My new toy.

After over twelve years my Palm m130 decided to go to that digital graveyard in the sky.  The battery wouldn't hold a charge, the power button didn't work and the only way I could turn it on was to use a pin in the reset button.  I decided to go with the Google Nexus 7 since my wife bought herself one just before Christmas and she just loves the machine.

I picked up the 16 gig version and I couldn't be happier.  Most of the software I use is free and almost replaces the Palm m130 completely in functionality.  The only thing I cannot find that is free (so far) is a contact manager.  I want one that is very similar to what the palm has in that it records names, addresses emails and birthday/anniversary information in one spot.

The device itself runs a version of Linux and from what I see using it... It is great!  I am now using it as my main machine to pick up Google mail, Facebook and Twitter.  The thing just works and I have not had any issues with it locking up unlike a certain operating system I will leave unnamed.  I also installed Avast as it is only a matter of time before the 'nasties' start making the presence known.  I am using Avast as I have switched us all from AVG at home.  I liked AVG until they made a major mess on this netbook and my main laptop that required me to completely rebuild both machines.

On another note PCLINUX finally put out a 64 bit version of their distribution and I am playing with it now.  I wanted the 64 bit as it would recognize all of the memory in my main laptop unlike their 32 bit offering.  Now all I have to do is figure out how to set up dual boot and use Windows 7 only for a few games and Linux for everything else.  If anyone who has done this for windows 7 please leave me a note on where I can find a 'how-to-do' for this.

Updating my machine

For the last couple of months I have been looking at the various distros that are out there and how they work on my machine here.  The one I really wanted updated was PCLINUXOS so that all of the machines at home run with the same distro.  The 2009.2 version still won't boot on my machine so I had to look elsewhere.  My current distro was Mint 5.

Mandriva just came out with their latest and I downloaded and burned the ISO and gave it a shot.  It looks very nice visually and it detected most of my hardware without a problem.  The only two things were my palm pilot and the TV card which it didn't detect (like every other distro so far).  I then downloaded Mint 7 KDE and gave it a shot.  It was as visually appealing to me as Mandriva and had the same issues with the palm pilot and TV card.  The area it was ahead was that Java was installed automatically (I have to install that on Mandriva) and the ATI card driver was there for me.  I opted to keep with Mint so far and I upgraded to version 7.

One of the bonuses of this is now I have two more CDs that I can then pass out to friends and family when they have more problems with windows. 

It will take a bit of time to get used to KDE 4, but, so far it has not caused me any problems.  Firefox with Java still plays Runescape in HD mode without a problem.  Digikam works fine along with Thunderbird and XSANE.

When I get some time I will try to dig and see if I can get the palm pilot to work.  I thought I saw something about 'VISOR'.  If that doesn't work I really want to get my TV card to work.  I have a lot of home videos I would like to hook up to the input and make into MPG files and have them transferred to DVD for the family.

Update 2009/11/08:

I have moved off of Mint over to Mandriva.  I have been using Mint for a day and I have noticed a few things that make it a bit less usable for me.

1. Runescape log in flickers wildy and it cannot be stopped unless I take HD mode off.
2. The shutdown function at times (about 50%) does not work and the system locks.
3. I cannot access system services to manually define what I want to run.  This is a critical one for me as I want complete control over what is running.  Mandriva allows me to do this.

The first two items may be something that I did when I configured the system, but, so far Mandriva is not doing those things and I will use that for now.

In Mandriva it didn't auto-detect my printer (SAMSUNG ML-2010), but, after going to WWW.SAMSUNG.COM I found the driver, downloaded it and installed.  It wasn't as smooth as Mint, but, it worked and I now have a printer.

Linux and Runescape HD mode

I did a minor update this week for Java and the ATI driver to see if the HD mode in Linux works yet. To my surprise it did and it was very stable. I have been running this for the week and I have not had any problems yet. One more item that I can remove from the list that didn't work well (if at all). The only things now are my palm pilot and TV tuner to get working and everything that works in Vista will work in Linux. The other major item is income tax software that will run on Linux. Once I get all three items to work I can then think about removing Vista from my machine.

On a similar note I downloaded LinuxMint 7 KDE RC1 and I will be burning a CD and testing that out to see how it works. I also downloaded and burned PCLinuxOS 2009.2 and burned it on to a CD. I tested it out on my wife's machine and it looks good and solid. After backing up her machine I will be upgrading her and my daughter's machines. The distro still does not boot on my machine and I will need to take an inventory of the hardware and check out PCLinuxOS knowledge base to see why. I would prefer that all of our machines use one distro just to make it easier for me to support and keep up-to-date.

Linux Mint V6

Since I upgraded to the new box I have been running Linux Mint as PCLINUXOS has a problem with the SATA drive. I downloaded the latest version (V6) and was playing with it for a while. It is much like V5 and works without a problem.

Both versions have a problem with my Palm Pilot and TV, but, the scanner and browsers work without a problem. Playing Runescape (Java based game) works as before. All of the other pieces of software appears to work and the hardware ran without causing any glitches.

I may upgrade my machine later, but, the current version works without a problem and I am really hoping that PCLINUXOS does come out with a version that at least recognizes my TV card.

It has been quiet... too quiet

Not much has been happening here. It is now almost tax time and there are no Linux versions of any tax preparation software for Canada so far. I broke down and picked up QuickTax and installed it on my Vista partition. To say that I am unhappy about this would be a slight understatement. I can understand in a way that companies will cater to the largest segment of the O/S market, but, figure out what has to be anchored to the O/S and what can be independent. If you do that you should be able to market to Linux, OS/X along with Windows and gain a slight competitive advantage by grabbing market share from those of us who use anything but Windows.

On the Linux Distro side I have been playing a bit with KUbuntu. I like the look and feel of it and the latest distro actually booted up on my Dell box. There will be a bit more playing around here to see if

• Runescape will play
• My graphic card can be used to its fullest
  
• TV tuner
• my Palm will work
• Scanner will work (XSANE)
• Web Camera
• Software to organize my photo library
  

KDE 4 looks nice and clean, but, I want more than eye-candy, I want all of my hardware to work to its fullest.

Another little thing and maybe someone out there can point me to the right place. A little while ago I was the photographer at my daughter in-law's baby shower and I took two videos. The camera stored it in AVI format. Linux does not have a problem showing me those, but, they are massive files and I cannot upload 200+ meg videos to facebook to share with the family. I looked quickly at the video editing software, but, I cannot see how I can redo AVI to MPG format and lower the size of the video. I don't want or need 640x480 to show family members some of the funny portions of the part, I just want to be able to share a small, easily downloaded video.

Now about one of my favorite topics, SPAM email. So far this year it has been a minor problem unlike other years (less than 30% spam rate now). However I have noticed the scams have been getting much better. Both for grammar and spelling. When you get a notice that purports to be from your Bank, Insurance Company, ISP wanting private information or to re-enter your security information... DON'T. Never click on any link supplied, but, use the one you type directly into a browser or saved previously in a bookmark. Keep your system up-to-date with all patches, run a virus scanner and have a firewall installed and running.

New hardware

Two weeks ago I went out and purchased a new machine for my work at home. I needed a machine that could handle the workload on digital editing and needed the hardware to do this. I also wanted a machine that could handle the new graphics mode of Runescape which I play on a regular basis at home.

I ended up buying the Dell Inspiron 530. It has 3 gigabytes of memory, dual core processors and 500 gigabytes of disk space and a Hauppauge WinTv tuner. The only thing is that it came with Vista and I really don't want that on my machine. Before wiping the hard drive I loaded the PCLinusOS 2007 live CD into the machine and rebooted. The first indication that I had problems was the message 'No IDE channel' and the machine refused to boot with the CD. I went to the forums and read about the problems other people were having and tried all of the command line options, but, no luck in booting the machine is PCLinuxOS 2007.

I then tried to run a number of other live CDs that I have with various amounts of success:

1. Mandriva 2008. It boots, but no Java and no ATI drivers. The tuner didn't work and the Palm M130 didn't show up on the USB bus.
2. Mint. It has Java and the ATI drivers. No tuner recognition and the Palm M130 didn't show up also.
3. Knoppix. It has Java and Firefox, but, no ATI drivers.

I tried a few other variants of PCLinuxOS, but, they either didn't recognize the SATA DVD drive, or, when installed didn't boot because of the SATA hard drive. I also tried a number of other Live CD distros, but, they either didn't boot or didn't have the same out-of-box experience I am accustomed to that PCLinuxOS delivers. They are all good distros, but, don't fit my needs:

1. Kanotix
2. Granular
   
3. Vector
4. Ultima
5. Ubuntu, Kubunt, Xubuntu.
6. Simple Mepis
7. Fedora
8. Vector
9. Sabayon
10. Berry

I ended up partitioning my machine and making it a dual-boot machine and installing Mint on the machine for now. I choose it as it is close enough to the look-and-feel of PCLinuxOS 2007 and it works with the hardware. The only thing I don't have for now is the TV tuner and the Palm M130 sync, but, those are minor issues for now. I can probably hack my way through those issues and the issues with the above distros have, but, I prefer PCLinuxOS. Mint is quite nice and auto detected everything else on my new system without a problem and the software update mechanism (adept) is almost as slick as the package manager in PCLinuxOS.

Today the PCLInuxOS development team announced PCLinuxOS 2009 Beta 1 and I am downloading that at this time and I will be giving it a try later on. No matter what I will be keeping dual-boot as there are some games that my daughter wants to play and they don't support Linux (yet).

The one lesson I learned is that when getting new hardware use the Live CD first and see how it works on the machine before doing the installation and totally hosing the system.

PCLINUX 2007

It has been over a month now that I have been using PCLINUXOS 2007 on my machine. My daughter has been running TR4, but, I left here there until I was comfortable with the new version. It has been running solidly on this machine without a glitch, almost.

The only problem I had was with the Palm M130. The application JPILOT would not make a connection to /dev/ttyUSB1 or /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/pilot no matter what I did. I checked out the forums at PCLINUXOS, but, everyone who were posting didn't have a fix at that time. Two days ago I did a google search on the problem along with the error message and I found a message on the UBUNTU forum where a person had the same problem, and the solution! The fix was to change the preferences serial rate for both jpilot and the PALM itself to 57600. Shut down jpilot and then you then initiate the sync on the palm first and then press sync on jpilot. The fix worked and all of my hardware is working. As long as you start the sync on the Pilot first jpilot will work properly.

I also found a note in the forums about SYNAPTIC and go into settings, repositories and add 'KDE' to the sections. Basically the sections should contain 'main extra nonfree kde'. I did this and KlamAV was there and I installed it on my system. I use KlamAV as I do bring work home and I like to scan the documents on a regular basis.

My next job this weekend is to update my daughter's machine and then my wife's machine will be upgraded. My wife also wants me to install SCRIBUS on her machine so she can play with it. The only application in Windows on her machine is MSPUBLISHER and she is looking for a good replacement for that application so she can be running everything from Linux.