James Galvin

I just installed Ubuntu 6.10 - “Edgy Eft” today. First impressions are good - it looks nice, and it’s very fast, particularly the boot-up process. I haven’t had a chance to check out any of the new features yet, like IceWeasel 2.0. There were a few issues with the installation - most critically the wireless card support. I’ve been using a Belkin USB wireless adapter via ndiswrapper with no problems since Breezy. Edgy detected it, for the first time, and loaded the rt73usb driver… which didn’t work properly. I blacklisted the module and opted for my trusty ndiswrapper instead - but Edgy packaged a very outdated version 1.1, which didn’t work either. This was nearly a show-stopper, since I depend on a wireless network as my only internet gateway, but luckily I had my ndiswrapper 1.8 source backed up on my /home partition and was able to get online with that.

The beardiest of Linux snobs sometimes sneer at Ubuntu, because it is not hardcore enough. It is pretty and graphical and far too easy to use, with tutorials on how to spell your name. As a Ubuntu user since Warty, I have always hated this kind of attitude… but for the first time I am starting to see where it comes from. The greatest strength of Linux in general is the ability to see exactly whats going on - and if you dont like it you can change it. Tragically, this refreshing verbosity is what keeps the average computer user at barge-pole distance. In an admirable effort to make Linux more accessible, Ubuntu made a compromise. Thanks to Dapper (with Long Term Support, an easy Live CD install, and programs like Automatix and EasyLinux which magically do all the work for you), for the first time, Linux was a genuine option as a desktop OS - I’m surprised that there wasn’t a bigger take-up among art students and the like, or enterprising refurbished-computer dealers who wanted to save on the cost of an operating system. But there’s a thin line between making the system more user-friendly, and unnecessarily dumbing-down the distro. The first thing I noticed upon booting up my Edgy system was the fact that there is no feedback, no step-by-step progress that we’re so used to seeing. I’m sure its easy to enable this again, but thats beside the point. I really don’t see any advantage to removing the diagnostics, but there are a number of obvious disadvantages, and this does not bode well.

When Dapper came out four months ago, I spent days (literally) on dial-up downloading the standard installation CD. What a sickener it was when it woudln’t work on my system. I was gutted to see that there was no means to fail over to a text-based intallation without downloading another 700mb alternate install. I got stung again this time around, but lucky I’m no longer a narrowbander. I had to download Edgy Eft three times - the first one failed its checksum, and the second time I accidentally got the standard live CD again. In my opinion, the Live CD should be the alternative version. I fear for Fiddly Ferret, or Gawky Gazelle or whatever is coming next.

A minor annoyance - the bog version of vi is back again, but “apt-get install vim-full” puts it back in its cage quickly enough.

ClanBase brings the news that the one and only Phil Collins (still hugely popular in Chile) will be starring in the upcoming Grand Theft Auto game as a means of unleashing his genius upon a younger generation.

I would have expected this from Shatner or Hasselhoff, but Phil, save yourself before you end up doing ads for lesser-known breakfast cereals, and cameos in movies which also feature a cameo from Chuck Norris. The news has upset concerned parents in the US who have previously campaigned against the violence and obscenity in GTA games, as many of these activist groups are known to have used Phil Collins songs as their marching themes. The game will be released on 3rd November, and I think that I will be buying it despite this latest development. Hopefully it’ll run on Edgy.

The World of Warcraft is gearing up for Halloween. Pumpkins everywhere, and “trick or treats”. The inkeeper in Gadgetzan gave me a gnome mask

At last I have escaped from the chaos of Dublin’s south inner city. No more will I be lulled to sleep by the constant sound of rockets being fired at some guy’s head. I knew the place was a zoo from day one, but, with Halloween approaching, the area really lives up to its local nickname: “Beirut”.

I will miss my Cork Street pals - the insane security guard, the heroin dealer on the corner, and most of all - the toothless old man. The toothless old man walks into the Centra of Death with his bicycle. The insane security guard stops him and says no bicycles are allowed in the shop. The toothless guy replies: “But I have no teeth!”

I have to say though, there are plenty of characters this side of the canal. So far I have encountered an Elvisman, complete with 99 Micra plastered with stickers and slogans of the King. On the same road, I came across a middle-aged man driving along in traffic eating a kinder egg. Next thing he finished the chocolate, and started assembling the toy while booting along at 30mph.

At the moment I’m savouring the tranquility and enjoying my free wireless broadband, Irish Broadband 1meg it seems. Given their reputation, my expectations were very low, but I am pleased to see that not only is this connection working, it is working well. Certainly head and shoulders above Clearwire, who do things the American way - patriotically blocking your bittorrent. I’m not a downloader - I have neither the patience nor the inclination to download movies or anything but the odd mp3, but I have come to rely on bittorrent for legitimate uses; for example - the World of Warcraft updater, installers for programs like cygwin, and access to the occasional legal file which is only distributed via bittorrent.

This isn’t a major issue for me though, and having seen in the past how bittorrent can kill a network, I wouldn’t complain… assuming they made up for it in the other areas. Not the case - you get low bandwidth (1024/256 in theory, much less in practice), Clearwire is expensive (€40 per month), a long minimum contract of 12 months, and a low download cap (10gb). It is handy that it is not dependent on line of sight, but this just leads to high latency and packet loss making the product unsuitable for gaming or VOIP, even with a full signal. I have seen other Clearwire users in different areas with reasonably low and stable ping, but in my own experience, I could only barely manage World of Warcraft, which is playable even on 56k modem or with 800ms lag. I realise that it’s unfair to compare UnClearwire with fixed wireless… the only similar product in Ireland would be Irish Broadband’s disastrous RipoffWave, which I have had the displeasure of using in the past.

This Irish Broadband connection, on the other hand, is cheap and fast with low latency:
PING games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136): icmp_seq=1 ttl=56 time=6.85 ms
64 bytes from games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136): icmp_seq=2 ttl=56 time=96.9 ms
64 bytes from games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136): icmp_seq=3 ttl=56 time=13.6 ms
64 bytes from games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136): icmp_seq=4 ttl=56 time=10.2 ms
64 bytes from games1.iol.ie (193.120.123.136): icmp_seq=5 ttl=56 time=70.1 ms

A bit of jitter there, but you’ll get that on most wireless connections. I realise that when things go wrong with IBB, they go very wrong, and I have dealt with their lack of support in the past… but for now I’m not complaining. Despite the apparently solid performance, FPS games are still unplayable, so I have ordered a phoneline to get DSL in too. With a bit (lot) of luck, I won’t have to battle with Eircom every inch of the way, and I might even be connected in time for the Quake 3 TDM Nations Cup, where Ireland has been drawn in a group with:

	Poland
	Czech Republic
	Italy
	United Kingdom
	Hungary