04.26.07
Giving it a spin
I’m giving Ubuntu 7.04 a spin as my primary desktop. My Gentoo is sitting under the desk with only a power cord and network cable plugged in. I enabled X11 forwarding for ssh and set up an authorized key so I can pull files or run any programs I need.
I just thought of something….the Gentoo box is 32-bit x86 and the Ubuntu is 64-bit AMD - will that make a difference with forwarded X connections?? Gonna hafta give that a real go. I already ran MyPasswordSafe remotely. I did see some cryptic error messages but it didn’t seem to impact functionality of the program, maybe I just got lucky on that one. This’ll be an interesting experiment.
As for running Ubuntu for a full day - it was pleasurable. Some things I ran into:
- I had to install a few audio/video codecs for Totem (so I can watch/hear Windows Media and Mpeg4.) Nice smooth playback.
- Firefox is 64-bit, which means binary plugins like Flash, Java and Acrobat Reader won’t work. I found a page that details how to install the 32-bit Firefox along-side the 64-bit, but really, I don’t want to have to switch between the two. I’ll hold out with the 64-bit Firefox.
- No OTR plugin for Gaim/Pidgin in the default Ubuntu repositories.
