I've been digging through my shite recently and among other things found a box with my old Iomega Zip-100 drive in it. This thing is relatively ancient. I mean this is pre-USB. It connected to the computer via parallel port. In the box also was about a dozen zip disks. And what's more, there was stuff on it that I had absolutely no clue if I had backed up or transferred to any other hard-drives. What to do, what to do. I did NOT want install drivers on my Windows system which is polluted enough as it is. Well, my freshly minted Ubuntu install was up and the computer it was on had a parallel port, so why not? I began looking up info about these parallel port zip drives for use with Ubuntu. I recall a decade ago getting it to work with my Toshiba running Red Hat (I think it was 5) and having to do some insmod's and ppa's and using mtools and the like; basically I remember it requiring some work. After finding an appropriate page I hooked it up.
OMG! Without doing anything else, up pops the ZIP-100 icon on my desktop and a Nautilus window with the contents. I utterly did not expect that. That rocked. I mean, who uses parallel ports to attach devices these days, outside of perhaps a legacy printer much less a block device? It's not so much that I expected it to not work easily but even with Windows I expected having to download some drivers or installs or something. Way to go Ubuntu!
It's amusing to consider how my stack of zip disks and the reader fit can all fit on my keychain via a USB key now. Those things were destined to go the way of the floppy; in fact I think the floppy outlived them. I don't think I ever liked them but for a few years I must admit that they were indeed practical. In light of the MiniDisc, I still think zip disks should never have existed. But for now, I'm just stoked that practically no effort I got it connected and was able to move all of that data off. I now look forward to getting rid of the beasties. The fact that it worked so effortlessly almost made me want to keep it around for amusement. Almost. Now to figure out the most consciencious way to purge it from my possessions.
2008-04-27
Hardy har har
Ubuntu 8.04 a.k.a. Hardy Heron was released last week. I'd been waiting for it for a few weeks. I had decided to re-up my home Linux installation on my Alienware computer. But rather than installing the beta, I figured I'd just wait for the actual release. At long last it arrived to breath some life into my desktop computer. I've had a few days to play with it and if I was never convinced before, I now feel that:
But as far as desktop computers are concerned, I was thrilled. I've always been a little accepting of the fact that Linux always takes some tweaking to get working. Usually that means a bunch of web searches and manual installation and editing of configurations and such. For the desktop though, just about everything worked instantly and the only "hassle" was to get the multimedia up to snuff (not included by default for licensing, etc. reasons). But that's one thing that over the past few years has been wonderful, practically everything is available to install very easily. If I had to scratch install Windows, that would require a couple days of manually loading in all the software, dealing with all of the bloody registration notices that keep popping up over and over again when you do, all of the multiple "updates" to account for the difference between the CD version and the latest updates... well, everyone knows that Windows and all of the software isn't quite as quick as they suggest. In modern Linux distros, the package manager makes it as simple as clicking a bunch of check boxes and letting it go.
Early highlights for me:
Linux is absolutely ready for the desktop.I mean, I've used 7.10 on and off and that was great too, but I never used it often enough and is for the following reason:
That is why, in this case I installed it onto my desktop computer. Granted, I have not tried Hardy on any of my laptops but that will come in time.
Linux may not be quite ready for the laptop.
But as far as desktop computers are concerned, I was thrilled. I've always been a little accepting of the fact that Linux always takes some tweaking to get working. Usually that means a bunch of web searches and manual installation and editing of configurations and such. For the desktop though, just about everything worked instantly and the only "hassle" was to get the multimedia up to snuff (not included by default for licensing, etc. reasons). But that's one thing that over the past few years has been wonderful, practically everything is available to install very easily. If I had to scratch install Windows, that would require a couple days of manually loading in all the software, dealing with all of the bloody registration notices that keep popping up over and over again when you do, all of the multiple "updates" to account for the difference between the CD version and the latest updates... well, everyone knows that Windows and all of the software isn't quite as quick as they suggest. In modern Linux distros, the package manager makes it as simple as clicking a bunch of check boxes and letting it go.
Early highlights for me:
- Installation was largely unattended and quick.
- Windows partition auto detected and available.
- Compiz loaded cleanly (after NVidia drivers uploaded).
- I was able to get my basic working environment setup very quickly thanks to package manager.
- Some things like audio and such which were always a little flakey seemed to work out of the box.
- Had to do digging to allow network shares with Windows.
- Multimedia of course.
- Still puzzled why things like c/c++ development stuff isn't default, this is Linux afterall.
- Downgrading Firefox3b to Firefox-2 for some reason required some digging to get right (hint: delete .mozilla from home directory). Sorry, but I need my Google toolbar.
2008-04-19
Fear of the upgrade
There was a time when I would constantly upgrade to the latest version of software. I was a junky for new useless features. There was sometimes a secondary reason, like keeping certain file types up to date (due to the unfortunately still present but thankfully diminishing days of proprietary file formats). That changed as the years passed. I now find myself skeptical of upgrades. Oddly, the inevitable increase in bloat (both in size increase and speed decrease) is less the reason than the problems that invariably get introduced. It seems that these days an upgrade signifies an introduced incompatibility, instability, or worse.
Off the top of my head the first program that I purposefully abandoned upgrading (versus just didn't need to use anymore) was PaintShopPro, from back in the early 90s. It was freeware or shareware then. It was small, fast, and useful. Then at some point the upgrade was no longer free to get. It became around $30 and later $100. I kept the old free version around for many years and refused many upgrades. Eventually I abandoned it for other things, but I still remember liking it a lot. A copy may be lying around on a disk somewhere.
Another example is MusicMatch. It was one of the first decent mp3 ripper-players around. I was fond of it not as much because of its real quality (it was good but kind of clumsy in some ways), but rather because the owners did something absolutely right: free lifetime upgrades. Now that policy deserved my money. I despise being forced to buy essentially the same software over and over again every year or two. For every software purchase, there should be at least 2 free major upgrades or like 4 years of upgrades included. But lifetime? that was awesome. Then Yahoo bought it, but I remained pleased because at least they still honored the lifetime upgrade. I saw an end to that coming when they changed the name to Yahoo Jukebox. Eventually it was unrecognizable as MusicMatch. And eventually, I stopped installing it and even stopped using the old version. Why? because I upgraded once too often and it kept pestering me to upgrade, and then gave me a stern warning that my version's days were numbered due to an interface change (basically a forced connection with Yahoo Music that I didn't want). Oh well.
Apple software gets my goat because I'm convinced they purposely break something just to keep things more proprietary. e.g. every new version of iPod firmware seems to be designed to break other peoples attempts at using their product not in the "vision" of Apple. iTunes is similar, only every major update seems to cause my iTunes to stop working properly. My new rule is to wait two updates minimum before updating.
These are kind of trite examples. The major one is Windows. Now there's an important piece of software that they force you to re-buy every couple years whether you like it or not. My latest excursion, I got a laptop last year that had ONLY Vista as an option. Of course a month after I got it the backlash forced Dell to offer an XP version. I stuck with Vista though because I didn't want to buy another copy of XP and also I'm lazy. I admit that it has some added niceties, mostly trivial in my opinion, but DEAR LORD IS IT ANNOYING. It has never stopped pestering me for something or other whenever I boot. I'm always getting these damned bubbles popping up in the corner, especially annoying when I'm playing WoW. Every major piece of software wants to put crap in my taskbar and wants to poll for updates and yadda yadda. Windows of course is the second worse offender (first being McAfee), especially with its constant "are you sure", "do you want to allow this", etc. It drives me nuts. The real issue here though is stuff just doesn't work cleanly in it that worked fine on my XP box. Even stuff that's certified for Vista in some way encounters problems.
As if that wasn't bad enough, along comes SP1. After some pestering, I allowed the update. And wouldn't you know, iTunes won't run. I was getting a "iTunes has stopped working" message before even the window popped up. Dangit, I wanted to swap in some stuff onto my nano NOW. I spend a couple hours scouring the interwebs for some solution and even tried the ol' uninstall and reinstall. The searches were kind of scary with all the notes on how iTunes and Vista were problematic from the get-go; I felt lucky that I got it to work at all. It took me a while to get the right incantation of the Google search to get me to this link which at least one solid and tangible solution to try. I downloaded the noted patches but turns out I didn't need them. For the benefit of the search engines: the trick that worked was Control_Panel -> Programs_and_Features -> Quicktime -> Repair. It runs now and thankfully even though I uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes, my library info remained intact. A miracle I know. Sigh, I really wish I didn't HAVE to use iTunes... but it's the only iPod compatible program I'm aware of that supports the "resume playback where you left off" (or "save played position") feature that I need for audiobooks and podcasts. That's the critical deal-breaking feature.
Backing up to the upgrade subject, I do not sport this upgrade fear on Linux. Maybe it's because nearly everything I use on Linux is below version 3 with a non-trivial chunk of it below version 1. This basically means that most of it can still be a bit unpolished and upgrades are welcome. But there's also this sense that when it comes to open-source software, it really feels like the upgrades are needed somehow. Most updates really are bug fixes and often times optimizations. When new features are added, it's as if by committee it was decided that the new feature really was a good idea. Another related reason might be the tendency that when some piece of software gets old -- like versioning past 3 to 4 but often much sooner -- that by then something else similar but cooler comes out and people move to that even when it's in alpha. Yes, upgrading and changing and tweaking seem natural in the Linux world, but it works because you don't have to pay for each update and it's often not even required. Sigh... it always feels like I'm just on the cusp of going completely Linux, but for the durned expectation that everyone uses Windows and may only make drivers and software compatible with Linux as an afterthought, maybe.
Off the top of my head the first program that I purposefully abandoned upgrading (versus just didn't need to use anymore) was PaintShopPro, from back in the early 90s. It was freeware or shareware then. It was small, fast, and useful. Then at some point the upgrade was no longer free to get. It became around $30 and later $100. I kept the old free version around for many years and refused many upgrades. Eventually I abandoned it for other things, but I still remember liking it a lot. A copy may be lying around on a disk somewhere.
Another example is MusicMatch. It was one of the first decent mp3 ripper-players around. I was fond of it not as much because of its real quality (it was good but kind of clumsy in some ways), but rather because the owners did something absolutely right: free lifetime upgrades. Now that policy deserved my money. I despise being forced to buy essentially the same software over and over again every year or two. For every software purchase, there should be at least 2 free major upgrades or like 4 years of upgrades included. But lifetime? that was awesome. Then Yahoo bought it, but I remained pleased because at least they still honored the lifetime upgrade. I saw an end to that coming when they changed the name to Yahoo Jukebox. Eventually it was unrecognizable as MusicMatch. And eventually, I stopped installing it and even stopped using the old version. Why? because I upgraded once too often and it kept pestering me to upgrade, and then gave me a stern warning that my version's days were numbered due to an interface change (basically a forced connection with Yahoo Music that I didn't want). Oh well.
Apple software gets my goat because I'm convinced they purposely break something just to keep things more proprietary. e.g. every new version of iPod firmware seems to be designed to break other peoples attempts at using their product not in the "vision" of Apple. iTunes is similar, only every major update seems to cause my iTunes to stop working properly. My new rule is to wait two updates minimum before updating.
These are kind of trite examples. The major one is Windows. Now there's an important piece of software that they force you to re-buy every couple years whether you like it or not. My latest excursion, I got a laptop last year that had ONLY Vista as an option. Of course a month after I got it the backlash forced Dell to offer an XP version. I stuck with Vista though because I didn't want to buy another copy of XP and also I'm lazy. I admit that it has some added niceties, mostly trivial in my opinion, but DEAR LORD IS IT ANNOYING. It has never stopped pestering me for something or other whenever I boot. I'm always getting these damned bubbles popping up in the corner, especially annoying when I'm playing WoW. Every major piece of software wants to put crap in my taskbar and wants to poll for updates and yadda yadda. Windows of course is the second worse offender (first being McAfee), especially with its constant "are you sure", "do you want to allow this", etc. It drives me nuts. The real issue here though is stuff just doesn't work cleanly in it that worked fine on my XP box. Even stuff that's certified for Vista in some way encounters problems.
As if that wasn't bad enough, along comes SP1. After some pestering, I allowed the update. And wouldn't you know, iTunes won't run. I was getting a "iTunes has stopped working" message before even the window popped up. Dangit, I wanted to swap in some stuff onto my nano NOW. I spend a couple hours scouring the interwebs for some solution and even tried the ol' uninstall and reinstall. The searches were kind of scary with all the notes on how iTunes and Vista were problematic from the get-go; I felt lucky that I got it to work at all. It took me a while to get the right incantation of the Google search to get me to this link which at least one solid and tangible solution to try. I downloaded the noted patches but turns out I didn't need them. For the benefit of the search engines: the trick that worked was Control_Panel -> Programs_and_Features -> Quicktime -> Repair. It runs now and thankfully even though I uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes, my library info remained intact. A miracle I know. Sigh, I really wish I didn't HAVE to use iTunes... but it's the only iPod compatible program I'm aware of that supports the "resume playback where you left off" (or "save played position") feature that I need for audiobooks and podcasts. That's the critical deal-breaking feature.
Backing up to the upgrade subject, I do not sport this upgrade fear on Linux. Maybe it's because nearly everything I use on Linux is below version 3 with a non-trivial chunk of it below version 1. This basically means that most of it can still be a bit unpolished and upgrades are welcome. But there's also this sense that when it comes to open-source software, it really feels like the upgrades are needed somehow. Most updates really are bug fixes and often times optimizations. When new features are added, it's as if by committee it was decided that the new feature really was a good idea. Another related reason might be the tendency that when some piece of software gets old -- like versioning past 3 to 4 but often much sooner -- that by then something else similar but cooler comes out and people move to that even when it's in alpha. Yes, upgrading and changing and tweaking seem natural in the Linux world, but it works because you don't have to pay for each update and it's often not even required. Sigh... it always feels like I'm just on the cusp of going completely Linux, but for the durned expectation that everyone uses Windows and may only make drivers and software compatible with Linux as an afterthought, maybe.
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