Alcides Fonseca

I feel pity for this desktop of mine. It has suffered a lot when it comes to OSes. So I had installed Mac OS x86 perfectly working, but I wanted to play Trackmania Nations Forever. As I wasn’t doing any work on the desktop, no problem, let’s format this.

First choice: Windows Server 2008. I heard it was more stable than Vista and it ran Trackmania pretty nice. The installation was one of the smoothest I have ever experienced. But I was almost giving up on this OS when I had to set for the first time the Administrator password. Whatever password I inserted, it always gave me the following error: “Your password doesn’t match the length, complexity or the history required by this computer” (or something like that). WTF??? Luckily Bruno gave me the solution: You need both upper and lower-case and numbers in your password. Mr. Server2008 Usability Guy should be punished for this one! Once inside, I installed the Desktop Experience and Wireless packages. Reboot. Another reboot. Nothing… I couldn’t access any of those features. And no wireless. Now what? Let’s see what’s new in Ubuntu 8.04.

Installing Hardy Heron was OK until the disk partitioning thing. By default it would erase all my disk. I had a Storage partition with all the documents I need. So I had to go to advanced. There I had to delete the old Windows partition (this was ok). But I hadn’t a button called “Install Ubuntu in free space”. I knew that I had to format a swap and a EXT3 partitions. But my father wouldn’t. One thing to improve Canonical guys ;) Now, inside the OS, it was similar to the previous version, including that reddish-brown color of the Human theme. One thing that I was glad to see is that now Ubuntu handles the 1280×1024 resolution in my screen. Sweet! Another thing that I missed, and since Ubuntu’s windows manager is a copy of Windows (that I understand to ease the switch), is the lack of closing the window by double-clicking on the icon. I have used it since Windows 3.1! Oh and it couldn’t authenticate in my WEP-protected wireless. I could have changed it to WPA, since all the computers in the house support it, but unfortunately I could play Trackmania in Ubuntu as I wished.

All of this OSes failed the Audio. Ubuntu couldn’t fetch the right drivers, don’t know why (in the last version it worked fine). And even in Vista I had to install the codecs from the official site and even a patch. Manufacturers and OSes should improve this experience. Each OS would have a repository of drivers that would be searched each time a new device is connected. XP had this, but it didn’t work. Vista has this working fine, but I had a few problems with Asus hardware. As for Vista, everything just works, which is fine. Except for the fact that is ugly as hell and isn’t straightforward. I just can’t go back from the Mac to this :/ And having a desktop only to play Trackmania… sucks!

A final note about Windows vs Mac OS X: Although many would say OS X is way better than Windows, I don’t think that’s such a big difference (and I’m comparing to Windows XP). There are only two things that I really miss: Spaces. It has changed my way of organizing windows and for me that’s a really cool thing. And I’ve tested a few solutions for Virtual Desktops on Windows and they suck. The second change is the most anoying thing for switchers: the keyboard layout, specially how cmd replaces your windows/ubuntu ctrl. For years I would use my little finger to press control and then use the S, X, C, V or whatever key I wanted. For about 6 months I have used Mac OS as my main os and using your thumb to press cmd and the other fingers to press the other key is a lot better for your wrists! And I don’t want to miss that.

In this holidays I’ve spend some time hacking my OS setup. My Windows XP install had more than two years. And it was still solid without virus or spyware, and It has never seen any anti-virus or so. So guys who say proudly that you Macs or your Linuxes don’t get virus… Well, so doesn’t my Windows!

However I had installed a lot of stuff I don’t use anymore and I find faster to just format it and install a new one. One of my rules when setting up a new computer is to make two partitions. One for the OS and programs, and the other for data. So whenever I have to format it, I don’t have to bother with backups.

I decided to give Vista SP1 a try, since it might not be as hard to use as RTM, but I decided to test os x86 in between. Last time I didn’t have success last time.

Specs:
- Asus P5LD2 SE
- Intel Pentium D
- Asus EN6600 Silent
- Asus WL-167g (wireless dongle)

I installed KALYWAY LEO 10.5.1 intel SSE2 SSE3 and everythin just worked out of the box, except for Wireless and Audio. Better than last time (in which I had no wired network, so no internet at all). Luckly there were guides to install ALC882 (the codec I was missing for audio) and also an hack for Ralink Wireless Driver in order to my Wireless dongle to work, and after some hacks it worked! I felt like installing linux, but with success!

So now I have one and a half Mac, since I don’t get the same experience as with my MacBook, but I get much more integration between the two! I am even using teleport to control my macbook from the desktop. It works really well without any hard configuration or hacking like I had to do with Synergy that made me let it go.

At the moment I am installing Windows Vista on a virtual Machine in my desktop, but It is being really CPU intensive. I bet I’ll return to XP in a matter of weeks!

KDE Sets its Sights on Windows, Mac OS X (via Miguel)

It’s nice to have more alternatives to the native Explorer shell and Aqua (Although I find them pretty good) and I wonder if thy will do it as an alternative, or just port it to run on top of them. It’s a really good thing desktop environment became platform independent, and that will bring more third-party desktop engines!

Following the Why Software Sucks idea, here are the ranks of the week:

1. Apart from the non-standard rendering, looks like IE doesn’t support the data: protocol. That sucks a lot!
2. Mac OS doesn’t support mounting FTP folders (only in read-only mode).
3. Windows XP search for drivers online never worked for me. Need a discover and install drivers that really work.
4. Linux still can’t hide all that geeky lines, even when upgrading software in Ubuntu. linux—;
5. I still can’t do nothing in Vista. Things are too confused and on not properly spaced. SP1, you may come in.
6. When giving a wireless network WPA security, Vista keep trying to connect without it and doesn’t learn it. And if you are not a geek, you won’t know how to change.
7. Still can’t OS X around to maximize like Windows does. I am less distracted without the background or other Apps behind it.

Oh and a bit of programming stuff:

1. ActiveSync sucks pretty big!
2. AppleScript looks very readable.
3. But Objective-C is so damn ugly! Even in Python!

After some posts ranting about Microsoft, in this one I will defend them. First of all, I don’t like Microsoft Policies ( as I don’t like Google’s), but as a real company, it has some very good products as well as bad ones.

As for windows, all my live I’ve heard people saying it sucks and so on. Well, I don’t quite agree and for the record, when I say “windows”, I mean v3.1, 98SE and XP, not those unstable versions like ME and that so-called Vista windows. As for this versions (I only used this ones) I only had BSOD when connection some weird hardware (like my webcam or my old external cd drive), but for the time it was awesome. I didn’t even bother me at the time. With Windows XP, the only crashes I have are Firefox ones (Opensource btw).

When compared to Linux, it has this huge advantage: Everything has drivers for Windows! ( linux don’t ) Yeah, I know Linux is opensource and so, but for non-coders there is not much difference, and os X is a great OS and it’s not opensource. Yet regarding Linux, I don’t need to compile anything, and if I do some software with a MSI, it will install perfectly on any windows computer. Only if Linux had a standard for folders….

When compared to os X, there are two things I don’t agree with. First, Macs run out-of-the-box. Yes, but windows do too. If you buy a standard PC, almost all the times (unfortunately) it comes with Windows installed, ready to work. Shop technicians install it together with the drivers just how Apple does. The second thing is that os X is so cool because you don’t need an antivirus or antispyware or anti-malware or so. Well, with windows you also don’t need them. For an year now I am running Windows without any anti-virus nor anti-spyware and I’m happy. (Tip for windows users attacked by virus: Change to some trusted pr0n sites).

Well, I like my Windows where no terminal is needed :)

You all know I am a great fan of OpenSource software. Almost all of my code is opensource (except from comercial ones). However I use Windows for a bunch of reasons: PHC is windows only (and has a LTP1 key verification) and it runs Macromedia Fireworks and Notepad++, the tools I work with. I am now testing Mac OS x86 (yeah, I know it's buggy and os X only rulles with mac hardware, that's why when apple decides to upgrade macbook I will get one).

Everyone I know uses Thunderbird as a email client, but I preffer Windows Live Mail Desktop (beta). Correction: preffered. yesterday the email database corrupted and I lost all my emails, and a important part of my work (and takeoff organization) there. I will just hangout until my web-based ajax client is done. It is part of my next big project. News soon.