New Random Blog Post, Updates, etc.
Posted by Tyler Brown
Ok, I apologize for not keeping up with my promise last month. Summer started to drag on, I had a cold for the first week and a half of June, etc. etc. So anyway, its July 1st, new month, and I figured, time for a new blog post.
So in the past month I've probably used Ubuntu 10.04 95% of the time, and Windows Vista about 5% of the time. So, I'm definitely using Linux hell of a lot more than I have in the past, which is definitely a good thing! Yes, I have gotten used to the buttons being on the left side of the titlebar, and even Ubuntu's new Ambiance Theme (although I changed it to something else eventually anyway).
So, around a week and a half ago I decided to order a new 500GB HDD. I wasn't running dangerously low on space, but I figured I might as well order one just to have the extra space, have one nice really large drive, and for performance too (the 32MB of cache is pretty nice). The drive I ordered was a 500GB Western Digital Caviar Black. Absolutely amazing drive. Boots up into Ubuntu 10.04 much quicker than the 40GB I previous had Ubuntu on. And just to bring it, my previous drive configuration was 1x120GB for Vista, 1x80GB for Storage, and 1x40GB for Ubuntu 10.04. Now its 1x500GB for Ubuntu, 1x120GB for Vista, and 1x80GB for Storage. I'll include the unboxing video of the HDD below. I gave the 40GB SATA to my younger brother to use as an extra drive, which brings up the next topic.
My younger brother having had suffered 2 months on a A8N-SLI board (after trading motherboards with my other younger brother) which wouldn't work with his video card or Processor correctly (it detected his Socket 939 Athlon x2 as a Single Core), he finally got a new motherboard/CPU with 3GB of DDR2 RAM included. He's now finally able to use his 512MB 8600GT again, and his new CPU is an Athlon II x3 CPU at 2.7GHhz. Of course, because that boards only IDE channel would have been taken up by his Optical Drive, we had to order ANOTHER 500GB Western Digital Caviar Black drive. The pure fact that it was on sale AGAIN when we realized he needed another drive was some pretty good luck, otherwise we would have had to go with a 320GB or 250GB drive instead. But basically we set up a dual-boot on his system w/ XP and 7, plus a partition to store games. My youngest brother also got an upgrade out of this, including an upgrade to 2.5GB of RAM, Socket 939 Athlon x2 2.4GHz, and an extra 80GB IDE HDD.
Another thing I would like to mention is I have an extra Pentium D + a Board laying around I am actually considering doing something with. I just need to get a case, HDD, an optical drive for it (and maybe just a little bit more RAM). What I was thinking is I could possibly set that up to do videos on AND I will also probably use that as a machine to setup and do distribution testing and reviews on.
Anyway, I did mention I was getting used to Ubuntu's Ambiance Theme, well, thats when I decided to install the Elementary Theme Package, including The Elementary Modification of GNOME's File Manager Nautilus. I absolutely love this theme, and its actually going to be the Default theme of a Ubuntu-based distribution coming out called "Elementary OS". I think I might do a review on that in the future. That, along w/ Installing the AWN Dock, and using GNOME-DO, I can definitely say this UI is heck of a lot better than Window's UI.
So to continue on with my aimless rambling (is it really aimless?), while I kind of didn't go through with my blog every day in June, I definitely plan on doing more blog posts this month. I have been messing around with some pretty interesting software packages lately, mostly ones I found via Ubuntu's Software manager, that I would probably like to talk about, including an application I'm using to type this blog post in right now. So thats what I might focus my blog posts on in the next week, and I might even include videos. So, I would recommend keeping your eyes glued to this blog.
Anyway, thanks for reading this rambling blog post just updating a few things. Please subscribe to my Blog so you can keep on reading the next series of posts reviewing certain pieces of software, and I would definitely love some Constructive Feedback/Criticism in the comments section.
~ Tyler J. Brown
PCLinuxOS 2010
Posted by Tyler Brown
Its been a while since I've spoken my thoughts on a Linux distro on this blog, at least extensively. After dabbling around with PCLinuxOS 2010 for a few days, I figure I might as well do one right now.
There are two things I noticed first about PCLOS 2010 when I booted into the LiveCD for the first time. The first thing being that they had customzied KDE4.4 really well. This is very different from my usual KDE experience, which I admit, usually came from Kubuntu, and its pretty obvious that Kubuntu is just a base Ubuntu install w/ stock KDE4 installed. Its been that way since 8.04, and for the past 2 years Kubuntu has felt like the ugly Step child. Not to say theres anything wrong with stock KDE - but, it feels as if Kubuntu doesn't have its own identify anymore, or if KDE is optimized on it. Anyway, off the Kubuntu soap box for the moment, lets get back to PCLinuxOS 2010. Another thing I've noticed is that KDE seems to perform much better on PCLOS 2010 than it does on other distros I've tried so far. PCLinuxOS 2010 actually performs very well in general.
(Edit note: I started this blog post and didn't finish a while back, so I guess this is more of a review of PCLOS after I got done using it).
Being based on Mandriva, PCLinuxOS 2010 also had Mandriva's control panel, which was also a really nice feature.
Beyond that, I did have a few problems. However, most of the problems were related to KDE itself, and could be found across any KDE distribution. Such as GTK and QT apps fighting for the use of the sound card, or the KDE monitor config tool not wanting to properly configure dual monitors, thus resorting to using ATI's Catalyst Control Center to configure them. Simple stuff like that.
I also did notice one oddity. Although PCLinuxOS used Synaptic Package manager, which is quite odd for an RPM distribution to do so, I did notice there was no interface to install individual packages with until I installed Kpackagekit. Figured I would mention that as well.
Overall, PCLinuxOS is a great distro, I would recommend it to anybody who is looking for a Linux distro in which nearly everything works out of the box, and also wants a really nice KDE distribution. Anyway, I would like to thank everybody for reading this post. Sorry for finishing this really late, and it kind of made the rest of the post after (Edit Notice) kind of not all that great as I have already switched to another distribution. It had mostly to do with GTK and QT apps fighting over usage of the sound card, and PulseAudio not wanting to properly install, which is more or less a KDE problem instead of a PCLinuxOS problem. I am currently on Ubuntu 10.04, and I will give my thoughts on that in a later blog post. Anyway, thanks for the patience, and waiting another month for a blog post. I try to make sure the posts aren't too far away, but stuff comes up, I just get distracted, or what not. If you want to, I would recommend subscribing using the RSS link towards the top right, and take the time to read future posts. I should have my thoughts on Ubuntu 10.04 coming within the next few days - if not within the next 24 hours.
- Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo).
Ubuntu 64-bit – My experiences so far Plus Other Things!
Posted by Tyler Brown
Well, so far I am really enjoying Ubuntu 64-bit. It works with all the hardware I have, works very well with the Flash 64-bit Alpha version that is out (=D MUCH better than nspluginwrapper,) Pulseaudio actually works properly on Ubuntu 64-bit, and to add on top of that experience, Chrome for Linux is very close to release-ready.
On a side note, my 160GB drive ended up having issues. =/ but no worries, I should be getting a new one later this week! =D so I can dual boot Windows and Ubuntu again, but all 64-bit this go around.
Also, gonna refer ya to a couple sites to check out and possibly subscribe to:
http://geeknexus.com - A Place where Geeks Get Connected! A Twitter-Like Service specifically for Geeks!
http://ipaidcashformyclunker.com - A blog basically explaining the problems that exist within the Cash for Clunkers program.
Anyway, thanks for reading! =D Please check out those links above, and if you like this blog, subscribe to this one too!
~ Tyler J. Brown