A Man and his Penguin

As tribute to Fedora 6, the Ubuntu Podcast is going to be in two parts this week.

The first part "Ubuntuos Core" is the actual podcast. The second part "Ubuntuos Extras" is our pre-cast discussion, which is actually more interesting than the show (lol).

When I release the "extras" episode, keep listening; I’ve included the bit at the end of the podcast where I drop out

Today I finally got the latest issue of Linux Format magazine - the only thing is, it’s the March issue, so I’m missing the Februrary one. It looks to me like there’s a rising demand for the magazine, because this was the last copy left on the racks and it would have only been in the shop for a day or two. This would explain why I couldn’t get a copy of Feb’s issue (The newsagent in Joondalup will have a copy, so don’t worry).

The cover DVD has a great game called Warzone 2100. It was a commercial game, but the development house GPL’ed it. Warzone 2100 is a RTS (real-time strategy) game with nice 3D graphics and futuristic technology. Very good. Plus, it focuses more on the battle than on building bases and managing supplies - always a plus. I’ll review it on the podcast next time.

I figured out (I think) why GDM was constantly crashing on Copland. Somehow, the files in the GDM theme folder were all readable [i]by root only[/i]. GDM runs in its own account, "gdm", so it couldn’t read the theme’s data files, so it kept crashing. I’ll build another disc image and test it out. This is likely to be my first real release candidate, as almost everything else either works to specs or is broken upstream as well.

As tribute to Fedora 6, the Ubuntu Podcast is going to be in two parts this week.

The first part "Ubuntuos Core" is the actual podcast. The second part "Ubuntuos Extras" is our pre-cast discussion, which is actually more interesting than the show (lol).

When I release the "extras" episode, keep listening; I’ve included the bit at the end of the podcast where I drop out

Today I finally got the latest issue of Linux Format magazine - the only thing is, it’s the March issue, so I’m missing the Februrary one. It looks to me like there’s a rising demand for the magazine, because this was the last copy left on the racks and it would have only been in the shop for a day or two. This would explain why I couldn’t get a copy of Feb’s issue (The newsagent in Joondalup will have a copy, so don’t worry).

The cover DVD has a great game called Warzone 2100. It was a commercial game, but the development house GPL’ed it. Warzone 2100 is a RTS (real-time strategy) game with nice 3D graphics and futuristic technology. Very good. Plus, it focuses more on the battle than on building bases and managing supplies - always a plus. I’ll review it on the podcast next time.

I figured out (I think) why GDM was constantly crashing on Copland. Somehow, the files in the GDM theme folder were all readable [i]by root only[/i]. GDM runs in its own account, "gdm", so it couldn’t read the theme’s data files, so it kept crashing. I’ll build another disc image and test it out. This is likely to be my first real release candidate, as almost everything else either works to specs or is broken upstream as well.

As tribute to Fedora 6, the Ubuntu Podcast is going to be in two parts this week.

The first part "Ubuntuos Core" is the actual podcast. The second part "Ubuntuos Extras" is our pre-cast discussion, which is actually more interesting than the show (lol).

When I release the "extras" episode, keep listening; I’ve included the bit at the end of the podcast where I drop out

Today I finally got the latest issue of Linux Format magazine - the only thing is, it’s the March issue, so I’m missing the Februrary one. It looks to me like there’s a rising demand for the magazine, because this was the last copy left on the racks and it would have only been in the shop for a day or two. This would explain why I couldn’t get a copy of Feb’s issue (The newsagent in Joondalup will have a copy, so don’t worry).

The cover DVD has a great game called Warzone 2100. It was a commercial game, but the development house GPL’ed it. Warzone 2100 is a RTS (real-time strategy) game with nice 3D graphics and futuristic technology. Very good. Plus, it focuses more on the battle than on building bases and managing supplies - always a plus. I’ll review it on the podcast next time.

I figured out (I think) why GDM was constantly crashing on Copland. Somehow, the files in the GDM theme folder were all readable [i]by root only[/i]. GDM runs in its own account, "gdm", so it couldn’t read the theme’s data files, so it kept crashing. I’ll build another disc image and test it out. This is likely to be my first real release candidate, as almost everything else either works to specs or is broken upstream as well.

As tribute to Fedora 6, the Ubuntu Podcast is going to be in two parts this week.

The first part "Ubuntuos Core" is the actual podcast. The second part "Ubuntuos Extras" is our pre-cast discussion, which is actually more interesting than the show (lol).

When I release the "extras" episode, keep listening; I’ve included the bit at the end of the podcast where I drop out

Today I finally got the latest issue of Linux Format magazine - the only thing is, it’s the March issue, so I’m missing the Februrary one. It looks to me like there’s a rising demand for the magazine, because this was the last copy left on the racks and it would have only been in the shop for a day or two. This would explain why I couldn’t get a copy of Feb’s issue (The newsagent in Joondalup will have a copy, so don’t worry).

The cover DVD has a great game called Warzone 2100. It was a commercial game, but the development house GPL’ed it. Warzone 2100 is a RTS (real-time strategy) game with nice 3D graphics and futuristic technology. Very good. Plus, it focuses more on the battle than on building bases and managing supplies - always a plus. I’ll review it on the podcast next time.

I figured out (I think) why GDM was constantly crashing on Copland. Somehow, the files in the GDM theme folder were all readable [i]by root only[/i]. GDM runs in its own account, "gdm", so it couldn’t read the theme’s data files, so it kept crashing. I’ll build another disc image and test it out. This is likely to be my first real release candidate, as almost everything else either works to specs or is broken upstream as well.

I got a message today on the Ubuntu Forums, from a moderator - I have recieved an infraction for "Inappropriate Language & circumventing language filter".

The explanation is: "It is strictly against the Forum CoC to use "clever" misspellings to
avoid the language filter. If you feel you must do so to make your
point then we do not want to hear your "point"."

And here is the "offending" post - the quoted text is in italics and my post is just under the italicised paragraph:

Originally Posted by cantormath

Update to the story: He and his girlfriend are hoping to fsck together?

———

That’s it. I don’t see what’s innocent enough about the original post (which got onto Digg) and so offensive about my one. In fact, I downloaded an image from the Ubuntu Forums a few months ago, with a picture of a model and the words:

who | grep -i brunette; fortune; talk; cd; wine; talk; touch; unzip; touch; strip; gasp; finger’ root me; mount; fsck; dig; more; yes; gasp; umount; make clean; sleep;

Yes, it’s very funny. That image was posted in 2005, and I only found the image late last year.

Rant aside; I PM’ed the moderator who gave me the infraction, and very reasonably spoke my case.

—–
As a reward for giving personal information to a Telstra telemarketer, we’ve got the Foxtel Platinum package free for a month. Last night I noticed that Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (the movie) was on, so I recorded it. What a great movie; it’s a pity they’re not going to make the others in the series.

If you haven’t seen the shout-out on my Friendster profile, you should look now. I’d forgotten that I’d written it, so when I took a look at my profile the other night I burst out laughing, and had such a hard time explaining my laughter to my father who was also in the room.

"Does this bum make my dress look big?"

I got a message today on the Ubuntu Forums, from a moderator - I have recieved an infraction for "Inappropriate Language & circumventing language filter".

The explanation is: "It is strictly against the Forum CoC to use "clever" misspellings to
avoid the language filter. If you feel you must do so to make your
point then we do not want to hear your "point"."

And here is the "offending" post - the quoted text is in italics and my post is just under the italicised paragraph:

Originally Posted by cantormath

Update to the story: He and his girlfriend are hoping to fsck together?

———

That’s it. I don’t see what’s innocent enough about the original post (which got onto Digg) and so offensive about my one. In fact, I downloaded an image from the Ubuntu Forums a few months ago, with a picture of a model and the words:

who | grep -i brunette; fortune; talk; cd; wine; talk; touch; unzip; touch; strip; gasp; finger’ root me; mount; fsck; dig; more; yes; gasp; umount; make clean; sleep;

Yes, it’s very funny. That image was posted in 2005, and I only found the image late last year.

Rant aside; I PM’ed the moderator who gave me the infraction, and very reasonably spoke my case.

—–
As a reward for giving personal information to a Telstra telemarketer, we’ve got the Foxtel Platinum package free for a month. Last night I noticed that Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (the movie) was on, so I recorded it. What a great movie; it’s a pity they’re not going to make the others in the series.

If you haven’t seen the shout-out on my Friendster profile, you should look now. I’d forgotten that I’d written it, so when I took a look at my profile the other night I burst out laughing, and had such a hard time explaining my laughter to my father who was also in the room.

"Does this bum make my dress look big?"

I got a message today on the Ubuntu Forums, from a moderator - I have recieved an infraction for "Inappropriate Language & circumventing language filter".

The explanation is: "It is strictly against the Forum CoC to use "clever" misspellings to
avoid the language filter. If you feel you must do so to make your
point then we do not want to hear your "point"."

And here is the "offending" post - the quoted text is in italics and my post is just under the italicised paragraph:

Originally Posted by cantormath

Update to the story: He and his girlfriend are hoping to fsck together?

———

That’s it. I don’t see what’s innocent enough about the original post (which got onto Digg) and so offensive about my one. In fact, I downloaded an image from the Ubuntu Forums a few months ago, with a picture of a model and the words:

who | grep -i brunette; fortune; talk; cd; wine; talk; touch; unzip; touch; strip; gasp; finger’ root me; mount; fsck; dig; more; yes; gasp; umount; make clean; sleep;

Yes, it’s very funny. That image was posted in 2005, and I only found the image late last year.

Rant aside; I PM’ed the moderator who gave me the infraction, and very reasonably spoke my case.

—–
As a reward for giving personal information to a Telstra telemarketer, we’ve got the Foxtel Platinum package free for a month. Last night I noticed that Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (the movie) was on, so I recorded it. What a great movie; it’s a pity they’re not going to make the others in the series.

If you haven’t seen the shout-out on my Friendster profile, you should look now. I’d forgotten that I’d written it, so when I took a look at my profile the other night I burst out laughing, and had such a hard time explaining my laughter to my father who was also in the room.

"Does this bum make my dress look big?"

I got a message today on the Ubuntu Forums, from a moderator - I have recieved an infraction for "Inappropriate Language & circumventing language filter".

The explanation is: "It is strictly against the Forum CoC to use "clever" misspellings to
avoid the language filter. If you feel you must do so to make your
point then we do not want to hear your "point"."

And here is the "offending" post - the quoted text is in italics and my post is just under the italicised paragraph:

Originally Posted by cantormath

Update to the story: He and his girlfriend are hoping to fsck together?

———

That’s it. I don’t see what’s innocent enough about the original post (which got onto Digg) and so offensive about my one. In fact, I downloaded an image from the Ubuntu Forums a few months ago, with a picture of a model and the words:

who | grep -i brunette; fortune; talk; cd; wine; talk; touch; unzip; touch; strip; gasp; finger’ root me; mount; fsck; dig; more; yes; gasp; umount; make clean; sleep;

Yes, it’s very funny. That image was posted in 2005, and I only found the image late last year.

Rant aside; I PM’ed the moderator who gave me the infraction, and very reasonably spoke my case.

—–
As a reward for giving personal information to a Telstra telemarketer, we’ve got the Foxtel Platinum package free for a month. Last night I noticed that Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (the movie) was on, so I recorded it. What a great movie; it’s a pity they’re not going to make the others in the series.

If you haven’t seen the shout-out on my Friendster profile, you should look now. I’d forgotten that I’d written it, so when I took a look at my profile the other night I burst out laughing, and had such a hard time explaining my laughter to my father who was also in the room.

"Does this bum make my dress look big?"

During my testing last night, Quod Libet wouldn’t play anything and GXine only played Oggs.

So I went back into the Chroot environment and replaced GXine with VLC, and I added the useful Gstreamer0.10 plugins (how did I forget to include them in the first place?).

And I also worked out how to add the Backports repository to the sources.list - I’ve done it on my main box, but I had forgotten how to do it. So now Copland has Gnash. Excellent.

I also was going to install the Quod Libet extensions, but I completely forgot to. I’ll get back into the chroot, probably tomorrow, add them, recreate the package manifest and build another development CD. Along with as many bugfixes as possible.

There’s only, like, 3 days left in February - looks like Copland will miss its initial release date. It doesn’t really matter - I’d rather release a little later and have the thing work, than release it too soon and have it get a reputation for being overly buggy.

The audio and video support is definately something I needed to get right.

Also, note that the official Copland website on Google Code is getting outdated.

————–
Today, my parents held a barbeque-thingy for all their friends. They asked me beforehand if I wanted to invite anyone as well, but really there’s very few people in Perth who I have contact with. There’s my friend Joe, and the people I work with (who I don’t really want to see outside my working life)… there’s one girl who I have some Internet-contact with but she has a chronic aversion to meeting me

It did make me realise that I’m a bit lonely. I don’t always feel it; in fact, I don’t often feel it. I do wish I had a girlfriend, but I’m really the sort of guy who most girls don’t find interesting. It’s a fact that I’ve accepted, but it doesn’t stop it from (occasionally) hurting.

Getting too depressed. I’ll stop this post now, and hopefully edit the podcast some time before it gets stale.

We did another great show today… Aaron will edit and upload it. I went over my download limit the other day while adding packages to Copland, so although the podcast went well for 99% of the time, I did drop out right at the end while doing the promos.

Still, not too bad.

Copland is going VERY nicely. I have a list of things I’ve got to do to the environment before I create the next CD image:

1. Turn off hidden file viewing in Thunar (I accidentally left it on when I created the files for the /etc/skel directory)

2. Fix names of Copland programs - Pythoncard programs are actually two files - programname.py and programname.rsrc.py. In my case, I had HfsBrowser.py and HfsBrowser.rsrc.py. To make it easier to launch, I changed the first one to hfsbrowser.py. Unfortunately, it then looked for the resource file at hfsbrowser.rsrc.py, rather than HfsBrowser.rsrc.py. Linux is case-sensitive, so naturally those programs wouldn’t actually load.

3. Fix the GDM.conf file - it seems to be crashing the GDM login screen. Either that, or the gdm account does not have proper permissions.

4. Include the Fluendo MP3 playback plugin, all the Quod Libet plugins and extensions, and replace Gxine with VLC.

5. Document how to manually start xfce4-panel and xfdesktop, in the case that they don’t start (sometimes, xfce4-panel will start and other times it won’t. xfdesktop has the same problem).

6. Have a little program that can set the swap partition - admittedly, this is probably a "next release" kind of program, but I can only get the Copland live CD working properly if I use the command "swapon /dev/hda11", so then it uses my Breezy swap partition. Using this command, Copland becomes so responsive I can even run The Gimp!

7. The Ubiquity menu item doesn’t work - XFCE complains that it is "missing command to run". Ubiquity run from the desktop also crashes, but I believe this is due to my use of a swap partition - see above.

8. Automounting in XFCE doesn’t work from the desktop, only from within Thunar. I must see if there’s a program that needs to be run setuid root, or if the permissions of the /media directory are wrong, or whatever. (I’ve had SO many struggles against Linux’s permissions system while creating this distro - probably part of the problem was shifting the customisation environment over to a Fat32 partition briefly, which probably wiped out a lot of the permissions data).