Option 		"TouchpadOff" 		"2"

so that the full section looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Synaptics Touchpad"
	Driver		"synaptics"
	Option		"SendCoreEvents"	"true"
	Option		"Device"		"/dev/psaux"
	Option		"Protocol"		"auto-dev"
	Option		"HorizScrollDelta"	"0"
	Option 		"TouchpadOff" 		"2"
EndSection

That "feature" is surely the worst feature ever added to a laptop, and you have no idea how glad I am to be rid of it. Via

Check out the Truth Happens campaign at redhat.com

If you install Ubuntu, and everything goes smoothly, but then you try to load google.com or yahoo.com or some of the other big sites in Firefox and nothing works, here’s the fix:

try disabling ipv6 if it is not already done by doing this:

gedit /etc/modprobe.d/aliases

find the line:

alias net-pf-10 ipv6

and replace with:

alias net-pf-10 off #ipv6

Oh yeah, and you’ll have to be root, so you may want to preface those gedits with sudo.

About the only things still driving me crazy are the whole “clickable trackpad” issue and the strangeness I’ve been having with Firefox. Apparently there is some kind of issue with Firestarter, the firewall software, and there are a bunch of sites that I can’t hit at all, Google being one of them. It’s very irregular — every so often I can get through, but most of the time it just times out. Pretty annoying, so I’m upgrading to the latest version of Ubuntu, which hasn’t been officially released yet, to see if that clears up this issue. It might make everything go totally to hell. We’ll find out soon, I guess.

On the aesthetics side, I’m also pretty pleased. Granted, there are maybe to many levers and knobs, and those multi-colored buttons are still kind of weird, but it’s bordering on sexy. What really gets me are the flecks of magnesium on the cover. Very, very nice touch, both visually and functionally. It almost makes me believe that this is what a NeXT laptop might have looked like.

More news to come as I get Ubuntu installed. Stay tuned.

I know I bashed Lenovo for having ugly machines, but, upon closer inspection, IBM has actually made some fairly decent laptops. They’re not inexpensive, mind you, but they seem to have gotten rave reviews. And, while they may not be as pretty as an iBook, Powerbook or MacBook Pro, they’re at least not glossy piles of plastic (although I may have to do something about those multi-colored keys).

I should be getting it in the next couple of days — wish me luck as I try to install Linux on the baby!

What a freakin disappointment.

Allow me to explain:

First of all, I am in the market for a new laptop. As many people may know, my previous laptop, which I had been using up until a little over a month ago, was a 500MHz G3 iBook. This iBook got me through many a battle: college, freelance, “real” work. Sadly, it was time to retire my little buddy, which, through various circumstances, had become permanently desk-bound, housed inside of a shelled out cardboard box, because it could no longer support its own monitor nor hold a charge in its battery.

Needless to say, I was in need of an upgrade.

From almost out of nowhere, I was blessed with a very inexpensive second-hand Mac Mini, still under warranty. That’s what I’m using right now. It’s a great machine for what I do, and a dramatic improvement over what I was using.

But, while it is a great machine, it’s not a laptop — can’t take it on travels, can’t work on it in the living room couch or in bed, can’t bring it to user-group meetings and conventions, etc. Now, the logical thing would be to get a MacBook Pro, seeing as how I have no idea when Apple will release any other modern laptops (as of this writing, the MacBook Pro is the only laptop to have moved over to Intel — my other options are an iBook or Powerbook, both of which are still running on a PowerPC G4 processor, and thus don’t have the longest of shelf-lives remaining).

A MacBook Pro would be logical, and anticipated, based on my history. All of my primary machines have been Macs:

• 1997 – 1999: Centris 650, 25MHz 68040
• 1999 – 2001: Lime Green iMac, 333MHz G3
• 2001 – 2006: 2001 iBook, 500MHz G3
• 2006: Mac Mini, 1.25GHz G4

Currently, I am in possession of three other machines I use off and on: two identical generic white-box machines I use for toying around with Linux, and a Zaurus. I do have a fetish for open source software, and it is precisely that which brings me to my problem.

I love Macs, and I love OS X. I really do. But I am also a developer on an open source project that is trying to do what OS X does and more, and the more time I spend using OS X, the less time I spend using Linux and Etoile and GNUstep, and thus the less motivation I have for helping my software grow.

And this is where it comes back to laptop shopping: I am looking for a laptop that I cannot run OS X on.

This means I am looking at the Sonys and the Toshibas and the Gateways and the Lenovos and the Dells and the HP/Compaqs of the world. And looking at them is hurting my eyes. Honestly, is there no one other than Apple who designs nice-looking, high-quality machines? I’m not sure who the audience is for these computers, but by the looks of them, they’re aiming squarely for the Borg — they are the epitome of horrible faux-future: black plastic and cheap brushed metal and glossy screens and blue LEDs. They have the worst port integration I have ever seen. And the excessive icons and decals! I believe by 2008, at the latest, when you buy an HP or Toshiba, it won’t even come in a plastic case, but rather a thin varnish of logos.

Really, all this is to say is that I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed that Apple is the only competitor for my money. Their machines are comparible, cost-wise, to most everything I’ve looked at, and infinitely more attractive, and their quality ensures that they last long after the tech magazines say they’re obsolete. I’m going to keep looking, but I’m really losing hope in the other hardware vendors. Seriously, people, make some nice machines and I will shower you with cash.

Today, I had had enough. So I started Adium, found Nicolas, and tricked him into helping me do a proper install.

I grabbed the latest netinst of Debian, installed it, and proceeded to harass Nicolas, pinging him everytime I had no idea what to do. Here’s what it comes down to.

First, log in as root.

Then, get sudo.

     # apt-get install sudo

Then add yourself to the sudoers list:

     # vi /etc/sudoers

When that comes up, arrow down to the bottom line, the last character, then type i, then hit the right arrow once, then hit enter, then enter your username, a space, and ALL=(ALL) ALL. So, if you were me, you’d see something like:

root    ALL=(ALL) ALL
jross   ALL=(ALL) ALL

Since you’re using vi, things are a bit weird, but what you do next is hit the Esc key, then type:

:w!
:q

After that, you’ll have exited vi. Next, you’ll want to upgrade your repositories, since with the netinst you’ll have only stable. You’re gonna want testing and unstable, so do this (via Debian Reference):

     # cd /etc/apt
     # cp -f sources.list sources.list.old
     # :>sources.list
     # apt-setup noprobe
     # cd /etc/apt
     # grep -e "^deb " sources.list >srcs
     # :>sources.list
     # cp -f srcs sources.list
     # sed -e "s/stable/testing/" srcs >>sources.list
     # sed -e "s/stable/unstable/" srcs >>sources.list
     # apt-get update
     # apt-get install apt apt-utils

After you’ve done that, then you can type exit, and log in as yourself.

Okay, now, the dependencies part.

GNUstep depends on a lot of things, but luckily you can use apt-get to install them. So, type in all of the following, and, with each one, you’ll likely get a prompt saying that there are other things that need to be installed. Just hit enter when you see something that looks like [Y|n]

     # sudo apt-get install libtiff4-dev
     # sudo apt-get install libpng12-dev
     # sudo apt-get install gobjc
     # sudo apt-get install make
     # sudo apt-get install subversion
     # sudo apt-get install bzip2
     # sudo apt-get install libart-2.0-dev
     # sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev
     # sudo apt-get install xlibs-dev
     # sudo apt-get install libffcall1-dev
     # sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev
     # sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
     # sudo apt-get install xserver-common
     # sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg
     # sudo apt-get install xbase-clients

You’ll have a bunch of strange questions thrown at you when you install the xserver stuff… If you know what kind of video card you have, then you’re in the clear. If you don’t, then you’re SOL. I can’t help you there. That is what ultimately caused my downfall (see below).

If you get through the above list okay, then type:

     # cd ~

That will bring you to your home directory. Now, you’ll need to checkout GNUstep from its Subversion repository:

     # svn co http://svn.gna.org/svn/gnustep/modules

This part takes a long time. Go grab something to eat, then come back. After you’ve gotten everything, you should have a folder called modules. You can type ls to confirm.

If you see the folder, then do the following:

     # cd modules/core/make
     # ./configure
     # make

At this point, it’s good to make a new terminal session. So, hit Alt-F2, and you’ll have a new terminal session. You can go back to the first one by typing Alt-F1. You can basically make a new terminal session for each of your function keys. In this new session, log in as yourself, then type:

     # sudo bash

Change directories to the modules folder in your home folder, then go to core/make

Now, you can source GNUstep and install:

     # . /usr/GNUstep/System/Library/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh
     # make install

Now, you’re gonna want to compile each of the major sections of GNUstep: base, gui and back. Here is the process:

Switch to terminal session 1 using Alt-F1.

Type:

     # . /usr/GNUstep/System/Library/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh
     # cd ../base
     # ./configure
     # make

Switch to terminal session 2 using Alt-F2.

Type:

     # cd ../base
     # make install

Switch to terminal session 1 using Alt-F1.

Type:

     # cd ../gui
     # ./configure
     # make

Switch to terminal session 2 using Alt-F2.

Type:

     # cd ../gui
     # make install

Switch to terminal session 1 using Alt-F1.

Type:

     # cd ../back
     # ./configure --enable-graphics=art
     # make

Switch to terminal session 2 using Alt-F2.

Type:

     # cd ../back
     # make install

Apparently, after you’ve done all this, you should be able to switch back to terminal session 1, type startx, then do something to check the GUI by going into modules/tests/examples/gui/

That was as far as I got before my screen went black. Maybe you’ll have better luck… As for me, I’m back to square one, installing Ubuntu… I think my install disc didn’t get burned properly.

Open source… argh.

• Via Sašo:

  In Terry Prattchet’s Discworld there was a nice sentence like “and then he was surprised like a man is surprised by something which he previously thought only happens to other people”.

• The Internet is important for me, because, just as with other forms of publishing technology before it, the burden of remembering things is placed on the network, rather than the individual.
• In my informal testing at work, between Firefox, Flock and Safari, Safari (with the Sogudi extension) wins in terms of just consumer satisfaction and comfort (for me anyway). The only thing I miss from Firefox and Flock are the “Type to search” feature (and, to a lesser extent, the live, incremental search via page indexing).
• Lucid dreaming might just gain me an extra 6 hours or so of productivity a day. I think that’s worth running into walls for.
• Flash is weird. Period.
• Open source developers might just be good at copying the innovations of others, but at least they’re really good at it. [RealPlayer video]
• It’s not important to take over the world — just leave a positive mark on it.
• People like what I do.