#miserable bastard

Donald Dunk.

Scammer

Well so far I am finding the world of Linux an absolute headache...  Everything is just needlessly complicated.  It seems to thrive on being the most obnoxious, most contrived piece of Operating System software I have had in my life since the time I installed Solaris 10 on my PC.

Just for the record ...Solaris 10 was on 4 CDs, took forever to install and worked for about half an hour.  I closed down and when I started it back up later it had corrupted its own configuration file so neither Gnome or CDT would start up.  Strangely enough I removed it from my computer soon after and it never saw the light of day again.

Now I moved to a Linux system after my Windows 10 installation was attacked by Cerber Ransomware.  How I don’t know how I got it but I have my suspicions.  So after the amazing fun of trying to remove it and failing.  I was left with a system that was pretty much useless and there was no way I was going to pay a ransom.  Not that I could even if I wanted to, just could not afford it.

So I chose Netrunner Linux 17 (Horizon) now installation was easy, straightforward and overall simple. Within about 20 minutes I had a very nice looking desktop and after a few hundred updates which took about 30 minutes.  I had a system that was fully upgraded to KDE Plasma 5.3.3 and I was ready to start putting stuff on to it.

Now I have messed around with Netrunner since version 14 in various ways so I knew that the main software installer was Muon Discovery.  Ok, so far so good.  Managed to install a few programs which all worked, and they installed themselves into the appropriate menus.  So I guess you are wondering what I am moaning about as it all seems to be working fine and dandy.

Well at this part of time all was good.  I could browse the net, sorted out my email.  Installed a few games and things all was going great.

If that was all I had to do then fine, but sadly I had more to do.  First I had to transfer files from my backup external drive which is a 3TB Seagate drive.  Connect it, sure it sees it but refuses to mount it.  Hmmm, not good.

Now as I said this not my first time to bat with a Linux system, so off to the terminal and I manage to mount it as read only.  Now this is fine for the moment after all I want to copy files from t not write them back so no harm done.  However it is going to be a problem if I ever want to back anything up to it as I can’t write to it.

Minor issue, I managed to get my files I wanted so I can’t really complain.  I am sure there is a way to allow it use the 3TB drive without me having to format it, but as of yet that has not presented itself.  I am sure the Linux geeks out there are screaming the commands at their screen.

On to the next thing, now as I have an i7 laptop with 8GB .  The girls occasionally use it to do the odd thing in Minecraft as I can dedicate 4GB of memory making it usable as opposed to the 2GB they can allocate which lags even in Vanilla.

Off I trot around the usual sites get the Minecraft launcher, Technic Launcher, FTB Launcher and ATLauncher.  These are all Java .Jar files and no issue is had with the download using Firefox.  After moving the ATLauncher jar to its own directory (if  you don’t it complains at you to do so) I was ready to try and test to see if they were working.

Double click Minecraft.jar ... OpenJDK 7 flickers to life for a few seconds then sod all.  Try again, nope no response.  Ok, so it seems it’s time to get Java 8.  Off to Discovery, nope its not there.  Time to visit Sun’s website.  sure enough they have JRE 8 u77 for Linux in both rpm and tar.gz files.  Download both, try to unpack the using ARK but when I try and install as the website says no joy.

Check Synaptic Package Manager, no joy there.  Off to the net we go... I find to install Java 8 you need to open a terminal, then add a repository using apt-get, then you have to update to pull in the listing.  Now you can apt-get request the Java 8 installer.   What a carry on, but the fun does not end there.  Java 8 is installed but the system is still pointing to OpenJDK 7.  Yet another apt terminal command which is overtly long to include -config java I finally manage to get Java 8 as the default.

Right so back to testing Vanilla Minecraft works great.   Now off to test the modded servers, sure the menu comes up all nice and off to download an instance of  Attack of the C-Team using the ATLauncher.  Yep, all downloads fine.  Time to hit Play, Forge screen comes up all looking good.  Gets to stage 3 of 7 and crash back to Launcher.  Some complaint about xcb dequeued or some such nonsense.

Thinking it may be just that pack I install the Resonant Rise 3 pack.  Again starts gets to Stage 3 crash out.  Thinking it may be the ATLauncher being temperamental I start the FTB Launcher and try and install FTB Infinity.  sure once again installs fine upon launch stage 3 crash xcb dequeued. Time to go web searching.

Turns out it’s an issue with the Forge loading screen, but if you go into the instances config directory and change one of the entries in splash.properties to display=false.  It will continue. You will get a black screen until the main Mojang Minecraft block loads but Hey it works.

Also this is only the Linux version that has this problem.  Not good... but hey it’s a minor thing and I have managed to solve the problem.  Yes another minor thing, how many minor issues until it becomes a major one.

Minecraft working, moving onto the next thing to get working.  Every two weeks we invite the family over to watch a film.  Now we stream it using my laptop to our LG Smart TV downstairs.  Right after having to copy the films in two halves due to the 3TB drive timing out but it did that under Windows too sometimes, so I am not going to fault Linux on that one.

Right off to find a program that can do DLNA.  Nothing in Discover.  It seems I am discovering how much is missing from Discover ironically.  Check the internet which recommends trying MediaTomb, which installs, opens a web page and fails to display anything.

Check directory all there but in the directory it has installed bugger all.  Fail one. Back to the Internet we go, next program it seems to recommend is MiniDLNA.  Don’t even bother with Discovery as I know it won’t have it.  Find a tar.gz of it.  Unarchive it using ARK, guess what it’s a source code build.

Run the configure file and apparently I am missing libraries to build it.  Sod it... Fail number two.  Eventually get to  Rygel and look I need to type another apt-get command to get it.  Yippee but at least I did not need to add a repository this time.  Actually it installs reasonably quickly but has no entry in the menus.

Also it’s a Gnome program and I am using KDE so I don’t get a GUI.  That would probably require libraries that I can’t be arsed to find. So Rygel finds my films but apparently VALA can’t access the D-Bus (?) so no thumbnails are generated.  It manages to connect to out TV and it seemed to work for the 2 minutes I tested it with.  As of yet to test it in anger.

Rygel either stopped trying to generate thumbnails or somehow the D-Bus issue sorted itself out as, after a few runs it stopped giving that message.  Once again, what should have been an easy task has become a long stretched out test of endurance and patience.

Now lets get this straight I appreciate Linux is a different beast to Windows, but everything is in different package formats, each needing their own package manager.  Not all managers integrate to the system.  It’s annoying.

Moving on... Install Steam, connect in and my games list drops from 147 under Windows to 61 that can be installed with STEAMOS and Linux.  Now that is better than I thought it would be, as last time I had tried Linux it was about 12 so things have improved.

Most games I try and install work with the exception of Saints Row IV which apparently needs Shaders 4.1 which my lowly Intel HD4000 is not capable of under Linux.  So no major complaints with Steam, eventually they will figure a way to bridge the rest of them.

Considering the only game I was really playing on Steam was Shadowrun Dragonfall and it works happily under Linux I can say I have no real complaint here.

Now I was asked to supply some Windows software to a member of the family, No Problemo.  Mount the 3TB drive, copy the files to laptop.  Insert flash drive and copy files.  Magic.

The software in question is Rollercoaster Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon 2.  I have versions that use the GOG installer so they don’t need a CD.  As I have them in my Download directory I decide to do an experiment.  Sure enough I manage to install them using Wine to my desktop.  They seem to run fine.  Yippee...

So now bolstered that they worked I start to think is there anything else I can run say apps.  Now I should have walked away there and then but I am a guy who likes to push his luck. Time to try Photoshop, now I look up on Wine HQ and it says that someone has managed to get Photoshop CC 2015 working with Arch.

Now I know that Netrunner is based on a Kubuntu distro base but I figured surely they can’t be that radically different.  Now people will be informing me that the Rolling Release of Netrunner is based on Arch but last time I tried to install it, it refused to work for me.

Ok download Photoshop, Attempt to run installer no joy.  Off to the net and discover it was Wine version 1.9.1.  This time I discover that the Synaptic Program Manager has listed a 1.9.7 version. Time to give that an install, as the version I am using is 1.6.2.

It removes the previous version and installs the new one.  It wipes out most of the entries in the Wine menu.  Great and also refuses to do anything unless I restart Linux.  I thought Linux did not have to do that .  Apparently in this case you do I guess its because it’s a Windows thing.

Try installer no joy... read to get the installer to run you need to set the wine config to Windows 2008.  well I could easily do that when I had a menu with that option.  Now what do I do.  Uninstall Wine 1.9.7 and replace it with Wine 1.8. All of the menu items return.  Handy...

Set wine config to Windows 2008 and sure enough it installs.  Attempt to run it and sod all happens.  Set config to Windows 7 as it says on net.  Still not happening.

Ok scream, try and uninstall.  Not happening no matter what I set it to.  Right guess I can always blitz that.  Not the end of the world.  Try 32 bit version as I was installing the 64 bit version.  Go through the 2008 rigmarole and Windows 7 and sure enough it works.  Some PDApp.exe seems to crash but does not seem to affect anything I can see.

It runs, Maximise window and it all goes a bit wrong, manage to quit and it crashes Photoshop.exe on way out.  Apparently that is normal from my reading earlier so I don’t worry about that.  Try to restart fail.  It seems sometimes it will load other times it won’t.  It’s not consistent as to why or when.

But yeah I guess Photoshop is sort of working.  Have not really put it through its paces but it seems to load sometimes.

Ok, try see if I can get Quark 2015 running.  Copy installer across and try and run it.  First it complains it can’t run on this version of Windows.   That’s due to me testing something regarding the RCT stuff and I had changed the wine config to XP.  One config change later to Windows 10 and it starts the installer, gets to the license agreement, click Agree, and next and nothing happens.  It sits there like a lemon.

Damn, find an entry in Wine HQ that says they had Quark 10 running under Wine 1.7.11.  Oh well as I have version 1.8  it should work.  Find my copy of Quark 10 installer works all good when set to Windows 7 or above. However once installed no matter which Windows setting you put it in.  I can’t seem to get it to start.

Oh well, never mind.  Frustrating how some people seem to manage to get it running, but don’t put how they did it.  Where as some give a full explanation as to how they did it on things I have no desire to install.  Typical.

Decide to try OpenTyrian which I downloaded using Muon Discover.  Click it nothing loads.  Try it in terminal and discover I am missing all the data files.  I have a copy of Tyrian on the old 3TB hard drive so I copy it across and try and figure if I can put somewhere.

Dolphin File manager will not let me put them the usr/share directory as apparently i don’t have permission.  Terminal time su root commands to move the files there.  Try OpenTyrian still bugger all, apparently still can’t see files.

In frustration head to Internet.  End up typing a command into the terminal to wget the zip from somewhere on the net.   More unnecessarily long command strings.  run another command and it works.  Turns out if I had just unzipped the file I had to a directory called data inside my downloads directory it would have worked.

Oh well got there in the end.  However by this point I am getting frustrated that everything is made far to complex to install.  Requiring intervention from one way of another with the terminal.  I hate command prompts.  Trust me if I never see another command prompt as long as I live I would be a happy man, but as I am still running Linux it will probably not soon before I need it again.

Most recent task I needed to get some file from a torrent and Virgin Media would not let me get there.  Now I tried to set up a VPN.  I looked to see if there was a simple program to do it.  Nope... Set up a PrivateTunnel account as redirected from OpenVPN.

Sat and read through how to install OpenVPN.  Oh look I have to build from source.  Apparently I am missing a few libraries but I think sod it I will see if I can find them.  More apt-get commands and I manage to get the libraries.  I manage to compile it.  However when I try make install... it refuses to do anything.  Balls...

Eventually find a version using apt-get of openvpn after a web search or two.  Follow PrivateTunnels instructions after grabbing the config files.  You have to slice up the file into sub files and then add it to the Network connections.  Do as instructed.  Tried it and no joy.  tried a different config file.  Still no joy.  Tried a Third and still it refuses to connect.

In the end I gave up trying to get it to connect to a VPN.  Never did get the file in question.  Why is it so bloody complicated?

Linux just seems to like making things ten times more difficult than is absolutely necessary... So far it is proving to be a complete hassle to get anything running.

Fair enough I would be able to forgive this if it was a few months or years old, but Linux is now been around the block for nigh on 20 years and is ridiculously over complicated in its ways of doing things.  Sure it has improved since the days of text installers and setting dot clocks for X Servers but it still relies to heavily upon the terminal and its command prompt too much for my liking.