Yes that’s right - I had a fiddle with the power settings on my Ubuntu installation earlier

I’m pleased to say that suspend works great with my laptop Which I’m sure will come in useful while moving between lectures at Uni when I go back.

Not much else to say really, I’m just glad it works! Holiday next week, so no posts for around 2 weeks

So people can become Ubuntu Members (as I’m sure the title of this post suggests, and many of you reading this will probably already know).

If you want more detail, I’m too lazy to explain, so you can visit the webpage detailing the process here. Basically it gives you recognition within the community, and entitles you to an @ubuntu.com email address amongst other things.

I’ve already signed the Ubuntu Codes of Conduct (CoC), so I figured I may as well try for membership. I figured I’ll try the next time it comes up (the next EU meeting is tomorrow, and I wouldn’t be able to make it). They require you to have a wiki-page as well, so I’ve even had to delve into the wicked world of wiki-editing

I just came across a pretty nice website about Ubuntu, I actually mainly wanted to mention it because I love the theme on it, it looks very nice (while keeping Ubuntu style colours - which to some may just mean “brown”).

Anyway you can find it at http://www.ubuntustory.com

Ubuntu Linux

Yes that’s right, I managed to get Ubuntu installed on this machine. I installed Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) as it was at the Release Candidate (RC) stage when I tried it.

It all runs perfectly smoothly. I had to change the boot options on the installation CD, due to the Nvidia graphics card, which needed a proprietary driver. This was the most painful part of the installation, as on a screen with a native resolution of 1920×1200, I had to run at 800×600 :’(

After that it was all smooth sailing, I compiled a few apps, and used it as I would my own. Everything worked just fine, I was impressed that the volume control (the disc “thing” on the left of the keyboard) even worked! Sadly the touch buttons didn’t work, but I expected this, as I know they’re controlled by software and not hardware.

I didn’t manage to get the fingerpint reader to work either, which I wasn’t too fussed about, but it would’ve been nice. Overall I was impressed with the Linux experience I had with the Qosmio. The battery life didn’t differ from Windows, though it doesn’t on my own laptop either.

So overall, the Qosmio does actually work pretty well with Ubuntu in my experience, I wasn’t expecting much because Toshiba laptop can be notoriously difficult to get working properly (just read through some of the threads in the UbuntuForums ;)).

There are also some pictures of the qosmio running Ubuntu if you would like to take a look :

See The Pictures

I’ve posted my thoughts of Ubuntu 8.04 Beta up on http://blog.joeb454.com

If you want more precision, click here I hope you enjoy reading it.

I’m writing this from the Live CD of the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) Beta.

I’m REALLY impressed, more than I was with Gutsy (7.10)! I’ll most likely be installing this later on tonight, and I’ll put up the results on my other blog (blog.joeb454.com) afterwards. I’m out til later tonight, and most of tomorrow, but the results will definitely be up at some point Everything seems to be working out the box which is nice.

Also this mark’s the first time I’ve used a Linux disc-burning app…I’m using Windows less and less now-a-days, though despite that, I’ll keep it on my laptop, just because I’d find it hard to delete something I’ve paid for

As I mentioned in an earlier post of mine, I recently upgraded my Windows Vista install, to Windows Vista Ultimate, as I managed to get a copy for nothing

Anyway, I reinstalled GRUB as I said I would, but only got round to doing it 6 days later, and when I finally booted back into Ubuntu, I realised just how much I’d missed Ubuntu/Linux during those last 6 days, it was a strange feeling, though it leads me to believe that I’m beginning to prefer using Linux over Windows, and my usage habit shows this as well

Still, it can only be a good thing

It’s not as geeky as it sounds. Purely because it isn’t Wikipedia

Instead it’s on http://wiki.ubuntu.com as I figured it’d be an easy way to get a little bit more involved in the Ubuntu community, without knowing how to get the program code and contribute through development.

I added a wiki page for myself, which can be found here.

On another note - I will be posting up my Pro’s & Con’s of Blu-Ray Vs HD DVD in the coming days.

I got a little bored yesterday, so I downloaded Conky, it’s a kind of system monitor for Linux machines, though if you check it may run on Windows/Mac as well.

Anyway, I decided I wouldn’t download it from the repositories ready made and ready to run. I downloaded the source code and compiled it myself, so I had the very latest version I’m glad I did, it taught me some new things

I have to say that I REALLY like it. Especially because of the capabilities it has…and how much you can customise it…I spent around 2-4 hours customising mine!

Here’s a screen shot of the finished product (Click the thumbnail for the full size image)

32 of course.

Yes I posted a while back about how I moved my Ubuntu installation over to 64 bit, and I really enjoyed it, only had a very minor issue with Flash, but nothing that couldn’t be solved with a quick fix.

Yet I’m back to 32 bit…why? Because it’s less hassle with flash, and also the fact that I don’t really NEED 64 bit processing at the moment, I mean, I don’t do any Video Encoding/Re-encoding, or anything like that, or Image Editing. So when I managed to break the install, I just thought I’d go back to 32 bit.

I still would recommend 64 bit if you have a capable PC, to make the most out of your hardware.