With a Name Like "Blag"...
So, you’re tired of the constant patches, updates and “security issues” of Windows and are thinking of switching to another operating system, maybe a Linux distribution, but you have heard horror stories about installing Linux. Things like how you have to have an intimate knowledge of the guts of your system and arcane Linux commands to make it work. How audio and display problems abound and how difficult they are to solve. Well, there’s good news (and a little bad news) about those things. At one time they were definitely true. No more, however, with a couple of caveats we’ll get to later.
On to Blag 30003
On to Blag 30003
posted by Bill at 7:37 PM
11 Comments:
I'm downloading it now. I'll use it side-by-side with Ubuntu for a few days and let you know what I think. AFAIC, Ubuntu sets the standard for ease of use. BLAG sets the standard for cheeky anarchist web sites. :-p
It failed the first test -- when loading onto my Averatec laptop, the screen went blank and never returned. This is what Mandriva One does on this box, and several other Red Hat/Fedora distros. Works fine with Ubuntu. Perhaps I'll test it on another box. Perhaps not. Not a great sign...
Might be a sign that you need a different laptop...
Where did you find info on the live CD?
You buyin', Bill?
Sure... What can you get for a $1.78 and three machine screws?
The Averatec is ancient: new in Oct '04. The problem, I'm afraid, is Blag -- the version of X doesn't play well. Boot options are minimal, and I had to go deep into my geek past to recall how to get to start without x (there's no CLI option in Blag's grub implementation). Anyway, I dug around in the xorg.conf file and found that it was using the right video, so I started X from the command line. It tried and tried, admitted there was a broken pipe and quit.
One of the great advantages of Ubuntu is the user base, huge wiki and fora. With Blag, you're on your own. Just like the bad old days. When Dapper Drake is released next Wednesday, Blag goes away.
Oh, two more things: Blag doesn't see my wireless card (not Broadcomm), and when you google "Blag Video", google tries to send you to dirty movies. Don't know what "Blag" means in British English, and maybe I don't want to know.
Ralink 2500. Good chipset, good set of drivers for it at http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Downloads
I gave up on it at midnight. I was tired of hitting ctl-alt-backspace so I could get 2 minutes of command line before it tried to boot x again. The 'rescue disk' feature still tried to boot x for some reason. What I saw looked cute and fast, but it'll have to wait until I can try it out on the celery 500. Ubuntu or Xubuntu or Kubuntu will be blown onto this box's nix partition Wednesday.
I found a site where someone walked you through loading the VESA driver for Fedora (it seems the Unichrome/S3 driver, though included, is known crapware). I booted to text and root, modified the xorg.conf file, and had Blag. Truly, it wasn't worth the trouble. No interesting software, no major speed advantage over Ubuntu, refused to see my radio OR my ETH0 connection. No OpenOffice, no games, no fun utilities. On the plus side: that's real cute wallpaper.
I saw that, Oldster. He tried to load a 25xx driver for an 18xx chipset. And was surprised it didn't work. :-D
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