Half an hour ago, I read the news that there is now a beta version of Google Gadgets available for Linux. Since I've been plaing around with Google Gadgets for a while, I decided to give it a try. And, although I'm usually a KDE user, right now I'm a little bit dissatisfied with KDE since I upgraded to Kubuntu 8.04 a while ago; so I switched to Gnome to see if the bugs appear only with KDE (they don't).
Anyway, I followed the instructions, installed some extra libs that are needed (actually, I've got the feeling that I installed a couple more libs that aren't really required), went through the configure-make-make install routine, and voila:
Today, I got myself an external USB sound card and tried to install it on my notebook running Ubuntu Studio. It's a Trust SC-5500p because that's the only affordable model my retailer had in stock. To cut a long story short: I didn't work as I hoped it would. I could get heavily distorted sound out of its front speaker output jack, but the rear as well as the center outputs remained silent. I thought the days of insufficient support for hardware on Linux were over, but: FAIL! Since I swore to myself that I wouldn't spent hours and hours an installing packages and hacking config files anymore, I returned the device, and I will start to look for another affordable solution. Suggestions anyone?
Seit längerem lese ich regelmäßig die aus der Ubuntu-Community (und Fedora?) hervorgegangene PDF-"Zeitschrift" freies magazin. Die Inhalte kreisen um die beiden genannten Distributionen, wobei auch allgemein an Linux Interessierte auf ihre Kosten kommen. Immer wieder gibt es Artikelserien, die tiefer in die Materie eintauchen, etwa über Audiotools oder andere nützliche Programme, die man üblicherweise - zumindest als Webentwickler - nicht so auf dem Radar hat. Ein sehr empfehlenswertes Magazin, das vollständig von freiwilligen Autoren quasi ehrenamtlich erstellt wird.
Möglicherweise hat sich das Yalm-Magazin daran orientiert, das vor einigen Tagen mit seiner fünften Ausgabe erschienen ist. Themen sind auch hier nützliche und interessante Linux-Programme, etwa das geniale YaKuake. Ausführlich werden auch die beiden Brennprogramme K3B und Brasero verglichen. Auch das Yalm-Magagzin gibt es kostenlos als PDF-Download und wird auf freiwilliger Basis geschrieben.
Für beide Magazine gilt: Auch wenn einem als erfahrenem Linux-Nutzer vieles bereits bekannt ist, finden sich immer wieder Perlen, die aufmerken lassen. Für Einsteiger sind beide Magazine sowieso vorbehaltlos zu empfehlen.
To tell you what Blog Action Day is all about, I quote from the offical web site:
On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic.
So, it's about the environment, baby. As a user and promoter of Linux, especially Ubuntu, I'd like to share with you some thoughts about how environmentally friendly Linux is and/or could be. Let's start by pointing at the incredible amount of discarded electronics often containing dangerous toxic waste. No matter what brand of computers, our aim must be greener computers and entertainment electronics.
Power consumption increases with each new generation of desktop computers. Oftentimes, older hardware can still be used for fileserver or router work; a number of Linux distros are small, yet advanced enough to run on old machines. Thus, we need to produce less new hardware, which is also a power-consuming process. If you want to reduce power consumption of your high end Linux desktop system, you can try to install PowerTOP, a tool to measure power usage developed by Intel. Also check out all the tipps and tricks at LessWatts.org, a site dedicated to saving power with Linux.
Having said this, it is kinda sad that the next Ubuntu release Gutsy Gibbon that is due on October 18 will consume more energy than any of the older releases, despite the fact that it comes with a tickless kernel.
Conclusion: There is still a long way to go, but at least hardware as well as software developers are increasingly aware of the problem; and many are working to resolve it.
Now that Ubuntu 7.04 runs smoothly on my machine, I gave online banking via HCBI PIN/TAN (a popular German standard) another try, because the according aqbanking libs have been updated. I tried the command line aqhbci-tool and received some useful feedback, but couldn't get it to work. Then I started the graphical frontend qbankmanager and found a built-in wizard that supported my every step in creating a new account, connecting to the banking server, and retrieving my account information. Perfect! I will try some more sophisticated apps like KMyMoney, GnuCash, or Hibiscus later, but for now I'm happy.
For the sake of keeping my installation as clean as possible: aqhbci-tool listmedia returns two old entries that do not funtion. Can anyone please tell me how to remove them? There seem to be only parameters for adding new users/accounts, but not for removing them.
