i was a little bummed to find out that you couldn’t just update between the mythbuntu alphas… i finally got around to tossing the 8.04 beta on my mythtv frontend and firewire input/capture WORKS! i also moved the pvr500 into the t105 and got that working. the only issue i’m having right now is figuring out how to get the primary backend and secondary backend to play nicely.

i also figured out how to get nxclient to work in mythbuntu. i never did figure out how to get xfce to start properly (it wouldn’t start in a window and it would render xfce over my current window manager) so i cheated and just installed ‘ubuntu-desktop’. not gnome, or gnome-desktop…. heh, yeah i’m slow.

i’ve moved away from deskbar to gnome-do as my primary launcher.

gnome-do [plugins] there’s a few plugins available that most ubunut/linux launchers already have, but the interface is the solid selling point gnome-do. i also haven’t had any issues with it, unlike deskbar which will randomly lock up and require a reload.

there are even plugins for gmail contacts and google calendar, but they look like they might be bleeding edge. i’ll have to look into the google api plugins to see how to get them installed/working, but any of the other plugins i tried are installed and working.

i finally got the t105 the other day and sure enough… i didn’t order the optical drive ($0) when i configured the t105 and dell actually listened and didn’t send one. after trial and error trying to follow the ubuntu live usb how-to, i actually got ubuntu 8.04 to boot off a usb drive.

one of the drawbacks to installing via usb vs cdrom is that you can’t install the alternatives cd and you have to use a ubuntu live cd. i did want to try out the encrypted filesystem support that’s available in the alternatives.

i am glad that i didn’t have to beg/borrow/steal a usb or sata cdrom drive. when going through the how-to make sure that you are using a live cd and also make sure you copy the .disk directory onto your usb drive. if you don’t include the .disk directory you’ll end up at initramfs prompt which won’t do much for you.

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