Test Drive: Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot” Beta on the Sempron 2400

Since I heard that the new Ubuntu release would be based only on Gnome3 and Unity (the older release was a plain Gnome 2 version on “non-3D-capable” computers) I wondered how it would perform on older computers. So the second step of my “Test Drive”s has been to test Ubuntu 11.10 on my “still-alive” five years old Sempron 2400.

Boot _ errors _ and boot again

Ubuntu 11.10 beta is definitively a buggy beta, I already realized this while testing on the EEEPC but on the Sempron 2400 it looks even more buggy. I had to restart the boot process three times before arriving to Unity 2D main screen.

apart from these boot errors and some error message now and then, that also appeared on the EEEPC, the system did run smoothly enough.

Test drive: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" Beta On the EEEPC 900

Ubuntu's update season is coming again, with it's usual load of discussing (especially about the famous “disappearing” menus). As every season I started my tour of live version testing with the hope this new release will mature enough to convince me to leave the old 10.04 (LTS) I still have on my EEEPC. So I downloaded the new Ubuntu disk image and prepared a bootable USB drive using, as usual, the tool Ubuntu itself provide.

First impressions

Here is how Ubuntu 11.10 looks like

Mono-develop on the EEEPC 900

Mono, like many of you certainly know, is the Open source development framework compatible with Microsoft's .NET. I usually work with Java and know almost nothing about .NET or Mono, I so decided to install Mono and it's integrated development environment Mono-develop on the EEEPC to give it a look.

Why mono?

Is not a secret that the use of Mono is widely criticized in some Linux environments mainly because the risk of having to deal with Microsoft's software patents … Software patents risk mustn't be underestimated but, on the other hand, I think that a programmer shouldn't ignore a widely used framework like .NET and Mono is a cheap way to learn about it.

Installation and first project

Installing Mono is a quite trivial task: just matter of looking for it in the Ubuntu software centre. To develop applications with graphic user interface GTK# libraries must be also be installed.

Random blog post title generator with Polygen

After so many “Test drive:” blog post I sometimes feel that my writing has become too much repetitive. I so decided to have some relax and, with a little of self-irony, I'll try writing a random blog post generator using Polygen. Writing a full post generator is a huge task: as you start decomposing a phrase structure the number of options literally explode. So let's start just with generating the post title.

A top down approach

The top-down approach is the one I find more natural while dealing with a Polygen grammar, so let's start with defining the very basic structure of a blog post

S ::= Title "\n"^

Body "\n"^

Tags;

the “\n” string is a new line escape character while the “^” operator tells Polygen to concatenate without adding spaces (To avoid a new line starting with a space).

We'll set the “Body” symbol to an empty preposition and forget about if (at least for the moment).

Body ::= _;

Titles for “review style” posts are usually something like “installed some-program on some-system”; this can be written, in Polygen grammar language, like following:

Title ::= Action (Program ("on the" Computer | "on" Os | "on the" Computer "and" Os) | Os "on the" Computer);

What would you do with a HP Omnibook XE2?

Sometimes I bring home old computers like other people bring home stranded pets. I've been given from a friend an old HP Omnibook Xe2 laptop. It's a 333 MHz Celeron based computer with 64MB RAM and a 12'' screen. It was a decent hardware configuration … twelve years ago. Of course the first question that came up has been: “Can I run Linux on it?”.

Wary or Lupu?

Speaking of old computers Puppy Linux is probably the most famous solution. Two version are actually available at Puppy's download page: the Ubuntu-Lucid based “Lupu” (V.5.2.5) and the more traditional “Wary” (5.1.2). I downloaded both but, unfortunately, while testing the distributions in live mode from CD Lupu showed some problem locking the system every now and then. I so went for installing Puppy Linux “Wary”.