So there I am, with quite a lot of time invested in trying to set up
wireless on Ubuntu. I'm liking the Ubuntu well enough. I have it set up using the Windows fonts, so that the appearance is pretty nice. The main thing about the standard installation is that font smoothing requires editing a text file. Actually, being as Ubuntu is only a more house-trained version of the geeks orgasm that is Linux, getting anything very tweaky done is a matter of editing text configuration files. But I don't care. I've got the thing pretty and I like what I see. It looks a hell of a lot less home-made than the crappy fonting and so forth you get "out of the box". It's all there but the wireless. So I figure I'll drop a fiver on an alternative network solution, being a long network cable to my router. And with that, shazzam. All is worky. I proceed to download and install every piece of free music software I can find, and there is much. I like what I see. There are many multitrackers, synths and drumbi - if that's the plural of drumbox, which it is not but should be.
Blundering about on my bed with the Ubuntu box whizzing away beside it now gets old. I covet having the thing on my desk where I can properly get at it. It's a squeeze since there are already two other computers in my desk region, and I am a believer in a good big display on all such things. Finally, though, I manage it. For a while I am very pleased, and take several pictures and try to leave things alone in the trouser department while admiring the sheer horsepower now arrayed in front of me. Only one thing. The Ubuntu box is running a beast of a graphics card, wasted on a box simply running simple 2D stuff and for music use. And because of something that Windows obviously has and Ubuntu obviously has not, the fan on the card is doing wind-tunnel stuff full bore all the time. Not what you want, and certainly not the kind of racket that helps on a box destined for music production. Hmm.
So I had a passively cooled graphics card in the box before a friend kindly gave me the beast card that roars. Ok then, if I revert to that I lose only noise for my purposes. Let's be do that. Struggling in confined space, I try to remove the beast card. Hmm, recalcitrant. Ah, I remember. It's one with a spring-loaded pin to release at the back end of the slot. Grope, grope and - ah, pull. Ooh - I'm holding a perfectly formed facsimile of a release pin. In fact, I'm holding a vital capacitor which I have neatly shagged by pulling it off the graphics card. Bugger. I've stuffed the card. Still, for now I need only replace the previous card as planned. I may be able to fix the beast later, and anyway there is nothing I dislike as much as noisy bits in computers.
The previous card, I remember belatedly, is in someone else's machine. I gave it to them when I had the better one. I mean, nothing's as useless as old hardware, right? So I've crippled my Ubuntu box to the point where I shall need a new graphics card to get it up and running again. Hey, I can be a dick. Nothing surprising. With great power comes the responsibility to not be a great fool. I resolve never again to botch hardware maintenance purely to avoid a spaghetti fight under my desk. Well, I think, crying into my tea, I can at least read up on some of the music software I was (briefly) so taken with.
In so reading up, I find that most of it is available for OS X and often Windows too. So frankly, other than as a curiosity, I don't need a Linux box really. Well, less than I need the desktop lebensraum at any rate. So the whole lot's back under my bed for now and the desktop has returned to being home only to my big new iMac and my nice quiet XP box. In many ways a relief, although onlookers will now believe it less likely that I was ever Blofeld.
In conclusion, I'd say Ubuntu is a very good bet as an easy-to-set-up desktop operating system UNLESS you are going to want wireless networking, which I found to be a world of pain. In fact I never got that bit going, and the advice on the web - in various places including the Ubuntu help and forums - was all pretty unclear and conflicting. And without being too much of a you-know-what I'd add that I'm pretty clued-up around these things, so don't rely on the wireless lightly. Unless, that is, you have yet to buy your wireless hardware. In that case, just buy whatever is best recommended for Ubuntu. That'll always be cool, if you have that luxury. You can get your Open Office and your Firefox and your Thunderbird and apart from gaming you can hold your head up. Fair play to Ubuntu indeed. But I don't need it right now as much as I need the space. It's pretty cool though. You'd be silly to run a dodgy or outdated copy of Windows instead, believe me. The learning curve is very shallow for day-to-day use.
And the new iMac? Goatee-sporting sods with wire-rimmed specs everywhere desperately hope I'll be raving about that. So far, I'm not. Early days yet, but so far I don't entirely see what's supposed to be so great. Sorry. Wish I'd drunk the grand instead right now, although don't worry - I'll surely drink a grand as well. And I might get to loving the Mac as I use it more. It has at least one massive advantage over the Ubuntu box; a prat has not destroyed the graphics card, so it works.
Blundering about on my bed with the Ubuntu box whizzing away beside it now gets old. I covet having the thing on my desk where I can properly get at it. It's a squeeze since there are already two other computers in my desk region, and I am a believer in a good big display on all such things. Finally, though, I manage it. For a while I am very pleased, and take several pictures and try to leave things alone in the trouser department while admiring the sheer horsepower now arrayed in front of me. Only one thing. The Ubuntu box is running a beast of a graphics card, wasted on a box simply running simple 2D stuff and for music use. And because of something that Windows obviously has and Ubuntu obviously has not, the fan on the card is doing wind-tunnel stuff full bore all the time. Not what you want, and certainly not the kind of racket that helps on a box destined for music production. Hmm.
So I had a passively cooled graphics card in the box before a friend kindly gave me the beast card that roars. Ok then, if I revert to that I lose only noise for my purposes. Let's be do that. Struggling in confined space, I try to remove the beast card. Hmm, recalcitrant. Ah, I remember. It's one with a spring-loaded pin to release at the back end of the slot. Grope, grope and - ah, pull. Ooh - I'm holding a perfectly formed facsimile of a release pin. In fact, I'm holding a vital capacitor which I have neatly shagged by pulling it off the graphics card. Bugger. I've stuffed the card. Still, for now I need only replace the previous card as planned. I may be able to fix the beast later, and anyway there is nothing I dislike as much as noisy bits in computers.
The previous card, I remember belatedly, is in someone else's machine. I gave it to them when I had the better one. I mean, nothing's as useless as old hardware, right? So I've crippled my Ubuntu box to the point where I shall need a new graphics card to get it up and running again. Hey, I can be a dick. Nothing surprising. With great power comes the responsibility to not be a great fool. I resolve never again to botch hardware maintenance purely to avoid a spaghetti fight under my desk. Well, I think, crying into my tea, I can at least read up on some of the music software I was (briefly) so taken with.
In so reading up, I find that most of it is available for OS X and often Windows too. So frankly, other than as a curiosity, I don't need a Linux box really. Well, less than I need the desktop lebensraum at any rate. So the whole lot's back under my bed for now and the desktop has returned to being home only to my big new iMac and my nice quiet XP box. In many ways a relief, although onlookers will now believe it less likely that I was ever Blofeld.
In conclusion, I'd say Ubuntu is a very good bet as an easy-to-set-up desktop operating system UNLESS you are going to want wireless networking, which I found to be a world of pain. In fact I never got that bit going, and the advice on the web - in various places including the Ubuntu help and forums - was all pretty unclear and conflicting. And without being too much of a you-know-what I'd add that I'm pretty clued-up around these things, so don't rely on the wireless lightly. Unless, that is, you have yet to buy your wireless hardware. In that case, just buy whatever is best recommended for Ubuntu. That'll always be cool, if you have that luxury. You can get your Open Office and your Firefox and your Thunderbird and apart from gaming you can hold your head up. Fair play to Ubuntu indeed. But I don't need it right now as much as I need the space. It's pretty cool though. You'd be silly to run a dodgy or outdated copy of Windows instead, believe me. The learning curve is very shallow for day-to-day use.
And the new iMac? Goatee-sporting sods with wire-rimmed specs everywhere desperately hope I'll be raving about that. So far, I'm not. Early days yet, but so far I don't entirely see what's supposed to be so great. Sorry. Wish I'd drunk the grand instead right now, although don't worry - I'll surely drink a grand as well. And I might get to loving the Mac as I use it more. It has at least one massive advantage over the Ubuntu box; a prat has not destroyed the graphics card, so it works.
posted by Jim at 11:45 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home