I think Ubuntu has spoiled me.

For the last day or so I’ve been trying to setup Fedora 8 just to see the progress that has been done there. For those who haven’t checked the history on this blog (i.e. everyone),Fedora Core 1 was pretty much the first distro that I tried as my first serious foray into this wonderful world. So I have always a soft spot for it.

So after I played around with Mint and KDE 4 (Nice btw), I chucked in my freshly burnt DVD and started the installation. To tell the truth, I liked that fact that I didn’t have to wait for a LiveCD environment to load before I started the installation process. I also took notes of what I did and what problems I had in order to write my experience. In order of happening:

• Install Fedora with Basic Packages and Developments Packages
• Login with root (As the system did not prompt me to create a user during the installation process which is strange. I may have missed something but I don’t think so).
• User System -> Adminstration -> Users & Groups to create a normal user
• Discover that he is not a member of any group. Add him to some basic ones
• Try to setup sudo for more security. run visudo and uncomment the option to allow users of the “wheel” group to run all commands. Add the new user to the wheel group
• Run pppoe-setup to set up my dsl connection. Setup more difficult than pppoeconf which took most of the correct choices. Internet connection working now
• Start copying user configurations to a folder in the /home directory called my_clones. Then give everyone permissions to a new group called “clones”, grant all files in that folder with r/w perms for the “clones” group and then link then configuration files to each user’s directory.
• Discover that Amarok doesn’t like that for some reason. Discover the “amarokrc” in the .kde/share/config directory. Link that as well. Collection still not saved. Rebuild it. Curse kde for not needing ownership of configuration files.
• Try to install proprietary Nvidia drivers. Initially follow instructions here
• Try to play some music while waiting for some permissions to change. Discover that Fedora still does not have mp3 support out of the box and no easy way to have it (like amarok informing you to press a button). Sigh and play my personal last.fm radio from firefox 3 beta 4
• Install a bunch of packages that I hope will provide me with mp3 playback. Those include amarok-extras-nonfree.
• Try to install d3lphin and got it without any icons. Unusable. Tried to find out what I was missing and thus installed some kd4 packages. As a result it started installing various things I did not need. In the end I had to reinstall among others VLC, Amarok, and the Gimp ad the KDE packages seem to have some weird dependencies…D3lphin still not working
• Installed Gnucash. It didn’t automatically recognize the configuration files. Fortunately all I had to do was open the ledger file.
• Tried to install Keytouch. Not in Fedora Repositories. Downloaded RPM for fedora 7 and installed. My Play, Back and Forward buttons do not work although they do in Ubuntu.
• Tried to find the advanced compiz manager. Couldn’t. Installed some packages that I seemed appropriate, including emerald but manager didn’t appear and emerald didn’t affect the window decorations. Still haven’t found which package install’s compiz advanced setting manager…
• Trying to adjust the time. Got error: “Failed to locate a program for configuring the date and time. Perhaps none is installed?” - Huh?!
• Wine worked fortunately but I’ve lost my menu items.
• For some reason, on boot, Fedora seems to get stuck on the boot sequence while trying to get an IP for my eth0 device. As I’m not using DHCP but rather I’m using pppoe to connect online, this just slows down the booting for no reason.
• I’ve lost access to my previous installations of Ubuntu and Mint. Well, I’ve lost my previous grub configuration from Mint when Fedora set up the MBR and it’s own grub. I had lost Ubuntu access when Mint formated the /boot sector as a prequisite for using it (I have my /boot on a separate partition) and that pissed my off but I was hoping that Fedora would recognise my other Distro installations and give me options to boot on them. Unfortunately, even though it recognised my old WinXp installation and created an option for it, it did not recognise the GNU/Linux ones. I tried to make manual menus but apparently this only created grub boot sequences fit for Windows. This actually still annoys me. How come different distros can recognise your windows installation but are plainly oblivious to your other GNU/Linux installations? For that matter, why does Ubuntu derivatives insist on formatting your /boot partition before using it? Can’t they just leave it well enough alone?

Anyway, enough ranting. I did manage to make Fedora work partially as I need it but I’m still missing my super custom compiz-fusion eye candy and I’ve lost some settings in the process. Unfortunately I didn’t want to use my previous user directory since different distros have different ways of organizing it and every time I tried to do this, I ended up with a bunch of errors on loading it which were the result of different configuration items.

Unfortunately, my experience with Setting up Fedora 8 is not as good as I’d hoped. Ubuntu is just miles ahead in regards to ease of use.There is no way that a simple user can setup a Linux installation with Fedora with the same ease that you can do in Ubuntu. And this is unfortunate. I just hope the devs take some points on the way that Ubuntu handles the initial configuration and the available menus and copy the useful items.

Nevertheless, I plan to stick with Fedora 8 for a while just to see how well I can use it. Unfortunately I’d like to be able to multi-boot into my other installations but I still have to work on my grub’s menu.lst in order to make it see them.

Stable

Weee! Stable PC again

At least for now…

Και έτσι ξεκινάει το διάβασμα των MS Vista

Ναι ναι, ξέρω, ξεπούλημα, αλλά τι να κάνω, με αναγκάζουν απο τον χώρο εργασίας. Πραγματικά θα ήθελα πολύ περισσότερο να πάω για χαρτί Linux αλλά δυστυχώς δεν προβλέπεται. Η τράπεζα ζητάει να πάρω ένα χαρτί απο Windows οπότε ένα χαρτί απο Windows πρέπει να πάρω.

Φυσικά και δεν πρόκειται να τα εγκαταστήσω σε δευτερο partition, τουλάχιστον όχι εαν μπορώ να το αποφύγω αλλά αντιθέτως σκέφτομαι να τα βάλω σε ένα Virtual Machine.

Ξεκίνησα αρχικά δοκιμάζοντας τον VMware server (Ακόμα στην έκδοση 1 όταν δοκίμασα) αλλά διότι ακόμη δεν είχα κατεβάσει μια έκδοση εγκατάστασης χρησιμοποίησα το virtual machine που είχε φτιάξει για εξάσκηση ο team leader. Δυστυχώς για αυτό έπρεπε πρώτα να εγκαταστήσω το VMPlayer 2 διότι το VM χρειάζοταν τις έξτα δυνατότητες.

Παίζοντας λίγο με αυτή την εγκατάσταση και βλέπωντας τα Vista (Χωρίς το Aero) ανακάλυψα οτι χρειάζεται να τα κάνω εγκατάσταση ώστε να μπορέσω να προχωρήσω με το διάβασμα, το οποίο περιέχει μαθήματα εγκατάστασης (αυτής της πολύυυυ δύσκολης διεργασίας που). Το μάθημα περιορίζεται στο να σου λέει τα min requirements του συστήματως και να πατήσεις next μερικές φορές (με διάφορες σάλτσες περι έξτρα γλωσσών κλπ που το κάνουν να φαίνεται πιο βαρύ).

Κάπου εκεί αποφάσισα να χρησιμοποιήσω μια σπασμένη έκδωση για να τεστάρω την εγκατάσταση, και εκεί ξεκίνησαν τα γέλια…

Εγκατέστησα το VirtualBox (έτσι για να το δώ) και ξεκίνησα την εγκατάσταση του συστήματος. Απο την πρώτη στιγμή, καθώς το περιβάλλον εγκατάστασης ξεκινούσε, όλο το σύστημα έφαγε τρελό κολλημα. Μιλάμε σε φάση που να σταματάει η μουσική απο το Amarok, το ποντίκι και το πλήκτρολόγιο να μην ανταποκρίνονται κλπ. Είπα “Whatever” και άρχισα να διαβάζω το βιβλίο εκπαίδευσης για την θεωρία. Όταν μετά απο 1 σχεδόν ώρα δεν είδα βελτίωση άρχισα να ανησυχώ. Προσπάθησα να κλείσω την εγκατάσταση, ανάμεσα στις λίγες αναλαμπές λειτουργικότητας που είχε και τελικά τα κατάφερα (μετά απο αρκετή ώρα). Λέω, “δεν μπορεί, θα φταίει ο προβληματικός σκληρός στον οποίο βρίσκεται το image του DVD εγκατάστασης”. Οπότε κάνω μια αντιγραφή στον καινούργιο μου εξωτερικό και προσπαθώ ξανά…μία απο τα ίδια. Cancel πάλι και δοκιμάζω να αντιγράψω στο home directory το DVD image και εκεί είναι που κόλλησε το σύμπαν.
Δυστυχώς από εκεί δεν ξεκολούσε με τίποτα (δεν μπορούσα να σταματήσω την αντιγραφή, το “cancel” δεν ανταποκρινόταν) οπότε πήγα για επανεκ.

Ξεκινάει το boot στο Ubuntu και τρώει ένα ολιγόλεπτο κόλλημα στο οποίο κάτι χαριτομένα ata warnings φαινόντουσαν στην κονσόλα. “Ώπα!” λέω “Αυτό δεν είναι καλό”. Τεσπα μετά απο λίγο συνεχίζει το boot και φτάνω στο desktop. Πάω να κάνω κλικ εδώ…σταματάει το σύστημα να ανταποκρίνεται. Ξεκολάει πάλι μετά απο λίγο. Δοκιμάζω να κάνω κλικ απο εκέι…μία απο τα ίδια. Για να μην τα πολυλογώ, το σύστημα είχε αρχίσει να κολάει μετά απο την παραμικρή ενέργεια ή ακόμα και χωρίς (εμφανή) λόγο. Ειδικά όταν πας να γράψεις στο home directory, το οποίο είναι απλά ένα partition tου ίδιου εσωτερικού sata, πέφτει πολύ γέλιο. Και με “γέλιο” έννοω φυσικά “ξεριζώνω-τα-μαλλία-μου-ουρλιάζοντας-γιατί-μαμιέται-ο-Δίας”.

Μία γρήγορη έρευνα μου έδειξε μερικά μηνύματα που ακόμα δεν έχω καταφέρει να χρησιμοποιήσω αλλά πολύ φοβάμαι οτί ο σκλήρός μου έχει αρχίσει να τα παίζει.

Και εδώ βρίσκομαι αυτή τη στιγμή. Ακόμα δεν έχω καταφέρει να διαβάσω παραπάνω απο το πρώτο κεφάλαιο, το σύστημα μου δουλέβει με σύστημα “δεν γουστάρω μια”, Σταματώντας όποτε του καπνίσει για λίγα λεπτά, και εγώ τραβάω τα αρχ μαλλιά μου γιατίοι εξετάσεις γίνονται σε λιγότερο από ένα μήνα. Σκέφτομαι απλά να πάω να αγοράσω ένα νέο σκληρό αλλά αυτό προυποθέτει ότι τα προβλήματα μου προκείπτουν όντως από εκεί.

Γι’αυτο φίλοι Linux-άδες, έαν έχετε καμία συμβουλή να προσφέρετε, θα την εκτιμούσα αυτή τη στιγμη :-/

Just one more distro change

Every time that I change a GNU/Linux distro I claim that I’m going to keep it for a while but for some reason as soon as some thing start to break down things always start to look brighter on the other side. So this is how I ended up looking toward Ubuntu once more.

For those that do not follow my distro jumping story (and I blame you not), last thing I was trying out was Sabayon Linux, after getting totally pissed off with my Ubuntu 6.10 installation where the system was hanging all the time without reason. Sabayon’s initial install seemed more stable and I thought to install it. (never mind the fact that the true culprit was Nvidia crappy drivers)

Unfortunately for me, Sabayon was much less stable than it seemed initially. I blame it on the absolute bloatware format of the distro. It just includes so many applications for the same purpose, along with 4 different desktop environment and generally every conceivable package that you could think of that it seems inevitable that something will break as soon as you start upgrading things. If only they had an install option to install a more minimal system…

At some point I had gotten fed up with my CD drives disappearing, Kopete crashing (I eventually used Pidgin which is very very nice), randomly failing HDD (OK that still happens) and having to use legacy nvidia drivers in order to have beryl without system halts, I found myself buying a new external HDD (about time and I thought to myself,

Why not buy a cheap VGA to see if that will stop the system halting with newer Nvidia drivers? If nothing else, you can keep your old one to finally setup the extra server you wanted.

And so I did. I grabbed a Geforce 8500 for 90€ who I mistakenly assumed would be better than my 2.5 year old Geforce 6600 GT AGP. When I reached my place, it occurred to me that if I’m going to go to all the trouble of setting up a new VGA, I might as well go all the way and install Kubuntu Feisty 7.04 which will give me a chance to check out the new Compiz-Beryl Fusion as well. Who knows, maybe the new, “Better and more Stable” version would not overheat my Geforce 6600.

S’yeah, right. The first installation failed because I wanted to keep Sabayon as a second OS but the damn Kubuntu installer did not have support for LVM and insisted on formatting my old boot partition if I were to use it. I couldn’t be bothered at that point to play with Grub so I installed the system in my old 80Gb HDD after freeing up my old 25gb “Storage Space” (Hah!) but no luck. Since the primary HDD is the SATA one, installing it on the ATA drive did not make the system boot the new boot loader as the MBR kubuntu wrote on resided in the inactive drive.
So I bit the bullet and after backing up crucial files (Porn), critical settings (Porn playlists) and other stuff I did not want to lose (Porn links) from the home directory I deleted the Sabayon LVM and installed Kubuntu on the freed partition while formatting the boot sector and keeping my home directory intact. I assumed that K[tag]ubunt[/tag]u would just use my old KDE/Firefox settings and I was mostly right. Unfortunately there were quite a lot of setting that did not work “just right” so I ended up resetting the KDE settings (read: rename the .kde dir) and pasting the app setting I wanted to keep in it afterwards.

The initial problem was that I could not install the propriertary nvidia drivers as in the official documentation as Kubuntu does not include the necessary restricted-manager script. No problem, I fired up the package manager and requested the installation. As it was not installed on the menu, I had to use it from the console but no biggie.
I then installed [tag]compiz[/tag]-fusion and used my gf6000 to see how it went. As expected, it halted the system just as I finished setting it up. No problem then, I opened the box, installed the new VGA and tried to use it. Well I was quite surprised when the restricted-manager told me that I do not have a restricted card, the system recognized it as VESA and no matter what I did, Kubuntu just refused to acknowledge that I had a damn nvidia card inside. Checking on the compatibility list, I discovered that my card was not supported by Ubuntu. *Groan*. Now I had to find out another way to install the driver. I did not want to use Envy as it was supposedly not compatible with the official way, but in the end I gave up and used it because nothing else seemed to work.

Fortunately that helped and my new card started using acceleration. Woe to me when I discovered that it was actually much worse, performance-wise, than my old card
It was at this point that I swore and decided to just buy a good card. Shallow? Quite. But at least I had

an excuse to get myself a present for my good job performance and after all it might allow me to play a newer game. So, I returned the card, became 200€ poorer and got me a Geforce 8800 GTS who I knew was supported this time.

I took me a while to install it because I did not realize it required extra power but I happened to see the appropriate holes as I was getting “hammer and saw” thoughts.

One envy run later (no restricted-manager still said I did not have a restricted card) I got my acceleration going. I set it up and playtested it for a while. Fortunately it did not hang the system anymore.

Now there are a few more details to iron out (like the system not booting up at 1280×1024 even though I put it in the X.org) or allowing me finally to change languages with double-shift (which does not work, again) and stuff like that but from initial experience I believe that, other than a strange slowness issue, Kubuntu is much much more stable than his predecessors and surely more stable than Sabayon 3.3. Time will tell if this will continue. For now I am contect to play around with my new accelerated desktop.

I’m thinking of making a nice video with the new version but I need an editing software that is not too hard to use. i tried Cinerella but it seems to like to crash so I don’t know how much I can use it. If anyone can propose a good screen capture setup (so that it doesn’t start to flicker when too many 3d stuff are drawn) and video editing for [tag]linux[/tag], I’d love to hear it.

My poor mouse

It is ruined…

After something close to 7 years of faithful service, my MS optical mouse has finally given it’s last gasp. Yes it was an MS mouse, that I bought before I came to despise MS itself

I have to say however that this mouse lasted much much longer than any other I ever had. This might have to do with the fact that it is optical so it has less mechanical parts to break down.

I actually have no idea why I decided to die on me so suddenly but I think it might have something to do with the last few drops it had in the last week (redecorating obviously has its costs). Now, after a few hiccups as I was using it, it decided to shut down for the last time at the worst possible moment, Sunday morning.

I did try to give it an emergency CPR (AKA “Smash-it-with-my-fist”), Heimlich Maneuver (AKA “Smash-it-against-the-wall”) and Surgery (AKA “Violently-pull-the-cover-that-popped-up-while-smashing-it-against-the -wall-and-try-to-see-what’s-going-on-inside”) until I finally gave up when its small heart gave up (AKA “I-heard-parts-moving-unhealthily-inside”).

Surprisingly, a few of those tricks worked for a few minutes/hours, but Sunday night it seems was the final sleep. Nothing I did in the morning could revive the poor cyber-rodent. In the end, I let my EVE buddies know I would not be joining them in the low-sec mining and I surrendered myself to browsing the internet using keyboard shortcuts (How the fuck do you go out of a text box is what I want to know. I was trying to blog this on Sunday and I couldn’t.) and watching disturbing movies (Salo and Suspiria for now. Tomorrow Once were Heroes follows).

Salo is just wrong. I did manage to watch it all but that just exemplifies just how much blaze I’ve become. The dinner of shit was pretty gross though.

Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll bury my old mouse since it served me quite well. I may just keep it for a memory, after I thoroughly and carefully dissect it (AKA “Smash-it-against-the-wall-until-it-pops-open-and-the-guts-spill-out”)

Mood-swings

Αρχίζω να διακρίνω ορισμένες ρωγμές στην αιώνια αισιοδοξία μου. Τις τελευταίες μέρες είμαι θύμα σε διάφορες αλλαγές ψυχολογίας. Την μία είμαι αισιοόδοξος για το μέλλον και πιστέυω οτι απλά πρέπει να κάνω υπομονή μέχρι να μου δοθεί μια ευκαιρία, και την άλλη βλέπω την οικονομική & εργασιακή κατάσταση μου και απελπίζομαι.

Όπως το είπε και ο ξάδελφος μου ο οποίος έχει απλά “ταλέντο” για να σου ανυψώνει το ηθικό…

“Τηλέφωνα, τηλέφωνα αλλα δουλειά δεν βρίσκεις…”

Να’σαι καλά ρε Παύλο που δηλώνεις το προφανές. Για ακόμη μια φορά μου δίνεις δύναμη να συνεχίσω…*sigh*

Είναι και το γεγονός οτι ο υπολογιστής έχει αρχίσει να τα παίζει πάλι…random κολλήματα και μεγάλη καθυστέρηση με την πρόσβαση στον σκληρό με κάνουν να πιστεύω οτι ο 40ρης μου έιναι στα τελευταία του. Το πρόβλημα είναι οτι εοπάνω του κάθεται το μεγαλύτερο μέρος απο το logical volume στο οποίο βρίσκεται το λειτουργικο. Σε περίπτωση δυσλειτουργίας θα πρέπει να εγκαταστήσω εσωτερικά τον 250g και να βάλω πάνω του καινούργιο λειτουργικό…το οποίο, χωρίς internet θα είναι λίγο πίκρα.

Μιας και είπα internet, ρώτησα την BT τι χρειάζομαι για να βάλω τηλεφωνική γραμμή και μου ψυθίρισαν οτι θέλει αρχικά μόνο 50 λιριά για ασφάλεια…τελικά ότι και να κάνω μου τρώει περισσότερα χρήματα.
Μετά απο αυτό πρέπει να πάω ή στην TalkTalk για δωρεάν Internet μαζί με το πάγιο του τηλεφώνου (σύνολο 20£ το μήνα για 8mb, 40gb limit) ή στην Orange για δωρεάν Internet μαζί με το πάγιο του κινητού (σύνολο 45£ το μήνα για 8mb, 5gb limit…νομίζω). Πάω στοίχημα οτι θα πρέπει να αγοράσω και broadband modem το οποίο θα είναι τουλάχιστον 50£ ακόμα… ξανά - *sigh*

Ας ελπίσουμε δηλαδή να είναι μόνο ο δεύτερος σκληρός, γιατί εάν τα παίξει το PC…την πουτσίσαμε, για να το πω ευγενικά.

Ευτυχως βγάζω “θεωρητικά” 800 λίρες το μήνα που θα πρέπει να είναι αρκετές για αυτά. Δυστυχώς, δουλέυω σαν το σκυλί.

Οπότε παρέα με τις ψυχολογικές μου αλλαγές, περιμένω ακόμα για μια ευκαιρία. Τηλέφωνα με παίρνουν…να δούμε καμία συνέντευξη πότε θα πάμε.

Overcharging

Yesterday I went looking for a new power cable because the did not ship one with the monitor I bought from ebay citing “safety reasons”. Now what kind of safety reasons do they have for now shipping power cables when every other company out there does so…I do not know. I guess it’s for the safety of their pocket or something.

Anyway, I went looking for a new power cable and having had to buy one before, I was prepared to pay about 5 pounds for a new one, however I was not prepared for the 10 pound overkill I found on PC World.

Let me say that again: 10 - friggin’ - pounds … for a power cable. Needless to say, I did not buy it. I visited a few other shops looking for one where I found the same price again. Fortunately, a one-man computer repair shop I found, sold one for 3 pounds.

I then asked him if he had any screws he could give me:

‘So, what do you want it for’
‘I lost one and I need to screw something’
‘Which ones you need?’
‘The HDD ones’
‘How many’
‘Hmm, gimme two’
‘Alright, that will be one pound’
‘You’re going to sell them? You’re going to charge me 1 pound for 2 screws?’
‘Yep’
‘… keep them’

50p for a screw, 50p for a printout…some people just need a good whack on the head I think.

Καλά, Αγγλία είμαι ή έκανα λάθος στις πτήσεις;

Γαμώτω, είχα την εντύπωση οτι η Αγγλία ήταν απο δροσερή εώς κρύα χώρα και 4 μέρες τώρα έχω σκάσει απο τη ζέστη. Μιλάμε είμαι με τα εσώρουχα (Not a pretty sight I know) πάλι ιδρώνω σαν…χμμμ…κάποιος που ιδρώνει πολύ. Και να μην ήταν μόνο αυτό, απο την Πέμπτη δεν ξέρω γιατι αλλα είμαι εκνευριστικά αδιάθετος. Μια με ποιάνει πονοκέφαλος και μία ζαλάδες όταν σηκώνομαι αλλα δεν λέει να μου περάσει ή τέλος πάντων αρρωστήσω να τελειώνουμε.

Εκτώς απο αυτά, ακόμα δεν έχω στήσει τον υπολογιστή μου που, παρεπιπτώντος, δεν ξέρω τι σκατά τον έκαναν στην courrier, αλλά όταν τον άνοιξα για να τον ξεσκονίσω βρήκα μέσα τον χαμό. Αίντε τους ξεβίδωτους σκληρούς να ξεφύγουν και να επιπλέουν το καταλαβαίνω αλλα το ανεμιστηράκι του επεξεργαστή να σπάσει (στην λαβή) και ο επεξεργαστής να φύγει απο την θέση του ενόσω ακόμα κλειδωμένος; Έ έλεος πια. Ενταξει είμαι και εγώ αρκετά ένοχος που δεν σκέφτηκα να βάλω προστασία στο εσωτερικό αλλα τι στο διάολο κάνανε με ένα κουτι μαρκαρισμένο ως FRAGILE; Τους έποιασε ο πυρετός του Fifa και αυτούς και παίζανε μπάλα;Ευτυχός ζημιά δεν έγινε και με λίγη υπομονή και κόλλα το μηχάνημα πήρε πρός. Ακόμα όμως δεν το έχω σε λειτουργία γιατί δεν έχω οθόνη, εξού και ο λόγος για τον οποίο δεν φαίνομαι στα IM.

Μέχρι τώρα χρησιμοποιώ το μηχάνημα του ξαδελφού μου το οποίο επίσης έχω κάνει και gaming station (Ναι, τώρα έχω δικαιολογία για το gaming vice μου. Δεν έχω φίλους ακόμα αφότου του έβαλα την δικιά μου Geforce 6600 μιας και είναι πολύ καλύτερο επεξεργαστικά και την εκμεταλεύεται καλύτερα. Εχω λιώσει στα παιχνίδια λοιπόν…ιδρώνοντας.

Το πρόβλημα είναι οτι τώρα που επιτέλους έπεισα τον ξαδελφό μου να χρησιμοποιήσει Skype για της καθημερινές ομιλίες του με Αμερική και πήρε και webcam, θα αρχίσει να κάνει κατάληψη στον υπολογιστή απο τις 10:00 και επείγει ακόμα περισσότερο η επαναφορά του δικού μου.

BTW: Πήρα και καινούργιο κινητό για όποιον ενδιαφέρεται. Το νέο μου νούμερο είναι 07783780699. Επίτέλους έχω έγχρωμο κινητό με κάμερα. Μου το έδωσε ο Παύλος μέχρι να αποκτήσω σύνδεση.

Αυτά για την ώρα

Να δείτε και μια καταιδρωμένη φωτόγραφία μου στο καινούργιο και προσωρινό μου σπίτι.

Αρρώστεια

Καιρό είχα να περάσω τέτοια επιδρομή ιών στον υπολογιστή μου. Μιλάμε για καιρούς Dir/2 και Jerusalem. Πως την πάτησα έτσι τώρα, δεν έχω ιδέα.

Χθες άνοιξα το windows partition για να παίξω galactic civilizations (αργότερα γι’αυτο) και κολλούσε το σύμπαν. Βρε τι γίνεται, απο ‘δω απο ‘κεί…τίποτα.
Σε μία φάση το πήρα χαμπάρι τι παίζεται και άρχισα να προσπαθώ να βάλω antivirus.

Το Symantec που είχα σε μια γωνία αποθηκευμένο ακριβώς για τέτοιες φάσεις, τα είχε παίξει (είχε κολλήσει και αυτό ιό) και το Bitdefender που κατέβασα για να scanάρω απο το Ubuntu δεν έβρισκε τίποτα.
(Δοκίμασα και το online scan της Trend αλλα στο ubuntu δεν του άρεσε το Java-VM και στο knoppic 4 crashαρε ο firefox)

Σαν τελική λύση δοκίμασα το Kapersky (ή κάτι τέτοιο τέλος πάντων) το οποίο, ευτυχώς δούλεψε μια και το κατέβασα απο ubuntu και το έκαψα σε cd πριν το εγκαταστήσω σε safe mode. Και βρήκε πράμα…αν βρήκε λέει…

1 στα 10 αρχεία ιός, μιλάμε πανικός. Δεν είχε μείνει .exe για .exe αμόλυντο (εκτώς, παραδόξως, απο το Firefox) και έκανε και 10 μέρες scan. Πήγα για μπάνιο, τελείωσα, τίποτα, εκεί αυτό. Στο τέλος το ακύρωσα, και του έδωσα να scannαρει μόνο windows, προγράμματα και το παιχνίδι. Ευτυχώς αυτό τελείωσε γρήγορα και μπόρεσα να παίξω…μετά απο 4 ώρες.

Θα έδινα scan το βράδυ αλλα μόλις βγήκα απο το παιχνίδι κατά τις 3πμ, το kapersky δεν υπήρχε πουθενά. Ξαναεκτελώντας το δε, δεν άνοιγε καν και έλεγε να κάνω επανεγκατάσταση. Οπότε το παράτησα και πήγα για ύπνο. Το πρωι, πριν φύγω για δουλειά προσπάθησα να δώσω ένα reinstall στα γρήγορα αλλα δεν γούσταρε και τώρα προβλέπω επανεγκατάσταση *grumble* *grumble* των xp.

Junkie of the Old Republic

These past three days I’ve been hooked in front of my computer screen in a marathon of gaming I haven’t taken in a while. The source is of course knights of the Old Republic 2 which I took from the local video club on Friday as I was sitting bored.
What started as a way to pass the idle time ended up in a full blown activity that held me home even on Saturday night. I mean, I actually played from 4pm to 8 am on Saturday and then from 4pm to 1am on Sunday which amounts to 25 hours within two days, and that’s not even counting my Friday and Monday sessions…ugh!

However I don’t expect to be hooked for much longer, my short attention span will take care of that for me. If I haven’t finished it within the week (which I fully expect to do) I will probably get bored with it.

Monday was not so much of a gaming session (although I played for a full 4 hours as well) as a restore session on my PC. After failing in my tries to copy the game without needing a no-cd patch I ended up restoring my windows partition from the ghost image I took after I installed and everything seems fine now. I still didn’t make the perfect image with both Alcohol 120 and CloneCD but since this is just a single player game I don’t care as much.

Suse

I finally found a system I could work with. I took another m/b from work and installed it on my system. I will return the older one tomorrow. This P4 m/b fortunately has DDR slots. Unfortunately it has only 2 and my 512 ram is fubar It recognizes it as 512 but it kills the system in DT time.

I decided to discard the fedora installation to try something new and my original thought was Debian. Completely open and volunteer powered. Unfortunately, even though the original set up was done and I managed to find what to install with aptitude I was stuck at configuring the Xfree window system.
Until now I’ve been using x.org and xfree was kind of different and thus I couldn’t find the configs and even after I found them I coudln’t figure out why the system wouldn’t boot. After a few tries I gave up and tried OpenSuse 10.

Installation went flawlessly (although I would like a DVD version so as not to change installation mediums all the time) and I booted into my new system with all the bells and whistles on (even amarok 1.3.1, I was impressed at the cutting edge) with only one problem. The network would not work. At this point I had to leave to go and play board games with a few friends so I left it for the night.

At about 3am that I returned home, I tried setting up the ips, gateways and dns but nothing seemed to work. I tried disabling firewalls, switching cables, rebooting dsl routers but nothing. I knew that I was missing something because of fatigue so I left it for the other day. Fortunately amarok worked off the box (and finally without crashes) and I could hear some of my own music.

Today I found out what the problem is, it seems I had confused the default gateway with the DNS. I need to put the firewall as a default gateway (duh) and the dsl router as DNS. I can’t think why I didn’t try this before.

So anyway, now I’m in Suse and letting things work by themselves for a while. I’m tired of tweaking and prodding things to work and not know how to fix them so I’m taking a break from Gentoo (that still refuses to boot the kernel). Maybe when I have enough time to waste on my computer I’ll return again.

Is this unbelievable or what?

2 friggin’ days after putting another m/b on my PC and yesterday I come home after playing some warlord and find the system halted. No response to any key combinations so I restart only to find out, to my dismay, that the system will not boot and the speaker does a beeping sequence. I originally thought that was the sequence for RAM error, so I take out the two dimms and it does another sound. I change their position, put them in again and it does the first one. Not RAM error then.

I take out the VGA, boot, same beeps. Put it in, boot, same beeps. So I figure it’s that. I take it to my workplace, test it on another PC. It boots fine. FUCK! What is it then? It can’t be the M/B unless for some reason the AGP power feed has shut down for some reason and I can’t fuckin’ think how that would happen.
I plan to take a VGA from here to my PC to see how that works out.

What I really want to know however is it that has jinxed me.

Limping Back

I’ve managed to get a system running for now.
Yesterday I took an old P4 apart while at work and installed it on my box. Unfortunately too late did I notice that the old-crap p4 motherboard used SDRAM dimms and DDR, that means of course that not only do I work at 1700 MHz but I also lost 133 MHz from memory.
Of course yesterday I did not have SDRAM chips available so I had to make do with Knoppix as best as I could (and It wasn’t much let me tell you). So today I borrowed some dimms as well (2×256 to be exact) that I plan to return when I gather the money for a new system and took them home to install.
Luckily that went fine.

Gentoo, as expected, will not start, it’s got the march=”athlon” flag and until I find how to override that I’m stuck at Fedora, which is not bad now that I see it again. I’ve forgotten of that GTK look. Anyway, some settings are not working correctly over here and I need to do some more tweaking.

If only I had enough money

Still off

Computer @ Home is still dead. After some testing I have decided that the CPU has died and there’s not much I can do about it. What I tried is, I unplugged everything and left the MB only with CPU and Power and it won’t start (even the PSU fan), however the power led on the MB starts which means it is still getting power. I then removed the CPU and booted it again, the led still lighted which is the same effect as before. Ergo the CPU’s dead.

I’ve been using Knoppix on the Smoothwall Firewall to have at least basic internet access but it is dead slow. I mean KDE is unusable and icewm is only marginally better. How could we even work on these thing 6 years ago? Has our OS bloated so much? Anyway, problem is that my optical mouse is USB and that antique does not support that, so I settled for keyboard manipulation, which is fine if you know the shortcuts. Unfortunately I didn’t and it was hell…

At work now, I have taken an MB from work to test it. I hope it works without too much hassle because I do not have money for upgrades even at this time.

Bootbootbootboot…nah.

Crap, I came home yesterday and found my PC shut down. I tried to start it up but it refused. This sometimes happens when the power goes out in the house and back up again and until now, the solution had been to take off the power for a while (until the MB is uncharged) and put in back again.
This time however it wouldn’t boot at all. I would boot, the fans made a small jerk like starting the get power and then stopped. Another boot didn’t do anything until I removed power again. I tried a few things, mainly taking out all power except to the MB but it didn’t help either. I am afraid this might be an unrecoverable MB short-circuit and I’m seriously lacking the funds to have an upgrade at this point.

Now the error is either with the MB, the power supply or most unlikely, the CPU. All I can do at this point is change the power with one I’ll take from my job temporarily.

At least that made me do something else other than spend time in front of the screen which in my case was to sleep and prepare for the Evernight campaign.

Finding the Doorman

The past tree days at work I’ve been vehemently reading this blog. It’s written by a part-time bouncer with very good writing skills and a healthy dose of humor and sarcasm. It describes the events that occur on the job as well as commenting on various parts of night life. From this blog I’ve managed to completely despise the “Guido’s” as he calls them. Apparently they are similar to our own Greek “Trendy Boys” or as I like to call the Κάγγουρες; you know the look: Jelled spiky short hair, fit stretching t-shirts, shiny necklaces but fortunately not waxed eyebrows (at least not from what I’ve seen). They have also made me completely despise the word “Yo” as Guido’s they seem to say it all the time in a strange imitation of Black lingo. It just ends up sounding stupid.
I’ve seen our kind of Guido march around Ladadika like so many peacocks while I was going from one Metal club to another. They always seem so…poseur-ish to me that I never fail to laugh at them. Truly, I now cannot bring myself to enter the places of Guido gathering only to watch chicks shake their asses and not have one in 10 chance of meeting someone I can have a nice night out with.
In any case that blog is a great reading, I just couldn’t stop and he’s written quite a lot as well. I only wish I had his gift for written speech and I had some kind of experience to write about as well.

Which reminds me; 7 fucking euros for a drink at a small Rock Bar! Who the fuck do they think we are? I was expecting a max of five and I ended up wasting more than I would for drinking 2 beers. FFS!
This was the cost for going out yesterday night with a friend of mine and, just for the hell of it, ordering a B52. And to think that she was asking to go for a beer as well…

Monday I finally had my left ear cleaned from all that…stuff that had gathered inside. The experience was almost painful but luckily not. However I didn find out that I didn’t have to wait one fucking week to clean it out. It was just that the original doctor was old school and din’t know the modern procedures. Now that sucked! I had to go a week half-deaf because the friggin’ doctor couldn’t keep up with the times!

In [tag]Linux[/tag] news: At least I managed to find the cause for the back-right speaker not working. It seems that for some reason the alsa-mixer surround was not full up on the right (how that happened, I do not know) and by simply turning it up, all was back to normal. Gkrellm2 has also stopped segfaulting when I disabled the two plugins I use (which I didn’t use anyway) and [tag]amarok[/tag] does not segfault as long as I use the xine engine…dunno why.
Problem is that my /usr mount is running out of space (only 150MB left at this time) so I don’t know how many more progs can fit/update. I have no idea how I managed to fill up 4GB of space with programs…what the hell is in there?