Ganesh Venkateshwara writes about his experiences with Apple hardware and software on the iBook G4 and his eventual migration to Ubuntu Linux.

Out of enthusiasm and out of sheer curiosity, I wanted to own an Mac. So I got one, not a shiny new one, an old, but an equally shiny white, iBook G4. After about 5 months of continuous usage of the default OS that came with it (OSX 10.3 aka Panther), I bid it a farewell.

Full post at: http://tovganesh.blogspot.com/2009/05/who-ate-that-byte-of-apple.html

yeah, I actually did this a month or so ago. I started on my laptop with Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10 and then reinstalled everything to get Hardy Heron 8.04. To get KDE 4.0 I first installed the Kubuntu Desktop using this command in terminal:

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

then, after booting into Kubuntu and trying it for a few weeks, I installed KDE 4.0 (or Kubuntu’s version of that) by using the Adept Manager (Kubuntu’s version of Gnome’s (ubuntu’s) Synaptic Package Manager) and doing a search for kde4.

First, though, you have to add this line to your sources list:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu hardy main

(don’t forget to reload your sources afterwards!)

I actually installed several packages which came up, but all you need is one, which you can install through the terminal with this command:

sudo apt-get install kde4-core

I am very happy that my little blog is now aggregated on Planet Ubuntu Users.  I am sad that my first post is about getting rid of Kubuntu in favour of openSUSE.  I was pissed off at Kubuntu at the time of writing that post, now that I have calmed down I may change my mind.

I had tried to get on PUU a month ago or so but was not accepted because I had sent a picture of the back of my head instead of a proper hackergotchi.  I was to lazy busy to create one, so yesterday I finally decided to do it and try again.  I am glad that I did. There are lots of how-to’s on the ‘net you can follow that can help you if you don’t know what to do, I used Nicu’s How-to as a guide.  I was going to write a how-to on using gimp but there are so many of them already I decided against it.

While I was looking for a picture of myself to change into a hackergotchi, I decided to change two of my computers desktop backgrounds.  The first one is “kramer”, my laptop.

The second one is “babu”, my eeePC.

I’ll leave you with that.  The next post should have more substance.

I removed Kubuntu 8.04 KDE 4 remix and installed openSUSE with KDE 4.  My first impression was:  Wow this looks great.  OpenSUSE looks very polished compared with Kubuntu.  Everything works as it should,  I am impressed.  I have been using it for a few days and I was thinking off going back to Kubuntu because I know it better and can get things done faster with it until today.  On my Kubuntu box with KDE 3.5.8 I can’t get my Kafeine player to do anything.  This bug only affects Kubuntu, why?  I tried every fix I could find on the net, nothing works.  OpenSUSE works, why not Kubuntu?

I decided to keep openSUSE 11 KDE 4 on one box, Ubuntu on the laptop, Ubuntu on the eeePC and on the last box I’ll be getting rid of Kubuntu 3.5.9 and going with something else.  I am debating between GoblinX and Elive.  Both of them have new releases this week and I have been waiting for both of them to try them out.  One of them will be left on a computer for longer than a few days, I don’t know which one yet but I will find out pretty soon.

I really like Ubuntu they have a fine product but I cannot use Kubuntu anymore or until Canonical decides to put more resources towards it.

I have written about browsers before. Now that I am using the newest versions of Ubuntu, it is time to speak about them once again. In Ubuntu Firefox 3 beta 5 is the default web browser. Before I updated my Ubuntu computers I was using epiphany. The reason I was using Epiphany because I found it faster than Firefox and less memory use. The only issue I have with Epiphany is less extensions than Firefox. I had run the Betas of Ubuntu and had freezes and crashes both with Firefox and Epiphany. When I did a fresh install of Ubuntu on three computers, I decided to give this newer version of Firefox a chance. After two weeks I’ll be going back to Epiphany. Firefox still freezes and I prefer the feel of Epiphany, maybe I’ll go back to Firefox once they are done testing it and are in the official release.

In my Kubuntu installs I am using Konqueror. I had said that Konqueror is slow. Not anymore, Konqueror is faster than anything I have tried. I don’t know what the did but it worked. I do have issues with the KDE 4 version on Konqueror, such as not being able to play streaming audio. I have no such problems with Konqueror in KDE 3.5.9. At work I have installed Safari from Apple to give it a go, but I haven’t done any thing with it yet.

I haven’t been using Opera since updating my computers, but as soon as I finish this post I’ll be installing it on the KDE 4 computer and hopefully It’ll have streaming audio working. I’ll let you know.

The Heron was released last week and I haven’t said a word about it.  Well I have a bit busy installing it on several computers. I have installed Ubuntu on three computers. I have installed Kubuntu on two computers, one with KDE 3.5.9 and the other with KDE 4.0.2.  All went well with the installations except for a stupid mistake I made because I was not paying attention.  I accidentally erased a drive containing data that I wanted to save.  I checked of ext2 instead of ext3 on this drive and lost all the information on it.  I was fairly pissed off at myself at the time but there is nothing I can do now.  What is done is done.

One of the installs was for another co-worker and I am glad that I did not have to install Windows again. GNU/Linux is a pleasure to install whilst Windows is hard work to install.  By the end of the weekend I have two more installs to do and then I rest for a while.

If you haven’t tried Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Mythbuntu/…buntu now is the time.  It is a great distribution.

Dramatic title?

Perhaps so, but KDE 4 development seems to be following this paradigm to the fullest — enough to make Stephen King proud!

KDE 4 has a laudable goal of revitalizing the internals, making the underlying framework robust and extensible. This is a reworking of function, perfectly acceptably and a valid developmental goal. KDE 4 also went the bling-bling way of oooh– shiny new interface at the same time.

The result?

It’s a dog’s lunch at the moment, stretching developer resources and skewing schedules. Notwithstanding a grand launch of KDE 4.0 which is ready yet not ready for general consumption (go figure!). After all, we’re real software developers and not language lawyers!

This is not a commentary on the state of KDE 4, but rather on the simultaneous reworking of form and function which resulted in neither being complete for a general use… yet.

Of course, the oft-repeated refrain is… KDE 4 will rock with release 4.1!

Yeah. Right!

Replace KDE 4 in the above commentary with Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows or any but-it’s-going-to-change-computing-forever software system… the end-result is the same!

Thursday after work I updated my laptop from Ubuntu 7.10 to Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron beta.  Everything went fine with the update.  I like the new Clock in which we get the weather and we can add cities from different time zones.  Transmission is the new bit torrent client, I haven’t tried it here But I had used it when I was running Elive on one of my computer.  I beleive that the powers that be who decides which applications should be installed by defaults, should look at Deluge as the bit torrent client of choice.  It is a full featured client and it is easy to use.  About two minutes ago I started using Gnome-do and I like it very much.  It is sort of like Katapult on the KDE desktop.  There are still some bug, like no hibernation on my laptop & Epiphany crashes for no apparent reason.  It is going to be a fine release once all the bugs are worked out.  If you are adventurous install it now but if you want to wait until it is perfected you only have to wait until April  24 2008.

After the seeing how smoothly Ubuntu was updated on my laptop, I decided to update my Kubuntu 7.10 to 8.04 beta.  I already am using the KDE 4.0.3 version of Kubuntu 8.04 so the next step was the KDE 3.5.9 version of Hardy Heron.  This time the update was very painful.  I had to install it from scratch after the update because I could not do anything with it.  Thank God for live cd’s because there were some data that I had not backed up before attempting this update.  From what I have been experiencing Kubuntu is buggier than Ubuntu.  The KDE 4 version of Kubuntu has less bugs from my experience.  Everything will be fixed by April 24th and both Kubuntu distros will be great.

Last week I installed GoblinX on one of my computer and after a few hours experimenting with it I decided that it was not for me.  The only time I could get things done I had to run it as root.  I did not like the fact that I had to run it with this lack of security.  I’ll be using the live Cd thought it has some interesting features like HDremaster.  I also like that I can use what ever desktop environment I want.  I think that GoblinX is designed to be used as a live CD.

I installed Foresight 2.0 for another few hours.  I like the new features in Gnome 2.22, but since I am already using Gnome in Ubuntu I decided to remove Foresight and wait for Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron to try out Gnome 2.22, only a bit more than a month to wait.

I settled with the installation of Kubuntu 7.10. So I now have KDE 4.0.2 with Kubuntu 8.04 Alpha, I am going to use both new releases of Kubuntu when they come out until I can truly say that KDE 4 meets all my requirement.  Well that is it for this installment.

I’m currently checking out the “KDE 4.0 Live” CD that I got with Linux Format magazine last week.

I’m quite impressed, I have to say, although it doesn’t appear to have recognised my graphics card properly as I can only get a maximum 800 x 600 resolution, which is rather frustrating.

Off to try Ubuntu 7.10 Live now on this PC setup.

What have I been doing since my last outburst? Well I formated my Kubuntu komputer with the Hardy Heron alpha KDE 4. I might as well immerse myself in this new desktop environment because in a years time KDE 3.5 should not exist anymore. I know that everything does not work properly since it is still in Alpha release, but all I have to do is wait a few days and the developers will fix what has been broken, thanks guys and gals. Case in point this weekend I updated the system and I lost the sound. I found out that it was the new kernel’s fault and they recommended to boot with the earlier version of the kernel. In my case I got back sound but could not run Konqueror. So I decide to live without sound. On tuesday I updated the komputer and the sound was fixed, Woopie! KDE 4.0.2 is growing on me, like a strange fungus and this will be a great desktop environment in the near future.

Today I updated my OpenGEU computer and this broke two packages. This is the second time that I have broken packages with this Operating System once when it was call GEUbuntu and today. I restarted the computed and now I can’t log on! I don’t have the time to fool around with this so I try to install GoblinX on this computer, the gtkHDIstall is broken so it does not install unless we edit it there is a typo in the code. I fix this and I am installing as I am writing this.

If you have read my last post you will know that I was very pissed off that some schmuck copied my blog without giving me credit for writing it. Now I don’t mind that it was copied and I will allow anybody to copy this blog just as long as I am credited in writing the blog and you must have a link to this blog.

GoblinX is done installing I am booting up, it works! I’ll explore it and tell you about it in a future post because I have a ton of things to do.

Bueno, ésto debería ir antes del análisis, pero ya da igual jeje =D

Tan sencillo como agregar los repositorios e instalar =)

Agregando dependencias necesarias

a) Abrimos la source.list:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Añadimos los repositorios:

## KDE 4
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu gutsy main

Actualizamos los repositorios:

sudo apt-get update

Instalando KDE 4.0

a) Abrimos terminal y tipeamos:

sudo apt-get install kde4-core

Iniciando Sesión con KDE 4.0

a) Reinciamos las X: Pulsamos Control+Alt+Backspace

b) Cuando estemos en la pantalla de inicio de sesión, vamos la botón sesión que hay abajo, y cuando nos salga el cuadro de opciones elegimos KDE 4.

___________________________-

Y ya está, así de fácil =)

Si tenéis algún problemilla con la instalación comentadlo a ver si se soluciona =D

Un abrazo

I did not use my Kubuntu computer for over a week until my previous post on Tuesday. I booted it up and updated it and since there was an update to the kernel I decided to restart the computer. I logged in as usual and the KDE was going through its logging routine and low and behold I am back at the logging screen. I logging again same thing, what the hell? I change sessions to KDE 4.0.1 and I log in properly. I search the Internet to find out if I am the only one with this problem. I find nothing. I have a headache and must go to work. I start downloading GoblinX to try and to have something to write about in this post. I leave everything until I get back from work.

GoblinX is done downloading. I decide to search for a solution to my problem and decide that if I can’t fix it I would try GoblinX. I find a solution. Apparently using Kubuntu is not recommended for English Canadians. The en-ca language pack is what was screwing up my Kubuntu logging. To fix this I had to remove the English Canadian language pack from my computer and everything now works fine.

Now my adventure with my OpenGEU computer. Last week I had lost sound on this box and after 30 minutes of searching I find out that I had to reinstall emodule-mixer and alsa, remove the mixer from the shelf it was one, restart the computer and when the computer was back on put the mixer back on the shelf. The sound was back. After an update on Wednesday I had no sound again. I repeat what I did last week and I have sound again. I hope I don’t have to do this after every updates. I decided that if I have to do this I’ll install GoblinX on this computer.

GoblinX will be installed on a virtual machine this weekend because I am intrigued with it. I’ll let you know about it in a future posting.

Why did I promise to write 4 posts a month one one blog and at least a post a week on another? Damn myself! I have written anything on this blog for so long because I have nothing new to write about. I still have four posts to write. I haven’t really tried anything new since the last time. KDE 4.0.1 is slowly evolving but to be honest with you I haven’t even touched KDE for over a week.

I did reformat the computer that I had elive installed on. Now it has OpenGEU, which for those of you that don’t know is the re-vamped version of Geubuntu. This computer I have been using on a daily base. It is a fine environment for a computer with limited resources. Everything else is the same.

Lo primero que tenemos que hacer es abrir el archivo source.list para añadir un nuevo repositorio a la lista de los ya existentes:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Copiamos el siguiente texto y pegamos al final del documento:

## KDE 4
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu gutsy main

Actualizamos los repositorios:

sudo aptitude update

Instalamos KDE 4.0:

sudo aptitude install kde4-core

Una vez hecho esto reiniciamos el PC y en la pantalla de login, en sesiones, seleccionamos KDE 4.0.

The kickoff menu in KDE-four-oh provides the following options to leave a session:

Let’s say we select Logout. This generates the following dialog:

It’s always good to have a choice, a second chance to change one’s mind. But it does seem slightly overkill asking confirmation for the options selected from the kickoff menu earlier.

While there are definitely valid use-cases for the End Session dialog (such as electing to terminate a KDE session from a Logout plasmoid), it’s just another annoyingly extra step in the workflow from the menu option. Perhaps a good configuration may be to provide an option to skip the reconfirmation dialog in the scenario discussed above.

Ars Technica has a detailed review of the current kde 4.0 release. They are covering the new technologies but also the user experience with the new user interface system plasma.
I think they are right with their resumee.

The level of incompleteness apparent in the 4.0 release has, unsurprisingly, drawn heavy criticism from end users here in our forums and elsewhere on the Internet. Several longtime KDE enthusiasts in Ars Technica’s Linux community are particularly disappointed with the extent to which KDE 4.0 falls short of the promised vision.

I’m excited about the possibilities created by Plasma, Solid, and other new features in the KDE architecture, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they help the desktop evolve. I submitted a handful of bug reports while writing this article; developers responded almost immediately. If their diligence and rapid bug resolution rate is any indication, then I think we can be confident that future releases will meet or exceed expectations.

So I share the opinion with them, that kde 4.0 is for enthusiasts and early adopters. Having solid and innovative technical infrastructure help creating great software. Which I’m sure kde 4 will evolve into.

Förra veckan släpptes OpenSuSE 11.0 Alpha 1 och med den också en ny installerare. Detta bland annat på grund av införandet av Qt4 som är det KDE4.0 bygger på. Alphan har nu KDE4.0 som standard och en artikel på Phoronix skrev igår om den nya installeraren och postade även screenshots på den. Jag själv anser att det ser grymt snyggt ut. Det finns en del bilder att titta på och om man tror att det bara finns tre bilder (vilket jag gjorde först) så tror man fel, för det finns också en andra sida med fler screenshots. Som sagt är det bara första alphan och det är ett par månader kvar innan final release och redan nu ser det otroligt snyggt ut. Vilket jag tror betyder att den riktiga releasen kommer att se riktigt bra ut, om inte bättre – inte bara installeraren utan hela skrivbordet!

Här är ett smakprov:

Det är och har varit en riktig hype angående KDE 4.0 release som skedde fredagen den 11 januari 2008. Sen dess har otaliga recensioner skrivits och några har stuckit ut mer än andra. Någon som jag läser nu är Arstechnica’s recension som verkar visa rätt så ingående hur de olika delarna ser ut och vad som är nytt. Jag har visserligen bara hunnit till sidan 2 där de visar det ny grafiska lull-lullet så jag vet faktiskt inte så mycket mer. Det ser i alla fall riktigt fint ut.

Jag har själv prövat OpenSuSE KDE4 Live CD genom VirtualBox och det finns mycket snygga grejer och finesser jag gillar men det är lite ostabilt än så länge. Dessutom kan jag inte ha allt lull-lull igång då VirtualBox inte klarar av det. Men som någon skrev i någon kommentar någonstans ( ) så är denna versionen egentligen till för utvecklare och för de som vill vara “on-the-edge” (om man nu skriver så?).

Mer KDE 4.0:

• Linux Tech Daily
• Ten Tips for KDE Beginners

Liten fotnot: VirtualBox är ett program som man kan skapa virtuella datorer med. Till exempel kan jag i min Windowsdator skapa en ny dator med hjälp av VirtualBox där jag kan installera ett helt annat operativsystem som i det här fallet var KDE-four LiveCD. Mer info.