So I downloaded the Ubuntu live-cd, and am currently testing it out. (CD-RWs are great for things like this!) Everyone uses their computer for something different. I use mine for quite a large range of things, so certain features are important when I’m looking at a desktop\/distro. Here’s the skinny on what I’ve been messing around with:<\/p>\n
(Using Ubuntu Hoary-Preview-Live-i386)<\/p>\n
Can I connect to my Zaurus?<\/strong> I didn’t bother testing VNC or SSH, as the only matter is if they’re installed or not.<\/p>\n Does the system detect and allow me to mount my compact flash card when I insert it in the PCMCIA slot on my laptop?<\/strong> The performance was fine. I’ve had slow-down issues when transferring large amounts of data from my CF on Gentoo; I don’t think the same problem was evident in Ubuntu. I think it’s an option I missed in the Can I connect my digital camera (everybody’s got one, these days) over USB?<\/strong> Can I use my USB Wacom tablet?<\/strong> That’s the same error message I’m currently getting in Gentoo. \ud83d\ude10 The Wacom mouse behaved similarly, with absolute positioning… which is bad.<\/p>\n Can I play an MP3 or stream music while I’m testing?<\/strong> What the…? Immediately, I panic. No music? I almost plugged my speakers in to my Zaurus and played the music from it. As I’m unfamiliar with both Ubuntu and Rhythmbox, I figured I’d ask around in IRC. The #ubuntu folks are were very friendly and helpful… but I was not able to resolve the problem in a timely manner. One suggestion was to use Can I read the font without my eyes bleeding?<\/strong> International Input?<\/strong> The sudo that you do<\/strong> So that was my Ubuntu experience. To get a copy of Ubuntu, visit their website: I think Ubuntu is one of the most promising distributions available. I used the Live-CD offering, which is not really what Ubuntu was made for, so I’m not sure how similar it is to the regular desktop install version. I would probably switch to Ubuntu if I did not currently have so much invested in my current Gentoo installation.<\/p>\n If anyone has any questions, notices any errors, knows solutions to any of my problems, or simply wants to say something, please post a comment. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I downloaded the Ubuntu live-cd, and am currently testing it out. (CD-RWs are great for things like this!) Everyone uses their computer for something different. I use mine for quite a large range of things, so certain features are important when I’m looking at a desktop\/distro. Here’s the skinny on what I’ve been messing… Continue reading Ubuntu Live – My Experience<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geek","tag-linux","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4jEMb-ubuntu","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stevenbrown.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n The important thing here is whether or not the usbnet<\/em> drivers are installed and working; and they were! I was able to ping my Zaurus over the USB cable. There was no Samba client installed, so I could not mount the Zaurus as a local directory for file transfer, but I was able to use Nautilus’ abilities to do the equivalent.<\/p>\nsmb:\/\/zaurus-address\/<\/code><\/p>\n
\n Yes! After inserting it, there’s an unmistakable pc-speaker beep<\/em>, and I’m able to mount it as a local drive.<\/p>\n sudo mount \/dev\/hde .\/my-local-cf<\/code><\/p>\n.config<\/code> or something.<\/p>\n
\n Yes! (This was the first time I’ve ever<\/em> actually used the USB cable with my camera; I usually just put the CF in my PCMCIA slot via an adapter. Step one: find the cable and remove it from the bag…) As soon as I plugged in the camera, a little box appeared asking me if I would like to import the photos from the camera. Click “Yes,” and Gthumb’s Import Photo dialog appears. Wow. That was pretty impressive! I’ve never actually seen Gthumb’s Import Photo in action, before. Really nice! After seeing that, I had to try it out on Gentoo. \ud83d\ude42 It works, it just isn’t mapped to a hotplug script to auto-prompt the user. Always discovering new things. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n
\n Yes!… well, kinda. After plugging it in, I could use the pen and all seemed swell… so the major test: pressure. I loaded up Gimp and tried adjusting pressure settings and scribbling – no luck. Damn. After opening up the Devices dialog, I realized it was just registered as a Core Pointer. Looking back at \/var\/log\/messages<\/code>, I saw the following error message:<\/p>\nusbhid: probe of 2-1:1.0 failed with error -5<\/code><\/p>\n
\n Unfortunately, no. I was excited to try out Rhythmbox, a music player that’s included in the Live CD. I was even happier to see that it had some radio stations already bookmarked. Great, I thought. After waiting for something<\/em> to timeout, I got the message:<\/p>\nThere is no element present to handle the stream's mime type audio\/mpeg.<\/code><\/p>\ngst-register<\/code>, but that didn’t seem to do much. I seemed to already have the latest versions of various gstreamer plugins, according to apt-cache search gstreamer<\/code>. I blame my lack of patience, at the time. But, in a perfect world, I don’t think playing MP3s, or even streaming them, should have to be set up. I didn’t have any OGG files to try out.<\/p>\n
\n Yes! The default settings are quite pleasant, so they aren’t all “fuzzy” – a common problem with fonts on Linux.<\/p>\n
\n Not immediately available. I don’t know if SCIM would cause much grief installing or not. It would be really nice to see a distribution, especially a live one, have this setup by default, however.<\/p>\n
\n Another thing that I ran like a scared boy to IRC for, was the root password – I couldn’t mount my existing drives without it! Well, I was directed to this helpful link<\/a>, explaining the way Ubuntu handles the root password\/account. Makes decent sense to me! I’ve gotten so used to using a separate root account, that I’d probably continue doing it on Ubuntu, but it makes a lot more sense for the new user, I think.<\/p>\n
\nhttp:\/\/www.ubuntu.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n