wasn't good enough. I then did a virus scan and it found a lot of problems there. So many that I decided it was time to do an OS upgrade. I did it, then when I thought I was going to strat the Win 2K install, I lost video. I tried all of the usual things, like a different video card, RAM and nothing. What it took was for me to take everything out, put it all back together and Blamo! I had video. Now it is complete but it has been a fun time trying to get it all together. There will be more at a later date.

Captain Kevin to The Rescue

2006-02-21T19:35:00.000-08:00

I am very excited aobut my up and coming adventures! While I may not have a job to go to next week. I do know that no matter what it is, I will survive! Now the reason for my excitement is that I am working with a good friend of mine Charles to get these podcats out to the public. I must admit that the content is mostly his thoughts but I love working on them because I Love Linux and that is what I love, being able to work with other people and help others to learn what I have. Currently I have a windows98 machine on the bench...What a pain the the rear! I now remember why I migrated to Linux. to get away from the constant crahes and you must update your system. Why in the world would Mr. Gates try and do this to people. So many security leaks that the Shan Dam couldn't plug it. It is awesome when you can sit down and show people how a computer should work. Nice and fast and no security leaks. What would the world be like with only Linux running on the networks? Hmmmmm I wonder, wait I have had a very good taste of it! I will not switch back to windows at home because of the plain and simple fact that I absolutely refuse to pay for that which I can get for free! and have something more powerful than windows could hope to be. I just wish that I could refurbish some older computers then bring in some poeple with newer higher end equipment, get all of their computers running at the same time, show them the apps that can be installed easily and "free", then I believe deep in my heart that you would see a lot of change coming to the world.

A house without Windows.

2006-02-19T18:07:00.000-08:00

As I think I have mentioned in the past, my house isn't quite Windows free. I hope it will be one day but it won't be too soon. The wife is the only hold out there. I am thinking that once I get a subscription to Transgaming, I can convert the wife, but only time will tell. I am going to probably start doing more on this blog soon right now I am working on a few exciting projects, like one or 2 that will hopefully get recognized by a few people. But that is neither here 'nor there. At this time I must appoligize for my lack of attention getting things done on this blog. I am currently working with the podcasts and also trying to get a few other things done. But now my attention is here and that is where it is going to stay for a while. Well it is now Tuesday niight and Charles and I finished recording the next podcast. It has been 2 very long days for the both of us, but my Friday evening all of the editing will be done and it will be released. So hopefully by this time Friday night you all will be listening to the new podcast.

Podcasting

2006-02-18T19:43:00.000-08:00

This Friday past my buddy Charles posted our first and only podcast, Redneck Linux Podcast we had fun doing this one and hopefully soon there will be more. The main thing we have to do is find the time to do the dialog and then try to find the time to get together to record it, then finally the time to edit it to our liking. When all of that is done, we will finally have the second one out. Redneck Linux Podcast. Here is the link for downloading the podcast, http://linuxredneck.blogspot.com/ I hope this brings some enjoyment into your world. I hope you enjoy it as much as I/we enjoyed making it.

What the future holds

2006-02-15T04:40:00.001-08:00

Well, once again I will be searching for a job. This is not exactly the news I was hoping for but I take them and roll with them. I think what I will wind up doing is trying to get a job within the Linux community seeing as it is the only community that has taken the time to be sure that I am set for a descent future. Right now I am working on getting my resume up to snuff, then we will see what kind of a job I can dig up with it. Now I am getting into what this blog was really supposed to be about. Where I feel Linux will be in the next 10 years is giving Microsoft a run for their money. M$ complains that people are allways trying to rip them off. Well in my opinion, if they would help people instead of trying to take their money and only their money, they would be a whole lot better off. I used to volunteer for a not for proffit organization, I love what the place did, I just didn't like the fact that M$ allways seamed to have their hands in the pockets of the poor and underprivalleged! This is a really sore spot for me because when you go to apply for those good paying jobs, they expect you to have experience with M$ OS's! When the countries like Canada finally do change over and start using Linux, you will see me and most of my friends in the drivers seat for the first time. The main reason I feel like that is because the M$ admins who think they know everything, or at least a lot of them, know nothing on how an OS really is supposed to take care of the end user. Like I do consulting on my own to keep some cash on hand, I set a lot of people up on Linux because they cannot afford to go down to the store and buy the newest version of M$. Then even if they did, that only gets them the OS. There is no Office application involved with it, there is even very few games involved with it. I beleive deep in my heart that Bill Gates is going to keep trying to buy Linux distibutions, and when he finally does buy one and he owns the company, he will start trying to take over the licensing for things like Open Office. We as a body need to keep M$ out of the peoples pockets!

More of my thoughts

2006-02-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

I am now using Breezy Ubuntu on my laptop with KDE as my desktop of choice. It seems to be working well with exception to my battery status monitor that doesn't even show. This is why I went searching for other distributions of Linux but none have all of of the features that I like. It also seems the Komqeror is having some sort of resource problem. It is acting very slow and very sluggish for some dumb reason and I haven't even begun to dip in and check it out. I am at home from work today taking care of a headache and a fever for the second time in 2 weeks. If this continues, I will get fired and have to turn back to welfare. This is not acceptable for reasons I will not talk about in a blog.

I am currently working on trying to get Linux on my Dual Processor P1 200 MHZ server that was given to me from work, the problem with this idea has been that it is an older Compaq that installs it's BIOS onto one of the hard drives and the distributions that I have tried don't seem to want to detect the SCSI RAID card. I have tried putting an IDE drive in and still no go, Everything I want to try on it seems to fail with the exception of having Windows on it, and I really don't want that on there at all. So for now I have given up on my server idea until I can get my mind wrapped around what all I have to do to get it to setup and work right the first time through. Charles was talking about coming over and helping me get it working but I would rather do it myself that way when there is a problem, I can fix it myself.Ok, this is getting really bad. I quit using Breezy because I kept lagging super bad, now it is doing it again! I am going to take a look and see what I can see, if I see nothing it will be back to Hoary. I am now saying that Breezy is finally okay with my laptop. I think the Ubuntu team got together and fix whatever was causing the CPU useage problem. Right now I am trying to think what my next project will be with Ubuntu, maybe something to do with Blogging with sound or something to that effect.

Just a thought or Two

2006-01-28T20:39:00.000-08:00

I have bought this book, the first Linux book I have ever bought. So far so good, it is written by Marcel Gagne, and I must say that he makes it easy for the new user such as myself to go along and with all this book covers, it makes it an easy read especially considering that when you get the book it comes with KNOPPIX, this makes it even easier to follow. So when you do buy this book, rest assured that you and I will be on the same page so to speak. I do always use Linux now with exception to my wifes computer, she of course uses Windows and also is dual booting but to get her to boot into Linux is a total pain in the rear end. The only problem that she has with Linux is the games that just work within windows. So I am going to buy an emulator and see if I can get it to work like that. That is all for this post right now. I need to get some rest and get off to work early tomorrow. As of right now I am still having major problems getting any distrobution of Linux installed on my Compaq p1 200, I have used all of the tricks and all of that other stuff that I have found on the internet. I may just give up on it for now and concentrate on getting another version of Linux running on my laptop. I would like to use SuSe on it, but unfortunately it doesn't see my usb. That is the worst cheese off for me seeing as I use many usb devices.
I am currently downloading the newest version of Ubuntu, I know it is going to constantly break seeing as it is still in Beta. But the thought behind this is to maybe get something that works good with this laptop propperly. That is all for this post for now. Maybe tomorrow I will have some good news on the newest.

Ubuntu on my P4 2.8 GHZ Laptop

2005-12-30T14:07:00.000-08:00

I now have Breezy Ubuntu on my laptop, there is one very good reason for this, I do not have to fuss with the wireless and I do a lot of stuff with the woreless adapter, when then time does come and someone can show me that another distro works on this and everything likes my motherboard, then yes I will try something else. Until then, I am working with Ubuntu to make my life easier. Right now I am going to try and compile a few things to see how well it does. I just went out and bought 512 MB RAM for this laptop today, that is deffinately the reason it was so slow. I can now have more than 2 windows open, and not have this thing go slower than a P1.I think I figured out the slow problem with this thing, it would apear that when I installed apache, it did something wrong, now that I have removed apache from it, all is good once again. Maybe now I can get back the fun of having a system that runs good. A note of interest, it is just SuSe that is messing up, I have tried using suse 9.2 on here as well, and still no USB support! that is very frustrating seeing as I like SuSe a lot, but my motherboard chip set doesn't. Everything that I do on here I will post in this Blog, I do this so completely new people to Linux may be able to get something done right the first time through. If I do go way above your head, please let me know through the messages and I will correct it. For now read and enjoy. I have been runnig Ubuntu on this laptop for about a week now, and all seems to have settled down for now. I can actually concentrate on getting some of my reading done for a bit.There is only a couple of things I need to do with Ubuntu, First is I want my battery signal to work. The second is I want to learn how to make good looking web pages.

Mandriva on the Notebook

2005-12-26T15:49:00.000-08:00

This is just proof that a know nothing can do some things!
I am going to try to install SuSe tomorrow and FC4 as well, maybe I will have the same luck as I have with the Mandriva install. I litterally know nothing about Fedora Core or anything that it may or may not stand for. I will howerver give it the same chance I do all distobutions I have tried in the past.I have now been running Mandriva Free 2006 for the past few days now and am loving it so far, the only real problem isn't really a problem, just a pet peave. When I run any app on here it takes a bit to open, and if any of you are like me, you run many different things at the same time. When I do this, it get jerky and doesn't respond right away. What I am thinking is that more memory will fix most of this. If it does great! If not I will have to re-think my opinion. When I get home today I am going to install Ubuntu for one good reason, I am going to keep my Blog focussed on Ubuntu for the next little while. My one friend is going to be writing a book on Ubuntu and I want to be able to suggest things to him to help him with the crunch time upon him. See you all when I get home from work.

The New Notebook

2005-12-24T08:09:00.000-08:00

For Christmas, my wife and son have given me a nice notebook. It is a P4 2.8 GHZ machine and right as we speak I am installing Breezy Ubuntu on it. I am going to keep this blog active until I decide which Distro works best and does what I need done. Wow, it is more powerful than my desktop pc. Well, I was going to report how little I thought of this notebook, but it turns out that I had a bunch of bad media.I now have SuSe 10 installing on it from the DVD that I downloaded when I started having problems with my CD. I believe that it will install in less than one hour but you never know.
I installed SuSe 10 this morning. The install went flawlessly but with one small problem, it didn't detect my 3 USB ports. Seeing as I use a USB mouse, that really wouldn't do for me at all. I know you are saying Kevin, there is probably a setting in the install that you missed and you are probably right. I will look into this further later on down the road.
I am running Breezy Ubuntu right now for one reason only, the plain and simple fact that Mandriva free 2006 errored out, Fedora Core 4 errored out, SuSe I mentioned earlier. It is running pretty well right now but I do want to try other ditributions on here seeing as it is so powerful. This is going to wind up being the longest Blog I have ever done but it may help someone who is writing a book on Ubuntu. The main problem I am having is getting the proper drivers for the video, I have contacted the manufacturer of the notebook and I am hoping to here back from them come Thursday or Friday of this week. When I get the proper driver, I will post a link to it here seeing as I know other people in the Linux community will want this driver as it is made available.
It is now Dec 26 2005 and I have been using the news reader called Pan, so far all is good and it is easy to use seeing as Ubuntu doesn't install one by defult for some reason. Today I have pretty much made up my mind that I am giong to keep Ubuntu on this notebook, I do still want to investigate why SuSe messed up the way it did, but I will do that at a later date seeing as I start back to work on Wednesday and I do want one day where I am not installing until the wee hours of the morning and the wife bugging me to do other things with the boy.
I got it figured out!! What I had to do with Mandriva to get it installed was to unhook my USB mouse and then upon the first reboot, plug it back in. Then all of the sudden, it is wham bam thank you mam! everything works!

Thank You

2005-10-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

Thank You to all of the staff and volunteers at The Working Centre, I start a new job on Monday and am very excited, but in the same token I am very upset that I am leaving The Working Centre. When I first started there, I was a basic know nothing computer hack repair person, thanks goes to these people because if it wasn't for them I would not be an A+ certified technicain starting at a top notch sotware company! When I was approached about doing several projects at TWC, I did it sometimes as a grin and bear it project, but none the less they got done and with a good degree of excellence. Now I do need to gove special thanks to those who have helped me along the way. The first person is actually my wiife, Christine, Thank You for all of your love and support during the past 3 years. Next is my best Friend Charles, Thank You for all of your help in learning how to deal woth problems in a logical manor. David Bright, Thank You for giving me the opportunity to prove that I wasn't too dumb to obtain my A+. Next thanks goes to Paul Harvey for keeping me in line with all of the quizes and all. Finally thanks goes to the complete IT department at TWC, if it wasn't for them I would for sure not be in the shape both physical and mental that I am in today.
Thank You
Kevin Norwood.

2005-10-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

My Views

When running Breezy Ubuntu on my P2 366 Dell Latitude Cpi Laptop, I find that most things do pretty good with the exception of a few things, like running a web browser or something graphically heavy. When you want something like Blender, A 3D rendering program to come up or Open Office to come up, be prepared for a wait. It really isn't that big of a deal, just frustrating when you are trying to convert a customer over to Linux and they ask “does it always take this long”? My answer is always yes, when you have an old machine such as this. But the important thing is to remember that when running any distribution of Linux is that most of the software is FREE! The reason for the word most is the plain and simple fact is this, there are programs out there like Vmware, or Cedega, that charge for their programs. I understand why they charge but this is the reason I say that all important word most when showing off Linux.

I also enjoy watching peoples mouths water when I show them how easy it is to go between wireless connections and configuring most of the software out there for Ubuntu. The Ubuntu team has made the right choices and I will never put someone down for an honest effort, unless of course I have told them different. When we sit and listen to all of the showings in the LUG meetings that I can attend, my laptop is never far away because I keep short notes seeing as I type like an ape! I kid you not, if there was a contest on typing, a 5 yr old child could beat me, but I am still learning.

My favorite thing to do with Ubuntu is to open a terminal window and type sudo apt-get update, and then sudo apt-get upgrade. What these 2 commands do is update the computer I am sitting at, I love it. The main reason I don't let the updater do this for me is because I don't have time to waste for any of it waiting for it to decide if there is an update.

There are more commands that are good and great and I will cover them in this Blog. When you see me putting another entry in, it is because I have had the good fortune to find out more. There are a few more commands that I would like to show you and they would be

1)This is for when you switch from a wired network card to a wireless card. sudo ifdown eth0 and press enter.

2)Then when it is done you will type in sudo ifup ath0 or whatever the name of the connection is.

These 2 commands should bring up the wireless connection and make your computer communicate rather nicely and make you happy with everything else.

Running Wine on Breezy

2005-10-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

I have finally gotten my favorite game to run under wine, what it took was an understanding that I honestky didn't have it before. I did however figure this out, what you need to do is download the .EXE file from the net and right click on it. Choose open with wine and follow it on through. Then when it finishes, you simply open a terminal and then from there you type in the following;
cd .wine
cd drive_c
cd Program Files
cd to the directory that it resides in.
when you see the .exe file listed when you type ls
you will tyoe in wine
Then if wine has installed it all good and right, then you will see the good 'ol game pop up and woohoo you are home free!! Have fin and enjoy it all!

Breezy Ubuntu

2005-10-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

I am currently working on a How To for installing and running Breezy Ubuntu. If all goes well within the next week you will see it posted here first! Well I didn't get the install done, but I have some notes written down. I have installed several Breezy and Ubuntu Linux on several machines, and have WOW! have they made things easy! It makes it easy to put the computers at your finger tips. The easiest way to do things with this install is to put the disk in your CD ROM drive and press enter when prompted. This will do the basic install and from there, the world is at your finger tips. The programs that are offered with Ubuntu is just phenomenal! The program that I like the most is one called Blender, it is a 3D Rendering program that is complicated but enjoyable.
Another good thing to do is play with all of the programs withing the Ubuntu setting. I always go and do a sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade. this updates you system just as in Debian. I love it! There really isn't much else to say about it other than if you were going to donate to a Linux Distro....This would be the one for me.
When I do a fresh install my wife can tell what I am getting ready to do so. When I get to do so, I always get a piece of paper out and write down what the customer will needs and what the customer wants. Then sit down at the computer and look at the size of the hard drive and get the wheels churning in my head. My first question I have is always how would Breezy Ubuntu help this customer accomplish his/her goals? Then once that main question is answered I get have a whole bunch of fun! When the install is finished the first thing I do is put Clam AV on it, there is no use in making a computer for a person if you aren't going to give the person the tools to help them stay safe along with their friends. This program will help the customer stay safe by terminating the virus threats as they come in and keep their friends safe by monitoring the outgoing mail for Virus threats. There is just too many programs to choose from so I will leave this for now and come back to it later.

Breezy Ubuntu

2005-09-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

I have been using Breezy Ubuntu for almost 2 weeks now, the pre-release. So far it is extremely nice, including all of the software that it has come with. I have installed just the base system and a few other goodies. Like my most favorite program that I have yet to be able to do anything with is one called Blender. I have been playing with it for a little bit, meaning only a day or two, and have yet to be able to draw even a vasic square so far. But with any luck I will figure it out with sucess on my part. I have even got it installed on my P2 366 laptop and Breezy loves it so far. The main program I want to work, did for a day or 3 then after one of the many updates it wuit, it is called The Manaworld. This is unfortunate but I am sure they will figure out what has happened and within a few days of this post they will have it fixed again.

Knoppix and the illusive Drive Image

2005-08-09T07:31:00.000-07:00

I am researching right now to figure out how this might help me at home for my customers but am also looking into using it where I volunteer to see if it would be a good idea, the only problem I can see right now is what happens if the external hard drive goes out? Do we have another hard drive that I could use as a backup to it?

Ubuntu Rocks!

2005-07-29T17:43:00.000-07:00

As you all know by now, I have been running Ubuntu Hoary edition for a little while now and wow do I love this. It isn't RPM based so you don't have to worry about broken dependancies and all of that. I use apt-get or synaptic paclage manager to do what I need to do and it is that easy. I have been using XCHAT since starting to use Linux and love it, Especially the #Ubuntu channel. They try to make using the terminal command as easy as possible and all of that. The best thing about Ubuntu is the ease of use for the true Linix nooby.

Dell Latitude CPi

2005-07-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

This is my log for the p2 366; so far I have only tried Ubuntu on it so we will see what all else will happen with it. Setting up the Madwifi for Ubuntu is fairly easy and gave me only a little bit of problems. Like when I couldn't get the proper Linux-headers to install. The fix for that was to do an uname -r and it finally gave me the proper kernel version I am running. That is the only problem I have run into so far other than the battery display not working when I boot up. The cure for that is to run Sudo -s then type in apm. That gets it running like it is supposed to.
The install process went amazingly well, with no unexpected problems of any sort. I am waiting for the stable version of breezy to come out and try that. Maybe the battery display will work right off of the top like it is supposed to. I have gotten the proper way to get the battery display working upon boot, it is gedit /etc/mudules and add the line apm to it, save it then close and rebppt.
I am now sitting at A Matter of Taste, where we have free wireless access and having fun while doing it. The best thing about the wireless is that when I am at home I can go from room to room with no cables to worry about or sit in my favorite chair and be comfy while doing my studies or whatever. But back to the blog... it hasn't been all that long since I started running Ubuntu on my laptop, it is so excellent that if any of my customers are willing to learn, I will install it on their systems for half the price of Windows. The only REAL draw back to using it for my customers is the fact that most are complete newbies to the pc world and I am afraid that they would hate it. Further more I am afraid that they would hate me for trying to get them into the Linux world.
I have upgraded the Waryt edition to the Hoary edition because I couldn't get my sound working. Even though I had tried everything in the wiki, and what others had told me to try, I got tired of not having my sound up so I did it through the web and all went well with no problems. All that is left to do is maybe put a bigger hard drive in here and see what all I can do with this sucker! Way to go Ubuntu, I love your product.

Windows!

2005-06-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

I am installing Windows 98 se on my ,aptop because I couldn't get my wireless card to work under Debian linus. So this is a last resort to see if my laptop will support the card, if not it is time to see if I can borrow enough money to get another laptop.....more to come as I get things done.
It turns out the laptop would not support my card, so I am now using an IBM thinkpad P2 233 with 48 MB RAM. I am using the wireless withit as we speak and when I get a display that works I am going to install Debian again but this time I will keep a backup of all of the documentation from it.

Debian

2005-06-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

With the help of 2 of my friends and a whole bunch of reading I have gotten a D-link WLG-G650 wireless card configured for my laptop and for some reasin it still isn't working. I am trying to use NDISWRAPPER to wrap around the Windows driver but to no avail, it says that it is configured but upon boot with the card installed it says it cannot find WLAN0, I beleive it is because it is a pcmcia card and it needs to wait until the pcmcia services are started. I am just waiting for someone to contact me to tell me if my way of thinking is correct.

SuSe 9.2

2005-06-23T05:21:00.000-07:00

As you probably know by now I am pretty new to the Linux world. I am now running SuSe 9.2 on my desktop for the simplicity of everything within it, on my laptop however I am running Debian Sarge and am just now trying to figure out which wireless card I should try to use. If anyone has any suggestions I would really like a reply, it is an IBM 760 XL with 48 MB RAM and 2 gig hard drive.

Debian

2005-06-15T04:27:00.000-07:00

I am using Debian on my IBM 760XL laptop, the ftp install went good thanx to my good friend Charles and now I just have to learn how to use it and all of that. I am going to try and download AbiWord for it seeing as it is only a P1 133MHZ with 48MB RAM and a 2 gig hard disk. I am hoping that I will be able to do this. The reason for using Debian is that I am new to Linux and need to expand my horizons a little bit and I believe it will help me in any future jobs I may have.
Well, yesterday I got my sound working on my IBM 760 XL and it sounds good even though it does sound a little rough, the speakers are not very good. It even supports 800x600 now and I can see the full screen. Whatever the case, it is in good working order and now all I really have to do is maybe get the hard drive a little bit bigger seeing as it is only 2gigs and I am running out of space fairly quick.

The Broken RPM database

2005-05-23T18:32:00.000-07:00

That looks like a one time only thing, it has been a week or so since I had the database redone and all seems to be well. I am trying to get my dads pc which is running SuSe 9.3 to print to my moms Cannon i550 and for some reason it will not allow me to get a good drive for it. This is something that is going to require me to so some research and get it right.

new Suse install

2005-05-17T14:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, I was tired of having to deal with the broken stuff from my upgrade of suse 9.2 to suse 9.3, so I wiped it all out and redid the install, all is well except now for some reason I cannot get the clam running. I know it is what I am doing but for the life of me I cannot get figure out what I am doing wrong. I now have suse 9.3 on my desktop and it is great!! I have had a fresh install for a week now and it is aswome, it has fixed most broken things except it didn't install the RPM data base wasn't installed properly and Charles had to come and fix it. I will find out what he did to fix it and document it. The only thing I am concerned with now is it going to break again when I try to install something else?

Fresh Install

2005-05-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

I have reinstalled SuSe 9.3 on my system, it has done extremely well with the exeption of the fact the my router passed on to greener patures. It is about time, for the past month os so I haven't been able to log into it and do anything. So now before I worry about more SuSe stuff I need to find a cheap router with the key word being cheap. Today I borrowed a wireless, hard wired router and I finally after a bunch a fooling around got it figured out. For some reason it wouldn,'t get DHCP from a configured IP, so I switched to automatic IP and all of the sudden I have the internet again.

SuSe 9.3 pro

2005-05-06T17:32:00.000-07:00

well it has been a week sonce I did the upgrade from 9.2 pro and all is well, it seems that the konquere has quit crashing my system and it also seams to be more stable, the only thing I do not like is how long it takes for Open Office 2.0 to open. I have a P4 1.7 GHZ with 512 MB RAM and it takes close to a minute to open. I guess I am remembering the Microsoft days. But other than that all is very good and I deffinately am going to start putting this on customer pc's if they want to give it a try!

Starting with the install of Suse 9.2 pro

2005-02-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

I strated with a 10 gig partition on my p4 1.7 ghz system. It installed quite seemlesly, even when I installed the OS from the downloaded DVD. But if it wasn't for the help of Charles Mccolm, I wouldn't be able to understand a lot of it. It has been quite nice and I think if I keep having good luck with it, I will completely remove my Windows OS. The only thing I am having some trouble synchronizing my palm3, it just doesn't see the kpilot synch program.