A Man and his Penguin

…of how difficult it is to give free CDs to all comers.

Was at the shopping centre for half an hour, and didn’t manage to unload a single CD. Most people were rude to me, too.

So I went for a walk and just put the CDs into letterboxes. I shall keep a few discs for myself and for people who I actually know.

Today is Friday, 15th of September - one day before Software Freedom Day 2006.

I will be going to shopping centres today and tomorrow and giving out 50 CDs of open-source Windows software and Ubuntu. I will let you all know how it goes.

Doesn’t Linux rock though? I can actually burn two CDs at once. It’s slow (my system bus is slow), but it works without error. Right now I’m burning one at a time, using K3B (because it has a kind of autoloader feature), and it’s fast.

In other news, I downloaded PlanetPenguin Racer, and I really love it. It’s such a great game! I wish I’d downloaded it before I started making all these CDs, because there’s a Windows version.

Also, I installed and set up Conky. Now I have a colourful CPU and network throughput graph sitting on my desktop. Tip: Don’t put Conky directly into your Startup Programs on Gnome. Instead, write a very simple shell script which says:

#!/bin/bash
sleep 10
conky

Make it executable, then chuck it into your Gnome Startup Programs in the Session panel. Well, I’d better go now, as K3B has sounded the bugle to herald another 5 discs copied

(click for full image)

I just realised that I forgot to keep you updated on how my video compression went, and how QDvdAuthor was.

My video compression on Windows failed for some reason which I can’t remember - I might’ve run out of disk space. It uses heaps more space than you’d expect.

I also tried QDvdAuthor, but that program is a train wreck. It crashes all the time, and the interface is terrible. I even tried running it on KDE to see if that would solve the crashes, but it doesn’t.

I found a program called DVDStyler, which you can get through a 3rd-party Ubuntu repository, but I haven’t given it a proper working-out.

One program I was quite impressed with was AcidRip. This is a DVD-ripping program, which can even rip copy-protected DVDs. I ripped one of my sister’s DVDs (we’ve been trying to find a legitimate copy for ourselves, but to no avail), purposely made the recoding fail, and then put the raw files into Nero for Windows. I probably could have DVDStyler as there was no transcoding necessary, but hey I didn’t think of it.

AcidRip is available from repositories, but I’m sure you’ll need libdvdcss in order to rip copy-protected discs.

I find myself accomplishing tasks only by using Windows and Ubuntu together; it makes me think that maybe there’s not one operating system which should be able to do all tasks; that maybe multiple operating systems together is the best way to work.

And as I mentioned, Reconstructor is a great program. It actually has a hidden feature! I’m actually thinking of learning how to use squashfs-tools, and then building my own Ubuntu-derivitive distro with non-free codecs and some custom-written software to create a coherent, safe and convenient desktop computing experience. I have some ideas for this new distro which I call "Unity".

Unity will not pretend that you can use it for everything. It will be designed to co-operate with Windows, to the point of having WINE included with the system and also include tools for working with Windows programs and finding DLLs from your legitimate Windows installation. NTFS write support will be just one click away, and a special Windows program will be included to be able to download from repositories if your modem/wireless doesn’t work with Linux.

A number of other things will be one-click away, through the use of Python scripts. 3rd-party GUI frontends will be included for certain tasks like editing xorg.conf. The Fish shell will be included as standard. File encryption and decryption through Blowfish will be available as a Nautilus script - just right-click the file and choose "Encrypt…".

I’ve lots of ideas. Now I’ve just got to work out if I can operate squashfs-tools

Also, my computer is running really fast due to my large memory and prelink and preload; but it takes an age and a half to load gdm. Okay, it didn’t really take that long, but it was longer than it takes on my iMac. I think it’s Preload’s fault; I used the Top command shortly after logging in today, and Preload was at the top of the list (meaning that it was using more processing power than any other program running at that time).

Not much to say here…

I downloaded the Reconstructor script. This little beauty lets you create a customised Ubuntu Live CD. You can select new packages to include, take off existing packages, add new wallpaper, a different theme, a new bootsplash and Gnome splash screen, and a number of other great modifications.

Boring me, I just made one which included RealPlayer, the Bad and Ugly codecs, Flash, Maelstrom, Fish, and some pictures of Melbourne and Perth. Still, I plan to give out copies of these on Software Freedom Day.

I’ve now got the bug to create a proper customised version of Ubuntu, without the aid of Reconstructor (i.e. expand the SquashFS image and make modifications to it myself).

I somehow got the theming bug too, and now I found out how to make my XFCE desktop look like Mac OS 8. Pity I can’t make Gnome look like that too!

Not much to say here…

I downloaded the Reconstructor script. This little beauty lets you create a customised Ubuntu Live CD. You can select new packages to include, take off existing packages, add new wallpaper, a different theme, a new bootsplash and Gnome splash screen, and a number of other great modifications.

Boring me, I just made one which included RealPlayer, the Bad and Ugly codecs, Flash, Maelstrom, Fish, and some pictures of Melbourne and Perth. Still, I plan to give out copies of these on Software Freedom Day.

I’ve now got the bug to create a proper customised version of Ubuntu, without the aid of Reconstructor (i.e. expand the SquashFS image and make modifications to it myself).

I somehow got the theming bug too, and now I found out how to make my XFCE desktop look like Mac OS 8. Pity I can’t make Gnome look like that too!

Not much to say here…

I downloaded the Reconstructor script. This little beauty lets you create a customised Ubuntu Live CD. You can select new packages to include, take off existing packages, add new wallpaper, a different theme, a new bootsplash and Gnome splash screen, and a number of other great modifications.

Boring me, I just made one which included RealPlayer, the Bad and Ugly codecs, Flash, Maelstrom, Fish, and some pictures of Melbourne and Perth. Still, I plan to give out copies of these on Software Freedom Day.

I’ve now got the bug to create a proper customised version of Ubuntu, without the aid of Reconstructor (i.e. expand the SquashFS image and make modifications to it myself).

I somehow got the theming bug too, and now I found out how to make my XFCE desktop look like Mac OS 8. Pity I can’t make Gnome look like that too!

Not much to say here…

I downloaded the Reconstructor script. This little beauty lets you create a customised Ubuntu Live CD. You can select new packages to include, take off existing packages, add new wallpaper, a different theme, a new bootsplash and Gnome splash screen, and a number of other great modifications.

Boring me, I just made one which included RealPlayer, the Bad and Ugly codecs, Flash, Maelstrom, Fish, and some pictures of Melbourne and Perth. Still, I plan to give out copies of these on Software Freedom Day.

I’ve now got the bug to create a proper customised version of Ubuntu, without the aid of Reconstructor (i.e. expand the SquashFS image and make modifications to it myself).

I somehow got the theming bug too, and now I found out how to make my XFCE desktop look like Mac OS 8. Pity I can’t make Gnome look like that too!