The article I read is: Tablets Are Broken. Here's How to Fix Them.
While I've wanted a tablet for a while, the main thing that kept me away was my lack of money, but I suppose the other thing that kept me away was the interface itself (I didn't really realize it until I read the article).
The article makes very valid points about everything that is wrong with the interface with tablets, which I agree with - tablets are supposed to be the in-between device when we want something larger than our phones but handier than our laptops. And as the article said, the problem is that Android and iOS were designed for phones more than tablets, along with that tablets are mostly going to be used in a landscape orientation rather than portrait.
While a proper rendition of Android and iOS (and their applications) would improve the usage of tablets, there is another solution that the author is probably unaware of that would be the "quick fix": Linux. Both GNOME 3 and Unity were meant to support touchscreens, and would work well on a tablet, but there's a couple problems: it's not easy to install Linux on a tablet (I'm not entirely sure of this, as I've never looked, but I can't exactly figure out how it'd be done with the knowledge I have), and that ARM support really is iffy depending on the distribution. Some tablets use x86 or x86_64 architecture processors, which would have a higher compatibility with Linux distributions than ARM, and will be what I'm referencing to from now on.
Unity is really more geared toward touchscreen use, though it's easily used for a normal desktop environment (mouse and keyboard). One of the things I don't like about Unity is that it forces you to type the application you want to launch - it's faster in most cases, but there are some (like me) who would rather not have to.
GNOME 3 is geared a bit more towards touchscreens, but is a lot closer to the neutral point than Unity is. The applications are listed in a flow, which allows the user to scroll through it all to look for what they're looking for (assuming it's not in the recent applications list), and they're also able to click on the search box and type the application name if they wish to do so. What I'm not sure about is how the notification bar would work, as it was something I didn't test, but I'm assuming long-pressing the bottom of the screen would bring it up
While I haven't tried the other desktop interfaces with a touchscreen, the interfaces aren't much different than Windows, so it's usable, but probably awkward at times.
Assuming there's a way to install Linux onto a tablet, it'd still be pretty awkward because of the lack of keyboard - how would one type anything in during installation? Maybe it would detect the touchscreen and enable the on-screen keyboard?
While Linux is a viable alternative for tablets, it voids the warranty of a new device (or one within warranty), requiring you to restore the factory image onto the device before sending it in for repair. Once I get a hold of a tablet, I'll eventually tinker with installing openSUSE onto it (I may also try Ubuntu as well), but for now I can only really speculate on how well Linux is on a tablet as an alternative to Android and iOS.
28 November 2014
23 November 2014
openSUSE 13.2 Part 6
A few days ago, I initiated an install for
I figured it would eventually be fixed and that I just had to wait it out to when it did. While the window shade feature no longer works properly (or was changed?), I've found a very viable alternative to replace it that I've partially adapted to - the "lower" option, which lowers the window beneath all the other windows.
With how much Firefox is crashing on Mei-chan, I may have to do a clean install, since I can't pinpoint the problem with what I've tried so far. Rhythmbox still randomly crashes when playing, though it actually just stops responding instead of closing itself, and perhaps it's just me, but it seems to be worse than it used to - maybe even more of a reason for a clean install. While I still need to get used to the new button placement on the dialogues, I still prefer 13.2 over 13.1, as GNOME 3 responds quicker after a cold boot.
h264enc on Triela to see if the dependency problem still existed, and I was surprised to see that it didn't, so I then canceled the install and went ahead with following caf4926's guide (of which they modified the 13.1 guide by changing "13.1" to "13.2") to completely install the multimedia and restricted formats packages. After installation, I immediately tested VLC with the MKV file that I always use for testing, and was able to watch the video; the day after, I upgraded both Mei-chan and Lie-chan.I figured it would eventually be fixed and that I just had to wait it out to when it did. While the window shade feature no longer works properly (or was changed?), I've found a very viable alternative to replace it that I've partially adapted to - the "lower" option, which lowers the window beneath all the other windows.
With how much Firefox is crashing on Mei-chan, I may have to do a clean install, since I can't pinpoint the problem with what I've tried so far. Rhythmbox still randomly crashes when playing, though it actually just stops responding instead of closing itself, and perhaps it's just me, but it seems to be worse than it used to - maybe even more of a reason for a clean install. While I still need to get used to the new button placement on the dialogues, I still prefer 13.2 over 13.1, as GNOME 3 responds quicker after a cold boot.
16 November 2014
Redoing Lie-chan
A few days ago, I thought about how much I actually used Lie-chan (which is hardly), and so I decided to remove Windows from her.
When I looked at the her partitioning scheme, I decided I should actually just completely redo the scheme, since it would be quicker to do so than to move/resize partitions. I also poked around the BIOS a lot, since I knew Lie-chan is technically able to boot from USB, but just never was able to successfully do it. I figured it out and was able to utilize the USB flash drive with Linux distributions for installation.
Once I got to the partitioner step in openSUSE (13.1) installation, I realized it wasn't going to be easy to change the partition map to GPT with YaST2's partitioner, so I decided to reboot into Parted Magic(though I should have just aborted the installation and used GParted, but I was cold and slightly tired). When trying to boot Parted Magic, it was unable to find the necessary file, so I tried MultiSystem Live instead, which worked.
After setting up a basic partition scheme and installing openSUSE 13.1, I was then met with the right side of the audio not outputting sound at all. I decided to wait after setting up the repositories, the distribution upgrade, and updating to see if it's a package glitch of some sort - which it wasn't.
I tried a couple things and decided to head to bed, since I was too cold and tired to want to continue to figure it out. After lunch the next day (I woke up a bit before lunch), I went to tinker around with it some more, first trying
In
Definitely was one of the weirder glitches that I've had happen, but luckily I didn't have to fix it with a reinstall (the openSUSE 13.1 DVD isn't supported in MultySystem Live yet).
When I looked at the her partitioning scheme, I decided I should actually just completely redo the scheme, since it would be quicker to do so than to move/resize partitions. I also poked around the BIOS a lot, since I knew Lie-chan is technically able to boot from USB, but just never was able to successfully do it. I figured it out and was able to utilize the USB flash drive with Linux distributions for installation.
Once I got to the partitioner step in openSUSE (13.1) installation, I realized it wasn't going to be easy to change the partition map to GPT with YaST2's partitioner, so I decided to reboot into Parted Magic(though I should have just aborted the installation and used GParted, but I was cold and slightly tired). When trying to boot Parted Magic, it was unable to find the necessary file, so I tried MultiSystem Live instead, which worked.
After setting up a basic partition scheme and installing openSUSE 13.1, I was then met with the right side of the audio not outputting sound at all. I decided to wait after setting up the repositories, the distribution upgrade, and updating to see if it's a package glitch of some sort - which it wasn't.
I tried a couple things and decided to head to bed, since I was too cold and tired to want to continue to figure it out. After lunch the next day (I woke up a bit before lunch), I went to tinker around with it some more, first trying
alsamixer before pavucontrol.In
pavucontrol, I found that the right side of the audio was muted, and just had to increase the volume until both sides were at maximum. After exiting, I went into the sound settings and tested the sounds, which worked normally (besides that it was a lot louder than I was expecting); I then adjusted the volume in YaST2's sound setting and finished setting everything to how it used to be.Definitely was one of the weirder glitches that I've had happen, but luckily I didn't have to fix it with a reinstall (the openSUSE 13.1 DVD isn't supported in MultySystem Live yet).
Heating homes with clouds
The article I read is: Heat your house for free by storing this cloud company’s servers.
I like this idea quite a bit - the home-owner hosts the servers' physical location in exchange for the heat that can be used to heat the home, and internet service. Also, if you consider an entire neighbourhood doing this, it (essentially) improves the reliability and/or overall storage space (depending on how it's set up).
This article reminded me of a parody advertisement I made a few years ago, where there would be a program to use 100% of the CPU (such as a loop that can be broken) and would heat a room - turning the computer into a space-heater.
During the cold winter days, I prefer to spend time in my bedroom with Mei-chan, since she can heat up my bedroom to a more comfortable temperature than what the second floor usually is (I obviously have my door closed).
I don't really like space heaters, since they only have one function (heat an area), and can use around the same amount of power as a computer. Mei-chan's power supply is 500 watts (though I doubt she actually uses all 500 watts), and the two oil-filled space heaters in the basement (which aren't really used any more) have 3 modes: 600W, 900W, and 1500W.
Of course the only problem is that the computer is only going to be an effective space heater if it puts out enough heat. In Lie-chan's case, she doesn't put out enough heat to be able to heat my entertainment room as I found out the other day. I was redoing Lie-chan's partitioning scheme and removing Windows, finding out that Lie-chan didn't get over 25C from BIOS; the entire time I was working with her, I was cold. I'm sure Ziggy would've done a lot better job (LOL).
I like this idea quite a bit - the home-owner hosts the servers' physical location in exchange for the heat that can be used to heat the home, and internet service. Also, if you consider an entire neighbourhood doing this, it (essentially) improves the reliability and/or overall storage space (depending on how it's set up).
This article reminded me of a parody advertisement I made a few years ago, where there would be a program to use 100% of the CPU (such as a loop that can be broken) and would heat a room - turning the computer into a space-heater.
During the cold winter days, I prefer to spend time in my bedroom with Mei-chan, since she can heat up my bedroom to a more comfortable temperature than what the second floor usually is (I obviously have my door closed).
I don't really like space heaters, since they only have one function (heat an area), and can use around the same amount of power as a computer. Mei-chan's power supply is 500 watts (though I doubt she actually uses all 500 watts), and the two oil-filled space heaters in the basement (which aren't really used any more) have 3 modes: 600W, 900W, and 1500W.
Of course the only problem is that the computer is only going to be an effective space heater if it puts out enough heat. In Lie-chan's case, she doesn't put out enough heat to be able to heat my entertainment room as I found out the other day. I was redoing Lie-chan's partitioning scheme and removing Windows, finding out that Lie-chan didn't get over 25C from BIOS; the entire time I was working with her, I was cold. I'm sure Ziggy would've done a lot better job (LOL).
13 November 2014
OS X Loses Third-party TRIM Support
The article I read is: Apple removes TRIM support for third-party SSDs with OS X update.
The article title says it all, and the article itself just gives further details. I'm not horribly surprised that Apple did this, but it's just another thing that makes my appreciation for Apple drop more than it already has.
I don't really have anything to say besides that another workaround option is to install Linux over OS X.
The article title says it all, and the article itself just gives further details. I'm not horribly surprised that Apple did this, but it's just another thing that makes my appreciation for Apple drop more than it already has.
I don't really have anything to say besides that another workaround option is to install Linux over OS X.
11 November 2014
Groupon Removes Tradmark Filings
The article I read is: Groupon Abandons “Gnome” Trademark Filings!
As the article itself said, that was a quick response; it's nice that things finally smoothed out correctly. Besides that the Gnome Foundation now has some $22,000 (USD), there's not really much I have to say about it.
I did read a very small snippet of the Twitter posts on Trek Glowacki's page (I guess that's what it's called?), and some of them I'm not sure how to feel.
Anyway, seems like the posts that follow is just some weird argument thing between Trek and some other guy, so I didn't care enough to scroll down more than that.
It would've been nicer if Groupon was a bit more responsive initially instead of making a bad move to file the trademarks, but at the least the matter is now resolved.
As the article itself said, that was a quick response; it's nice that things finally smoothed out correctly. Besides that the Gnome Foundation now has some $22,000 (USD), there's not really much I have to say about it.
I did read a very small snippet of the Twitter posts on Trek Glowacki's page (I guess that's what it's called?), and some of them I'm not sure how to feel.
naw, @grayj_ @jedgar we're going with Virtual Inventory Manager (VIM). Everyone loves it.
— Trek Glowacki (@trek) November 11, 2014
I have a slight problem with this, as there's the Vi Improved (VIM) text editor. Technically, there's no infringement, since VIM in Groupon's case is an acronym for "Virtual Inventory Manager" as previously stated, and VIM in the application sense is a contraction of Vi Improved. The only reason why I have a slight problem with it is that Groupon was already walking on broken glass with GNOME and this just makes it seem like they haven't learned their lesson that well. But as I said, there's no real trademark infringement since (if I remember correctly) trademarks are based off of the "full name" and not the acronym.
@trek @grayj_ @jedgar Not as good as the Extended Merchant Access and Control System
— Jason Yanowitz (@yanowitz) November 11, 2014
Once I put this one together, I got a good laugh out of it.
@williampietri the original naming mixup was an honest mistake. Marketers are not linux gurus.
— Trek Glowacki (@trek) November 11, 2014
This is the one I have a hard time believing. As far as I'm concerned, marketers are supposed to research thoroughly to make sure there's no copyright and/or trademark infringements. You don't need to be a Linux guru to find that GNOME is already a registered trademark - what I mean is a simple search in Google for "gnome" [sic] yields the GNOME homepage with the first result. I might not have any degrees in marketing, but for f*k's sake, keep it simple and use a search engine - it's not that hard!Anyway, seems like the posts that follow is just some weird argument thing between Trek and some other guy, so I didn't care enough to scroll down more than that.
It would've been nicer if Groupon was a bit more responsive initially instead of making a bad move to file the trademarks, but at the least the matter is now resolved.
Groupon Hijacks GNOME Trademark
The article I read is: Gnome Foundation accuses Groupon of trademark hijacking, pleads for help
In my "GNU/Linux" section of my Play Newsstand feed, this article was at the top (being the newest, if I assume that's how it works), and it immediately caught my attention; I was relatively exasperated after fishing reading the article. When I was trying to continue through the feeds like I normally do, I first saw two more articles about this before losing the ability to focus on anything else.
If you've read enough of my blog, you know well that I love GNOME - which I've been using since 2.x since Linux Mint 8 - so you know know you didn't before. For something like this, I'm seriously at a loss of words on the stupidity of Groupon. I seriously don't know what to say besides that I'm pretty outraged.
I suppose I can start with Groupon in general from what I know and have experienced...
I first learned about Groupon while working at my old job, since there'd be a few people complaining that their Groupon car wash code didn't work, to which I told them that we weren't part of it, being ridiculed back with something similar to "You're a Circle K, you're supposed to take Groupon." Eventually, I learned it was actually the "actual" Circle K catty-corner from us that was part of the Groupon deal (the "actual" Circle Ks are the ones with Shell petroleum, the one I worked at sold Conoco petroleum and was only a franchise), so I was able to properly redirect the customers to the correct location so that their Groupon code would work.
I never really got into Groupon at all (never mind the experience with the customers who did), and never really understood it that much - I knew it was like a "coupon" but what exactly was the "group" part of it?
Well, I can say I'm glad I didn't really get into it, since they're pulling crap like this now, and I definitely never will now, because I don't support anything that goes against what I believe.
If I had the money to, I would certainly donate what I'm able, to help the Gnome Foundation fight this battle, but I have to keep what I have left, so that I'm able to find employment.
I won't beg you to donate or see things my way, but if you believe in the basic ideas of GNU Project, please do what you can to help the Gnome Foundation to win this battle.
In my "GNU/Linux" section of my Play Newsstand feed, this article was at the top (being the newest, if I assume that's how it works), and it immediately caught my attention; I was relatively exasperated after fishing reading the article. When I was trying to continue through the feeds like I normally do, I first saw two more articles about this before losing the ability to focus on anything else.
If you've read enough of my blog, you know well that I love GNOME - which I've been using since 2.x since Linux Mint 8 - so you know know you didn't before. For something like this, I'm seriously at a loss of words on the stupidity of Groupon. I seriously don't know what to say besides that I'm pretty outraged.
I suppose I can start with Groupon in general from what I know and have experienced...
I first learned about Groupon while working at my old job, since there'd be a few people complaining that their Groupon car wash code didn't work, to which I told them that we weren't part of it, being ridiculed back with something similar to "You're a Circle K, you're supposed to take Groupon." Eventually, I learned it was actually the "actual" Circle K catty-corner from us that was part of the Groupon deal (the "actual" Circle Ks are the ones with Shell petroleum, the one I worked at sold Conoco petroleum and was only a franchise), so I was able to properly redirect the customers to the correct location so that their Groupon code would work.
I never really got into Groupon at all (never mind the experience with the customers who did), and never really understood it that much - I knew it was like a "coupon" but what exactly was the "group" part of it?
Well, I can say I'm glad I didn't really get into it, since they're pulling crap like this now, and I definitely never will now, because I don't support anything that goes against what I believe.
If I had the money to, I would certainly donate what I'm able, to help the Gnome Foundation fight this battle, but I have to keep what I have left, so that I'm able to find employment.
I won't beg you to donate or see things my way, but if you believe in the basic ideas of GNU Project, please do what you can to help the Gnome Foundation to win this battle.
08 November 2014
openSUSE 13.2 Part 5
I decided to upgrade Triela from openSUSE 13.1 to 13.2 instead of Tumbleweed, so that I'd stay stable. After rebooting, I was met with a maintenance console, and after looking toward the end of the log, it couldn't mount my other partition for some reason, so I ended up removing the entry from
A couple things new with 13.2 that I missed with the other test:
I don't think I'll discover anything else, but I won't hesitate to post if I do.
(edit)
Oh right, the new GRUB2 menu colours are actually green (though I don't think it's openSUSE green), and the cyan-doped colouring on the Dell was because of the monitor - I'll have to fix that if I can.
fstab and rebooting again. After getting into GNOME, I checked to make sure the pieces to the entry were there (the path to the disk and the mount point I specified), and they were, so I added the line back into fstab, and rebooted yet again. Since I got into GNOME just fine, it seemed like it was some sort of temporary glitch. (Two things I could have done is to reboot from the maintenance console and see what happens, and/or comment the line out in fstab, which I didn't remember how to do.)A couple things new with 13.2 that I missed with the other test:
- The side bar play queue (when enabled) in Rhythmbox (3.1) will have a horizontal scroll bar
- "Shading" a window no longer rolls the window up into the title bar, and makes the window invisible, even in the window preview.
I don't think I'll discover anything else, but I won't hesitate to post if I do.
(edit)
Oh right, the new GRUB2 menu colours are actually green (though I don't think it's openSUSE green), and the cyan-doped colouring on the Dell was because of the monitor - I'll have to fix that if I can.
07 November 2014
openSUSE Tumbleweed Part 3
After a bit of thinking earlier, I decided to test MP3 playback in Tumbleweed, though I was quite sure results were going to be positive - which they were.
When I thought about how I actually use Triela, I realized I don't really use her for video playback all that much (if at all), and so it's not deathly important that she does.
I suppose somewhere along all this testing over the last couple years, I lost sight of the importance of the installation purpose, or in other words, asking yourself "What/how do I use this installation?". I'm not sure when I started using Triela as the basis for being able to install a new version of openSUSE on Mei-chan and Melty, but it's where I lost purpose.
For testing, it's okay to make sure Triela can play back video, so I know whether or not to spend my time installing it on Mei-chan and Melty (and also Lie-chan); for actual use, Triela doesn't really need to be able to play back video.
Sorry for the sentimentality, but it's something that sort of happens when you realise you've lost focus on what really matters.
At this point, there's not a whole lot of difference between Tumbleweed and 13.2 in terms of video playback, so it doesn't matter much on which I install over 13.1 on Triela, but I will need to decide, as it's a long wait to do an upgrade/downgrade via repository.
When I thought about how I actually use Triela, I realized I don't really use her for video playback all that much (if at all), and so it's not deathly important that she does.
I suppose somewhere along all this testing over the last couple years, I lost sight of the importance of the installation purpose, or in other words, asking yourself "What/how do I use this installation?". I'm not sure when I started using Triela as the basis for being able to install a new version of openSUSE on Mei-chan and Melty, but it's where I lost purpose.
For testing, it's okay to make sure Triela can play back video, so I know whether or not to spend my time installing it on Mei-chan and Melty (and also Lie-chan); for actual use, Triela doesn't really need to be able to play back video.
Sorry for the sentimentality, but it's something that sort of happens when you realise you've lost focus on what really matters.
At this point, there's not a whole lot of difference between Tumbleweed and 13.2 in terms of video playback, so it doesn't matter much on which I install over 13.1 on Triela, but I will need to decide, as it's a long wait to do an upgrade/downgrade via repository.
Migration Complete!
Earlier, I finished migrating all the posts from version 1 as best as I can, and from now on, this will be the place I will be posting, as it's a lot easier to navigate, manage and such. It was quite a bit of work to do, but I can now relax now that I'm done.
Let us now step forward with version 2!
On a side note, while migrating posts today, Google started giving me Captchas for every single post, thinking that I was some sort of blog-bot. Just something that I found amusing.
Let us now step forward with version 2!
On a side note, while migrating posts today, Google started giving me Captchas for every single post, thinking that I was some sort of blog-bot. Just something that I found amusing.
Swiftech H220-X Liquid CPU Cooler
The article I read is: Swiftech H220-X All-In-One CPU Cooler Review
My best friend sent me the article this morning, and I hadn't had time to read or write about it until now. All the computers I've built so far have all been air-cooled, and I've never dared to dabble in liquid cooling, even closed-loop systems; I've never wanted to run the risk of possibly shorting out the motherboard or something, but by no means am I against liquid cooling.
Swiftech's H220-X definitely is nice all around, and if I had the money to, it'd be a possibly feasible upgrade for Melty if I ever wanted to upgrade her to liquid cooling.
The block has plates to change the glow colour, which is quite nice, as I'd definitely want to match the black/red theme that Melty has. The reservoir light colour wasn't really specified in the review, but I'm sure I could probably hack something together if it's not modifiable.
The temperature comparison charts didn't include Zalman's CNPS9900 Max, which didn't really help me see approximately how much more heat it dissipates, but I can at least imagine that it'd be roughly 10C cooler. From what I remember, I've never really gone over 50C for CPU temperature, and since the CPU temperature is usually around 35-40C, liquid cooling doesn't seem horribly necessary for Melty.
Mounting would be another problem for me; there's some screw holes in the top of the case that allows for a radiator, but I'm not sure if it's the right pattern for the H220-X (which is 2x120mm fans). If it is, then it's pretty easy to mount, but if not, then I'd have to get an external bracket and run the radiator outside of the case.
As far as noise goes, the H220-X probably isn't all that bad (even at full blast), but Melty isn't bad herself, as the loudest fan is probably the fan of the 9900 Max - which is very tolerable at the normal speeds (about 1100-1200 RPM).
It's also quite nice that there's room for expandability, since most closed-loop liquid coolers usually don't give that option - locking you into their specific configuration.
Price seems pretty decent, even though the numbers are limited to Swiftech's stock.
While I probably won't buy this myself, I'd definitely would recommend it.
My best friend sent me the article this morning, and I hadn't had time to read or write about it until now. All the computers I've built so far have all been air-cooled, and I've never dared to dabble in liquid cooling, even closed-loop systems; I've never wanted to run the risk of possibly shorting out the motherboard or something, but by no means am I against liquid cooling.
Swiftech's H220-X definitely is nice all around, and if I had the money to, it'd be a possibly feasible upgrade for Melty if I ever wanted to upgrade her to liquid cooling.
The block has plates to change the glow colour, which is quite nice, as I'd definitely want to match the black/red theme that Melty has. The reservoir light colour wasn't really specified in the review, but I'm sure I could probably hack something together if it's not modifiable.
The temperature comparison charts didn't include Zalman's CNPS9900 Max, which didn't really help me see approximately how much more heat it dissipates, but I can at least imagine that it'd be roughly 10C cooler. From what I remember, I've never really gone over 50C for CPU temperature, and since the CPU temperature is usually around 35-40C, liquid cooling doesn't seem horribly necessary for Melty.
Mounting would be another problem for me; there's some screw holes in the top of the case that allows for a radiator, but I'm not sure if it's the right pattern for the H220-X (which is 2x120mm fans). If it is, then it's pretty easy to mount, but if not, then I'd have to get an external bracket and run the radiator outside of the case.
As far as noise goes, the H220-X probably isn't all that bad (even at full blast), but Melty isn't bad herself, as the loudest fan is probably the fan of the 9900 Max - which is very tolerable at the normal speeds (about 1100-1200 RPM).
It's also quite nice that there's room for expandability, since most closed-loop liquid coolers usually don't give that option - locking you into their specific configuration.
Price seems pretty decent, even though the numbers are limited to Swiftech's stock.
While I probably won't buy this myself, I'd definitely would recommend it.
06 November 2014
Google's Japanese IME For Android
The article I "read" is: Google Japanese input app updated with Material Design.
While I was eating dinner, I was scrolling through Google Play Newsstand, as I usually do, and saw the article. I was slightly dumbfounded, as I was always wanting a Japanese IME from Google, but when I initially looked for it (this was back in the days of Froyo/Gingerbread), there wasn't such a thing. I just skimmed through the article and then went to the Google Play Store to look for it.
I downloaded it, set it up, then went to poke around with it a bit in a text editor; it's different than I'm used to, but I like it better than Multiling O Keyboard. While Multiling O may be smaller than Google's IME, the way Google's IME works a bit more intuitively - showing you on a popup where your finger is. More specifically, the popup changes to the character you slide to, which reduces a bit of input errors (e.g. hitting the key next to the one you wanted and "flicking" a different character), and as far as I know, Multiling O does not have this. Also, you're also not "penalised" if you slide back to the centre of the key, which is good for those new or unfamiliar with the "flick" entry method; with Multiling O, it will continually input the characters that you slide over, so it requires the user to be more careful with input.
While it's nice that Multiling O is very customisable with it's aesthetics, it's a bit lacking with how it works - not to mention the word selection is very weird to operate, and I've mistakenly selected something I didn't want to while I was trying to browse through the options.
Another annoying thing about Multiling O that I didn't like is that changing back to the English keyboard, I had to hold the space key (which has 日本語 on it), slide to the "Keyboards" button, then select the keyboard I wanted; since Google's Japanese IME is made by Google (duh.), it follows the normal schema of holding the space key then selecting the desired keyboard.
The other annoying thing is that the keyboards are plugins to Multiling O, so after installing the base application, you have to download the keyboards you want (and I think it forces you to install the English keyboard [possibly the language you've set your Android menus to]). Luckily, the plugins aren't large at all, but it's still a bit annoying have to sift through the list on the Play Store to find the ones you want.
Multiling O is okay, but its reign in my life is over.
A bit of my history with Multiling O Keyboard:
When I was using the Google Nexus 1 as my phone, I was looking for a Japanese IME, since Google didn't have their own. I first found Kaede IME (I don't remember the exact name), and it was okay, but really large (the Nexus 1 doesn't have a lot of space, and "move to SD" wasn't an option yet) - I think it was also a bit laggy. Eventually I found Multiling Keyboard (not the "O"), and liked it better since it wasn't as laggy or as large.
Eventually I got my Google Galaxy Nexus, and stayed with Multiling Keyboard for a Japanese IME, until about the middle of last year when I ended up without my Galaxy Nexus for a time, and I had to use my Nexus 1 until I finally received the Galaxy Nexus back.
Since I had stripped my N1 of a lot of the applications that I use, I had to reinstall a few things, and while searching for the Multiling Keyboard, I found Multiling O Keyboard, which is smaller, and more customizable. It didn't hurt to try, so I went with it, eventually installing it on my Galaxy Nexus when I received it back and awkwardly transferring over the theme I made.
The "flick" entry method was new to me, and I actually took a sort of a liking to it, even though my ability to read Hiragana is relatively slow - it's definitely nicer than trying to press tiny alphabetical keys when in portrait mode.
Afterthoughts/More Ranting:
So far, it seems like when I have something to talk about "with" an article, it turns out to include a rant of some sort... I was hoping to make this post short, as a sort of a break from migrating posts from version 1, but that didn't happen. (LOL)
On the migration, it's running relatively smoothly, though earlier, I found that I used to lazily add content to posts by commenting on the post, so I had to go back through all that I've migrated to see if there was any comments that I missed - I only had a few posts luckily, but had one with about 6 comments.
I started with the "Miscellany", "Computer Projects", and "Computer Builds" tabs before tackling the "Linux" tab because I knew the "Linux" tab would have the most content - along with the most chaos of edits (and comments). With the "Linux" tab, I've been working from the oldest post to the newest, and I'm at the third page (in normal viewing order); my plan is to finish the third page so that I'll only have two pages left.
I better stop ranting so that I can get the last few posts on that page migrated.
While I was eating dinner, I was scrolling through Google Play Newsstand, as I usually do, and saw the article. I was slightly dumbfounded, as I was always wanting a Japanese IME from Google, but when I initially looked for it (this was back in the days of Froyo/Gingerbread), there wasn't such a thing. I just skimmed through the article and then went to the Google Play Store to look for it.
I downloaded it, set it up, then went to poke around with it a bit in a text editor; it's different than I'm used to, but I like it better than Multiling O Keyboard. While Multiling O may be smaller than Google's IME, the way Google's IME works a bit more intuitively - showing you on a popup where your finger is. More specifically, the popup changes to the character you slide to, which reduces a bit of input errors (e.g. hitting the key next to the one you wanted and "flicking" a different character), and as far as I know, Multiling O does not have this. Also, you're also not "penalised" if you slide back to the centre of the key, which is good for those new or unfamiliar with the "flick" entry method; with Multiling O, it will continually input the characters that you slide over, so it requires the user to be more careful with input.
Themed Multiling O Keyboard, Google's Japanese IME (Blue/Dark-gray theme), Google's Japanese IME popup (Material Design [Dark] theme).
While it's nice that Multiling O is very customisable with it's aesthetics, it's a bit lacking with how it works - not to mention the word selection is very weird to operate, and I've mistakenly selected something I didn't want to while I was trying to browse through the options.
Another annoying thing about Multiling O that I didn't like is that changing back to the English keyboard, I had to hold the space key (which has 日本語 on it), slide to the "Keyboards" button, then select the keyboard I wanted; since Google's Japanese IME is made by Google (duh.), it follows the normal schema of holding the space key then selecting the desired keyboard.
The other annoying thing is that the keyboards are plugins to Multiling O, so after installing the base application, you have to download the keyboards you want (and I think it forces you to install the English keyboard [possibly the language you've set your Android menus to]). Luckily, the plugins aren't large at all, but it's still a bit annoying have to sift through the list on the Play Store to find the ones you want.
Multiling O is okay, but its reign in my life is over.
A bit of my history with Multiling O Keyboard:
When I was using the Google Nexus 1 as my phone, I was looking for a Japanese IME, since Google didn't have their own. I first found Kaede IME (I don't remember the exact name), and it was okay, but really large (the Nexus 1 doesn't have a lot of space, and "move to SD" wasn't an option yet) - I think it was also a bit laggy. Eventually I found Multiling Keyboard (not the "O"), and liked it better since it wasn't as laggy or as large.
Eventually I got my Google Galaxy Nexus, and stayed with Multiling Keyboard for a Japanese IME, until about the middle of last year when I ended up without my Galaxy Nexus for a time, and I had to use my Nexus 1 until I finally received the Galaxy Nexus back.
Since I had stripped my N1 of a lot of the applications that I use, I had to reinstall a few things, and while searching for the Multiling Keyboard, I found Multiling O Keyboard, which is smaller, and more customizable. It didn't hurt to try, so I went with it, eventually installing it on my Galaxy Nexus when I received it back and awkwardly transferring over the theme I made.
The "flick" entry method was new to me, and I actually took a sort of a liking to it, even though my ability to read Hiragana is relatively slow - it's definitely nicer than trying to press tiny alphabetical keys when in portrait mode.
Afterthoughts/More Ranting:
So far, it seems like when I have something to talk about "with" an article, it turns out to include a rant of some sort... I was hoping to make this post short, as a sort of a break from migrating posts from version 1, but that didn't happen. (LOL)
On the migration, it's running relatively smoothly, though earlier, I found that I used to lazily add content to posts by commenting on the post, so I had to go back through all that I've migrated to see if there was any comments that I missed - I only had a few posts luckily, but had one with about 6 comments.
I started with the "Miscellany", "Computer Projects", and "Computer Builds" tabs before tackling the "Linux" tab because I knew the "Linux" tab would have the most content - along with the most chaos of edits (and comments). With the "Linux" tab, I've been working from the oldest post to the newest, and I'm at the third page (in normal viewing order); my plan is to finish the third page so that I'll only have two pages left.
I better stop ranting so that I can get the last few posts on that page migrated.
Cluster Node Part 2 / openSUSE 13.2 Part 4
After a few hours of doing a net-install of openSUSE 13.1 Xfce on the cluster node, I was met with a broken power-saved screen when I came back; I was able to get to command-line to give the node a proper reboot and finally got into Xfce afterwards.
Speed-wise, it didn't seem much different than Debian Xfce live; the only real difference being the included applications and panel applets - both of which made Xfce feel different in openSUSE. Thinking about it though, since I'm so used to using Xfce with Debian, it's not an experience that's easily transferable to other systems because my usage of it isn't very heavy compared with GNOME 3; GNOME 3 is a little more transferable - since I've used it for quite some time now - but when I use it on a different system (Ubuntu or Debian), I can feel a bit of a difference, but it doesn't bother me as much as Xfce.
I'll have to see if I can get the other panel applets installed (I really like the cpu/mem/swap applet), and if not, I'll do an install of Debian Xfce instead.
I also suspended the node as a test, finding out that it only responded to the power button to bring it back and that the integrated graphics didn't like the suspend (the cursor was either glitched or missing, and the picture was either moving or stable based on the cursor's position). If I do find a use for the node before resuming the cluster project, I'll have to be weary on the graphics.
I tested openSUSE 13.2 on Ziggy like I said I would (I skipped the VAIO, as I remembered it doesn't have any optical drives), but during my sleeping hours, I forgot what I was supposed to test specifically.
I poked around a bit, and 13.2 behaved no different on Ziggy than on the Dell (though probably slightly slower), so there isn't really much to say besides reiterating that it works to breathe new life into any old single-core, multi-threaded CPU system.
Speed-wise, it didn't seem much different than Debian Xfce live; the only real difference being the included applications and panel applets - both of which made Xfce feel different in openSUSE. Thinking about it though, since I'm so used to using Xfce with Debian, it's not an experience that's easily transferable to other systems because my usage of it isn't very heavy compared with GNOME 3; GNOME 3 is a little more transferable - since I've used it for quite some time now - but when I use it on a different system (Ubuntu or Debian), I can feel a bit of a difference, but it doesn't bother me as much as Xfce.
I'll have to see if I can get the other panel applets installed (I really like the cpu/mem/swap applet), and if not, I'll do an install of Debian Xfce instead.
I also suspended the node as a test, finding out that it only responded to the power button to bring it back and that the integrated graphics didn't like the suspend (the cursor was either glitched or missing, and the picture was either moving or stable based on the cursor's position). If I do find a use for the node before resuming the cluster project, I'll have to be weary on the graphics.
I tested openSUSE 13.2 on Ziggy like I said I would (I skipped the VAIO, as I remembered it doesn't have any optical drives), but during my sleeping hours, I forgot what I was supposed to test specifically.
I poked around a bit, and 13.2 behaved no different on Ziggy than on the Dell (though probably slightly slower), so there isn't really much to say besides reiterating that it works to breathe new life into any old single-core, multi-threaded CPU system.
05 November 2014
openSUSE 13.2 Part 3
Well, since I had forgotten to try the VLC repository when testing 13.2, I had to install it again just for the test, since it's not that hard.
And as surmised, using the VLC repository didn't change anything. With that, I'm officially finished with 13.2 x86_64 for now; I will do further testing in a month or two, and I'll see what happens then. At the worst, I'll be moving to Evergreen, and at best, I'll be on 13.2.
I will test 13.2 on Ziggy tomorrow probably.
And as surmised, using the VLC repository didn't change anything. With that, I'm officially finished with 13.2 x86_64 for now; I will do further testing in a month or two, and I'll see what happens then. At the worst, I'll be moving to Evergreen, and at best, I'll be on 13.2.
I will test 13.2 on Ziggy tomorrow probably.
openSUSE Tumbleweed Part 2
With the release of openSUSE 13.2, the Factory and Tumbleweed repositories have officially merged, and is now different than how it was before. What this means for me is another round of testing for Tumbleweed the proper way (using the test-bed partition on Triela). Now that I've gotten the results for 13.2, I can finally begin testing Tumbleweed again (though I'm starting from a base-installation of 13.1 instead of 13.2)
Unfortunately, the result is worse than 13.2 - VLC dependencies aren't fixable. According to caf4926's multi-media/restricted formats guide for 13.1, h264enc and x264 are to be installed for h264 playback, and in the guide for 13.2, only x264 is installed - h264 being uninstallable because of a missing dependency. In the case for Tumbleweed, both are uninstallable because of missing dependencies, regardless of VLC or Packman repositories.
I first tried Pacman's repository first before remembering about VLC's, but in both cases, VLC said the h264 decoder was missing; while I remembered about VLC for Tumblweed, I completely forgot about it for 13.2. Though I'm sure there won't be any difference, I'll give it a try anyway.
Unfortunately, the result is worse than 13.2 - VLC dependencies aren't fixable. According to caf4926's multi-media/restricted formats guide for 13.1, h264enc and x264 are to be installed for h264 playback, and in the guide for 13.2, only x264 is installed - h264 being uninstallable because of a missing dependency. In the case for Tumbleweed, both are uninstallable because of missing dependencies, regardless of VLC or Packman repositories.
I first tried Pacman's repository first before remembering about VLC's, but in both cases, VLC said the h264 decoder was missing; while I remembered about VLC for Tumblweed, I completely forgot about it for 13.2. Though I'm sure there won't be any difference, I'll give it a try anyway.
Cluster Node Part 1
While waiting all 2001 packages to download for openSUSE Tumbleweed, I decided to test Debian Xfce live on the cluster node (I had already downloaded the ISO and stuck it onto a USB drive earlier).
It booted a lot faster than openSUSE 13.2 GNOME live did, but it's not all that surprising. Between the time when run level 2 was started and when Xfce actually showed up, the screen was black and I was slightly worried, but eventually Xfce popped up onto the screen so quick, it was like a punch to the eyes.
What was really surprising was how smooth it was, especially for a single-threaded CPU, and the CPU usage was much better than 13.2 (again, GNOME was eating the CPU). LibreOffice was slow to start, but once it was loaded, it was smooth and used hardly any CPU.
I didn't do much testing after that, since it was only a quick test to see how much better Xfce was (although I used Debian and not openSUSE); I'll most likely be doing a test install of openSUSE 13.1 Xfce to see how that is, since there's no live version.
It booted a lot faster than openSUSE 13.2 GNOME live did, but it's not all that surprising. Between the time when run level 2 was started and when Xfce actually showed up, the screen was black and I was slightly worried, but eventually Xfce popped up onto the screen so quick, it was like a punch to the eyes.
What was really surprising was how smooth it was, especially for a single-threaded CPU, and the CPU usage was much better than 13.2 (again, GNOME was eating the CPU). LibreOffice was slow to start, but once it was loaded, it was smooth and used hardly any CPU.
I didn't do much testing after that, since it was only a quick test to see how much better Xfce was (although I used Debian and not openSUSE); I'll most likely be doing a test install of openSUSE 13.1 Xfce to see how that is, since there's no live version.
openSUSE 13.2 Part 2
Since Triela is where I've done the bulk of the testing, this will be where I post some of the new things I've found.
One of the first things I noticed was the minimality of the applications in the list, being only 3 pages - then again, I'm used to having roughly 5-7 pages of applications - with the third page only having one entry in my case. The next thing I noticed was an application called "Software", and after opening it, I remembered that the development team was making something similar in concept to Ubuntu's Software Centre. I disregarded it for that time being, as I was only poking around to see if anything else had changed.
Another thing I noticed was that the YaST2 modules are now in its own folder (labelled as "YaST2 Modules" LOL), and thought that it was nice to have them grouped into a folder, since it used to be mixed into the other applications.
The tweak tool still resides in the Settings window, like it did with the Beta (I think?), but instead of it being under the "System" section, it is now under the "Personal" section.
After that, I went ahead and installed it onto the test-bed partition, opting for ext4 instead of BTRFS, and opting out of GRUB 2 installation (I'd rather have GRUB 2 from 13.1 handle the entries). Once installation was done, I gave the disk to the Dell for testing.
I began setting up the installation for testing by installing programs (k3b, Filezilla, etc) that I normally would have installed, and once I thought I had everything installed, I went to set up the input methods. I then realized I had to re-log, but I decided to opt for a reboot instead.
Before I forget, I had also installed the unico and murrine theme engines and then put my standard GTK theme to use, having to close all the windows for the changes to appear correctly, and I was surprised to see that it also applied in a different way to the GNOME 3 windows that have the title bar integrated into the window (certain buttons became smaller).
Once rebooted, I tried to open Filezilla, but it refused to open, so I used terminal instead and was met with dependency errors. After fixing the first error, I was met with a second error, and while fixing that, zypper told me nothing provides "Firefox- .noarch", and after a bit of searching in zypper, I couldn't find what it was referring to, so I went with the solution to deinstall "Firefox-.noarch". I was then met with a bunch of other packages that needed to be installed, which was probably all the other dependencies that somehow got locked by "Firefox-.noarch", and let zypper run its installation course; afterwards, I was able to open Filezilla just fine, and Firefox (MozillaFirefox is the package name) opened just fine, so "Firefox-.noarch" is just a mystery to me. Upon further searching, I found that it belongs to a program "Firefox", which doesn't exist and is not removable because of that.
The application animation when pressing the "Show Applications" button began to work properly afterwards, so something was installed from the repository that wasn't originally part of the live disk.
The next thing I did was add the repositories for Packman and libdvdcss and install the corresponding packages for multi-media and restricted formats, preforming the distribution upgrade to the Packman repository afterwards. Unfortunately, following the guide at opensuse-guide.org didn't work, as I couldn't play my test MKV file in VLC. I've also tried the one-click solution from opensuse-community.org, but now that I think about it, it didn't do anything different compared to the opensuse-guide.org option. I'm gonna have to just hope that caf4926 from the official openSUSE forums releases a guide for 13.2, since their guides are flawless when I follow them.
That said, I'm actually not going to do any testing with Mei-chan, since the outcome was a bit disappointing with VLC. For now, I'll keep an eye out for caf4926's guide (if/when it comes out) and stick with 13.1 as the stable install.
One thing that came to mind is that with the 12 series of openSUSE, the first version (12.1) I didn't install, but the second and third versions I installed, but in this case, 13.1 works quite well for me, and 13.2 doesn't work that well for me, so it's certainly different than it used to be.
One of the first things I noticed was the minimality of the applications in the list, being only 3 pages - then again, I'm used to having roughly 5-7 pages of applications - with the third page only having one entry in my case. The next thing I noticed was an application called "Software", and after opening it, I remembered that the development team was making something similar in concept to Ubuntu's Software Centre. I disregarded it for that time being, as I was only poking around to see if anything else had changed.
Another thing I noticed was that the YaST2 modules are now in its own folder (labelled as "YaST2 Modules" LOL), and thought that it was nice to have them grouped into a folder, since it used to be mixed into the other applications.
The tweak tool still resides in the Settings window, like it did with the Beta (I think?), but instead of it being under the "System" section, it is now under the "Personal" section.
After that, I went ahead and installed it onto the test-bed partition, opting for ext4 instead of BTRFS, and opting out of GRUB 2 installation (I'd rather have GRUB 2 from 13.1 handle the entries). Once installation was done, I gave the disk to the Dell for testing.
I began setting up the installation for testing by installing programs (k3b, Filezilla, etc) that I normally would have installed, and once I thought I had everything installed, I went to set up the input methods. I then realized I had to re-log, but I decided to opt for a reboot instead.
Before I forget, I had also installed the unico and murrine theme engines and then put my standard GTK theme to use, having to close all the windows for the changes to appear correctly, and I was surprised to see that it also applied in a different way to the GNOME 3 windows that have the title bar integrated into the window (certain buttons became smaller).
Once rebooted, I tried to open Filezilla, but it refused to open, so I used terminal instead and was met with dependency errors. After fixing the first error, I was met with a second error, and while fixing that, zypper told me nothing provides "Firefox- .noarch", and after a bit of searching in zypper, I couldn't find what it was referring to, so I went with the solution to deinstall "Firefox-.noarch". I was then met with a bunch of other packages that needed to be installed, which was probably all the other dependencies that somehow got locked by "Firefox-.noarch", and let zypper run its installation course; afterwards, I was able to open Filezilla just fine, and Firefox (MozillaFirefox is the package name) opened just fine, so "Firefox-.noarch" is just a mystery to me. Upon further searching, I found that it belongs to a program "Firefox", which doesn't exist and is not removable because of that.
The application animation when pressing the "Show Applications" button began to work properly afterwards, so something was installed from the repository that wasn't originally part of the live disk.
The next thing I did was add the repositories for Packman and libdvdcss and install the corresponding packages for multi-media and restricted formats, preforming the distribution upgrade to the Packman repository afterwards. Unfortunately, following the guide at opensuse-guide.org didn't work, as I couldn't play my test MKV file in VLC. I've also tried the one-click solution from opensuse-community.org, but now that I think about it, it didn't do anything different compared to the opensuse-guide.org option. I'm gonna have to just hope that caf4926 from the official openSUSE forums releases a guide for 13.2, since their guides are flawless when I follow them.
That said, I'm actually not going to do any testing with Mei-chan, since the outcome was a bit disappointing with VLC. For now, I'll keep an eye out for caf4926's guide (if/when it comes out) and stick with 13.1 as the stable install.
One thing that came to mind is that with the 12 series of openSUSE, the first version (12.1) I didn't install, but the second and third versions I installed, but in this case, 13.1 works quite well for me, and 13.2 doesn't work that well for me, so it's certainly different than it used to be.
openSUSE 13.2 Part 1
I've done a bit of testing with Triela, the Dell, and the cluster, but I won't write about Triela until I'm done testing on her.
When I went to test 13.2 live GNOME on the 1GB cluster node, I wasn't able to read from the DVD+RW since the DVD drive (from the Half-top) didn't seem to want to read it, and so I was forced to make a bootable USB drive, which worked fine (once I got it to work). It was mostly laggy, but upon further inspection with System Monitor, the processor was also almost always at 100% because of the GNOME shell - I'm sure a lightweight environment like Xfce would be a better choice. If I care enough to, I may do a test installation on it, but for now I'll resume testing with Debian Xfce live (when I'm able to LOL).
Running 13.2 in the live GNOME environment from a DVD+RW seems to be slower than running 13.1's live GNOME environment off of DVD+RW; I'm not sure exactly where the problem lies, but it wasn't bad enough to where I forced to install to actually do the testing.
On the Dell, there wasn't a whole lot to test, seeing that the main focus of the testing is going to be on Triela and Mei-chan. The live test didn't really tell me anything that I needed to know, so after some slight poking around, I went ahead and started the installation.
Once I got to the partitioner, I realised that the hard drive still had an MSDOS partition table and changed it to GPT instead (GPT allows more than four partitions without having to make an extended partition first - while Triela is the only machine that has more than four partitions, I'd prefer to just move along with GPT when I'm able to). Once I got to the last installation screen, the installer failed to make partitions, so I had to reboot into PartedMagic to fix that.
After recreating the partition table, and making a couple basic partitions (ext4 partition, and 2GB swap), I rebooted into the 13.2 installer and let the partitioner carry out the suggested changes (BTRFS for /, XFS for /home, and a little 7MB partition for legacy boot); installation carried out just fine.
Once rebooted (and escaping the live DVD's GRUB 2 menu), I was met with the refreshed GRUB 2 screen: the full openSUSE logo (the chameleon with "openSUSE" underneath it) at the top centre; the booting choices in white text, the head-portion of the openSUSE chameleon to the left of the main options; and the highlighted option in black text, with the highlight bar the same colour as the full logo - some sort of cyan-doped green. I can't comment on the green colour used, but I'll at least say that I hope the monitor's colours are off.
The screen of the second part of the installation came up, but then quickly went away, replacing itself with terminal. Since I never paid attention to it when installing 13.2 Beta or RC1, I can't say when they actually took the graphical screen away when the installer was performing automatic configuration. Anyway, this is a nice bonus, as there wasn't ever a point to be in the graphical installer during the automatic configuration.
The response of the Activities button/hot corner was instant which was surprising, as I was used to the slight lag (1-2 seconds) with RC1's GNOME live. Afer clicking the "Show Applications" button, the application names showed up instantly, but the system had to load the icons; however, once the icons were loaded, there wasn't much of a lag at all.
Besides poking at System Monitor to see the RAM usage (about 400MB of 2GB - about 22%), I loaded up LibreOffice Writer to see how quick it loaded, and I certainly wasn't disappointed, as it loaded pretty quickly (about 5-10 seconds if I remember right).
Overall, it is easily feasible to use 13.2 to breathe new life into an old system (provided the CPU has Hyper-threading/Hyper-transport if it's only a single-core). I may test 13.2 with Ziggy and/or the VAIO, but that will have to be quite some time later, as Triela/Mei-chan are my main concerns at this point.
When I went to test 13.2 live GNOME on the 1GB cluster node, I wasn't able to read from the DVD+RW since the DVD drive (from the Half-top) didn't seem to want to read it, and so I was forced to make a bootable USB drive, which worked fine (once I got it to work). It was mostly laggy, but upon further inspection with System Monitor, the processor was also almost always at 100% because of the GNOME shell - I'm sure a lightweight environment like Xfce would be a better choice. If I care enough to, I may do a test installation on it, but for now I'll resume testing with Debian Xfce live (when I'm able to LOL).
Running 13.2 in the live GNOME environment from a DVD+RW seems to be slower than running 13.1's live GNOME environment off of DVD+RW; I'm not sure exactly where the problem lies, but it wasn't bad enough to where I forced to install to actually do the testing.
On the Dell, there wasn't a whole lot to test, seeing that the main focus of the testing is going to be on Triela and Mei-chan. The live test didn't really tell me anything that I needed to know, so after some slight poking around, I went ahead and started the installation.
Once I got to the partitioner, I realised that the hard drive still had an MSDOS partition table and changed it to GPT instead (GPT allows more than four partitions without having to make an extended partition first - while Triela is the only machine that has more than four partitions, I'd prefer to just move along with GPT when I'm able to). Once I got to the last installation screen, the installer failed to make partitions, so I had to reboot into PartedMagic to fix that.
After recreating the partition table, and making a couple basic partitions (ext4 partition, and 2GB swap), I rebooted into the 13.2 installer and let the partitioner carry out the suggested changes (BTRFS for /, XFS for /home, and a little 7MB partition for legacy boot); installation carried out just fine.
Once rebooted (and escaping the live DVD's GRUB 2 menu), I was met with the refreshed GRUB 2 screen: the full openSUSE logo (the chameleon with "openSUSE" underneath it) at the top centre; the booting choices in white text, the head-portion of the openSUSE chameleon to the left of the main options; and the highlighted option in black text, with the highlight bar the same colour as the full logo - some sort of cyan-doped green. I can't comment on the green colour used, but I'll at least say that I hope the monitor's colours are off.
The screen of the second part of the installation came up, but then quickly went away, replacing itself with terminal. Since I never paid attention to it when installing 13.2 Beta or RC1, I can't say when they actually took the graphical screen away when the installer was performing automatic configuration. Anyway, this is a nice bonus, as there wasn't ever a point to be in the graphical installer during the automatic configuration.
The response of the Activities button/hot corner was instant which was surprising, as I was used to the slight lag (1-2 seconds) with RC1's GNOME live. Afer clicking the "Show Applications" button, the application names showed up instantly, but the system had to load the icons; however, once the icons were loaded, there wasn't much of a lag at all.
Besides poking at System Monitor to see the RAM usage (about 400MB of 2GB - about 22%), I loaded up LibreOffice Writer to see how quick it loaded, and I certainly wasn't disappointed, as it loaded pretty quickly (about 5-10 seconds if I remember right).
Overall, it is easily feasible to use 13.2 to breathe new life into an old system (provided the CPU has Hyper-threading/Hyper-transport if it's only a single-core). I may test 13.2 with Ziggy and/or the VAIO, but that will have to be quite some time later, as Triela/Mei-chan are my main concerns at this point.
openSUSE Release Time
Yesterday, at about 00:45, I looked to see how long I had to wait for openSUSE 13.2 to be released, and the picture said "5 hours left". I then looked at the time zone chart on Wikipedia and realized that the time they use to release openSUSE versions is UTC-12 (I live in UTC-7, so -7-5 =-12). While I want to think that they use the UTC-12 time zone for some sort of fairness, at the same time I think it'd be better if they'd specify the time zone with the date, so some people aren't left wondering why it's not out yet.
I remember when I was waiting for one of the releases, and at some point I gave up trying to stay up for it, only to find that it still wasn't available for download when I woke the next morning. I think that was also the same release when I thought it'd be out by 16:00 UTC-7 (0:00 UTC+1) since that's Germany's time zone, but that wasn't the case, as I was checking their FTP server almost incessantly.
Well, now that I know it's [release date] UTC-12, I'll just wait until the day after to download it.
I remember when I was waiting for one of the releases, and at some point I gave up trying to stay up for it, only to find that it still wasn't available for download when I woke the next morning. I think that was also the same release when I thought it'd be out by 16:00 UTC-7 (0:00 UTC+1) since that's Germany's time zone, but that wasn't the case, as I was checking their FTP server almost incessantly.
Well, now that I know it's [release date] UTC-12, I'll just wait until the day after to download it.
04 November 2014
Theme Updated
Just a minor theme tweak - flipped the colours for the links and sidebar headings; should be easier to tell where the links are now. XP
I just have the "Linux" tab left to migrate from version 1, which is quite a bit of posts and the majority of the content. Once that's done, my Google+ feed won't be flooded as I write all these. XD
I just have the "Linux" tab left to migrate from version 1, which is quite a bit of posts and the majority of the content. Once that's done, my Google+ feed won't be flooded as I write all these. XD
Inquisitor
I was going to write about Inquisitor again after finishing writing about the cluster, but I forgot until now.
Since I had more patience this time to fiddle around with it, I found that it actually Actually, it seems like I never wrote about it before today.
I found Inquisitor on DistroWatch, and even though it's discontinued, I decided to give it a try to see if it helped me get info about a machine pretty quickly.
When I initially tested it, I found that it had the ability to test the system, and since I didn't have a lot of patience, I didn't see that it had the ability to pull hardware info, so I put it aside.
I decided to give it another try this morning when trying to find out specifics about the processor of the cluster nodes. Eventually I found an action called "Detects" and, unfortunately, the description for it just says "Detects only". I figured it probably detected the hardware, and ran it, which then let me know that it was finished detecting hardware (controller, cpu, etc) and to press enter to return to the main menu.
I then went to view the logs (having known about that part before) and saw "lshw.log", "lspci.log", and a few other logs. I checked lspci first, which told me that the cluster had a gigabit ethernet controller, which surprised me, and afterwards, I checked lshw for the processor.
Now that understand how to use Inquisitor to check a machine's hardware, I'll keep it with me as part of my toolkit, even though it's a discontinued distribution.
I found Inquisitor on DistroWatch, and even though it's discontinued, I decided to give it a try to see if it helped me get info about a machine pretty quickly.
When I initially tested it, I found that it had the ability to test the system, and since I didn't have a lot of patience, I didn't see that it had the ability to pull hardware info, so I put it aside.
I decided to give it another try this morning when trying to find out specifics about the processor of the cluster nodes. Eventually I found an action called "Detects" and, unfortunately, the description for it just says "Detects only". I figured it probably detected the hardware, and ran it, which then let me know that it was finished detecting hardware (controller, cpu, etc) and to press enter to return to the main menu.
I then went to view the logs (having known about that part before) and saw "lshw.log", "lspci.log", and a few other logs. I checked lspci first, which told me that the cluster had a gigabit ethernet controller, which surprised me, and afterwards, I checked lshw for the processor.
Now that understand how to use Inquisitor to check a machine's hardware, I'll keep it with me as part of my toolkit, even though it's a discontinued distribution.
Cluster
Last night, I got the model number off of the cluster nodes and tried to use that too look up the specifications, but it didn't get me anywhere, so I had to pull the nodes themselves.
By opening the case, I found that each node has 512MB of ram - which is enough - and no PCI slot, making me wonder where I got the notion for using a low-profile PCI wireless card from.
After getting into the BIOS, I was able to find that the processor is a Pentium 4 2.4GHz Northwood core (533MHz bus, 512KB L2 cache), but unable to figure out if it has HT or not.
One of the CMOS batteries for the nodes died, so I decided to check the voltages - the dead one was jumping between 0.022 and 0.000, while the other two read 2.78 and 2.8 - and tossed the dead battery.
I then booted back into BIOS, and the node with the 2.78v CMOS battery refused to POST, and after some extensive digging around on the internet, I went and looked at the capacitors inside the node. Sure enough, one of them was bulging. Of all the times it could've vented, it decided to do it right after checking the CMOS battery. I transferred the CMOS battery and CD-ROM drive into the other node (the one that had the dead battery), and gave the "dead" node the floppy drive; I gave the stick of RAM to the node with the 2.8v battery. I was hoping I had a 16-volt 680µF capacitor in my collection of salvaged capacitors, but when I checked this morning, I certainly didn't.
Looking online, it seems like I technically can substitute with a capacitor with higher capacitance (µF), however since computers are sensitive components, it may cause a longer boot time or some sort of instability - I'll definitely pass on the notion in that case.
I also found that each node has the ability to boot from USB, which was surprising and nice, seeing that I'm not limited to using a 2.5-inch IDE hard drive for installation. It took a bit of digging around on the internet, but I eventually gave up and poked through the BIOS option very thoroughly, finding the USB option under the hard drive order; I test booted into the Linux stick and it worked just fine.
This morning, I grabbed Inquisitor and looked through my capacitor collection before plugging a node in to boot Inquisitor. Since I had more time, I figured out how to use Inquisitor properly for my intentions (hardware probing), and found out that the ethernet port is actually gigabit! I was quite surprised, but as I thought about it, it made sense since (1) it was built to be a business machine, and (2) the switch that connected the three nodes (when they were being used at my old work) was upgraded to a gigabit switch.
I didn't find out anything more about the processor though, which sucks, so I'll probably have to get the processor from the "dead" node to get the actual specifics.
I was thinking to maybe make one node as a summer computer, as it probably puts out less heat compared to any of the other desktops, but the problem is the lack of a hard drive. The options are to either use the 30GB hard drive from Sae-chan and to keep the drive usage light, or to run it as a fully live environment. I suppose using the hard drive wouldn't be that bad, but the lack of the drive cover is a bit unnerving.
My main point is to find out the exact processor in one way or another before I go digging around for a Linux distribution to test with - last thing I need is to have a kernel limitation like I did with the Half-top.
By opening the case, I found that each node has 512MB of ram - which is enough - and no PCI slot, making me wonder where I got the notion for using a low-profile PCI wireless card from.
After getting into the BIOS, I was able to find that the processor is a Pentium 4 2.4GHz Northwood core (533MHz bus, 512KB L2 cache), but unable to figure out if it has HT or not.
One of the CMOS batteries for the nodes died, so I decided to check the voltages - the dead one was jumping between 0.022 and 0.000, while the other two read 2.78 and 2.8 - and tossed the dead battery.
I then booted back into BIOS, and the node with the 2.78v CMOS battery refused to POST, and after some extensive digging around on the internet, I went and looked at the capacitors inside the node. Sure enough, one of them was bulging. Of all the times it could've vented, it decided to do it right after checking the CMOS battery. I transferred the CMOS battery and CD-ROM drive into the other node (the one that had the dead battery), and gave the "dead" node the floppy drive; I gave the stick of RAM to the node with the 2.8v battery. I was hoping I had a 16-volt 680µF capacitor in my collection of salvaged capacitors, but when I checked this morning, I certainly didn't.
Looking online, it seems like I technically can substitute with a capacitor with higher capacitance (µF), however since computers are sensitive components, it may cause a longer boot time or some sort of instability - I'll definitely pass on the notion in that case.
I also found that each node has the ability to boot from USB, which was surprising and nice, seeing that I'm not limited to using a 2.5-inch IDE hard drive for installation. It took a bit of digging around on the internet, but I eventually gave up and poked through the BIOS option very thoroughly, finding the USB option under the hard drive order; I test booted into the Linux stick and it worked just fine.
This morning, I grabbed Inquisitor and looked through my capacitor collection before plugging a node in to boot Inquisitor. Since I had more time, I figured out how to use Inquisitor properly for my intentions (hardware probing), and found out that the ethernet port is actually gigabit! I was quite surprised, but as I thought about it, it made sense since (1) it was built to be a business machine, and (2) the switch that connected the three nodes (when they were being used at my old work) was upgraded to a gigabit switch.
I didn't find out anything more about the processor though, which sucks, so I'll probably have to get the processor from the "dead" node to get the actual specifics.
I was thinking to maybe make one node as a summer computer, as it probably puts out less heat compared to any of the other desktops, but the problem is the lack of a hard drive. The options are to either use the 30GB hard drive from Sae-chan and to keep the drive usage light, or to run it as a fully live environment. I suppose using the hard drive wouldn't be that bad, but the lack of the drive cover is a bit unnerving.
My main point is to find out the exact processor in one way or another before I go digging around for a Linux distribution to test with - last thing I need is to have a kernel limitation like I did with the Half-top.
02 November 2014
Lie-chan 3 and Melty 5
A few months ago, I decided to use the PCIe card in Melty again, plugging it into a PCIe x16 slot that wasn't "tied" to the one that the video card is in, and unfortunately, the two PCIe x16 slots that fit that description was either already blocked off by the GPU heat-sink or the one directly underneath the Vantec fan card. With the sound card underneath the fan card, the temperatures weren't bad, but it definitely couldn't stay there forever.
Since Lie-chan was using the switch-box as an extension cord, I had to just live without sound when I was using openSUSE on Melty. I eventually got a couple composite cable couplers and was able to find some spare RCA cables to extend the headphone to RCA cable to the receiver/amplifier, giving the switch-box back to Melty.
Eventually I got a PCIe x1 to PCIe x16 riser "card" which allowed me to drop the sound card to the bottom PCI slot of the case (the Cooler Master HAF X has 9 slots) and plug it into the PCIe x1 slot above the video card. At first, I read that I didn't have to use the power cord, but when I tried it, the sound card wasn't detected; after some wire management, I plugged the power into the x16 side of the riser card and the sound card was detected afterwards.
Since Lie-chan was using the switch-box as an extension cord, I had to just live without sound when I was using openSUSE on Melty. I eventually got a couple composite cable couplers and was able to find some spare RCA cables to extend the headphone to RCA cable to the receiver/amplifier, giving the switch-box back to Melty.
Eventually I got a PCIe x1 to PCIe x16 riser "card" which allowed me to drop the sound card to the bottom PCI slot of the case (the Cooler Master HAF X has 9 slots) and plug it into the PCIe x1 slot above the video card. At first, I read that I didn't have to use the power cord, but when I tried it, the sound card wasn't detected; after some wire management, I plugged the power into the x16 side of the riser card and the sound card was detected afterwards.
Melty 4
I think it was roughly the middle of this year when I decided to flip the side fan to draw the hot air from the GPU out, and although it doesn't seem to make much of a difference, at least the hot air has somewhere to go now.
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