Vim and Nano Assignment

ViM is my preferred editor of choice hands down.  Working with our proxy server at work, almost every week I shell in, use ViM to make changes to the config file, restart the process and exit.  That said I use about 1% of the shortcuts in ViM with any regularity.  It was just a few months ago I learned how to search :-/  So the ViM tutor assignment was really great.  It was fun to go through and practice the commands (most of them) that I never use because I don’t know them.  Some are useful, some aren’t especially practical unless you’re a programmer or using ViM to do programming.  Generally, I use the arrow keys to navigate the file, hit i to make changes and use delete to delete characters etc.  Nothing fancy.  I’ll have to try the ViM tutor again to learn some more commands.

Nano is the preferred text editor of my boss so I’m somewhat familiar with it.  I didn’t have any problems manipulating the sources.list file or the bash.rc file.  It was all pretty straight forward.

VM Ware and Command Line Assignment

I started with installing both the server and desktop versions of Ubuntu on my Windows machine.  This was pretty much a cake walk since I had used the VM Ware Player software before (on the same system in fact) to install an earlier version of Ubuntu over a year ago.  I think it was Gutsy.  Both installed without any problems.  I ran an apt-get upgrade on the server and updated all the packages and used the built in Synaptic package manager to do the same on the desktop.  On a lark, I installed the MediaTomb package on the server system.  MediaTomb is a UPnP media server.  Not that I had any media to share on that install, I had used it before on my home server before it was an included package so I had to install it from source and I wanted to see what the latest compiled version looked like.  Not very different but some of the new features, like limited YouTube integration, looked pretty cool.  It’d be nice to have new Italian Spiderman episodes delivered directly to my TV

The command line tutorials were pretty neat.  Most of it I already knew.  There’s not much that was covered that goes beyond what you pretty much need to know in order to use the command line.  There were somethings that were new to me.  Like the magic file.  I knew that there was a file that controlled file extension associations somewhere but since it was never necessary for me to edit I never knew where it was.  That’s pretty much how I learned the command line.  If I need to do something I had to learn pretty quickly where the file was and how to edit it.  It was always by necessity so I never got to learn some of the things that are core to the OS but not something you have problems with on a regular basis.  It’s nice to be able to go back and learn some of the things I should have when I was starting out.

VMWare

I’m excited that for class we’ve got an extended student license to try out VMWare Workstation.  I’m downloading it now.  I’ve tried the player before and it was nice but it’s limiting to only have the player images available to use.  My boss was showing off Virtual Box this morning.

I’m hoping that I can get enough experience with this so I can recommend we move to something like this at work.  Running multiple instances for different needs on the same server would solve some problems I’ve encountered with having to have an OS (Red Hat) for one application and not being able to run another (drupal) because the PHP version isn’t up to date.  I’m just in favor of separating these types of things out anyway so this seems ideal.   I also like the idea of running a sandboxed image of Ubuntu on my Windows machine for web surfing.  Call me paranoid.

Sound is back!

Thanks to this helpful post at Ubuntu Forums

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578&highlight=hardy+sound

Now I can watch Italian Spiderman on YouTube.  Thank goodness.

In the Beginning …

there was the command line.  And it was good.

I’m pretty stoked about reading this book (again) for class.  I’ve always loved Neal Stephenson’s stuff and this short essay (long essay? short book?) is no exception.  Although I must confess I never read Crytonomicon or anything past it.  I have the same problem with William GIbson: once they abandoned the cyberpunk genre they were basically dead to me.  I read Pattern Recognition and didn’t really care for it.  I tried Cryptonomicon and couldn’t slog through it.  But Count Zero, Diamond Age, and Neuromancer I count among my favorite books of all time.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a post about cyberpunk.  In the Beginning was really influential on me when I first read it as an undergrad.  It inspired my first foray into Linux: a failed attempt at installing Mandrake (now Mandriva) on my desktop.  The stupid video drivers didn’t work and after installing and booting I was presenting with a big black screen of nothing.  Intimidating enough that I attempted to load Linux again 4 years later

No sound + no time = No sound

Turns out my quick fix on the sound was quick but it was not a fix.  I have functioning system sounds but no sound through the browser, which is mostly what I need sound for.

I need to sit down and scour the Ubuntu forums for a fix but I’m rather short on time at the moment.  I’ll get to it soon (I hope).

Downloading Ubuntu 8.04

Downloading the server edition of Ubuntu 8.04 for class.  I’m amazed that I’m getting a consistent 200 kb per sec download rate.  It’s usually not that fast here at work.  i guess with all the students gone the network can breath a little easier.

First Post: About Sound in Kubuntu

For the class I’m in (IRLS 671 Applied Technology for the DigIn program at the University of Arizona) we have to download and play with Ubuntu. I’ve been using Ubuntu for 3 years. I run Kubuntu on my laptop, desktop at home and desktop at work. I run Ubuntu Server Edition on my home server as well as a server at work. I know a good bit about Ubuntu and its derivatives but there’s always room to learn more.

I had just upgraded my laptop at home with the latest release, 8.04. It seemed to be doing fine untill I realized I had no sound. Since part of our assignment was to cruise the message boards and find something that interests us so I went there looking for an answer to my problem.

After doing a lspci to find the model number of my sound card (82801G) I performed a search on the forums and I found a couple of posts that appeared related but mostly they were confusing. There are so many discussions going on it’s very hard to filter through, even searching for something as specific as an audio card model number. I was able to find that Ubuntu switched audio support from OSS (Open Sound System) to Pulse audio and that is apparently causing some problems. Going to my Systems Settings -> Audio and manual changing the audio device from “Auto Select” to OSS fixed the problem.

I don’t mind waiting until they solve the bugs with Pulse Audio drivers so long as I can use something else while they do. That (in my opinion) is what Open Source is all about: having choices.