(Ft. Worth, TX, USA)

aubreyturner.org

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Pinnacle Security: FAIL

I am finding of late that despite my “NO SOLICITORS” sign a number of people are still ringing my bell during the day.  One of these days I will get another one for the religious people (as they all seem to think they aren’t solicitors, but are doing “God’s work” or something).  Anyhow, most of the remaining non-religious solicitors are ones who want to argue with you as to whether they are a solicitor or not.

Today’s award for “reading comprehension FAIL” goes to the representative for Pinnacle Security who rang the bell even though he clearly saw the sign.  I opened the door and he immediately launched into his spiel about how he was visiting with people in the neighborhood who had security systems.  I immediately stopped him and asked if he’d seen the sign and knew about Keller’s soliciting ordinance.  His answer was that he was not a solicitor and he didn’t need a permit because he didn’t take money; instead he was just doing “marketing.”  I told him that I a) I considered him a solicitor, and b) I had an alarm and didn’t need or want any “upgrades.”  He tried once again to launch into his spiel, but I stopped him and told him to leave.  He gave me a strange look like he was considering something, but instead said, “I’ll leave whenever you want.”  Which had me thinking, Why are you still here, then?, but I didn’t say it, as he finally got the message from my expression that he was quickly moving from annoyance to potential threat and decided to leave.

It only occurred to me afterwards that perhaps he got a glimpse of the Springfield XD 40 that I was carrying.  It was not intentional, but earlier I had been fiddling with the radio in my truck and my garage was hot so I took off my outer shirt.  When he arrived I was just wearing an undershirt and I had to scramble to get my shirt to cover the gun.  I left it unbuttoned, though, which is why in hindsight it’s possible that he saw it.  Of course, this being Texas, if you freak out when you discern that the resident of the house has a gun you’re probably not cut out for door-to-door solicitation jobs.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Going Round-and-Round With My Tires

Last week I finally bit the bullet and bought a new set of tires for the Avalanche.  While the OEM Goodyears still had decent tread depth (they only had about 35K miles on them), they sucked in the rain.  Further, the right rear tire had a plug in it from a previous encounter with a screw, and the left rear had a slow leak.  They were due for rotation soon and I didn’t want to rotate the plugged tire to the front, but at the same time the fronts had developed an uneven wear pattern, so just swapping them from side to side wouldn’t probably be enough.

Anyway, all things considered, I thought it was time to replace them.  So I started looking online at the various brands and models of tires and all of the reviews on them.  The wealth of information that was available (some tires had over 1000 reviews on Tire Rack’s website) was what really led me down a rat hole.  After about a month of dithering, I finally narrowed it down to specific models from Hankook, Continental, and Michelin.  All were fairly expensive, with the Hankook’s being the least expensive at just over $850 installed, up to the Michelin, which were quoted on Discount Tire’s website at $1049 installed. 

After a final round of dithering due to the cost, I called Discount Tire on Wednesday and they suggested I come into the store to see the tires in person.  They didn’t have the Hankook in stock, but did have the Continental ContiCrossContact LX and Michelin LTX M/S in stock.

Wednesday was also the dogs’ yearly vet visit day, so after picking them up at about 5:30 (and dropping $560 into Parkside’s coffers), I rushed over to Discount Tire.  I got there about 5:45 and after looking at the tires and discussing it with Aaron (the sales rep), I decided on the Michelin tires (which came out to $997 in the store; I wasn’t completely sure what was different from the online quote, but I wasn’t adverse to keeping the extra $50).  By then it was just about 6:00pm and they were supposed to be closing.  Because of the delay with the vet, and the fact that I had the dogs in the truck, I wasn’t really expecting to have the tires changed right then, but the manager suggested that they could install them right then and that it wouldn’t be a problem.

I have to say that they were very quick and efficient about it all.  They even let me bring the dogs inside while we waited.  They had the tires installed and I was out the door by 6:15pm.  If you should be in the market for new tires, go see Aaron at Discount Tire in Keller.  Other than the hit to the pocketbook (and just when did tires get so damn expensive?), the process was pretty painless.

Now to wait for the first good rainstorm to see how these tires handle.  In my short time with them so far they seem to ride smoother and quieter than the old ones.  Although I should note for the record that my garage now smells like a tire store. 

Grimly Amused

When I got my medical first responder certificate I built myself a first aid kit using the recommendations from the textbook.  I used several online suppliers to get some of the things you can’t find in stores so now I get emails from a couple of them with their specials.

I was slightly amused to open my email a few minutes ago to see that one of them was running a July 4th special on products for treating “burns, blisters, infections and 4th of July injuries,”  including the WaterJel 5’x6’ Fire Blanket. 

Let’s hope that none of us has the kind of 4th that requires a fire blanket.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Blood and Sweat…

... but no tears, unless you count the sweat getting in my eyes. 

I bought a dual-band radio (Yaesu FT-7800) for the truck about a month ago, but had been procrastinating the installation.  First, because of the heat.  Second, because I hate dealing with automotive installs.  This install did nothing to relieve me of my dislike.  It was almost as if GM intentionally designed the vehicle to be difficult to install after-market equipment into (and I’ve got the scrapes and bruises to prove it).  I think that I’ll take my next (non-GM) vehicle to a custom stereo shop or something and let the pros handle it.

Anyhow, I eventually managed to get everything wired and installed.  But I nearly gave myself heat exhaustion in the process.

The first problem to solve was how to mount the antenna.  The best location for an antenna is generally in the center of the roof to give maximum height to the antenna and to maximize the ground plane.  However, in this case my Avalanche has a sunroof and I also wanted to be able to park it in the garage.  Because of its size and ground clearance (it’s the Z71 model), there is only about 3 or 4 inches clearance between the roof and the garage door, leaving no room for an antenna.  After a lot of searching I came across the Pro.Fit antenna mount model AVANTPF, which mounts to an existing bolt under the hood (see here for a better picture). 

While it claims to be a fit for the 2004-2006 Avalanches, I found that it didn’t quite fit into the slot in the left fender, so I had to take my Dremel and cut a small notch in the upper left part of the bracket to get everything to line up.  Unfortunately, while the antenna shown easily clears the garage door, it has a bad SWR reading (1.9:1).  I have another antenna that gets a 1.2:1 reading, but it is about 2 inches too long to clear the door.  For now I will just install the big antenna when I leave if I plan to use the radio.  In the meantime, I will be continuing the search for a decent antenna that’s short enough to clear the door. 

The next problem was where to put the radio itself.  There was no option to mount the entire radio in the console without cutting up the center console, so I ended up using the remote-head option.  The main body of the radio is in the center console under the cup holders (which are contained in a fairly easy to remove insert, so it will be easy to get to the radio in the future).  I put the remote head on the dash bezel, just above the top of the center console.  The speaker is mounted on the right lower dash (just above the driver’s knee).  The last thing I installed was the mic bracket.  Unfortunately, I think the heat was getting to me by then, because it turns out that you can’t shift into Drive if the mic is on the bracket.  That will teach me to always check clearances before installing something (I did it for everything else besides the bracket; I guess I just got in a hurry).  My next task will be to find a new place for the mic.  I’ll probably just get another bracket, since I’m reluctant to remove the one that’s already there because it will expose the holes I drilled for the screws. 

Damn, that flash really shows how dirty my center console storage bin is.  Looks like it’s time for a thorough detail job.

Oh, yeah, it was like this all day long in the garage:

If I’m going to do much more work like this I’m going to have to break down and buy a shop fan.  The stand-fan I have is just too puny to move enough air to matter when it’s this hot.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Voting With Our Feet And Our Wallets

Instapundit points us to this poll about current attitudes towards GM after the government bailout.

Only 42% of those who currently own a General Motors car are even somewhat likely to buy a GM product for their next car. That figure includes just 30% who are Very Likely to do so.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 43% of current GM owners are not likely to buy another GM car, while 16% are not sure.

...

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans nationwide say they are now more likely to buy a Ford since that company did not take any bailout funding. Only 12% are less likely to buy from Ford.

There is an interesting political twist to the attitudes about buying GM. Currently, among those who hold populist or Mainstream political views, 46% own a GM car. But just 15% of those in the Mainstream are Very Likely to buy their next car from GM.

This corresponds with the informal discussions that I’ve had with several people, both current and past GM vehicle owners.  It also corresponds to my own attitudes.  I currently own an Avalanche.  My next vehicle will NOT be a GM as long as it’s owned by the government and the unions.  And this is coming from someone who was strongly considering a Traverse before the bailout.  But now I will look at Ford or one of the foreign brands that builds their vehicles in America instead of GM. 

Friday, May 29, 2009

Devastation and Destruction

Has anyone been over on Johnson Road to see the library lately?  If you haven’t, you might be in for a bit of a shock.  I went by there the other day and was very surprised to see that the library had essentially been gutted and a good portion of the outer walls was gone as well. 

Somehow, I had it in my head that they were just going to be adding space, rather than tearing out most of the existing building.  To my non-contractor’s eye it looks like it wouldn’t have cost us much more to have just razed it and built a new one, given how much they’re now going to have to rebuild. 

Thursday, May 28, 2009

RadioZilla On The Air

In my last entry I showed the portable base station I’ve been working on and mentioned needing to do a few more things to finish it. 

I ultimately decided not to build a front panel.  Instead I just fashioned a mic hanger from some ABS plastic and left it open to allow for ventilation.  The radio and the PowerGate both need air to keep cool, so I thought it best to keep both ends open to allow airflow.  So this is the final configuration (for now, anyway):

I also hacked together a UHF-style mount that will let me use a regular mobile antenna (provided it doesn’t need a ground plane).  It was fashioned from a 5/8” hole Larsen bracket fitted to two pieces of aluminum bar stock that I drilled and tapped to screw together.  The vertical piece elevates the Larsen bracket above the top of the flagpole to allow room for a cable to be connected to an SO-239 bulkhead fitting (i.e. antenna on one side, PL-259 cable on the other).  The vertical piece is screwed to a horizontal piece which is drilled to fit a 1 1/2” U-shaped pipe bracket. 

As an aside, I have no idea why I’ve been calling it RadioZilla, other than it’s big, bulky, and emits (RF) radiation.  It just sort of popped into my head.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

RadioZilla Lives

As I mentioned in my last entry I’m working on a portable amateur base station.  I spent most of today cutting, grinding, drilling, and fitting the parts together. 

The first thing I had to do was build an internal frame in the Tuffbox 6 Space Rack Case so that it could handle the weight of the 33Ah SLA battery.  Here lies the first lesson I learned on this project: don’t be afraid to spend the money to get a decent case.  I tried to save on the case by buying the Tuffbox instead of a regular ATA-rated rack mount case.  I’ve probably spent enough in materials, tools, and time beefing up the Tuffbox to have bought the ATA case from the start. 

But now that I’ve integrated the steel frame, it doesn’t wobble at all.  You could probably stand on it, provided you made sure to stand over the steel parts.

Here’s a picture of the case with the frame installed and the battery mounted:

Once I had the frame and battery handled, the rest came together pretty quickly.  Here it is with all of the internal components installed, using a mobile antenna (off camera) and hooked up to the watt meter and SWR meter for testing:

As it is now, it’s functional, but I still have a few things to sort out.  First, I need an antenna and mount.  I’ve got a Harbor Freight 16-ft telescoping flagpole and a tripod base from a Sears work light that fit together.  All I need is to put a mount on it and to rig up a portable guy-wire system (I’m thinking paracord and tent stakes, or perhaps Homer buckets filled with water for situations where tent stakes are forbidden).  The other thing is to create some sort of front panel.  I’ve got a piece of ABS that I think I can cut into two pieces and make a fold-down front panel that doubles as a desk or folds out of the way if the desk is not needed (provided I can find the right set of hinges and support brackets at Home Depot).

The other lesson from this project: Harbor Freight is a double-edged sword.  They’ve got some really great inexpensive tools, which is good for when you have to do a job that needs a special tool that you won’t use a lot afterward, but things can be a bit hit or miss.  The el-cheapo air cutoff saw I bought was indispensable for cutting the angle brackets, and I wouldn’t have been able to drill half the holes in the case without this angle drill attachment.  But the not-that-inexpensive air hose I got from them burst while I was away on a short trip to Home Depot (amazingly I managed to do this project with only one trip today; I bought the other stuff a couple of weeks ago). 

Friday, May 22, 2009

Read You At S9+10 With A Hint Of Bubbles

I've been playing around at building a portable amateur base station that I can take to an emergency event and set up to run off of mains or batteries.

As usual, I tend to get a bit carried away, so I ended up with the following components:

• Yaesu FT-8800R
• West Mountain Radio Super PWRgate
• West Mountain Radio Rigrunner 4005
• Tempest TR33-12 33Ah SLA battery
• Samlex SEC-1223 23A 12V DC power supply
• Doohan DC Watt Meter (for monitoring battery usage)
• YAMAMOTO Digital VHF/UHF Power & SWR Meter (YM-60UV)

It will all be mounted in a TuffBox 6 Space Rack Case (unfortunately, the site uses Flash, so you will have to click "Rack Cases" to get the right page) that I'm going to reinforce with some slotted angle stock from Home Depot because it seemed just a bit too flimsy for the battery (which weighs just over 24 pounds).

My task for this long weekend is to physically mount all the components into the case (which is complicated by the need to cut and assemble an internal frame using angle and flat slotted stock). Last night I did an electrical and radio function check, though, which is what led me to a "fun" RF discovery.

I brought all the stuff inside from the garage so I could work in air-conditioned comfort and I set it all up on the kitchen counter. After putting Power Pole connectors on several wires, I started connecting selected components to verify their function before hooking up the radio. After verifying that the DC Watt meter worked and that the power supply and PWRGate were working properly I connected the radio as well as the SWR meter and an antenna (I'm pretty paranoid about always having an antenna connected when applying power to a radio so that if there is an accidental key-up I don't burn out the finals; one of these days I'm going to break down and buy a dummy load, though).

After verifying that the radio was getting power and that it could receive (based on using an HT from across the room ), I decided to try out the SWR meter, which meant keying up and transmitting. I set the power to low (5 watts) and hit the key and immediately heard a "BING" sound from nearby. I immediately let go of the switch, thinking that I'd blown something, which is when I realized that the sound had changed to a whirring noise and that it was coming from the automatic SOAP dispenser over by the kitchen sink. Apparently, even 5 watts of RF from across the room is enough to overload its sensor and activate the pump. This particular dispenser goes "BING" whenever it's activated. Satisfied that I hadn't blown anything in the radio, I played around with the meter a bit more and eventually hit the Tarrant County RACES repeater, although I wasted a bit more liquid SOAP in the process.

Nothing New Under The Sun…

It would appear that modern man does not have a monopoly on bad taste:

The glittering “grills” of some hip-hop stars aren’t exactly unprecedented. Sophisticated dentistry allowed Native Americans to add bling to their teeth as far back as 2,500 years ago, a new study says.

Ancient peoples of southern North America went to “dentists”—among the earliest known—to beautify their chompers with notches, grooves, and semiprecious gems, according to a recent analysis of thousands of teeth examined from collections in Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (such as the skull above, found in Chiapas, Mexico).

Make sure to click on the link to the article to get a glimpse of an ancient skull with gem stones embedded in its teeth.  I wonder if the next discovery will be the remains of ox-carts with giant wheels and spinners. 

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

A Brief Meditation on Deadly Force (and the Internet)

I have become increasingly annoyed by what I am seeing as a more and more common reaction to a righteous shooting these days.  I suppose it’s to be expected given the fact that the Internet is now bringing together two populations that previously would not have had much chance to mix it up with one another.  But you can set your watch by the time line of these things:
* Shooting occurs
* Newspaper publishes online article and/or blogger posts about it
* Comments come in from pro self-defense citizens (“One more criminal off the streets,” etc)
* Outraged friends and family of the dead perpetrator find the article through Google or other search engine
* Friends and family post:
    - He was such a good kid, he couldn’t have done this
    - No one has the right to kill someone else
    - People are hearing the whole story, he was set up
    - What was the victim doing with a gun?  Was he some kind of criminal?
* Pro self-defense people respond
* Lather, rinse, repeat…

The latest incident can be seen in the comments at Beyond Right Field concerning this incident.

An 18-year-old Fort Worth man killed Tuesday afternoon inside a north Fort Worth apartment had apparently forced his way inside, armed with an aluminum bat, when he was shot by one of the apartment’s residents, investigators said.

Derek Splawn, a student in the Keller school district, had been upset with the apartment’s 18-year-old resident and had reportedly threatened in an earlier telephone conversation “that he was tired of this and he was going to come over there,” homicide Detective Curt Brannan said.

Around 4 p.m. Tuesday, police said, Splawn made good on his word and had a friend drive him to the Watercolor apartments in the 8600 block of Spring Tree Lane, near Beach Street and North Tarrant Parkway. As the friend waited in the car, Brannan said, Splawn first pounded on the apartment’s patio door, shouting for the 18-year-old resident to come out, before beating on the apartment’s front door.

Though the resident did not emerge, Brannan said, Splawn was able to force his way inside the apartment after the resident’s roommate opened the front door to peek out and saw Splawn standing there with the bat.

“Before he could get the door shut, the man [Splawn] pushed the door open and had taken several steps inside the doorway in the direction of the [18-year-old],” Brannan said.

Brannan said the 18-year-old, in turn, picked up a shotgun he kept in the home and fired once, striking Splawn in the face.

Provided the facts are as stated, this seems pretty open-and-shut.  A hothead attempts to attack a rival with a deadly weapon and is killed in the act.  I will grant that the media often gets a lot wrong, but most of the article seems to be direct quotes from the Detective working the case.  So, unless and until someone can present credible evidence that something in the above is materially incorrect, I will go with the assumption that the facts as given are correct.

I almost got sucked into this vortex, but this comment made me realize that there’s probably no hope of meaningful communication between the two sides:

If you came up to me with a bat,And i had a shot gun
who do you think would win?
I dont care what you say you cannot justify shooting someone in the face with a shotgun because he had a bat.
Mabey you could call it self-defence if he shot him in the leg.
But no,Hes just needed an excuse to kill derek.
I knew derek very personally and i knew sam as well,And i can tell you that sam didnt give a crap whether derek had that bat or not
He still would have shot him
but now no justice is coming and thats the hardest part about it.

My first thought is that I wouldn’t be stupid enough to take on someone who had a gun if I had a baseball bat and I am certainly not going to be bursting into anyone’s apartment anytime soon.  Finally, shooting people in the leg is what people do in stupid movies.  In real life you shoot to stop the threat. 

It finally dawned on me, though (after I responded that I most certainly could justify the shooting) that this commenter really doesn’t grok the idea that a baseball bat can be a deadly weapon and that you have the right to use deadly force to defend yourself against someone with a bat.  It’s almost like he’s looking for some kind of “fair fight,” which would be stupid beyond belief.  Am I supposed to just stand there and let someone hit me with a bat because a gun is supposedly unfair or something?  Deadly force is deadly force, and a baseball bat can certainly constitute deadly force in some circumstances.

But it’s sometimes difficult for me to remember that your average person hasn’t contemplated these sorts of things, and that goes especially so for your average teenager.  However, it’s exactly the sort of thing that you must confront if you choose to carry a gun or to keep one at home for defense.  You must have a passing familiarity with the law on deadly force as well as an understanding of what “deadly force” means. 

I’m not a lawyer, so don’t take this as legal advice, but a quick reading of the above two links to the Penal Code indicates to me that I don’t have to let the attacker get a hit in, nor do I have to worry too much about the instrumentality he or she is using provided that I reasonably believe that it’s capable of inflicting death or great bodily injury on me and that the person is intending to do so right now.  It occurs to me that while it was designed around knives, the lessons learned from the Tueller Drill would seem appropriate to someone armed with a bat as well.  Perhaps even more so, because I would fear that one hit from an aluminum bat could leave me unconscious and at the mercy of the attacker, while I might be able to still respond after the first knife thrust.

I suppose this all might seem a bit blood-thirsty or dark to someone who hasn’t considered the topic much before.  But the average gun owner is not sitting around cackling with glee at the thought of killing someone.  It should be noted that we do not shoot to kill, but to stop a threat.  If the perpetrator dies as a result, the fault lies with the perpetrator for initiating deadly force against us.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Smooth Operator

In keeping with my affinity for strange remakes, here’s Señor Coconut doing his version of Smooth Operator:

And to cleanse your musical palate, here’s the original: Sade - Smooth Operator

Friday, May 01, 2009

User Interface Annoyanaces, Part 3574

Another user interface annoyance of mine are low-battery alarms.  I recognize that they can be useful, but I’ve encountered a few that deliver more annoyance than function (like the cell phone that I once had that would beep regardless of the phone’s vibrate settings).

The latest one to annoy me is the pager that I carry for rehab callouts.  It’s a Unication Alpha Elite model.  When the battery gets really low (25% or lower) it will beep once every so often, which is not unexpected.  However, last night at midnight it unleashed a full alert.  When I looked at it the only thing I could infer was that it was complaining about the battery, which was somewhere around 33% according to the meter.  There was no message and nothing was flashing.  It also did this about a month ago just before I changed the battery. 

So, it appears that it’s programmed to alert at midnight every night when the battery is below some preset voltage level.  Which seems designed to cause maximum annoyance.  Why midnight?  Why not just display “low battery” on the display and then go to beeps when it gets really low?  If my pager makes noise at midnight I expect someone to be trying to reach me not a battery problem. 

It seems to me that this is a badly implemented feature that was obviously not vetted by any real users before it was released. 

Lifting A Curse

I’ve had a computer sitting around in the closet for nearly two years now.  I originally bought it as a fairly inexpensive barebones kit that I was going to build out to give to my Mother for her birthday.  But after I built it I decided that it wasn’t quite what I wanted and so I shelved it and I ended up giving her a new HP for Christmas later that year.  So into the closet it went, only being pulled out long enough for me to scavenge the video card and memory for some other systems that needed them. 

About six months ago I decided to revive it.  It was pretty lagging edge, but still useful for a basic computer for someone who just writes a few documents and checks email/surfs the web.  I had found a video card that I’d forgotten that I had while searching for something else in my office, so all I needed was memory, which I found for $20 or so on eBay.  As I was putting it together I noticed that the tab at the bottom of the metal bracket on the video card wouldn’t seat correctly in the hole, so I took a screwdriver (do you see where this is going?) to try to “guide” it into position.  Unfortunately, the screwdriver slipped, and when it did it hit one of the tiny surface mount resistors on the motherboard, completely annihilating it and ruining the motherboard in the process. 

Now I was at a decision point:  abandon the system or replace the motherboard?  I almost abandoned it when I started pricing replacement motherboards.  The system was so far behind the curve that no one was making new ones for this socket configuration anymore, and all of the online retailers were asking ridiculous prices for such old technology.  But eBay came to the rescue with a lightly used motherboard of similar configuration. 

So… I replaced the motherboard but realized that I didn’t have the proper ATX plate insert for all of the motherboard connectors.  I went ahead without one, but it was nagging at me that it could cause problems.  But, it didn’t appear to have any adverse impact as the system booted right up the first time and loaded the OS without any problems.  Or so I thought.  Once I shut it down it wouldn’t come back on until I’d unplugged the power supply for a few minutes.  If I didn’t all that would happen is that the front panel power light would come on but nothing else would happen (no fans, no HD spinup, etc; like it was in hibernate mode).  I tested the power supply with my ATX PS tester, and it showed all green lights for all of the supply lines on the MB connector as well as all of the molex connectors.

I thought maybe I had some weird grounding issue, so I went back to eBay and managed to find what seemed to be the one remaining ATX insert for this motherboard on planet Earth (only $6.00!).    Once I had it in hand I proceeded to remove the motherboard (which is always a royal pain), install the new plate, and check all grounding points to make sure they were in contact.  So I plugged it in, booted it up, and then shut it down.  Then I pressed the power button again.  No joy.  Same problem. 

At this point I’m convinced that this system is cursed and I decided to cannibalize it for parts.  But when I started my latest build I had two older-style ATX power supplies (including the Enermax) that I could not use in newer systems.  As a last-ditch effort to revive the system I swapped the original power supply for the Enermax.  And the system now works perfectly!  So the problem had been the power supply all along, despite the fact that my power supply tester showed no problems.  Either the PS was marginal for the new motherboard or it had gone bad while it was in storage. 

I guess the lesson learned is that if you suspect a power supply is bad to try another one even if the original tests OK (provided you have another PS on hand, of course). 

Now I have no idea what I’m going to do with this system; it was just sheer cussedness on my part that made me want to get it running again.  If someone is in desperate need of a new PC I’d be willing to give it away (it’d have to be someone local since the shipping would be prohibitive).  If memory serves, it’s an Athlon XP 2200+ with 1GB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, a 16X DVD-RW drive, and it’s running openSUSE (11.0 I think).  No tech support or exorcist included. 

Ubuntu Boogaloo

I’ve long been a user of the openSUSE Linux distribution (I actually started when it was just SUSE, before Novell bought them and created the openSUSE community).  So I had already downloaded the DVD ISO for openSUSE 11.1 when I started my recent system build.  But the day before the build I saw that Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 had been released and that it was generating a lot of good reviews.  Ubuntu is based on Debian, and a couple of years ago I had used Debian on a backup system and found that I liked their package tools, so I decided to give Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 a try.  I figured that the worst that could happen is that I wouldn’t like it and that I would be able to wipe it and install openSUSE.

However, I don’t think that is going to be necessary.  I found it to be one of the smoothest installations I’ve been through in years.  It found and installed drivers for every component in the system and when it finished the final reboot the system was immediately usable.  That’s a far cry from any Linux distribution I’ve used before and better even than Windows, where I often have to install anywhere from 2 to 10 drivers after installation.  The system even included a utility to automatically install the proprietary ATI/AMD video drivers, which was a nice touch.

There is only one fly in the ointment so far.  While the system was usable, it did not correctly manage my dual displays so I ended up seeing the same image on both (stereo!).  This appears to be an issue with the ATI Catalyst 9.4 drivers.  To further complicate matters, Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 contains a pre-release version of the 9.4 drivers.  After I figured this out and applied the latest released Catalyst 9.4 drivers it seems I’m tantalizingly close but can’t quite get there.  The ATI configuration utility tells me that I have to create a second desktop to enable Xinerama, yet the desktop configuration page won’t let me create a second desktop.  It says to “drag and drop” the “objects” yet nothing will drag and drop. 

I’m continuing to investigate this one, but in the background when I have free time, which has been limited of late.

But I don’t blame the above on Ubuntu, since they don’t control the proprietary driver.  Overall I’d say that Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 has been quite polished and easy to work with.  I think it’s the first desktop Linux that I’d be comfortable giving to my Mother to use (once I’d set up everything, of course).