Some time in early 2008 Nick introduced me to Twitter.  I tried to to see the potential but I have to admit that for the first several weeks I kept thinking, “This is the dumbest thing to come along in a while.”  I seriously thought it sucked.  But it doesn’t.  What sucked at first was me.  I hadn’t fully embraced what was going on.  I wasn’t really following anybody and not many people were following me.  With so few people looking at what I was doing I never really felt compelled to tweet.  But now I have three different twitter accounts that represent three different facets of who I am.  I follow multiple different people and most of them follow me in return.  Now I tweet multiple times per day and check to see what others are doing on a regular basis.  I’m kind of addicted to it.  It’s another in a long line of time suckers but I love to search such things out and attach them like little leeches to my body.  Twitter, not that I’ve got my mojo working, is right up my alley.

Twitter is still fairly new so a client with which to tweet is not built into Fedora 10 (or I don’t know where it is).  That will change over time I suppose.  The Firefox add-on called TwitterFox is probably the easises way to get tweeting because Firefox is already installed and add-in installation is usually simple.  But for tonight I want either Twhirl or Spaz.  Both clients require AdobeAIR and I got that installed a little earlier this evening.  You can read about installing AdobeAIR by clicking here.  You can download twhirl here and you can download Spaz here.  When you download them using Firefox you will see a window like this:

Because AdobeAIR is installed you might think you can just open the download with AdobeAIR and start the install.  And you’d be right if you wanted the install to fail.  The AdobeAIR installer doesn’t seem to work unless it is running as root.  I haven’t done any research on why but it’s the solution I found multiple times on other sites.  I do know that I tried repeatedly to install using my user account and failed each time.

To successfully get twhirl (or spaz) installed, follow these steps:

Step 1 -Save the installation file to your computer.  I saved it to /home/colin/Download
Step 2 - Open a terminal window and su to root.
Step 3 - From the terminal window type “/usr/bin/Adobe AIR Application Installer” (with the quotes).  The GUI app will open.
Step 4 - Navigate using the tree-view to the directory where your installation file is located (the one you downloaded).
Step 5 - Select the installation package, click OK and the follow the install steps in the interface.

The twhirl install should place an icon under Applications > Accessories.  The spaz install should place a shortcut link directly under Applications.  You should now be good to go!  Send me a tweet to let me know how it goes.

Downloaded and installed Fedora 10 (64-bit).  Immediately set about setting up a Twitter client.  Chose one called Spaz at first.  In the end I found that I don’t like it as much as Twhirl, which is what I often use with Vista.  Both Spaz and Twhirl require Adobe AIR so I didn’t mess with either in the 64-bit version.  I ran into a brick wall with the whole 64-bit thing.  Installing AdobeAIR proved to be more trouble than it was worth.  AdobeAIR is only recently supported on Linux and 64-bit support is lacking.  Several workarounds are suggested on several different sites but I don’t want to play that game fresh out of the gate.  I run into the same crap with 64-bit versions of Windows, too.  RAW image thumbnail support in Vista comes to mind…  Anyway, I decided to bag 64-bit Fedora for now.  And so began install #2 of Fedora, 32-bit this time.  Doing a basic install of Fedora is just as mindless as installing Windows.  It might actually be easier.  Not needing anything particularly fancy I chose most of the default options along the way.  I’ll save customized installs for another time.

My second install of the day is now complete and my installation of AdobeAIR went exactly as it was supposed to this time.  No more 64-bit hangups.  The install process for AdobeAIR is simple but not because of anything Adobe does for you.  Getting it installed is kind of a speakeasy thing.  I had to do a few google searches to figure out exactly what to do.  And here are the steps for you:

Step 1 - Go to www.adobe.com and download AdobeAIR for Linux.  The file you will download is called AdobeAIRInstaller.bin.  It is an executable binary image but the permissions are not correct immediately after download.  That’s what steps 2 & 3 are for.
Step 2 - Open a terminal and su to root.  Navigate to the download directory for the user you are logged in as.  For me it was /home/colin/Download
Step 3 - From the terminal windows type chmod u+x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin.  Press enter.
Step 4 - From the terminal window (still as root) type ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin.  The installation process should begin.  In the installer window, follow the steps.

That’s it for getting AdobeAIR installed.  Next up:  Installing Spaz and/or Twhirl.

After an inexcusable hiatus I am going back on my Windows hunger strike.  As I type I am downloading the Fedora 10 ISO and making preparations for my switch.

With a little luck I won’t get sidetracked like I did last time.  I believe the fundamental flaw I made last time was that I was using two computers.  I installed Fedora on one laptop and continued to run Vista on another (yes, I know I could have dual booted).  This time I am going to try something even more difficult; I am going to run Fedora in a virtual machine using VMWare and Vista as the host OS.  This is going to be difficult because I am going to have to fight the urge to simply minimize Fedora and do things in Windows.  I shall resist!!!  I am going to run Fedora in full-screen mode and attempt to forget what lies underneath.

Wish me success.  I gave up cigarettes more than ten years ago and have never looked back.  Can I do the same with Windows?  Can I really use Fedora as my day-to-day desktop OS?  Is it possible?  Do I want to?  Is it worth it?  Will I still be productive (if what I do most days can even be called that)?  I don’t know the answers to these questions but I am going to find out.  I’m not new to Linux, not by a long shot.  I have been using it for years but only for random purposes here and there.  Every time I have tried to use it as a desktop OS I have failed and scurried back to the comfort of Windows.  In the words of Mr. Mercury:  I want to break free!

Here goes…

My hunger strike has been postponed… but not because I’m drawn back to Windows.  My laptop has taken the greatest of all headers into the pavement.  The LCD screen died about 6 weeks ago.  I ordered a replacement from some on-line store and it wasn’t complete.  Rather than send it back I decided to try and make it work.  No such luck.  The thing was a piece of crap, non-OEM screen and I managed to ruin it in my efforts to make it fit.  $300.  Poof!  Gone!  Wasted.  Nice.  So I contacted Dell to see how much they wanted for a replacement screen.  I was thinking it would be pricey, maybe in the $400-$500 range.  I think the people who decide on prices for Dell not only smoke crack, I think they chase the dragon and finish off with Tequila.  They wanted just under $900 for a new laptop screen.  The laptop isn’t worth that much.  Needless to say, I told him to go to a special place.  Thieves.

While trying to figure out what my best course of action was going to be for fixing/replacing my laptop I was the recipient of another special present:  my hard drive crashed.  Now here I am, using a nosebleed PC running Windows.  My precious laptop, my companion, the extension of my fingers, now has no hard drive and no LCD.  Yeah, it’s sitting in a corner.  I want it to think about what’s it’s done.  Disrespectin’ me… Hmmph!  I should introduce him to a few of my old cell phones.  Let them explain what happens when I grow displeased.  And now I’m in the corner sitting next to it.  Sulking.  I liked my laptop.

Dead laptops are a problem.  Data lost on disk is an even bigger problem.  My backups weren’t up-to-date and I’ve now got data in limbo, trapped on a magnetized metal platter.  I need to drink my own Kool-Aid when it comes to backup strategies.  Now I’m getting ready to send the disk off to a data recovery service.  I stopped by Rite-Aid and picked up some Astroglide and a pillow suitable for biting for the treatment I’m about to receive.  Data recovery services are more than a little pricey.  This should be not fun…

Colin

I’m a sinner.  I’ve been using Windows again.  It started innocently enough.  I was teaching and I usually use Dameware (Windows only) to connect to the machine that displays my PowerPoint slides.  I installed the enterprise version of RealVNC on the box running PowerPoint and I also put VNC on my Fedora box.  The connection failed because they couldn’t agree on a cipher to use.  Needing to start my lecture I jumped back to Windows figuring I’d tweak the VNC settings later.  It has been a week and I haven’t gotten around to it.

To add to the confusion I decided to switch back to my normal laptop (which is dual-booting Vista and Fedora 9) but I have not been able to get my WLAN card to work on the Fedora side (which worked without problem in FC8).  I have spent several hours working on it but haven’t had success yet.  As is so often the case I needed to get some work done and I needed to be wireless to do it so I switched over to Windows.  That was several days ago.  I’m typing this using Vista…

This is the second time in as many laptops that I have had problems getting the WLAN card to work in Linux.  Both are with Dell notebooks.  One has an Intel card, the other is Broadcom.  Both are visible to the system and can even see the list of WLANs being advertised.  They just can’t connect.   I was able to get the Broadcom card working but the Intel card (the one in my regular laptop) still isn’t playing.  The Windows snob in me says, “See!  I told you.  Screw Linux.”  The more open-minded person in me is wondering if it isn’t Dell.  Maybe they tend to put the suckiest, cheapest stuff they can find into their notebooks in order to maximize profits.  And maybe, just maybe, that stuff isn’t part of a normal driver build that would work for a wide range of other devices.  But, Dell pretty much rules the roost in the notebook department (that’s a guess based on personal observation) so it would make sense that the developers who contribute their time to Linux would give these commonly seen devices the time and attention they need to be functional right out of the box.

Ultimately it’s my responsibility to get these drivers working.  I know this.  I’m motivated.  But what will the average user do?  A user on the bubble, trying to decide if their world is going to be Windows or Linux, may lean toward the relative seamlessness of Windows.  It’s the little things that make the difference; the way a menu works, the ease of making a shortcut to your desktop, installing software and configuring a WLAN connection that make the difference.  Today, I’m with Windows.  But I won’t give up…

Colin

Back on Day 2 of my strike I reported that I was getting no love for DVD playback.  Autonine helped me sort that out.  The autonine script automated the installation of an ass-ton of codecs and apps that made everything start clicking and whirring.  I’m watching Armageddon as I type.

So far, here’s what’s bad-ass:

• yum (which I knew was cool going into this)
• K3b (nice litle gem of a program for CD/DVD burning)
• autonine (GUI tool for automating the installation of a bunch of cool stuff for Fedora 8 & 9)

Colin

It’s happening.  …I’m getting used to using Linux as my daily desktop OS.  Gotta’ say I never thought I’d see the day.

My rebuild to the 64-bit version for FC9 went fine.  No new issues came about because of it.  I used K3b to burn the ISO and it went off without a hitch.  I started the install with a false hope that my problems getting my wireless card to work would magically fix themselves …but no, it gave the exact same error as before.  I tinkered around some more and began to think that SELinux was causing my problem.  I put SELinux in permissive mode to see if that would help (it didn’t).  To completely rule SELinux out as the problem I then permanently disabled it.  That didn’t fix it either.  Since that seemed to be proof enough that SELinux wasn’t the problem, I re-enabled it.  I returned to Google to see if I could track down some more info on the error I was getting and finally came across some people who were using same P.O.S. wireless card as me (Broadcom 43xx).  Their posts sent me to http://www.freewebs.com/dnmouse/autoinstall.html and that pretty much sorted things out.  The autonine install script automated the installation of the correct WLAN drivers and everything started working quite nicely.  If you are silly enough to have purchased a Dell Inspiron 1501 (like me) then you will likely find yourself in the same boat with your WLAN connectivity.  Autonine.  ‘nuf said.

Colin

When I installed Fedora on my laptop I used the 32-bit x86 version (3 days ago).  It didn’t even occur to me that the laptop I’m using has an AMD 64-bit processor in it.  My “normal” laptop, which runs Vista, has a 32-bit Intel proc in it.  I guess I got a little too used to installing 32-bit stuff…

Anyhow, I’m rebuilding using the 64-bit version of FC9.  I caught myself heading over to a Windows box to download the ISO and burn it using Nero when I thought, “Uh, hello?  Windows hunger strike, remember?”  Well, as a day-to-day “Linux as my desktop noob” I realized that I’ve never burned an ISO using Linux before.  Well , how to do it?  A few google searches showed me that are many ways of making it happen.  I was initially going to use dvdrecord from a terminal (which I found referenced here) but then decided to try a GUI tool instead.  I found a reference to a tool called K3b on this page.  It is not installed on FC9 by default so I tried typing yum install k3b from a terminal.  Bam!  Dependencies resolved, downloaded, installed …along with k3b.  There were 13 additional packages that needed to be installed to support k3b.  Without yum I’m sure I would have spent hours following that trail (which I have done waaaayyyyy too many times before).  I can’t express how much yum impresses me.

With any luck my next post will be from the 64-bit version of Fedora 9.

Colin

So I love Firefox.  It is an absolutely awesome web browser.  Like so many others I was a long time user of IE (and still am on occasion) but I have been largely won over by Firefox.  I still have a few gripes with it but I’ll save those for a later day.  Oddly, Firefox for Windows seems to be more feature rich than Firefox for Linux.  I expect the opposite.

Anyway, I have used Thunerbird for Windows for a few clients I support (who don’t want or have access to Outlook).  If you are living in a world with Exchange on the backend and you’re on the LAN then Outlook has no substitute.  Thunderbird is good for POP3 and IMAP4.  It doesn’t have MAPI functionality that I know about.

Don’t bother going to www.getfirefox.com and downloading Thunderbird.  Their install instructions are absent or, at the very least, very well hidden.  No worries, though:  yum.

Open a terminal, type yum install thunderbird.  Done.

DVD playback codecs aren’t installed by default with Fedora 9.  I followed some steps I found here to try and get DVDs to play but it didn’t immediately work.  I can’t knock Linux on this.  Codecs have long had patent/license issues, even in the nix world.  You almost always have to pay for them.  This is true for Windows as well.  You don’t get DVD codecs for Vista Business or Vista Home.  You do get them with Vista Ultimate, however.  Or you have to buy a piece of software like Nero and uses their apps/codecs.  This is another thing I’ll have to look into a little deeper for Fedora.  I have know about the problem for a while but again, I usually just flip back over to Windows when I want to watch a movie.  My current agenda will be to find a way to get DVD playback without having to spend any cash.  I used to use MythTV and if my recollection is correct it supported DVD playback.  I’ll look into it.