Random Thoughts: PhD, Ubuntu, and Netbooks!

I've been way too busy to post anything on the blog but at the very least, one post for 2018 means this is still alive.

PhDCS is hard work.  Hard work remembering what Computer Science was like a long time ago, but I appreciate the course I've taken for the most part.

My current laptop is an Acer Aspire VX15.  It's wonderful and beefy in terms of performance but the latest Ubuntu is truly a shit sandwich.  I have done upgrades using Ubuntu with little issues.  My Acer had a fresh install of 16.04 LTS back when my laptop was new (Bye Windows 10!) and the upgrade to 18.04.1 was nothing short of a complete disaster.  I knew Canonical had put in big changes on the latest LTS with the trashing of Unity (sad) for Gnome 3 but I didn't expect it to break so many things.

• I can't run the update because it renders my laptop unable to boot which means I've got to do some voodoo with UEFI, boot and somehow luck myself into fixing the boot sequence / grub.
• I can't boot from DVD or USB to reinstall Ubuntu.
• LAN port seems unable to get an IP address anymore.
• Wi-Fi sucks now as there are hotspots that it won't connect to for some reason.
• Gnome 3, in general, is an unsatisfying desktop.  I really liked Unity and how everything was straightforward intuitive for me.  I'll live though and so, this is the least of my problems.

I'm hoping a full reinstall of Ubuntu 18.04 will fix my woes but seeing as I'm unable to get the install media to even boot.  I don't know how I'm going to fix all of this.  In due time, I hope to sit down and really dive into this thing.  In terms of data, since /home is in a different partition, I don't have to worry that much about that.  It's just the booting that is suuuuuuuuuch a pain.

Last thing on my mind is that I'm looking into getting a 7" or 8" Windows (gasp!) laptop for variety.  My Acer is going to be my primary workhorse but the truly portable machine is appealing to me.  I've seen GPD Pocket (and 2), One Mix (and 2S) Yoga, and Topjoy Falcon and all of them seem really nice buys.  Weakest one seems to be the One Mix Yoga but the 2S incarnation seems really slick.

Well, cheers till the next update (whenever that is).

Random Thoughts: OSX Kext Patching USB Generic Gamepad

I've been digging up Mac OSX support for my old Vinyson gamepad which is recognized in Linux as the DragonRise Generic USB Gamepad.  From my readings and testing on Linux, I know that the gamepad is recognized as with the Vendor ID 0x0079 and Product ID 0x0006.  Further readings point out that the drivers for Linux is hid-dr.ko (loaded via sudo modprobe hid_dr).

The controller doesn't load on Android because this driver is missing.  On OSX, the driver doesn't exist and according to this post, the com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver should about cover it.  Obviously, the posted resource doesn't work right off the bat, but it did let me start reading about OSX drivers.

Apparently, kernel objects in Linux are referred to as kernel extensions in OSX.  They reside on /System/Library/Extensions and inside are kext folders with hardware information on what the drivers load for which vendor, product combination among other things.  Use the kextload binary to force load specific drivers but I think all I need to do is to find the HID driver for OSX and add the vendor, product IDs of mygamepad.  This article on patching Info.plist is pretty handy.

Random Thoughts

It's been a while since I've posted so this is an amalgamation of things that have been happening.  First of all, I now have a MacBook Air and the adjustment has been minimal.  All my Linux desktops have sort of been modified to have a quasi-OSX like setup with the arrangement of the close, minimize, maximize buttons.  At worst case, the terminal gives me back that Linux touch and gives me a lot of power back when OSX's UI fails me.

I love the touchpad gestures.  It's probably the most unique aspect of OSX.  Taking the cool computing ideas from Linux and giving it that Apple take on things gives me a good perspective on what can be done to make desktop computing more efficient.  That being said, I just really don't like the regressions that happened.

Getting my PS/2 keyboard with the USB converter to get recognized in OSX is mindbogglingly difficult.  I scoured multiple websites screaming at me the words: "No, it doesn't work." But I refused to believe.  It turns out that the solution is to turn off my MacBook and plug the keyboard in while the device is turned off.  Why?  I don't know.  If the keyboard is supported, why on earth would you want to make it harder to support such devices?

The USB ports are way too few and the Mini DisplayPort (Thunderbolt) really blows here.  Suddenly, I can't use the extra monitor sitting here and I have to buy some fangled adapter to get it going (It's on the way...).  Lastly, the SSD drive is way too small, but that's to be expected.

Despite all of this, I am at peace with the Mac.  It's a nice device and gives me more experience as far as using other computing environments.  All that being said though, my next laptop will definitely go back to Linux.

Next stop, I reformatted my HP laptop that was running Linux Mint.  To be honest, I had been very disappointed with Linux Mint's performance here.  By the time I reformatted it, it had slowed down to a crawl on boot and on GDM login.  It has never ever happened before in any Linux desktop I've used and I have gone through quite a bit.  I tried to analyze the boot sequence and the GDM login process but to no avail.  It was just pitiful to see Linux perform this bad.

I installed Linux Mint 17.3 and that was a mindboggling choice.  The boot was as bad as when I had the bloated Linux Mint 17.1 install.  I was willing to forego that to see what the desktop had in favour.  Secretly, I hoped it would just simply disappear.  When I setup fglrx, I noticed that running amdconfig wouldn't detect any proper supported GPU (Mine is Radeon HD 7670M) which prompted me to look for the xorg version.

Linux Mint 17.3 runs on xorg 1.17.1 which seems to be .1 version above the latest fglrx version from AMD's site.  So I figured I should just ditch this.  I went back and reinstalled Linux Mint 17.1 on the HP Laptop.  I also installed fglrx and not fglrx-updates (which didn't work the last time I tried it).  After running amdconfig, I am treated with the same error which boggled my mind.  I checked xorg and the version was 1.15.  So, NOW, I'm really confused!

I rebooted anyway and fglrx seemed to load right.  I installed cairo-dock and the rest of my usual setup and everything seems set.  For some reason, Linux Mint 17.1 boots up faster than Linux Mint 17.3.  As long as it doesn't bog down, I can live with this.

Speaking of fglrx, I was also reading up if amdgpu and amdgpu-pro will have support on my Radeon GPU.  I think 7670M is still Southern Islands and that support 'should' be coming in the future.  Cross fingers!

Sketchbook Random Thoughts

I don't do this as frequently as I should be, but ever since I picked up the ASUS Zenfone 2, I've been slipping in some time to practice a bit.  Nothing serious and they are pretty terrible works, but I like that I'm not using up paper on this.  So, on to some of my random thoughts while doing this latest piece...

Random Thoughts: Samba, Cinnamon and Android Insufficient Storage Space Error

So I've been using Linux Mint a lot and there's been some adjustment.  I find Cinnamon to be a total regression to Unity's dock.  I've complained a bit about this but fortunately, someone pointed me to Cairo which is a decent replacement.  It's not as slick as Unity's Dock, but it's functional and familiar enough.  I just cannot go back to that old Start Menu, Taskbar thing.  Feels cluttered and useless.

While we're in the subject of Cinnamon, when the laptop wakes up from suspend or sleep, sometimes, Cinnamon starts acting very weird.  None of my mouse clicks the menus, Cairo's task switching doesn't really work.  The only way I got to recover from it was to kill Cinnamon.  

killall -HUP cinnamon

Then, there's samba.  In the university I work at, we have some specific configuration and Cinnamon's connect Windows Share interface is a bit wonky.  Turns out when I specify the server name, I have to leave out the slashes (e.g. //).  Then specify the share to use.

Lastly, there's a common problem on Android where the storage space is always running out.  This usually manifests itself when attempting to install apps.  Google Play Store will complain "Insufficient Storage Available" which is a real pain especially when you own those Chinese OEM tablets.  I've learned since that Android will build up junk cache over time and can easily chew up GB of space after prolonged use.  You can use any cache cleaner app and run your device through it.  I use the Clean Master but I'm certain there are better lightweight apps available.  I ran my cleaner app and it showed me the junk I should clean up.  Tapped clean and I was able to install the apps I wanted just fine.

That's a wrap!  Ciao!

Random Thoughts

This edition of Random Thoughts is regarding two things.  First is Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut and the Fast Travel feature.  I had made the mistake of fast travelling from Masyaf to Damascus and wondered of a way to fast travel to Acre.  Apparently, if you look at the map, there are icons for "To Kingdom" which when you leave the map through those points, you'll be asked for the option to fast travel.  This only works after Memory 3.

Second is researching on updating the Eken W70 firmware.  The tablet isn't listed in the Eken site anymore and the firmware update files are all bunched up together in the most confusing manner in their FTP site.  As far as I can tell, the W70 and W70+ are similar tablets but the W70+ has a rear facing camera.  I did some research with the Web Archive and this link to identify the proper firmware.  The correct firmware it seems is: W70-1.5.5-1680-NO-WIN8-1.10.zip and the ftp link isn't included as Eken seems to change ftp IPs all the time.

Here are the instructions for Firmware Updating:

1. Download the firmware file
2. Unzip the RAR file to a folder.
3. Open the zipped folder and copy all content in it to an empty SD or Micro SD card.
4. Turn off your device and then insert the SD or Micro SD card into it.
5. The upgrade process will get started automatically when you turn on your device.
6. When the upgrade is finished, remove the SD or Micro SD card from your device.
7. The device will automatically restart again.

That's it!

Random thoughts: Wii and Youtube PLUS Latest on ALSA

I've been playing around with the Youtube app from the Nintendo Shop Channel and the old Wii and it buffers like there's no tomorrow.  I found a tip online that suggested to set the MTU (Maximum transmission unit) to 1500 instead of 0.  A higher MTU means more data is being transmitted per packet.  This seemed to improve the Youtube streaming.

On ALSA and Ubuntu, the last bit of my research lead me to Realtek's own ALSA fork as the daily HDA drivers from Ubuntu do not do me any good.  I could not wrap my mind around trying to dkms it, so instead, I'm going to shop around for a decent sound card.

That's all!

Random Thoughts: Linux stuff

I've had to deal with some Oracle apps I've downloaded the other day and I needed JDK which I normally do not like to install.  I ended up installing openjdk7-jdk (don't use jre), and I needed to figure out where the Java path is.  It's in /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-xxx/.

The linux command pstree -p is good at showing a list of commands running.  I had a problem with apt-get updating packages when it got stuck on flash.  Killing package-data-do got it sorted.

Finally, I loved Mass Effect 3.  Great game!

Random Thoughts: Wii U and the Thomson Tablet

I find myself surprised at how addictive Mass Effect 3's multiplayer is.  The singleplayer story has been a great ride, but I had no plans on ever dabbling on the multiplayer part.  It seems to be very well designed in that it makes the game very hard to put down.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about New Super Mario Bros. U.

For a Mario game, I found myself slowly loathing the game the farther I got into the game.  The levels turn into a total drag to play and the Luigi Super Guide is just not a fun way of pushing the game forward when you've hit your limit.  Alas, my nephew loves the game, so I am forced to tolerate this drivel of a game.

Just got a new Android tablet called Thomson M6.  Here's some pics of the box.

Specifications

Thomson M6

It seems to be a Chinese OEM tablet released in Australia and New Zealand.  After all, how else can the NZ Herald Times app be preinstalled in this?  For a cheap 7" tablet, I found the fact it was dual core very attractive.  The tablet is plenty zippy and it also comes with Google Play Store.  Strangely, it didn't have Google Play Services which seems to be required for apps like Youtube.  You can install it via Play Store though so it shouldn't be much of an issue.

There are two main downsides to this tablet.  First is the screen.  The touch is just plain weird as it sometimes registers incorrect gestures.  Dragging icons seems to be very difficult on this tablet.  The LCD screen also suffers from colour loss when viewed from an angle.  Truly not one of its shining moments.  The second is the battery life which really sucks up fast.

Over all, it seems to be okay.  Doesn't hit all the bells, but for a cheap price tag, that is to be expected.

Thoughts on Wii U

First thing I noticed is the constant updates that streamed into the machine.  It was annoying, but it seems to have tamed down.

The Wii U Gamepad was sweet but I couldn't step out of the room and keep the connection to the console.  Pitiful.

Nintendo seems to be in the spot where third party developers just don't care about the console.  Maybe they should instead do everything like them producing games like NBA Courtside, the canned project NFL Retro Football, 1080 Snowboarding and Wave Race.

Random Thoughts: 39 Steps and Rhythmbox

I've been playing a lot of Story Mechanics' 39 Steps which is a digital adaptation of the book of the same name (I presume).  Ever since I played Sega's 428, I've always thought that that presentation nails what a story adventure could be.  Story Mechanics takes the presentation style almost exactly the way I would have hoped.  I don't like so much the pixel hunting that happens in a few of the sections, but generally, this is bang on.  Good job on the game as I'm enjoying a lot of the experience.

Also downloaded their soundtrack for free but, it's a bit strange as the formats aiff and wav seem to play tricks on Rhythmbox.  Rhythmbox would not allow me to set the album details, and I had mistakenly set the album art for all "Unknown" works.  Bah.  I went to look at ~/.local/share/rhythmbox/rhythmdb.xml to see if I could figure it out but there were no details on the album art.  

Turns out the album art is stored in a trivial database format in ~/.cache/rhythmbox/album-art/ and I just used the file timestamp to find the latest one and erased the file.  Album art gone and then I used audacity to re-convert the music files into mp3.  Love the soundtrack chaps!  Love the game too!

Random Thoughts: Dragon Age, LA Noire, and more...

Another edition of the Random Thoughts for me and it kicks off with Dragon Age: Origins.  I've finally gone through all the extra content the game had to offer.  I had played through Awakening, Golem of Amgarrak, Witch Hunt as the last pieces of unfinished business on that game.  So, here I am to ramble a bit.

Random Thoughts: Google Hangouts and Dragon Age

Google forced the switch, abandoning Google talk in favour of this new Google Hangouts.  All I can say is that this app absolutely blows.  Suddenly, my chat list is populated by:

1. Acquaintances I don't chat with;
2. Mailing list e-mail addresses;
3. People I've only reached out via e-mail once or twice.

To make matters worse, the only way to fiddle the list is to go to another Google service and basically delete people you don't want to chat with.  The UI to get to the contact I want to chat with is also incredibly cumbersome.  Google?  This software is a piece of shit.  That is all.  Moving on.

Rune crafting sucks.  Don't like crafting.  Never did in any RPG.  To see that Dragon Age: Awakening doesn't have any vendors that sell armour runes better than novice ones suck.  Abso-freaking-lutely sucks.

While I'm at the 'This thing sucks' mode, I would like to say I never liked Dragon Age: Origins' cute puzzle to get the Sacred Ashes.  Awakening has a few optional ones, and I don't like any of them.  Still, BioWare did a heck of a game series and I'm still looking forward to Dragon Age 2 (despite the complaints of everyone who has played it).

Random Thoughts: Linux, and Dragon Age

First thing is the important part.  I don't normally do message sending on Linux, but lately, having to maintain servers, it's been a critical way of communicating with another user logged in so both of you can coordinate while on that server.  So, I will just leave this note.

Use the wall command which broadcasts messages to everyone logged in.  It's an extension of the mesg command (use man pages, mate!).  Type wall, then hit enter.  Then write your message (20 lines maximum).  EOF (typically CTRL+D) ends and transmits the message.

Second point.  Dragon Age Origins: Awakening which so far has been a cruel drag to play.  Something about the writing is absolutely uninteresting and the game really gets a bit more fun to play for me when I'm not having to deal with the main plot quests.  Ugh.  Plus, why is BioWare so keen on stripping my Warden of his gear to make me lose inventory items?  This happened twice now.  First with the damned Sacred Ashes quest and then on the Silverite Mines.  Bah!  Dragon Age Origins is great.  Awakening is teetering on the not-so-good area.

Random Thoughts

I discovered that Cheese crashes on my HP laptop.  The good news is that guvc works just fine.  I'm happy with it so bye bye, Cheese!

I just got the AMD Catalyst 13.4 stable.  Unlike the beta releases, the fglrx deb packages have the version numbers, so that's a good thing!

Ubuntu 13.04 upgrade prompts is showing up now.  I'll keep waiting till they get their issues sorted.

A few thoughts...

My DSi XL suddenly refused to connect to my WiFi even though it works on all my devices including my old banged up DS (circa 2004).  After a short check with Nintendo's site, they recommended a Quick Power Cycle (QPC) of the router.  I unplugged my DSL modem (disconnected while playing SWTOR!!!) and my router (for 30 seconds) and hooked everything back.  My DSi XL connected once again fine.

Been slowly pushing my graphics detail on SWTOR while still playing on Wine and am noticing a few things.  Unlike Witcher 2 where I played on horribly low resolutions, I couldn't take 800x600 on SWTOR.  Adding Bloom and High Shader Complexity slowed the game down too much, but setting the Shader Complexity to low gave the game a nice layer of polish while not compromising too much in terms of performance.  Still managed to play the game at 1024x768 on Wine.  So, nice!

Random Thoughts

Lately, I've been playing 'Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic'. It's a nice little roleplaying game from Bioware with a good story and lot of good rpg play into it. Nice games don't come often, and I don't usually give games high ratings, but KotOR is indeed a classic that needs to have a place in the list of games people must play. It's certainly dated on a technical aspect, but it doesn't loose it's allure. I certainly don't miss newer games when these old gems can really still bring you some good enjoyment.

These past months have been somewhat a time warp for me, checking out older games. I thought to check out Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, which is one of the newer RPGs and by Bethesda. Judging from videos and screens, I'll probably never pick up a new RPG by them. Oblivion is a highly touted product, and with good reason too. So much work has been put into it, but it's all so strange that everytime I see it, my interest level drops to zero. I've put in countless of hours on Morrowind, it's predecessor and while Morrowind was a good product, it wasn't a great one. You have to acknowledge the flaws alongside its strengths, but overall, after playing Morrowind to the ground, the lasting memory of it isn't the roleplay that you do (or lack of), but the tedious nature of the game.

I'm sure Oblivion attempts to solve many of those issues but for a game that's built from the ground up, it sure looks a lot like Morrowind in motion. Morrowind's graphics are eye-gougingly bad by today's standards and for all the accolaides that oblivion receives from the visual department, it looks like crap. Everytime I see it makes me cringe, from the facial acting to the character models and the lighting effects. That's me talking from a visual aspect which isn't much to speak of when I play games. I play even older games with far less fancier visuals.

Oblivion's gameplay from videos look a whole lot like Morrowind did, and the Elder Scrolls series is the kind of game after I play once, I don't really look forward to going back. It's the same with Oblivion. It moves so much like Morrowind, the battles seem so much like it, and it really looks like another tedious game. I know Oblivion has a little bit of some thing like those teleport to location things, which by the way is a bad idea. I think that when a Dungeon Master warps his players to the 'exciting' parts just because his players are getting bored, something is definitely wrong with the game. Come on, Bethesda, you're more creative than that.

Or are you? Perhaps the Elder Scrolls series will benefit from a fresh different approach. Perhaps Bethesda ought to give another studio a shot at building this epic and gigantic RPG. I want to like The Elder Scrolls series. Don't let Morrowind be the last TES game I play.

Moving on, I suppose...

As depressing as TES is, the Linux gaming is just as depressing. The opensource games out there don't really peak my interest, and the games available are and few in between. Some people hinge their hopes on emulation which is a valid solution and has been for the past few years. This, though, only alleviates the problem to a certain degree. Emulation, for one thing, is always going to play catch up, and it isn't likely to run every game conceivable. The allure, I think loses its sheen when you have to work to get the games running and sometimes, there's just too much work to be done and too much waiting. The only solution I think is that Linux gaming leans on porting. For the same amount of effort you push into emulation, it's far more productive in the long term that portability tools be developed, hence giving development studios and big game companies a good reason to port for far less the cost.

I do think that unlike the previous topic, the Linux gaming scene is slowly changing. More games are coming and LGP surely has some aces under its sleeves. I hope this is the start of big and better things to come for the Linux community.

All in good time, I suppose. All in good time.

Figuring out what to do...

This is a first blog and hopefully there's more to come from this dimwit. I have no idea what it is I could say here as of this moment. Hopefully this exercise gives me a good grasp of how it works.

We'll see what can happen here... for now... dimwits... UNITE!!!

Right now, my interest is in video games and stuff so naturally I will be inclined to work on posting my opinions on video games. We'll see how things go.