johnmccollum.co.uk

As regular readers might know, I’ve been in the process of building my own PC for quite some time now. For my first build, it went well! Building the machine itself was a piece of cake - like putting lego together.

The challenges came though, when I started installing and configuring Ubuntu. For what’s supposed to a user-friendly ‘noob’ distro, I had my fair share of problems getting it up and running.

Here are some of the challenges I faced - and the solutions I found!

Problem #1: Installing Flash

I hit my first problem almost as soon as I started up firefox - no flash. Hey, that shouldn’t be a problem, right? OK, off to Adobe’s download centre. It helpfully recognises my operating system, and offers a choice of packages. I download the relevant one, and…

Nothing. 64 bit Ubuntu isn’t supported. OK, not a disaster - clicking on a blank Flash video offers a choice of Flash solutions to me. I choose “flashplugin-nonfree”, and hit install. I restart my browser…

Nothing. Checking synaptic shows that it’s been properly installed, but nothing happening in Firefox!

OK - next step: Ubuntu Forums. There are many, many users with issues with Flash, but the definitive post seems to be this one, which offers two solutions. I try the first…

Nothing. The second solution states not to use it, but instead to notify the developers of a bug, and wait for a response…yeah right. I try the second, unsupported, user supplied install script, and finally…

Success! Time wasted: 1 hour.

Problem #2: Graphics card drivers

Second problem - I try to enable advanced desktop effects, to be told that “Desktop effects cannot be enabled”. Not a very useful message, but it turns out that generic ‘Vesa’ drivers were being used. OK, since nearly every Google result gives results stating “same day support” for the 4800 series, this one will be easy to sort, right?

Right. :/

First thing - check Envy. This promises to identify the card, download and configure it. Sounds too good to be true? Unfortunately, for me it was - I had no success with my 4850.

The next thing I tried was the Ubuntu Hardy Installation Guide. This page provided two solutions (sound familiar?) One simple solution, one complex one. Guess which solution I tried first? Guess which one didn’t work? Yep, the simple one.

So, it was the 12 step manual solution for me. Frankly, I had no idea what was going on for most of those steps! Let’s just say that my desktop ended up looking like this (bearing in mind that it was completely blank before!):

However, it did at least work. Beautiful desktop effects!

Time wasted: Approx. 1-2 hours.

Problem #3: Guild Wars

Yep, the game of choice for millions of MMO fans no longer works on my new machine, despite working on my five year old PC (also Ubuntu). There’s an 88-page forum thread discussing various methods of getting it up and running under Wine, but to be honest, I didn’t read it all - I skipped to the last page. Just as well I did - it contained the following quote:

“Has anyone ever gotten Guild Wars working on ANY ATI video card?”

No one has responded positively yet.

I suppose I could always try Cedega, but I don’t hold out much hope for that, even. And it’s commercial.

If all of this sounds like I’m on a Linux downer - I’m not! I still love using it day to day, but I had forgotten that the initial configuration could be such a pig.

Oh, and the new machine still kicks ass, incidentally - loving it.

As I mentioned before, my elderly computer is on the way out.

Although making the switch to Ubuntu certainly extended the lifespan of my home PC (I would probably have chucked it out of the nearest window otherwise), I’ve been gradually picking up components for the last few months now, ready to build myself a new monster to be proud of! Besides, I’d lose my geek card if I told anyone the stats of my current box…

What I’ve picked up already:

• 500Gb Seagate hard disc
• 4GB RAM (Geil)
• Asus P5K Motherboard
• 1 * cheap DVD writer

Still to get:

• Intel E8500 (It was going to be the E8400, but the E8500 has come down to E8400 prices recently)
• Radeon 4850
• An as-yet-undecided case / power supply
• Shiny new keyboard and mouse. No point splashing out on all that hardware if your input devices are old, crusty, germ-filled, chocolate covered health-hazards!

I’m still not sold on the advantages of quad-core computing just yet. The main advantage of building my own PC will be ease of upgrading later, so maybe in a year or two, I might be changing my mind!

As for operating system, I’m still undecided. I’ve had a great experience with Ubuntu, but I’m itching to try out other flavours of Linux - with Fedora and OpenSuse being top of the list.

Look out for some unboxing photos soon!

As I mentioned before, I made the switch to GNU/Linux at home some time ago. I talked about the benefits it brought me in terms of PC performance and productivity.

But at work, I’m still firmly rooted in the Windows camp. Why? Primarily because my job involves developing web sites and apps.

Tracking browser usage is a notoriously haphazard affair. According to the much-quoted W3C schools statistics, roughly 53% of users are using Internet Explorer. According to wikipedia, that number is nearly 75%.

Given internet explorer’s ‘unusual’ implementation of web standards - not to mention its market share - it is a necessity to test on these browsers. This is where things get a bit tricky for users of minority operating systems such as Linux, or OSX.

Sure, there are services such as Browsershots which take snapshots of sites using particular browsers, but if you’re anything like me, developing for IE is an iterative process. Make a change, hit refresh. Make a change, hit refresh. Waiting 3-30 minutes to see an update isn’t an option!

I’d be interested to hear comments from anyone who has found a way round this issue.

I was half expecting this post to detail the difficulties I was experiencing getting my printer and tablet to work in Ubuntu, having heard that the process could be troublesome. My experience turned out to be much better!

In fact, to my surprise, the whole set up experience was much easier than in Windows. The phrase ‘plug and play’ is bandied about all too often, but that’s exactly how it was for me in Ubuntu.

I plugged them into the USB port, and they worked, straight away. No messing about with drivers, and no configuration apart from clicking a few boxes for the printer. (On a dialogue box that automatically popped up.)

All of which is fantastic from the point of view of a user; not so great when I was hoping to have something to write about from the experience!

Onwards to the Ipod now. Maybe I’ll have something to complain about after that.