/home/endperform   Rants, rambles and technobabble

As promised, here’s my desktop (click for larger view)

Been geeking out the past few nights setting up an old Dell Dimension desktop as the new home fileserver. I decided to install Ubuntu Server edition on it to keep things simple. Within about an hour I had a working machine using LVM and a Samba server installed. It’s easily accessible, and I’m pondering opening up an SSH port to the outside world so I can get back to it. I also installed Lighttpd (my first experience with it) and I have to say it was pretty painless. PHP, mySQL and Cacti are all running happily, and I’m a happy geek.

On my desktop, I decided to try to play with compositing a bit. I installed XFCE (which is what I’m now using at work), turned on compositing effects and installed Avant Window Manager. I kinda like the little dock. It stays out of my way and is very functional. I also have an XFCE panel to the right, which is handling the system tray, time and main menu. I’ll post a screenshot of it shortly.

Something else amazing also happened this past week. My wife, Bethany, decided that she wanted to try Linux out. After a little guidance, she installed Ubuntu herself using Wubi, and has a pretty Gnome desktop complete with compositing and AWN as well. After about two weeks, I’m going to bug her with some questions and repost them here. So far, she seems to be enjoying it a lot, especially the fact that she can change the look of her desktop anytime she feels like it with ease. Score one for Ubuntu!

I tried to give you a fair chance. I installed you on both my work and home machines and used you for a few days, but sadly I’m afraid this might be the end of the road for us, dear KDE. While we’ve been through a lot together, a lot has changed since the 3.5 days. I really don’t want to get into it, but it’s probably for the best that you know why I’m parting ways with you.

You’ve just become too blingy for your own good. You’re not Windows Vista, nor will you ever be, so why try to keep up? While on my higher end desktop you performed OK, you seemed quite sluggish on my work machine. It’s not the latest and greatest, but it seems to run KDE3.5 just fine. Dolphin, your file manager is terribly slow. When I right click for a context menu, there shouldn’t be a 5 second delay in showing it to me. I’m sure there are options somewhere for me to turn that off, but I never had to deal with that before on this box using Gnome or KDE3.5.

Crashing the main GTK application I rely on for work is not a good way to make inroads with me. Granted, you only did this to me on my work box, but regardless it’s something that I cannot soon forgive. There are some other nagging issues, such as when I run a script or program from your “runner” (Alt-F2), you’ll execute it, but when you’re done you whine that you now can’t find the executable. Neat trick, and I’ll file a bug on it if one hasn’t been filed already.

You’re sluggish, I’m sorry to say. That new bling has come at a price, and that price (at least right now) is performance. Yes, my work desktop has integrated graphics, but should that really matter to you? It just seems like you went for the bling and left performance for another day. Unfortunately, these things combined will leave me with no choice but to find something else until a later release, when hopefully you’ll be back to a level where I can use you daily.

I’ve decided to go the Linux in a VM route on my laptop. Yes, I know, bad geek, but I’m willing to take the loss of geek points. My main reasons for switching to this setup is battery life and heat. I know I could spend hours trying to get things tweaked just right, but even so it seems that Vista does a bit of a better job as far as these two categories go. My laptop has enough power that running a VM isn’t going to be a big deal, especially when I can just SSH into my desktop and access just about everything there.

This also means I may post some Windows tips/tricks since I’m going to try to keep this thing running in top shape. I may also review some utilities I’m using as well. While I do prefer Linux, I’m also a fan of using what gets the job done.

Some of you may have heard about the goings-on surrounding Hans Reiser, creator of ReiserFS, and how he was convicted of killing his wife. Most recently, he lead police to her body in an effort to get his sentence reduced. An interesting idea came up on Ubuntu’s Brainstorm site that sparked a lot of controversy. Exhibit A: Brainstorm Idea #10930. The summary is that the submitter things sending a laptop to Reiser while in jail would give him a chance to contribute to society. Ignoring the fact that the laptop would never see it’s intended recipient, some of the comments got rather interesting. Eldmannen, the originator of the post, sees Hans as a ‘victim’ in all of this and has some rather ludicrous thoughts.

There’s this gem:

mtrausch,
Whatever, it was just one kill. Big deal. Others have killed way more. George W Bush is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people.
Also if he commit a crime, he should be locked up so he is no harm to society. But he should still be allowed participate and contribute to society so that he can become a good and productive citizen.
Plus, she deserved it. She cheated with Sean Sturgeon, embezzled money from his company, and was an irresponsible mother who abused illegal substances such as ecstasy.
Let this be a lesson to all; avoid post-order mail brides.

chipbennett,
It is much better to let him be a productive citizen of society that contributes to society, than have him locked up and do nothing, just waste tax money.

neon,
It is not like he killed Gandhi, he just killed his wife.
Perhaps other people can work on it too, but Hans is the genius who designed it, he can make bring the best to it.

And this is the comment that spurred me to post this:

Endperform,
She was a irresponsible mother abused illegal substances such as ecstasy, putter her kids at risk and who dated Sean Sturgeon a dangerous serial-killer who have admitted to killing 8 people and leaving a ninth for dead.
* http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/05/reiser

I cant imagine the tremendous stress and abuse that poor Hans must have endured. :(
Driving an kind and peaceful man into such an act. :(

“He took someone else’s life and should have to pay for his crimes.”
The guy is paying for his crime. He is doing time.
But he should be given an laptop so that he can be a productive citizen and contribute to the society.

Poor Hans? The guy KILLED HIS WIFE. Eldmannen seems to think Hans is the victim in this, and that his wife drove him to murder her. If you’re having problems with your significant other, there are ways to fix or defuse the situation. If he was really that ’stressed’, he should have separated from her, or better yet, divorced her completely. The fact remains that he killed his wife. We don’t know the exact surroundings of the murder, but to say in no uncertain terms that she deserved to die is just completely insane.