Ubuntu Unity

I've been struggling with Ubuntu's Unity desktop since I upgraded a few months ago. I'm not having the same issues as it seems some others are with the radical redesign of the desktop. Instead, what I am facing is a very nice interface that is too unstable for me to keep.

I've heard that Unity has issues with dual monitor support, so I just assumed that it was too new or unstable to fit my needs. I went to change to the old classic Gnome backend and even tried the new Gnome 3.0 settings but I received the same crashy results. What has been driving me the most crazy is that I run VirtualBox for my Windows work and currently we are now in the middle of a major migration project. I'm spending too much time rebuilding Windows after my GPU card seems to freeze.

I found out that my graphics card is not fully supported under Ubuntu or at least not with a current kernel. http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Hardware  I'm currently running with open source drivers but I'm going to attempt to build the fglrx modules to see if they will work on the new 3.0 kernel.

I wonder how many people are not liking Ubuntu's Unity because of it's dependence on hardware acceleration and the kernel upgrade to 3.0.

Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520030] radeon 0000:01:00.0: GPU lockup CP stall for more than 10004msec
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520035] ------------[ cut here ]------------
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520066] WARNING: at /build/buildd/linux-3.0.0/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_fence.c:267 radeon_fence_wait+0x3fb/0x430 [radeon]()
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520070] Hardware name: OptiPlex 745              
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520072] GPU lockup (waiting for 0x000787AA last fence id 0x000787A9)
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520075] Modules linked in: hidp bnep rfcomm pci_stub vboxpci vboxnetadp vboxnetflt vboxdrv binfmt_misc snd_hda_codec_analog snd_hda_intel snd_emu10k1x snd_hda_codec snd_ac97_codec snd_hwdep snd_pcm snd_seq_midi snd_rawmidi snd_seq_midi_event snd_seq uvcvideo videodev joydev snd_timer btusb bluetooth usbhid hid snd_seq_device v4l2_compat_ioctl32 radeon snd ppdev ttm drm_kms_helper soundcore drm ac97_bus snd_page_alloc emu10k1_gp psmouse serio_raw parport_pc gameport i2c_algo_bit dcdbas dm_multipath lp parport floppy tg3
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520123] Pid: 2468, comm: compiz Not tainted 3.0.0-13-generic #22-Ubuntu
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520126] Call Trace:
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520135]  [<ffffffff8105e8af>] warn_slowpath_common+0x7f/0xc0
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520140]  [<ffffffff8105e9a6>] warn_slowpath_fmt+0x46/0x50
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520159]  [<ffffffffa015227b>] radeon_fence_wait+0x3fb/0x430 [radeon]
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520165]  [<ffffffff81153ffd>] ? kmem_cache_alloc_trace+0x11d/0x140
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520171]  [<ffffffff81081d40>] ? add_wait_queue+0x60/0x60
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520193]  [<ffffffffa016d630>] radeon_ib_get+0x110/0x1a0 [radeon]
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520216]  [<ffffffffa016efd8>] radeon_cs_ioctl+0x98/0x1e0 [radeon]
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520231]  [<ffffffffa00b4574>] drm_ioctl+0x3e4/0x4c0 [drm]
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520254]  [<ffffffffa016ef40>] ? radeon_cs_finish_pages+0xe0/0xe0 [radeon]
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520259]  [<ffffffff8104c84e>] ? perf_event_task_sched_out+0x2e/0xa0
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520265]  [<ffffffff810097ba>] ? __switch_to+0x1ea/0x310
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520269]  [<ffffffff8104e8fd>] ? set_next_entity+0x9d/0xb0
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520273]  [<ffffffff8117959a>] do_vfs_ioctl+0x8a/0x340
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520279]  [<ffffffff815e7f04>] ? __schedule+0x3d4/0x700
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520283]  [<ffffffff8117a7fa>] ? poll_select_set_timeout+0x7a/0x90
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520287]  [<ffffffff811798e1>] sys_ioctl+0x91/0xa0
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520292]  [<ffffffff815f27c2>] system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.520295] ---[ end trace c7810cd722715065 ]---
Dec  5 12:57:24 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.668081] radeon: wait for empty RBBM fifo failed ! Bad things might happen.
Dec  5 12:57:25 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.815837] Failed to wait GUI idle while programming pipes. Bad things might happen.
Dec  5 12:57:25 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8758.816938] radeon 0000:01:00.0: (rs600_asic_reset:342) RBBM_STATUS=0x9401C100
Dec  5 12:57:25 hfa9495 kernel: [ 8759.315026] radeon 0000:01:00.0: (rs600_asic_reset:361) RBBM_STATUS=0x9401C100

Bits or pieces?: Why I believe AAPL will crumble ...

Bits or pieces?: Why I believe AAPL will crumble ...

Understanding Why Consumers Choose Operating Systems

Why Not Linux? - Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
I thought about posting a comment at the bottom of a nicely reasoned article about why someone loves using Linux. But after reading through the comments, I was more interested in other people's justification of why not Linux.
Why not Linux?  Is a fantastic question that apparently shows some interesting rationalization of consumer behavior.
First of all in the article, the writer doesn't understand why people mistakenly assume the value and the price of something is interlocked. It seems to me that in a capitalistic society that people learn that the two are equal. But this is only true in a free and open market. In order to break people's assumption of value=price you need to show how the markets are entirely different. That in an Open Source software world/ market there are different costs and benefits versus any closed source alternative from Microsoft or Apple...
Second consumer inertia seems to be a valuable lesson. Changing purchasing behaviors is difficult and if we are also talking about someone needing to use a different marketplace it would seem undaunting.
I'm going to have to continue my thoughts later.

Problems with Cyanogen or Android in general

Last night I was lucky enough to be working in something like a lead shielded basement at my in-laws house.  I had absolutely no Verizon signal, I'm sure, no GPS signal and the only wireless devices turned on were 1 wireless access point installed just feet away from the desk I was sitting at and my stereo bluetooth headset.

While I was downstairs I started getting a bunch of force close errors on all kinds of applications.  Most notably  Google App Service and Browser.  Since I run the Cyanogen Mod, I have run into a situation like this.  Usually I can fix the situation by running the ROMManager's fix permission task and reboot my phone without a hassle -- I actually only ran into one situation where this helped when I upgraded to Cyanogen 7 without wiping the data or the cache partition and the fix permission was only a temporary fix until I went to factory restore.

Android Encryption Options

Whisper Systems :: WhisperCore
My current favorite encryption tool on Android is Droidcrypt.  I just installed RR File Locker and will see what I think about that application.