Linux Mint Xfce (201104)

Some may notice that there is no "release number" there, for example - Linux Mint Xfce 10
That is because this the the Debian base, as opposed to the Ubuntu base.

Going back a little bit, I was very happy when Linux Mint began the Debian based branch. For one thing, it is lighter and faster. I had played around with different distributions to find lightweight ones that I liked, but always came back to Linux Mint for my "main" system, if you will. (Zenwalk has been good to me and I will always give props to Slax.) ["Props?" Really?] {whatever. hush.}

Another reason for wanting the Debian base, was the rolling distribution. There is no "system release" as such. No need to "Reinstall" to get the latest. In other words, the distribution as a whole is "update-able" just like the applications. There is an XKCD png illustrating a weakness here, but.... pfffft.

So, only the Gnome "edition" was available in the Debian tree here with Linux Mint, I installed it. All was good, but I was never a big fan of Gnome - favouring thinner desktop managers like Xfce, Fluxbox and LXDE. Not a problem, I simply installed Xfce and I could choose between Gnome and Xfce at login.

"Okay, Elqueue," you may be saying, "I thought you wanted to avoid doing re-installs, but you just did that for... what - loosing gnome?"

Kinda. I am rather quite fickle.

First step was DL'ing the iso. I torrent it whene'er possible. And that took much of yesterday. I then left the torrent running through the night to help seed. Then there was the backup. FORTUNATELY, my porn folder was kinda small. That was a joke. There were things I had to back up, but for a large part, the media (music and movies) are on a file server, scripts that are NOT part of... well, never-you-mind that... are kept in sync with an on-line backup. And google docs has most of my fiction and whatnot.

Backing up would have, more or less, been a bit of a technicality as I did not /have/ to format my /home - it is on its own volume - but it is good practice. AND I planned on formatting /home too so I could get the "clean" experience. (Yes, I could have gotten the "clean" experience by installing it in a VM, but this was good for me. Really. In ways I could not begin to describe.)

Okay - backups done and final tweeting ... tweeted ... time to boot up to the live DVD.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Yes, this is a good thing; installing from a Live media - I was tweeting and whatnot during the installation.

Okay, so install done, rebooted, next thing, as always, is the update/upgrade. Yes, I use apt from the command line. This took a long time too. I may set up my display /before/ doing this in the future because I was stuck at a low rez until that was done.

Then there are the screen tweaks - UI this and that which will be poked at for a while. Not a requirement, but fun nonetheless.

Let us look at that more slowly - the process was so slick and easy that it kinda went by you there, didn't it.

-Download the ISO. Yea! What fun!
Booted to it on a usb stick. More like a tiny postage stamp, but it still gets called a stick, right?

-Backed up. Okay, cool. I have been good about keeping the backup fairly current anywho.
This is like a one click action because I have already had it set up. I /could/ have just copied /home/lq/what.I.want* to the network share, but that is not always the best practice.

-The Live DVD. Yep, plenty to have fun with while the install is going, but that was not that long anywho.
Click install, select English, time zone, keyboard, user name, computer name, password, select the volume mount point (and hey, they already expect / and /home and swap, so that is just confirmation. And I did click the checkbox to format my /home - it does not by default.) Then there was the grub install option and away it went.
Launch FireFox and surf away.

-First boot. Sure, the updates took longer than the install, but my connection is not that fast. Would have been the same no matter the distro.
Again, FireFox was available for this. And creating other mountpoints, ln -s's, and whatnot while all that was going on.

-Set the display, reboot, start with my add-ons. Including getting the media, that was like, 5 painless steps.

Well, obviously, I cannot count for diddly, but you get the idea.

Now, one of those things that needed setting up after the updates was the on-line backup sync. My "toolbox" folder is in there with all my little scripts for doing other things (like tweeting #fortunes and building slideshows out of image directories, and... well, all my scripts). So they take a moment to make sym-links into a bin dir. But all this stuff is "fun" anyway when you do not have to do it often and it is by choice.

Another was google-chrome. It syncs up as well so all my bookmarks and settings and addons are all there.

And, to be fare, there were a few apps I removed and daemons to turn off.

Then the blog. I /could/ have been working on it during the process, but I did not feel so ambitious.

Will I install gnome libraries on top? Well, I am sure that sooner or later some app that I install will need some piece of gnome or KDE. And that is not a big deal.

Was all this worth it? Sure, yeah.

What about all kinds of extras and addons and devices and drivers and things? Not a biggie for me, anywho. I attach very little and that what I do is very plug-n-play friendly.

Will it be this easy for everyone? Meh - I am not everyone. But for just about any standard user (gamers notwithstanding) with any reasonably resent computer (and this is a netbook for mercy's sake) this really should be about what you experience. If this "review" seems to be lacking detail, it is because this is just so simple and easy. Sure, I /could/ have gotten rather verbose about it. (I am typing in my desired username now: l followed directly by a q. Now I am entering my password... twice. I received a message that my password was strong. That is good. My hostname must be all lower case... careful now... Okay. I manged to type it all without hitting the shift key.)

If you really want a blow-by-blow because "I am a windoze user and I want to quit getting viruses - what exactly do I need to do?" Let me know and I will make a step-by-step walk-through. from start to finish - how to make a bootable usb device with Linux Mint Xfce (201104) on it and everything. Because, OBVIOUSLY I have no life. =^_^=

Simply send one 2GB (or more) flash drive to the [hey, let me just take that back out] Airport c/o me and if you get it back - ever - then you did not send it correctly.

But seriously, I will post a walk-through if I get feedback requesting one.

Oh, and it is snowing, so I am posting this "early" rather than taking a bike ride. I am not even scheduling it to post later.

Take Care.
LQ

Startled Awake

Well that was ... interesting.

I woke frightened as all get-out, pulse racing, sweaty as anything and I had kicked off all my covers.
I was freeeeeeeezzzziiiinnnngggg.

I put on a pot of coffee, took a hot shower, drank some coffee, was still cold.

So, I am sitting here, all bundled up like the sun had gone out, with the laptop warming my lap (or am I supercooling my laptop?) trying to remember what I was dreaming about.

Like a roller coaster or suspense thriller, I have the emotional impression that I would have really liked the dream. Pity.

So, I have been using LMDE64 for a while now and have one issue... power management. It would seem that it does not seem to really like waking up from being suspended if I had a number of tab open in chromium.

Because suspending and waking seems to be fine when I only have e-mail open, or something like that, I am suspicious of chrome behaving badly when all its threads get tucked away. Twice, once on each of two computers, this did happen.

Now, I know what you windows users out there are thinking; "Only one 'lock up' per machine in over two weeks? Wow!"

No offence.

But yeah. I mean, Chrome is not Debian's responsibility, nor is it Mint's, but hey, it seems to be a condition that I have witnessed. And two occurrences is not enough to definitively call it a bug, but I am keeping an eye on it.

Take Care-
LQ

It's Friday + a dream

Well, part of a dream - but I'll get to that later.
First:
Yeah, there have been updates to LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) and so, and all the groovy updates promised. The big one I am waiting for is the 64bit release.
I mean, am I wrong or will this require a new iso? Everything else, yeah, great, I can get through updates. Well, not exactly everything. They said they made improvements to the installer, so I need to run the installer if I want to check them out.

So I am waiting (kinda) patiently for the new 64bit iso of LMDE. But I will be all excited when it is out - probably blog all about it and stuff.

Second:
As some of you are well aware, my - er, Dad's - house plays holiday host for the holidays. People were over for Thanksgiving, and typically we get everyone again for Christmas-New Years. Yup, that's right, a week+ of "house guests."
Every time, I work hard to make sure the house is ready for everyone. Then Mum comes and re-does it all - like it was her house. So, "Why do I do it, knowing this?" you may ask. I just have to. If for no other reason than when Mum comes and moved things, there are not those "clean" spots where things were, you know? Everything is clean before she touches it. Then I have to re-clean after they go to, uh, get "them" off things.
I am doing something different this year. I am completely rearranging the house full stop. Totally mixed up the chi or whatever. Couch - over there. Radio - there. Book case - (unloaded) over there (reloaded). Etc, etc. Even the kitchen is all rearranged.

The point of all this? To change things so radically that Mum will actually _notice_ that I am taking care of it. This is still a work in progress, so we'll see how it goes. It may backfire on me and drive me nuts. Oh, and for the record, yeah, I even am doing the bedrooms.

And, third:
Before I get to the actual "dream" part of this, you gotta know the setup.
In the past, I have had (bad) dreams about waking up next to Dad in bed and (bad) dreams about waking up next to him in bed that felt so real that I ran screaming into his room waking him up with a hockey stick. Being a bit of a sleep walker, I have actually woken up in Dad's bed, being... uh... poked in the back of the leg by him*. That was a fright and he ended up getting kicked in the face before things settled down.
[edit: I should clarify that he was /sleeping/ when this happened, eh? Not his /fault/.]
Also, Amy shares my bed when everyone is over for the holidays. So, I am not completely unaccustomed to waking with someone else in bed. Now, on to the dream:

In the dream, I was dreaming about everyone being here for the holidays and having Amy around. Then, in the dream, I dreamed I woke up rather peacefully, just stretching in the sun-warmed sheets, face down and feeling the still-fresh linen against my skin. I was quickly and calmly aware of the weight of someone next to me, my skin against their smooth skin. I could feel the rhythm of their breathing and it was comforting. I kept my eyes closed against the persistent, bright sumer sun. I felt the curves of their - of her body and knew she was on her back; slight curve of breast against the my ribs. My skin felt cool against her warm body, soft and tender. I smiled from the comfort of it all as I finished my stretch then rolled to my side, away from my bedmate to look at her face. The scent was so familiar I could picture the form before me before I opened my eyes and found...
Claire.
That startled me awake for real. I should have known it was a dream from the light. There was too much light. Sunrise it not until like almost eleven. I had been expecting (in my dream) for it to have been Amy, so familiar and comfortable. I really believed my dream was real and Amy was next to me. I just knew it. Then to open my eyes and find Claire - I was instantly bombarded with new, Claire scents and rhythms. And that /light/. It was on the other side of Claire from me (well, no, it was all around such that the only things I could see were myself, the bed (and beddings) and Claire) and the light wrapped around her so tightly that I could only see her face - my mind filling in the rest of her from memory, vague and incomplete. At least she was smiling at me.

That was yesterday morning - Thursday. It kinda occupied my thoughts, leaving me lost to this distraction most of the day.
You know when you have an "off" day, right? And you can tell things are just not going the way they normally do. So, at fencing, I am off my game. Completely distracted. One guy who doesn't really beat me... doesn't really get touches on a normal day... beats me - twice - and starts talking to his buds about how much better he is because now he is better than me. He had extra toast with breakfast, and now he is better than me, so he is going to have extra toast before tournaments. He put on his right shoe first this time, so he is better than me and will now always put on his right shoe first. Some such nonsense.
On the other hand, the other, the really good fencers, are actually /more/ annoying. "Hey, there were a couple of opportunities in there you missed, thank goodness." Or, "Oh, my, I thought you were going to get me there... You normally get me with those." Etc, etc. Yeah, they could tell I was off my game, but they were trying to /help/. Even Coach started trying, but my mind just was not in it. I tried meditating, but oddly, it did not help.

Sheehs.

So, this is probably a fairly frustrating post for some of you. It touches on Linux, Family, Dreams, Fencing... if I... Oh, I think I will...

Here are the first fifteen tracks in my current playlist:
[0/2680] Lily Allen - Everything's Just Wonderful (03:29)
[1/6901] Book Of Love - I Touch Roses (Long Stemmed Version) (05:46)
[2/6891] Book Of Love - Late Show (03:38)
[3/3300] KT Tunstall - Hold On (02:58)
[4/3209] Katharine McPhee - Over It (03:35)
[5/3294] 32+-+KT+Tunstall+-+Hold+On.mp3 (02:47)
[6/6946] Everything But The Girl - Letting Love Go (04:46)
[7/6939] Everything But The Girl - Driving (04:00)
[8/4235] Yaz - And On (03:12)
[9/5702] Garbage - Wicked Ways (03:44)
[10/5660] Garbage - Cup Of Coffee (04:31)
[11/3221] Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl (03:00)
[12/3299] KT Tunstall - Funnyman (02:56)
[13/6902] Book Of Love - Boy (Extended Mix) (04:29)
[14/3121] Gabriella Cilmi - Einstein (03:40)

Oh, Mercy... somethings in that list should be omitted. :blush:

I just finished reading The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade. It was a good and light teen candy book. I have these "Candy Books" that I read from time to time. Most are Teen, or YA books, but they are fun without having a lot of weight, you know? Why I Let My Hair Grow Out, The first HP book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, In the Stone Circle, the first Twilight book (Uh, I guess that would be Twilight) and about anything by Meg Cabbot. I mean, there are other "light reading" books I have and like and whatnot. The Pern Series, some Piers Anthony, Dresden Files, Girl Vs Evil and whatnot. But these are not like my "deep reading" like Time Travelers Wife, or Never Let Me Go, etc.

Okay... lots of topics to post for one day. Have fun...

LQ

Friday: Back to Linux Mint 10 RC

Hi, and welcome to Friday.

As far as moods and disposition goes, this was not a good week for me to have been messing about with OS's. There are times when I am in a much better frame of mind for Slackware based distros.

Most of my "grief" came from three simple things, but there was more to it than just these:
1) Virtual Box & Guest Addition display drivers
2) Package management
3) I'm an idiot.

So, it went something like this.
I was running Linux Mint Debian Edition, but the RC for Linux Mint (Main~Gnome) 10 which has a lot of cool new features on the mintMenu in particular. And, it is available in 64bit.
Okay, great. Got it installed. Got Rosetta@home going again. All was good.
Well, while going through all that, I was thinking to myself... I wonder what Zenwalk has gotten up to lately. I mean, we are talking about a virtual machine, right? I stayed up on LM10 the whole time. No problem.
So... yeah.
First off, Zenwalk Core is great for a number of things. I mean, the file server here (an old 333Mhz Pentium got mercy's sake) that I built up scraps (with Dad's help - it was my first computer assembly) is still running Zenwalk Server for about four years now. Very stable, but anyway.

One of the things I like about it is it is really easy to switch from init 3 to 4 and back. (console environment to graphical environment) This is a good thing because I needed it. I just could not really get Xorg configured. It wanted to use nothing but the vesa driver and stuck me in 800x600 in stead of 1280x800 and the mouse integration never really worked right.
Going on the supposition that these were VirtualBox issues and all this would work fine in a "real" installation, I decided to set that aside and have a look around - the real purpose of the exercise. Well, the package manager - netpkg was not too bad. I mean, I am spoiled to Mint's updater and whatnot, but I could work with netpkg/zenpkg. It is better than it was four years ago when I set up the file server. But you kinda have to know what package you are looking for. There are plenty of resources for looking around the interwebs for package names, then hope that netpkg can find it out there. I mean, I did get the kernel headers installed so I could install the VBGuestAdditions. It was livable. Zenwalk is very pretty, but I do not want to settle. If I really wanted a MAC, but did not want to pay for it, I could run ZW and install everything under the sun and be happy, I suppose.

Quickly, I just went back to LMDE, but I could not get it to install. I got kinda frustrated with that because I _had_ installed it before.

So, I looked at Absolute. It too is slackware based. And kinda pretty. I had kinda tested it out in the past, but as soon as I saw that I could not just run it in VBox out-of-the-box, I moved on because I was looking for something kinda specific at the time. So, install again.
It had a nice little "Here is what you can do now" welcome message. Google Chromium was installed out of the box as were some other things I use and others I don't. Typical.
During the install, it prompted to create a root password, but did not have a step for setting up the user. Here in the welcome screen, the message was something like this:
Here is where I am supposed to tell you that you should create a user for yourself, but I don't because I need root for everything because the only things I do on this distro need root access and I do not want to su or sudo and keep having to type the password over and over.

Well, 1) sudo can be set such that one does not have to enter the password every time. It is not as secure, but better than running around as root all the time. 2) I suppose that is fine when one is the only person to use the computer or everyone using it is just going to all use the same ID. Whatever.
So, okay. I could just set myself up my user account and configure it the way I want - I hardly have to subscribe to the author's policies, right? I *see* where he is coming from, but I just don't go there myself. No biggie. Moving on.
I downloaded all the kernel source and started building modules and installing the guest additions. Pfft - same thing; 800x600 and no mouse integration. Oh, and no mounting host shares. That is definitely a show stopper... ish.
Then it comes to the package manager - yeah, right. Search the web, find the package its self, install it. Okay... this really is fine for plenty of situations. I can really see jumping into this methodology really easily. Especially in an IT type environment where you probably have a file server with all your packages on it and can just mount your share, get to your own little custom repository and pick and choose.
BUT, if I was doing that, I would probably just run SLAX, you know? This just does not suit my current mission. Maybe when I am setting up something where that would be more appropriate, then that would be more... well, appropriate.

Now, a few things about the installers. What ever happened to letting me use more than one drive for the install? No... What drive would you like to install this on. Pick one and I am going to ignore the rest. This is fine for some things, but I want to go through this setup during installation and not have to revisit it after the fact. I want swap on a disk all its own. I want to choose where my home gets mounted - on its own drive. Putting /media in its own partition has its purpose too. Sure, I can add them later, but during install really is when I want to do it. After install, I just want to get the extra packages I need, remove the ones I don't and get to work, you know? Not the end of the world, but I feel like this was a bit of a step back in the evolution of linux installers. (Sure, someone is going to read this and think to themselves - hey, if she had just done it this way, or that way, everything would have this or that. Did I mention that I was not in the proper disposition for doing this stuff this week? Maybe later. It's virtual, I can pick it up again when I feel more like gettin' teckie wit' it.)

So, I go back to my good old Mint. What is this? I had not reset the environment back to 32 bit when I was installing LMDE! Oh... I am an idiot. But, well, I am installing 64 bit now, so no problem.

I put the VM back to Linux Mint 10 RC so I can track it until the release comes out and see if I want to install it on my laptop, or stick with the debian.

Frame of mind? I had kind of had a few setbacks when I kept blacking out during the Zenwalk tests. I would be in the middle of something, then the next thing I would know, I would be doing something else, somewhere else and have no idea where the past few hours had gone. A major setback in the trying-to-get-things-done department.

Now, all that is set aside for now and I am back on my laptop. :sigh: Comfy.

Thanks, take care, and happy Friday!

Oh, is this a Friday again?

I haz a Friday.

Well, lookie her.  Apparently I found the way to boost site traffic:
Talk about all kinds of weird and popular stuff.

Like, I could probably look at what the latest top google searches are on, and just talk about all of them.  Presto - my blog would show up among all the other completely useless and irrelevant search results.

Well, only useless to those searching for one of those popular search keywords.

Oh, was that it?

No, I haz a Friday.  No, sorry; a Fridai.  No... uhg.  I never did get the hang of that.

But, instead of talking about all the hot films, songs, tv shows, I am going to talk about...

*queue the dramatic music*

LINUX!

Let's hear it for the penguin.

I have been using LMDE (LinuxMint Debian Edition) for a while and am _really_ happy with it.

I am not going to bad mouth Ubuntu.  I mean, it is popular for a reason.  I do not know what that reason is (kidding) but it has its merits.  I mean, (shudder) even Micro$loth Windoze has its merits, and it is, like, at the bottom of the OS gene pool, eh?

So, what I really need to do is convince the peoplz what be that making a 64bit LMDE is worth while.

Constant updates?  Sure!  I like getting the new toys.  I like keeping my personal unit right there on the immediate up-to-date.  Risk?  Well, I have to justify my back-up paranoia some how, eh?

Ah, yeah, Dad, I really do need that 5TB NAS... for backups.  I am pulling testing/unstable packages every morning!  =^_^=

So, it looks around here I lot like this:
LMDE on my netbook  (Acer-one.  64bit cpu, dual core, 1gb ram.  Yeah, even with the wireless and the flash.)
LM Isadora Main 64bit on "our" workstation.  (This is the one we run all the virtual machines on.)
Zenwalk server on the file server.  Yeah... only very stable packages there.

So, there you have it.  A Friday post on Friday.

Take Care!

Woo! Hoo! I have sarcastic enthusiasm!

Well, it is not raining, drizzling or misting today.  That is good.  I can ride my bike without getting wet.

Except for sweat, but that is different.

It is warmer today too.  I wonder if it will last.  I suppose I could look at the forecast, but I hate to spoil the surprise.

Fiddlesticks.  It may rain later.  (Yeah, I peaked.  No, peeked.)  Not a big chance though. Maybe I will be in the 70% that it misses.

Anywho-
It is Tuesday, not Friday.  I have nothing all that special/important to say - except:
LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) is out.  32bit anyway.  I am running it in a virtual box for now.  I am not entirely sure that I want to go back to a 32bit OS, but... does it really matter that much? I have never been a huge fan of Ubuntu - but put up with it because Linux Mint is teh awesome.  So, I am excited (on the inside - deep down where the nerdy me lives.)  I mean, I think I like slackware even better, but that is mostly because I like my little Slax USB drive so much.  (Especially at public terminals.)

It is installed (VBOX) but I have not really played around with it much.  Okay, any.

So, if you are into that sort of thing, try it out.  If not, oh well.

Take care.  I think I am going back to bed now.

Oh, hey! It it Friday!

I have not been so excited about something that I read about on the interwebs since... I don't know when.  Days maybe.  No, weeks, surely.

Check it out: Linux Mint re-evaluating a Debian dist!
(happy-happy)
Yeah, I am typing "happy-happy" with a straight face.

YES! I will absolutely be testing that out.

(Okay, so, maybe I would be even happier with a Slackware based dist, but hey - I am not the one doing the work.)