Ronnie Tucker

Updated my Kubuntu 8.04 (with KDE 4.0.3) to KDE 4.1 beta and it is niiiiice!

Got itchy fingers and decided to try Kubuntu Hardy with KDE 4.1 on the EEE to see how good/bad it’d be.

Suffice to say, it is much goodness!

Having installed Kubuntu Hardy I dreaded the thought of having to recompile the libgpod library to get my iPod Classic (Black) working again. After installing Amarok I thought I’d try my iPod anyway.

Lo and behold, it worked!

Hoorah!

Well, it did. Until I actually flipped through the cover art and played some tracks did I notice that my cover art had gone awry. Drat!

After some tinkering I noticed in my Adept (package manager) that installed was libgpod3-nogtk, when I looked at the description for the library I noticed:

This version does not include artwork support

So I uninstalled it and installed the libgpod3 library.

All good!

Cover art is back (be sure to click the ipod icon at the top of Amarok, and choose Update Artwork). All is good between Amarok and iPods.

Above: the two libraries (and descriptions) in Adept

I haven’t actually programmed my own personal Terminator robot (as yet) in MINDSTORMS but I did hit a potential flaw in my plans.

LDD

LDD is LEGO Digital Designer. This is the Windows only application that many creators use to virtually create their model so that it can be uploaded to the LEGO web site. This application also allows you to see how the virtual model was built. So rather than designers taking a gajillion photographs of their model, as it’s being built, they just give out the LDD (or LXF) file which tells all.

But that’s no good to me running Linux!

Ah, not so. For LEGO Digital Designer runs perfectly on Linux using WINE. Behold:

LDD showing the Unibot2 robot.

So now I can easily download other peoples creations, view them from any angle then have the app tell me how to build it!

Look out world, here I come!  ;P

Way back when I were a lad, the cool toy to have was LEGO MINDSTORMS (the robot building kit made by LEGO). But at about £200 it was a bit out of my price range. As I got older and had the money to buy it there was a new version due out, LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT but it was also £200-ish. I assumed that the older version would come down in price as the new version came out. Wrong! It’s so highly prized that the older version is still about £200 to buy!

Now, many years later, I have the chance to play with LEGO MINDSTORMS. I spotted a LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT on eBay for only £130 and snapped it up with all due haste! Even eBay has very few MINDSTORM kits on it.

Several days later I took delivery of said prize and, wow, does it look cool!

They certainly give you enough bits!

Everything you see in the photo above comes in one biiiiig box! The only problem is that the LEGO software (to program the ‘brick’, bottom right) only runs on Windows and Mac. But, thankfully: Linux hackers to the rescue! One fellow (John Hansen) developed his own language and compiler to program the ‘brick’ in Linux so, in appreciation, I have bought his book: Lego Mindstorms NXT Power Programming: Robotics in C

I’ve only had the kit a few days so I’ve not built anything as yet, but the book has a few examples in it so I’ll be building them first methinks.

Look out world, the Terminator storyline may still happen! 

This post is rather unique in that it is being written using SeaMonkey and within Puppy Linux. PupEEE to be exact, a customised version of Puppy 3 for the ASUS EEE.

The one problem with most distro’s on the EEE is getting the Wifi working, pupEEE made it dead easy. Opened the Network Wizard and it automaically recognised my ath0 as being wireless, next step was to configure it with my WEP key, test it and done! Hence why I can write this post!

I’ve tested it with MP3 and XVID files and both worked flawlessly in the XINE player that is installed by default.

As ever with Puppy, it is blazingly fast, according to the memory status on the taskbar I have 243mb free from my initial 256mb RAM. In his case, pupEEE is initially loaded via USB stick but pretty much everything is in memory ready to rock so clicking any app makes it load almost instantly.

I’m very impressed with it and seriously thinking of ditching my eeeXubuntu install for this pupEEE.

UPDATE: eeeXubuntu now gone in favour of the stupidly fast pupEEE…

I’m not proud of what I’ve done. Not proud at all…

I bought an iPod *sob*

Forgive me! I was tempted by value for money! No seriously it was! 80Gb Black iPod Classic for £160 from OverclockersUK.

The only snag is that it’s 6th Generation and 6G is where Apple altered the iPod’s to only work with iTunes. But fear not! The latest update to libgpod (0.6.0) allows the iPod and Amarok to share some mp3 looooove.

Only problem is: you have to *gulp* compile libgpod!

Using a few threads from Ubuntu Forums I was able to get my iPod working fantastic with Amarok. Here’s how I did it:

Read the rest of this entry »

While browsing Ubuntu Forums today I stumbled across a post asking what cool stuff a Bluetooth enabled mobile phone can do with Linux and discovered KBlueLock.

Of course, you need a Bluetooth dongle on your PC, I have a USB one.

In KDE I get a ‘K’ version of the Bluetooth logo in my task bar. If I right click it, I can choose KBlueLock.

The KDE Bluetooth menu (above)

Read the rest of this entry »

Was tidying up my bedroom (a bit) today and came across an ancient relic from yester year, my first 486 CPU!

That’s right folks, a genuine AMD 486 DX4-120. Behold!

Packed under the hood of that small square beast is a whopping great 120MHz of sheer power. Gasp in awe! Back in them days you could even overclock it to 133MHz! Oooohhh!

The AMD site still has some sales blab about the Am486 range of CPU’s! 

Shame it has ‘Designed for Microsoft Windows 95′ stamped on it…

I made a couple of videos yesterday. One of the CECT 599 (iPhone clone) and one of the ASUS EEE booting eeeXubuntu and running Compiz Fusion.

Tried to upload them to YouTube, each is only a few minutes long, but after a looooong upload (on my crappy broadband) it tells me they’re too long!

I’ll put them on Google Video then! Hmf!

Google, I hope you’re having second thoughts about that purchase of YouTube. Sell, SELL, SELL!! 

After much tinkering with my Eee I’ve finally settled on an OS I like.
The Eee comes with a highly modified Xandros Linux which, on boot, makes your Eee look like a kindergarten toy. Not cool. But you can enable the IceWM menu (IceWM is the default window manager) but you can take it further by installing KDE on there too so you get a full KDE desktop with no big kiddie style icons on the screen. Cooler. Better still is the fact that you can install X/K/Ubuntu on there too! But the down side is that the wireless and wired networking don’t work and in some cases the battery meter is screwed. Not cool.

In comes eeeXubuntu (below). This is Xubuntu with patches applied to get your networking (wired and wireless) working! Hurrah! Not only that but all your other bits and bobs such as sound work fine! Cool!

Not only does eeeXubuntu work great on the Eee but you can pimp it to the max with Compiz Fusion! (below) Uber-cool!

So, the lesson is: Eee kicks ASS!

And to prove the point, here’s a quick Google Video of my EEE booting eeeXubuntu then running Compiz Fusion.