Well, my adventures in Linux continue.  Initially, I was quite happy with Linux Mint, but it soon became clear that it had some stability issues.  Specifically, it would frequently crash when suspending to RAM or hibernating.  On top of that, I was getting kernel panics far too often.  I think the wireless driver was the culprit there, but I wasn’t able to get anywhere with that.  So I decided to try openSUSE 11.1 with KDE 4.2, which I was familiar with from our lab computers.  While openSUSE was far more stable than Linux Mint, it had other problems.  By far the most severe were the graphical issues.  Unlike Linux Mint, openSUSE 11.1 suffered from terribly unresponsive graphics with my integrated Intel gpu.  The worst manifestation of this was very laggy window scrolling, particularly with Firefox.  Then Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) was released in May, so I decided to switch distros again.  I’m glad I did.  Unlike Linux Mint, which, weirdly, is based on Ubuntu, Ubuntu Jaunty has been solid as a rock.  I have had zero crashes in ~3 weeks of usage, and I have no problems with suspend or hibernate.  And unlike openSUSE 11.1, the graphics are quite responsive.  There are still some issues with the linux driver for Intel graphics chips, but I can live with it while the driver is further developed.  So I’m pretty darn happy with Ubuntu 9.04, and I don’t see myself switching distros anytime soon.  Anyone looking for a good linux distro for their Thinkpad would do well to try Jaunty.

As far as desktop environments go, gnome has really grown on me.  It might not be as slick as KDE 4.2, but with some tweaks it can look quite nice.  Below is a picture of my current desktop.  I’m still playing with things, but I’m pretty happy with it.  The dock is the Docky plugin for Gnome-Do, which I prefer over AWN.  My conky configuration is from this site.

Well, I figure it’s time to get back into blogging.  I haven’t had the motivation or the interest for it the last several months.  A number of factors contributed to that, one of them being the decrepitude of my aging G4 iBook.  For one, it just couldn’t keep up with Leopard.  Even after maxing out the RAM at 1.5 GB, it was still a sluggish mess.  And recently, the computer has been running very hot.  After about 30 minutes of usage, it becomes a lap-scorcher.  Oh, and the battery doesn’t hold a charge for longer than 10 minutes.  Basically, it’s just a miserable experience using that thing, so I’ve decided to put the old iBook out to pasture.

It took me a while to decide on a replacement.  The immediate choice was a new Mac.  I think OS X is the best operating system currently available, and I generally like the Mac design esthetic.  The problem with that option was, of course, price.  I wanted a 15″ screen, which is only available on the Macbook Pro, meaning I’d have to spend at least $1900 for a new Mac.  So I decided against the Mac in favor of a PC laptop running Linux.  I loathe Windows–hard.  After a bit of research, I settled on a Lenovo Thinkpad T500.  Thinkpads are very solid machines, with a build quality that rivals Macs.  Combine that with a bitchin’ online sale, and I was sold.

I’m currently dual booting Linux Mint and Windows.  The Linux Mint install was almost flawless.  The only thing that didn’t work right away was flash video, but I got that taken care of in a matter of minutes.  Compiz-Fusion 3D compositing works great with the Intel integrated graphics chip; the only issue being some slight window tearing when windows are moved, but this seems to be a problem with Compiz on just about every video card as far as I can tell.  Wireless works perfectly, as do the Lenovo volume and mute hotkeys.  I’ll probably spend a few weeks with Linux Mint to see how I feel about the Gnome desktop.  After that I’ll likely install openSUSE 11.1 to test out KDE.  Whichever I like best will become the permanent distro.  So I’ll probably have post up in the future about my experience installing openSUSE.

Hello again.  I should be getting back to posting more regularly now after my vacation.  Last week I returned from two weeks in Germany–which were great–only to find the election turn to shit as the Republicans once again transform the political landscape into a fantastically vapid reality show pitting small-town, common-sense folk against pointy-headed, big-city intellectuals.  Needless to say, the success that they’ve had with that tactic has made me both depressed and cranky.  I’ve attempted to write several times over the last week, but anger would always overtake me and I would decide to try again at some point in the future when I might not find myself using the word “fuck” twenty times per sentence.  So anyway, I’m back from the dead, so to speak.  And with the McCain campaign spewing lies at a rate never before seen in national politics, it looks like I’ll have plenty of material to blog about.

I’m back from a nice vacation in the sweltering midwest, and it looks like I’ve got a lot of catching up to do in Internet Land.  In the meantime, here’s a nice warning against relying too heavily on web-based translators to render the name of your business in another language.

For those who aren’t familiar, New Haven isn’t exactly the safest city in the country.  Once or twice a month, the Yale Police send email alerts to students about a mugging or assault of a Yale student or staff member.  These typically include a brief summary of the event along with a description of the suspects involved.  I have noticed that something is always missing in these descriptions, however:  the suspect’s race.  For example, here is the description from the latest alert:

One man is described as being 5′9″ tall wearing a yellow polo shirt with brown stripes, dark pants and a dark bandana while the other is 5′11″ wearing a blue shirt, dark pants and a dark bandana.

Not a lot of help there.  Are we looking for Caucasians?  African-Americans?  Asians?  I think I understand what is going on here.  New Haven has a large African-American population, mostly living in poverty.  Poverty tends to go hand-in-hand with crime, so it isn’t a large leap to assume that the majority of these crimes are being comitted by poor African-American men.  At some point, someone probably objected to the continual description of black suspects in the Yale email alerts.  So in a misguided effort to avoid giving the impression to Yale students that all criminals in New Haven are African-Americans, race was dropped as a descriptor.  I could be wrong, of course, but it just seems rather dumb to leave out a very important element of a suspect’s description if you really hope that someone might be able to identify them.

A bit of personal news, I received the official notification today that I’ve been admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D.  Not that it is surprising or anything, just nice to get the official word.  It also means that I get the “All But Done” degree, the M. Phil.  Now I just have to finish my thesis, which is a ways off.