Only Page 3 in a Google Search?

Fresh on the heels of yesterday's (well, this morning's) Ubuntu installation, I gave our son a quick rundown of how to logon, and let him play with the system for a while. This latest release of Linux has come a long way since the last release I tried, Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) was released at the end of 2007. To be honest, I liked that distro, but I did not have at that time the patience or tenacity to stick with it long enough to learn much about it. My first impression of Quantal Quetzal 12.10 is that it is so vastly improved that the two releases hardly seem related. Mind you, I didn't do much "under the hood" with 7.10.

Today, though, our son, having never touched Linux before, successfully downloaded and installed Valve's Steam client without a hitch (Ubuntu had no issues with getting online). After that, I spent about an hour trying to get sound to work, which seems to be an ever-present issue when doing a fresh OS install. This time, though, it was strictly a hardware issue- I has the speakers plugged in to the onboard PC sound, but no sound. I tried several tests, and even looked online... which is where page 3 in a Google search happens. If one just enters quetzal, Google serves up the bird, a Grammy-winning musical group in Los Angeles, another artiste that lives somewhere in Spain (yes, that was the actual listing... somewhere) and a few other things before Linux shows up. I searched something like "Ubuntu sound issues" and got a number of hits.

Left to right, XP, Win7, Ubuntu 

I was happy to see this!

I went back to the PC and tried the last port of possibility, the soundcard. It worked. Wow. I can only guess that the OS detected the card and wanted me to use it rather than the built in sound. The other challenge I was not looking forward to was installing a printer. This, however, was the anticlimactic moment of my evening. I selected printers, the PC found the networked printers, and I picked one. I think I executed maybe five mouse clicks, including the printer test, shown to the right. I am truly impressed, although I think I will get one of those 900-page books because I want to do some actual work on this box. I still do not know how to do much with the external HDD, and this is important as the internal one is fairly small. Well, I was able to create two folders, but unable to "execute permissions" to install the one game- Red Orchestra- that I have that has been ported to Steam. I did locate a Dummies book published in 1997, but it wasn't any help, so I need the big book.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

More Steam, punk!

It’s time for a rant. Per internet protocol, this rant is hardly serious- it’s merely an expression against some minor perceived frustrations of modern life.

As compensation for a purchase I recently made, a certain manufacturer included in their product an offer for some .mp3 downloads. Being a fairly savvy consumer, I understood that the manufacturer most likely was betting that the average consumer would not redeem all ten .mp3s that were the offer.

Well, I am quite the music aficionado, and I was happy to get ten songs out of the deal. It literally took around three hours, so I’m not sure what my ROI is. I suppose the bottom line is that I was able to fill a few holes in my collection. The downside was I was not able to fill a few holes in my music collection. There were artists that were unavailable that did not surprise me. What surprised me was popular songs that were not available from certain one hit wonders.

Okay- end of rant. I got some good  music- considering that the actual product cost 14 USD, and an .mp3 generally costs something like ninety-nine cents, I only paid four dollars for the actual product.

Back in the real world, I’m listening to a tune from Axe’s first (and best, in my opinion) album as I write. “Jennifer” is a great tune. Behind me, the XW4200 workstation is resting. I finally got up the courage to fight cables, track down power supplies, and bring the workstation back online. It is re-entering service as an Ubuntu box; our son is all excited that Steam is now available on the Ubuntu platform, so he is going to get the opportunity to start working with Linux. I read some of the Canonical blurbs about Quantal Quetzal, and it looks somewhat different from the last Linux I played with, which I think was 8.10 LTS. The install was slightly odd- about a ten minute preload where not much happened onscreen. The rest of the install was typically painless- Canonical have the install process down. One improvement over the last time I did this is the informational screens… all in all I’m pretty jazzed about this latest version of Ubuntu.

The other benefit to the Linux install is the reclaiming of office space- the Secret Underground Lair is unfortunately no stranger to clutter, and this most recent project forced me to do a bit of straightening, and more will follow.

One final note which pretty much pegs the geek-meter at 11 concerns printers. I think I had previously mentioned that we had picked up a used HP printer at our local Goodwill store. Because of the way the office is set up, this printer sits on top of a pair of PCs- until tonight, it had rested on three. The activation of the Linux box required some repositioning of equipment, so now it sits on top of two PCs. What really pegs the meter, though, is this printer is our third HP printer in service (simultaneously); all take the same ink, and all have output trays which face East.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.