Policies of appeasement suck (Or, Telstra, Microsoft, and Dyne:bolic)
26 Oct 2005Both when it comes to 20th century international relations and technology companies.
http://lists.slug.org.au/archives/slug/2004/04/msg00133.html
Ironically, I was looking for that software so I could see what could be done away from a MS Windows live production environment (for an event mid-December this year). As it stands, I’m downloading Dyne:bolic from another source (GNU.org’s US FTP server, actually. One of Bigpond’s more often-saturated links), and will post here once I’ve figured out if it’s worth “the risk” of using. And again if/when it gets used.
My biggest concern is it’s not going to like various TV-out hardware on the two computers I want to use it on. Actually, it only needs to work on one — the other is up to Ubuntu, but the software will be much the same. And yes, I now trust Ubuntu enough… kind of. Breezy is ridiculously stable, though its multimedia performance can be a bit lacklustre. I’m blaming the TNT2, though, and figure it’ll pick up lots if I stick a GeForce 6600 in it. Failing that… I’ll probably use a laptop, or something else boring.
Basically, I want the Dyne:bolic box to be a playback machine, and the Ubuntu box is just gonna sit there and feed a nice static graphic (or maybe an animated logo, if I get bored). The Ubuntu box will be my desktop, because, whilst it’s fine for WWW stuff and the spot of word-processing… I have too much crap installed on it. Contrary to popular opinion, Windows is far easier to trim services/background apps on for extra speed than Linux on the desktop is. The amount of crap Gnome/Ximian/Nautilus leaves lying around is truly disgusting if you ever want to try and stop all the processes and just have something work on its own. I could launch into a failsafe X session and just run what I want from there, I guess… always a possibility. Can’t do that on Windows (if someone says “safe mode” I might stab them).
If anyone feels like lending me a vision mixer (or well-specc’d computer!) for a weekend in December… *looks strangely optimistic* Yeah, okay. Well, if anyone can get me a good deal on a vision mixer (MX-50 is my friend) for a weekend in December…
(Yeah, I’ve checked Digihire. They’re nice people, but cheaper would be better. Church/non-profit event.)