Ubuntu Problem Update

So, I reinstalled Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and I’ve encountered the same bug.  Again, X died when I middle-clicked a firefox tab to close it.  I was using Firefox 3.0b5 with the Tree Style Tabs plug-in at the time.  I’ve also got desktop effects enabled.  I was viewing a flash video at the time with adobe’s !free flash plug-in.

In the meantime I’ve uninstalled Tree Style Tabs.  If the problem ceases then it’s likely a problem with Tree Style Tabs and I’ll try to reproduce the bug and get some meaningful output.  Otherwise it might be a Firefox bug and the situation might change if/when I update to RC1.

Weird Ubuntu Problem

My current laptop configuration suffers from a strange and frustrating bug.

It seems that on certain rare occasions I can kill my X session by hitting the middle-click button just above my touchpad.  This has happened at least three times.  The last two times (and maybe the first time, I don’t recall) have been when I was middle-clicking a Vertigo Tree Style Tab [ed: I wasn't actually using Vertigo] tab in Firefox to close it.

Anybody have any idea what is going on?  I’d file a bug report, except I can’t reproduce it and I have a feeling that it could be due to some combination of an unstable firefox beta and a sloppy upgrade to Hardy Heron.  It could be time to wipe my installation and reinstall Linux…  If I decide to start fresh I might go ahead and give FC9 a try.

How To Win in November

As a friend eloquently opined upon the upcoming election, “if the Democrats don’t win in November they need to pack up and go home.” I’ve always thought that a Hillary Clinton campaign is exactly what the Democratic party does not need — she is polarizing enough to convince more than just the rank-and-file GOPers to vote for McCain and, besides, you can’t win an election by simply not being the other guy (just ask John Kerry). They need someone that other Democrats can rally around, that Republicans don’t despise, and that independents can learn to like. That person, it seems, is Barack Obama.

The GOP, of course, has generally decided to nominate John McCain. This decision was not made entirely without reserve. In the West Virginia primary, for example, he recently managed to win an unimpressive 76% of the popular vote even though he’s the only serious Republican contender left in the race. In spite of that, he does have some favorable traits. He’s old, lackluster, and predictable. He is a political moderate. After Bush’s atrociously expensive eight year tenure in the white house, he is probably exactly what the Republican Party needs.

Assuming that Obama wins the nomination, I’m hesitant to commit to voting for either of the two major parties. All of my favorite candidates have left the race or are now seeking nominations of third parties. Both Obama and McCain have their high points. They also both have their resounding low points. I’ve outlined six issues below which I believe will help lead one of them to a victory in November. Many of these points have been completely avoided or otherwise unsatisfactorily addressed by both campaigns. They are arranged in order of importance, with the most important issues coming first.

Why I Disagree With Socialized Medicine

I’m very cynical of government. I think most people probably are. Henry David Thoreau said it best: “that government is best which governs least.”

Republicans aren’t shy about expressing their agreement. Reagan reiterated Thoreau (thanks, Katie!) with his famous zinger: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” I’m told that Ron Paul recently fumbled his way through a speech with similar meaning. It may or may not have been covered on C-SPAN 2.

Of course, not content with keeping the moral high ground, Republicans also want an overly meddlesome government.  They reconcile this contradiction by asserting that the government ought only to meddle in the lives of others*. This is evidenced by the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the promulgation and subsequent support of the so-called “Patriot” Act, an almost unanimously Republican base of support for the REAL ID Act, and a 63% increase in the federal budget between 2001 (Clinton’s last budget) and 2009 (Bush’s last budget).

Democrats’ views are equally confusing. Democrats in congress have voiced unwavering support of ending the war when their support has been absolutely meaningless. They’ve also continued to fund it. The Democratic Party berates the president over his deficit spending, touting Bill Clinton’s projected surplus** at the end of his term. In spite of this deficit-be-damned position that the Democrats take, both of the major contenders for the Democratic nomination (Barack Obama and the other one) are both championing nationalized healthcare.

I’ve Moved to WordPress

I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a comments system in PHP and MySQL for the past few weeks.  I’ve even gotten started once or twice.  But I think I can find a better use for my time than reinventing the comment system, so I caved and made a wordpress blag.  I’ll be posting here regularly instead of on my other web site.  I’ve updated the IEEECS Planet accordingly.

Fedora Core 9 on a Thinkpad T60

Every time I come back to Houston I get brazen about testing out a new Linux distribution. I’m not sure what it is — likely some combination of not having schoolwork and not killing time at Posse or (lately) the Flying Saucer. The trend is especially evident around certain parts of the year, namely immediately after finals or during the summer when I’m not responsible for keeping track of lots of digital classwork.

Since Fedora Core 9 has been making the news lately, I decided to give it a shot. I began by downloading the i386 net install CD and creating a blank virtual machine with an unregistered evaluation copy of VMWare Workstation. The eval copy is free to download, and creates virtual images but is crippled so it won’t play them. I fired up the clean virtual machine file in VMWare Player, which is free (as in beer) software. No dice — for some reason the net installation wasn’t working for me, in spite of the fact that I had network access. Same with trying to install it in VirtualBox. I think it was probably an issue with the mirrors I was using, but I didn’t bother to follow it through.

My next thought was to actually grab the x86_64 livecd and try that. I got it working in VMWare Player. It seemed nice. I backed all my important stuff up (including my unfinished checkout of scart), and booted to the CD. Again, it seemed nice. Unfortunately, Desktop Effects weren’t working. I tried enabling them manually. No dice. I tried installing the ATI driver and restarting X. No dice. I searched for a fglrx package. No dice. I googled it. No dice.

Sure, it’s possible that desktop effects will start working if I do a proper install. Not having compiz, though, is kind of a show-stopper for me. So, in the meantime, I’m sticking with Hardy. If the ATI issues clear up, I might give FC9 another shot. But until I’m assured that I won’t have to deal with it, I’m not willing to scrap my current setup.

By the way, did everyone remember to RSA and DSA keys?