Blog: Articles filed under Ubuntu

My summer research project involved extensive use of Macaulay2, a computer algebra program. Essentially, what Macaulay2 does is make it easy to do computations on different types of abstract algebra objects, like rings and ideals. Since there is no native version of Macaulay2 for Windows, my options for running it these past two summers have been: run it in Windows under Cygwin or, once again, dual boot Windows and Ubuntu (or Kubuntu). Ubuntu and I have a love/hate relationship, as I have testified on this blog before. It’s been a while since I last blogged about my adventures with Linux, and now it’s time for an update.

Last year I was using Kubuntu 10.04, and the experience was immediately better than any other time I‘ve tried using Linux. Maybe it’s a truism, but with each new release, more features in Ubuntu work out of the box for me, which of course makes it much nicer to install and use. Whereas earlier versions like Hardy and Gutsy played havoc with my display or printer, Karmic Koala was actually an enjoyable operating system to use. It had one problem, however: when in Kubuntu, my network card would keep dropping wireless connections. This made using Kubuntu at home, where I connect over WiFi, almost impossible. My connection would drop, and in order to regain it I would have to reset my adapter, at which point it would work for a few minutes before dropping again. So as much as I was enjoying using Kubuntu at work (where I had a nice ethernet cord available), it was not, for me, “production ready”.

Getting Natty

Ubuntu 11.04, or “Natty Narwhal”, was released a few days after I began my second research project in late April of this year. I had not booted into Kubuntu in a while—I used it somewhat while working on my honours thesis, because Kile is the best LaTeX editor I have found so far. Still, Kubuntu was definitely not anywhere close to being an operating system I used, let alone something that could become my primary operating system. I did a clean install of both Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Since I have used KDE for a long time, I decided I would stick with GNOME this time to see if my tastes have changed. The installations went off without a hitch; I didn’t mangle my computer, and the actual Ubuntu installation took less than half an hour. Natty was scoring points already.

Of course, when I first booted into Ubuntu, I was confronted with the new and much lamented Unity interface. My first impressions were similarly unfavourable—although I can see the argument for Unity as a desktop environment on something like a notebook, all it really did for me was get in the way. Fortunately, disposing of Unity was as simple as logging out and logging back in under the “Ubuntu Classic” option. It hasn’t been smooth sailing from there—I miss my task bar, something I have since remedied, sort of, with Cairo-Dock—but in general my experience with Ubuntu and Gnome has been very positive. Compiz’s keyboard shortcuts make me feel like some kind of wizard.

Oh, and my WiFi connection? Like a rock.

Falling in Love

Little did I know it, but I was already smitten with Natty Narwhal. Somewhat ironically, one of the first things I did was begin installing the KDE programs I’ve come to love:

• Yakuake, the drop-down terminal emulator;
• Kate, mostly for coding;
• Kile, of course, my favourite LaTeX IDE;
• which then prompted the installation of Okular for viewing PDFs; and
• Konversation, an IRC client.

There are many GNOME programs I’ve come to enjoy, however. I like Banshee, and I found an awesome app for controlling Banshee from my Android phone, replacing what I mostly used Unified Remote for on Windows (I still need to find a good slideshow remote app though). And mainstays like Dropbox and LibreOffice are available for Ubuntu, so there are very few things about Windows I miss. (With school coming back, an exception might be Evernote, but I am going to look into whether NeverNote is a suitable client for that purpose.)

Much to my surprise, but to my considerable delight, I found myself using Ubuntu at home as well as at work. This only intensifed as I resolved to learn how to use Git and I set up a development environment on my Linux side—aside from gaming and purchasing music from the iTunes store, there really is no reason for me to boot into Windows any more. I can do everything in Ubuntu that I can do in Windows, and I can usually do it faster and easier.

In particular, I’m rather pleased with my growing comfort using the command line. I will more often open up Yakuake and start using ls and cd to navigate among my files; I am beginning to learn how powerful commands like sed are when it comes to quick, repetitive changes to my files. I’m most proud of how much I have become accustomed to using SSH, first to connect to SHARCNET and then to my server at A Small Orange. Finally, when I say I’ve been learning Git, I really do mean I’ve been learning how to use Git through its commands, and not just through a GUI program.

The Future is Bright

Barring some kind of catastrophic incompatibility between this computer and future versions of Ubuntu (and even in that case, I could just keep using Natty), I do not see myself switching back to Windows in the foreseeable future. I love Ubuntu. I love using an operating system that is free, both as in speech and as in beer, with updates that will always be free. I love that it is genuinely usable, and that I prefer it to Windows; I’m not just using Ubuntu out of some idealistic principles. I will keep my Windows installation around, because it is sometimes useful, but for now, Ubuntu is finally my primary operating system.

I don’t want to be too evangelical, since I know Ubuntu and Linux are not for everyone. The idea of using the command line can be scary—it was, and sometimes is still, scary to me. Even so, Ubuntu is quite a usable set up—honestly, I think the most difficult part of the learning process is just getting dual-booting working in the first place, and Ubuntu’s installer has come a long way in that sense. If you have ever thought about giving Linux I try, I encourage you to take the leap. And if you haven’t … well, keep an eye on it. Maybe you will change your mind. My experiences were never overwhelmingly positive, but one day I found that Ubuntu had jumped from “interesting but unreliable” to “my operating system of choice”. It could happen to you too.

Every time I try to get Kubuntu working, I become more and more convinced that Kubuntu just doesn’t want to be friends with me. It’s always a mixed bag. It’s not all Kubuntu’s fault—it’s a very nice Linux distro, functions well—sometimes I’m to blame. Still, the learning curve—and the bumps along the way—are disheartening.

Yesterday I decided to do a clean install of Kubuntu 7.10 (“Gutsy Gibbon”). My hard drive was already partitioned because I had Feisty installed, but I didn’t have the time to devote to learning how to use Feisty properly. Unfortunately, the installation decided that I had burnt the disc at too high a disc speed—but it didn’t tell me this until 63% of the installation was done. As a result, Grub was destroyed, and I couldn’t boot into Windows. I had to download the image again on another computer and burn it to my last CD-R at a lower speed. Then I ran the install again and prayed it would work.

Luckily it did. Kubuntu started up fine, and the wireless worked out of the box, which really impressed me—it didn’t with Feisty. All of my monitor’s screen resolutions weren’t available, however, so I decided to reconfigure xorg. Big mistake. After reconfiguring, I restarted X and was faced with this lovely error “Fatal error: no screen found.” Why me?!

Perhaps it’s my fault for having a computer whose hardware doesn’t play nice? (Googling reveals that other Inspiron 6400 users with ATI video cards have faced similar troubles.) This is the part of Kubuntu that has always frustrated me: each problem leads to another set of problems, to the point where I can’t use the system as a production environment. I would love to use Kubuntu as much as or more than Windows. I don’t have the time to spend fixing every single problem, unfortunately. Each time this happens, I ask myself why I even bother.

I won’t give up on Gutsy yet. If, when I next boot into Kubuntu, the wireless still doesn’t work, I can always do a clean install and start over and try to work it out from there. I will do my end of the work: I will search, read the documentation, and look for solutions, since it’s clear my situation is not unique. I just hope that my efforts reward me.

UPDATE: Well, I haven’t solved my resolution problem yet, but everything else seems to be going well. Firefox is working, got my bookmarks, Flash, and Java working fine. Tomorrow if I have time, I shall look into some themes for Kopete, configure Konversation, play around with a few other things. Oh yeah. And fix this darn resolution problem!

Yesterday I took it upon myself to try and fix my wireless in Kubuntu (as it was broken). It eventually boiled down to plugging in an ethernet cable and upgrading to Edgy. Once I did this, KNetworkManager decided it would work again.

With wireless working I was much more amenable to playing with Kubuntu. The next step was to get Firefox up to snuff—however, this proved to be a harder task than I first thought it would be. Several of my extensions did not seem to install properly, and they caused Firefox to behave oddly. I finally managed to bludgeon them into working, with the unfortunate exception of ColorZilla, which apparently does not work with Ubuntu. Suffice it to say that after that frustration, I finally have Firefox working. I‘m keeping my bookmarks synced amongst Windows, Kubuntu, and my USB drive with Google Browser Sync.

My printer is still working without any problems! That means less frustration for me. And I have no trouble accessing our desktop from my computer, although I’ve yet to get the desktop to be able to see this computer while it’s in Kubuntu. But one step at a time. DVDs and music appear to be working properly too.

I can’t play the DRMed m4p files I bought from the iTunes Music Store, of course, but that’s not Kubuntu’s fault (I’m just lazy, and the music store is so easy to use… ). It’s not a big deal, since I have plenty of mp3s to play while in Kubuntu (or I can just listen on my iPod), although I wouldn’t object if Apple actually made a Linux version of iTunes.

So everything seems to be going well—or at least, nothing has exploded yet.

I tried updating to Dapper today. It did not go so well.

You know how I keep talking about my computer overheating? Well, the problem is avoidable in Windows. In Kubuntu, my computer overheats within minutes. So I still tried upgrading, but unfortunately, it overheated. I tried it from just the command line, but it still overheated—in the middle of depackaging the files I finally managed to download.

Now I have segmentation fault errors when I try to boot into Kubuntu. :/ So I think I’ll just wait for the Dapper CDs that I ordered and do a clean install…I don’t have anything important on there anyway, so I might as well start fresh.

Yesterday we bought fertilizer and topsoil for our big garden and spread it around in preparation for planting. We’ve decided to plant lettuce, carrots, and I think sunflowers. Note to self: get more topsoil next time; four bags is not enough. And we need more peat moss.

Ubuntu 6.06, the “Dapper Drake”, is coming out today! It’s already available on many mirrors, although I’m waiting for one in Canada before I actually upgrade. I will probably do it sometime tonight. While I still fear that my computer will overheat and such, perhaps Dapper will hold some improvements in that area and others.

Lots of updates (the site moved servers).

I installed Ubuntu Linux on my computer. Now it is a dual boot Unbuntu/Win XP laptop. There are some hardware issues with the CPU and heating, but otherwise it is pretty cool. Ubuntu has almost everything that I need, including the GIMP and a functional word processor. I‘m still a Linux newbie, but I’m learning as I go.

School continues to wind down. The schedule continues to be affected by our impending closure. My exams, mostly held in-class, are going pretty well (100 in English and 97 in Science). I took the second part of my English exam on Tuesday but have yet to receive a mark, I think I’ll get it on next Thursday. My History exam is on Monday, followed by the second part of my Science exam on Wednesday.

The impending closure continues to loom. We had a “Blue Bear Bash” on Wednesday. We got to see pictures of our school and its students through various decades. FWCI has been around for 107 years, since 1898. It’s seen two World Wars, the Cold War, the invention of the radio, television, computer… . What saddens me the most about the closure is not what we lose, but what we will lose. Ten years from now, no one will be sitting in my place, learning about my friends and I.

All hope is not yet lost. The independent facilitator sent by the provincial Ministry of Education has released his recommendation on the school closures — and recommends the FWCI stays open! He says that it does not make much sense to close a school that has such high athletic and academic performances. The Ministry will offer funding for renovations, but not for a new high school as our local Board of Education wants. The report recommends that our school remain open for two more years, then be more thoroughly reevaluated in 2007. I am absolutely ecstatic about this news, and I hope FWCI remains open for a long time to come!

For the past um … month or so, I‘ve been meeting at lunch with a group of kids from my English class, along with my English teacher, Ms. Sukalo, and reading King Lear. It’s a pretty good play, I like watching Lear become increasingly insane. We‘ve decided to continue our Shakespearean experiences after school is over, meeting somewhere during the summer. We even have a name: The Shakespeare Seven. Here’s to the summer!