Health update

Seems I need to have chemo to deal with the ongoing tumour issues.

The recurring tumours in my bladder - which have been treated by laser - just keep coming and my consultant suggested chemo might stop this. Unlike normal chemo, the chemicals are inserted into my bladder and kept there for an hour or two. Thus there are (hopefully) no real issues with the side effects of the toxic drugs used, unlike regular chemo where the drugs can cause unpleasant side effects.

Will report back on the treatment as and when I start the course - which should be before Christmas apparently.

Update

Well, still using the KDE version - which speaks for itself.

After downloading the iso and installing it, I still ended up getting another huge load of updates - which was a bit of a pain with my lousy interwebby speeds.

So far though, I haven't found any real issues. Wireless just works (which is much better than the Ubuntu version, which lost the connection regularly!) although I prefer wired.
The other problems which plagued the Gnome version of PCLOS don't seem to be present in the KDE one - presume this is because it is much more mature.

I think I shall install this to my main PC as well. It currently runs Ubuntu 10.04, but is rarely used anyway because it is upstairs and it gets cold in the daytime up there.

Yet more changes

Well, spent ages last night trying to get the volume to increase and decrease using the function key on my laptop with the appropriate up and down keys.
Despite being fairly familiar with Linux, I ended up very cheesed off with the things! I got the keycodes from xev, then tried an old trick I used in KDE 3 back in the day - basically setting up a shell script and assigning those keycodes to an unused F key etc (if desperate, you can find it on my main website somewhere - but ask and I will link to it). No joy.
This morning, I discovered that PCLOS 2010.11 in its Gnome incarnation doesn't actually have a functional way to format/partition drives. No fdisk, no cfdisk - even GParted, which is included on the GUI menu doesn't work! Arrrggggh!

In the end, I decided to install the KDE version. Yes, I know I have moaned about KDE4 but I reasoned it is likely to be more stable/featured in PCLOS as it is the default.
So, having a 2010.7 disk lying around, I installed that. Seemed good, so I went to update the system and found that it wanted to install nearly 800megs of updates! The new 2010.10 version is not even 700 meg, so I thought I might as well simply download that, install it and then update from there.
Currently downloading.... but with my crap internet, it will be some time yet!

Whilst waiting, I have been trying out a few of the problem areas with the Gnome version to see if the KDE one has problems. Scrolling with the touchpad button - fine! Partitioning tools - yep. Function button and sound up and down - whooo, working fine! And no stupid warnings about my battery which I *know* is old and doesn't hold a charge etc so why tell me?

Part of me is quite excited to be back with KDE - I loved Konqueror as my file manager and used it as a browser most of the time. I know that Dolphin is the default these days, but I am old and prefer what I am used to.
Again, the mail client is that awful Thunderbird, but I will see what it entails to get KMail back - I like Kmail!
And of course, KDE has the best burning software of the lot - K3b. Better than any of the other Linux burning tools and, IMHO, better than Nero etc on Windows.

I still think the move to KDE4 was a mistake by the KDE team, but it does seem to have matured a bit since the first version, which was really dreadful and crashed constantly.

Will blog some more about this PCLOS KDE version once I have the latest version installed and up to date.

PCLOS update

Well, discovered after installing the 2010.7 version mentioned in the earlier post, that there was a newer version (2010.11) released last week.
I have now replaced the earlier version with this one - and the two big problems (the warning about the battery and the scroll using the button thing) are sorted.

Initial thoughts - I like the fact that the problems I had with the previous release are now sorted, not so keen on the theme/icons used in this version (although I can of course change those), still don't like Thunderbird as an email client (personal thing - I just don't like it at all, never have and Ubuntu defaulted to Evolution, which is also not great, but better than TBird IMHO)

So, apart from a load of hassle setting up my email all over again, the things I mentioned above and the overall "greyness" of TBird and Firefox in this release, I am quite enjoying the change. As I mentioned last time, similar to my days with Yoper - I might even volunteer to do a few packages at some point, depending on time/health issues.

Trials and tribulations

Well, decided - based on my tests on a live disk - to install PCLinuxOS 2010.7 on the laptop.
As mentioned before, I was pretty fed up with the way Ubuntu was heading.
I have been trying both the KDE and Gnome versions, but went for Gnome as I still can't bring myself to like KDE4.x (I have tried several times but find it just too unstable and a little annoying to be honest - but YMMV!)

Anyway, once installed, I have discovered some snags. First of all the annoying warning about the battery being b0rked. I already know that - the laptop is pretty old and beat and the battery holds a charge for about 20 minutes at best. Now, in Ubuntu, to get rid of the stupid warning, it was a simple case of using gconf-editor to untick the warning notifications. However, in PCLOS, this didn't work! The boxes are unticked, but the warning still comes up each time I restart X. Frustrating bloody thing!

The second major annoyance is the scrolling. I like to use the middle button on my touchpad to scroll up and down and in the live cd it was working perfectly. Of course, now I have installed it to the hard drive, the scroll doesn't work! I can use the touchpad itself to scroll, but I like the button! So far, I haven't found out how to fix that - like all modern distros, the PCLOS xorg.conf is fairly minimal (although a billion times more info than the Ubuntu one!) and no mention of a section for mice etc. I guess I can write that section myself - I always used to edit the old XF86 and early xorg files by hand as they always get it wrong anyway....

Other than that, I am liking PCLOS so far. It isn't perfect - but what is? But it is pleasant, seems fairly quick and uses similar tweaked kernels to the old Yoper! IN fact, it quite reminds me of the old 2.2 Yoper - tweaked optimised kernel, the Mandrake control centre, rpm packaging, but with Synaptic.....
But also like Yoper 2.x, there is a slight air of "not quite finished" - and I don't mean that in a bad way. Just a lack of developers and funding I presume holding it back a little. Ubuntu has a lot of cash and plenty of devs, but they still turn out some pretty iffy packages at times and fail to deal with genuine concerns of users.

Anyway, I shall be experimenting more with PCLOS - I hope to keep it as my distro of choice for now at least.

Genealogy and parish registers

One of my little hobbies is genealogy - tracing my ancestors.
A while back, the parish registers for many Cornish parishes became available online at the Familysearch website - which was brilliant, especially for those with ancestors down here. Then without warning, these registers were removed from the website. After waiting a while to see if this was just a technical glitch, I emailed the site to see what was happening and was surprised to be told that apparently an individual had complained about the registers being available on the site.

Now, as these were free of charge to view, I can only surmise that the complainant was someone with a vested (i.e commercial) interest in preventing us from seeing these registers.
I presume the Familysearch won't provide the details of the complainant, so if that person would like to contact me and explain their reasoning, I would be most interested. However I doubt they will - they are going to simply sit smugly and continue to presumably raise a small income from selling these registers on cd or whatever. Those of us in the genealogy community know who sells various products and one of those people is presumably the person responsible for this free service being removed.
Well, whoever it was, I did used to actually purchase cds as well as finding stuff for free (sometimes it is just easier to locate an ancestor via a searchable cd than struggling through the dreadful handwriting and faded pages of a register) - but I will no longer purchase a cd.
Not only that, but those registers I have already downloaded will be transcribed and placed online for free access - so you will not win.

Sorry for the rant - but this has really annoyed me.

Not much happening

As the title says - little going on here. I am now officially 50 - not that I feel any different to usual.
Trying to think what has been going on - and failing miserably! Computer wise, I am considering moving to PCLOS from Ubuntu - as I worry about the commercialisation of Ubuntu. 10.10 introduces much more commercial content - and 10.04 brought in the Ubuntu One stuff. Whilst I like and agree with the inclusion of sensible binarys - such as the graphics stuff for nVidia or ATI, I don't think much of the pay for tunes stuff.
If I wanted iTunes, I would have bought a Mac (assuming I won the lottery!) - but most of the music I listen to I have already bought via vinyl (crikey! That is old Skool!) or cd, and I refuse to pay for it again.

I did download and install DBGL this week - a front end to good old DosBox - which includes some lovely game packs - including ROTT, Wacky Wheels and many of my fave DOS games from my early experiences with computing. Good fun to play a spot of retro-gaming occasionally and this is great stuff!