1 Reply by dippedandfried

(69 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

I'm playing around with the UGR http://ugr.teampr0xy.net/ version of gnome3 and am finding a few very nice features and a whole lotta quirks (I also understand it's very early in the game):

- I really like the way they handle desktops...but then again I'm a writer and not a code propellerhead requiring *lots* of open apps and windows simultaneously. I especially like the way they tile several open apps in a single desktop.

- They *really* need a conky on the opening desktop explaining what to do and where things are...in its current state it's an Easter Egg Hunt for a new user. Intuitive? Nah.

Among the worst: 1) How am I supposed to know that I can use the Windows key to toggle Activities, and 2) How do I shut down (good grief!)?

Suggestions:
- Right-click the mouse or punch the Windows key to toggle Activities. Lord know the right-click is completely ignored at this point.

- Unless I'm mistaken, there's *no* need to open to a wide-open space with nothing apparent *to do*. Default should be to open to a screen where I can select an app, open a browser, open a folder, etc.

- I installed my conky but it killed my Windows key (sigh).

- They need to FIX the now-secret shutdown selection.

- They need to explain "sticky, slow, bounce and mouse" keys.

- Etc, etc, etc.

It shure looks purty, but the folks over at Gnome have violated almost every UI design principle known to man.

Cheers!

-D&F

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2 Reply by dippedandfried

(33 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

^ Yep. Snowpine, be sure to download the Debian Squeeze version of unetbootin on the ub website.

Cheers!

-D&F

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3 Reply by dippedandfried

(69 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

^ yikes  I've been drawn into the Unity-Gnome 3 lovefest like a moth into a bonfire three times over the past two weeks. Time. To. Stop. Now. And. Take. A. Deep. Breath.

Corenominal, I sincerely wish I could be a compleat gentleman like you, but I really need to make a few terse comments after blowing so much time on this.

Unity: Something akin to a totem pole dominates the left side of my screen...functionally it reminds me of some of the old alpha versions of the first Linux docks. I found myself wishing that I could reduce the icon size and tip the whole thing on its side. And then I remembered that, hey, I could do/have done that with Cairo Dock! -- And then the panel: completely unconfigurable. Enough said.

Gnome 3: Oboy.
I. If I've ever seen anything that *really needs* a conky along the same lines as Philip's in #!, this is it. My mother would throw her computer (and me) through her 3rd-story window if I ever replaced Mint with Gnome 3. It was three days before I accidentally bumped into a forum comment that explained how to shut down, for Prince Harrry's sake! And once I discovered how to do it, doing that hold-ALT click thing drove me nuts! I hope someone puts a fix on that little piece of insanity...

2. The UI: Has anyone noticed that you can't do *anything* on the default screen? Except throw your mouse at the upper left corner of the screen?! What is that? Where does an idea like that come from? Another thing that I learned only by hearsay was that I could press the Windows key to go into "Activities."

3. And system settings: Can I please, pretty please, just have my netbook suspend when I close the lid? Like I used to? Please? (And a whole. lot. of. other. stuff. is. missing. too.)

4. Any little goodies that I could add to the panel? Nope. However: A battery monitor appears when my netbook is plugged in (when I don't really need it), and (ahem) it *disappears* when I'm running on battery!   

Oops. I really shouldn't have started this, so now it's time to stop. I truly hope, way down deep, that both of them get past all this clutter and eventually have great success. roll

Cheers....

D&F

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4 Reply by dippedandfried

(31 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

^ Gotta watch out for that back-steppin' there, Philip! You never know when you might step in a fresh cow-pie if you're tip-toeing through the tulips with bobobex too much! lol

-D&F

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5 Reply by dippedandfried

(299 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

ADcomp, massive kudos for this little distro...I'm using 10.04 on my asus netbook and it runs like a Swiss (Belgian!) watch! big_smile

I've also apparently calmed down on my distro-hopping habit, mostly due to madbox "just working" in every aspect plus having the ability to switch between 3 openbox desktop setups by making a few simple changes in my autostart.sh file. 1) adeskbar (with systray plug-in) and conky, 2) tint2 and conky, and 3) stalonetray and conky with no panel. I've slightly modified the stock #! debian right-click menu (including those fabulous pipemenus) to work like a champ with madbox.

I'll probably move over to #! debian someday, but am currently way too busy with life to spend time learning a bit more about debian. The debian installer is my main drawback...I hope Philip smooths off what I see as a few rough edges (probably just my ignorance)...

Cheers!

-D&F

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6 Reply by dippedandfried

(43 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

Five more inches last night and it will probably be here until next May. I should have stayed in Florida.... hmm

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7 Reply by dippedandfried

(8 replies, posted in Help & Support (Stable))

@coyotl: I ran #! 9.04 on an eeepc 701 (4gb internal SD) with great success using eee-control for FN-F2 wifi toggle and a few other things....

That was two years ago, but it's definitely worth checking....

http://greg.geekmind.org/eee-control

Cheers!

-D&F

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8 Reply by dippedandfried

(1,253 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

@spoovy: It's good to see you hanging around just barely inside the DHA door again!

You know, of course, that you're eventually going to have to hit bottom some way or another, but in the meantime why don't you try a new hobby or wholesome activity? For example, why don't you place this personals ad in several newspapers and see what happens:

Young, optimistic occasional Linux user <ROFL> seeks a blonde 20-year-old double-jointed supermodel who owns her own brewery and has an openminded twin sister.

big_smile

-D&F

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9 Reply by dippedandfried

(22 replies, posted in Help & Support (Stable))

@fox...

Does this mean that when you set the mode in Win 7 that it carries over to Linux when you reboot into it?  If so, I wonder if that would apply to the brightness setting?

Yes, the performance level setting you select in Win7Starter persists into Statler/Ubuntu/whatever. And as I said, the power-saving mode gives me all the kick I need to run openoffice, youtube, opera/chromium, etc. Also, there's a small Asus partition at the end of the disk that I didn't want to mess with so I left both Win7 and that partition on the disk.

Brightness: FN-F5 and FN-F6 work fine in the 1005P, except that when you install almost any linux distro the brightness settings can be erratic. It's a grub2 fix. In terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
Change the "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT" line to:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor splash"
Save and close the file.
Finish with:
sudo update-grub2 (this typically takes more time than you'd think necessary...be patient)

As for touchpad control, add "syndaemon -d &" without the quotes to the autostart.sh file in an openbox distro like #!. It shuts off the touchpad when you're typing. Ubuntu and its variants include a decent mouse utility where you can get the touchpad calmed down.

Hope this helps...

-D&F

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10 Reply by dippedandfried

(22 replies, posted in Help & Support (Stable))

@fox & france75006:

Merci, france75006.  I didn't realize that the Atom N450 is 64 bit.  We have the 1001PX locally at a good price, with a 250 gb drive and Win 7 starter (or should I say, non-starter?).  Sound would be an issue for me; I wouldn't be using headphones or external speakers with a netbook.  The 4.5 hr battery time sounds disappointing, as I thought it was supposed to give you 8 or 9.  Is this with minimal use, or while running more intensive files like youtube clips or videos?

I picked up an eeepc 1005PB (Best Buy) several months ago and have *no* complaints other than the right-hand shift key (half the size of the left-hand shift key) and the typical tweaks you need to do to tame any netbook. BTW, it took me about 3 days to get completely used to the shift key.

No problems with sound running madbox, statler or vanilla ubuntu 10.04. I left Win7 on it only to set/reset the 3 performance levels (high, normal, powersaving), although I run in powersaving mode 90 percent of the time.  I can't figure out how to change modes in the linux distros.

No matter what you buy, make sure that the battery is at least 6600mah if you're running the Atom N450 processor...otherwise you'll end up with 4-5hrs battery life. I regularly get 8-9 hours on battery. I've noticed that some netbooks are being sold with the N450 and a smaller battery, so shop carefully.

Cheers!

-D&F

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11 Reply by dippedandfried

(6,227 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

And Cream back in the day....

Tales of Brave Ulysses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BGlFsf9 … re=related

Cheers!

-D&F

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12 Reply by dippedandfried

(6,227 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

Cream - Sittin' on top of the world

A real belly-rubber...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSvpGZ0s … re=related

-D&F

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13 Reply by dippedandfried

(11 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

@awebb: Re your "Does it have unlimited traffic with bandwidth cap after, say, 1 GiB?" question, you'll have to talk to someone at virgin mobile who sports a much larger brain than mine.

All I can tell you is that I get overall terrific web connection in Minneapolis and other metro areas, and am especially pleased that I regularly can fire up Opera Mini and read the news while taking my morning dump in the mens room deep inside a large corporate building.:D 

Cheers!

-D&F

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14 Reply by dippedandfried

(11 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

I've been using Virgin Mobile's LG Rumor Touch ($150 new) for a few months and am *very* pleased with it. Nice touchpad, nice little slide-out keyboard. I downloaded the Opera Mini browser and it works great. Google Maps is built-in, and you can get Google Navigator for an extra $10/mo. or just turn it on a day at a time for $3/day. 

No contract. $25.00 per month includes 300 anytime minutes and unlimited text, data and web. If you need more talk time you can switch up to $40/mo for 1200 minutes. They offer several apps but I haven't looked at them since I'm happy with what I've got. 

Virgin is owned by Sprint, so it's on the Sprint network.

http://www.virginmobileusa.com/cell-pho … -plans.jsp

-D&F  big_smile

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15 Reply by dippedandfried

(1,253 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

@Digit: Good to see you around here again...and that you've still got your adventurous nose stuck deep into the exotic stuff. I wish I had more time to participate in some time-consuming risk taking in the linux garden, but all play and no work makes jack a hungry boy.
@jinnstar: If I were you I wouldn't worry too much about slipping off-topic in this thread...I started out way back there with tongue stuck deeply into cheek and it's been like that ever since...
@vrkalak: Wow. Your inspired rant almost gave me a little distro-boner again, but I'm enjoying running in tame mode these days havin' a good time with adcomp's madbox...very tasty, solid and quick little crunchified distro. I'll probably stick with it until Greg over at geekmind puts some varnish on his debian version of remastersys so I can blow reliable iso's in Statler.

Cheers! big_smile

-D&F

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16 Reply by dippedandfried

(299 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

@omns: +1! No mo' login screen! smile big_smile lol cool
On the "autologin=madbox" line I replaced "madbox" with my username, saved the file, and then pointed the file in the right direction with your "update-alternatives" line above.
@anonymous: Thanks again for tipping me off about doing the same thing in Statler (gdm rather than lxdm) with "gksu gdmsetup" awhile back. big_smile
-D&F

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17 Reply by dippedandfried

(299 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

^ Thanks to both anonymous and omns for effort, but still no cigar...
ADcomp has apparently hidden it well, and I'm not sure if my old 64-yr-old @ss is up for an extended treasure hunt deep in the bowels of the /etc folder. yikes
Has anyone else managed to get rid of the login screen in madbox 10.4-2? tongue
TIA,

-D&F

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18 Reply by dippedandfried

(299 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

^  /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf begins with "autologin=madbox" -- I changed "madbox" to my username but still no cigar. sad

The login page still came up...I also tried "autologin=1" and "autologin=yes" and could swear I heard little voices laughing at me from inside my netbook...

-D&F

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19 Reply by dippedandfried

(299 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

Last night I installed Madbox 10.04-2 as a triple-boot with W7 and Statler A2 on my eeepc 1005P and am overall thrilled with this distro (and Adeskbar). Thank you, ADcomp!!

Only one problem (having more to do with personal preferences than functionality): Could someone tell me how to set up autologin? I tried a few things mentioned in this thread but got no cigar, and I really dislike bumping into that login page whenever I boot/reboot. Thanks in advance....

-D&F

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20 Reply by dippedandfried

(3 replies, posted in Help & Support (Stable))

I can get you started...I'm currently triple-booting Win7, Mint9 (in case a problem occurs with Statler alphas that I can't fix) and Statler A2 OB/XFCE.

First question: What kind of computer are you running and how big is the hard drive or ssd drive?

My first steps (someone may have some better ones):
1) Install Vista.
2) Inside Vista, go to the disk management utility (if you can't find it, do a Help and Support search on the word "partition."
3) Use the DM utility to reduce the size of your Vista partition (rather than having Vista own the entire disk). At this step, I gave Win7 a 30GB partition size (btw, I have a 250GB hard drive).
4) In the Vista DM utility, assign the remaining space on your drive to be unallocated space. Do NOT format the remaining space as NTFS. I'm quite sure that any linux (debian/ubuntu for sure) distro will be looking for the largest unallocated space on the disk for installation.
5) If you get this far, you should be able to install a linux distro on the unallocated area with relative ease. Most (all?) Ubuntu-based distros use a simple 1-2-3 GUI installation utility. Statler (debian) uses a more rudimentary text installer...see Philip's install instructions in the #! wiki (don't have time to chase down the link for you right now...

Cheers!

-D&F

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21 Reply by dippedandfried

(1,253 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

@CrunchyFree: Not silly at all...and a massive apology for my coming across as demeaning...my noobness far exceeds yours, I'm sure, and I've wrapped myself around so many beyond-silly distro-hopping trees that I've done permanent damage to what's left of my brain. -- For some reason MoonOS drove me nuts but Mint has truly outdone itself in bettering Ubuntu in many areas. I do have a problem with the green, though...and I think my real problem is with gnome...

@aaro: Somewhat of a good point, but I still think that Mint has "bettered" Ubuntu in many ways but stayed in the same mold. Philip, on the other hand, has hyper-optimized openbox/xfce and done nothing less than  revolutionize the linux desktop...and making it, hey, a massive amount of twisty config FUN! And I am *really* looking forward to the final Debian-based masterpiece. -- The only thing I really miss from Ubuntu is the remastersys thing (currently being discussed in another thread).

Cheers!

-D&F

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22 Reply by dippedandfried

(14 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")

Winotree (and all),
By sheer dumb luck I managed to take a step further into the deep woods...
1) Like you guys, I added geekmind's repo to my repo list and installed debian remastersys.
2) I made a remastersys backup iso (1.6G) of the Statler OB/XFCE A2 combo logged into XFCE on my eeepc 1005PEB. I then installed the iso on a thumbdrive with unetbootin linux-356. (I ignored the network error and noticed that US had reverted to GB in the tray...wifi came right up in the livecd.)
3) I ran the livecd successfully on the 1005, and noticed the remastersys selections (backup, install, grub) in the XFCE menu.
4) I booted #! 9.04 on my eeepc 701 and successfully loaded the statler livecd.
5) Per Greg's caution, I ran gparted and set up the SSD drive as an ext3 drive with a small swap.
6) Using the System menu remastersys install selection, I apparently installed the livecd on the SSD.
7) After the install, I removed the thumbie, rebooted, and it looks like grub was the show-stopper:

GRUB loading stage1.5.
GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 15

And that' where I'm at. Anyone get any further? hmm

PS: A system-only iso would be much less than my 1.6G iso...most of my /home is in my iso...

Cheers!

-D&F

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23 Reply by dippedandfried

(1,253 replies, posted in Off Topic / General Chat)

@CrunchyFree: And your point is?! Let's see...you hate Ubuntu but love MoonOS and Mint. Which are, er, Ubuntu knock-offs. roll

Cheers.... wink

-D&F

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24 Reply by dippedandfried

(14 replies, posted in Devel: CrunchBang 10 "Statler")

Wow, did you guys stumble into a *good* one or what?!! big_smile lol cool

If this tests out OK, I'm snipping the last strand that's been keeping me from completely breaking with the 'buntus. Until tonight, I've been really missing remastersys...it pulled my fat out of the fire more than once when I (often) waltzed beyond my knowledge level with #! 9.04. I'd bet that Greg over at geekmind would like to hear about this one...

Anyway, I'm writing this from a livecd of my entire #! OB/XFCE partition (I log back and forth between OB and XFC depending on the mood...thanks for that install option, Philip!) except for my music folder. Winotree, I experienced the exact same "minor glitches" as you...my wifi popped right back on once I got inside and the GB thing is lightweight...

Question is, how would I actually reinstall? I didn't see anything in the unetbootin menu and there's certainly nothing inside the livecd. I'm noobin' on this one...anyone got the answer?

Cheers!

-D&F

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25 Reply by dippedandfried

(4 replies, posted in Help & Support (Stable))

^Uneducated guess: When you download the Opera deb and install w/gdebi, it automagically gets tossed into your repositories list. Open synaptic, go to Settings > Repositories, and if it's in there uncheck the box to disable it.

Also (I just verified this): In Opera Settings > Preferences > Security > Advanced, shut off Automatic Updates.

Also2: I haven't been having your type of problem w/Opera. I wonder if it's cuz I'm not using Java? Just sayin'. No time to check it out right now...

BTW, I visited the Distro-Hoppers Anonymous group last night after a long absence and it's turned into a hang-out for hoppers! yikes yikes

Cheers!

D&F

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