Questions from a Linux user considering a Macbook

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: E K <ekg_ab-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org>
| 
| Too late and typical of a windows/Mac user to be of interest. Since you didn't say anything that we don't already know, the information content of your email is nil hence not helpful.
| 
| We already know that your time is more worth than the machoness .... We also know that you don't know that you can have fully supported pre-installed Linux or get it installed for you.

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I found Dave's post useful and interesting.  I think that part of the
reason is that I know Dave and hence can calibrate what he's saying.
I find that in itself interesting.  Kind of meta.


PS: I'm finding it a little annoying how much time I'm fiddling with
imperfections in computer systems.  I don't intend to use OS-X since
that would just add to my burdens.

I feel guilty every time I neglect generating a bug report.  Kind of
like walking past an injured person on the sidewalk, only a lot
milder.  Too bad good bug reports are a lot of work.

I've not reported one I saw yesterday in MythWeb: cumulative file size
reporting, if the size is 0, is reported as a null string.  I did dive
into the .php and think I've found the location of the bug, but I
don't understand enough about PHP or at least this hunk of it:
function nice_filesize in utils.php.

    function nice_filesize($size) {
    //  If it's less than a kb we just return the size
        if ($size < kb)
            return t('$1 B', t($size));
    // Otherwise we keep going until the size is in the appropriate measurement range.
        elseif ($size < mb)
            return t('$1 KB', t(round($size / kb, ($size < 10 * kb))));
        elseif ($size < gb)
            return t('$1 MB', t(round($size / mb, ($size < 10 * mb))));
        elseif ($size < tb)
            return t('$1 GB', t(round($size / gb, ($size < 10 * gb))));
        else
            return t('$1 TB', t(round($size / tb, ($size < 10 * tb))));
    }
I have no idea what t() is or where it is defined..

Today, after a Fedora 10 update, and some updating of MS Vista,
keystrokes don't work in xterms.  Sometimes.  If I create a new xterm
from my application launcher (in a gnome panel), keystrokes are
ignored.  But if I create another, keystrokes work in the first, but
not the new one.  What the heck is going on here?  Perhaps I'm the
last user of xterm and nobody tested this.  I will soon try the
Windows solution: reboot and hope for the best.

The previous two times I did Fedora 10 updates, I got X problems too.
  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=487285
  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=484636

Why did I do updates today?  Because FireFox crashed.  Once that
happens, I have little state left over that gets lost if I have to
reboot.  The FF crash is a long standing bug that hits me every few
days.  The neat thing is that it looks like a fix is known!  Oh, and
the bug itself isn't in FireFox!
  https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20254
Let's hope that the fix gets committed and that distributions pick it
up.

Oh, and my shiny new pair of 1.5T Seagate drives look to be prone to
problems so I've spent a lot of time trying to sort out on the Seagate
forum what's actually up with this generation of drives.  What a
thread:
  http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=ata_drives&thread.id=9060&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
Oh, and there are bugs in Seagates diagnostic software:
  http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=SeaTool&thread.id=352
And Seagate has been so overwhelmed (or something) that they are unresponsize.

Right now, I'm trying to configure Ekiga for my VoIP provider and not
getting it right.  Dumb, since I've done this before.  Why am I doing
this?  To test a USB headset I bought from Factory Direct.  Why isn't
the volume control working?  More debugging...
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