Can be found here ; this has to be the number one asked question of late in the IRC channels of late. Heh. Wonder why, since ripping your music is now unauthorized. Good luck with that business model. Hahahahaha.

One of the things that amazes me is the kind of demands that new users put in what will be their first Linux experience; you see this in the mailing lists, on the forums, and especially on the IRC channels; the idea that whatever they want can be done quickly, with little to no chance of any sort of inconvenience or breakage, and that an answer, from volunteers no less, will be forthcoming instantaneously. Heh. The fact that in some of these cases their requirements are so stringent that no system can meet them, and that a small number of those making these ludicrous requests make threats of staying with Windows if their problem is not solved in real time is nothing short of laughable. A not too uncommon example would be someone who has no net access, no cd drive, no working usb ports, and wants to net boot from a floppy on top of a Windows install with zero knowledge of disk partitioning and wants someone to walk them through each and every step without reading a single document or link provided. Or someone who wants to set up wireless networking for a very poorly supported card without net access by downloading a couple of files from a net cafe and then using a usb stick to install them, dependencies be damned. They know what they want, and that is enough to fuel their belief that it can be accomplished without breaking a sweat. It’s not that these are impossible tasks–they are not–but that one has to have read up on the problem extensively beforehand, the best case being that they have printed out documents to cover the various eventualities and have a great deal of patience in accomplishing what they are setting out to do. There are of course those who are skeptical of Linux, but still wise enough to know that if they don’t get in touch with it they will be left behind, who really grudgingly accept any sort of advice unless it matches what their pre-conceived notions are; posting a question then wandering away from their computers while those seeking to help them twiddle their thumbs and finally turn to helping others. When they return they expect their needs to be met first and foremost, regardless of the fact that while they were absent answers were likely posted for their particular issues, and that a simple scroll up will yield the results. Too much work one would imagine. Hahahahaha.

One thing that new users of Linux don’t often seem to get is that you are on your own when it comes to fixing problems; there are no call centres standing by 24/7 to answer your queries, not that they are all that helpful when you finally do connect. In place are the forums, the irc channels, people’s blogs, mailing lists and Google–the combination of which can often yield the result you are looking for in less time than you will spend on hold to that precious call centre.
Upwards of 90% of general issues can be sorted out by googling and the forums; especially if it is a more mainstream distro; that does not mean, however that folks don’t make irc their first stop for something as simple as changing a theme or configuring their keyboard rate, for example; things that are easily fixed in a nice graphical menu and a couple of mouse clicks.
One would imagine that this comes down to a couple of factors: sheer laziness and more importantly misunderstanding how robust Linux truly is–after years of proprietary-land abuse and reinstalls at the drop of a hat that is at least partially justified. The laziness, not so much. Heh.
If you are not trying to do something really exotic and regularly follow safe computing practices (as well as keeping well backed up, naturally), installing only from the trusted software repositories (often referred to as repos), then you are likely to be free of trouble–barring something wrong at the supply end–problems of a nature that are most often ironed in a matter of a few hours or a couple of days at most.

That’s it. No other info. Imagine having your car break down, and calling a mechanic, and giving that as the sole piece of information. ‘I was driving, and now I’m not’. The mechanic would likely have a stroke from laughing. So it is when diagnosing a problem with your brand new Linux installation; you need to give precise information, whether it is in the irc channels, the forums, or the mailing lists, if you wish to receive any meaningful help.
And trying to do it right before a deadline or ten minutes from your bedtime is not an ideal time to request this help. Set aside a block of time, use the internet search engines to hone up your searching skills and glean any meaningful bits and pieces of this happening with other users, then post a detailed message to a channel, forum, etc.
Often running a problematic application from the console can give you useful clues as to why it is not working; similarly when trying to access a wireless access point–saying ‘it worked before and now it does not’ is just chaff and not a help to those offering aid. Additionally, when a volunteer is trying to help you out, pay attention; don’t post a question and wander off after the initial response–other helpers will see this (especially in irc) and thus be much less likely to want to help out.
Do your homework and adapt accordingly; don’t expect that five-year-old computer to run the next NASA launch while Folding@home; you may want to get a distribution other than the one you have chosen to better fit the specs of that machine, and take into consideration hanging onto to that machine for use as a web browser/email device until you get the next machine–and read up carefully on what hardware is best supported on the Linux distribution you choose to install before you buy it–particularly as regards video and wireless; ati and broadcom are known to be problematic with many distributions due not Linux but to the manufacturers poor driver support. Intel is the best supported both wirelessly and re: video cards; if you want to get that 3D eye-candy going then nvidia is the card of choice, though editing your Linux video card configuration file may be necessary.
Follow those simple steps, and any problems you are having will be resolved much more quickly; one final thing to keep in mind is that some Linux distributions have much better documentation and/or irc channel help–very important things to consider when doing your first Linux installation.

This is the most commonly heard complaint in the new generation of Linux users–those who have learned to overcome the shortcomings and obstacles (the sooper sekrit drivers) in their wireless and video to get their systems up and running just the way they like them, only to have them trashed on their upgrade to Gutsy.
The odd thing for some (at least myself) is that Gutsy is far better than Feisty ever was, particularly in those two critical components; Hardy looks to be even better still, from at least initial impressions of using it for the past couple of weeks or so.
Fixing problems in wireless and video are much improved from where they were just a few short months ago, provided those experiencing trouble give clear info on what exactly the issue is, accompanied by a paste of the response from a few simple terminal commands.
The exodus from proprietary systems is in full force now, and the offerings from the major Linux distributions have never been more choice. Anything and everything you need can be found under the tux-shaped umbrella. Take a break from the forced upgrade treadmill and test out what is on offer–you may like what you see, and never look back.

To ditch the awful xandros default install on the eeepc and get the PCLinuxOS special remaster for the eeepc on board–this time with everything working–wireless, web cam, Ethernet, the works. It’s fairly amazing that it’s only taken a little more than six weeks for them to throw this together, and this time I seriously doubt I will be doing a re-install of the overly simplified default install. To have a full-fledged customize as you please distro on this little machine should be fun indeed. Stay tuned for more.

Wonderful. Just to reiterate–if there is a substantive comment you wish to make, then that is great–but due to a heavy load of comment spam, comments like ‘nice’, ‘wonderful’, and other such one-word deals will be deleted, particularly if they are paired with so-called scraper sites that seem little more than automated bots creating weblogs to spamify the webverse. Come back with a similar comment after being deleted will lead to being put on the blacklist of Antioch (from the same reliquary as the Holy Hand Grenade). You have been so informed. Heh.

This will surely be a runaway bestseller–a hdd that won’t share media over a lan (or any other network). Via Groklaw A snippet:

It doesn’t matter what the files are: If you try to share these formats over a network, Western Digital assumes not just that you’re a criminal, but that it is its job to police users. You see, MP3, DivX, AVI, WMV and Quicktime files are copy-protected formats.

And it’s already been defeated. Hahahahaha

From the ever perspicacious OSNews, is an interesting story about how to ‘dethrone’ Ubuntu. Heh. Click through, read the (via) article, then be sure to stop off for the interesting comment thread–always a treat.

Is an impressive alpha release for a linux distribution–truly hard to believe that it is an alpha; much better than many final releases out there. Just now running it in livecd mode (kubuntu) and it’s very responsive and light. The installer felt much more stable than that in either the final release of Feisty or Gutsy, though it did take its sweet time in recognizing all the hardware and there was an odd pop-up every so often saying that new media (the install disk haha) had been detected and asked for instructions on how to proceed–this happened three times, and each time hitting cancel caused no problems.

This is a very early build–the earliest possible outside of those who enabled the packages (such as they were) right after Gutsy was released, and so much remains to be changed before the final form; it still uses the 3.5.x version of KDE, and there is a Kmenu item called lost and found that has around fifty items in it (quite the sub-menu, heh), one which will surely be replaced in later versions.

This is the earliest I’ve ever installed a Linux distribution in its release cycle, so there will be lots to learn, and certainly many carping posts coming on why I can’t get my wobbly windows working–fortunately there is a new firefox plug in that allows one to search launchpad for bugs, search ubuntu.packages.com as well as about five other functions, all available in the google search section of firefox. Pretty nifty stuff.

If you are willing to face certain (most definite) breakage then give this a shot–otherwise just try out the livecd and see what you think–it’s only a very early look and feel, and nothing close to what the final Hardy Heron will be like, especially once the KDE4 packages make their way into the builds, oh, about 5 months from now. Hahaha