Tag: Computer fun

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Pet Ubuntu Peeve

There are an awful lot of things I like about Ubuntu 8.01 “Hardy Heron”. Overall ease of use; a HUGE repository of easily installable softwares to complement the extensive and useful collection of software installed by default; general stability (almost NEVER need to reboot, for example); an impressive level of security right out of the box, as it were: all these things and more are Very Good Things.

Oh, and although it’s free, support in the various free forums is at least as good as my experience with Microsoft has been over the years–actually much better.

But. System/software updates. A Good Thing, overall. But.

This weird thing where–magically! (bad magic, but magic nonetheless)–things that are imprtant to me just stop working or start working badly immediately after system updates, or conversely begin working properly again w/o any reasonable excuse… this can drive me nutso.

Get screen resolution like I want it. System update. Screen goes to 600X400 or lower, and REFUSES (w/o a very big hammer) to go back to preferred resolution. *feh*

Sound working nicely; new speakers sound wonderful. System update. Sound barely squeaks along and WILL NOT use my preferred sound chipset. Nothing helps. System update. Sound now loverly again. System update. Crfappy sound. System update, system update, system update: sound now loverly again. Heck, more than that. Now have to turn darned near everything DOWN (with software controls) to listen at appropriate levels

Flash vids (YouTube et al) work fine in browser. System update. Flash no longer works. Redownload and install appropriate plugins. Everything hunky-dory. System update. Flash down in browsers. Lather, rinse, repeat. Do note: while all this is happening in browsers, standalone flash players continue to work fine. Finally, another system update and… flash works in browsers again. For now.

Crazy. Insane. Me, that is. Can’t. Stand. It.

But. All’s well. For now.

Still, even with these warts (and the “Update WINE and Encore no longer works worth a darn” issue), Ub untu’s been a Good Thing. Now, if I could just get Windows Home Server working under Ubuntu using VMWare Server… *heh*

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OK, Here’s a weird thought…

Well, it’s a little bit weird and a little bit cool. Just another lil (seriously meaningless) VM game to take my mind off current events. You can move along now. Nothing going on here today but a lil bit of play time.

So, I have WinXPPro-64 running inside Ubuntu 8.04 using VMWare Server set up to use a bridged network connection so my network (as well as comps on the interweb) “sees” the VM as an entirely separate machine with its own IP address.

Well, that’s fun. I also have Win2K, Win98 and PCBSD virtual machines configured similarly inside the same host machine.

Soooo, how about accessing one of the VM clients from the host machine using VNC or Logmein or whatever? *lol* Kinda around the barn, eh? No real sense to it (and the lil Logmein utility doesn’t seem to like WINE all that much–maybe I ought to tweak my WINE config in the PCBSD machine), but it’s interesting. *heh*

Done.

OK, so Logmein is slow, what with all the refreshes and whatnot, but it does give me a little practice using it for folks who have trouble installing VNC for remote sessions. (Logmein doesn’t seem to think anyone but Windoze users would find their service useful…. and that’s probably pretty close to TRW) VNC’s a lil lot faster over the local network, of course (though remote computers don’t see any real speed/responsiveness benefit over Logmein), and for those times when I want to really access things here at twc central, that’s the key (really: using a keyfob USB drive with Portable VNC. Only ).

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