Or, rather, a comment on Ubuntu 8.04 updates.
*sigh*
So, the OS/distro works like a champ… or did until I clicked the “updates are ready to be installed” (or whatever) button about a week ago. (Before that, an update to WINE apparently “broke” it enough that Encore no longer works properly *arrrgggghhh!*) Now, other issues. I had gotten sound configured like I wanted it (conf to use the old SBLive! Platinum card instead of the onboard nVidia sound), but after last week’s update, nothing I have done in the past does diddly to get it wrking that way again. Now, it’s a crapshoot as to what sound “card” will provide sound for any given application.
Yeh, yeh, disable the onboard sound in the BIOS setup utility and force the OS to use the only chipset it can then see, but that’s soooo… brute force.
Other than that and a weird STOP error in WinXPP/VMWare Server (VMWare doesn’t have a problem; it’s something in the VM/WinXPP interaction), everything’s hunky dory. Oh, wait, not. Flash player no longer works after the last OS update, either.
OK, at one point I was all set to (and IIRC actually did) pronounce Ubuntu 8.04 “Aunt Tilly” ready, assuming someone who knows how to find their own posterior with a stick and a mirror installed it for her. Now, if OS updates are going to break commonly used apps/plugins/components/configurations, I’m not so sure. Canonical had better get its @$$ in gear on this.
Oh, and before anyone points out that I can configure sound preferences via the Control Center, NOT! Oh, it says it’s configured corectly and even (sometimes) tests properly from within the sound applet, but it lies. And the Control Center is a palid, weak, poor analog of the configuration tools built into just about any version of Windows. In order to really manage hardware configuration, it’s often necessary to use the command line. Now, I have few problems with doing that, apart from having gotten away from the (DOS) command line, for the most part, for some few years now and haviung minimal experience with tghe Linux command line (I’m getting better, but there are only so many hours in the day).
But.
What’s not all that big a deal for me is just not “Aunt Tilly” friendly. Heck, “Aunt Tilly” can often not even find Control Panel in Windows without “a mirror and a stick” and approach radar and someone who knows a bit talking her down safely, so maintaining an Ubuntu 8.04 Linux box may well be beyond the “Aunt Tillys” of this world.
Sad. It has so much promise, and it’s perfectly fine for me (as long as I have the time to track down where the buggering updates screwed up my configuration files), but if the the “Aunt Tillys” of this world were to jump on the Ubuntu bandwagon, they’d fall right off lickety split.
Oh, well.
I guess even in the Linux world you just can’t trust automated updates. Skip them at your peril, or so the security wags say. They’re “critical”, or so the update providers say.
And then… you go ahead and trust the updaters and what happens? Your system doesn’t work right ever again.
And here, I thought only Microsoft had the presumption to “fix” things so that they no longer work.
The really interesting thing about the “broken” sound config that cropped up after an update is that I could find nothing in the update that ought to have affected that. But then, an earlier update reset my video config to an unworkable 600X400, and there was nothing in that update that should have done so…
Weird. At least with Me$$y$oft broken updates, it’s usually pretty easily traceable to a specific updated component, because the update itself breaks what it was meant to update.
Oh, well. At least I can do the workarounds here w/o falling back on a previous unpatched (and often less secure) state, as is most common with Me$$y$oft updates.
As to the WINE update and loss of functionality in Encore (even after an uninstall and reinstall of the app), that’s probably on WINE. Even though I still had crappy midi input before the latest WINE update, at least some functions worked. Now, I can open Encore, some files will open, but editing them is impossible, and creating a new file and saving it? Fugettaboutit. When I have the time, I’ll uninstall WINE and all the associated Wndows apps, install the previous version and start all over again.
Oh, well, as Jerry Pournelle reminds his Chaos Manor review readers, I do these things so you don’t have to. *heh*
Oh. Joy. I decided to check, and there’s a new nVidia video driver update. At least I know what to do if it resets my resolution, “forgets” my monitor and refuses to display only 600X400… or lower.
All my hardare/software is in turmoil. This is a good read to remind me how bad it will suck as I enter into repair/rebuild mode in the near future.
OK, I read your post, and most of it is Greek to me. I tried Linux OS once, but I could not get my drivers to work. A friend told me to try BeOS because it would work off windows, yep, what a joke. So I cannot contribute anything of importance here.
So since I really do not understand some of this stuff I will add that I really do like this new template. It really is cheerful and the header is great.
Best,
Layla
Stanford,
Feel free to email me about your comuter woes. I may actualy have had experiences similar enough to be able to offer the benefit of some 20-20 hindsight. 🙂
(And speaking of computer woes. *sigh* Had a client call today with a weird one. I went to check and NOTHING WAS WRONG, but still remote access of an essential (shared) file on another comp on the network was impossible… from within the app that “needed” it. Oh. File on a recewntly updated Windows Vista computer. Security settings changed and WILL NOT change back. Another “update broken” computer situation.)
Really enjoying the VMWare Server virtual machines. Good stuff, Maynard.
“Fixed” (temporarily) my sound issue. Configured everything to run through the less capable onboard sound, for now. Oh. Well. The nVidia video driver also came with some ticks riding the dog. Video wasn’t messed up, but the nVidia sound chipset was updated also (even though the update was NOT noted in the accompanying update info). Really need to check the forums before allowing updates, I suppose.
Layla, “Greek to me”? I wish. I can usually read Greek all right (well, Koine; modern Greek is a lil more difficult for me); this stuff, I’m a little less fluent.