new dimension of uselessness

i was happy, cause by turning from beta to final, 11.10 stopped giving me error messages all the time. seemed they fixed it. not for long.
here i have a near-freeze on update manager. so i do ctrl+alt+f1 for virtual console where i input my username, but before the system requests the password, "login times out after 60 seconds".
lovely. any other ideas?

kto jest kim

w dzisiejszej gazecie stołecznej o sprzedaży hotelu bristol. red. wojtczuk (albo inny, nigdy nie wiadomo, kto maczał palce) nie wie, że paderewski był polskim premierem (na stronie gazeta.pl błędu nie ma). poza tym uważa za stosowne poinformować czytelników, kim byli: kiepura, messalka, paderewski, szymanowski i thatcher, za to nie objaśnia nazwisk dietrich, kennedy'ego, kossaka, picassa i piłsudskiego.

gap for gimp on osx

since i have a chance to work on my girlfriend's shiny new mac, i attempted to use gap (gimp animation package) to do some stuff. however, it's not that easy, as there's no downloadable gap package for osx. therefore, after some research, i used macports. the procedure is as follows:

1. you need xcode. it's either available on attached dvd (don't have it here, so can't check) or available from apple if you're a developer. as macports faq states:

 To do so, go to  http://connect.apple.com/ and log in with your Apple ID (the free online developer account is enough to get access to Xcode). Once you log in, go to Downloads, then select Developer Tools on the right section under Downloads. You can then search for Xcode (there are quite a few versions available, make sure to get the latest for your OS version) using your browser, via Cmd-F.

for my snow leopard i needed xcode 3.2 or later. i registered as a developer using my exisitng apple id, gave some info on my (supposed) developer's work and proceeded to download. it is... more than 4gb, and takes more than 10gb on hd. after downloading (a few hours) you can open the .dmg and you have an icon for installing the xcode. note that xcode for lion is seemingly available for purchase via appstore, but as a (free) developer, i found a download link after logging in.

2. download appropriate version of macports and install as above.

3. now you need to use the terminal (you can find it by searching). it is actually very linux-like. i started with installing gimp-gap, cause i had gimp for osx installed. it cames out, that you need to install gimp via macports in order to work with gap (and you don't need the "other" gimp for osx). hence:

sudo port install gimp-app gimp-gap

the sudo password is the same as the one you use for installing regular mac apps. now macports will schedule, download and install one-by-one an enormous number of packages. it will take a few hours, don't worry (actually after linux experiences i worried a lot the system will be broken after that, but so far so good).

4. it's done. you invoke gimp by the 'gimp' command in the terminal, no idea how to set up an icon. and it works, at least until now. remember you need x's for gimp to work, which should be the case. macports:

The X11 windowing environment (A.K.A. “X11 User”) for ports that depend on the functionality it provides to run.

• The “X11 User” package is an optional installation on your system CDs/DVD for Tiger, enabled through the “Customize” button of the installer, whereas it is included by default on Leopard and newer.
• You can use the xorg-server port instead of Apple's X11.app if you wish.

some tutorials for a good start. have fun.

"staroświecki sklep"

zastanawiałem się, czy kawiarnia wedla zachowała jeszcze "czar peerelu", czy jest już całkiem jak w wiedniu, co zresztą wydaje się oczywiste.
zachowała!
spójrzcie na "śniadania według wedlów", przekaz prosto z domu wczasowego, lekko uświetniony białą serwetką.

ubuntu: the least reliable operating system known to man

just one day after preparing a 11.04 persistent usb stick using recommended universal usb installer, a few reboots (i am trying to fix original windows mbr) and one forced restart after battery death later, and the stick doesn't start, loops on "ubuntu" booting screen. how many times i experienced it already...

current 10.10 crap

this is desktop with fresh 10.10 installation i did according to recommendation given by help channels in case of problems (in fact that's basically the only solution they have to most of everyday problems). p4 2.4, 1gb ram.
after a few months of occasional use, the problems are as follows:

• audio (a mia echo card) was gone for some time, but is back - no idea why/how
• after the system is left on for a night, in the morning seemingly some gnome elements are gone, it displays warnings about some apps (?) / widgets (?) gone wrong (unfortunately i didn't write down the warning, since it's impossible to be done on the computer itself); both options to be chosen are a mystery to me, and finally only "skinny elephants" help. finally i have some od the information area icons permanently gone (the speaker, for example), no idea how to bring it back.
• when under heavy load, it happens the system goes to near freeze state (cursor barely moving), only "skinny elephants" help
• as a side note, "sugar inside xephyr" is useless, since when you approach the border of the window it very rarely shows the black frame menu, which renders sugar unusable.

just a few days to 11.04. since general supporters' opinion is that upgrade ruins  your system, and fresh install is the only safe option, i wonder what will happen.
on the other hand, under 10.04 the audio was permanently gone and openoffice.org was crashing few times a day. improvement?
still, under windows there's almost no such thing as permanent system crash, and you can invoke system monitor and kill a process. here - no.