Ubuntu Login and OSD

Posted by stephen on Thursday, 26th October, 2006 @ 02:36

There's a new release of Ubuntu coming out today apparently, Edgy Eft (whatever one of those is). I've been really into Linux again this past week or so, making extensive use of VMware's free Server product and playing with the Linux Terminal Server Project (Ubuntu version which is a little further along than the stock release), and Ubuntu's been one of the main tools that has allowed me to experiment and explore so easily. But I have a complaint!

I've previously tried out an earlier beta release of the newly stable distribution and found that they'd given it a rather long but rather uplifting login sound, along with a suitable logout sound to match. In the final release version it's been 'refined', and while it's still nice and probably more appropriate, I prefer the old one!

You can hear the original (ubuntu-sounds 0.4 package) login and logout sounds and compare them with the released (ubuntu-sounds 0.5 package) login and logout. What do you think?

Continuing the Linux theme, today the Neuros OSD (On Screen Display or Open Source Device, not certain which) box I ordered a few weeks back finally arrived. It looks fantastic. And what I'm most excited about is that it's takes a completely open source approach, so users are free and actively encouraged to make it do new and interesting things. I'll be grabbing a UK power adapter for it in the morning and you can be sure you'll be hearing more about it from me in the coming weeks.

Freedom to Fascism

Posted by stephen on Monday, 09th October, 2006 @ 23:40

I've just watched possibly one of the most enlightening films I've ever seen. It's called American: Freedom to Fascism and despite the title, it's subject matter affects us all. Unless it gets taken down (which hopefully it won't with a message so important), you can watch it here. If it does get taken down, there's a 15 minute trailer here.

It's nearly 2 hours long and the first 45 minutes or so is mostly concerned with American federal income tax having absolutely no basis in law. But it's all useful background information for what follows.

There's a Wikipedia article covering it too for a little more perspective.

It is perhaps rather one sided, but it made me stop and think, and that's what is most important. The world is a very broken place, and seems to be becoming more so by the day, and this is at least a credible explanation for why. Spare the time and watch it.

I'm going to watch George Orwell's 1984 now. Perhaps he was a few years short of the truth?