Voder-Vocoder

I did extremely bad on that analysis exam last week. I should start doing homework in that class.

Even More Linux Crap

We installed rh9 onto the ups server/workstation. Gnome is not useable on a pII-233, and there are no smaller windowmanagers. So we installed windowmaker. I find that using this script helps with getting the windowmaker menus into good shape.

Linux on the Vaio is utterly unusable right now. I’m not going to fool with it any more for a while. The other day, I booted into windows, installed putty and phoenix and got some work done…by sshing into a linux server and doing my work there.

Happy Good Friday. Except that it’s not a particularly happy holiday. It’s all about sin and death. [Hal rummages through his old tapes.] Here we go: my copy of Jesus Christ Superstar. No holy week could be complete without a thourough listening to JCS. I’ll probably play some Bach passions as well.

Note: the fact that .Xdefauts doesn’t work is due to the fact that the file has been renamed .Xresources.

I tried installing Red Hat 9 onto my Vaio SRX87 this week. The install program did see my hard drive and firewire CD-Rom. I repartitioned and installed. Everything worked great, except for:

1. modem. I need to search for linmodem drivers
2. wireless. It was not auto detected, as far as I can tell. Maybe there’s a simple workaround.
3. plug and play usb keyboard and mouse.
4. The usb-uhci kernal modult keeps giving error messages.
5. No way to adjust display brightness to save battery life.
6. No Hibernation.
7. Some other instabilities, possibly due to usb-uhci errors

These are all possible show stoppers. So I wiped the hard drive and reallocated 9 Gb for windows and 11 Gb for linux partitions. Now it’s a dual boot system.

It’s a great computer, but Sony needs to get behind OSS.

My next project is to upgrade the ups server/workstation.

I have an exam friday evening at 6:30. Can you believe that?

I bought a copy of Red Hat 9 today. I’ve got the hang of installing new linux distros. Just don’t format over the /home and /usr/local partitions and remember where you wrote down the phone number for your ppp connection. And don’t forget that the modem is /dev/ttyS4, not /dev/ttyS0; that mistake cost me an hour.

My review: Not much different than 8.0. It feels more like a point release. Does not come with Windowmaker, so I’m not sure how well that will work on a older machine. I’m back to using Bluecurv-themed Gnome. It works okay.

Problems with Gnome 2:

1. No shortcut key to logout. (I submitted a bug report on that.)
2. needs to run ‘xrdb $HOME/.Xdefaults’ on login. (Fixable)
3. Not as fast loading as Windowmaker (but faster than Gnome 1.x).
4. No native gtk music player. Xmms simply isn’t good enough; it looks like crap.
5. Fonts in Open Office need fixing. I hear that Ximian is working on this.

To make a usable system, I have to install the following software in /usr/local:

1. Phoenix with nice fonts – browser.
2. Flash plugin for Phoenix.
3. mpg123 – tui mp3 player.
4. mplayer and w32 codecs – video player.
5. scripts for ‘/sbin/ifup ppp$N’ and ‘/sbin/ifdown ppp$N’.
6. BladeEnc – mp3 encoder. (Yes, I know about Ogg Vorbis; but until both of my mp3 players support it, it doesn’t work. I keep waiting for Apple to release a software update for the iPod for Ogg.)

Overall, I’m suprised at how few things need to be in /usr/local. I went through and cleaned up that partition for the first time in years.

To do:

1. Try to get my iPod to play nice with linux. With previous kernel versions, using the firewire card caused kernel errors. Ick.
2. Get dvd playback to work nicely. The easy solution is to go buy a video card with mpeg-2 decoding on it. Why does software decoding work so much nicer under Windows than Linux?

It snowed this morning! In April! Crazyness!

Things keep falling off my desk. I’d pick them up, but then I’d still be contributing to the total disorder of the universe, so why bother?

Marge: “This is better than our screensaver, and I love our screensaver.”

Homer: “I wish God were alive to see this.”

I’ve changed my hair color again. It’s kinda blackish now. I don’t like it as much as the candy apple red. It needs more color.

This week I’ve started looking for a place to live next year. This means planning for a future more than a few months ahead. Scary.