Author Archives: travis

Adventures with OpenSuSE 12.1

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After installing OpenSuSE 11.4 (which was completely flawless) I decided to give the OpenSuSE 12.1 upgrade a try. From what I’ve determined 12.1 is nowhere near the polished state that 11.4 was (perhaps this is intentional or something, maybe 11.4 was a LTS-type release I’m not entirely sure).

The first time booting the installation DVD, things started off normal, I was greeted with a boot menu with the option to Install. After choosing to install, the Kernel loaded and then shortly after that my screen distorted and that was where the first attempt stalled. I waited 5 minutes or so just to be sure but things never returned to normal.

*reset button*

This time I tried booting the installation DVD with the ACPI=off kernel option and this time the installer finished loading after loading the kernel. I’m not sure what changed between 11.4 and 12.1 but that issue was a little annoying, and probably bad enough to turn off anyone who’s not experienced with Linux. Perhaps OpenSuSE isn’t intended for the Linux ‘n00b’ though, it does have some very nice Enterprise features these days.

The rest of my Upgrade went extremely smoothly, all the new packages installed properly. After the upgrade, things went south rather quickly. The installer closed and I was left at a command prompt (was expecting a GUI login screen). I assumed it was just a glitch and rebooted.

Again after rebooting I was left at a CLI login prompt. This is when I remembered that when I installed the proprietary Nvidia drivers, in order to get my TwinView settings to persist I had to write then to the xorg.conf file. Again this would probably stump a non-experienced user, renaming my xorg.conf file was easy enough for me to do and soon I was back at a GUI login screen.

I logged in and immediate opened my browser to go and re-install the Nvidia drivers and I notice right away Firefox is really slow with the DNS lookup. Open up a terminal and quickly discover I can’t even ping other addresses on my own network. I open YAST and much around with the Network settings (turned off DHCP6 for example) and that seemed to fix things. After that I was able to easily install the Nvidia drivers again.

Reboot and everything looks food from the start. OpenSuSE 12.1 even properly detects my second monitor and configured Dual monitors for me (nice little improvement over 12.1). But once again the networking is messed up.

Every time I reboot OpenSuSE 12.1 my networking doesn’t work until I go into YAST and go through the network configuration. I haven’t had time to really dig into this and find where the problem is yet though I noticed on the forums I’m not alone. Still trying to figure out if its the network configuration itself or something to do with the firewall settings.

Once again, the network issues would be a huge show-stopper for inexperienced users and for a long-time Linux user like myself makes me wonder if I woke up in 1999 or something. I’m going to keep working with OpenSuSE a little longer and see if I can get things to improve or not. Still not sure what distro I’ll attempt to install next.

Keeping It Up

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The condo has been on the market for a while now and unfortunately still no viewings. This is not unexpected. It’s a buyer’s market and we’ve heard about condos that have been on the market for a year now without even a single showing. While this is a little depressing we’re trying to focus on the positive aspects. And it only takes one person to fall in love and buy our place.

I think the best part of this experience so far is the habits I’ve been forming. I’ve never been particularly neat nor organized. I wish I had listened to my parents and developed these habits while I was young but it just didn’t happen that way. There’s no time like the present I’ve heard.

We’ve gotten a nice routine for ourselves. We put things away before we go to bed. And in the mornings we make the bed, make sure the house is tidy, the bathrooms are clean and pack up and take out the garbage on our way out. Our goal is to have the place in a non-embarrassing state whenever we’re not home just in case someone wants to view the place. We’re not perfect and I get yelled at all the time for not doing a good enough job but hopefully it’ll be worth all the stress in the end.

Now all we need is a viewing.

My Adventures in Real Estate

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It’s time. It’s time for a new chapter in my life. I’ve lived in my apartment-style condo for the last 6 years and while there’s things that have bothered me from time to time I have really liked living there. I have a great view and few responsibilities beyond my financial responsibilities. While I enjoy the location and the way of life things change. I’ve changed.

About 4 years ago my lovely girlfriend moved in with me. At the time it was quite a big change for me. Suddenly what was enough room and space for one person was not enough for two people. My first major purge ensued. Again, over time we accumulated more things. We’ve been quite creative in finding places to store everything but in the end we had to face the truth. We need more space.

We need more space not only for our belongings and future belongings but in order to do things like have company over or to start a family (no plans yet though, haha!). So once again a purge had to happen. In August we rented ourselves a small storage unit close to our condo unit and for the last month we’ve spent our evenings and weekends packing, moving, cleaning and painting. We visited my banker who gave us great news as to what we qualify for for a mortgage. We called a family friend who is a Real Estate Agent (and now our Real Estate Agent) and I met with him on Friday and his assistant was over Sunday night to take final measurements and photos. We’re all set right?

Four years ago we probably would have been laughing by now. The markets were great, the condo units in my building were selling for more than twice what we paid for them! Today things are a lot different. If I’m lucky I’ll sell my condo for slightly more than what I originally paid for it. I’m trying to stay positive and hope for the best.

It’s Day 2.

My adventure begins…

Time for Nintendo to Step It Up?

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Was just reading a great article at DamnLag.com which suggests it’s time for Nintendo to make a move to its next generation console. I couldn’t agree more.

The Wii was and is an alright console but I like it for all the wrong reasons judging by Nintendo’s efforts. For me, the Wii is all about the the Virtual Console. Nintendo has virtually abandoned the Virtual Console at this point.

This has caused me to pretty much stop using my Wii now except for Netflix and the occasional time I want to go back and play some of the games in my Virtual Console collection. Were it not for the current economic circumstances I would have long ago purchased a PS3 as its library is starting to fill up with more and more titles that interest me.

This is the big point for me in the article:

3) Give us an actual online experience.

After five years of friend codes and tossing controllers through walls, I am not giving Nintendo any room for mistakes on this one. I want it all: social networking, friends lists, usernames, browsers, real marketplaces, clean interfaces, movies, music, external software storage, downloadable content and whatever else they can think of. The Wii 2 needs to put the days of Nintendo being more internet-retarded than my grandmother to an end. I am sick of hearing “Well, who really wants to play a Nintendo game online?” Over here, Nintendo: I do.

Oh, and give us a Pokemon MMO.

Anyway, don’t take my word for it, go check out the article for yourself at: http://www.damnlag.com/times-up-nintendo-needs-to-release-a-wii-2/

Torchlight 2 in Spring 2011!

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Great news for Torchlight fans today as Runic Games announces Torchlight 2. Some of the highlights include: Multi-player, customizable characters, moddability, new UI, overworld areas, random dungeons, retirement system, pets and fishing.

Some of the great features will be returning, like pets and fishing. The overworld and random dungeon areas should add a lot of extra and unique content to the game.

If you’re a RPG fan or fan of Diablo you should definitely check out Torchlight if you have not already done so. It is a fantastic single-player game.

Read on for the full announcement from Runic Games:

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The State of the Nintendo Virtual Console

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I’m a huge fan of Nintendo’s Virtual Console. In fact, it is the ONLY reason I ever wanted a Nintendo Wii in the first place. For the longest time, Nintendo had a huge, great and enthusiastic Virtual Console community but in recent months they have been trying to kill that community off. Not in an active sense but in a passive sense. They just rarely release any ‘new’ content for the VC and that has done enough damage.

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Nintendo Downloads 2010-04-05

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This week Nintendo celebrates the 1 year anniversary of DSiWare. I hope no one was expecting big things for this anniversary. While one title sounds promising (Mr. DRILLER: Drill Till You Drop), I doubt it’s really fantastic. Nevertheless in the press release for this anniversary, Nintendo lets us know about a few upcoming titles: Earthworm Jim, Tetris Party Live, Surviving Highschool and Frogger Returns. At least DSi owners have that to look forward to!

The Virtual console pick this week is a side-scrolling shooter from the NEOGEO. I’m not familiar with it but it’s probably a safe pick if you are in the mood for a shooter.

This weeks lineup:”

WiiWare: FISHIE FISHIE, Learning with the PooYoos: Episode 2

Virtual Console: IRONCLAD

DSiWare: Game & Watch: Manhole, Game & Watch: Helmet, Game & Watch Vermin, Mr. DRILLER: Drill Till You Drop

Read on for the full press release:

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Nintendo Download 2010-03-29

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Another Monday means new downloads from Nintendo! This time Nintendo is actually helping us fight the Monday blues rather then contributing to them as the Virtual Console gets a little more love. There’s lots to love about this weeks Virtual Console release. Not only is it a rare N64 release, its a Strategy Role-playing Game (usually referred to as SRPG)! Of course there will be those who complain because it’s not a title they are familiar with or because it’s not some other title they’ve been hoping for. Nevertheless if you’re looking for a new game to play, this is probably worth a try!

WiiWare this week brings a couple titles. WarioWare looks to basically be a port of the DS versions for WiiWare. Not familiar with the WarioWare series myself, but if you’re a fan it’s probably worth a go. Diner Dash is another puzzler game… no comment.

DSiWare includes a Disney title. Looks like you’re paying for the name on this one. This is something you’d expect to pay no more than $2 for on the iPhone… and probably less even. Yet it will set you back about $8 (800 points) on DSiWare (ouch)! Nintendo has it figured out though with a couple of music apps priced around $2 (200 points) each. There’s also a title called Save the Turtles for 500 points that shows promise. And another puzzle game in there too!

Here’s the quick list:

Virtual Console: Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Calibre

WiiWare: WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase, Diner Dash

DSiWare: Disney Fireworks, Save the Turtles, Nintendo DSi Metronome, Nintendo DSi Instrument Tuner, Super Yum Yum Puzzle Adventures

Read on for the full press release from Nintendo:

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Nintendo Weekly Downloads (2010-03-22)

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Nintendo continued to extend their middle finger towards Virtual Console fans this week with another week with no titles for the Virtual Console and another list of yawners and shovel-ware (okay as you’ll see below that was somewhat of an exaggeration but my annoyance with Nintendo dumping on the VC fans continues).

No doubt the WiiWare and DSiWare will be of interest to someone… maybe. Apparently Cave Story was a popular PC game. I missed that one.  Once again the DSiWare is somewhat surprising to me. Drift Street International has promise as a multi-player racing game. I think it has a tough job to compete with Mario Kart DS though, which is a fantastic game and apparently so much in demand that it’s still one of the most expensive DS games out there.

Libera Wing is a strategy tower defense game. Given the huge amount of fans of these types of games it should also do well if it’s executed half decently. I’ve never heard of or at least paid attention to Game & Watch titles before. Apparently they’re popular. At least they don’t look to be straight puzzle games?

So here’s the short-list of this weeks titles.

WiiWare: Cave Story

DSiWare: Drift Street International, Libera Wing, Games & Watch: Mario’s Cement Factory, Game & Watch: Chef, Game & Watch: Judge

For the full press release from Nintendo, read on below:

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