Sunday Shout

Sunday, 9th June 2024

It’s-a Sunday and I’m trying (and failing) to write a blog entry at least once a week. Why? I actually don’t know… Well whatever here goes.

This entry is about Linux, Superdeb, Star Trek: Voyager and..?

My First Linux PC - Round 1

Ubuntu Logo

A kind family member donated me an old-but-not-ancient PC. I've always wanted to have a dedicated Linux machine. So I figured this is a great chance to set one up!

Today I installed Ubuntu Linux on it. To do this, I followed the instructions on the Ubuntu website. On my main (Windows) PC, I Downloaded the Ubuntu iso, used a program called Balena Etcher to "flash" a USB Drive with it (or something), put the USB drive in the machine I want Ubuntu on, booted the machine, hit F12 and booted from the USB Drive.

Then I selected the first option, and got a purple screen with some error messages followed by a black screen. Great lol.

Okay, try again. This time I tried the second option, "graphics safe mode", I think it was called. Success! The install process was relatively quick, easy and went smoothly.

After a final reboot, I was up and running in Ubuntu!

Unfortunately, I immediately found it seemed quite sluggish. I'm not an "everything must run at 9000 FPS" guy, but, the mouse seemed so move at like 10FPS tops, and every time I opened or closed a window, there was a noticable delay of about a second.

It also didn't like my Wifi USB dongle and was unable to connect to the internet. Although, perhaps if I had attached it during the install process, it would have worked at that point and the appropriate driver would have been downloaded.

Perhaps having internet during the install process (if that even would work) might have solved the sluggishness problem too.

Regardless, these issues were enough for me to call it a day. I'm not done trying however. Next weekend I'm going to have another go. I'm not sure I fancy going through the whole process again, with internet (if that works), just to find it's STILL slow and/or no internet-once-installed. So I think I might try Linux Mint instead when I try this again.

Superdeb!

Superdeb Logo

Okay, so Superdeb is the project I keep talking about and never seem to finish lol. Lately I've found myself distracted by other project ideas, and other stuff, and there's been a fairly large break in development again.

Once AGAIN I've decided to return to Superdeb! and no more distractions until it's finished.

Rather than using a library like 3 or PixiJS etc, I'm writing it all myself using the Canvas API. Well, I'm actually making my own "library" as I go which implements that. I think one of the things that slowed me down previously was that in an attempt to finish the project quickly, I was starting to rush, and work around the limitations of my own library, rather than adding the features I needed TO the library in an organised manner. As such, I'm currently concentrating on the library layer and bringing it up to speed.

I'm also thinking about making a dedicated section for the library on this site, too, maybe others might like to use it.

Anyway. I'm not gonna suggest Superdeb be ready by X date this time, it'l be done when it's done lol. Although, hopefully sometime this year...

Star Trek Voyager Rewatch

Star Trek Voyager

I haven't watched Star Trek Voyager in a few years, and it's one of my favourite TV shows, so I've started rewatching it again.

It's just as good, if not better than I remember. Something that strikes me is in fact how much humour they've managed to include in the show. I mean this is Star Trek and not Red Dwarf (which is also awesome btw), so it's not ridiculous levels, but it certainly made me laugh along the way. Especially the Doctor's character. How proud of himself he always is always makes me laugh lol.

I also like how this is how Doctors wake up patients in the future lol (skip to 24s):

Conclusion

Once again. THERE IS NO CONCLUSION. THIS IS ALL MEANINGLESS. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Oh, and one more thing...

Cat