Does A Brexiteer Wear Mouse Ears?

Florida News

A daycare worker was caught on camera throwing toddlers.
This is now a problem?

Florida man detains burglar by holding his iPhone like a gun until police arrived.
Thieves, like politicians, always send their best and brightest...



India plans to launch a lunar mission in July.
Yes, they're going to be the first fourth nation on the moon!
They're looking for water and other goodies, like all lunar visitors. And, according to Apu Nehasapetapetaloma, to open the moon's first Kwickie Mart.


CERN, the Large Hadron Collision people, just had their academic credentials from Microsoft revoked, causing a tenfold increase in license fees. As a result, CERN has a new effort called MAlt - Microsoft Alternatives. They're looking for open source software.

Let's see.... open source...  hmmmmm.... get rid of Windows and other MS software... hmmm.... I wonder what could possibly work for them....

In completely unrelated news, I upgraded to the latest version of Xubuntu linux (19.04) the other day and things are running better and faster.



Dear lefty:

• If Boris Johnson wins the election, will his 'hairstyle' become popular in the UK?
• No, but his teeth will.
• in North Korea, Kim ding Dong's hairstyle is all the rage (among people who wish to remain alive).

Ever since Obama, there have been charges of America sending billions of dollars to Iraq. Trump mentioned it too. I have a memory of the money being a return of money frozen by a previous administration. Anyone have a reading on this?

Speaking of Iraq, the warhawks are beating the drums again. We just sent a Rather Large Ship to that neighborhood. Whatever happened, we need to remain out of it. History shows the Powers That Be cause a False Flag event as a pretext to war (Weapons of Mass Destruction, 9-11).

• Toronto won its first basketball championship. No one knows how. It's the Jamaican Bobsled Team all over again. It wasn't easy -  they had to build stadiums and import black people.

According to the BBC, the countries using the Euro have agreed to have a common budget. What? Now explain how the conspiracy theorists are nuts because they refer to the coming New (one) World Order.

Shopping Time

My luck has been good lately, which was probably just setting me up for yesterday. Mrs. lefty had lots of shopping to do....

WALMART
Her: Could you tell me where the milk is? I can't find any.
Them: I'm sorry, we don't have any.
Her: Milk?
Them: Milk.

How could the largest vendor in the country not have milk?
It's like Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch....

Well, we don't carry milk here.
You don't carry milk? It's the single most popular shopping item in the world.
Not much call for it around here, Sir.

Her: How about yogurt?
Them: We have this yummy probiotic stuff.
Her: It tastes like particularly bad dog excrement. What else?
Them: Oh, nothing.
Her: You have a huge food department.
Them: Yes we do. Largest in the area.
Her: and all I'm asking for is normal yogurt.
Them: I'm sorry, we don't carry normal foods.

Her: Dare I ask about potato bread? It takes much longer to turn blue and fuzzy than white bread.
Them: Since you asked, we will no longer carry it.

Her: Snapple's on sale.
Them: Yes, but we don't have the flavor you want.


LOWES
Her: I just spent a long time trying to find a 3/8" ratchet.
Them: that's because we don't carry them separately. You have to purchase the complete kit.
Her: But I already have doubles of all the sockets.
Them: Now you'll have triples!
Her: You bought the name Craftsman from Sears, which stocked everything. Why don't you?
Them: Because we don't have to. Now STFU and go buy the complete kit.


This is why Mrs. lefty doesn't allow me to shop.

Decorating?

Didja ever walk into a house and marvel at the decor or style?

My parents' place is antiseptic, yet warm. Mom got it from her mom, who scrubbed the bathroom tile with a toothbrush.

The rest of the family has it all together, with different styles and lots of space.

Then there's our house.

There is no style. There is no decor. There's barely any space. At least the walls are painted. Our method is buy something and stick it Over There. Or put the groceries on the floor.  Nice poster, let's thumbtack it to the wall. Has anyone seen the dog?

We are two decor-impaired people. And one who is directionally-impaired.

But let me say something positive: The show Hoarders rejected our application because we have clear paths and the piles of stuff don't come past our knees.

We sit there and look around, trying to imagine how one would 'design' a room. The closest I've gotten is a fake lisp and imitation of one of those home design 'experts' from tv. Don't let the LGBTQrstuv lobby tell you they have no representation on tv: straights have no representation on home improvement shows. If any straight guys happen to wander onto screen, they look gay.

Let's say we like southwest decor. The closest we'd get is painting one wall salmon and another wall turquoise. Maybe putting out a token figurine skeleton that says, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity". Viola - Instant Decor.  

We are horrible examples. It's sad. Maybe we can start a GoFundMe to get us some decorating lessons. Let's face it - even with lessons, we'd find a way to make it ugly. I was thinking about having a person with decorating skills move in, but Mrs lefty says no. I'm sure it had nothing to do with her being stunningly attractive. The bonus would be someone to babysit me when Mrs lefty visits family out of town. But noooooo......

So until we somehow acquire skills, the house will remain Decor by Tornado.

The president recently celebrated a birthday.
In case you're curious what he got from other countries....


Kim ding Dong, Supreme Haircut, North Korea, sent a hand-delivered note.

Teresa May (RIP) sent the Trump Balloon
Boris Johnson said he couldn't make it.
The Queen said, "We ARE amused."

Mohammed Somethingorother, Lord High Poobah, Iran, issued a press release stating the door was closed for birthday wishes and he had a much better hat than MAGA.

Vladimir Putin, King for Life, Russia, said that Trump's birthday was adequate, but Soviets have much better birthdays and he could kick Trump's ass in any sport.

China, asked for comment, said, "Who Tlump?"
"China has the advantage on America because Chinese food is really McDonalds and Burger King. Suggest Tlump stuff egg rolls..."

Australia sent a card that said "Good on ya, Don," but the postal kangaroo died and the card never made it.

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Acceptance, Canada, sent an autographed picture of himself in his newest minidress. Melania was horrified. Donald hung the picture in the Oval Office, proclaiming Justin the best Canadian ever, after the other 40 million. The other 40 million spat in a hat then refused to send it because Americans have guns.


It's a sad day when North Korea sends the best gift.

I *AM* the Black Cloud

I've seen some shit.
I've been through some shit.
The amount of shit piled up at my place now actually exceeds the interior volume of the house. It's called Quantum Shit.

You've had bad days.
I've had bad days.
This day is unprecedented in all its badness.

Most of my bad days start with computers. This makes perfect sense, as I've been in computers since high school. You know... a long time ago. My main computer was looking a little weird (as opposed to its owner, who is looking very weird), so I figured a redo was in order. Load up the dvd, reboot, and POOF, there were weird characters and it was having trouble reading the drive. The drive is solid state, plus I could see the folders, so all was not lost. I re-redid it. Weird error message. I re-re-redid it. Same weird error message. No suggested fixes worked.

Ok, main computer only has all of my stuff on it... (backed up), but I need a computer to run it on. Wife's laptop: kernel panic. For those of you not familiar, kernel panic is really bad, m'kay? It's what happens when the computer knows I'm overstressed or Just Plain Pissed, so it's terrified of me. So I tried to redo it. It was still panicked. I started to panic. It's not like there's a computer on every step on the stairs.

My phone decided it wasn't going to deal with email. This isn't an unreasonable idea, but it is for a phone. In fact, the relatively new tablet also refused to deal with email, in sympathy with the phone. I, on the other hand, had no sympathy for these devices and my neck was getting sore from shaking my head so much, out of sheer grief and aggravation.

AHA - I have a spare laptop... kinda anemic, but it'll get the mail!
Yes, I located said laptop. Unfortunately I did not locate laptop's power supply. No matter, I have 50 of them; almost one that fit, except it was missing the part that went to the electrical outlet. After digging that up, I plugged it in and it did its best impersonation of a government employee: nothing. In case you're counting at home, this is 3 computers, a phone, and a tablet.

The tears running down my face gave no indication that I would be more comfortable shooting from a tall building or mall.

Ladies and blog readers, this is just about the end of my computer inventory. Somewhere is an ancient pc with an ancient version of Ubuntu on it, but I suspect it had gone on vacation with the 3 laptops that have gone POOF over the last 3 years.

Pulling up the tablet, I ran a virus scan, because I'm like that. Halfway into the scan, POOF. The tablet shut off. I figured it was part of the Random Reboot package I paid extra for, but no, it shut down. Period. I plugged it in, hoping for some stupid reason it would work but NO. THE F&$#ING TABLET WAS HOSED. Bricked. A flat, sporty screen with nothing on it ever again. It was dead. Pushing up daisies. Gone and joined the choir invisible. Bereft of life, it rested in peace. POOF. It just died to spite me- no other reason.

Do ya see what I'm talking about? Once the excrement hits the whirling device, the only thing that happens is more excrement and more whirling devices, until I smell a bit and can't move for shit.

There was a small tablet around somewhere. Somewhere (far away look in his eyes). It disappeared, perhaps on purpose, the day the larger tablet arrived. Maybe it felt inferior. I just can't find it, in spite of the fact it only lived in one of two places, both now empty.

So I was dead in the water. Nothing. No way, no how. I couldn't get my frigging email. You know what that's like. You get the shakes, the bends, your genitals shrink, and you become even less tolerant of anyone sharing your living space.

I got a drink, sat back down, and promptly spilled most of it on my hand and pants.
I made dinner and burned myself, after I couldn't find the last ingredient of anything I wanted to make. The door fell off the pantry. The dog needed to go outside every 10 minutes, which she never does.

This is the part that's killing me: the only communicative device I had left was the work iDevice. With even more tears and a groin pull, I went about seeing if it could handle the tiny amount I needed to throw at it (not that the phone couldn't, but maybe wouldn't). I installed an email account. HALLELEUJAH! I installed a 2nd email account... well, no I didn't.. because I couldn't find the button to install a 2nd email account, including the one that said New Account. After asking my iHole friends, I learned that you don't add accounts to email through the email program - you add it in the Accounts section of the phone. Well how stupid could I be? How didn't I know this?  The only thing that really grinds my gears is that this is the only device in the known universe that has no punctuation on its keyboard. If you want a period, you have to push SPACE twice, or go to a second page of keyboard. What kind of abjectly drunk design is this? Periods are sort of common in most languages, with commas in there too. I checked the Apple Store and there were none to be found.

On the way to celebrate me, I kicked a case of soda. Not on purpose - my size 17 feet kick everything around me, whether I want them to or not. I can mistakenly kick something that's 2 feet away from me, simply because it's there while I walk by. Mostly I trip over stuff. Stuff that really isn't in the way. Every day I go into my computer room and notice the little space heater, and every day my foot hits it on the way by. It's like the device suddenly does the impossible and gets larger for half a second, while I pass by it. Or sticks out its imaginary foot.

Feeling overjoyed at something working, I went to check my mail.
Nope, I can't find the phone.
The phone I just got my email from.
It is missing.
People who don't know me and have never seen my house tell me I look organized.
Of course I look organized - if I don't put something in its place the moment I'm done with it, I will never find it again. So putting things away just looks organized.
Wait... I remember putting it on the sofa arm. Things on the sofa arm generally fall next to the sofa. Nope, not this time.
Hey - just last week I put my phone there. I found it hours later, in between the sofa cushion and the sofa end. Sure enough, this was the second one to do it.
So I put the phone in its place, after which it immediately plummeted to the ground, unassisted.

They tell me, whoever they are, that the universe is an incredibly vast place, with lots of strange real estate and even stranger furniture. Being so vast, the universe couldn't possibly care about me. Screw that - it is actively involved now, monitoring my every move and making sure nothing performs as expected. I just found a speaker I've been looking for (behind the computer desk, where all speakers go to relax). Sometimes I get the feeling that if stuff didn't go wrong for me, the entire universe would stop suddenly and disappear. I am that critical to Operations.

With nowhere else to go, I hooked up my old desktop. It booted! It did not explode. It did not have kernel panic (or kernel generalized anxiety). It did not shun me. For fun, I checked the last time it was run. Depending on file dates, alcohol, and potent pharmaceuticals, it's about 3-5 years. I remember this box kicking ass. Since I have no real memory, it's incredibly slow. After everything else is done, I have to build a new one. I'm getting too old for this shit.

The version of Xubuntu is very old. Very very old. Pre-Obama old. Depending on the version, you have to upgrade one by one, or every two versions. By next week, I'll be almost up to date!


Shopping List:

1. 2 full size mice
2. 24-ish inch monitor
3. new motherboard, processor, and RAM
4. 1 or 2 solid state drives, 1 laptop
5. a Sawzall for the next time I get mad
6. someone to follow me around and apologize for things I just said
7. Samsung tablet repair
8. sore throat drops from yelling

Not bad for a single day!

Xubuntu 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish

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Not Selling You Anything - Just My Fragile Ego

Apparently there's an NFL draft In Philly. I find this stuff out on the news. The city is expected to be an even bigger mess, although I can't figure out why.  Send it to New Jersey, where they could cover it between shootings. But, there's little to report on these days since cancer was cured.

• Some enterprising bastard of a hacker took control of over 200 ISIS accounts, loading them up with gay porn. This is pretty fun news, although probably misguided. The should have gone with sex with pigs to get the point home. Ok, it's pretty close either way...

Surprise! 'Inbox tidying' service Unroll.me has been caught selling data. Who would have thought that a service that has access to your email sells data? In this particular case (wanna bet there are others?), Uber bought data on Lyft receipts. The data was 'anonymized'.  The CEO has apologized for not being clear enough that it sells anonymized data to clients.  Terribly sorry we didn't make it clear that we get your firstborn.

ThermionicEmissions would like to provide you with a Guide to Data Privacy.

No.

That is your guide.

Does a service want access to your inbox?  No.

Does a service want access to your network?  No.

Does a program want access to anything else on your phone?  No.

Does a program want location access?  No.

If you ever experience a moment of doubt, ask yourself WWTED: What Would ThermionicEmissions Do? HINT: the answer is generally going to be no, unless it involves mamallian protuberances.

• Webroot Antivirus 'mistakenly' flags Windows as malware and Faceyspaces as a phishing site. I'm not sure why they said mistakenly...

Saudi Arabia has just been elected to the UN Women's Rights Commission. In other news, Palestine has been elected to the UN Commission on Antisemitism.

• Serena Williams has confirmed her pregnancy on social media. Seriously, who cares? It's a good thing cancer has been cured.

How's Marshall doing, you ask?
Spectacular! Even better than an NFL draft!
The surgeon said his incision healed completely and he won't require more meds. When the Cone of Shame came off, he went right back to Puppy Mode (he's about 13), jumping on furniture, making himself at home on the bed, getting up and down the steps without difficulty, and generally being a Happy Spaniel. We're absolutely overjoyed and thankful.

• Here's an interesting little android stat: over two million users have fallen victim to malware from the Google Play store, in the form of guides to games.
• partial list: guides for FIFA Mobile, Criminal Case, Super Mario, Subway Surfers, Pokemon Go, Lego Nexo Knights, Lego City My City, Ninjago Tournament, Rolling Sky, Amaz3ing Spider-Man, Drift Zone 2, Dream League Soccer, and many more.
• Google has cleaned the mess up but if you have downloaded any of these, it's time to run an antivirus.

What kind of fresh stupidity is this? In the name of 'gender equality', a Washington teacher doesn't let boys play with Lego ..to allow the girls to 'catch up'. 

• Our long national nightmare is over: Costco has Chocolate Frosted Flakes back in stock. Good thing - we were going through detox.

Today's As-Yet Unheard Phrase: "He loaned the wheel from our mower to the neighbor."

• Today is Alien Day. As a Martian-American, I couldn't be more proud.

As we know, I'm usually behind the 8 ball because I don't keep up with Popular Shit. In an effort to fix that, and because I care about you, I want to bring you a new term: Stealthing. And I want to bring you its definition: a man removing his condom during sex. Yes, this is now a Thing.

• The latest payment card breach is brought to us by Chipotle. This is the firm that also brought e.coli to their burritos, so it would behoove them to get it right. They believe the breach took place between March 24 and April 18 and there is no more information provided. Chipotle has not enabled the chip on payment cards, claiming it will slow down lines.  I just ate there and have damn near full confidence in their ability to keep e.coli out of my food.

Google thinks my Ubuntu linux browser is Safari. To make things more interesting, it will not allow me to upload pictures.  It's all too much first thing in the morning.

• A headline from this morning: Murder victim's Fitbit contradicts husband's version of events.  We won't get into the article but check out the title... Fitbit data. The data collected by the woman's Fitbit. Remember: all of these devices collect your information. Even if you're not planning on murdering anybody, which I hope none of us are, be aware of this with any new program or device.

Hoo boy - Amazon's new Echo Look goes wherever you get dressed and will tell you if that outfit looks good (or makes you look fat). Amazon has confirmed this data will be stored 'indefinitely'.  Yes, you too can have Amazon in your bedroom - but it won't do 'that' for you.

• When we were young, we marveled at the thoughts of what technology would accomplish in our lifetime. It's 2017, we still have cancer, but damn, those Instagram filters are da bomb, no?

Ubuntu 16.04 Incredibly Quick Review

I installed Xubuntu 16.04 (Exalted Xerces) shortly after it became available. The download was fast, the installation faster. There haven't been many installs or upgrades that ran over 20 minutes max.

Since I customize my XFCE environment, I tend to never see any graphic changes or improvements. In fact, there was very little change at all. There's some program called Maps that I didn't install.

And speaking of install, Ubuntu has wisely ditched the monolithically institutionally governmentally awful and slow Software Center. One could compare this to removing a benign tumor: it's only bothersome when you get near it. Any program that replaces Software Center has to be a welcome improvement.

And the main comment?  It works. No BS. No issues. No driver problems. No wifely yelling. Not even a Pet Problem.

This has been your Incredibly Quick Review.

Xubuntu 13.04 - Mixed Feelings

The title about sums it up.  I installed 13.04 on two machines a week before official release and had slight issues here and there.  Several weeks later, I moved the rest of the machines over.

This was my first mistake.

Let me be blunt (for I can be no other way): the session crashes sometimes, for no particular reason.  I'm just sitting there, minding my own business, when I start a program and BOOM - get sent back to the login screen.  The weird thing about this is that it happens on more than one machine.

POOF!

I submit the crash report, like a good linux user but thus far, no relief.

So be careful out there and make your own decisions on this.

Windows 8 and Linux

In his column over at Network World, Marco Chiappetta ate some crow over Windows 8.  I wanted to salute Marco for being perfectly honest and telling it like it is, however it is.  Marco built himself a system and tried Windows 8, in spite of his varying opinion of the operating system.

I read the article with interest.  As you probably know, I hate Windows: I'm a linux guy.  I am forced to use Windows 7 at work because no one has come up with a way to administer Windows networks under linux.

Windows 7 felt like a downgrade from XP to me.  Microsoft has become adept at hiding things from their users.  Some would say they're downright fond of it these days.  After trying Office 2010, I would have to agree.

Mr. Chiappetta has some really good things to say about Windows 8, specifically in the performance and lack of bloat categories.  In fact, I was almost tempted to give it a try.

Until I remembered the interface.

Of all the boneheaded moves for which Microsoft is responsible, this one contains the greatest amount of bone:

Hey, let's not only hide every function that is familiar to our entire userbase - let's disguise it behind an interface that is completely worthless on the desktop, not to mention mostly worthless on the tablet!

No, really, I would try Windows 8 in a virtual machine or a second machine (and I hate Windows).  But the interface thing really irks me.  I find the sheer hubris of it awe-inspiring, like Apple putting a different connector on their new phone.

Believe it or not, we in Linux Land have had a similar problem recently.   What you might find interesting is the way the entire issue was handled, both by the programmers and the users.  Something popped up a short while back as an interface for netbooks (remember them?).  This was before tablets became all the rage.  I downloaded a version of Ubuntu optimized for netbooks with this interface.  It lasted a few minutes, after which I replaced it with my normal desktop (XFCE, as in Xubuntu).  I saw absolutely no gain from using the all-in-one glob interface.

Flash forward to the here and now, where Ubuntu comes standard with the Unity interface, which is strikingly similar to what I've seen about Windows 8.  Unity has caused great amounts of disharmony in Linux Land.  My impression is that most don't like it.

Microsoft (and Apple) wish to let you know that if you don't think they know what's better for you than you do, you are cordially invited to perform an anatomically impossible act upon yourself.  On the other hand, in Linux Land, you can continue to use the clunky interface or install a different desktop and set it up to your liking.

I would give Microsoft a lot of points for simply including a function to switch between the normal interface and the new one.  But Microsoft knows best.


Marco - thanks for the input!

Xubuntu 12.04 Installed

Unable to contain my excitement and with the patience of a pregnant gnat, I decided to upgrade a machine (or two) to the latest Ubuntu: 12.04 [Porcine Paraguayan].  Before we go any further, I'm not sure this review is going to help you much unless you're a user of Xubuntu, like me.

Ubuntu comes in a few basic flavors: Ubuntu, the default; Kubuntu, with the KDE desktop; and Xubuntu, with the XFCE desktop.  KDE has a high Bling Factor and uses the most resources.  XFCE is a fairly lightweight, customizable distribution.  Plain old Ubuntu used to come with the Gnome desktop and performed somewhere in the middle.

Unfortunately the folks at Canonical (parent of Ubuntu) had a bit of an aneurysm (or a lot of crack) and replaced Gnome with Unity.  This is the most highly contested feature of Ubuntu.  It is arguably the most highly detested feature of Ubuntu also.  Unity started out as a simple interface for netbooks and progressed (regressed) to the Big Deal about 12.04.  It's the default and you're pretty much stuck with it.  It's very graphical and not very configurable.    Can you guess where I stand on the issue?


Using Xubuntu means I don't have to deal with Unity.  Since I have everything set up as I like it, upgrades don't look significantly different.  I get the nicer features and everything looks pretty much the same as it did before.  But remember, if you install Ubuntu from scratch, you'll get Unity.  If you install Xubuntu, you won't.

You might like Unity.
I don't.

The upgrade was pretty slow, as it is wont to be on the first official day of release.  I broke with tradition and did not install the beta version, which is usually quite stable.  After quite a few hours of downloading I was almost done, when the dog walked over to the laptop, stood on the right key, and canceled the upgrade.  He had no idea why I was screaming but he figured it must have been his fault.  Fortunately the upgrade process will continue more or less from where it was when it was interrupted.  Ubuntu:  now dog-proof.

The first thing I noticed was that the hiding panels hid all of the time, as opposed to the 11.10 and previous panels, which only hid some of the time.  This is a pretty good thing.  Thus far the laptop I upgraded is completely stable.

At work I upgraded a desktop quickly and painlessly, using the Update Manager.  Then I set about installing Xubuntu in parallel with Linux Mint Debian XFCE.  This failed miserably.  Spectacularly.  Repeatedly.  And continuously, until I remembered that I was unable to install Xubuntu on this brand new HP machine in the first place, leading me to try LMDE.  I even wiped LMDE but no luck.  Some web searching turned up others having similar problems, which seem to be related to HP's BIOS and the way it sees hard drives.  I called our HP rep, who has been too busy to find me an answer (for two months).  But this is not the fault of Ubuntu.

Another desktop got fouled up before the installation so I started from scratch, as opposed to an upgrade.  This too failed miserably.  And repeatedly.  The possible cause here was a previously encrypted HOME partition, which Xubuntu fresh install could not see or process, just leaving me hanging out there in Linux Space.

I was beginning to take this personally.

NOTE:  Always make your HOME partition separate.  This way if you need to reinstall, you'll have all of your data ready.

Another try got me a fresh install of Xubuntu 12.04 [Pregnant Peacock].  Then it froze consistently when I accessed the Screensaver control.  Finally I got everything working, probably due to a better video driver.   Do you drink at work?  I did.

After what seemed like twelve hours, I arrived home.  Eager for more grief, I decided to try upgrading my main laptop.  After at least two hours of downloading, I got an error and the entire installation stopped.  The error indicated there was a dependency issue around ncurses and I got past it here.

I am typing this on the aforementioned laptop, which seems to indicate that the upgrade was successful.  If you hear any screaming, it means there was a glitch.

SO WHAT'S NEW?

I have no earthly idea.  To be honest Xubuntu kinda sucks in the documentation department.  There's a menu item called IBus, which I clicked on, to no avail.  I was a little scared, as I try never to touch anything with an `I' in front of it.  As if you didn't know, it's a next-generation input framework.  Got it?

No matter how hard I try, I always seem to wind up with Pidgin and XChat.  I try valiantly to not select them or uninstall them, but like zombies, they come back and they're always there.   Same with the games.  Funny, OSes always come with games but no porn.  Guess which one is much more popular?

There is a menu editor.  Hopefully it's a new and improved menu editor because the last one came up when you clicked on it but was incapable of much else (kinda like Congress).  Apparently you need some sort of advanced physics degree to edit menus in XFCE and my degree expired last year.

Like the last release, the Ubuntu Software Center is front and center.  This is a real shame, as it seems quite slow, bloated, and useless to me.  But if it makes you happy, please use it.  I like Synaptic and sometimes the command line.

There are some important privacy controls I read about in Ubuntu but I have yet to locate them in Xubuntu.  I'll update you as I go along.

So for those of you playing along at home, the score is five total; with three successes, one user error, and one HP error.   I say go for it.


UPDATE-a few days later


I have upgraded or installed Xubuntu on most of my computers and laptops.  I haven't seen any glitches, although most of the installs were hampered by the ncurses issue mentioned above.  Shutdown feels faster, moreso than startup.  Don't forget to add Medibuntu to your repositiories after you upgrade, for all sorts of multimedia goodness.

AND FURTHERMORE.....


Do NOT encrypt your HOME partition.  As a security guy, I loved this option and selected it when presented.  When I went to mount my old HOME partition, I had to decrypt it.  It refused to decrypt.  After hours of research and trying, I now have gigs and gigs of encrypted data that I can't touch and seem to have lost forever.

Tiny Little Ubuntu Improvements

I like things the way I like them.  You probably do too.
(what an incredibly silly opening line)

I don't care if the entire universe is repulsed by the way I like my things: this simply indicates that the entire universe is wrong.

Take my operating system(s).  Please.
I prefer my operating systems without noise.  And when I say without noise, I mean not one single sound should be made unless I pushed a button to initiate the sound.  I do not want to hear BOING whenever I hit enter.  I do not need my email client to BING me whenever new mail shows up.  Nor do I require notification in the form of BUNG when a program wants input.   Lastly, at no point in my life would I need a sharp BONK to signal that my operating system has booted.


Let me make an abrupt, unscheduled left and tell you about my absolute favorite Xubuntu (XFCE desktop) setting.  SPLASH SCREEN: NONE.   I think this says everything about why Xubuntu is my linux distribution of choice.  You see, I don't need a splash screen.  Or blinky graphics.  Or transparent overlays.  Or compositing (whatever the hell that is).


My local linux users group (LUG) was discussing this very topic recently.  I weighed in on how I felt that unbidden sounds were heinous, bothersome, violence-provoking and morally wrong.  For once, others agreed.  (I'm simply not used to that.)

In every group, there's one.  In my LUG, there are at least two.  The other one forwarded me a link today on this very topic, titled Ubuntu 12.04: Now with Quieter Logins.  It would seem that after much sound designing and wringing of hands, the Ubuntu login sound has been disabled.

Can I get just a faint Yay! from the crowd?

Thank you.

One of the reasons for killing the sound (killing sounds so much better than disabling, doesn't it?) is that sounds were meant to signal when the operating system was finished booting.  Since real operating systems boot up pretty quickly these days (at least linux does), there's no need for a sound.

I couldn't agree more.

And in true linux fashion, the sound can be enabled if the user can't live without it.  The article did not specify if there was a doctor's note was needed but I don't want to speculate.

Yes, it's the little things.

P.S.  Do not, and I mean never, get me started on the Unity interface.

P.P.S.  The dog is starting to display a fondness for cherry eucalyptus drops.

Unity isn't Linux, Julie

Julie Bort, a writer I enjoy at Network World, just finished up two weeks using linux (Ubuntu, to be specific) and wrote a column.

Committing one's self to a new operating system fully for two weeks (she cheated a little) is a pretty brave endeavor for anyone and I applaud her.   Heaven knows I would not offer to use an operating system I have never touched before for one day, no less two weeks.

Julie's column at the end of the first week made use of the word pain.  Being a helpful linux person, I emailed some suggestions.  In the final column, she mentioned she "LOVED the way readers of these posts offered me suggestions on fixes and new stuff to try. There is so much good natured help on the 'net for anything you want to do in Linux. That's the beauty of it, and what keeps me coming back for more."


I don't think a more eloquent statement about linux has ever been uttered.  You simply don't find this sense of community among users of other operating systems.

Community aside, if you view her list of complaints, they seem to revolve around Unity, the desktop.  Unity is a rather polarizing new desktop which comes standard with Ubuntu these days (unless you download Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or other variants). You are not stuck with Unity; as with most things linux, you can go with what suits you best.  My choice is Xubuntu, which uses the XFCE desktop, a rather fast and lightweight choice.

I am one of those people who doesn't like Unity.  It first arrived in a customized Ubuntu for a netbook and I hated it immediately.  While I suspect it might be helpful for someone who has never touched linux, I simply replaced it with XFCE.

According to Julie's final column, there are apparently quite a few bugs in Unity.  Had she had used a different desktop, these issues would not have made the article, which might scare people away unnecessarily.

Not that there weren't positives expressed...

"I generally appreciated the sophisticated feel of Unity, compared to the "childish" but far more straightforward look of GNOME 2.3x"

On the other hand, this sounds like it came from a Mac user.

Good on ya', Julie, for the fair shot and interesting articles.

Ubuntu 11.10 Installs (so far)

I'm roughly two for three in this department today.  The three machines all had Xubuntu 11.01 and I used the update mechanism to update to 11.10 (Onomotopoetic Orangutan).

The three machines are an older dual core 32bit, a more recent, higher-powered dual core 64bit, and a netbook.

DISCLAIMER:  As usual, I must state that I am not normal and furthermore not a normal linux user (whatever that is).  The Unity interface can go suck eggs.  It is ill-conceived and does nothing for me.  The beauty of linux is that I can go and install a desktop I prefer instead.  Sort of.

Aside from download time, the 64bit machine went smoothly yesterday.  Not a hiccup.  The 32bit machine was a much faster download and only failed installing samba.  When I rebooted, it told me to go get samba to make the install complete.  Good job, guys.

When my desktop came up, I was happy.  This lasted up until the background reset itself to dark blue.  I checked the desktop settings and saw that they were correct (NOT dark blue).  I hope this is the worst thing that will happen.

The netbook was also a quick download.  When it finished, it rebooted and I had completely lost use of the touchpad.  Plus it set up the netbook interface.  Now I seem to remember that this was the original laptop install that I put XFCE on afterwards.  Unfortunately I can do little without a working touchpad.  Will try a USB mouse later, when I get more time.

The install deleted tsclient, the interface for rdesktop.  I have no idea why, but I reinstalled it.

Have I mentioned that I hate the Unity interface?

In addition to hating Unity, I'm not terribly fond of the Ubuntu Software Center.  They went overboard to make it prettier and now it looks like it belongs on a Mac.  Synaptic no longer comes with a standard install (but got retained during upgrade).  I do like the NEW feature - this has been missing since the dawn of time.

I am happy to say that at this point, there is no significant change from what I've been used to with 11.04.  The boot up may be a hair slower and the login screen is different.  Neither of these is a game-changer.

The rest of the reviews you read will no doubt be full of descriptions of the new, colorful screens.  I just don't do that stuff.

I will update you as I figure out more about the upgrade but thus far it's been just fine.  Go forth and upgrade.

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Edit:  I also upgraded my laptop, an HP4525 quad processor unit.  Smooth as silk.  The only ill effect thus far is that it changed the coloring on my terminal windows by itself.  Odd but livable.  My `hidden' setting on a menu bar doesn't work, but that's been quirky for a while.

Another Linux Recovery Success Story

Being the Computer Guy, I have a multitude of friends and relatives asking me for everything from advice to extricating them from sticky situations.

This one fellow just doesn't seem to get why his Windows machines slow down, lock up, and acquire virii.  By way of explanation, he has an AOL account.  If he asks me why, I start to explain and watch the poor guy's eyes glaze over.  It generally takes longer to explain it than to just fix it.

I have done a number of repairs for him, each time attempting to impart some helpful knowledge along the way.  And don't get me wrong; I am unnecessarily handsomely rewarded.  Last time I got a chilled case of Yoo Hoo and chocolate.

This time it was the home Windows box.  He tried everything to fix it but it kept asking to replace important Windows files.  When the system starts asking you for files in the SYSTEM32 folder, you're pretty much toast (without some slightly advanced tools, knowledge, or a geeky friend).

My task was to retrieve data from a few of the Windows profiles.  Apparently the machine was of no consequence after.  I might suggest installing linux if he doesn't have other plans.  At least it won't slow down and attract viruses.

So we already know the machine won't boot.  I pulled out my trusty USB stick that boots Ubuntu to perform the task at hand.  And, in typical fashion, I discovered that since this was an old machine, it was not able to boot a USB device.  It's been that kind of day lately.

Then it was time to locate a Windows rescue disc.  This would be the easiest task in the world for normal folks but I apparently fear being struck by lightning if I ever put something back where it belongs.  Plus I'm quite lazy and the discs might be a room or more away.

I did manage to locate an old version of Xubuntu on a CD so I figured I'd try booting that one.  I booted in live cd mode, which runs linux in memory and doesn't touch the hard drive.  This is very useful for trying out different flavors of linux without messing up your current operating system.  It's also useful for rescue efforts like this one.

I mounted the hard drive and tried to burn a cd but the drive was whacked.  The day was getting even more lovely.  So I picked up a large USB stick and transferred the files from the Window profiles on the hard drive.

I burned the files to a cd on my laptop and BOOM - DONE.

What have we learned?

1. Always look annoyed when someone asks you to fix their computer
2. linux live cd's and bootable USB drives get the job done
3. Live by Windows, die by Windows (or Mac)

Why I Love Linux (and Hate Cats)

So I'm upgrading a laptop from Xubuntu 10.10 to 11.04 (oscillating ocelot).  All is going incredibly smoothly, which is pretty much what I have come to expect with this process.

All of the sudden I hear the sound of an OS upgrade crashing, which exactly matches the sound of a laptop physically crashing to the ground.  Apparently the cat wanted some attention.

I will not describe any of the sounds that followed other than to say the words kill and death kept appearing.  They were the closest sounds to family friendly that were produced.

The laptop was frozen and would not reboot under any circumstances, so I had no choice but to power it down manually.  [BONUS TIP: ctl-alt-prtscn +R-E-I-S-U-B will generally get a computer rebooted].

Upon bootup, the update continued almost from where it got stuck, then went fine.
THIS is why I love linux.


My cat, not so much.


You have no doubt read here about my dear little Satan.  His previous act as FDU (Feline Desctruction Unit) was to turn on a circular faucet knob and flood the bathroom floor, ruining three layers of flooring, then seeping downstairs to ruin hundreds of old guitar magazines.

We suffered through thousands of dollars of vet bills for our diabetic darling.  We even managed to stop him from blowing up the entire house with the gas burners.  He has disembowled countless Christmas trees and ruined furniture.  He even trashed an entire vintage radio before I could restore it.

After my outburst (which you might have heard), my wife calculated that the best way to deal with all of my brilliant ideas concerning Satan would be to ignore me.  My wife is a very smart woman and this solution tends to work very well for her in general.

----------

In a recent security class, we were coming up with all sorts of interesting ways to protect things.  One wag suggested a security guard armed with rocket-propelled grenades and a dog with an AK-47.

The thought was most amusing but when it comes to the bottom line, they need to substitute a cat with an AK-47 instead.  The cat is always a better deterrent because one never knows what an evil kitty is going to do, AK-47 or not.

Do you feel lucky today, punk?

Uncommon Ubuntu 11.04 Review

As my old readers (and now my new readers) know, I'm a linux guy.  I've been using Ubuntu for over five years now, specifically Xubuntu.  I only use Windows in a virtual machine because I have to for work.  Windows does tend to behave much better in a virtual machine though.  Don't take my word for it; look at all of the Windows servers running virtually across the world.

Ubuntu tends to come in three basic flavors, reflecting only a different desktop: Kubuntu features the KDE desktop, Ubuntu features Gnome, and Xubuntu the XFCE desktop.  I listed these in order of resources required to run them.  KDE is full of eye candy and most similar to Windows.  Gnome is middle of the road but I just don't like it.  XFCE takes the least amount of resources, thus can run on the widest range of hardware.  And if you use XFCE on current hardware, it's that much faster.  While there are even lighter distributions (distros), these are the three main ones.

History shows that the Ubuntus are solid, reliable distros, so much so, in fact, that you can generally install the release candidate early, without having to worry about what it will do to your computer.


DISCLAIMER: as Ubuntu warns, do not upgrade production machines early.

I have been running Xubuntu 10.4 since it came out and I'm quite satisfied.  I decided to upgrade a machine to 11.04 (Nutty Nincompoop) to see what would happen.  In case you have been following the news about the early releases of Nutty,  you know there's a huge controversy over the new Unity desktop.  There is even grumbling over the new Gnome desktop.  Understand that regardless of desktop choice, the underlying bits are the same.  You can choose to run whatever desktop you like - you're not married to only what comes `in the box'.

My upgrade process took about an hour but your time will vary because of download and processor speeds.  Since I ran an upgrade, I did not have to deal with Unity, it simply booted right into XFCE from where it left off.  As for Unity, I used it in the netbook-optimized Ubuntu distro and hated it immediately.  It struck me as training wheels that weren't necessarily required but possibly would have helped rank beginners.

If you are upgrading plain old Ubuntu (Gnome), you'll boot into Unity first, then you can switch to Gnome. 

If you have a separate Home partition, make sure there is at least 2g remaining on the OS partition if you're doing an upgrade.  If you have way too little, it will warn you, but it never hurts to have too much.

I dumped Unity and went with standard Xubuntu on the netbook and never looked back.  It's supposed to be more efficient in terms of the screen but I found no advantage there either.  Unity seems like one of those times when someone had a `good idea' and it mistakenly made it into the product's final release.  In fact, no one I know has nice things to say about Unity.  But that's just my opinion: use it and decide for yourself.

SO WHAT'S IT LIKE?

You may well ask what it's like.

We just did.

And well you may.   When it came up for the first time, I noticed just about no difference at all from my former XFCE setup. It installed the Orage clock/calendar in a panel, which I removed.  That's about the only noticeable difference thus far.  Again, your mileage will vary with upgrade and desktop, but only with the express written consent of the National Women's Volleyball League.

I was so tickled that I upgraded another machine.   Again, remember that this is pre-release by a few days and don't do this to any important machines.   That said, there are no show-stoppers at all.  Everything works as it is supposed to.  There is a lot more included in Settings, which XFCE desperately needed.

Thus far I have not been able to locate a menu editor.  This is not a total surprise, as XFCE has had no practical way to alter menus in quite a while (that didn't involve dual degrees in quantum physics and string theory).

Thus far, the upgrade has gone the way most prior upgrades have gone: quickly, quietly, without grief, and largely not too different from its predecessor.

I'll have more as I use it more.

UPDATE:

I just updated a dual-monitor system and was very pleasantly surprised to discover that not only did Xubuntu detect the dual monitors, it had a few small panel settings to make things easier.  It has settings for transparency (which I will never use) and allows the panel to span more than one monitor.  Little things like this are welcome additions.

Not sure why it felt the need to remove Tellico, my favorite video collection manager, but I reinstalled it after.

I also discovered Broadcast Messaging, which is something that escaped me at first.  After a brief search, I discovered this is a setting to give social network status messages when you log into the computer.

Being the absolute head of the anti-social network, I found no use for this at all, even though it was enabled.  The day I need my computer to let gobs of people know I have logged in is the day I have stopped using the computer.

Your mileage, of course, will vary.