[ale] thanks to all

[Sean]

I want to thank one and all for the help with my problems of late as I try to get
a box upgraded from FC7 to FC11.

I've been using KDE since I first started with Linux and am very comfortable with
it. But someone asked why I don't like KE 4.2.
Well, lets start with Kmail is simply not ready for prime time. I can not get it
to send mail out.  Which means replying to an email is a pain in the butt. I have
to open a web browser, get to Speakeasy's web mail and craft a message from
there, remembering to cut and paste from Kmail, where I am reading my mail -- and
if I want the message to be readable, manually put in all those > that indicate 
quoted material.  Kmail worked just fine when I first started it up, but once I
imported my backup files, using Kmail's import function, everything went
downhill. That's why I have not been replying to each of your helpful messages.

Also, when I am in a KDE session, two or three times a week, for no apparent
reason, the session will crash forcing me to log back in. This is not proper
behaviour.

I tried to get FC11 running on a new netbook, but I was having problems getting
the microphone and camera to work.  I know it's possible, because I have seen one
of these Acer's running FC11 with the camera going.  But it sure isn't trivial to
get it working. So
I installed Ubuntu (Netbook version) on the thing. This is a very stripped down
version with a Gnome interface (which I really don't like) but I have been able
to get most of the pieces parts running. Finally gave up on the built-in
microphone and plugged in a combo headphones / microphone (USB). That worked. 
One thing about the Acer netbook that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere is that
the USB ports almost certainly aren't producing the expected amount of power. I
bought a CD/DVD reader for it that doesn't have a power brick -- just two usb
cords, one for data and power and the other just for additional power. It needs
both just to read a CD.

I have been able to get K3b installed on the netbook and I installed GRIP on this
box for ripping CDs. I don't have the mp3 bits and pieces, but I am happy with
ogg so I don't miss it.

I made the mistake of asking my son what he uses to rip a CD, and he sent me his
bash script! :) It is a wrapper using cd paranoia and oggenc and he told me to
put in in my (dot)bashrc file. I didn't know I HAD a bashrc file!

If I didn't hate Mac's so much,  I'd use one. But then again, Mac hardware (and
software) breaks more often than I like.  So I'll stay where I am. I just wish
the goodly folk who write software would understand that most people would rather
have bullet-proof reliability than the latest bells and whistles.


Sean