Mostly Harmless » Operating Systems

Amazon MP3 store – buying MP3s legitimately online in Linux still a pain in the arse then

Rowan — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 11:23:34 +0000

Like many this Christmas, I found Amazon’s offer of £3 of free MP3s tempting. I’ve avoided buying music online all these years on principle because the DRM experience mixed with using multiple computers and OS types has just been miserable. The CD has generally been cheaper, with the very minor inconvenience of ripping it when [...]

The mouse is mightier than the aerial? (more fun with DRM)

Rowan — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:48:58 +0000

I can’t help but laugh at the fact that the BBC had to implement Microsoft DRM technology into their iPlayer application. The reasoning behind this…

“The rights holders – the people that make the programmes, from Ricky Gervais to the independent producers that account for up to a third of our programming – simply [...]

Upgrading to Kubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Review

Rowan — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 22:26:39 +0000

Doing an OS upgrade is often troublesome. It is better to back up your data and do a clean install. Most of us don’t for various reasons. I always try upgrades before clean installs – it’s probably a form of self abuse.

This version of Kubuntu has a shiny new upgrade wizard which made this [...]

Giving up Windows for work

Rowan — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 22:24:12 +0000

Since finally getting round to installing OpenSuse 10.2 on my laptop, I’m going to be trying to live without MS Operating systems on the desktop during working hours. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. The reasons are mainly stability, transparency of errors when they do occur and ease of upgrading / [...]

Hooray for OpenSuse?

Rowan — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 23:09:25 +0000

I’m typing this from my Dell M1210 laptop after finally installing OpenSuse 10.2 on it. Not everything works (the webcam may need a little work) but the things that really ought to work out of the box do

Wireless (WPA-PSK) Flash (with sound) DNS resolving at full speed thanks to the installer option to disable [...]

To Vista or not to Vista?

Rowan — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 12:03:58 +0000

So I finally got my copy of Vista Business through from Dell for my M1210 laptop after a month or two of waiting – I paid £11 for the privilege and it took an impressive two days to get from the US of A to the South Coast of England. Funnily enough, Vista is only [...]