TheTestTube.com - so, uh... i wanna go back to linux

TheTestTube.com (http://www.thetesttube.com/forum/index.php)

- Computers (http://www.thetesttube.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=11)

- - so, uh... i wanna go back to linux (http://www.thetesttube.com/forum/showthread.php?t=224)

that certainly isn't a ringing endorsement..

to add the story of my ever-changing window managers: i think i've settled on pekwm (which i've been using for a week and a bit now). it's very customizable (and the config files are really simple to boot), and though it isn't a tiled window manager by design it can do tiling/grouping quite nicely. and another thing! the themes seem pretty easy to make, so i might have a go at making one of my own. but for now i'll stick to downloading themes from hewphoria.com and customizing them as i see fit.

and now something to complain about... apparently v2.4 was the last version of pypanel--they're done with actively developing it--so now that i've installed python 2.5 it's fucked up. i could do a "pacman --sync python2.4" and run it with "python24 /usr/bin/pypanel" but that seems like a bad solution to me. i don't want out-dated stuff that's just going to cause me problems :( i'm thinking of looking to perlpanel or fbpanel next, or maybe i'll just use xfce4-panel..

yeah, pypanel is fucked in edgy as well. i saw your screenie on ubuntuforums, it looked nice. there is a how-to in one of the openbox threads with how to get pypanel working that might work with arch as well, but it seems like too much of a hassle personally.

downloading the ubuntu 7.04 beta cd to play around with it (doubt i'll bother to install, just see what the live cd is like).

hey, remember that perl script i hacked together to rip cds? this afternoon i decided to rewrite it in python. complete with cddb lookups! it needs pycddb, discid, and lame. i'm not sure if pycddb and discid are in the ubuntu repositories, but i'm sure they'd be easy to compile if they aren't.

the code:

Code:

import os, commands, PyCDDB



def cddblookup():

        # get the disc id, create a PyCDDB object, and do the lookup

        discid = commands.getoutput("discid")

        db = PyCDDB.PyCDDB()

        try:

                matches = db.query(discid)

        except ValueError:

                # since i'm not testing the value returned from

                # discid this is necessary (in case the drive has no disc)

                print "no cd in tha drive!? :("

                exit()



        # did i find anything?

        if len(matches) > 0:

                if len(matches) > 1:

                        # shit: multiple matches.. give the user a choice

                        print "multiple matches for this cd.  choose of the following:"

                        for i in range(len(matches)):

                                artist, album = matches[i]['title'].split(" / ", 1)

                                print "%d - %s by %s (%s)" % (i + 1, album, artist, matches[i]['category'])

                        matchidx = input("enter the number of the correct match: ")

                        matchidx = matchidx - 1

                else:

                        # easy: one match (hope it's correct!)

                        matchidx = 0

                albuminfo = db.read(matches[matchidx])

        

        else:

                # no results.. for now i'll be lazy and exit()

                print "cddb lookup failed, or no results found :["

                exit()

        return albuminfo



def ripandencode(albuminfo, enccmd):

        # rip *.wav files with cdparanoia

        ripstatus = os.system("cdparanoia -B")

        #print "cdparanoia -B"

        #raw_input()

        # encode mp3s using lame

        for track in range(len(albuminfo['TTITLE'])):

                if track < 10:

                        tnum = "0" + str(track + 1)

                else:

                        tnum = str(track + 1)

                lamecmd = enccmd.replace("%NUM%", tnum)

                lamecmd = lamecmd.replace("%TITLE%", albuminfo['TTITLE'][track])

                lamecmd = lamecmd.replace("%ALBUM%", album)

                lamecmd = lamecmd.replace("%ARTIST%", artist)

                encstatus = os.system(lamecmd)

                #print lamecmd

                #raw_input()

        print "done!"



if __name__ == "__main__":

        lamecmd = "lame -V 4 --tn %NUM% --tt \"%TITLE%\" --tl \"%ALBUM%\" --ta \"%ARTIST%\" track%NUM%.cdda.wav \"%NUM% - %TITLE%.mp3\""

        albuminfo = cddblookup()

        # i have the shit from cddb--ask if it's good before i rip

        artist, album = albuminfo['DTITLE'].split(" / ", 1)

        print "%s by %s" % (album, artist)

        for track in range(len(albuminfo['TTITLE'])):

                print "%02d. %s" % (track + 1, albuminfo['TTITLE'][track])

        gogogo = raw_input("rip and encode this cd? (y/n): ")

        if gogogo == "y":

                # rip with cdparanoia and encode mp3z with lame

                ripandencode(albuminfo, lamecmd)

        else:

                exit()

it's a bit ugly right now, but it gets the job done. there are some spots where i ought to return some sort of error code, or throw an exception (from the cddblookup() function) rather than just do an exit(), but i got lazy.

if you comment the two calls to os.system(...) and uncomment the print and raw_input() statements below each, you can see all the commands it will run without actually ripping anything.

to-do:

change it so it handles multiple cd devices (right now you'd have to edit the calls to discid and cdparanoia in the script)
add some sort of configuration file so a user can customize what sort of command is used to encode the *.wav files that cdparanoia produces (you could use a custom lame, oggenc, etc. command), and so they can customize the file naming scheme
delete the *.wav files when it's done (maybe put an option in the config file to keep them)
make the output nicer
maybe think about doing up a gui (i hate coding that shit :()

yo that is pretty solid! i would use that for sure if there was a way to add your own info and / or edit the CDDB info.

Debian 4.0 is out for anyone who wants to go back to last year LOL

eventually i'm going to make that script better.. i'm just a slacker.

i finally got my laptop up and running again. i ended up doing a floppy/ftp install of arch (cd drive is fucked). i had some problems with all that kernel panic business, but now everything is working fine. i haven't installed X yet.. just been learning how to use gnu screen, which is pretty nifty. this machine is usually pretty slow, so i might just go without X and a window manager, etc.. as long as i can find decent console-based solutions to all the things i might do on this machine (i don't use this laptop very much..)

i wan to learn sceren so bad

heh, sceren.. :P

i've been looking through some documentation for screen, and for the most part it's pretty simple. loads of keyboard shortcuts to remember, though.. what i'm having more difficulty with is the ~/.screenrc file. i've been looking at sample files online, and some of them are pretty ugly.

another thing which has piqued my interest in the past few days is LaTeX. so i've been reading docs for that too.

so, how is it? has the installer improved? the installer used to always get my resolution wrong -- can you choose resolutions in the livecd installer now?

post your thoughts!

NERDS!

I'm still yet to try Linux, though I'm curious to. I'm getting a laptop when I go back to school, so I could possibly throw it on there.

Well it's uh... not really too different on the surface. Gnome 2.18 is nice, and the new little codec add ons and the restricted driver stuff is nice. It's a bit zippier and banshee doesn't crash all the time, at least not yet!

Senior Baglesforth, there are tons of Live CDs, so if you just want a good, but slow, preview, check one out!

i've decided i'm going to install feisty on my desktop. i'm definitely going to stick with arch on my laptop -- arch is great for slower machines -- but i think i'll go back to running ubuntu on my desktop. it's just a bit simpler. as much as i enjoy some of the extra challenges that come with configuring a good arch setup.. i think i'd like for my desktop (main computer that i use) to just work without much fuss. for the most part it does work fine with arch, but every now and then something else will come up..

ah, another change of plans..! i figured i'd have a go at a gnome desktop in arch before i went all out and replaced arch with feisty. gnome 2.18 is pretty damn nice. also i've been using epiphany instead of firefox -- epiphany is much better, i say. :)

is there any sort of compatibility between firefox plugins and epiphany plugins? i do like epiphany a lot, i just need some firefox plugins.

iunno. i don't really use any plugins or extensions, except flash. so it works fine for me.

so i've been using exaile and it's really nice. is there a way to make the osd always on instead of only displaying when the song changes? maybe there's a plugin fer that?

hmm no idea, i haven't been using exaile for a few months now. i've been giving banshee a go and have started to like it a lot more.

so pidgin 2.0 is finally here! i really like the new logo and icons.

yeah the new look is solid, but i'm happy with Gaim on Feisty right now so i'm not in a hurry to upgrade.

Life with Feisty has been pretty boring... I mean, everything has been working well :-/ I have everything set up how I want it, I haven't changed themes in a while, and so on.

The only real complaint I have is that compiz is a bit slow, but hey, I didn't have to jump through hoops to get it working.

i still don't see the attraction of compiz/beryl... :p

yeah i still agree, it's not too useful yet. however, i am too lazy to remove awn from my startup apps, and it requires compiz or beryl...

god dammit, i have become so accustomed to AWN, i don't think i can go back.

</official johnny call>

ah, the linux thread..

a while back while i was using gnome for a bit i thought i'd try awn, but i couldn't get beryl working 'cause my shitty onboard graphics card wasn't playing nice. but i've pretty much settled in with nice, simple tiling window managers and more text/console-based solutions. i was using wmii for a bit, and then took the plunge and tried out dwm; it's pretty much perfect. i find that this is the best sort of environment for me to work productively in ('course that's just me.. :))

two screens: click and click again

also: how come yer never around ubuntuforums? sometimes it's tough to keep up with threads you've posted in because it's so busy, but still.. it's a pretty decent community to try to keep up with.

yeah i haven't visited there in eons. pretty much i only went there to check the screenshots thread, hah! no, it's a great place, but i just haven't had time to keep up with it much. after spending 8 hours in front of a computer at work, i try to minimize the amount of time spent in front of one at home.

good to see my johnny call worked.

fuck awn! i disabled the desktop effects stuff and am back to just straight metacity. ah, my computer is responsive again! i still miss AWN, but i can deal without it if it means that X won't lock up when i mess with pygame stuff.

yea, awn is dumb! you could use wbar as a launcher kinda thing..

hey, wbar looks pretty sweet. i'm going to build it right now and give it a shot. how do you find out about these things? i mean, i don't browse many linux forums anymore so i guess that's a big out for me.

i think it's mostly from the arch forums; it's much easier to follow than ubuntu forums, 'cause there is less traffic. you can almost always find about something new in the screenshot thread or user contributions forum.

also, doing searches in the aur usually turns up stuff i've never heard of (which may or may not be useful :)).

so how about judd resigning from Arch, eh? pretty sad news, hopefully it keeps on keepin' on.

yes, that was interesting -- i think things will be okay. it seems like he was too busy to be involved anyways. and the guy who's been appointed as arch's new "leader", from what i can tell, is a good choice.

so are you gonna upgrade to gutsy when it's released?

of course :)

honestly though, i have had pretty much 0 problems with feisty. it's kinda sad in a good way, because with every new release of ubuntu, i have had less and less of a real need to upgrade.

i guess you've got to if you want up-to-date package repositories. that's one thing that's handy about a rolling release.. :D

i've been getting curious to try out gentoo again when they do their next release (2007.1, which i think will be late november), but i keep trying to tell myself it won't be worth the headaches. i really have no problems in arch, and if i can exercise some will-power and resist the urge to tinker with other stuff i don't think i'd have to do a fresh install ever again. i guess when everything "just works" i get bored, lol.

gutsy is pretty sweet

still can't get my second monitor working with my laptop, but it's not totally necessary. actually i probably COULD get it if i felt like messing with xorg.conf right now, but i don't. i managed to get it working except the resolution on my laptop wouldn't go to the right resolution.

Alright dawgs, I just took my first plunge into linux. Installed Ubuntu on a partition on my Dell laptop, then upgraded to Gutsy Gibbon. Eventually I'd be happy to get rid of the windows partition at some point but i haven't got my wireless card working yet and I still need to find applications to replace my favourite ones in windows. Also I'm completely clueless and don't know anything about linux, but I'm glad I've made this move.

What kind of wireless card do you have? If it doesn't work out of the box then the driver either doesn't exist (possibly could use ndiswrapper + the Windows driver) or it's just restricted so that it can't be distributed by Ubuntu.

Try going to System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager and see if it shows up in there.

What applications are you trying to replace?

Alriight, I'm online. I was using restricted drivers manager but it didn't seem to work, then I tried it again last night and it did work.
The only app I really use a lot is Microsoft OneNote which I keep my research organized in, which is pretty valuable to me.
Anyway I'm really liking it so far. I've been playing with compiz and I think its nifty. I like the overall ubuntu system, though I really don't know my way around it yet. There's been some things that run buggy, like the help system and network controls which freeze up. But I'm going to stick with it because I'd like to eventually switch entirely to open source. Someday I'd like to be in a position to advocate for open source software in the 3rd world so I'd better start getting comfortable with it.

I've never really used OneNote, so I'm not sure what all it does, but if organization's your thing, check out Tomboy. It's a very simplistic wiki-based note taking app. You can make a note called "Groceries", that lists groceries you need, and then make tasklist note with a task "1. Get groceries", and the word "groceries" is automatically linked to your list of groceries.

i just googled a bit about onenote, and i'm not so sure that tomboy matches up. tomboy is just way simpler.. but! you should check out basKet, 'cause i think that's the closest linux alternative you're going to find right now. it's in gutsy's universe repository, so it will be simple to install from synaptic. the only shitty thing is that (i assume) you're using gnome.. and basket is a kde application, which means synaptic will have to install a bunch of dependencies (kde libraries, the qt graphic toolkit, etc.). it should work just fine, but it will look different ('cause it's using qt, rather than gtk)..

Thanks Johnny, I'll install it later and see if I can feel at home with it.
Also sorry for not getting back to your e-mail.. i guess i'm bad like that.