Chemo update

Well, started the chemo yesterday. No real problems but my bladder area feels a bit tender.
As mentioned, there should be none of the main side effects which people experience at times with IV type chemo treatment and so far I feel fine other than the tenderness.

Health update

Seems I need to have chemo to deal with the ongoing tumour issues.

The recurring tumours in my bladder - which have been treated by laser - just keep coming and my consultant suggested chemo might stop this. Unlike normal chemo, the chemicals are inserted into my bladder and kept there for an hour or two. Thus there are (hopefully) no real issues with the side effects of the toxic drugs used, unlike regular chemo where the drugs can cause unpleasant side effects.

Will report back on the treatment as and when I start the course - which should be before Christmas apparently.

Update

Well, still using the KDE version - which speaks for itself.

After downloading the iso and installing it, I still ended up getting another huge load of updates - which was a bit of a pain with my lousy interwebby speeds.

So far though, I haven't found any real issues. Wireless just works (which is much better than the Ubuntu version, which lost the connection regularly!) although I prefer wired.
The other problems which plagued the Gnome version of PCLOS don't seem to be present in the KDE one - presume this is because it is much more mature.

I think I shall install this to my main PC as well. It currently runs Ubuntu 10.04, but is rarely used anyway because it is upstairs and it gets cold in the daytime up there.

Yet more changes

Well, spent ages last night trying to get the volume to increase and decrease using the function key on my laptop with the appropriate up and down keys.
Despite being fairly familiar with Linux, I ended up very cheesed off with the things! I got the keycodes from xev, then tried an old trick I used in KDE 3 back in the day - basically setting up a shell script and assigning those keycodes to an unused F key etc (if desperate, you can find it on my main website somewhere - but ask and I will link to it). No joy.
This morning, I discovered that PCLOS 2010.11 in its Gnome incarnation doesn't actually have a functional way to format/partition drives. No fdisk, no cfdisk - even GParted, which is included on the GUI menu doesn't work! Arrrggggh!

In the end, I decided to install the KDE version. Yes, I know I have moaned about KDE4 but I reasoned it is likely to be more stable/featured in PCLOS as it is the default.
So, having a 2010.7 disk lying around, I installed that. Seemed good, so I went to update the system and found that it wanted to install nearly 800megs of updates! The new 2010.10 version is not even 700 meg, so I thought I might as well simply download that, install it and then update from there.
Currently downloading.... but with my crap internet, it will be some time yet!

Whilst waiting, I have been trying out a few of the problem areas with the Gnome version to see if the KDE one has problems. Scrolling with the touchpad button - fine! Partitioning tools - yep. Function button and sound up and down - whooo, working fine! And no stupid warnings about my battery which I *know* is old and doesn't hold a charge etc so why tell me?

Part of me is quite excited to be back with KDE - I loved Konqueror as my file manager and used it as a browser most of the time. I know that Dolphin is the default these days, but I am old and prefer what I am used to.
Again, the mail client is that awful Thunderbird, but I will see what it entails to get KMail back - I like Kmail!
And of course, KDE has the best burning software of the lot - K3b. Better than any of the other Linux burning tools and, IMHO, better than Nero etc on Windows.

I still think the move to KDE4 was a mistake by the KDE team, but it does seem to have matured a bit since the first version, which was really dreadful and crashed constantly.

Will blog some more about this PCLOS KDE version once I have the latest version installed and up to date.

PCLOS update

Well, discovered after installing the 2010.7 version mentioned in the earlier post, that there was a newer version (2010.11) released last week.
I have now replaced the earlier version with this one - and the two big problems (the warning about the battery and the scroll using the button thing) are sorted.

Initial thoughts - I like the fact that the problems I had with the previous release are now sorted, not so keen on the theme/icons used in this version (although I can of course change those), still don't like Thunderbird as an email client (personal thing - I just don't like it at all, never have and Ubuntu defaulted to Evolution, which is also not great, but better than TBird IMHO)

So, apart from a load of hassle setting up my email all over again, the things I mentioned above and the overall "greyness" of TBird and Firefox in this release, I am quite enjoying the change. As I mentioned last time, similar to my days with Yoper - I might even volunteer to do a few packages at some point, depending on time/health issues.

Trials and tribulations

Well, decided - based on my tests on a live disk - to install PCLinuxOS 2010.7 on the laptop.
As mentioned before, I was pretty fed up with the way Ubuntu was heading.
I have been trying both the KDE and Gnome versions, but went for Gnome as I still can't bring myself to like KDE4.x (I have tried several times but find it just too unstable and a little annoying to be honest - but YMMV!)

Anyway, once installed, I have discovered some snags. First of all the annoying warning about the battery being b0rked. I already know that - the laptop is pretty old and beat and the battery holds a charge for about 20 minutes at best. Now, in Ubuntu, to get rid of the stupid warning, it was a simple case of using gconf-editor to untick the warning notifications. However, in PCLOS, this didn't work! The boxes are unticked, but the warning still comes up each time I restart X. Frustrating bloody thing!

The second major annoyance is the scrolling. I like to use the middle button on my touchpad to scroll up and down and in the live cd it was working perfectly. Of course, now I have installed it to the hard drive, the scroll doesn't work! I can use the touchpad itself to scroll, but I like the button! So far, I haven't found out how to fix that - like all modern distros, the PCLOS xorg.conf is fairly minimal (although a billion times more info than the Ubuntu one!) and no mention of a section for mice etc. I guess I can write that section myself - I always used to edit the old XF86 and early xorg files by hand as they always get it wrong anyway....

Other than that, I am liking PCLOS so far. It isn't perfect - but what is? But it is pleasant, seems fairly quick and uses similar tweaked kernels to the old Yoper! IN fact, it quite reminds me of the old 2.2 Yoper - tweaked optimised kernel, the Mandrake control centre, rpm packaging, but with Synaptic.....
But also like Yoper 2.x, there is a slight air of "not quite finished" - and I don't mean that in a bad way. Just a lack of developers and funding I presume holding it back a little. Ubuntu has a lot of cash and plenty of devs, but they still turn out some pretty iffy packages at times and fail to deal with genuine concerns of users.

Anyway, I shall be experimenting more with PCLOS - I hope to keep it as my distro of choice for now at least.

Genealogy and parish registers

One of my little hobbies is genealogy - tracing my ancestors.
A while back, the parish registers for many Cornish parishes became available online at the Familysearch website - which was brilliant, especially for those with ancestors down here. Then without warning, these registers were removed from the website. After waiting a while to see if this was just a technical glitch, I emailed the site to see what was happening and was surprised to be told that apparently an individual had complained about the registers being available on the site.

Now, as these were free of charge to view, I can only surmise that the complainant was someone with a vested (i.e commercial) interest in preventing us from seeing these registers.
I presume the Familysearch won't provide the details of the complainant, so if that person would like to contact me and explain their reasoning, I would be most interested. However I doubt they will - they are going to simply sit smugly and continue to presumably raise a small income from selling these registers on cd or whatever. Those of us in the genealogy community know who sells various products and one of those people is presumably the person responsible for this free service being removed.
Well, whoever it was, I did used to actually purchase cds as well as finding stuff for free (sometimes it is just easier to locate an ancestor via a searchable cd than struggling through the dreadful handwriting and faded pages of a register) - but I will no longer purchase a cd.
Not only that, but those registers I have already downloaded will be transcribed and placed online for free access - so you will not win.

Sorry for the rant - but this has really annoyed me.

Not much happening

As the title says - little going on here. I am now officially 50 - not that I feel any different to usual.
Trying to think what has been going on - and failing miserably! Computer wise, I am considering moving to PCLOS from Ubuntu - as I worry about the commercialisation of Ubuntu. 10.10 introduces much more commercial content - and 10.04 brought in the Ubuntu One stuff. Whilst I like and agree with the inclusion of sensible binarys - such as the graphics stuff for nVidia or ATI, I don't think much of the pay for tunes stuff.
If I wanted iTunes, I would have bought a Mac (assuming I won the lottery!) - but most of the music I listen to I have already bought via vinyl (crikey! That is old Skool!) or cd, and I refuse to pay for it again.

I did download and install DBGL this week - a front end to good old DosBox - which includes some lovely game packs - including ROTT, Wacky Wheels and many of my fave DOS games from my early experiences with computing. Good fun to play a spot of retro-gaming occasionally and this is great stuff!

Struggling on..

The laptop lid is now being a real nightmare! If I put it down, the lid can now drop easily forwards or backwards - not only making it a pain, but also causing more damage each time.

Looked at new laptop prices earlier - and I won't be replacing it for some time yet! I thought the prices were under £300 now, but seems not. Plus of course, it is very difficult to get a decent spec laptop which doesn't run Windows - and the hassle of reclaiming the "Windows Tax" back can be either easy (see examples of Dell for instance who will refund no problem) or hard/impossible (see examples of Acer UK claiming that they will refund 30 odd quid, but you need to send the laptop to their "service" centre to have the HDD formatted for 50 odd quid plus VAT!)

As a technician, oddly enough, I can just about manage to format a hard drive! I certainly wouldn't pay 50 odd notes for the task to some half witted Acer employee!

So stuck with the knackered lappie for now at least.... Luckily, I do still have my desktop machine and my little EeePC - but the desktop is upstairs and it gets chilly there in winter and the EeePC is a little too small for day to day use. A lovely machine for what I use it for (connecting my webcam to my telescope and videoing planets etc) but not ideal for heavy day to day use - plus of course, only a 4Gb flash drive isn't great for some of the things I do.

Build quality and laptop hinges

My current laptop - an Acer - has had a crack in the lid near the hinge since almost day one. Last night, it finally gave up and a big chunk broke off. Luckily, the laptop is still functioning - although closing the lid is pretty noisy and I am going to simply leave it open! However, the main point of this entry is to highlight the awful build quality of laptops - and particularly the hinges on them.
My previous laptop, a cheap (well, actually very expensive, but cheap for a laptop at the time!) IPC machine also suffered the cracked lid by the hinge problem. Likewise, one of my friends also bought an Acer - slightly later model than mine - and his lid has cracked in just the same way as mine.
The issue seems to be tightness in the hinge causing the plastic to flex and crack as the lid is closed down.
OK, so I have had this laptop for 4 or 5 years now, so I can say that I have had my moneys worth, but the crack appeared quite soon after purchase. I don't use the laptop as a table or to swat flies - I treat it with care and avoid placing things on top of it. As a technician, I know that these machines are very susceptible to having weights plonked on them or being dropped.

Oh, and I am not the only person with an Acer who had cracks develop in the exact same spot within weeks of purchase! If Acer wish to contact me, I am happy to provide details of the issue.
No? Didn't think so. Guess what my next laptop WON'T be?

Distros

I am seriously considering switching from Ubuntu. You may have read my earlier worries about the SABDFL (Mark Shuttleworth) who up until recently, I considered a pretty "good" sort of guy.
However, Ubuntu 10.04, with its switched Max, Min, Close buttons - and the "discussion" following the insertion of this new idea in what is after all a LTS version of Ubuntu, made me consider my use. I have been an active Ubuntu user - posting the results of my installs, helping others via Launchpad and promoting Ubuntu and variants in various places - even in the face of abuse from certain Linux zealots who see Ubuntu as pandering to the masses...

But, with what seems to be a growing "forced" commercialism in Ubuntu - and the rushing out of half finished releases - even what are supposed to be LTS releases - I am getting pretty despondant.

Is there really any excuse for a LTS release which has a fairly big bug with certain USB devices failing to unmount without posting a message which many would find scary to say the least? Worse still, the bug was closed - despite several people reporting it - with the classic line "Can you check with the latest dev release....". Sorry, but most users do not touch the dev versions of upcoming releases and frankly, a LTS release should work or be sorted if bugs are discovered.

Very unhappy at the moment with the way things are heading. And before anyone starts bleating about the difficulties of releasing bug free software - yes, I know, but the idea is to respond to users, not tell them to install a dev version - with its obvious risks - to check if the problem is fixed. Yes, I could do that and fix any issues I get (hopefully!), but a six month user won't be able to understand half of the issues, never mind think up a fix.
And yes, I was involved in developing/fixing a distro for several years, so I have a vague idea what I am doing.

Fibre in Cornwall

According to the news today, we here in the sticks (i.e "rural" areas") will be getting fibre broadband - with speeds up to something pretty impressive. BT, who are rolling this out - with funding from the EU covering the cost, naturally! - claim "90% of people in Cornwall will get speeds of blah blah".

Right, now being Mr Cynical and all that, I can imagine that the 90% are those who live in the big towns - Launceston, Bodmin, St Austell, Newquay, Truro, Falmouth, Camborne and Redruth, St Ives perhaps and of course Penzance.

Now I suspect that covers the "90%" very nicely - and very conveniently - for BT. Of course, many residents in those areas are already able to get speeds ranging from 4Mb to 20+Mb, depending on their distance from the exchange etc.

The rest of us - who live in the real "rural" locations and are already left waaay behind in the digital divide which is the UK - won't be seeing any increase I suspect.

I have 512kb - and that is all I can get. I would happily pay for 20Mb if I could get it, but here there is not even a glimmer on the horizon for 1Mb, never mind the speeds that fibre might provide.

When I look at my daughters - who live outside Cornwall whilst at Uni - and they get 20Mb+ speeds for the price I pay for my 512kb connection, plus they get TV and telephone thrown in to the deal - it really makes me annoyed.
Unlike many of the people who can get these fast speeds, I actually could provide a business need for it. I download a lot of Linux stuff for development and research - and many people with fast speeds simply visit their FB accounts, send a few emails or watch vids on YouTube.

The BBC - who brought this to my attention today - don't seem to have any "post your comments on this story" thing for this - so I am ranting here instead.

I wrote to the Minister responsible when the new Coalition Government too over, commenting about the awful speeds here and volunteering myself to trial any of the ideas they have to get faster interwebs around the UK - but just got a basic reply back.
Well, I still stand by my offer to trial any of these ideas to get a vaguely acceptable internet speed.
Apparently, the average speed is between 4 and 8Mb in the UK - well, Mr Govt Person, I am getting 1/8th of the lower end of the scale. Hell, even the EU says that 2Mb is a minimum speed - but unless BT replace my entire line - which trundles merrily across field gateways, ploughed fields etc etc - I can't see me getting that.

And yes - I realise that there are people worse off who get slower speeds or even no broadband at all! My rant is for all of us!

Wireless

Wireless in Linux is one of my pet hates. On my laptop (which doesn't have built in wireless) I have a choice of two external wireless connections - one a PCMCIA card, the other a USB wireless dongle. Both are pretty poor when it comes to remaining connected. Likewise, my EeePC 701 with Ubuntu installed is much less reliable when it comes to the wireless (Atheros) than the bog-standard Xandros cutesey interface.

I am currently trying to discover exactly why the wireless support in Ubuntu is so poor when it comes to my specific devices and I think I am slowly making inroads. Nothing certain as yet, but I have a few little ideas which seem to have improved my issues with the main laptop - fingers crossed!

Tonight, I am using a different laptop - this is a Lenovo machine and the wireless seems to be working fine with the live Ubuntu 10.04 disk. Which seems to suggest it is certain modules rather than a generic "wireless" issue....

But the problem of poor wireless connectivity is a very common problem on Launchpad - so the problem affects a lot of Linux users. It is a shame, because wireless is a very popular method of network connecting, yet Linux still struggles when it comes to many of the popular chipsets.

Just an observation

Whilst hanging out in Launchpad - answering questions about Ubuntu issues - it never ceases to amaze me how many people ask why the cd which came with their webcam or printer etc won't run on Ubuntu or the drivers won't install.
Windows .exe files won't run on Linux because they are written for Windows, which is a totally different operating system. Just like my diesel car won't run on petrol or my radio doesn't display TV pictures...

Whilst I do understand that the change to a new OS can be difficult, the Linux community and documentation always point out that Linux isn't Windows and thus Windows programs do not automatically run on Linux. I know that Wine allows some Windows programs to run, but that is a more specific thing for games etc - and not really any use for installing a webcam driver for example.

I really am getting idle with the blog! Ages since I last reported in and as usual, lots of things have been happening.

The whole Ubuntu 10.04 argument about the positioning of the maximise, minimise, close buttons was pretty interesting. Up until that point, I always thought Mark Shuttleworth was a genuine guy, but now I am somewhat concerned about the way Ubuntu is controlled.

I can appreciate that someone has to take the lead in the development of things, but some of Mark's comments in the Ubuntu Launchpad discussion were pretty much dictatorship. Yes, he was getting some stick but his responses were not what I would have expected - and I think many Ubuntu users felt the same.

Sadly, there is still no real competition to Ubuntu when it comes down to it. I have got Vector running on a couple of older boxes and PCLinuxOS on a live disc, but Ubuntu is still my distro of choice. I wouldn't recommend it for a new Linux user though - I would always go for PCLinuxOS in that case because of the built in support for all the silly little things which most users (apart from the GNU zealots of course!) want, such as flash and support for mp3 etc out of the box.

Ah well.