Pear Linux

Today I installed Pear OS8 (Pear Linux x64) default desktop version. After working through a few little nigglets, I really like this Ubuntu-Variant Distro. It took very minimal customization and it now looks and acts very much like my OS X Mavericks desktop.

I installed in a VMware virtual machine, and it's pretty well behaved. The only issue there is that a default install doesn't install vmware-tools. I had to install the tools manually to get my screen resolution to set correctly. Also, the Pear-Updater doesn't install the kernel updates by default (they show held back). I installed them using the terminal. Once two issues were sorted out, it runs quickly with 2 CPU cores and 4GB memory allocated.

I'll play with this for a while first, but I think it's about to become my default install for Ubuntu.

UPDATE:
Sadly, Pear OS was purchased by an undisclosed source and it is no longer distributed or supported with software updates. I'm still using it but at some point I'll do away with it since it's vanished. Too bad, I really liked it's looks and quickness.

 

Posted with Blogsy

OS X Mavericks 10.9

Well, it's been quite a long time since posting here, so I figured an entry is warranted. Apple has released OS X 10.9 (code named Mavericks) and iOS 7.0.3. The iOS update was a rather radical change. There's much about it that I love, and much that I don't. Overall, I feel it's a good start.

OS X 10.9 doesn't look so radically different though. Most of it's changes are under the hood and I'm pleased with them. I'm really glad that Tabs finally came to Finder, I've been using them for years in Linux.

I find Mavericks to be snappier than Mountain Lion (10.8) over all but it still needs some tweaking. FPS games tend to run really slow now (many of them do anyway) as widly reported by Mac Rumors forum members. HALO 1, which I too enjoy on my Mac was one of the games affected. Thankfully, a patch became immediately available and this fixed the issues for me. Half-Life (the original) doesn't seem to be affected on my machine. I don't really play any others so I'm good.

Well, given that I'm suffering from MDD (Major Depressive Disorder) and feeling majorly depressed right now, I'll end this entry. It's time to sleep another 18 hours so that I can get through this. God Bless you all.

Posted with Blogsy