Michael Harper’s Tech & Art Blog

My latest gadget is the HP Mini 1000 - a very stylish netbook that has completely changed the way I see netbooks. I purchased this netbook for my wife to replace her older HP dv1000 laptop. We purchased this item from Best Buy for $350.

The main feature we were searching for in a good netbook was a keyboard that wouldn’t cramp our hands too much. It seems that any netbook under the 10″ mark totes incredibly toddler-sized keys. This was originally why I strayed away from them completely (that and the extreme price markup online and off). I reviewed many netbooks and it seems that even online vendors were backing down on their prices. The cheapest I found this netbook anywhere else at the time was from TigerDirect.com (I believe) for $300.

I have written a few posts recently that have reviewed the latest version of Ubuntu. At first, it seemed, I wouldn’t be able to use Ubuntu 9.04 because of extreme graphical issues. My main issued was caused by Ubuntu Studio. Now, I have finally found the method of installation that proves to be the stablest and hassle-free.

I tried a clean install of Ubuntu Studio 9.04 only to have major issues. Nothing worked. Then I tried upgrading from Ubuntu 8.10 to Ubuntu Studio 9.04. Same problems. After much dismay and trying other distros, I made the decision to do a clean install of Ubuntu 9.04 and what do you know - amazing results. The latest Ubuntu is amazing. Very stable and I’ve had several issues fixed permanetly including working wifi and certain graphical issues.

The other day I realized that Linux Mint wasn’t receiving the official security updates from Ubuntu. My Ubuntu Studio desktop had update after update while my Linux Mint desktop had nothing. Strange - so I decided to install Ubuntu 8.04 - LTS edition because my laptop’s ATI card wasn’t supported in the newer version of Ubuntu 9.04. I at least wanted the support that was available until April 2011 from Canonical. I reinstalled Ubuntu 8.04 will all codecs and additonal software and then decided to install even more with the Ubuntu Studio upgrade. That installed the real-time kernel which I was dying to try out. Unfortunately, an error I had experienced in the past came back up dealing with the wifi drivers and the new kernel location. I blogged about it before but it’s not even worth mentioning now. As a reminder to everyone, I use a Toshiba Satellite A215 that has an ATI chipset and Atheros chipset. I couldn’t upgrade to Ubuntu 9.04 because the FGLRX driver is completely corrupted in the newest version of Ubuntu. I still tote the Ubuntu decal on my laptop but I have definitely ventured out to other distros. Besides the 9.04 issue and my keeping 8.04 as the LTS edition, I have been experiencing a few other issues such as Blender never working correctly on any version of my Ubuntu installed on my laptop (worked great on nVidia desktop) and the inability to go into suspend without breaking the system on resume.

This last week has been extremely frustrating and all because of wifi. I really need to stretch the cable modem 5 feet closer in my general direction. I first upgraded from Ubuntu 8.10 to 9.04 without error. Everything worked perfectly fine. Then I installed Ubuntu Studio 9.04 with an eagerness to get a clean install on my computer and wipe off some of the junk from residual upgrades and package installs. I installed Ubuntu Studio 9.04 onto my nVidia desktop (because my ATI laptop obviously won’t cut it). The wifi didn’t work immediately. I’ve installed openSUSE, Fedora and several versions of Ubuntu and my Linksys WUSB54G wireless adapter worked everytime. For some reason, Studio 9.04 wouldn’t see it. I tried a few things and got no where. I’m going to have to have a few drinks with the makers of ndiswrapper and MadWifi to try and get a better grip on how exactly wifi works in Linux. So I have a DD-WRT router that I use as a repeater and I tried to configure it through Studio’s copy of Firefox. Studio froze time after time while trying to configure it and I gave up on it. Apparently the real-time kernel is very unstable. I’ll have to look into it.

I’ve tried to do this multiple times with Ubuntu yet never suceeded for some reason. I purchased a full Skype package the other day and I’ve been stuck on Vista as I could never get the audio to work on Ubuntu. I tried a few new distros the other day after the ATI incident with Ubuntu 9.04. Ubuntu Studio 8.04 and Linux Mint 6. Ubuntu Studio 8.04 failed due to a few random issues such as the Linux headers error. I was unable to compile the madwifi modules against the kernel and I dropped it. I grew tired of this wifi issue and decided to move on. I read many reviews about Linux Mint - an unofficial variant of Ubuntu that has a few additional packages and supposedly wifi readiness. My wifi didn’t work off the bat but at least I was able to compile it easily. I use Linux Mint because it is Ubuntu made easy - essentially. The latest version is based off of Ubuntu 8.10. They are working on the Linux Mint 7 version that is based on 9.04.

Lately I’ve been interested in seeing what some of the other flavors of Ubuntu might be available and I stumbled across this “official” variant of Ubuntu known as Ubuntu Studio. Very interesting - seems that it has a real-time kernel that cuts latency down tremendously in a lot of applications, espcially audio apps. I found this interesting due to the fact that I had attempted to use my M-Audio Keystation 49e keyboard with Vista and I was let down to see a full second or two delay in MIDI processing. I haven’t had a chance to test latency yet but I do know that Ubuntu readily recognizes my keyboard in many applications. Though this probably isn’t completely accurate, I equate this real-time kernel to the high-priority settings found in Windows Task Manager. I believe that in Windows, it is a per-application basis whereas Ubuntu Studio has real-time access for all apps.

I can’t believe I’m in the situation I’m in. It’s 2:13 am and I’m copying all of my important files from my Toshiba A215 to an external hard drive so that I can format what is left of my latest 9.04 install. I’ve been waiting patiently since its release a few days ago to try and install Jaunty Jackalope, the latest release of Ubuntu. I hadn’t read any reviews about it yet and I wanted to give it a go as soon as possible to experience the greatest Ubuntu to date. During install, a warning popped up and basically said, “WARNING: The FGLRX driver you’re using for your ATI/Radeon graphics card is no longer compatible with the latest version of X Server. The only way graphics will operate is to use the free and open-source driver available with Ubuntu.” I said sure, no problem. I’m using several other restricted drivers anyways, let’s see how it works. I install it using the “alternate” ISO file available from ubuntu.com and give it a half-hour or so. It reboots and finally finishes the install.

I finally get to plug a screensaver that’s available for Linux. There aren’t too many outstanding ones around and I’m still searching for a way to use Mac and Windows screensavers in Linux. This screensaver uses the power of fractals and grid computing to create completely unique and visually stunning “fractal flame” based screensavers. A computer that is using the Electric Sheep screensaver will connect everyday to the ES servers to download new art. Users can get involved and create their own fractal flames or let the machines rule us by mixing the available fractal flame code together to create its own offspring. I’m trying to get some more info from the site but for some reason it’s down right now (www.electricsheep.org). Despite that, I remember the site as being not so well developed (most of their time is apparently spent making great screensavers). Instead check out the wikipedia article that is very clean and to the point - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Sheep.

The Polar Clock is a work of art by a guy (for lack of an available real name) that goes by Pixel Breaker. The clock represents the time and date by basically using concentric colored circles. Very smooth design based in Flash. Check it out.

http://blog.pixelbreaker.com/polarclock/

I came across this collaborative art project the other day called ZOOMQUILT. The original came out in 2004 and was the creation of about 15 different artists. The artwork features many different environments and worlds that are continuously being zoomed into each and seem to follow a red line that runs through each piece of art. I would it call it surrealism but you really have to see it to get an idea of what it truly is. It’s presented as a Flash site, screen saver and still images. Don’t forget to check out the sequel to the original, ZOOMQUILT II.