One could argue that boringness is a good attribute for a distro. Gentoo has stayed out of my way for a good long time. I update world once a week and I haven't had a package fail to build or fail to work in a while.

Until a few days ago. I wanted to view video from my laptop's built-in webcam, on my desktop, over my local network. My laptop is running Ubuntu, and my desktop is running Gentoo. One point in favor of Ubuntu, my webcam works without any effort on my fault. It works right on a fresh Ubuntu install off the install CD. I never did get any webcam working on any Gentoo install whenever I've tried over the years. Maybe the situation has rectified itself at this point, but I don't anticipate trying.

Unfortunately, viewing my laptop's feed on my desktop also failed to work. First I tried an X-forwarding SSH tunnel, and running xawtv -remote, but I got all kinds of nasty errors along the lines of

X Error of failed request:  BadWindow (invalid Window parameter)
  Major opcode of failed request:  2 (X_ChangeWindowAttributes)
  Resource id in failed request:  0x1a5
  Serial number of failed request:  55
  Current serial number in output stream:  56

Extensive Googling turned up nothing on this, which isn't surprising given how un-informative an error message this is. Maybe some extension in X needed to be built to get xawtv to work. Maybe it's a version incompatibility. Maybe some hardware thing with my video card driver. Who knows. On the other hand when I tried to view my laptop's feed on another laptop running Ubuntu (actually Kubuntu), it worked fine. Albeit incredibly slowly.

Then I noticed Ekiga comes installed on Ubuntu by default, so I figured I'd try that, in spite of it being a bit overkill. But installing Ekiga on Gentoo died with a build error, because I needed to build pwlib with ldap support. Ekiga between the two Ubuntu laptops worked fine without any effort too, so at that point I gave up on getting it working in Gentoo, since it was no longer worth it.

No big deal, but slightly annoying. Probably could've gotten it to work in Gentoo eventually, but I have less and less patience for fiddling with installation nowadays. This is probably one of the benefits of the sort of mono-culture Ubuntu is turning into. Everyone using Ubuntu has the same basic crap installed. Whereas there's probably no one in the world with a Gentoo install quite like mine.

But Gentoo is still working well for me overall.

After countless, endless hours of nagging on my part, my girlfriend finally put Linux on her laptop. I thought it would be interesting to hear what a long-time Windows-using non-programmer thinks of Linux (Kubuntu in this case) after a few weeks of use. So I interviewed her. Read on. My thoughts and conclusions are at the end.

Q1: How would you describe your level of expertise or skill level when it comes to computers in general?

A: I think I'm better with computers (at least Windows) than the majority of my classmates (I'm starting third year accounting next week). I know my way around the internet, I'm decent with programs like Office and GIMP, and I know how to fix most problems that affect me as a lay user. As for Linux, I would know how to look for help, but I probably wouldn't understand it yet.

Q2: You used Windows for a long time in spite of my constant pestering. What kept you from using Linux until now?

A: A few years ago you tried to get me to use Gentoo. I was younger, and apparently Linux in general was more difficult to use, so I got frustrated pretty quickly. A lot of my reluctance was from remembering that time. I was also worried that I might do something wrong and lose all my schoolwork. At least in Windows I know it wouldn't be directly my fault if that happened (disregarding the fact that I'm slow at backing things up).

Q3: You decided to use Kubuntu. Why did you pick that distro instead of another?

A: I heard it was easy for Windows users to pick up. It's also the one you have on your laptop, so it's easier to get tech support.

Q4: Why did you pick KDE instead of Gnome, XFCE, or some other desktop environment / window manager?

A: I don't remember. Something about having multiple wallpapers on multiple desktops and being able to make them change randomly whenever I want. There might've been other reasons, but that one is the most enjoyable so far.

Q5: How hard was it to install Linux? Compared to Windows?

A: It was about the same.

Q6: How hard was getting everything set up the way you like it after Linux was installed? How long did it take you?

A: There's always a lot to set up on a clean install of anything. It took me a few days to find something I'm comfortable with. I mostly just ripped off your setup because I liked it, though, so that made it a bit easier. Getting SKIM to work was quite difficult, though, since I couldn't find good instructions for my version of Kubuntu (or Kubuntu at all, really). I think I just ended up making you fix it.

Q7: Does Linux have any features or applications you really enjoy, that Windows is missing? Can you do anything in Linux that you couldn't do (easily) in Windows?

A: Even just doing a small amount of image editing yesterday, I'm beginning to see the appeal of multiple desktops. I also like how easily it's detected various wireless networks so far. The package manager is pretty nice too. I wouldn't have a Gmail checker if you didn't write one for me, but the one you wrote is better than the one I was using before.

Q8: Do you miss anything from Windows? Is there anything you could do in Windows that you can't do (easily) in Linux?

A: It's easier to install programs in Windows than it is to install non-package programs in Linux. I still don't know the difference between a source and a binary. I don't miss playing games too much, since I'm more of a console person. But I do miss OtaClock. The default clock is boring and not cute at all.

Q9: How comfortable are you with using a command prompt?

A: Not very. I know how to chmod things, but that's about it. I need to look for a guide for basic bash commands that explains them in plain English.

Q10: How do you like the general look and feel of the Linux desktop compared to Windows?

A: It's a lot nicer looking overall. I like being able to use all the Buuf icons easily. At first I was resistant to using anti-aliased font, but it's growing on me. Windows displayed aliased fonts so nicely, and I still kind of miss it.

Q11: You have a dual-boot set up. What do you still plan to use Windows for?

A: I have a couple games that don't work in Linux. I also use my laptop for school, and my university is dominated by Windows, so I feel comfortable having it around for compatibility purposes if I ever need it.

Q12: It's been a few weeks since you switched to Linux. How has it been overall? Do you plan to stick with it long-term?

A: Overall it's been about the same as Windows. Something about Vista still creeps me out, so it feels good using an OS that doesn't feel evil. I like being able to get pretty much any program I want free and on demand.

Here are some Linux programs I know you've used... tell me something you like and something you dislike about each one.

• Dolphin It's minimalistic, but it doesn't have the view options I like.
• Konqueror I can get all the info on a file that I need just by mousing over it. It took me a while to figure out how to both display thumbnails and then sort them by size or date, though. I'm quite obsessive about collecting and sorting pictures, and in Windows that was how I used to see which pictures were new or duplicates.
• Gwenview It finds duplicate pictures for me, making the above method obsolete. It even finds similar pictures, which is pretty intersting. So far I can't think of anything I don't like about it.
• Amarok Win-B is my friend. There's too many unnecessary features for me, though. I don't care about album art or smart playlists. It's good that I can just ignore them.
• Kopete It has custom themes. I really like the Metal Gear theme you made. For some reason I can't figure out how to make our text different colours, though. The text is different for my friends who use the real MSN, but for you it's the same colour is mine, so it's harder for me to read.
• Kate It's like tabbed Notepad. I'm one of those people who actually likes Notepad, since I don't do much coding at all. I can see where Vim is better, but Kate is fine too.
• KDE as a whole When it's set up properly, it looks really nice. The amount of stuff I needed to change to get it to look nice was quite overwhelming, though.

Thoughts and conclusions: I used to try to push Gentoo on people, and that was a mistake. Gentoo isn't for everyone. A bad experience can kill people's opinions of Linux.

It's a lot easier to make a big switch to a new operating system when you have knowledgeable people to back you up and help you out. This is one area where Linux shines: There are a LOT of people willing to help newbies. The community aspect of Linux is by far one of the best parts of using it. We're all doing this because it's fun and Linux people like to share the fun with others.

Is Linux ready for the desktop? I think so; I think it has been for a while now. A Windows power-user can find a lot to like in Linux. There are a lot of features and apps in modern desktop Linux that offer a lot of things many people would find very appealing if they only knew they existed.

• My Westinghouse L2410NM LCD monitor arrived at Westinghouse's factory, according to UPS tracking, on Thursday at 10AM. Thus the clock starts. In one week I'll begin periodic phone calls to Westinghouse requesting updates on the status of my RMA. I know that every phone call you make to a call center costs the company money; it's in Westinghouse's best interests as well as my own to give me good information and satisfy my curiosity.

• Yet another reason Vista sucks: trying to get VPN to work. Took me a week and the help of many people from my company's IT dept. before I even got close. The Control Panel UI philosophy of Vista seems to have been to take the XP Control Panel and scatter the options to the four winds; then build an insultingly dumbed-down GUI that has lots and lots of links to all those scattered pieces. Any kind of network configuration takes twice as long and twice as much navigation through a maze of windows and tabs and icons and links than it did in XP. And XP wasn't all that great to begin with.

• My Ruby on Rails project for work is turning out well. Deploying Rails is a bit easier than the last time I had to do it over a year ago. Apache's mod_proxy + Mongrel makes things pretty easy. Getting it to work with SSL is also doable; as per these lengthy instructions you have to put

  RequestHeader set X_FORWARDED_PROTO 'https'

  in your Apache config (this line requires Apache's mod_headers).

• Ruby on Ubuntu / Debian still sucks. I don't like how they break standard Ruby up into many parts and different packages. You kind of expect Ruby to come with rdoc and ri, not to have to install them separately.

(Read the whole crappy story of Westinghouse's dishonesty and horrible customer service: The beginning, Update 1, Update 2, Update 3, Update 4, Update 5, Update 6, Update 7, Update 8, Update 9, VICTORY, aftermath.)

Planet Larry seems not to be updating for some reason. It's stuck on September 27th. Hope that gets cleared up soon.

It's been a few months since I switched back to Gentoo from Ubuntu. Things are going well. Everything works fine. I don't find myself spending any more time keeping it up and running than I did with Ubuntu. Sometimes I find myself missing little things like USB flash drive automounting that come installed by default in Ubuntu but which I'm too lazy or apathetic to set up in Gentoo. But then I think I must not really need such things, or else I would spend the time to set them up, wouldn't I?

I think "user-friendly" computer systems like Ubuntu tends to give you a of things like that: things that are nice to have but if you don't have them you don't really miss them. Automount is one. I lump GDM/KDM into that category also. It's actually easier and faster to do startx manually, but Ubuntu gives you GDM and it's kind of nice to look at, so you keep it around. In Gentoo I never bother installing it. Same with framebuffer console (though I don't remember if Ubuntu even had that).

Probably part of the reason my Gentoo install has yet to implode is that I've calmed down and stopped installing so many ridiculously beta versions of lots of packages. Though I am running ~x86 versions of the Gimp, Pidgin, KDE, Firefox, etc. You can't beat Gentoo for the ability to selectively unmask certain programs and keep everything else stable.

This is why I like Gentoo. I installed ZSNES and I got version 1.51 from the Portage tree, but that version doesn't have netplay. The version I want was some funky 1.42n version somebody wrote with netplay built in. It took me all of five minutes to write an ebuild based on the build in the Portage tree and mask the later versions and install what I wanted. In Ubuntu I'd have been back to ./configure && make && sudo make install and it probably would've bombed due to missing libraries.

Lots of chatter on blogs lately about Gentoo management problems. As usual, I guess. Something I've been guilty of in the past myself is ignoring all the good and focusing on the bad. It's somehow easy to install 1000 packages and focus on the one that fails and respond with "Holy crap Gentoo is broken, stupid lazy devs". It's easy to see one offhand comment from a dev on a mailing list that may be very vaguely insulting to someone if read in a certain way and conclude that Gentoo devs as a group hate non-dev users and think they're scum. (How can a one-paragraph email spawn a five-page forums thread?) I'm making a concerted effort to ignore all of this crap as much as possible.

There's so much good here if you open your eyes to it. Sure some things don't work sometimes, but so many things do work so much of the time and it's easy to lose sight of those. This is one reason I think it's important to make some noise when things DO work sometimes, even if it seems redundant. Just to keep perspective.

My Gentoo install went swimmingly. Of course swimmingly for a Gentoo install means that I had to recompile my kernel twice. (I foolishly tried to get away with using /proc/config.gz from the liveCD instead of configuring it by hand, and it turns out the liveCD doesn't compile SATA support into the kernel, so I got a kernel panic when it couldn't find /. Oops.) I didn't touch a single file in my /home partition, and everything still works largely as expected. I re-used the old xorg.conf which has come with me from the Gentoo install before my Ubuntu install, which saved me time again.

Including the time I wasted on kernel recompiles, and added time to re-burn the CD because my flaky DVD burner / low quality CD-Rs gave me a corrupt liveCD the first time around, it only took maybe five hours of attention from me to get up and running with KDE, Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, the GIMP, Amarok, gvim, and so on and so forth. Nothing to it. I've actually run out of programs to install now, so I guess I can consider myself "done".

I think installing Gentoo actually took me LESS time than the last time I installed Ubuntu. That may be because my Ubuntu install CD was 2 years old and I had to upgrade my way through 3 Ubuntu releases to get current, but it still amuses me to say it. (Funnily enough though, many times over the years I've resorted to using my old Gentoo 1.4_rc1 install CD from 2003 to install Gentoo on one computer or another. I was tempted to try again this time but I like being able to fiddle around with Gnome and use Firefox while I do my install.)

Having used Ubuntu for almost exactly eight months at this point, I think I have a good idea what its strengths and weaknesses are in relation to what I want.

Strengths:

• It's fast at installing things.
• It's brainless to use; a monkey could install it, a monkey could keep it going.
• Packages are fairly up-to-date. You're guaranteed lots of updates at least once every six months.
• There's a big community. That has a lot of benefits; for example, if you hit a bug, the more people who share your distro, the more likely that someone else hit the same bug (and possibly fixed it).
• Ubuntu is supported by a lot of places. last.fm had a nice link to a .deb installer for their client when I needed one recently, for example. And now Dell supports it. Its hardware support is likely to be good.
• Apparently well-funded and unlikely to disappear any time soon.
• Handles uninstalling packages that were installed only as dependencies for other packages.

Weaknesses:

• I looked at how to roll your own .deb's once, and it does not appear to be something enjoyable.
• *-dev packages are not installed by default.
• Huge updates to lots of packages once every six months is not how I like to do my system upgrades.
• Installing anything that isn't in the official repos is error-prone and unenjoyable.
• Bumping the version of something in the official repos to get a new release before it appears in the official repos is non-trivial.
• The init system sucks. I don't enjoy fiddling with symlinks
• Way, way too many services are started at boot by default and it's not entirely clear what can safely be disabled.
• apt sucks. The commands are too obscure. I can never remember how to do simple things like search for a package by name or list all files a package provides. There are too many tools that are almost but not quite the same thing, or that overlap in functionality. dpkg, apt-get, apt-cache, aptitude. Its output when installing a package is unhelpful.
• The documentation for apt tends to suck also.
• Apache2 is not set up nicely. It took me forever to get Rails working.
• Too many things are considered "lib" packages and handled / named stupidly as a result. For example Ruby gems.
• Single programs are split into multiple packages non-intuitively. (Vim)
• The Ubuntu forums are ugly and mostly useless.
• Silly release names.
• Lack of cow mascot.

Given that, I think it's time to move on. Aside from the reasons above, this is largely an emotional decision because Ubuntu has been annoying me. But I have come to realize that my computer isn't for work, it's for fun. Even if something isn't the most efficient thing in the world, why not do something if it's enjoyable? Ubuntu is pretty efficient, but it's not a lot of fun in the end.

So I just finished downloading Gentoo 2007.0 install ISOs. (ISOs plural because I'm not going to use the graphical installer, so I got the minimal ISO too. I'd still like to give the graphical installer a glance though.) Why Gentoo instead of something else? It definitely has a lot of weaknesses of its own, but some strengths too. It's mostly because I'm not sure where else to go, or because picking Gentoo again is sort of like going home after being away for a while. Again largely an emotional decision. But there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. Gentoo has been fun for me at times in the past. If Gentoo becomes un-fun again I'll switch away again, maybe try something else new.

As I've said before, switching distros is easy and usually fairly safe, given a sane partition scheme and a bit of knowing what the heck you're doing. I plan to keep my /home around and wipe everything else. (I need to repartition anyways, I'm running out of room on /boot. Made it too small to begin with.) And I can always switch back if I want, or pick another distro, almost on a whim. This is one of the strengths of Linux, and I may as well take advantage.

I'm also a firm believer in keeping in mind that I can at any time be wrong about anything. I ditched Gentoo because I decided it was headed in a bad direction and it was causing me un-needed headaches. I'm prepared to re-test that conclusion and admit I was wrong if necessary. Or maybe it'll start to annoy the heck out of me again right away and I'll try to find another distro that I haven't used before, you never know. We'll see.

I tried to play a "custom radio station" in Amarok via last.fm today, and I get a message stating "This item is not available for streaming". I did some googling and read that this is a problem that may have been fixed as of Amarok 1.4.6. I upgraded Amarok via Ubuntu's backports and it still doesn't work. So I apt-get installed the lastfm Ubuntu package and tried that, and it still doesn't work. Depressing.

Then I read that last.fm streaming was gimped up a few months ago due to pressure from record companies. Those J-pop songs that I almost certainly can't buy in America were really bringing the industry to its knees. Thank God that was put to a stop, before all music on the planet ceased to exist.

The very latest version of the last.fm client (downloaded from last.fm manually) does let me play a custom radio, but only searching based on one artist at at time. The sucky Flash-based web player also works in the same way. Amarok does not, and I don't know what's going on there.

Neither of the official clients supports pausing the music either though, again because the music industry forbids it. I believe this is because every time someone pauses music coming from a radio station, a 20-dollar bill somewhere in America bursts into flames.

So there you have it. I'm not really going to use last.fm any more. Not a lot of point in it.

:perldo s/something/other/
E319: Sorry, the command is not available in this version

In spite of my previous actions which I thought led to a successfully non-gimped Vim install, it turns out that I actually ended up getting rubydo to work AT THE EXPENSE of perldo.

Apparently what I actually needed was vim-full. Installing vim-ruby and vim-perl doesn't work. One shadows the other. They must both provide the same files. But stupid apt never told me there was any problem.

In fact right now I have vim-perl, vim-ruby, AND vim-full installed. I just uninstalled vim-perl and reinstalled it and it let me do it, but I have no idea what it did. It didn't affect my ability to use perldo even when vim-perl is uninstalled.

When I do aptitude show vim-full it says

...
Conflicts: vim-gnome (< 1:6.4-001+3), vim-gtk (< 1:6.4-001+3), vim-lesstif (< 1:6.4-001+3),
           vim-perl (< 1:6.4-001+3), vim-pyt<span></span>hon (< 1:6.4-001+3), vim-ruby (< 1:6.4-001+3), vim-tcl
           (< 1:6.4-001+3), vim-tiny (< 1:6.4-001+3), vim-common (< 1:6.4-001+3)
...

Apparently "Conflicts" does not mean "Prevents you from installing them all at the same time". Thanks Ubuntu.

EDIT: No, the current vim-perl I'm installing is version 1:7.0-164+1ubuntu7.1, so it doesn't conflict. But it still doesn't seem to do the right thing.

Error: Required vim compiled with +ruby
E117: Unknown function: rubycomplete#Complete

I had this magic vim-ruby package installed, but it wouldn't let me :rubydo or use Ruby omni-completion in Vim. I had to force-uninstall every vim-related package. It whined when I did that because apparently some system package had a dependency on vim.

It turns out I had vim-ruby, vim-perl, vim-common, vim, gvim, and vim-tiny packages all installed, and possibly some other vim-somethings that I couldn't manage to track down, and I have no idea what any of them do / did. I assume some of them are virtual packages of some sort or another. How the hell many packages does it take to get a working vim? Let's see:

chester@compy ~ $ sudo apt-get install vim-that-actually-works
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package vim-that-actually-works</pre>

In any case force-removing them all and starting over and installing just vim and vim-ruby and vim-perl seems to have worked. But this really ticks me off.