Changing HDDs

Got me a new hard disk drive,a 2.5" 320 GB IDE/ PATA to replace/ upgrade the 250 GB one that was on Viking and place it on Hercules.
As of today Viking came to be the Sony Vaio PCG FRV37 and Hercules ceased to be.
The new HDD will be placed on the Thinkpad T43, will see how I name it.
It is not the first time that I've switched HDDs from Linux to box to Linux box w/o a single scratch, particularly since this is Ubuntu, and there isn't any compile time hardware specific options that tie the hardware to a particular box, and also, both of the boxes are pretty damn standard -hardware wise- so there isn't any other surprise on that as well.

SU Mystery Theater (32)

Just installed these...
Things seem to go fine, even Mighty Mouse seems to be working A Ok after all the updates & a reboot.

Trisquel Awen wallpaper trick

I really like the way that Trisquel uses to setup the three different wallpapers, at least on the Awen release.
It uses a simple png image with the 3 color variants, to use it on Ubuntu it goes like this:

## sudo cp trisquel.png /usr/share/backgrounds/
## cd /usr/share/backgrounds/
## sudo ln -s trisquel.png trisquel-blue.png
## sudo ln -s trisquel.png trisquel-violet.png
## sudo ln -s trisquel.png trisquel-orange.png
## sudo ln -s trisquel.png trisquel-green.png

And then, on the file:

/usr/share/gnome-background-properties/ubuntu-wallpapers.xml

You need to add this:

  <wallpaper>
    <name>Trisquel Awen green</name>
    <filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/trisquel-green.png</filename>
    <options>zoom</options>
    <pcolor>#002F19</pcolor>
    <scolor>#8EC500</scolor>
    <shade_type>vertical-gradient</shade_type>
  </wallpaper>

  <wallpaper>
    <name>Trisquel Awen violet</name>
    <filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/trisquel-violet.png</filename>
    <options>zoom</options>
    <pcolor>#AA004E</pcolor>
    <scolor>#140016</scolor>
    <shade_type>vertical-gradient</shade_type>
  </wallpaper>

  <wallpaper>
    <name>Trisquel Awen orange</name>
    <filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/trisquel-orange.png</filename>
    <options>zoom</options>
    <pcolor>#E29E00</pcolor>
    <scolor>#B00C00</scolor>
    <shade_type>vertical-gradient</shade_type>
  </wallpaper>

  <wallpaper>
    <name>Trisquel Awen blue</name>
    <filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/trisquel-blue.png</filename>
    <options>zoom</options>
    <pcolor>#19387F</pcolor>
    <scolor>#5691C2</scolor>
    <shade_type>vertical-gradient</shade_type>
  </wallpaper>

Cold, real cold

We are having a polar front passing by these days... There is even a little talk, perhaps media frenzy, about the possibility of some snow...

You will be missed, Peter

Rest In Peace.

The current Ubuntu Trisquel desktop

Been using Trisquel quite a bit, specially today.
Seems really nice, and of course, the mighty Hercules makes an amazing laptop, even after all these years.
It is a pleasure to type on it, the body/ chassis of this beast of a laptop feels as sturdy as a block of dried cement.

Currently reading

Last night finished Armaggedon, it took me a while, but I really enjoyed it; besides, it is a monster of a book, 500 pages or so.
Started right away with Warday, haven't read much. will see how it turns out...

Trisquel post-install tidbits

/usr/bin/gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/interface/toolbar_style icons --type string

In order to remove the text below the toolbar icons, all the other Nautilus & gconf tidbits were not enough for this.

A Trisquel touch of class

A nice touch, at least using the text install, of the Trisquel installer is that it lets you choose some optionals during the install.
The picture shows the dialog that allows you to choose what type of installation you want to make on your box.

No sound for you!

The Realtek builtin sound card on Hercules wasn't detected by Windows 7 upon installation, but no biggie, after a couple of Windows Update it come out alive & kicking...

The current Ubuntu Trisquel desktop

Sort of a slow Friday, making way to a long weekend with a Holiday on Monday... So...
Just installed Trisquel's LTS release, 4.0.1, on Hercules, just for spite ;)
Placed it on a 40 GB IDE HDD I had laying around for a while.

The distro itsefl seems really nice, polished to the max; of course the hardware is really sub par for todays standards, but the first impression is that it holds pretty much A Ok while running "the Trisquel".
Of course I have a lot of things to configure now...

Little Man Dr. Cooper

The genesis of our beloved Dr. Cooper.

A bit of ye olde Windows (7)

Changed the hdd on Hercules and used a bit Windows 7 today...

So far this is, by a loooong shot, the Windows release that looks the best right out of the box.
Of course I had to install a ton of updates and reboot (after all I haven't used this Windows 7 since October 2010...) and the poor little Hercules has its fans constantly spinning to keep the beast happy with all the CPU it needs.

The current Ubuntu desktop

Oh man... I'm in love with Clearlooks, Gnome Colors & the Trisquel wallpaper...

Vampire Dropbox

Ever since I moved back to Dropbox for my backups, I've noticed that it refuses to die if I want to kill it from the Gnome Panel icon.
I have to kill it (and start it) from the CLI with no apparent side effects.

Carashes

A little sort of follow up on the volcanic ash thing.....

Taken this morning, granted, the car has been parked in the same spot for a few days, and, of course, this is nothing compared to what's going on in the South, the place looks like something taken out of McCarthy's "The Road", poor people, the prospect of this winter season really went down the drain.

The current Ubuntu desktop

Gnome Colors
Clearlooks
And, yes, the Trisquel wallpaper... Clarity, simplicity and beauty.

VirtualBox annoyances (yes, the Trisquel thing goes on...)

Yesterday tried to create a quick VirtualBox image on Sojourner in order to be able to -finally- get those icons and the wallpaper...

Found out, totally by accident, that there is a bug with VirtualBox and the EXT4 file system... This says a lot about how much virtualization I use... Actually, I use it quite a lot, but I mostly drag the same Windows 2000 Pro vdi image from box to box (and OS to OS) for over a two year now, talk about portability :)

In the end, had to create that VirtualBox image on Trantor, and then remove the icons, BTW, they weren't that spectacular, but I like the wallpaper, specially the blue one, a definitive keep.

A couple of screenshots from the process:

  

Ashes to ashes

Started last week, pretty heavy in the South, storming thru Bariloche.
Here in Bs. As. it fucked up flights, with major cancellations last Friday all the way to Saturday, and it seems like it is starting once again around here...

Of course this is nothing, at least IMHO, compared to the forest/ wild fires we had a couple of years ago.

Nuclear autumn
Smoke, fog, clouds... Yes, Buenos Aires
Up in smoke
Subject intentionally left blank
Wild fire
Love the smell of napalm in the morning

The hunt for (old) Trisquel (II)

Is officially over...
Found a place to get the old release... Here on this post they point to this repository

http://devel.trisquel.info/cdimage-old/

Presto, will dload that baby later to give a try maybe tomorrow.

The current Ubuntu desktop

The Minimal Desktop, this time, a little bit customized since the first screenshot.
GNOME Colors and Metacity's builtin composite engine on.

Dinner (last night)

A slightly blurred veggie dinner...

- Pumpkin
- Rice
- Carrots
- Mushrooms
- Zapallito pie

Gnomenimalism

Talk about Minimal...
The default Gnome you see -right- after an installation of Minimal Desktop for Ubuntu. This is on the mighty mighty Hercules, the Sony Vaio test workhorse.

The hunt for (old) Trisquel

The quest is on and goes on and on... But, let me tell you, it doesn't seem to be any easy to find that old release...
Been searching all around yesterday, all to no avail...

In the meantime fun is Minimal Desktop for Ubuntu.

Back to the box

After my final disappointment with UbuntuOne, it is time to give Drop Box another try...

More on Gnome Global Menu

A little something I've forgot about setting up Gnome Global Menu on Debian Squeeze...
I've have added this to the "/etc/apt/sources.list" file:

#GLOBALMENU
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/globalmenu-team/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/globalmenu-team/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

And then issued the regular:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-globalmenu

As I alredy posted, it belched a bit during the install, but it is working A OK.

(Old) Trisquel icon beauty

I really like this one, saw this Trisquel distro some time ago, and browsing for I don't know what, found this screenshot earlier tonight.

I particularly like the icons, they looks like a tailor made version of default Gnome ones, my beloved Clearlooks; the whole thing looks rather pleasant and relaxed. The volume icon seems really good, that is one of the few icons I dearly hate from the Clearlooks set, would like to see what the "WiFi icon" looks like on this set, tho.

Gonna see if I can find this (now old) icon set somewhere; the newer Trisquel releases look a lot like a blend of Ubuntu's and Debian's default Gnome look, sans the rounded top window corners...
I guess I'll might even install this old version just to extract the icons.

Veggie night!!!

A healthy gulp for a really cold Monday.

- Broccoli
- Rice
- Corn
- Carrots
- Little bit of cheese

The current Ubuntu desktop

Gnome Colors FTW!

SU Mystery Theater (31)

A couple of updates for this cold Saturday.
Only one installed, the other update still tries to find a way into my beloved MBP, but I don't see the need for it so far.
Strangely enough, this Security update didn't need a reboot after the installation, I'm pretty sure the update itself has something todo with that MAC Defender crap.

Zhe vinter is coming!!!!

At last.

The current Ubuntu desktop

I love Clearlooks.
And Gnome-Colors Brave.
And the Squeeze wallpaper.
But then again, this is nothing new...

The door is always open

A Constant Feeling of Crisis

UbuntuNotOne

I give up on you... Sorry... You are waaaayy toooo slooooow and really dangerous when it comes to NOT deleting my files between several boxes.
It's a shame, come to think, this is the first "thing" that Ubuntu let me down.