The Myth of the Operating System Install

I would like to take a moment to discuss a serious issue and that is this:

Operating Systems are hard to install.

Unless you are dealing with a libc6 issue or installing Gentoo onto a 16TB SCSI server server, you will not run into big errors installing your OS. Below is a basic quiz on XP/Ubuntu/OSX. More complicated installs, will of course be more complicated. DUH! However, for the most part, most grandma users will not be running 5 partitions on their hard drives, so let’s look at this. Which OS installer asks you to do the follow:

Read and agree to an EULA.

Choose partition and filesystem.

Select region and language from a dropdown menus.

Select your keyboard. Hit Enter.

Name your computer something snazzy such as ‘POWERRANGERS’. Note: You may NOT use that as your computer name, I already took it. .

Setup admin/user passwords.

Select date/time.

Click FINISH.

This is a fundamental issue that bothers me to no end. At the very core of every OS, they all do the SAME thing. The difference, and the fun, and the reason why people stick a PARTICULAR OS is not what it can bring to the table in terms of world shattering innovation, but the IMPLIMENTATION with which it approaches OS issues that matters. On the levl of Firefox, or Pidin, or editing a picutre, NOBODY worried about IRQ or the 4th layer of the OSI model. That is not for the average person to consider or contemplate. IF they want to learn, and discuss such matters, there are plenty of places to learn about such matters.

Watching youtube videos however, wont change much better WIndows and OSX. And it shouldn’t. So when I hear people say ‘Installing Linux is hard’ or ‘OSX is so stupid’, I have to stand back and disagree with these statements.

goodbye.

Dear lazywebs: how to start/fix KDE?

First of all: a big THANKS to everyone who talked to me regarding my last ‘Dear lazywebs’ post. Now I have a new issue i can’t solve.

I have an ibook g4 machine running Debian Lenny PPC. Mainly I use it as a backup system for files, etc. My issue seems to be that I cant start KDE.

’startx’ goes to a gray screen, and I can see the general outline for my mouse, but not much more than that, and the system doesn’t boot beyond there. The same goes for trying ‘X’ in a bash shell.

I would like to fix this, and/or provide more information and what is going on inside the system, but I dont even *know* how to start to diagnose this issue. KDE has treated me so well, it is not often that I need to fix anything in it.

Thanks!

-eddie m.

dear lazywebs: help me fix the internet

Hello all, maybe you can help me fix a problem with webbrowsers on Kubuntu Hardy Heron.As far as I can remember, the trouble all started 3 days ago or so.

When I go to start Firefox, it idles (meaning that the ghosty looking firefox icon starts on the panel) but never starts. If I try to open up 12 instances of firefox, maybe one or two windows might open. But most of the time, nothing opens. When the window goes open to The Google (which is a hilarious joke for everyone counting), it freezes and i have to do a hard ‘killall firefox’ for it. Just an fyi, even if the firefox window doesn’t open the process is seen running when i check htop or run ps aux | grep firefox.

I did a sudo aptitude purge firefox, and then I tried to ‘apt-get install firefox’. This resulted in
being told that the program is already installed. Sweet!

I tried to remove firefox using Adept, but the icons still appeared on my computer. And then I tried to run them, they tried to start up, as described above, but died epicly. So i had tried apt-get install firefox and it ‘installed’. mysteriously.

When I try to run Epiphany, it tried to open up and then it crashes. Great.

any and all suggestions are welcome, I just want to use a webbrowser on my home desktop again. konqueror’s inability to handle the websites I visit is very tiring and annoying.thanks all!

Chicago Hardy Party, part 2

Hi All,

As a way to celebrate the efforts of all of us during the Hardy Heron release cycle we’ll be gathering at the Goose Island Brew Pub (1800 N. Clyborn, Chicago, Illinois) this coming Saturday, April 26th.  The release party will start at 2pm, and we have the room reserved until 6pm (one hour later than previously indicated).  You do not have to be 21 to part-ay at this part-ay.  It will be a family-friendly affair unless someone brings a bunch of skateboards and large boomboxes. Note: very likely to happen. Although at that point, fiasco is more likely to be the applicable word than part-ay.

Please come hungry.    We will be able to order food from Goose Island’s bounteous menu, and may also request and consume one or more of Goose Island’s ‘ultimate drinkability’ beers or finely crafted sodas.  This is good stuff.  Charlie Trotter comes here for tips on how to make good Buffalo Burgers and Wolfgang Puck has been known to inquire about how they make their vegetarian chili.  That is what I’ve been told.

For those individuals who may be using pre-civilization technology (i.e., something other than a Hardy Heron release – ha ha . . .  I kid, I kid . . .), We’ll also have a set of K/X/Ubuntu Hardy Heron CD’s available to help upgrade your laptops to the latest 8.04 release of 8.04 awesomeness.  (Just please be sure to back up your data beforehand if you wish to upgrade your machine at the partay.  Upgrades and beer/soda don’t always go well together.)

Some folks are RSVP’ing on the wiki (thanks!) but if you don’t have a wiki account, just let us know and I’ll add your name to the list for you.  For others, the wiki is here:  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ChicagoTeam/Meetings As my mom used to say, RSVP yourself before you wreck yourself. ubuntu-us-chicago@lists.ubuntu.com

The Hardy Heron development cycle has been a good one, so let’s celebrate our efforts!  I look forward to seeing everyone there.

-Eddie Martinez via Jim Campbell’s announcement to the Mailing List and a blatant copy and paste…

GTk+python+pyroom fix

After talking to Steve Langasek in #ubuntu-devel, he came up with this fix. Thanks alot Steve! We did a check on the python-gobject:

chagas@morphea:~$ apt-cache policy python-gobject
python-gobject:
Installed: 2.14.1-2ubuntu1
Candidate: 2.14.1-2ubuntu1
Version table:
*** 2.14.1-2ubuntu1 0
500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
chagas@morphea:~$

Here is what is important. This is the check on the python-gobject package after updating to 2.14.1-2ubuntu1. So if you are having trouble running Pyroom and getting the same errors that I was getting on my previous blog entry, try updating the package.

-Eddie M.

JDarkRoom

Ive been trying to install JDarkRoom for some time now, and it just wont work me. I downloaded Version 12 and tried the following command, per the documentation:

java -jar JDarkRoom.jar

Instead I get this nice big of feedback from the terminal:

chagas@morphea:~$ java -jar JDarkRoom.jar
Starting JDarkRoom…
Locking assertion failure. Backtrace:
#0 /usr/lib/libxcb-xlib.so.0 [0xb7cc7767]
#1 /usr/lib/libxcb-xlib.so.0(xcb_xlib_unlock+0×31) [0xb7cc78b1]
#2 /usr/lib/libX11.so.6(_XReply+0xfd) [0xb53bf29d]
#3 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/xawt/libmawt.so [0xb54c28ce]
#4 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/xawt/libmawt.so [0xb549f067]
#5 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/xawt/libmawt.so [0xb549f318]
#6 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/xawt/libmawt.so(Java_sun_awt_X11GraphicsEnvironment_initDisplay+0×2f) [0xb549f61f]
#7 [0xb5c61ecd]
#8 [0xb5c5aedd]
#9 [0xb5c5aedd]
#10 [0xb5c58249]
#11 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so [0x621c40d]
#12 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so [0x6310378]
#13 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so [0x621c2a0]
#14 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so(JVM_DoPrivileged+0×363) [0x6272153]
#15 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/libjava.so(Java_java_security_AccessController_doPrivileged__Ljava_security_PrivilegedAction_2+0×3d) [0xb7c7396d]
#16 [0xb5c61ecd]
#17 [0xb5c5ad77]
#18 [0xb5c58249]
#19 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so [0x621c40d]
java: xcb_xlib.c:82: xcb_xlib_unlock: Assertion `c->xlib.lock’ failed.
Aborted (core dumped)

I remember reading a blog somewhere about JDarkRoom and Planet Ubuntu a while back, but I can’t recall the author’s name. Any and all help is appreciated in helping me install and run this program.

Edit: Bernd Niederberger dropped a comment on my blog and suggested I drop this into the terminal:

chagas@morphea:~$ export LIBXCB_ALLOW_SLOPPY_LOCK=”true”

I ran the previous and java -jar JDarkRoom.jar command from above and now I have this:

Full-screen mode not supported. Please consider upgrading your version of Java, or using JDarkRoom on a device that supports full-screen mode.
Thank you for using JDarkRoom. Have a nice morning!

I believe there are instructions on the main page for fixing this on the main JDarkRoom page, so I will return to hunting.Thanks Bernd!

-Eddie M.

Ubuntu on Schools?

I sent the following email to my school’s Office of Technoly Services (here: OTS) about their partnership with Dell, Inc. and the  lack of Open Source love I found on their end:

I’m looking for information regarding the IIT parternship with Dell, Inc. Specifically I navigated to the Dell website through the OTS link and searched through the laptops. In searching through the laptop/notebooks, I was unable to find any option to change the Operating System, a major point for me as I am an Ubuntu Linux developer. It is fact that Dell has been selling Ubuntu Linux Laptops for almost a year already (see: http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/05/01/13147.aspx) and I would like to speak with someone about ordering an Ubuntu laptop through the IIT/Dell partnership. I have as of yet been unable to find any information on the Dell/IIT OTS website as to the proper authority on this issue.

Thanks for the time,

-Eddie M.

That is where the email ends. If anyone has any experience on this issue, or knows of a proper contact, please let me know. Thanks!

KDE4!

Welcome to the K….

-eddie

Virtual Box Kubuntu Gutsy Install Attempts= Fail

Any and all suggestions are appreciated and I’ll input them to the post.

darkforce@speculum:~/Desktop$ sudo dpkg -i virtualbox_1.5.2-25433_Ubuntu_gutsy_i386.deb

[sudo] password for darkforce:
(Reading database … 132072 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking virtualbox (from virtualbox_1.5.2-25433_Ubuntu_gutsy_i386.deb) …
dpkg: error processing virtualbox_1.5.2-25433_Ubuntu_gutsy_i386.deb (–install):
trying to overwrite `/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/misc/vboxdrv.ko’, which is also in package virtualbox-ose-modules-2.6.22-14-generic
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
virtualbox_1.5.2-25433_Ubuntu_gutsy_i386.deb

Christmas is Cancelled

x-Mas is not available for Linux.

proof

-Eddie