Waffle

1. Azureus is a bittorrent client that works on my home system. It does not, thankfully, appear to use Python anywhere.
2. The first thing it prompts you for in the configuration is where to put the torrent, not the downloaded file as I thought. Use the default directory offered for that.
3. The directory it prompts you for after starting a torrent is the place where it will put your downloaded file. Do not use the default directory offered for that.
4. Contrary to this user's expectation, the XVid codec for linux will compile without plunging the hapless user into Library Trouble, and will even allow itself to be installed. The instructions for what to do next are gobbledygook, but I've managed to try a few things involving the Totem media player before my computer hung.
5. If your computer hangs, you may have trouble finding the downloaded file.
6. It is very easy to waste time on this crap, but I still don't understand how, given all the hurdles involved, file sharing has become so popular. As far as I can tell, it is a huge hassle of the sort that no sane, non-obsessed person should have any patience for.
7. I have no idea how to tell any of the media players on my system how to use the XVid libraries (that's the part of the XVid instructions that were gobbledygook). I tried adding a symlink to the library to the Totem plugins folder, but that didn't do a thing. I also feel that I need better media software than Kaffeine, Totem and (gak) Real Player, but the last time I tried to install any, I ran into Library Hell. Answers on a postcard to reinder@despammed.com.
8. Ditto with the DivX codec, or indeed, come to think of it, anything other codec I've tried to get to work since 2003.

Below the cut, I'll mention some specifics and go through some of my reader mail:

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Qtorrent reguires PyQT requires qscintilla requires sip requires python-devel requires python. If your existing python version is too low, the dependency chain will break and you will not be able to download "Dalek". This will lead to unholy swearing and general unhappiness, especially after earlier attempts using Gnutella also failed*). There are solutions for this problem, but they don't work.**) As for the official bittorrent client, the instructions for it refer to a setup file that does not appear to be included in the package. How did this system become so popular, again?

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I've got autotrace installed and am running delineate now. I'd like to thank Aric Campling of Hosers. To be honest, though, I eventually located a precompiled version of autotrace on SuSE's ftp servers and took the way of least resistance from there.

I've been playing with delineate and inkscape both at home and at the studio. I've got some really interesting effects out of vectorisation, especially when vectorising large, complex images, and I'm learning what the programs can and cannot do. The image on the left is a portrait of Kel from the Cast page. The one on the right is a vectorised version, re-exported to PNG with only minor changes from the SVG file. The SVG file is here. It's only 12 paths, unlike the monstrosities I created at the studio. See if you can read, manipulate and validate it!

I'm trying to get autotrace installed on the linux system. My aim is to keep it symmetrical with the Windows system at the studio, which now has autotrace, potrace to vectorize scanned images, delineate to serve as a GUI for both, and the latest Java Runtime environment to make delineate work. It's all part of my attempts to learn vector art. On windows, the only thing that gave me any pain was that the makers of delineate vastly overestimated Windows XP's intelligence in the field of reading its own file paths. The only way to get the JRE to work was to set the environment variable like this: C:\progra~1\java\jre.whateveritwas, and replace all forward slashes in the delineate.bat file with backslashes. It was an annoyance but I know Windows' quirks well enough to solve it myself. It's working nicely now, and it was worth it to be able to turn PNG images into SVG without too much fuss and with previews and buttons and all that stuff. With autotrace on linux though, there's only one Red Hat 7.2 binary file available that might not be suitable for my SuSE 9.0 system at all. So I decided "OK, I'll get the source and compile. People always tell me it's easy, right?" -- blocking out the nightmare scenario that invariably takes place when I actually try this in the real world. You see, compiling programs on linux is pretty easy, if, and only if:

1. You do it regularly so you don't forget the ritual;
2. You know your system inside out so you can recognise and troubleshoot problems that may occur.
3. You succesfully keep your system up to date so you don't get any library dependency problems;

In other words, it's easy for a professional system administrator or a dedicated computer geek. For the rest of us, it gets complicated pretty quickly.

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I've decided I really don't look like using Kafeine to play my MP3s. The interface is just too clunky and wasteful. To be fair, it's not a sound player but a movie player that can handle MP3 and Ogg files. As you may remember, I had to switch from the otherwise wonderful XMMS because it just wouldn't cooperate with the sound card on my new system no matter what sound plugin I used. But having used Kafeine for a while, it annoys me that this program doesn't automatically store playlists like XMMS does, it always defaults to my home dir when I try to add files or directories to my playlist instead of remembering the last used directory like XMMS does, takes about 3 times as much space as XMMS does, it takes me back to the wrong window after altering the playlist and give me error messages that I neither understand nor need to know (for instance when adding a directory that also has a playlist in it, it tells me it can't add the playlist file to the playlist, instead of silently ignoring that file like XMMS does). Any tips for another program that I might use? As you can tell, I'd prefer something like XMMS, a Winamp-skinnable piece of loveliness. But anything that isn't as clunky will do. Unlike my quest for the perfect linux ftp client, I'm willing to do quite extensive configuration to get it right, if I can trust the app to be the right one for me, because I will use it a lot if it is. And while I'd prefer a Winamp clone, I'm willing to put up with a console-based program because I won't have to look at it all the time.

I do most of my heavy-duty ftp work in the studio, in Windows. Today, I had to upload the comics from home though, and once again I noticed how much more slowly I work with the command line ftp client than I do with WinFTP LE. I've worked with command line ftp since 1992, but I'm still more productive if I can use a graphical client. Problem is, I've never found a linux client that is

1. easy to install (I'm willing to compile from source but don't want to have to do a lot of troubleshooting if a compile fails);
2. stable; and
3. as intuitive to use as WinFTP LE (which I don't think has been updated since 2001, and whose usability was stripped down compared to the commercial version even then. I don't think that's too much to ask

KBear, an ftp client that works on KDE, meets the third requirement, but fails the first two in my experience. Filerunner, suggested to me by a computer geek friend, failed the third by a very large margin. What alternatives do I have?

Update to my post on the configuration problems with my new machine: I have sound. I had some problems with the sound quality in XMMS, but that is probably just a case of XMMS not liking some sound cards. When I play the same music files in Kafeine, all is well (although Kafeine's interface is not so nice for managing sound files). I have tried to configure a cheap scanner I got from my aunt, but no luck with that just yet. It should work, it's in the compatibility lists as a fully supported scanner, but somehow it doesn't.

I'm posting this from my newly-upgraded PC! Pentium 4, two Gb memory and lots of complicated specifications in the motherboard so it must be good. I haven't put the new system through its paces yet, but will undoubtedly find some way or other to slow it down. Because I run linux (SuSE 9.0), configuration is not entirely without problems. I've got the ethernet card (onboard) working after a few tries, but the sound (also onboard) is still giving me trouble. I had managed to get it to work by using the config tools as root, clearing out all the previous installations and failed attempts, re-doing the auto-probe and then double-checking in XMMS, first as root, then as my regular username. That worked like a charm, but after a re-start (as part of my latest attempt to get the ethernet card to work) the sound card and XMMS are once again not talking to one another. Can any of you linuxy types among the readership help me out with this?