phillsacre.me.uk

A year after migrating to Linux, I wrote:

But what I wanted to say is: would I ever go back to Windows? Never. I’m experienced the power of the Open-Source side, and I have to say I am a convert!

Well, guess what? I’m going back to Windows!

As you will probably know if you read my last post, I’ve just bought a new laptop. It came preloaded with a copy of Windows 7. As you may know, Windows 7 is the latest and greatest operating system from Microsoft. But what’s so great about it that would make me desert linux, especially given that I’ve been singing the praises of Linux for the past few years?

Well, there are several reasons – some of which are to do with Linux, some of which are to do with Windows.

• Ubuntu is great for hardware support and the software repository – but there are still issues. I spent literally hours on Phil’s old laptop trying to get the wireless card to work. In the end I gave up. And although I’m not an ‘advanced’ Linux user, I like to think I know my way around by now (having been using it for four years). I’m not afraid of the command line – it just defeated me.
• A lot of software is only available for Windows only. Admittedly this isn’t always an issue because there are open-source replacements, but sometimes when you want to e.g. connect to a VPN at work, running Linux can be a pain in the arse. A couple of months ago I installed Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 on Phil’s laptop and had a whale of a time playing through it again. It wasn’t working on wine for some reason.
• Windows 7 is … actually, pretty damn good. I know a few people who it’s won over, and although I’ve only been using it for a few days I really like it now as well. Microsoft seem to have done a good job on this one.
• Microsoft seem to have turned a corner in regards to open-source software. They seem to have realised that in the world we live in, if they want to survive they’re going to have to embrace it and ditch the shady practices of the past. So Microsoft aren’t all kittens and rainbows now, but they’ve definitely improved.
• There’s very little I can do in Linux which I can’t do in Windows. Yes, the Windows command line is pretty woeful. But you can download Python for Windows, you can get Cygwin… there are options. You know the I blogged about the Fordham CD Uploader script I wrote? Well, I’ve written a Java utility (utilising some command-line programs available for Windows) which does exactly the same thing. I could have done the same in Python. Windows is no restriction there.

That’s a summary of what I think at the moment ;) I will miss Linux at times I am sure, in fact I may well install it on a partition and dual boot, but for now I’m happy being a Windows user again.

I mentioned over a year ago that I had started using Audacious as my media player. It was based on classic Winamp, wasn’t too bloated and generally did everything I wanted it to.

Unfortunately a while back I ran into an issue with it and playlist size: it seemed to choke on playlists above a certain size (around 2,000 songs – my playlist is just over that). In other words, it would be working fine but then when you loaded up Audacious the next time round, the playlist would be empty. Strange.

Anyway, I have since been using Rhythmbox to play my MP3s (and FLACs, and OGGs… but mostly MP3s). It’s a bit quirky (one strange feature is that there is no ’stop’ button – only a play / pause button) but so far I have found it to be pretty reliable. I like the fact that it can watch your music collection folder and automatically import any new files it finds there.

It also has iPod support. I’ve found that it doesn’t seem to like copying files over to my iPod (well, dragging and dropping doesn’t seem to work anyway – maybe you’re supposed to do it some other way) so I use GtkPod for that. One thing it does do, though, is sync the iPod with last.fm. If you have last.fm configured in Rhythmbox, and you connect up your iPod, then it seems Rhythmbox will automatically upload the list of songs played since the last time to last.fm. That is actually pretty cool, as I’ve been thinking about doing that for ages!

It just does it silently, without any prompting. Nice.

Anyway, Rhythmbox gets a cautious “thumbs up” from me! So here concludes the review :p

I’m getting itchy for a new iPod. I already have an iPod, however it is broken. And it’s been broken for a while now – but I think this is partially my fault: I have a feeling I messed up when I installed Rockbox. What I will probably do is sell it on eBay as a broken item – I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who are able to fix it and would probably get themselves a bargain.

Aaaanyway. This has all meant that I’ve been without a working iPod for well over a year, and I do miss it – particularly on the occasional train journey we have to make. So, I’ve been thinking about buying a new one. The problem is, I really like the look of the new iPod Touches – they’re brilliant little things.

But I am unsure whether I’ll be able to use it with Linux! I could simply buy another model of MP3 player, but … the iPod Touches are so shiiiiiny…. I might just get one. If the worst comes to the worst, I can install Windows running under VirtualBox and set it up that way. Hmmm….

Just a bit of site news: I have removed the “DJ Stuff” section of this website, because it was basically useless and hadn’t been updated in ages. I don’t really do DJing any more, so it was a bit useless to have the section up on the website.

In other news, I’ve been having a few problems since upgrading to Ubuntu 8. I think it might be to do with the Flash plugin, but I don’t seem to be able to view YouTube videos anymore. Not only that, but I seem to be having problems accessing certain pages on Facebook (i.e., the Inbox and Compose Message). This might be a problem with Firefox Beta 4 – I had more success with Opera, but it wasn’t 100%.

Still, the Flash plugin on Linux has always been the source of problems – I’ll look into it soon and I’m sure it will be a matter of installing the “official” Adobe Flash plugin for Linux.

I’ve been looking round for a new Linux MP3 player for a while now. My previous MP3 player of choice was XMMS, but that’s getting old now and I’m not sure how much longer it’s going to be around (and supported) for. The interface itself, despite using Winamp skins, is pretty old and horrible – the menu system look terrible on my computer.

So I decided that I should get a new MP3 player. The problem is, I didn’t want one of those ‘full featured’ MP3 players which can do everything including make you a cup of tea and teach your child Hungarian. I just want something basic – I give it a playlist of tracks, it plays them in a random order. I’d also – if possible – like the capability to stream audio, i.e. listen to internet radio.

I really like Classic Winamp, but aside from XMMS I didn’t know of any similar Linux MP3 players. Until today. Audacious seems to fit the bill pretty nicely. It looks pretty, does everything I want it to, and looks like it will be supported for the time being!

So, I can recommend it :-)

Zeth has blogged his predictions for 2008. I thought that I would post up a reply here, rather than leaving a comment!

There are a few of his predictions I wanted to challenge (so, when January 2009 comes round, I can either have egg on my face or, preferably, point and say “I told you so”!)

A single Linux distro, probably Ubuntu, will have more users than Apple OS X.

I doubt this will happen. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any statistics, but I believe the Mac market share is ~5%, and the Linux market share is <0.5%. For Linux — and not just Linux, one distribution — to climb up the rankings that much would require a seismic shift in the market (Ok, I probably shouldn’t use the word ‘market’, but I just did, so there :p) — the likes of which have never been seen before in the Linux world.

I don’t think this will be the year of Linux just yet, and although I think Desktop Linux will catch on – gradually – I don’t think we’re ready just yet to overtake OS X.

By the end of the year, more pre-installed Linux desktops will be sold than Macs.

See what I said regarding the last prediction. I don’t think Linux is going to grow that fast, particularly as there isn’t really a market for pre-installed Linux desktops at the moment. How many Linux desktops have Dell sold so far? Around 40,000. How many Macs do Apple sell? This page would seem to indicate it’s around 2,000,000 per quarter. So we’ve got a fair way to go.

Social networking will become a protocol.

I’m not sure whether Zeth here is a little confused as to what the meaning of ‘protocol’ is, or perhaps I’ve just missed something important about Web 2.0. But in my understanding, TCP is a protocol (cunningly demonstrated by the use of the word ‘Protocol’ in ‘Transport Connection Protocol’). IP is a protocol, HTTP is a protocol. But social networking? Not a protocol on a level I’m used to dealing with.

The dictionary defines protocol as ‘a set of rules governing the format of messages that are exchanged between computers’ — not as ‘a set of rules governing the format of messages that are exchanged between people’.

Now, I can see some elements of social networking websites becoming (for want of a better word) “protocolised”, but I think to say that ’social networking will become a protocol’ is meaningless. Having said that, maybe I should have waited for Zeth to come up with his more detailed post on that one before making a judgement ;-)

Well, that just about wraps up this critique of Zeth’s predictions for 2008. And if you’re reading this after 2008 – I told you so. I hope.

Last week, Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” was released. I started the upgrade procedure yesterday.

Now, the upgrade procedure is one of the things I have a serious gripe with about Ubuntu. You can’t just start it upgrading and then leave it for the duration. You actually have to be there the entire time, in case some stupid confirmation dialog comes up asking you if you want to (for example) overwrite a custom configuration file (If you have a customised apache2 configuration file, for example I’ve added mod_dav_svn to mine). If a confirmation dialog box pops up, it actually halts the entire installation process while it waits for you to select an option.

What Ubuntu really needs is a checkbox that says “Do not interrupt me during this upgrade” (or something like that). The default options should be enough. For example, in the case of a customised configuration file, it could save the updated file to config_file.new and leave you a message at the end of the installation telling you to check it.

If they absolutely *must* have confirmation dialogs, could they make it “non-blocking”, i.e. the installation will continue? Or at least, put all the steps which require confirmation in one place, i.e. at the beginning / end? Leaving Ubuntu to upgrade overnight or during the day, only to find out that it requires confirmation, is incredibly annoying and I think deserves special attention.

Aaaanyway. Apart from that, Ubuntu 7.10 seems to be pretty good so far. They’ve given it another visual makeover, and the new features list looks pretty decent (for example, auto-configuration of printers).

So if you’re a Ubuntu user, there’s no reason not to upgrade! The only thing to mention is, your system will probably run at 100% CPU usage for a while after upgrading. This is due to a service called tracker, which is a file indexer. It initially has to run through all of your files, which takes up the time. Once the files have all been scanned, however, I think it doesn’t use much CPU. Just in case you’re wondering why your CPU is being hammered after upgrading!