I am terribly sorry to disappointed all of you, but I am going to discontinue this blog, in favor of the new one.  I will leave this blog up for several months, probably, or until people stop viewing it.  I have decided that pursuing God is more important than pursuing Linux.  I want to devote my full attention to pursuing more lasting pursuits.  Feel free to visit the new blog.

I first discovered Puppy Linux when I was looking for a lightweight OS for my old desktop. I had found DSL, but I did not want a cuss word to be in the name of my main OS (Damn Small Linux). So, I searched for a little while longer, and found Puppy Linux. I was not impressed by the screenshots, it looked a lot like Win 95. However, I had nothing to lose (except a 17 cent CD), so I decided to give it a shot. I burned Puppy 3.01 to a CD, stuck it in my CD drive, and booted it. The initial boot confirmed what I had seen in the screenshots, the window manager looked like Win 95, and all you could change was the color. As i investigated further, I noticed several other downsides. I opened the package manager that is has installed, and discovered that I could only install packages, not uninstall any preinstalled ones. I could uninstall any that I installed after the primary installation, but I could not uninstall any of the ones that were included in the 80MB iso. Also, instead of using debian packages, or rpm packages, it used it’s own package type, “.pup”. It did not come preinstalled with any popular software such as Firefox or Open Office it had lighter equivalents, but that makes sense, since it’s purpose is to be a lightweight and speedy OS. And it is. The first computer I tried it on was a 700MHz, 256-512(upgraded later)MB RAM, and 20GB HDD desktop computer that originally had win 98. I had been running Xubuntu, but I wanted a little more speed. It ran incredibly fast, the programs ran like a computer with 3 times(at least) it’s specs, running XP. However, I decided that i’d just use it for diagnostics, and if I just wanted to get on the computer really quick, and just browse the net.

But the story does not end there…

A little while back, I found a laptop in the garage, without a power cord. For $30, I got a cord off of Amazon, plugged it in, and booted it. It was running 98SE. It had a 700MHz proccessor, 192MB of RAM, and a 10GB HDD. 98 ran… ish. It was really slow, and buggy. I decided i’d install Xubuntu, and strip it down, so it would be faster. There was only one problem. The CD drive was dead. Oh, no biggie, right? I can just use a USB key. Nope. no USB boot. The only other boot-able device it had was a floppy drive, and i’d never really used one. Plus, I did not have a floppy. I spent a week at least, trying to find some way to install Xubuntu. I tried Wubi, (Windows Ubuntu Installer), but I did not have enough RAM for the program itself. I gave up, concluding that there was no way I could install Linux on the machine. I prepared to live with 98. One day, I decided I would use a USB key to install Puppy on another laptop whose CD drive was similarly dead. That did not work, but it also had a floppy drive. Then, an idea struck me. Why not install GRUB on a floppy, and use it to boot the USB key! As it turns out, there is a floppy version of GRUB designed with the sole purpose of booting Puppy in a situation like the one I now found my self in. I eagerly installed it, plugged them both in, and turned on my laptop (the one with 98SE). After going through the menus on the GRUB program, it booted off of my USB drive (actually an SD card with an adapter), without a hitch. It booted up quickly, and soon I found myself staring at Puppy Linux. I decided to install it, despite my bad first impression of it. However, as I was working with it, I noticed that there were some differences. I checked, and found that I had version 4 of Puppy. now, instead of 3 that was on the CD. It now used .pet packages, but could still use the .pup packages, as well. It was also slackware-based, now. After doing a little digging, I found an alternative to the default window manager (JWM), by the name of IceWM. I installed it, and it ran without a hitch. After downloading Firefox, Opera, and Thunderbird from the Puppy repositories, and installing them, I was perfectly satisfied. Almost. JWM and IceWM both were rather unintuitive. The interface was not that well designed, and I am a VERY picky guy, so I had not choice but to look for a better window manager, especially since IceWM was slower than JWM. Well, when I decided to look for another WM, the first thought that came to my mind was XFCE. I liked XFCE, and, as a lightweight WM, it was very full-fledged. So, I started looking around on the Puppy Forums to see if I could install XFCE. There was a package, so I downloaded and installed it. However, by that time, with my usual meddling ways, I had messed around with Puppy so much, that it had become so corrupt that XFCE would not run. So, I reinstalled Puppy, and installed XFCE. It runs perfectly now, and is everything I could want. Except for multitasking, it is just as fast as the average machine these days. It works perfectly for internet browsing, blogging, E-mail, and writing. It’s speakers and sound are also quite good.

So, My overall impression?

Pros:
Decent, stable, versatile OS, with a good support base, that takes up a mere 80MB, and runs faster than anything I have ever seen. Recognizes all of my hardware right off of the bat on every computer I have tried it on (4 total).

Cons:
Uses the .pup and .pet package styles, so it is not that compatible with a lot of software, even though most software can be made to work with it, with a little work. My biggest issue: Terrible package manager.

Ok, I am back in town, I have been for several days, but I have been really busy.  Hopefully, I shall be able to get another post up here soon.  It will either be a review on Puppy Linux, or Famelix.

have a nice day!

Obviously, I enjoy messing around with various Linux operating systems and programs, seeing what they are capable of, and blogging about it.  Well, I have decided to take this to the next level.  Recently, we replaced the hard drive in the family computer, because it was several years old, and appeared to be crashing.  The computer is pretty decent (1.8GHz, 1GB RAM), so we reinstalled Wimpdows, and got it a good video card, and designated it the gaming computer of the family, because we recently got a new computer that ran Vista, and we did not want to run our games on it for obvious reasons.  well, anyway, back on the original topic, we ended up tossing the old 80GB HDD in the garage, and leaving it there.  However, I thought that it might work better as a freshly-formatted EXT3 HDD, instead of a several-year-old NTFS one.  But, since we have had problems in the past with it, it would most likely not be a good HDD to use as my main one.  So, I decided I would use it to test different Linux OSes, so I would not have to use a virtual machine, since that makes it slower (harder to accurately judge it’s speed), and less compatible, and you are not able to test it’s hardware compatibility.  To that end, I formatted it into 4 partitions, 1 swap, and 3 EXT3 OS partitions.  Throughout the rest of the Summer, I will be testing different Linux distros and OSes.  Currently I am testing Famelix, next on the list is Mint, and after that is Debian.

I installed Famelix a couple of days ago. however, I will not give a review until some time next week, as I will be out of town this weekend.

Stay Tuned!

A couple of days ago, I impulse-installed KDE4 on my main Ubuntu machine. After hearing a lot of hype about it, I decided to see what it was like, and if it was worth all the attention. I had, a while back, impulse-installed KDE3. I uninstalled it within a few hours. Because of that, I cannot give a fully accurate review of it, which is why you have never seen one. However, from what I saw, in that little amount of time, i was not very impressed, to say the least. the applications bar was very windows-ish, and I just got this general feeling of Windows-ness. It also did not look any better than gnome, and I just did not see the appeal. However, that is NOT the case with KDE4. After using it for a couple days, I am simply amazed! The interface is more intuitive than anything I have ever seen, it’s usability is just incredible, it logs in faster than GNOME, and the graphics are incredible(not special effects). I have not had to use a terminal for anything so far, except for an error I had when I tried to soup up the graphical effects. This is the perfect Windows alternative. The graphics appear to be much better on it than on GNOME, although I do not see how that is possible. I watched a DVD a few minutes ago, and it actually looked better than DVDs normally do under GNOME, even though I was using the same player, Gxine.

As I said at the beginning of the post, the interface is amazingly intuitive. The file manager that comes installed with it, Dolphin, has so many features in it that the default GNOME file browser does not have. It has an optional file tree on the side, it has an optional terminal at the bottom, and the window can be halved, allowing you to browse two separate locations simultaneously, in the same window. The launcher bar, known to you Windows users as the Start Bar, is amazingly designed. You have your Favorites on the front, and then there are the applications, divided by categories, then there is the Computer tab, the equivalent to My Computer in Windows, but it is in the “Start” bar itself. Then there is Recently Used, which (obviously) lists your most recently used applications. Lastly, there is a tab where you can log off, restart, shutdown, etc. Also, another thing that I thought was cool, was the alternating wallpapers.  It comes with a wonderful selection of default wallpapers, one of which you can set as the default desktop wallpaper, or you can set them as a slideshow, along with any other pictures you wish.

However, after all of that, I have decided to switch back to GNOME. If you are looking for an alternative to Windows, I would suggest KDE, because it would most likely be easier to get used to. But, if you are a fluent computer person, who is willing to accept some change, I would suggest GNOME. Gnome may be a little more complicated, but in my case, and in the case of most computer geeks/engineers, complicated is better. KDE is simple, and easy to use, GNOME comes packed with as many advanced features as you could ever want, and has incredible graphical effects that KDE cannot even attempt to match. KDE’s package manager is not nearly as good as GNOME’s. You can only select packages to install one-by one. GNOME’s Synaptic Package Manager is very good at installing large amounts of packages simultaneously. Also, GNOME is very customizable, and that is very important to me. I did not get the impression from KDE that it’s look was meant to be changed very much. However, I did keep Dolphin. I really, really like dolphin as a file manager, and I will recommend it to anyone. Also, I will be keeping Konqueror, since not only is it a web browser, it is a file manager, and an application manager, with all the features of Dolphin, too.

So, in conclusion, I would say that neither KDE or GNOME is better than the other. It depends on your wants, needs, and preferences. If you

want simple, easy to use, and a good alternative to Windows, use KDE. If you want advance functionality, and extreme customization, as well as better graphical effects, I would recommend GNOME.

(edited at 2:57:  Added screenshots and wallpaper feature description)

According to Cnet, FF3’s final version should come out next month (June)!!!

Here is the link.

(I should have be KDE post up in a few minutes)

I am currently working on a post for KDE4.  However, I am trying to pay more attention to my posts than I normally do, and improve them.  So, bear with me.

-just to let you know I’m not dead or anything(you wish) ;P

I am now officially releasing a project I and a couple friends have been working on for the past two days, inconspicuously.  As I mentioned a few posts ago, I do not publicly proclaim my faith on this blog, because that is not what this blog is for, but I have been wanting to do so another way.  A few days ago, I posted a blog post on Myspace, about teenage responsibility. It appeared to have a good response, so I decided to move it over to a real blog.  It is still very much in the development stage, so feel free to offer advice.  I fully admit and recognize my problem in the very areas I am discussing in the blog, and I belive that makes me more suited to speak in that area, as I am taking the time to study this, work on it, and pray about it.  This is not a public blogging effort for myself, this is a ministry opportunity that God has presented me, and I hope to have other people writing in it soon.

http://www.youthofeternity.blogspot.com

As I just said, it is still in the development stage.  Please give ideas and feedback on the following items:

Different title (already used it for an old blog)

Different url.  (I am terrible at naming things)

More authors. (If you are a friend/relative, do you know of any mutual friends that would be able/willing to do this?  I want to keep it confined to people I currently know, for now.)

Better format.  (need ideas to improve the blog look and layout.  I will NEVER post any third-party ads, but I will post links to good sites that I support, enjoy (theologically), and agree with.

Other.  (any ideas/feedback will be accepted)

Sorry I have not been posting recently.  I have been working on a project, and doing some other home-based activities.  So, here are some Cnet highlights of the day that caught my eye, to keep you interested.
GTA IV nets Guinness record
First Look: AVG Anti-Virus Free 8
Video Exclusive: Asus Eee PC 900
Google extends online video lead
HBO to Apple: Bada Bing
The password that calls you
Review: Shuttle’s K-4500 Linux PC

Them.  Those People.  The Others.  The Evil Ones. The Dark Side.  The Sith. The Goa’ould. The Nazis.

The RIAA is know by many names.  These are just a few. How this …affiliation.. still exists, I have no idea.  Time after time, after TIME, I have seen articles in the news where the RIAA has sued people that had no idea what they were doing, hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars, for slight copyright infringement.

Don’t get me wrong, though.  I support the idea of bringing to justice people who break the law by stealing music, but that is NOT what the RIAA is.  The RIAA is a bunch of greedy politicians who want as much money as they can get, and are using their power to sue a bunch of innocent people, and steal their entire livelihoods, for a crime, that, if they committed, warrants a $500 fee, not a $500,000.  Cnet recently posted an article about one of the RIAA’s latest …exploits…, in which they are picking on a site known by probably everyone reading this.  Project Playlist.  What Project Playlist does, is merely search the Internet (automated, most likely), and gather all .mp3 files they can find, and link them on their site, and allow you to organize them into a playlist, and put it on any site.  That is not illegal.  It is only illegal when they are purposely and maliciously finding sites they know to be illegal, and putting their music on the site.  Admittedly, it is a fine line, but I am confident that they will win the current legal battle, because they do not actually host any music on their site (btw, I am listening to PP right now).

Now, this is TYPICAL RIAA.  They go after the unknowing distributor. Again.  Now, what they SHOULD do, is make an agreement with PP, and use their database to locate illegal music sites, and take them down.

Here are the articles: (link)(link)

What do you think Do you disagree?  agree? why?

(My Project Playlist)

(edit: stupid non-paid version of WordPress won’t let me do custom HTML/CSS. use the stand-alone link to view my playlist)