OpenCamp, Debian, Fedora and OpenSUSE

So, I gave Debian a shot this weekend.  It didn’t go well.  It seems that my Debian installation may have had some problems because from what I understand, I should have gotten Synaptic out of the box.  The biggest problem was no wireless though.  This isn’t exactly Debian’s fault.  It’s Acer’s fault for not using a wireless card with Linux drivers.  In their defence, Linux was not as big in 2004 when this was new (or, at least that’s when the Windows driver is from).  I tried using ndiswrapper, but while it picked up the ssids, it did not pick up an IP address.  These TravelMate machines don’t have a great resolution on Linux, so I just decided to give up.

Now, over on identica, I was discussing some issues I was having with burning an OpenSUSE disk.  I’m going to chalk that up to random, but I’m using the alpha (not sure if it’s updated to beta…I’ve got some updates to do) of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty, so there could be some problems.  Anyway, just to try to get something usable (not having wireless is not an option) I installed Fedora.  However, the DPI on the fonts was all messed up (or, at least that’s what I’m guessing it was), so I scratched that and got out my “real” laptop with Ubuntu so I could get some work done.  In the meantime, the openSUSE disk finished and I started the install.  I didn’t have it plugged in, so it failed on something, but then went on through to check the hardware, such as the video card.  As per usual when I try to triple boot, I screwed it up some how and while GRUB still has an option for Fedora, it won’t actually boot.  My Windows installation (which I only use to make sure issues aren’t Linux issues) survived the install.  I’m disappointed that openSUSE doesn’t have Moonlight installed by default.  I’m not a Moonlight fan, but since CBS/NCAA decided to go with it, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure it out.

So even though I’ve been happier with PCBSD than Fedora or Debian on this particular hardware (Acer TravelMate c310) I have no intensions of moving to BSD.  I had Linux Mint on the Acer before and didn’t like it either, though typically I’m a big fan of Mint.  I have no idea how long it will be before I get a new desktop or laptop, but that will likely have Mint on it.  I don’t like it enough to switch to it while I’m using Ubuntu.

Moving away from operating systems, today was the first OpenCamp meeting.  We did a phone meeting, which was probably better than the IRC chat I had lined up.  We did not pick a time to discuss again, but we should have.  We came up with lots of good ideas, but there’s lots to do.  There were only three of us on the call (me, allgood2 and poseurtech) but we already got confirmation on a blog post from kaitfoley.  I’ve also heard from geekazine and raster about the meeting, but neither was able to attend. I’ve been tasked with cleaning up our section of http://openeverything.wik.is.  If not for getting sidetracked by green computing discussions on identica, UNC making it to the Final Four and packing for my trip to Kentucky this weekend, I’d have done it today.

Another weekend is coming to a close with me tired rather than refreshed.  I am, however, feel a bit better than I was about two hours ago. food, ftw.

Firefox in BSD, CBS goes with Silverlight 2.0

Firefox in BSD has some serious Javascript issues. I know others have these issues on other platforms, but I use Firefox at work in Vista and at home in Linux all the time, with zero problems.  The only problem with doing testing with these Acer Travelmates is that they are utter garbage. The mouse is erratic no matter what the OS (I’ve tried XP, Linux Mint, Debian and PC BSD).  The VGA out works as often as it doesn’t (actually, that may be giving them too much credit…I’m not sure I’ve ever seen VGA out work on one of these).

Now, I’d think about installing BSD in VirtualBox, but my main machine is running Jaunty and VirtualBox isn’t wanting to work (hey, it’s still in alpha…or is it beta now?  Whatever, it’s not done).

So, the who NCAA.com stuff with CBS is a clusterf*ck.  To *maybe* get it to work in Linux you must first install Subversion.  Then, you must get the latest version of Mono (the version in the repos will not work).  Then, you have to install a pre-alpha version of Moonlight.  Now, this could be fixed a couple ways.

1) Use something cross platform.  Flash is the obvious choice, but an ogg-vorbis stream would be a much better solution.

2) Microsoft could release a Silverlight version for Linux.

So, this Moonlight thing is a work in progress.  I’ll update here when I come to some sort of conclusion.  If you want up-to-date info, you can follow me at identi.ca.

first post from BSD; thoughts on the world to come

So, I’m typically not a KDE user, but that’s the default on PC-BSD. So far, so good. I’ve checked out KDE before, so it’s not entirely foreign. One thing I immediately don’t like about Konquerer is my cursor does not show up in the WordPress menu. Since I’m president of the Madison Linux User Group, I have no intentions of switching full time, but if I was thinking about it, I don’t think this would be a deal-breaker.  For one thing, this isn’t an issue in the FreeBSD version of Firefox (thank God!).

Flash is working for some things and not others. Presumably this is because it’s using Flash 9 and not Flash 10. AIR says my platform is not supported. LAME! So, Linux compatibility isn’t as useful and easy as it might sound. Kopete looks like a resonable enough chat client. Like Konquerer, I think this is just a KDE thing and really has nothing to do with BSD.  One thing I should note.  Wireless works out of the box.

Alright, time to get serious about this presentation I have on Tuesday about OpenCamp.  GLUE had me thinking seriously about an “ideal world.”  I’ll post on that after Tuesday’s presentation.