C.I.T.O.K.A.T.E.

Well, that was instructional.

To recap:
I found a nice old PC in the curbside trash.
I tried to upgrade my Linux box running Ubuntu to the latest version, "Gutsy Gibbon", but it only would boot to a command line.
At this point I still had not done anything with the curbside PC-- we're talking about two different computers, just so we're clear.

Well, this evening I took both the hard drives out of the Linux box, and put the 160GB hard drive from the curbside PC in there. I formatted what's-his-name's data, and installed Ubuntu Gutsy on the curbside drive, mounted in the Linux box.

It only booted to the command line, precisely as it did on my computer's previous drives.

This means the problem is either on the Ubuntu installation disk (which passed an error check after I burned it), or in my BIOS or graphics card or something other than the hard drives.

Normally I avoid installing software under Linux unless it's in Synaptic Package Manager. Contrary to popular belief, this results in an extremely full-featured computing experience, since it's a rare application that is not found there.

But from time to time I like to stretch myself and attempt to learn a bit of Linux usage that has flummoxed me in the past. When I found version 7 of Inform has been released, and Synaptic Package Manager only has version 6 for Linux at this time, I was enticed to declare this to be a circumstance deserving of special treatment.

I followed the instructions included in the download and after I remembered to type "sudo", it worked. It is running. I have installed a tarball of an application under Linux, from the command line. Here's hoping it is seldom necessary, but now I know that I can generally get around that obstacle.

Sadly, according to the README file,

All it really does is generate a UUID for the project and invoke the appropriate compilers when asked.
It is fervently hoped that, a Linux port having been released, that some enterprising soul or souls will provide an actual interface to it of the quality and feature set of the Mac OS X or Windows versions.

So I'll use the Windows version. Now, how do I uninstall an application under Linux? ;)

Just when you thought you didn't need yet another version of Linux...

Hot on the heels of Ubuntu Christian Edition is Ubuntu Satanic Edition, "Evil Edgy" release.

The computer on which I run Linux had a hardware problem and wouldn't boot up; overthesun took it and fixed it in half an hour by resetting the BIOS chip. Thanks, overthesun!

I've also had a software problem for months: the Firefox web browser wouldn't start. Even uninstalling and reinstalling it didn't fix this. I logged on to the chat channel of Ubuntu Linux, and within half an hour the friendly folks there had identified the problem and took me step-by-step through setting things right. Somehow Firefox was living in a directory called "firefox" when it was expected to be living in a directory called "mozilla-firefox". All my buttons and menu items that were supposed to open this application were looking for it in the wrong place. The Ubuntu free tech support volunteers helped me create a symbolic link, so that when the buttons looked in the wrong place they'd be directed to the right place; since then all has been well. Thanks, Ubuntu volunteer folks! The good reputation of this "Linux for Human Beings" distribution is well-deserved!

I'm off work today on medical leave, and working on the Penguicon program book. I use my Ubuntu Linux desktop computer for web browsing, instant messages, music-- everything but games and graphic design software. I dropped the folder "My Music" into Totem Music Player so that it would queue up all the music files in my entire collection to play for me randomly while I lie in bed recuperating and working on the program book on a laptop. I liked one song in particular and went to find it in my filesystem. It was nowhere to be found by browsing, but turned up with the "Find File" feature:
( Screenshot behind the cut. )I right clicked it and chose "Open Containing Folder":
( Screenshot behind the cut. )It's contained in home: Music: Soundtracks: Ghost In The Shell. So I clicked the Soundtracks folder.
( Screenshot behind the cut. )The Ghost In The Shell folder is not visible in the folder that the computer says it's in. Why?

In a few days I will set down my goals for 2006. Last year at this time I blogged about my goals for 2005. It's now time to review.
( Read more... )

On Thanksgiving I suffered a stroke in my exocortex. No, don't worry, I'm not talking about a medical condition! My handheld computer isn't working. And like Manfred Macx in the third chapter of Accelerando! ("Tourist"), I and those around me noticed the effect immediately. Symptoms included a complete lack of any idea what I was scheduled to do, when or where I was scheduled to do it, passwords to allow access to it, and the contact info of people I was scheduled to do it with. The patient was also increasingly observed to pace back and forth muttering about missing several days in a row of flashcard testing and drilling in vocabulary memorization.

( Read more... )
Fortunately overthesun shepherded me to the Penguicon cube cleaning on time and I have now put the organized catalog and map of the storage unit on another part of my exocortex, the EncycloPenguicon wiki.

Bill participated in the cube cleaning too. While there, he gave me a wireless laptop card that he found for really cheap on the internet, sold under the name of the Orinoco chipset. That's the chipset that Linux is compatible with. Now I can return the one I borrowed from phecda. Unfortunately the new card was falsely advertised, because small changes were made to the chipset, giving it a trait that makes it unique among all cards that have ever been labeled "Orinoco": instead of the most compatible card ever, it's completely incompatible. phecda's Netgear card worked fine under Linux, so this is a step down, but it's a step up in terms of ownership. Fortunately at the LAN party overthesun installed Windows XP and Ubuntu double-booting on the laptop, and the new card works under Windows. (That is to say, it works everywhere except my house, because the home wireless network is so secure it locks out the only intended user.)

Speaking of the LAN party, we played a lot of single-player games together, but only got one game to work in multiplayer mode over the LAN. It turns out to be mind-bogglingly difficult to set up a connection with the older, unique and quirky games with personality that we enjoy, such as Red Alert 2 or Mech Commander. Fortunately Freelancer worked, and that game is truly a thing of beauty. From online guides to how to throw a LAN party, it turns out that successful LAN gamers typically use the latest cookie-cutter first-person shooter, churned out by risk-averse cookie-cutter game publishers, that billions of boring conformists are currently playing. Nevertheless, overthesun, rachelann1977, cosettevaljean, Drew, and I had a great time snacking, drinking tons of caffiene, laughing, talking, teaching each other how to play various games and watching each other play them. No doubt with what we have now learned, our next LAN party will contain more actual networked gaming.

I'm copying my MP3 collection from my Windows computer to my Linux computer. I'd like to have it all in OGG Vorbis format. For a while I had a program on Windows that changed them from one to the other, but it was shareware and expired. I tried installing a free open source program on Linux to do this but it's one of those programs that doesn't appear in the Applications menu. So it's apparently intended for use from the command line.

Of course that would involve finding the executable in the filesystem first, I guess. In a command line interface you are walking through a subterranean network of perfectly dark tunnels. Instead of a flashlight or lantern, you are provided with an infinite supply of camera flashbulbs called the ls command. I prefer searching the filesystem through the graphical browser. I figure at least I can find the darn executable, then I can go into the shell and start up the program.

I have been informed that programs are found in the usr/bin directory, but all the executables there are named cryptically. As I go through clicking every one, nine tenths of them do nothing. Anyway, let me know any advice you might have, from any approach you desire.

The hard drive on my Linux computer is 2.7 gigabytes. And yet when I upgraded from Kubuntu Breezy Badger Beta to the official release of Breezy Badger, it reported that it couldn't finish the process because the hard drive is full. I checked the properties panel for the hard drive and indeed, it was full.

My problem today is that when I type in my password (which I know is correct) to log into the computer, the monitor clicks as if changing resolution, the screen goes black, then grey with a grainy clock mouse cursor, and then back to the log in screen again.

I should have included this in my recent list of ways Linux is like theology. You can't criticize Linux because somebody somewhere made their own version of Linux yesterday morning before breakfast which is intended to not have that problem; and they think you're criticizing them. But when I mean Linux, I mean the mainstream. I mean the thousands and thousands of open-source OS devotees and all the things that they really do have in common. Yes, there's variety, but they really do have certain things overwhelmingly in common. So do people of faith, from the Ayatollah to a little old lady down the street. More about that in a moment.

There are a lot of people telling me Linux is ready for everyone to use as a desktop system. But when I describe the experience I end up having which is not ready for the non-expert, and complain that the situation has been misrepresented, some other open-source OS advocates will stand up and say "hey, where are you getting that? Nobody's saying that. I never said that. I never heard any Linux supporter tell you that. Nobody said it was ready for you."

Well here's a link to another one.

( Read more... )Similarly, a secularist can't criticize faith without immediately being pounced on by religious progressives who made up a new-and-improved religion yesterday before breakfast and now consider it normal. "Hold on," they say, "who said god was authoritarian, or faith and reason aren't compatible? What? When? Huh? What? Nobody said that." Um, how about this: how about almost everybody ever. That's like inventing a new operating system yesterday before breakfast that nobody heard of, and isn't compatible with Debian or RedHat or anything, and makes you start over from scratch.

"I came up with a totally new mental practice and I'm calling it faith. So, don't criticize the mental practices referred to by Christian Supremacists and Iranian clerics as faith! That word is off-limits, or else I couldn't have my own faith! Just oppose their mean and irrational actions!" Where do you think actions come from? Beliefs. If beliefs can't be criticized and weighed and judged, you're fighting the symptoms instead of the disease.

Imagine that I am -- metaphorically -- in armed combat with the Family Research Council or somebody like that. I will never hassle you about your religion or even mention it to you until you run up and pull my weapon out of my hands. If you do that, you know what? If you stand between me and the theocrats, fuck your precious faith. Fuck it in and around the ass region and that vicinity. Do religious progressives have any idea what price they're asking us to pay? Whatever benefit is gained from progressive religion isn't worth leaving unopposed the problems that mainstream religions tend to have in common. That would be a horrific cost. We're playing with grown-ups and the stakes are higher than the games you're playing. When I say "faith" I mean the awful mental sleight of hand and self-delusion that is actually practiced every day by the six billion people who never heard of the progressive religion you made up yesterday. I complain about the shit I have to put up with. If you're not going to help fight that fight, so that you can go on smoking your spiritual weed, at least stop trying to disarm us of the most important weapon: I raise my hand and say "excuse me abortion clinic bombers and terrorists and legislators, faith is make believe."