Still Running Kubuntu

Yep, still running it after all these years (20.10 now).  Well, I went over to Fedora for a while, ran straight up Debian for a bit, then back to Fedora, and now back to Kubuntu.  Mainly it depends on which one will run on my laptop.  I Think I've run just about every version they've put out since those early days.

I'm running Brave for a browser, BlueMail and Thunderbird as email clients, because that crappy kmail and associated apps are just too freaking buggy.  I had more trouble just trying to read email, or keep email with that thing than it was worth.

I use KeepassXC for my password DB, and I really like it.  Of course I still use BibleTime and BlueLetterBible for Bible Study along with the books I have online and in print.

I have switched a lot of things off Google, such as email.  Moving that to mailbox.org (which also means I moved my cloud disk storage to there).  I'll probably save off everything from this blogspot location, and move it somewhere else as well.

I've been studying up on Python to do some things at work, and its OK.  I find it deficient in at least one major area, no "switch - case" or "case" (as it's known in Korn shell) ability.  you have to pretty much write it all from scratch yourself.  I'm sure someone has written a module to do this somewhere, but I haven't found it.

I wrote an Errlog manager script for AIX that will check the 2nd line for the date field, and if it's older than 10 minutes (as I have it setup now) it'll build an email to the sys admin group of the last 10 entries, and then on a particular day of the month it'll clear off any entries older than 40 days.

Another one was a Zabbix LLD (Low Level Discovery) script which reports Logical Volume info (such as VG and LV names) which the default discovery rule is deficient in.  Not sure why they don't have that included by default.   This can be important if you name vgs and lvs differently based on their purpose, etc. and want to filter out specific names or just include specific names.  Of course I had to return that info in JSON format..   It's working rather well.

Well, 'nuff of that.  The next post will be about why I left the Southern Baptist Convention once and for all . . . . 

New Kubuntu 8.04

There has been some controversy about the latest version of (K/X)Ubuntu. They decided not to tag the Kubuntu part as LTS (Long Term Support) because of the incoming version 4 of KDE. I think it was utterly stupid considering they'll have to take some kind of stand regarding KDE over every variation of Ubuntu if that is truly their stand. The question I have yet to get answered is "What happens if I add KDE to Ubuntu LTS?" Here's the scenario, I have an Ubuntu LTS install straight from the CD. I add all the repositories, and then decide I want to run a KDE 3.5.9 app. What now? I have installed the KDE libraries, and a KDE app, if KDE was the reason the LTS tag was withheld from the Kubuntu variant then I'm now no longer supported long term on my Ubuntu install. I'm sure a business which has set this up is going to love to hear that. If I were them, I'd go to Mandrake, or SUSE, neither of which would have a hard time supporting KDE Long term.

However, since I have no concern about how long its supported, because I'm at home, I upgraded to 8.04. It was very uneventful. Which, I guess, is a good thing. Except for the fact that it tried to force Firefox 3 beta on me. Firefox 3 is going to be a great browser, you can tell that, just like KDE 4 is going to be a great Desktop environment, but not one of my extensions works with it. Google is especially crappy because they talk big and even at times act big, about open source, but don't really seem to follow through. I think the problem is the childish mindset of the company as a whole. They need to grow up, and realize that you can't just keep jumping from this to that and forget the first part, and not support it because your running around trying to whip up the next "cool thing". Anyway, Google needs to get off its behind and get focused on Firefox extensions that equal in number and quality the windoze only extensions. And, oh yes, I haven't said lately just how much I do not like windoze.

Mom and Dad just recently bought a new Dell, and they want me to transfer every thing over from the old PC. The problem is windoze. I wonder at times just how much money and man hours they put into studying and programming user irritation features. The more exposure I have to virus vista the more I love Linux. Once you get past the pretty face it's ugly to the bone! I've got to bring the new box down to the house so I can get things working, and all patched up.

Ahem, back to the Kubuntu saga. Well, I have tried KDE 4 and it lacks so many of the things I really like about KDE that I am steering clear of it for as long as I can. If they were to force me to upgrade or go to Gnome, I'd get used to Gnome. If I'm going to have to work in a way I don't like them I'm going to snub my nose at those who try to force me to do it, and go somewhere else. Kind of like the Bike Dealer who wouldn't sell me a Bandit. I think KDE 4 was released WAY TOO early, and with WAY too many things not even at that level. Good grief your PIM suite isn't even at 4 yet. I understand that they think they've come up with a "better" way to work, but I like the way my desktop is now, and if they can't accept that, I'll find another environment that will. Not to mention that lately all my appointments created on Google calendar are showing up in Kontact an hour OR MORE, off! Evolution doesn't have a problem, my Nokia N810 doesn't have a problem, and even my virus outlook at work doesn't have a problem, and they are all synced. So, I've been looking at Evolution anyway, 'cause I despise the way Thunderbird handles folders that house lists (it doesn't at all without an extension).

So, I'm now on 8.04 and it looks just like 7.10 although I'm sure something under the covers got changed / improved. Oh, I have noticed now that my WiFi light doesn't light up any more. Oh, my wireless is working fine (using it now) but for some reason the WiFi light on my Dell E1705 no longer shines when connected. Oh, well, as long as it works I don't care. Everything else seems to work / not work just as it did before. I'm about to try the VOIP software and see if any of the sound driver's capabilities have improved. (I doubt it).

Well, talk to ya' later.

Not Interested in $10,000?

Sorry, I know the headline may have gotten you, but somethings never cease to amaze me. According to this link, "not interested in Linux" from ComputerworldUK the reason a Ubuntu Laptop remained unhacked after three days in a contest was because, "There was just no interest in Ubuntu,"! Can you believe that? I can't. If I thought I could take down a Linux box and get 10K for doing it your darn right I'd hack that puppy! I wouldn't care if it was DOS 3.3! Would you? Sounds like to me Microsoft, who hates to have a bad image, cough cough, may have put some pressure on the old boy. Whatever. I know Ubuntu is probably NOT hack proof, OK, but you don't have to start making excuses when its the last OS standing. What bothers me is that non of these so called "Hackers" could hack a Windoze box remotely. If these laptops were configured as they come default, and these hackers couldn't hack the thing remotely, I worry about them. There have been very very few OSes that I can remember that had no known remote hacks. NetWare 5.1 was one (security through obscurity and all :-), OpenBSD (I believe) was the other. If not that BSD it was another of that variant. I've never known (note that word) of a Linux, MAC, or Windoze that was ever that good. So, anyway.

I know, its been a very long time since I've blogged. Everyone thought I had quit. Well, that's because I did, at least for a while. I'm back now. For a while anyway.

(K)Ubuntu 7.04 upgrade

Wow. I like it. How's that for a start? :-D Well, I took the plunge on my Linux Mint running Dell Inspiron E1705 first. Things went smoothly for the most part. I had to keep running the package manager, and refreshing the views to keep getting the things I needed, which was a pain. The Update manager Ubuntu uses has NEVER completed an upgrade for me for some reason. However, its easy enough to fire up Adept, or Synaptic (my favorite) and keep hitting reload and apply until all your updates are downloaded.
Once all the updates were downloaded, and whatever you do don't reboot until they are downloaded and installed, I rebooted and viola, an upgraded system. EVERYTHING worked, except for the Nvidia drivers, which I expected. If you are running an Nvidia card you'll need to download envy 9.2 or later. Do a Google search for "envy nvidia drivers" and you should see the page. The page you want to go to is Alberto Milone's Home page. You'll find the latest updated envy package there.
Once you have downloaded the package uninstall the older version (via adept, dpkg, or synaptic) any older version you may have, and install the new one. Then run the envy command (with either the -t for text based console screen or -g for a xwindows gui) and uninstall the older nvidia driver and then install the latest version. The sound is still bad in some games, and doesn't work for voip (which bites). But, its not bad.

I updated the toshiba, which finally started running again (Thanks to the Lord, who is the ONLY one I can think of that could have gotten in running and so well). I have also updated my main PC with the printer attached. All is well. Feisty actually has turned out to be a nice upgrade. I especially like the newer version of Bibletime (1.62) that is included.

I also installed in on the work IBM Thinkpad to get some things done, and its doing well there too. Except the Airo wireless card still doesn't support WPA or LEAP in Linux.

Some other things I've noticed:
1. The icon feed back on app start up is different. The icon kind of flashes in KDE when you click or double click to start the app. cool.
2. The Guidance Power manager is MUCH better, and has MORE options. Liking that a lot.
3. The Kernel is 2.6.20 which evidently has better support for hardware. The Toshiba can now (actually in reality) hibernate.
4. OpenOffice.org is at the 2.2 version.
5. KDE is at 3.5.6 (which could also be installed on Edgy, but is default in Feisty)
6. On the IBM the screen resolution tool actually worked. Not sure it every really did in Edgy.
Lots of other updates, and updated apps i'm sure. However, the stuff I need and use everyday is what I noticed.
Now to try Beryl or Compiz which ever is better for KDE.

Where you bin?

I know, its been a while. I've been up to a lot of things since I last blogged. I've been playing with some Ubuntu derivatives. Right now I'm running Linux Mint, and lovin' it. I discovered that most of my ills related to Kubuntu, were Kubuntu. I tried two or three of the feisty Herd Cd's only to be miserably affected. Two of the three wouldn't even load a kernel! However, the Ubuntu CD's worked just fine. Weird huh? Anyway, I'm really enjoying playing with a laptop that actually works for the most part. I say "most part" because when I load the proprietary driver for Nvidia the sound goes bad for VOIP software, and 2D games. 3D games have no issues with sound. I think setting up dmix will fix this with the latest versions of alsa, but I just haven't cared enough to fool with it.

I've also started Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University classes. Ardent helped by sponsoring this thing for us, and I REALLY appreciate them for that. St. T would have done well to do things like this. But, that's another story. I'm thinking about posting some OpenOffice.org templates that I've been assured I can share for free, that are the forms used in the class. I have created a template for the Cash Flow Plan, Dumping Debt, and the Basic Budget form so far. I think Dave is onto some things, and I really appreciate his honesty in that much of this he didn't create he just packages it well. :-D. My Wife and I are looking at being out of debt in 2 1/2 years! Not including the house, that is.

Last Saturday, The family got out and cleaned up the Garage, it took us about all day!! I hauled off 2 loads of trash, and forgot to haul off the regular house trash! I have made up my mind that this place is going to get shaped up, or shipped out! I was tired of tripping over things, and not being able to find what I needed. So, we now have more room out there than I know what to do with! This coming Saturday, we're going to work on the rest of the basement! I don't think the kids (or the wife) believed I meant business until we actually started. Now they're worried, because they know I do. When we get done this house will be so much lighter we may have to tie it down! On a very sad note, we had to put our Golden Retriever down due to getting into the habit of biting. I took him off Saturday morning, and spent 60 bucks to get that done. I had such hopes for this dog, and to have it come to this is aggravating at the least. We've invested a lot of time, money, and effort into training, we just missed this thing. So, if you get a dog, discipline him early or life will get hard for you.

Anyway, I guess you can see now that we've been very busy. It seems a lot of things are going on all at once. We're finally over the sicknesses that seemed to get us down over and over again, even though Angela didn't get sick she did get something on her back that has caused some worry. Hopefully as we get our house in order, Spiritually, Physically, and Financially things well look up.

We also found a leak in the Church's water line, just after the meter. We lost 45,000 gallons of water. Can you believe that? We're still trying to figure out where the water went because there is no indication inside the Church, and there is no indication in the ground immediately around the pipes that this much water has been spilled. We're afraid we may be on top of a sink hole or cave. One appeared just down the road, so this isn't far fetched. I hope not.

New Dell Laptop a winner

Unlike the HP AMD 64 bit laptop, everything is now working in the new DELL. I got a E1705 with the Intel Core 2 Duo T7400, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, 17"WUXGA screen, and Intel 3945 Pro Wireless card. I had to completely wipe the hard drive, but thanks to Dell's foresight in packaging a real Windows install DVD, and driver CD or DVD, I was able to install Vista on a 30 GB partition, and allocate the rest to Kubuntu Edgy (Linux distro I use most now). The only issue that remains is that with the Nvidia Video drivers loaded I get a lot of popping and crackling in the sound when I play a video intensive game. I can play DVD's with no ill affect, which makes me wonder what's going on.
I figured out how to get the Intel Wireless card to be up and running by login time. I put two lines in my rc.local file as follows:

ifdown eth1
ifup eth1

and now things work pretty good. I'd like to be able to take this out, but its working, so its not urgent. What I found surprising is that the drivers for the wireless card worked right off the bat in the live cd boot up! I didn't even have to wait for the full install.
Sound works, Video works, and to beat all hibernation works! (well for the most part, last night it never completely shut down for some reason). I'm really enjoying this thing, and I'm looking forward to Feisty going public, as long as I can still print to my brother printer. Brother's Linux support is horrible because its half hearted. They have a full blown CUPS driver for the Mac, but for some reason they are unwilling to put out a CUPS driver for Linux. What gives there?
My next attempt to make Linux really look good will be to install Beryl or Compiz and get the full 3D desktop I've been hearing so much about. I can't remember which works with KDE better at the moment, but I'll update the Blog here when I get that done.

Anyway, the son is enjoying his toy, and Dad is enjoying his, and the house is happy.

NEW Laptop is IN!

YEEEEHAAWWW ! I just had to say it. My new HP DV9000z came in Monday, which is why I haven't put anything on the site. Well, I have EVERYTHING working (well, the wireless works with linxant drivers). I tried every distro in the world, nearly, and some three times, but I finally got Debian testing installed on the thing. I still can't print to my Brother MFC-5840CN printer (if any of anyone who may read this knows how to overcome Brother's crappy Linux drivers I'd love to hear from ya').

Here's generally what I did:
1. I repartitioned the Drives deleting the partition from the second drive and shrinking the XP partition to 30 GB on the first drive. Whatever you do, DO NOT DELETE either the HP Rescue or the XP Embedded Partitions (that's the little hidden Partition at the end of the first drive). It took me 5 1/2 hours to restore everything to get the quickplay back.
2. I installed Debian etch with the Network install CD in text mode using the "noapic iommu=off" kernel switches. This got everything in place. To simplify things I just created an ext3 partition on the first drive filling the empty space for "/" or root, which turned out to be about 32 GB. I then created a 2.4 GB Swap partition (Don't ask about the .4 part I have no idea why I did that) and a /home partition on the second drive.
3. I installed just what the Debian presets were for Desktop, laptop etc. (they were the default selections) and I told it to use a mirror.
4. When all that was done I rebooted into recovery mode, or single user mode, brought up the Wired NIC, and adjusted my sources.list file to upgrade to Sid to get the 2.6.18 kernel (I'll post the link to the guys website who actually pioneered the setup later).
5. Then I did the usuall apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade stuff to get the latest and greatest. Hopefully you have better luck at this than I did initially. Make sure you get the 2.6.18 kernel. Once everything is finished updating, edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file and remove the "noapic" from the load line for the new kernel, and reboot.
6. You should now get a shiney new Login screen GDM style (right now there's no KDE on it to speak of, you'll have to install that through synaptic).

From here you can do what you want. I installed the Nvidia driver using the installer from Nvidia's website to get the full 1680x1050 experience (AND IT IS SWEET!). Do some Googling for HP DV9000z linux and you should generally find all the same sites I did.
My MAJOR disappointments are that there are still NO 64bit versions of many apps. Adobe's Flash is still not available in a 64bit version. Google's toolbar will not install because of Debian's stupid renaming of Firefox to Iceweasel. Ndiswrapper doesn't work because only the 32bit windows driver is installed, if anyone knows how to get ndiswrapper working on this 64bit box, I'd be very happy to hear it, however the linuxant drivers work fairly well.

I'm not sure I'll leave Debian on there now that I know what it takes to install it on the machine. I'd really like to have Kubuntu running on the thing so that it matches all my other boxes, so I'll probably download the 64bit Edgy Alternate install CD, as the 32bit Live CD wouldn't even boot!

One thing I can say, this thing is Fast! So, anyway, I have 30 days on the Linuxant driver, so I'll have to do something quick. I'll keep this site posted.

New Ramblings Laptops and Taxes

Wow, that title says alot. Well I have quite a bit I haven't said anything about lately.
I found a donor for a new Laptop! The US Govt., well the IRS to be precise. I don't know about you, but I like tax time. Always have. I struggle through the year, and pay a little bit too much, so that I get a nice refund each spring. I know, I know, you should set your taxes up so you don't have to pay, or get paid so the Govt. doesn't use the interest for free. Well, I have a theory on that. I believe that there's nothing wrong with letting the Government use my money for free for a year! Sorry about all you greedy, bitter people who are more worried about Government waste than you are your own waist. (Both are expanding! HA!) Anyway, I don't mind them getting to use what little extra I pay in a years time, for the ability to have a nice bonus to start each year off with, do you? I've discovered through looking at various interest rates that money would have earned me, and I found out that I have lost no more than 2 dollars a year. That's right, the MOST, I could be giving up is 2 dollars. BIG WHOOPEE! So, for 2 dollars the Govt. holds my money, and processes my paper work, and gives me a nice Check each year. Not a bad deal I don't think. Anyway, I'm getting enough back, along with what I've saved here, there and yonder, to buy a nice laptop. Now if HP would just ship it. :-D. I'll tell ya' about it when it gets here.

The nice thing about the modern age is HTML and XML, and SSL, and all the other L's that make doing your taxes online possible. I tried Turbo tax, and I tried TaxCut. Taxcut will let you run in Linux, if you setup the browser ID to fake being in Windoze. Turbo Tax will allow you to try to get in, but evidently they do something that's very Windows specific this year. Taxcut was very much a pain, very many things changed since last year, and I could never convince it to allow me to remove them. It was trying to get me to file a Schedule C and all that business stuff. However, we never made any money off of any of the business stuff (and didn't spend any in 2006 to make it worth fooling with on taxes) so I just shut the stuff down. Well, Taxcut never asked me if those things were still valid, never asked me how much I made off of them, or anything. However, considering they were in last years TurboTax file, it was determined to error out on it.
So, I go to Turbotax.com (after booting into Windoze YUK) and it works perfectly neting me an extra 500.00 dollars! It allowed me to clear out all the stuff from last year that I didn't want to repeat this year. Needless to say, as soon as the IRS will let me, I'll be e-filing my return and awaiting a direct deposited refund! Gotta love it.

Now, after ordering the New Laptop from HP ( a very nice one at that with [hint] the AMD Dual core TL-60 64 bit proc) I have the misfortune of having to wait. I know, boo hoo. I can hear you now, "you poor slob", "I'm reaching for ya' I just can't get there.", or "I feel your pain". However, I'm not alone in my misery (it does love company you know) my wife is waiting for the hand-me-down crapshiba I'm using now. She's still got full reign over the AMD 3000+ Desktop, with a 19" flat monitor, but now she'll also have this laptop. I don't know how much of a blessing that will be, but if she avoids using firefox 2.0 on Edgy Kubuntu she'll be fine.

By-The-Way: I found out that Firefox 2 is responsible for all the lockups I've had since converting to Edgy and FF2. I've been running Seamonkey for sometime now, and its running without a hitch. (SeaMonkey is Mozilla's latest Browser suite that replaced "Mozilla" proper, and Netscape). The problem is you can't get the Google toolbar to work, or the Forecastfox add-on to work. I really liked both of them. There is some suggestion on the Kubuntu user list that Forecastfox is actually to blame for the lockups which are caused by run away processes. I don't know, 'cause my browser / KDE session would lockup so fast I could never diag the problem. Another problem was that it would lockup so fast that it would never right any error info to any of my logs. That makes it difficult to figure out. Well, everything is fine now. I may try removing forecastfox to see if that helps any. I think forecastfox is a victim of Firefox's poor add-on handling.

Well, anyway that's most of the rambling. I have also found a fairly cool website for IMing in a web browser: Meebo the IM client. Check it out. Its like GAIM for Linux only in a browser.

Debian Printing

Now I remember why I left debian in the first place. Printing. I can't get my Brother printer to print now that I've switched to Debian. I'd like to rant all over both Brother (and their crappy support for CUPS printing) and Debian (for their non-standard way of doing things). However, neither is going to help me figure out what to do next. I'm thinking that going back to Kubuntu Edgy would be a really good idea, at least my printing worked there. I switched up my partition scheme to what it should have been for a long time. I partitioned off / from /home so that I can completely change out distros and keep my home dir intact. It'll be a sweet day when Linux can live up to the hype of some, and overcome the hurdles others create.
Well, I'm not sure what to do next, I've removed and reinstalled the drivers from Brother to no avail. My printer lights up like its going to print, and then nothing happens. (Kinda like Curly's "I'm trying to think and nothing happens!). Well, I gotta finish getting ready for tonight, despite being more discouraged for some reason than I've been in a long time.

Swapped Back

Well, crow isn't so bad if you put a little ketchup and salt on it.

I finally had to come back and try Debian SID again. I ran Kubuntu for almost a year, which is a record for me I think. There are things I stand by as far as what I've said about a lot of Debian developers being cry babies. The problem is they make the best darned overall distro out there hands down. Especially if you like KDE. With Novell climbing into bed with Micro$oft, I wasn't about to run anything with "SUSE" in the name. The problem is right when I needed to be paying attention the most, Ardent's mail server decided to go all foobar on the SAN drives. I wound up setting on the phone till about 4 in the morning. Not only that, but due to my lack of pay attention, the whole upgrade I was doing to fiesty fawn went so far south I had to format and start over anyway. So, I decided to download the latest etch netinstall CD and try it out again. I'm going to have to do away with this STUPID "iceweasal" rebranded Firefox browser though, because its just getting on my nerves. There are a lot of places you can't do what you want because they only support "Firefox 2.0.x". The problem is that is EXCACTLY what you're running, but they don't know that. So, I installed a Firefox extension called, "User Agent Switcher". What it does is respond to Web Site Queries about what browser you're running. I had to setup my own "User Agent" because who would have ever thought that you'd run firefox and have to fake out a website so that it would know you were running Firefox? Anyway, here's the settings:

description="Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.1"
useragent="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.1) Gecko/20061205 Firefox/2.0.0.1 (Debian-2.0.0.1+dfsg-2)"
appname="Firefox" appversion="2.0.0.1 (X11; en-US)"
platform="Linux i686"
vendor=""
vendorsub=""

The last two I just left blank. I thought about adding "Debian" for vender just to mess with folks. :-D But, I decided not to. Anyway, if you add a custom Agent and fill in the parameters with the above, the sites you go to will think you're running Firefox 2.0.0.1 (which you are).

Other than that things are going well. I have Debian up and running, and mighty fine so far. I used dar to restore the greater part of my home directory, along with unison, which I use to keep my home directory synced up to the main PC here at the house. Now that I've gotten weaned off of kdar (a cool graphical utility that the maintainer gave up on) I'm able to do just what I want via command line. I'll script it all out sooner or latter.

Anyway, looking forward to the weekend, even though I have to go to an Executive Board Meeting at 8:30 am tomorrow. YUCK. I hate getting up early on a Saturday.

May God bless your weekend.

Kubuntu Breakthrough

EUREKA! (No I'm not talking about Vacuum Cleaners). Anyway, I found a combination of software, and settings that appears to have fixed my hibernate problems with Kubuntu and my Toshiba Laptop. (HINT: NEVER buy a toshiba).
Anyway, a hint came from Elijah's Website. I didn't use the software he mentions, but it did bring to mind something I remember from way back. You need a "resume=" line on your kernel load command to enable it to read the old RAM contents back into RAM. Linux uses your Swap file by default. The problem had been that every time I did a hibernate with the powernow or klaptop daemons they would blow away my swap file. Well, Guidance does a nice job hibernating, however, I couldn't get it to resume.
So, here's what I did:

First, I modified the fstab file to do away with those stupid UUID labels (who thought that was a good idea anyway?):
change your fstab from:

# /dev/hda4
UUID=4e7536dd-d4d7-4338-9344-1bb9ae43ed4e / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/hda2
UUID=7792b1a8-17dc-4e15-8232-a2ff3f93a507 /boot ext3 defaults 0 2
# /dev/hda1
UUID=AC07-770A /winxp vfat defaults,utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# /dev/hda3
UUID=0a208f65-e0ca-4fd2-a298-8bb1824d19cf none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0

To:

/dev/hda4 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# UUID=4e7536dd-d4d7-4338-9344-1bb9ae43ed4e
/dev/hda2 /boot ext3 defaults 0 2
# UUID=7792b1a8-17dc-4e15-8232-a2ff3f93a507
/dev/hda1 /winxp vfat defaults,utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1
# UUID=AC07-770A
/dev/hda3 none swap sw 0 0
# UUID=0a208f65-e0ca-4fd2-a298-8bb1824d19cf
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0

NOTE: I didn't delete the UUID stuff I just commented it out, in case I needed it later.

Then edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file and add "resume=/dev/hda3" (If /dev/hda3 is your swap partition) to the end of your kernel load line as follows:

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.17-10-generic
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.17-10-generic root=/dev/hda4 ro quiet splash resume=/dev/hda3
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.17-10-generic
quiet
savedefault
boot

Notice the line that starts with "kernel"? Thats the line you append the resume statement to. To find out which partition is your swap, if you don't already know, go back to your fstab and look for the line that looks similar to this:

/dev/hda3 none swap sw 0 0

the first section (/dev/hda3 in mine above) will give you the device id of the swap partition. By the way, hda is your first IDE drive, sda would be your first SCSI drive (or USB mass storage device if you use one of them). Then the number at the end is the number of the partition in particular. So, /dev/hda would be my first IDE drive, /dev/hda3 would be the third partition on that drive.

Anywhoo, I was able to hibernate successfully once with this setup, but have hence had IO problems. So, consider the above volatile at the moment. I'll keep working on it. I'll test it again here in a little while and make sure it wasn't a fluke.
OH, you may also want to note that I'm working in Edgy, not Dapper or Breezy. (that's version 6.10)

I'm seriously considering going to the next version already. I couldn't have as many problems with that version as I do this one. Whatchya think?

Tired of Fighting P2

Ok, Now that my pressure for other activities has past I want to follow up.

Some year or so ago I used SUSE, and back then, (as I assume now) there was the big argument about MP3 players. Well, I got tired of the argument then too. Here's the rant I never sent to the mailing list:

'<'terribly irritated person beginning useless rant'>'
To be honest I'm getting tired of fighting all this crap. I'm tired of fighting the Linux drivers to keep my network up because I can't use the native drivers without locking my system up. I'm tired of seeing black menus and having to reverse engineer packages to make them look proper, and reverse engineer the icon directories and index files because some extra package decided to blow them away. I'm tired of lame license / legal excuses for not having basic MP3 and DVD playing support. Its not just SUSE its all of them. Linux isn't any better than windows for one simple reason: PROBLEMS are problems even if they are different!
I may not have any viruses in Linux, but God knows I have had a multitude of other stupid problems to fight that I could have avoided altogether on windows. Windows Crashes, but so far I'm not seeing any better on Linux. EVERYTIME I shutdown KDE I get the old crash window that I also have to close. Uptime? Whenever I mention it in a local user group I get excuses (usually related to security and patches) as to why their boxes haven't been up for more than 2 months! Which is no better than the Windows servers I support. Patches? I'm constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY, getting notices from Novell and SUSE about patches, no better than windows there. Cost? My time trying to get Linux running at all is equal to or greater than the time I spend fixing a windows problem.
Someone tell me PLEASE that there is a version and/or distro of linux that just runs! WHY, pray tell, do I have to add a special repository to keep Gnucash up to date on SUSE 10 and cannot rather just download the stupid thing from gnucash?? Why do I have to spend so freaking much time resolving hardware and software dependencies? Last of all, WHY can't I run "setup" to install an application, ANY application? You want to know why people don't flock to Linux? Because its just as time consuming, just as costly, and just as big a pain in the butt as every other operating system!! Just because it don't have problem x doesn't mean it doesn't have problem y!
The real problem here is that I can't stand MS crap, and would LOVE to see Linux do great! I think linux has the potential to make every other OS bite the dust, and is great simply because it gives you choice and freedom. I love it because I can make it what I want, not what some vendor wants for me. Also because I know that many of the hardware (and software) issues aren't
Linux's problem. I know that Hardware vendors will not support Linux fully, if at all, and I know that MS writes crap just so that no one else can work with it. What I don't understand, and what I know is inherent in Linux is the lack of a simple setup executable that prompts me for information and copies the files where I want it. NO I will not accept the HORRIBLY long rpm
commandline to relocate files as an excuse, or "work around" for this lack. I downloaded the citrix client just the other day, and ran install.sh, and guess what? It installed, (ie copied) all the files to the location I specified, and ran. It was a completely distro agnostic install routine! figure that! Why continue to propogate these "package managers" as "cool" or useful? They are neither if you are a software developer!
here's how to fix this:
1. Create a software products repository of some kind (similar to the registry in windows but only for a list of what's installed).
2. Create a software installer that checks that list for things that it needs, asks the user basic questions about where and for who, etc., and copies the files and modifies configs appropriately.
3. Create a central (single) icon directory and icon format that doesn't require a complicated index, and forty subdirectories and voodoo to make work!
4. Create a driver interface api (or whatever the equivalent is these days) so vendors DON'T have to GPL their trade secrets (if its not already there) and a driver install routine that doesn't require making sacrifices on a full moon.
There you have it. The four things I KNOW, absolutely KNOW, will make linux the 21st Century operating system of choice! If someone were to do this Linux would become the OS you could go to Wal-Mart and buy applications for off-the-shelf!!!! Yes I said buy, I don't think its of the devil to get paid for your work. I'm just glad there are highly skilled volunteers who do such
good work for nothing.

'<''/'END terribly irritated person's useless rant'>'

Well, that was in November of 2005. Guess what? Little has changed. KDE has become more stable, and I understand the DVD issues a little better, but little else is any different. Firefox on Edgy in Kubuntu, constantly locks up. OpenOffice.org crashes on occasion just because I logged in! I can't get VNC to work, Wireless is useless on the Thinkpad because the hacked broadcom drivers don't support WPA or LEAP. Some of this is NOT the fault of Linux, or any of ITS programmers. I also know, please don't write ranting on me, that these guys do what the do for free on some occasions. I know too that Sun, Novell, IBM, RedHat, and others pay Open Source developers, so there not all volunteers.
I also want to tip my hat to all those guys who work hard, and aren't whiners. I have read and heard about several of them, and I say may God bless them! However, those who think we should bow to their feet and just live with whatever they put out because they're putting it out for free need a good dose of reality! I don't like using crappy software, even if it is free.

Anyway, enough ranting. My irritation subsided, I'll go back and figure out how to fix my problems.

Oh, I was going to mention Alien.
Here's the deal. Back in OpenOffice.org 1.x there was this GREAT setup routine, that would work no matter what distribution you tried it on. (I used it on Debian, SUSE, and Mandrake). Then Some LOSER at Sun dictated going to package management, and dumping the installer. There was no explanation given, there was no rationale behind it, as I asked several times on the OOo lists. So, now users are required to know how to install with RPM. If you don't use RPM sorry about your luck! The problem with using Alien on something like OOo is that there are several things that just don't get done. Like, Mime type updates, icons for the desktop etc. Not only that but if you use a debian based distro you lose the ability to stay up to date on other dependencies. And, Finally, you have to jump through a hundred hoops read pages of howtos to do something that should be as easy as starting "setup"!!!! WHY DO WE MAKE THINGS HARD ON PEOPLE and then turn around and get mad at them for complaining that we've made it hard on them!?!?! The best justification for this on the OOo list I could ever get was, "its free so you should just be glad you have it." Whoop-de-freakin'-do! I'm sure that'll cause a lot of MS Office users to convert, don't you?