Thu 17th Aug, 2006 -  Gentoo..LFS…Gentoo…FreeBSD

Gentoo!!!
A few months ago I met this guy at a convention, a guru of Linux and all that is open-source. I asked him what his favorite distro was, he replied with “Gentoo.” He told me Gentoo was the way to configure your system by your standards. I thought, Gentoo, maybe I should give it a chance. Here it is, 5 days, and I still haven’t been able to install it in my old Aptiva. Here’s the thing: When you install Gentoo you do it from the ground up. I’m talking, compiling most of the stuff in the distro including the kernel, all from the command line. The cool thing is you get to choose everything, you make Gentoo into whatever you want it to be, the bad thing is deciding what to choose and what works with your system. On the positive side, I’ve compiled my own kernel, I’ve seen the dark side of the command line and it’s not as difficult as you might think. Now I understand what goes into a Linux system and understand a whole lot of everything (also have a whole lot of questions about a lot of other stuff.) So my first try at Gentoo failed (I think it was some bad kernel compilation choices.) At this point I was reading on the net and found about LFS (Linux From Scratch), twice as complicated as installing Gentoo. So I gave it a try, the harder it is, the more you can learn… and learn I did, that my hard drive was failing and that’s why in the middle of my LFS install I got this screen:

Ohhh nooo!!!!
OHHHH NOOOO!!!

So at this time I had to start over with a new drive and I decided to give Gentoo another try (it has a much better installation guide than LFS), once again I fucked it up and it wouldn’t boot. Again, I try to get it working and it seems that my hardware needs some config parameter which I don’t know, or maybe it just doesn’t like Gentoo. I was tired and pissed and wasn’t learning much, so I go for the FreeBSD install. Before that I was using PC-BSD, which uses a very simple graphical install, in other words, a pussy install method. FreeBSD uses a utility which let’s you configure most of the system without making you go psycho to see whether you forgot to add a dot-slash or not. It’s not as hardcore as LFS, but hey, BSD works, and this installation taught me a lot if not more than the Gentoo or LFS version. I’ve read that people can go about installing LFS 4 or 5 times before they get right. Maybe I’ll give it a chance, next year, or the year after that.


Graphical install, that’s for pussys, the pic above is from Gentoo’s terminal.


Now that’s a mascot, the BSD Daemon, long live the daemon!!!!

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Fri 19th May, 2006 -  Windows Freeware

These are apps I use everyday and the best thing is that they’re free, here’s a list with links, enjoy.

Visual Task Tips - This small piece of software gives you a preview image of windows in the taskbar to give it a Vista look. Remember to restart your computer after installation.

Ccleaner - Crap Cleaner, this is an all in one utility removes all the crap from Internet Explorer and Firefox, cleans the registry, allows you to remove stuff from windows startup, and also uninstall applications.

BitComet - In my opinion the best bittorrent client, written in C++ (makes it really fast.) What really distinguishes this app is that it features disk caching, so when those downloads are coming into your disk you don’t thrash it.

Bloodshed Dev-C++ - For all you programmers out there who don’t have the money or the time to deal with Windows .NET, this is the tool for you. It’s free and includes all the features you need to write those C++ programs.

PDF-Creator - Need to create a PDF, this the app, it allows you to save files to PDF and you can select the quality and the type of PDF you want to create.

JDiskReport - Don’t know where all that sapce in your disk is going to, this app allows you to view how disk space is distributed in a graphical form.

MP3Tag - This tool allows you add mp3 tags really fast, it allows you to edit a bunch of mp3’s in one sitting.

Tight VNC - When you need to control your home computer remotely through any browser with Java support. This basically allows you to control the computer like if you were sitting in front of it.

VideoLAN Player - The ultimate video player, if you can’t play it with videolan you can’t play it with anything (well that’s not exactly true, but this player can take almost anything you throw at it)

FoxIT PDF reader - Don’t wanna install adobe reader couse it sucks, install foxit, like they describe it in their website: small, fast, clean and free.

Screamer Radio - freeware Internet Radio player, plus recorder. It organizes recorded music by folder. It allows you to record continuously or splitted by song. I use it everyday to record all that awesome jazz music from SKY.fm.

7zip - At first I downloaded this utility cause I needed something to unzip rar’s, but then I started using the 7-z format which has great compression. I also use it for unziping pretty much everthing including zips cause it’s fast, really fast. (Right now the website is unavailable, but do a google search and I’m sure you’ll find it elsewhere)

Democracy Player - This app allows you to download all those free internet video podcasts (podcasts, video blogs, and BitTorrent feeds.) You subscribe to the one’s you like and the program takes care of the downloading. This written in python (kinda slow) you may need a powerfull computer to make the app run smoothly. It features a very mac like interface.

Well that’s it, next time I’ll be posting a blog entry of my favorite mac freeware.

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Wed 29th Mar, 2006 -  Back In Black

So my friend Carlos was about to throw away his old IBM Aptiva (500mhz, PIII, 10gb hd, 128mb ram) because it wouldn’t power up anymore. I told the man, do not throw it away, give it to me, I’ll find some use for it. Turns out it was a damaged power supply and a shot hard drive, everything else was intact. So I hooked it up with a 20 and 10 gb hard drives I had lying around, a 200 watt power supply from an old computer, upped the ram to 256mb and gave it a really good cleanup / black paint job. Now it’s dual booting Windows XP SP2, and PC-BSD (best UNIX distro out there based on FreeBsd) and running pretty smoothly. Next up for the computer is a bigger hard drive, a tv tuner card, a vga cable to hook it to my LCD (courtesy of Edu) and hopefully mythTV to turn it into a full fledged Tivo machine, that is if the 500mhz PIII is up to the task. If not, it will become network storage for my home network, so it’s all good. Thanks a lot to Carlos for remembering me when he was about to throw his computer away and my cousin Hector who supplies me with the hardware to resurrect other computers, keep ‘em coming people. Pictures follow.


Back In Black!!!

Bare Bones

The Inside

The Repair Kit

The Powerbook supplies the wireless internet

Running PC-BSD

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Thu 16th Feb, 2006 -  My Super Mega Ultra PC Tech Case

Just bought a new case, $20-25 at the Home Depot.

Husky Tools Case

Case

Got the idea from this guy who used the same case to carry his Xbox 360. As you can see in the pics, it’s made of aluminum and plastic (looks like something to carry weapons grade plutonium in it,) it’s very spacious, plus it includes a shoulder strap and the divisors inside the case can be arranged the way you want.
So what’s in my Super Mega Ultra PC Tech Case:

Case Bottom

1: My CD’s (Including various Windows and Office Instalation cd’s, The Ultimate Boot CD, Bart’s PE, Knoppix
Live CD, Norton Partition Magic 8.0, Open SUSE Linux, and PC BSD Linux)
2: RadioShack’s Cold Heat Soldering System
3: Compressed Air
4: Antistatic Bag / Power Cable
5: External USB Drive
6: Some extra cables and tools
7: Tools (I still haven’t filled it up yet) Pictured at the bottom

Case Top

There’s still a whole lot stuff I have to buy to finish the ultimate pc case, but man I love the way it’s shaping up. PC techs take notice…go get your’s at the Home Depot, for $20-25 this is a steal.
(This case reminds me of the attache case Leon carries in the Resident Evil 4 game.)

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Fri 20th Jan, 2006 -  Our New VIZIO L-32

After much research on TV’s (LCD, Plasma, CRT, DLP…) I finally decided the best replacement for my old 21-inch TV was an LCD. One day while at Sams we saw this VIZIO 32-inch LCD for $999, and when compared to the other LCD’s it had a very decent picture (almost no pixelation up-close.) So I went on the internet to seearch for this VIZIO (never heard of the company before) and found some very good reviews. Most people were really happy with what they were getting for the price. So my wife and I went for it and bought the TV, and let me tell you I’m very happy with the purchase. It has a good image quality (deep blacks, sharp colors, especially if you hook up the HD cables to the DVD) of course don’t expect plasma or crt quality. Sound is awesome, but remember to activate the “surround” feature built into the TV to get the best quality. I also like that the speakers are positioned at the bottom of the LCD, a real space saver. Like I said DVD’s look awesome but anything connected with composite cables will look regular. All in all this is a great TV for the price, especially if you’re upgrading from a 21-inch TV like me. I’ve included some pics of the TV (I’m not a pro so the flash shows up in some of the pics). By the way it includes a universal remote, which is perfect for the TV but sucks for controling anything else. I’m thinking of getting a universal control for the rest of my equipment. (BTW…props to Edu for lending me The Fifth Element)

VIZIO L-32

Remote

Picture Menu

Fifth Element

Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones

Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones

The TV specs are:
Panel:
32-in* Color TFT Active Matrix LCD, Anti-Static and hard coated

Resolution:
1366 x 768 pixels

Display Compatibility:
HDTV

Signal Compatibility:
480i (SDTV), 480P (EDTV), 720P (HDTV), 1080i (HDTV)

Response Time:
12 ms

Brightness:
500 cd/m2 typical

Contrast:
800:1 typical

Viewing Angle:
170 degrees (horizontal/vertical) for CR>10

Inputs:
1x RF (for internal NTSC tuner)
1x HDMI (Digital Video + Digital Audio)
2x Component + Audio
2x Composite + Audio
1x S-Video/Composite + Audio
1x RGB (Analog) + Audio
1x RS232 Serial port (DB9)

Outputs:
1x Audio out (RCA) 1x Headphone

Features:
PIP, POP, Noise Reduction, 3:2 Pull Down, 3D Comb Filter, Progressive Scan, Aspect Ratio conversion, 3D De-interlacer, Gamma Correction, MTS Stereo and SAP, Closed Caption, V-Chip

Speakers:
Built-in 2 x 10 W

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