Completing the conversion

I had to spend most of Saturday morning rounding up some final ancillary parts (keyboard, wireless, bluetooth) for my parents PC, and by lunch time I was itching to get this thing done. I rocked up with their new PC with Ubuntu pre-installed and they were both quite impressed.

I think they have plans for it to be their personal entertainment centre in their study, as the TVs in their house are always occupied.

It took some explaining to them about the concept of free/open-source software, and how to use Ubuntu in general. It was most likely over my Dad's head, but I think Mum was getting some of it. He's more than happy, he can watch his music DVDs, listen to his songs, and browse the web. I think that's where it ends for him at the moment. He did however like GNUbik being a Rubik's Cube nut.

Setting up Evolution was annoying with his Yahoo! mail account. Yahoo! don't offer POP forwarding unless you have a premium account :(. I was quite keen on him using Evolution as it has the in-built tasks, vFolders and the claimed ability to sync with a mobile phone over bluetooth (I haven't found any good sources on how to do this). In the end I opted for Thunderbird and the WebMail extension.

I accidentally forgot to install their HP printer, and got an email on Monday; they were inserting the Windows drivers CD but it wouldn't start. Whoops! I was able to walk them through it over the phone, which was a thankfully painless exercise. Their bluetooth is also causing some problems, however my adapter works fine, so I'll have to see about swapping them at some point.

I did however get one interesting query from Mum, which I'd never really thought about before. Ubuntu (and derivatives) recognise when a USB/memory card is inserted, and you can simply open the media and browse the contents using whatever file manager. When you are done you can just yank it out. Yet, there is still the option, to mount and then unmount the device. She mainly asked this of me because in Windows XP, you generally click that little green arrow in the system tray to 'safely remove' the device.

So what's the standard? Just plug in the USB and open to get to your files? Or mount and the unmount the USB?

My first XP BSOD

I just came in to work this morning and I had the Blue Screen of Death across both monitors, it was very cool!

I actually have never seen a BSOD on XP before. Interesting.

I was going to say at least it's not coming back, but it is coming back ... all the time.

Here's the gist of it ...

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

blah blah blah

STOP: 0x000000D1 (0x00000023, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xB78531B6)
NVTcp.sys - Address B78531B6 base at B784F000, Datestamp 4253b85b

etc etc etc

Turns out from a simple google search for nvtcp.sys that the culprit it the NVIDIA network manager; apparently it tries to share an IRQ address, which causes the issue? Over my head.

So I'm uninstalling that quick smart, I wan't my dual screen setup back ...

It seems that everything is fine now.

Step two of the conversion to Ubuntu

I bought and assembled my parent's new PC yesterday. I got them a 19in widescreen LCD, which looks gorgeous. I want one!

This was the first time I've installed Ubuntu onto a completely fresh machine, no Windows here. Almost flawless setup, except for my bungling of the partitions, and it took next to no time.

Downloading updates over ADSL was not so quick.

Now all I need to do is identify and install any packages that they may need. First important thing is to setup the ability to browse a Windows network, as that is how they will be getting their old data off their old PC. I've never done that before, so I will need to work on that. SAMBA I guess??

The only other thing I need to consider is their printer, a problem which I have never had, seeing as I almost never print things out (only PDF printing).

I've already installed all the necessary codecs and things to play .mp3's, .avi's and DVD's. Other than that Ubuntu seemed pretty complete for applications. I don't want to install too much, so I can give my parents a demo of how Synaptic works.

I also think I'll install some different window managers to give my parents the choice. With the release of XFCE 4.4.0, I think I'll install xfwm at least (love that native transparency).

I recently went through some RSS feeds checking out some new Beryl features, which look rad. I think my dad was quite interested in Beryl, so I might include that too.

And I also am thinking of putting Metisse on there as well. I'm hoping to give the Mandriva 2007 One Live CD a go today.

Hopefully I'll have everything just working by the time I take it over, for a seamless transition from Windows to Ubuntu.

Key to a successful conversion

I'm quite proud of myself.

Over the course of the last year and a quarter (since I've been into Ubuntu), I have slowly been introducing my parents to FLOSS; I've already sold them on Firefox/Thunderbird and then OpenOffice.org.

Recently my Dad has been more than impressed with how you can style your computer to your likes and needs; backgrounds, panels, icons and Beryl. But I think the selling point, was when I was able to breathe life into his sound card using the Xubuntu LiveCD; he had been unable to hear sound for many months, due to a broken and stubborn Windows driver.

Now they are after for a new PC, and with the success of my brothers, have commissioned me to make one for them.

And they want to use Ubuntu.

I'm almost decided on the hardware, and want to get it assembled as soon as possible, and then give it to them with Ubuntu pre-installed. Because I think the crucial part in this endeavor, is making sure that they have everything they need. Once I hand it over, it's got to just work.

I most definitely don't want them getting frustrated, because MP3s won't play, can't organise their photos, blah, blah, etc. Simple things in the grand scheme of things, but key to ensuring my parents are happy with Ubuntu/GNU/Linux.

So far I've only got a short list of things to do and install ...

What applications do you think a PC with Ubuntu pre-installed needs?

Why I hate installing Windows

I put together my brothers PC yesterday. I found a nice computer shop in North Rocks; ITEstate, to gather the components for the upgrade to his ancient K6 processor.

Their prices are quite competitive (considering how easy it is for me to get there), and the girls at the sales desk are polite and helpful, as well as being super cute. The guys who get the parts for you are just as friendly. One thing I did like is that he made me stop and double check the serial number of each part before I left.

So for the fraction more I paid, than say going to Fluidtek (but only just), is worth the fact that I didn't have to wait in queue, and I got what I wanted. Their website also made things easier too.

Anyway enough of a plug.

It took me just over an hour to assemble the parts in my brothers old, and way too small case, which was quick. The mainboard a Gigabyte M51GM-S2G was a micro ATX, so I was able to squeeze it in. It seems quite a good board from first impressions, but I don't really delve into that area of hardware. So long as all the bits match and work, I'm happy. My only regret was not upping the hard drive specs.

After the ease of assembly, it was time for the pain of installing Windows. While I've sold my parents on Ubuntu for their new PC (which is now in the planning stages, and may even become a MythTV box), my brother wasn't so easy ...

He is wedded to iTunes.

But from what I gathered it's mainly because of the insanely high playcount his library has; he's so damn proud of it, he can't let go!

So I started the process at around 3PM, as he returned from his day of Scuba diving (some have it tough don't they?) and I just managed to finish installing drivers, basic software, etc in time to limp home to bed at around 11pm.

Not the worst time I've ever gone through, but made the more difficult by the fact that he had two old IDE drives, I only had one plugged in due to size restrictions, but once plugging in the second, I was left with a nice "hall.dll" not found error message.

Fortunately it was a simple as fixing the boot.ini file using bootcfg, which for the record was quite easy.

... damn it's hot this weekend!

Finally getting the latest version of Beryl

I was getting tired of having to wait until I could update to the latest version of Beryl, since it was announced on the 26th of December.

Turns out I had little bit extra in the line for the Beryl repository, which was keeping me from getting any updates. Perhaps it changed after the Beryl site was taken down?

If you've been following this post, you may have the same problem. Or you may be smarter than me and decided to act on this a lot earlier.

Anyway, long story short; the correct repository to get the latest version of Beryl is

deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ edgy main

Not that which I had previously (deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ edgy main-edgy)

Edit: If you also want to ensure that the packages are authentic, you'll need the updated GPG key

wget http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/root@lupine.me.uk.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

With the new version of Beryl you get a nicer and more organised settings manager, and some new plugins/toys.

Kayee likes the snow and water effects.

And the 3D desktop effect (as in the windows are 3D off the desktop) is great too.

But seeing as I am just wrapping up watching the entire Stargate series, I just love the 'beam-up' animation!

Sadly it doesn't lend itself to screenshots :(

(I had a similar problem with the sidekick animation when I first installed Beryl)

Snap Preview Anywhere is here!

I just discovered this this morning. I'm 100% sure it wasn't there before, but I'm not complaining.

I'm talking about Snap, and Wordpress.com have kindly enabled Snap Preview Anywhere (SPA) on my blog! After discovering this plugin, I found an announcement from Matt. I must have lucked out! Cheers!

Edit: Turns out this feature is now available right across the board. Thumbs up to Wordpress!

If you hover over a link on this blog for few seconds you should be shown a little preview of the link destination.

I think it's a pretty neat plugin, and always nice to see where a link might take you, rather than have to interpret a URL.

It also does the same preview for my pictures as they are just links to the picture itself. I don't know how much I like this, as looks almost like a picture in a picture kind of thing.

However if they were small thumbnails;

SPA could be quite helpful. I could just stop linking the pictures too.

What do you think is best?