Nice introduction, but still incomplete
on
WxPython in Action
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I got this book a few months ago with the hope that it would be a nice introduction and reference. I bought it from the publisher, because I could also get a PDF version. That has been really nice since it makes it easier to look for examples.
The book was a nice introduction to someone who isn't familiar with wxWidgets or wxPython and it reads well. Despite this, I found the book to be lacking as a good reference book. The index is kind of sparse, and I found myself turning more and more to the wxWidgets and wxPython web sites and demo.py as a reference for specific widgets. I don't plan on taking my copy back, but I instead use it as just one more avenue for information.
I bought a T-42p from EmperorLinux last fall with Ubuntu Breezy installed. Some things worked pretty well, like the wireless, but they didn't have a 3D driver for the ATI Fire GL card that supports suspend and hibernate. I have to reboot my machine everytime I need 3D hardware accelaration or use the non 3D accelarated driver.
Some things that came broken:
Fonts - They screwed up the xorg.conf file by pointing the font path to the old locations of fonts (this was their custom supplied xorg.conf file). I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out after support told me that they don't support user space programs. When I finally figured it out they told me that they recently discovered this problem, but had they contacted me and told me that this might be an issue? No.
Monitory cloning for projectors - The display was chopped off on the left hand side and after troubleshooting it for days I tried a different configuration that worked, but didn't provide hardware accelaration on the projector side. When I called in for support they swore they didn't see the same issues, but it appears to be a driver issue. They also don't have any suggestions on providing the accelaration on the projector side instead of the laptop screen.
3D hardware accelartion and suspend - This never worked from the start. Granted this is an ATI driver issue, but they said it was likely that ATI would be updating the driver to do this properly soon. I've seen some drivers on the ATI web site that indicate this issue is fixed, but have I heard from Emperor about it? No. Even after repeated emails asking out it, my emails have gone ignored.
Modem - The modem came unfunctional. They told me it was supported, but I doubt seriously that they even bothered testing it before it was shipped, otherwise it would have been clear that it was mis configured. They say they test the laptop fully before shipping. I guess they forgot this part of the laptop. When I asked about it finally, they gave me some 3rd party driver that requires registration in order to use it. Thanks a lot. I just want it to work without my own fusting about.
Support by email - Their preferred way of providing support is by email. They try to have a 24 hour turn around, but sometimes I never get responses or I have to send the same email 3 or 4 times over the course of a week. This is unacceptable. I was even told over the phone once that I shouldn't call, but send emails when their web site clearly states that they do support through the phone.
They have a 30-day money back garantee, so I suggest you try everything out right away. If something doesn't work you should ship it back, because it isn't likely that it will get fixed remotely unless you bug them to death.
After months of fiddling I almost have everything working as I want, but I shouldn't have to spend this much time when I paid a premium for Emperor to do it for me. If I had the opportunity to do it again, I would have waited for the MacBook Pro. It would have been a lot cheaper in terms of support and my time.
Yeah, irix works well if you already have code ported to it. Ever try porting code to an irix? You would not believe the hoops I had to jump though in order to get xmms to compile.
On a desktop, irix is dead. However we have a few Origins where I work, and they kick some serious butt when it comes to writing parallel code. The problem with Origins is they cost way too much money for the amount of processing power they provide. The Altix is a step in the right direction where you can have industry backed CPU and OS support, but provide the flexibility of a SMP machine.
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I got this book a few months ago with the hope that it would be a nice introduction and reference. I bought it from the publisher, because I could also get a PDF version. That has been really nice since it makes it easier to look for examples.
The book was a nice introduction to someone who isn't familiar with wxWidgets or wxPython and it reads well. Despite this, I found the book to be lacking as a good reference book. The index is kind of sparse, and I found myself turning more and more to the wxWidgets and wxPython web sites and demo.py as a reference for specific widgets. I don't plan on taking my copy back, but I instead use it as just one more avenue for information.
I bought a T-42p from EmperorLinux last fall with Ubuntu Breezy installed. Some things worked pretty well, like the wireless, but they didn't have a 3D driver for the ATI Fire GL card that supports suspend and hibernate. I have to reboot my machine everytime I need 3D hardware accelaration or use the non 3D accelarated driver.
Some things that came broken:
They have a 30-day money back garantee, so I suggest you try everything out right away. If something doesn't work you should ship it back, because it isn't likely that it will get fixed remotely unless you bug them to death.
After months of fiddling I almost have everything working as I want, but I shouldn't have to spend this much time when I paid a premium for Emperor to do it for me. If I had the opportunity to do it again, I would have waited for the MacBook Pro. It would have been a lot cheaper in terms of support and my time.
I think the point of the sig was that "should of" is not the expansion the contraction "should've" which is, of course, "should have".
Yeah, irix works well if you already have code ported to it. Ever try porting code to an irix? You would not believe the hoops I had to jump though in order to get xmms to compile.
On a desktop, irix is dead. However we have a few Origins where I work, and they kick some serious butt when it comes to writing parallel code. The problem with Origins is they cost way too much money for the amount of processing power they provide. The Altix is a step in the right direction where you can have industry backed CPU and OS support, but provide the flexibility of a SMP machine.