It is quite annoying that the way I access the Cpanel for my account is blocked by some ISP’s, e,g the port 2082. That is annoying and makes it hard to access my account. I can use the commandline ftp application to upload files, but I cannot actually do anything with the files I have uploaded, I am considering adding a captcha to my WordPress blog to stop the spam, which is annoying my users. I have created a normal user account for myself and looked at the WordPress dashboard from the perspective of a normal user and the constant spam is driving me crazy. I will take care of it that way and make the website more appealing. At least the spam comments do not make it to the front page, but they clog up the MySQL database and are not a good look when I am trying to run a proper website. The flooding in Wagga is going down, the river is only about 8.8 metres, or 29 feet right now. I can not go on my walks because of this, the main part of the river where the walking track is, remains a lake. But I will be able to walk the track once the water goes down and the mud dries. That is always the fun part, when you can smell the mud left afterwards, it is quite a stench.
I hope you like the little program I wrote in my last posting, it is just a bit of fun, but useful as well, ages since I did some proper programming. I have written a bit of code in the past, see it here: https://securitronlinux.com/some-useful-perl-and-php-code-snippets-for-the-web/. I used to use Mandrake Linux 9.2 then Mandrake Linux 10 and then Suse Linux and I even used Debian 3.0, 3.1 and FreeBSD, but I am amazed how easy it is to use something like Ubuntu compared to installing a old Linux distribution in the days of text only installers. Nowadays it is simple to get a Linux system working on your computer and getting stuff done without any problems. I liked using OpenSuse 11.3, but switched back to Ubuntu for the ease of use and hardware support. Suse had no firmware for the Broadcom WIFI adapter in my laptop, whereas Ubuntu installed it with the hardware drivers applet. Fedora Core 13 comes with those firmware files already installed, but I like Ubuntu as it is the most popular Linux distribution out there. Installation is easy, then once you have booted into your new desktop, open up a terminal window and run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade. Once that is finished, type sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras, then sudo apt-get install audacious to install the best mp3 player. I downloaded and installed the version 10.2 Adobe flash plugin, and copied it to /usr/lib here:
shoggoth@shoggoth:~$ ls -hula /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so -rw-rw-r-- 1 501 501 12M 2010-12-15 14:06 /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so |
Just untar the flashplugin and copy it here over the top of the version 10.1 that will be there, then you will be running version 10.2, which works very well on my laptop. The flash plugin sure is linked with a lot of stuff as a lot of Linux stuff is. But it is interesting to look at this sort of thing and if you are writing a program, it would be interesting to try and reduce the amount of libraries your executable is linked to.
shoggoth@shoggoth:~$ ldd /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so linux-gate.so.1 => (0x00c36000) libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00110000) libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x007fb000) libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXt.so.6 (0x00444000) libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0x0022d000) libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x002a3000) libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0x002d3000) librt.so.1 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/librt.so.1 (0x009bd000) libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 (0x1e514000) libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 (0x002ec000) libatk-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libatk-1.0.so.0 (0x00382000) libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 (0x0039e000) libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 (0x003c5000) libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 (0x003df000) libcairo.so.2 => /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2 (0x00497000) libpango-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpango-1.0.so.0 (0x003eb000) libgobject-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so.0 (0x00511000) libgmodule-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgmodule-2.0.so.0 (0x0042e000) libglib-2.0.so.0 => /lib/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x00550000) libssl3.so => /usr/lib/libssl3.so (0x0087b000) libsmime3.so => /usr/lib/libsmime3.so (0x008c3000) libnss3.so => /usr/lib/libnss3.so (0x0061a000) libplds4.so => /usr/lib/libplds4.so (0x00a49000) libplc4.so => /usr/lib/libplc4.so (0x0098e000) libnspr4.so => /usr/lib/libnspr4.so (0x0072e000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0x007b2000) libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0x00763000) libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0x00a4d000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x009e4000) libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1 (0x00789000) libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/libSM.so.6 (0x00433000) libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/libICE.so.6 (0x007b6000) libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0x007cf000) libexpat.so.1 => /lib/libexpat.so.1 (0x0080b000) libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 (0x007a3000) libXinerama.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXinerama.so.1 (0x0043c000) libXi.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXi.so.6 (0x007e4000) libXrandr.so.2 => /usr/lib/libXrandr.so.2 (0x007f2000) libXcursor.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXcursor.so.1 (0x00832000) libXcomposite.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXcomposite.so.1 (0x00440000) libXdamage.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXdamage.so.1 (0x007ad000) libXfixes.so.3 => /usr/lib/libXfixes.so.3 (0x00959000) libgio-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgio-2.0.so.0 (0x09e46000) libgthread-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/libgthread-2.0.so.0 (0x0083f000) libpixman-1.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpixman-1.so.0 (0x008e9000) libdirectfb-1.2.so.0 => /usr/lib/libdirectfb-1.2.so.0 (0x00ba7000) libfusion-1.2.so.0 => /usr/lib/libfusion-1.2.so.0 (0x00845000) libdirect-1.2.so.0 => /usr/lib/libdirect-1.2.so.0 (0x0084f000) libpng12.so.0 => /lib/libpng12.so.0 (0x0095f000) libxcb-render-util.so.0 => /usr/lib/libxcb-render-util.so.0 (0x00865000) libxcb-render.so.0 => /usr/lib/libxcb-render.so.0 (0x0086a000) libpcre.so.3 => /lib/libpcre.so.3 (0x00a01000) libnssutil3.so => /usr/lib/libnssutil3.so (0x00993000) libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x00c23000) libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00872000) libuuid.so.1 => /lib/libuuid.so.1 (0x008ad000) libresolv.so.2 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libresolv.so.2 (0x00943000) libselinux.so.1 => /lib/libselinux.so.1 (0x009c6000) shoggoth@shoggoth:~$ |
My little ping app is not linked to too much is it?
shoggoth@shoggoth:~/Documents$ ldd ./pingme linux-gate.so.1 => (0x0034b000) libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0x00de0000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x0018c000) |
It is good to keep things simple. libc.so.6 is the main GNU C library that all Linux programs use, so it is a critical library. I have tried to install it manually from source code before, but it would not work afterwards, not a good idea unless you are running Gentoo and can just run emerge. Gentoo works perfectly well as a desktop operating system, I have Sabayon Linux which is based on Gentoo and would be good, as long as the Network manager works just as well as it does in Ubuntu and Linux Mint. Wicd is not as good as Networkmanager when it comes to using Wireless Broadband. I need to get another Wireless Broadband dongle, my last one broke and I am using the town library Internet as I write this, I am updating from Ubuntu 10.04 to Ubuntu 10.10, I edited the /etc/apt/sources.lst and replaced all instances of lucid to maverick and typed sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade and I can upgrade to Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 that way. Sure it takes a long time downloading more than 323 megabytes of packages, but it is worth the effort, and better than downloading a 700MB CD and installing that then downloading about 400MB of updates. I stand by this method. I wish you could upgrade from the Ubuntu CD’s from Lucid to Maverick, but you cannot. That is stupid, you could do an upgrade from XP to Vista or Windows 7, and keep the old data in the WindowsOld folder, why can’t you do that in Ubuntu? Unless you have a separate /home partition and you can re-install the newer version of Ubuntu and keep your user data. I used to do that a lot, you keep all of your user data and settings and just install a different Linux distribution and tell it to mount the partition as /home. That is a pretty foolproof way to do it, but then you lose all of the extra software you have installed and an upgrade could see what you have installed and upgrade it to the latest versions. Canonical are you listening? You need to get with the times and see how things should be done, and if the upgrade goes wrong, ie a power failure, then you should be able to recover from that and get it finished. I guess they might go this way in the future, and put in place some kind of system to handle updating. I know they used to pop up a notification where you were prompted to upgrade to a newer version of Ubuntu, I prefer to do it with the command line as I am used to performing tasks that way.
I installed the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo on my desktop PC and I am amazed how fast it runs on the Core i3 integrated graphics. A fun game. I am also playing through Ridge Racer 2 on PSP and I have got through the basic tour and I am playing the pro tour and I am up to the Ridge Racer Type 4 tracks, having blown through Ridge Racer, Ridge Racer Revolution and Rage Racer. Too easy. The PSP has WIFI and a web browser, but the browser is extremely poor and cannot handle complex web pages it seems, not to mention it does not seem to be able to connect to WPA2 access points. But you can play music and games on it, so that makes up for it. Ridge Racer 2 has all the tracks from the previous Ridge Racer games like R4 and Ridge Racer Revolution. I have played Rage Racer on PSX, so playing through it’s tracks in sequence is a blast, with better graphics. It is incredible how much processing power they can pack into a game device these days, I just wish PSX Doom was available for the PSP. There is a PSP Doom port, but it is unoffical and will not run with the Sony 5.03 firmware. I bought a 1GB M2 card and adapter for my PSP, as the Sony Memory Stick Duo is overpriced and has a low capacity, the aforementioned card and adapter was still cheaper than the Memory Stick Duo with the same capacity. It is good to have a choice of hardware to plug in and not be forced to use the one overpriced storage device. I am quite good at drifting around the corners and using the Nitrous to full advantage, I guess rave racer will be after Ridge Racer Type 4, but then there are still a few races left to run, what will be after that? I cannot find much information on the Internet about the pro tour in Ridge Racer 2, but I will have to wait and see. The cars you get in class 6 are worth it, I was driving on the oval track and got up to 397KMH. I will have to try and get a Geforce card, like a 9800GT, that would be more than adequate for running my games. The Core i3’s integrated graphics can run Unreal Tournament 2004 at 1280×1024 be quite playable, I love this game, it is like Halo, with the vehicles that you can drive around and gun turrets that can be manned. And easy to install on Linux.