OLDFART BIKERS' PAGES

Continuing adventures with Ubuntu Linux and other softwares.

Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 9.04 Beta was so impressive in the Virtual Box that I did install it when the final version was released. I find it easier to set up Ubuntu now than I do a WinDoze OS, but some of that will be because I can head for the terminal and the command line quite happily now. It might, perhaps, not be so easy for a complete newcomer to a Linux system. Most all of the multi-media stuff that tended to be a hassle with Ubuntu is now just a case of clicking, "Yes," when the system asks if you want to install the required files/packages/whatevers.

Other Operating Systems.

I have had Open Solaris running on the space where the Ubuntu Beta was, in my spare partition where my virtual machines dwell. It is, it seems to me, pretty much aimed at hard-core command line enthusiasts or business users. It runs the same version of Gnome Desktop as Ubuntu, so the look and feel is very similar, but don't think it is going to be easy to put Flash in a browser or install new software just 'cos it looks the same. It's back to basics time with the Solaris critter. Even the install process was CIA-strength: our computer logs in automatically, without a password, because there are only the two of us use it. I need to use the root password quite a bit as a Superuser, but it ain't needed for all our normal stuff. No way was Solaris that obliging: it not only required a password to login, but it had to be a long and involved thing, some uppercase, some lower case, some numerals. Inevitably I forgot it, and as I had already satisfied myself that Open Solaris wasn't going to be my choice of Desktop OS for a bit of tu-tuing with email and photos any time soon, I hit the delete button.

Next up, maybe, Open Suse?

Mr Phyxitt.

I seem to have aquired a reputation as a part-time geek amongst my friends, who are almost queuing up to lay their bug-infested WinDoze laptops on me to be resurrected. It is astonishing the amount of work their whanaus put into wrecking the OS, and equally astonishing is their naivety in trying to hide where they have been surfing to get the pox they've caught. And, I have to admit, despite my lack of luv for Win OS's, they do take a lot of killing. Some of the machines take ten minutes to boot, and operate(?) as slow as golden syrup running off a spoon in Ophir in mid-winter, but they don't seem to quit completely.

This site.

The webpage rebuild, I think, speaks for itself. I had to do a helluva lot of reading, and still have more work to do on the stylesheets, but I think the way the liquid layout works is neat. To be sure it loads a tad slower than putting the content in an iframe, but all the images in the template will load from browser cache when the page changes, and most folk are now on broadband of some description. The way the page resizes is impressive, although js media players confound it once the window size is reduced to tiny. The credits for the original Cascading Style Sheets I've used are in the footer, all I've done is tweaked other people's genius.