USB MidiSport UNO

Recently, my installation of Mandriva started to boot up really slowly, hanging for nearly a minute at the "setting hostname" message during the boot process.

Some research concluded that it could be a USB device causing the system to hang, and by unplugging one device at a time and rebooting, I tracked the problem down to my USB MidiSport UNO. I had not even considered looking for drivers for the unit, because the available software for producing music under Linux is not very mature yet, unfortunately, and that is one of the reasons I continue to have Windows installed on my machine.

After doing some research, however, I realized that there is actually a driver for the device, and it is included in the Mandriva package manager. It is called ezusbmidi, and after installing the package, my boot problem went away. I have yet, however, figured out how to actually use it in LMMS to receive MIDI signals. That is a project for another time I guess.

GNOME 2.20 officially released

GNOME 2.20 officially released: "The GNOME community announced a new release today after six months of development. GNOME is a desktop environment primarily used on Linux and other open-source platforms. GNOME 2.20 includes numerous improvements and new features that benefit users, administrators, and developers.

GNOME's image viewer features a significantly improved image collection interface and a new Open With menu. The Nautilus file manager can now display a disk usage pie chart in the filesystem properties dialog. Desktop search integration, which first appeared in Nautilus in GNOME 2.14 and can optionally leverage the Beagle and Tracker indexing systems, has now been added to the GNOME file dialog."

Being that I am a Windows user, I prefer the look of KDE over GNOME's MAC-like appearance, though I have been thinking about installing a version of GNOME. I am still a newbie in Linux and I want to experiment some more before I settle on what distribution and GUI combination I will use permanently....

KDE 4 Live CD

Well, I downloaded the image of the lice CD and burned it to disk. It is based on OpenSUSE, with KDE 4 as the GUI. The OS booted, and I logged in, but unfortunately, several components crashed. This left KDE running but severely crippled. In fact, I could do nothing useful at all.

Perhaps it does not agree with my hardware. Maybe I will actually install a version on my machine, if that is possible, but until then, the review of KDE 4 is on hold...

KDE 4: The Shiny New Linux (and Windows) Desktop

KDE 4: The Shiny New Linux (and Windows) Desktop: "Linux users are as evangelical about desktop environments, the all-encompassing graphical user interface software responsible for providing everything from taskbars to office suites, as they are about operating systems. It shouldn't come as any surprise, then, that the first major release in over five years of the most popular desktop environment available is causing quite a stir. Due to be released on December 11th, KDE 4.0 is bringing exhilarating graphical, usability, and functionality improvements to the Unix-like systems it is designed for—and Windows users will get a taste, too."

This new version of KDE is looking pretty interesting so far, though it appears as though there may be a bit of a learning curve with the re-design. Right now, I am downloading the Live CD so that I can check it out for myself. I will come back with a general review of the new system...

Linux.com :: It's official: ATI Radeon drivers to be open sourced

Linux.com :: It's official: ATI Radeon drivers to be open sourced: "AMD briefed Linux.com this morning on a pending announcement regarding the open sourcing of drivers for ATI graphics cards. It's official -- AMD will make code and specifications for ATI graphics cards available on the Internet on September 10."

This is absolutely great news for anyone who is running Linux and is stuck with the current available drivers for ATI cards. If all goes well, perhaps we will actually be able to use our cards to their full extents, at the very least in 2D mode. Apparently, they will have issues with the 3D side, because some of the 3D instructions are based on closed-source software...

I would be extremely happy if I could just be able to use the TV out function the way I would like to. Thank you AMD/ATI, and the open-source coders who will contribute to this project.

Success, I have printed from Linux!!!

No matter what I tried, I could not get my printer working. The other day, I was in Linux, and needed to print something. I could not wait for windows to boot, so I turned the printer on. Much to my surprise, there it was, ready to go. I did nothing more to fix it, since my last post about the printer. I can only imagine that one of the automatic updates fixed it.

One more piece of hardware down, before I fully switch to Linux...


On another subject, I had hoped this blog would be filled with more stories about the difficulty of the Linux transition, but, in reality, it just works. Hardware problems aside, that is, and that falls into the hands of the hardware vendors themselves.

So, support Linux, you hardware people!!!!

I am very happy...

I now have the time problem solved, and I plugged my Kodak c310 into my computer under Mandriva, and it was recognized. The pictures I had taken were transferred successfully...

That means that I am one step closer to switch to Linux permanently.

Users of similar cameras take note: The camera must be in the Auto picture taking mode, in order to be recognized by the digicam application. The camera will not function as a drive/storage device, however. (That is the way it works in windows)

Fixed Windows clock update...

It turns out that ZoneAlarm was blocking the incoming transmissions from the server. Once I added the server to the trusted zone, the clock could update. I also edited the registry so that the clock will sync every 5 minutes. Now all I have to do is boot into Mandriva and set it up for internet time sync. Hopefully I will no longer be ripping my hair out in frustration...

Frustration, yet again

Well my clock problem reared its ugly head again. Switching off GMT apparently did not work in Linux. I would just use internet time servers in each OS, but, for reasons I have not yet discovered, the clock in Windows cannot sync with the time server.

On the hardware side, I am also having no luck with my Kodak digital, as far as official drivers go. I have not tried just plugging it in yet, however. There are also no official drivers for my hauppauge card, though there is a project going that has unofficial alpha drivers available. Hopefully that will pan out in the future.

And... No Success

I just did a quick search for drivers that will run my Visioneer 4400 USB scanner, and by all accounts I have read so far, it is not supported. Another instance of a hardware company that does not care about Linux users. They are out for a quick profit, and Windows is the easiest OS to profit on... Linux has too small of a market share.