Re:Typicall awful font rendering on Linux
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aMSN 0.95 Released
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· Score: 1
The resolution isn't the problem, it's the DisplaySize/DPI setting. Fonts on Linux work just fine if everything is configured properly. I WILL admit that it is a royal pain to configure, and sometimes you have to wade through undocumented options to do it properly, but it does work once you do. Work needs to be put toward ease of configuration, not functionality, because the functionality is there even though it's poorly documented and a pain to set up.
Re:Typicall awful font rendering on Linux
on
aMSN 0.95 Released
·
· Score: 1
One thing that people commonly overlook is the DisplaySize option in xorg.conf. X basically has to know your monitor size in order to render fonts correctly. The fonts on my laptop looked *awful* by default...it is a 15" 1024x768 display, and since it is a laptop it only works at native resolution. The defaults likely assume your display is 1280x1024 native. Once I set this, fonts now look identical to my desktop (which uses a 17" 1280x1024 LCD) and I don't have any more strange font rendering issues. Here's an article on this often overlooked not very well documented option: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Xorg_and_Fonts
For some reason, Microsoft's "visions of the future" always remind me of that Beavis and Butthead christmas episode where Beavis is talking about "the future" and it shows him and Butthead in Burger World, with Beavis as the Terminator. ROFL!
That's wrong actually. "Most" video game hardware is not sold at a loss. To date, there have only been 3 consoles that have been sold at a loss: the Sega Saturn, the Dreamcast, and the Xbox. No other manufacturer has done this. Go here for a rundown on the myth vs. the truth: http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02. html
The plastic they are referring to was an attachment they rigged with parts from a hardware store, it's not something that was actually part of the robot. Plus, the radiation was from a high energy gamma source. Gamma is very very very hard to block, nearly impossible, it's very high frequency EM that can pass through just about anything. It takes extremely thick lead sheets, and even then that doesn't quite get all of it. The only reason that even works at all is because lead is extremely dense, and thus heavy...and the robot does have to be mobile also so there are compromises. Plus, any gamma that does get absorbed gets quickly turned into heat. Even protective suits wouldn't have helped people in the area much, it'd be like being stuck in a microwave. Frankly, I'm surprised that the robot's electronics were able to survive at all, it'd be like trying to operate a computer while it's in a microwave. It'd probably be theoretically possible to make a protective suit that someone could wear in such an environment, but it'd take so much lead and be so heavy that no person could actually wear it.
Most likely, you just don't have your fonts configured properly. If you use a window manager that uses GTK or Qt, fonts should not be a problem unless you don't have the config files set up properly. Now, I will admit that it is an absolute bear to configure, far harder than it should be, but fonts do work nicely once set up properly. Gentoo automates a lot of the difficulty of installing fonts, so I don't have to deal with a lot of it...but you can get nice looking fonts in X11 if everything is configured properly. One thing I didn't know about until recently: There are acutally *two* font configuration locations. 1)/etc/X11/xorg.conf. This is to make X11 itself aware of fonts. This is usually used for more "legacy" things. Then there are the config files in/etc/fonts. These are for Freetype/XFT. You can use xfs in/etc/X11/xorg.conf, then you don't have to list all the directories manually. Gentoo automatically sets up the config files in/etc/fonts. If you need to edit these, they are in XML, so it's easier to use an editor that understands this rather than doing it manually.
Nah, the Dreamcast is only 1 generation behind. The DC is the same generation as the PS2 and Gamecube. It's actually a lot better than the PS2 in a lot of ways...the PS2 has a stronger CPU, but the Dreamcast can out-texture the PS2 easily. Most Dreamcast games look better than most PS2 games. Though if you really want to get technical, the GC and Xbox are a generational leap over the PS2 and DC. The PS2 and DC only had rendering accelerators, while the GC and Xbox have full GPU's (hardware T&L acceleration). The PS2's video chipset really amounts to a really fast Voodoo1, the feature set is about the same. It can't even do multitexturing, which is something that was introduced with the Voodoo2...it has to depend on the CPU to do all the work. The Dreamcast was a very good system for its time, and sadly it was under-appreciated, but the problems were as much Sega's bad business decisions as they were hype for the PS2 killing the system.
That's very easy to mistakenly do with the way gas station prices work. I used to work at one, and the manager did that accidentally. I forget exactly what the price was supposed to be, something like $1.79. Anyway, the console used to do that didn't have a decimal point, and the price is always something like $1.799. So you have to type 1799 on the keypad to get the right price. She accidentally put in 179 instead of 1799, so the price became $0.179. We caught the mistake after the first person got gas after that. I'd believe that it was an honest mistake as opposed to a crooked employee.
No kidding...in my crontab, once a week, emerge --sync, updatedb, prelink -amR. Then once a week (I like to do the updates manually in case I have to adjust USE flags), emerge -uDNva world ; emerge depclean ; revdep-rebuild. I don't even think about updates anymore. Gentoo is freaking awesome...the only problem with Gentoo is that it's not a very good distro for those new to Linux or those without a decent amount of computer knowledge.
Portage (Gentoo) does something sort of similar. You can install multiple versions of some packages (example...kernels, GTK, GCC) in "slots". I always had the problems you mention with Linux (I used Redhat/RPM, bleh) until I switched to Gentoo. The package management in Gentoo is incredible. Even converting the whole system from GCC 3.3.5 to 3.4.4 (they aren't binary compatible with each other) is relatively painless. GCC 3.4.4 is installed in a new slot...switch to the new compiler, recompile system, remove 3.3.5. I remember trying to install something GNOME related under Redhat once...I used rpmfind.net and it took me hours to find all of the packages I needed...had to have the right versions, the right architecture, the right compilation options, etc. With Gentoo, it's as simple as emerge foo. I don't think I could ever use another distro. Portage has totally spoiled me. Sadly Gentoo isn't a very good distribution for those new to Linux or those without a significant amount of computer knowledge. I'm trying to find a distro that my gf can use, Gentoo is way beyond her. Thinking about having her try Ubuntu.
With Linux/X11, and at least KDE and GNOME, you can program those extra keys to do whatever you want. Executing shell scripts, running programs, you name it. All you have to do is run xev to get the key codes that they generate. If they don't generate a valid keycode, you just specify them in your keymap file (I've never had to do that). I can use the "multimedia" keys on both my Logitech wireless keyboard and my laptop for pretty much whatever I want. I got the volume keys working in both KDE and GNOME the other day, it's not too difficult. For the KDE keyboard shortcut utility to work, it has to specifically recognize your keyboard...if not you have to do it manually via xmodmap, but it's possible, just more difficult. I didn't have to mess with xmodmap either.
Actually...the way I interpreted that...he didn't actually reverse the rotation of the planet. What he did, by going so fast, was to make himself go back in time, thus from his perspective, it looked like the planet was rotating the other way. Thus...nothing actually happened to the planet, Superman himself just went back in time. That sure makes more sense. Reversing the rotation of the planet that suddenly would just destroy it, not reverse time.
O'neill started off in Stargate the movie and SG-1 as a full Colonel. He was promoted to brigadier general in New Order (Season 8), and he was promoted to major general between Moebius and the first episode of season 9 (Hammond retired, and O'neill was promoted to replace him). We never actually got to see him being promoted, or see him turn over the SGC to Major General Landry, so it happened sometime in the several months between Moebius and Avalon.
Actually she made a couple of short appearances in the first couple of episodes, but she was never actually present at the SGC. Mitchell was just talking to her remotely with a webcam.;P
I used to have a roommate that often took showers that lasted in excess of an hour. The apartment we lived in only had one bathroom, and there were no convenient bushes outside either. He always locked the door when he was in there too. On more than one occasion I woke up having to go really bad, and he was in the shower with no indication of how long he would be. I usually ended up peeing in the kitchen sink on those occasions.
Sure we have a way to deliver them...all you gotta do is load them up on the Prometheus or an X-302. Multi-gigaton naquadah and naquadria warheads aren't that difficult to build, SG-1 has made quite a few of them.;) Seriously, I think this guy has been watching way too much sci-fi. Don't get me wrong, I love Stargate, but sheesh!
Nintendo is also the only console manufacturer to consistently turn a profit. In this generation they've made more profit than Sony and Microsoft combined. Sony has been flipping back and forth between making money and losing money on the PS2. Microsoft has consistently lost money, a LOT of money. I think they've had one quarter in the entire existence of the company where they actually lost any money, and that was due to investments and the yen/dollar exchange rate changing enough to mess up some overseas transactions. People who say Nintendo is not successful should look at the money where it counts. They may not be #1 in hardware sales anymore, but they are definitely making money, a lot more than Sony or Microsoft. I'm seriously looking forward to the Revolution. I'll be in line for it when it comes out. I'm not the *slightest* bit interested in the 360 (don't have an Xbox either)...and I'll probably get a PS3 the same way I got a PS2...by waiting about 3 years, when the price will be low enough to make it worth it. I kept a PS1 until 2003, at which point the PS2 was low enough to make it worth it for me.
The first thing I do when I install an XP system for someone (I tend to do tech support for friends/family sometimes) is install Firefox, Thunderbird, and VLC...then I immediately remove all shortcuts to Media Player, IE, and Outlook. You can't (easily) completely remove those programs, but you can remove all of the desktop and start menu shortcuts. I was amused...the first time I worked on my mom's computer, there was a Firefox icon on the desktop labeled "The Internet", and she knew that it was Firefox and not IE. Even my mom knew that IE was bad. My brother still insists on using IE though...he's already trashed his system several times with it.
The funny thing is, they didn't use IIS. They used FreeBSD/Apache, and changed the configuration to make it report itself as W2K/IIS. There was a thread on here about that at the time. You could wget the "IIS" machine. I managed to wget/bin/ls from it myself. A quick check with file revealed that it was a FreeBSD binary. All of the files that you could get to were FreeBSD binaries. They eventually changed the Apache configuration to not allow that anymore, but it was still amusing.
My text editor of choice depends on what I'm doing. Vim absolutely rules for config file editing, IMO nothing else touches it for this. I usually use either nano or pico if I'm doing something that requires word wrap (like say composing an email in pine). I tried emacs once or twice, but it had way too many options to wade through that I didn't need for what I was doing.
Actually I thought it was more to ensure the security of Earth. The Daedalus being the second ship in the X-303 project. They sent it to Atlantis because of the Wraith attack and because the nifty Asgard tech gave them a chance against the Wraith fleet...the Atlantis expeditition is very important to the security of Earth, because of the advanced Ancient tech there. I don't think they built the ship with the intent to send it to Atlantis...they made the decision to defend Atlantis when they heard of the incoming Wraith fleet. I'm nitpicking, I know.;P
I just got a Polaroid 7" portable DVD player for just over $100. Not only is that less than half of the price of a PSP (even after tax), I can play regular DVD movies on it, it has a 4-5 hour battery life, it has audio/video inputs and outputs so I can hook it up to the TV or hook my videogame systems to it, and it even has a remote control which is useful if it's hooked up to the TV. Anyone that would buy UMD movies for the PSP is an idiot, IMHO.
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The resolution isn't the problem, it's the DisplaySize/DPI setting. Fonts on Linux work just fine if everything is configured properly. I WILL admit that it is a royal pain to configure, and sometimes you have to wade through undocumented options to do it properly, but it does work once you do. Work needs to be put toward ease of configuration, not functionality, because the functionality is there even though it's poorly documented and a pain to set up.
One thing that people commonly overlook is the DisplaySize option in xorg.conf. X basically has to know your monitor size in order to render fonts correctly. The fonts on my laptop looked *awful* by default...it is a 15" 1024x768 display, and since it is a laptop it only works at native resolution. The defaults likely assume your display is 1280x1024 native. Once I set this, fonts now look identical to my desktop (which uses a 17" 1280x1024 LCD) and I don't have any more strange font rendering issues. Here's an article on this often overlooked not very well documented option: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Xorg_and_Fonts
For some reason, Microsoft's "visions of the future" always remind me of that Beavis and Butthead christmas episode where Beavis is talking about "the future" and it shows him and Butthead in Burger World, with Beavis as the Terminator. ROFL!
Or, as my roommate likes to joke: "It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by Vin Diesel."
That's wrong actually. "Most" video game hardware is not sold at a loss. To date, there have only been 3 consoles that have been sold at a loss: the Sega Saturn, the Dreamcast, and the Xbox. No other manufacturer has done this. Go here for a rundown on the myth vs. the truth: http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02. html
The plastic they are referring to was an attachment they rigged with parts from a hardware store, it's not something that was actually part of the robot. Plus, the radiation was from a high energy gamma source. Gamma is very very very hard to block, nearly impossible, it's very high frequency EM that can pass through just about anything. It takes extremely thick lead sheets, and even then that doesn't quite get all of it. The only reason that even works at all is because lead is extremely dense, and thus heavy...and the robot does have to be mobile also so there are compromises. Plus, any gamma that does get absorbed gets quickly turned into heat. Even protective suits wouldn't have helped people in the area much, it'd be like being stuck in a microwave. Frankly, I'm surprised that the robot's electronics were able to survive at all, it'd be like trying to operate a computer while it's in a microwave. It'd probably be theoretically possible to make a protective suit that someone could wear in such an environment, but it'd take so much lead and be so heavy that no person could actually wear it.
Most likely, you just don't have your fonts configured properly. If you use a window manager that uses GTK or Qt, fonts should not be a problem unless you don't have the config files set up properly. Now, I will admit that it is an absolute bear to configure, far harder than it should be, but fonts do work nicely once set up properly. Gentoo automates a lot of the difficulty of installing fonts, so I don't have to deal with a lot of it...but you can get nice looking fonts in X11 if everything is configured properly. One thing I didn't know about until recently: There are acutally *two* font configuration locations. 1) /etc/X11/xorg.conf. This is to make X11 itself aware of fonts. This is usually used for more "legacy" things. Then there are the config files in /etc/fonts. These are for Freetype/XFT. You can use xfs in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, then you don't have to list all the directories manually. Gentoo automatically sets up the config files in /etc/fonts. If you need to edit these, they are in XML, so it's easier to use an editor that understands this rather than doing it manually.
Nah, the Dreamcast is only 1 generation behind. The DC is the same generation as the PS2 and Gamecube. It's actually a lot better than the PS2 in a lot of ways...the PS2 has a stronger CPU, but the Dreamcast can out-texture the PS2 easily. Most Dreamcast games look better than most PS2 games. Though if you really want to get technical, the GC and Xbox are a generational leap over the PS2 and DC. The PS2 and DC only had rendering accelerators, while the GC and Xbox have full GPU's (hardware T&L acceleration). The PS2's video chipset really amounts to a really fast Voodoo1, the feature set is about the same. It can't even do multitexturing, which is something that was introduced with the Voodoo2...it has to depend on the CPU to do all the work. The Dreamcast was a very good system for its time, and sadly it was under-appreciated, but the problems were as much Sega's bad business decisions as they were hype for the PS2 killing the system.
That's very easy to mistakenly do with the way gas station prices work. I used to work at one, and the manager did that accidentally. I forget exactly what the price was supposed to be, something like $1.79. Anyway, the console used to do that didn't have a decimal point, and the price is always something like $1.799. So you have to type 1799 on the keypad to get the right price. She accidentally put in 179 instead of 1799, so the price became $0.179. We caught the mistake after the first person got gas after that. I'd believe that it was an honest mistake as opposed to a crooked employee.
No kidding...in my crontab, once a week, emerge --sync, updatedb, prelink -amR. Then once a week (I like to do the updates manually in case I have to adjust USE flags), emerge -uDNva world ; emerge depclean ; revdep-rebuild. I don't even think about updates anymore. Gentoo is freaking awesome...the only problem with Gentoo is that it's not a very good distro for those new to Linux or those without a decent amount of computer knowledge.
Portage (Gentoo) does something sort of similar. You can install multiple versions of some packages (example...kernels, GTK, GCC) in "slots". I always had the problems you mention with Linux (I used Redhat/RPM, bleh) until I switched to Gentoo. The package management in Gentoo is incredible. Even converting the whole system from GCC 3.3.5 to 3.4.4 (they aren't binary compatible with each other) is relatively painless. GCC 3.4.4 is installed in a new slot...switch to the new compiler, recompile system, remove 3.3.5. I remember trying to install something GNOME related under Redhat once...I used rpmfind.net and it took me hours to find all of the packages I needed...had to have the right versions, the right architecture, the right compilation options, etc. With Gentoo, it's as simple as emerge foo. I don't think I could ever use another distro. Portage has totally spoiled me. Sadly Gentoo isn't a very good distribution for those new to Linux or those without a significant amount of computer knowledge. I'm trying to find a distro that my gf can use, Gentoo is way beyond her. Thinking about having her try Ubuntu.
With Linux/X11, and at least KDE and GNOME, you can program those extra keys to do whatever you want. Executing shell scripts, running programs, you name it. All you have to do is run xev to get the key codes that they generate. If they don't generate a valid keycode, you just specify them in your keymap file (I've never had to do that). I can use the "multimedia" keys on both my Logitech wireless keyboard and my laptop for pretty much whatever I want. I got the volume keys working in both KDE and GNOME the other day, it's not too difficult. For the KDE keyboard shortcut utility to work, it has to specifically recognize your keyboard...if not you have to do it manually via xmodmap, but it's possible, just more difficult. I didn't have to mess with xmodmap either.
Well, you're half right. Nintendo of America has its headquarters in Redmond. Nintendo (the parent company) has its headquarters in Kyoto, Japan.
Actually...the way I interpreted that...he didn't actually reverse the rotation of the planet. What he did, by going so fast, was to make himself go back in time, thus from his perspective, it looked like the planet was rotating the other way. Thus...nothing actually happened to the planet, Superman himself just went back in time. That sure makes more sense. Reversing the rotation of the planet that suddenly would just destroy it, not reverse time.
O'neill started off in Stargate the movie and SG-1 as a full Colonel. He was promoted to brigadier general in New Order (Season 8), and he was promoted to major general between Moebius and the first episode of season 9 (Hammond retired, and O'neill was promoted to replace him). We never actually got to see him being promoted, or see him turn over the SGC to Major General Landry, so it happened sometime in the several months between Moebius and Avalon.
Actually she made a couple of short appearances in the first couple of episodes, but she was never actually present at the SGC. Mitchell was just talking to her remotely with a webcam. ;P
I used to have a roommate that often took showers that lasted in excess of an hour. The apartment we lived in only had one bathroom, and there were no convenient bushes outside either. He always locked the door when he was in there too. On more than one occasion I woke up having to go really bad, and he was in the shower with no indication of how long he would be. I usually ended up peeing in the kitchen sink on those occasions.
Sure we have a way to deliver them...all you gotta do is load them up on the Prometheus or an X-302. Multi-gigaton naquadah and naquadria warheads aren't that difficult to build, SG-1 has made quite a few of them. ;) Seriously, I think this guy has been watching way too much sci-fi. Don't get me wrong, I love Stargate, but sheesh!
Nintendo is also the only console manufacturer to consistently turn a profit. In this generation they've made more profit than Sony and Microsoft combined. Sony has been flipping back and forth between making money and losing money on the PS2. Microsoft has consistently lost money, a LOT of money. I think they've had one quarter in the entire existence of the company where they actually lost any money, and that was due to investments and the yen/dollar exchange rate changing enough to mess up some overseas transactions. People who say Nintendo is not successful should look at the money where it counts. They may not be #1 in hardware sales anymore, but they are definitely making money, a lot more than Sony or Microsoft. I'm seriously looking forward to the Revolution. I'll be in line for it when it comes out. I'm not the *slightest* bit interested in the 360 (don't have an Xbox either)...and I'll probably get a PS3 the same way I got a PS2...by waiting about 3 years, when the price will be low enough to make it worth it. I kept a PS1 until 2003, at which point the PS2 was low enough to make it worth it for me.
The first thing I do when I install an XP system for someone (I tend to do tech support for friends/family sometimes) is install Firefox, Thunderbird, and VLC...then I immediately remove all shortcuts to Media Player, IE, and Outlook. You can't (easily) completely remove those programs, but you can remove all of the desktop and start menu shortcuts. I was amused...the first time I worked on my mom's computer, there was a Firefox icon on the desktop labeled "The Internet", and she knew that it was Firefox and not IE. Even my mom knew that IE was bad. My brother still insists on using IE though...he's already trashed his system several times with it.
The funny thing is, they didn't use IIS. They used FreeBSD/Apache, and changed the configuration to make it report itself as W2K/IIS. There was a thread on here about that at the time. You could wget the "IIS" machine. I managed to wget /bin/ls from it myself. A quick check with file revealed that it was a FreeBSD binary. All of the files that you could get to were FreeBSD binaries. They eventually changed the Apache configuration to not allow that anymore, but it was still amusing.
My text editor of choice depends on what I'm doing. Vim absolutely rules for config file editing, IMO nothing else touches it for this. I usually use either nano or pico if I'm doing something that requires word wrap (like say composing an email in pine). I tried emacs once or twice, but it had way too many options to wade through that I didn't need for what I was doing.
Actually I thought it was more to ensure the security of Earth. The Daedalus being the second ship in the X-303 project. They sent it to Atlantis because of the Wraith attack and because the nifty Asgard tech gave them a chance against the Wraith fleet...the Atlantis expeditition is very important to the security of Earth, because of the advanced Ancient tech there. I don't think they built the ship with the intent to send it to Atlantis...they made the decision to defend Atlantis when they heard of the incoming Wraith fleet. I'm nitpicking, I know. ;P
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7015 794&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat139000500 18&id=1099394245802
I just got it from Best Buy's website and selected the store pickup option. It looks like their sale ended (I got it yesterday), it's $129.99 now, but it looks like there's a 2 free DVD promotion with it now, so that might make up for it.
I just got a Polaroid 7" portable DVD player for just over $100. Not only is that less than half of the price of a PSP (even after tax), I can play regular DVD movies on it, it has a 4-5 hour battery life, it has audio/video inputs and outputs so I can hook it up to the TV or hook my videogame systems to it, and it even has a remote control which is useful if it's hooked up to the TV. Anyone that would buy UMD movies for the PSP is an idiot, IMHO.