Thursday, February 10, 2000

Yet Even Further Linux Fonts -- 10:11 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

A couple people have emailed me about how I got fonts to look decent under Linux. I'm glad I waited because I found an even better way! Ready? Here's the Reader's Digest condensed version (full report to follow when I get the chance to type it all up).

Step #1: Install xfs. Recent Red Hat distributions have this as the default font server so you're ready to go there already. Check the section on xfs in the Font Deuglification Mini-HOWTO for more information.

Step #2: Go to the Fuzzy small TT-fonts on the web section of the "Some Linux for beginners" webpage. Copy that big section of information on the arial font into a file called fonts.alias in your true type directory. Exit X and restart xfs (as root type /etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart or use linuxconf to do it). Note: this assumes that you have an Arial true type font from a Windows installation.

Step #3: Fire up Netscape and change the variable space font (under Edit->Preferences->Appearance->Fonts) to Arial (Monotype), 14 pt, and click the "allow scaling" box. Also check the "Use document-specific fonts, including Dynamic Fonts" box.

It's not absolutely perfect, but it's about a million times better than the default (that's very little hyperbole). The problem is that you have to create the fonts.alias file to convince Netscape that the Arial font can indeed be used in more than 12pt. Rumor has it that Mozilla M14 will fix this, but it'll be a bit before that comes out (M13 crashes spectacularly when you try to change fonts).

Bad Games . . . Way Bad -- 9:35 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Daily Radar has an editorial posted about a recently announced and profoundly bad video game which I will not even mention by name, so as not to besmirch our news page. Let's just say it's another in a long line of games swimming in a sea of retarded sexuality. Daily Radar is fed up and they're not going to take it any more. I'm with them 100%. Just say "No" to Lameware. Thanks Evil Avatar for the link.

Is the Andover.net purchase really good? -- 9:44 am CST, Update by The Master

Got a link from Webmonkey today to an article on the whole VA Linux aquisition of Andover.net (the parent company of Slashdot). Interesting article, with a dour opinion of the aquisition.

J.t.Qbe comments: Another "sky is falling" editorial has been posted at Linux Weekly News. Personally, I don't see why so many are wetting their pants over the possible effects this will have on Slashdot. Slashdot never claims to be complete, thorough or authoritative, but they post what they want anyway. If I want complete, I check out Linux Today. If I want to know what to think, I decide for myself. If Slashdot were to disappear tomorrow, it would be far from the end of the world. There's far more available on the net than just Slashdot. . .

Happy Birthday A.T. -- 12:02 am CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

Join me in wishing A.T. Hun a great birthday! May it live up to the high ideals described by Weird Al in his song "Happy Birthday":

Today is your birthday,
it happens every year.
We'll eat a lot of broccoli
and drink a lot of beer.

Happy birthday, and may you have more birthdays ahead of you than behind!

A.T. Hun comments: I plan to celebrate my birthday by sitting around and muttering. "Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn!" ^$@! hippies.

The Master comments: Happy Birthday you old fart :-)

Wednesday, February 9, 2000

Even More Linux Fonts -- 10:25 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I finally managed to get the fonts in Linux to a point that I think they are usable. I now can safely surf the web without danger of losing my eyesight. If I get a moment of lucidity tomorrow, I'll do a write-up on what I did.

Direct Marketing Association -- 9:14 pm CST, Update by The Master

Just a friendly warning to all of you out there embroiled in the spam wars. The Direct Marketing Association's "Opt-Out" program is nothing more than a spam-vacuum. If you put your name on their opt-out list, your guarenteed to suck down a LOT more spam.

This surprises me not at all. Right now, I'm battling with popsite.com to get their spam-machine shutdown. Seems most people out there enjoy running open mail servers. Grrrr. Thank you Jerry Pournelle for the friendly warning:

It is now pretty clear to me that the best way to get lots of Spam is to send mail to the Direct Mail Association asking to "opt out" of all of their publisher lists. You will then start getting A LOT OF Spam with, at the bottom, "opt out" instructions. In other words, this supposedly reputable place has, by intent or inadvertence, given your name to spammers. This is an organization that deserves little consideration or respect or courtesy and is on very shaky ethical grounds to begin with. Their "opt out" service generates more of what you wanted to opt out of (I sent them instructions from an account I never use, and which never before got Spam; now I get a LOT there, most with the words "opt out" in it. I think the diagnosis is positive here.)

A.T. Hun comments: I always assumed this was the case. All in favor of dipping spammers in Gravy Train and feeding them to rabid daschunds, raise your hand.

J.t.Qbe comments: Well, duh. If you're dumb enough to believe that you'll actually be removed from a list by sending email to a spammer, you're probably dumb enough to buy what they're hawking. My personal favorites are the spams which say (in effect) "To be removed from our mailing list, click the Delete button." I prefer to click the Spamcop link in my bookmarks.

Red Hat 6.2 Beta -- 5:04 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Red Hat has released a beta of the 6.2 release (aka Piglet) of their popular Linux distribution. You can download it from one of their mirror sites. Personally, I'm going to wait until it goes final.

More Linux -- 11:10 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I'd like to give J.t.Qbe a kick in the upper lip with a steel-tipped toe-tap for getting me involved with Linux. Getting it running smoothly has consumed all my free time this past week. Not that I dislike it or anything--it's actually rather fun. Currently, I'm struggling with Linux' font support (or lack thereof). I've got it to the point now that I can tolerate it. Gotta give Bill and the boys credit, Windows' True Type fonts are very slick.

There is method to my madness. I'm going to start working on getting a Linux UT server running so when The Haus, Mk III, is complete, I can just copy everything over, fire it up, and we'll be ready to roll.

And yes, I am posting this message from Linux :)

Update: I got True Type fonts working under Linux now. The problem is that they are so small they are almost illegible. So basically I have two choices: 1) have things readable but ugly, or 2) have things almost unreadable but good-looking. Actually, I have a third choice I'm going to pursue--keeping the True Type fonts and lowering my desktop resolution to 800x600. I'm going to read around a bit more to see if there are any other solutions.

NVIDIA and S3 Agreement -- 11:04 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to this press release, NVIDIA and S3 have entered into a cross-licensing agreement and have dropped lawsuits against each other. What does this mean? Will NVIDIA's new chips will have S3TC built in and S3's new chips will get NVIDIA's T&L capabilities? How will 3dfx react? Does anyone really know what time it is? Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

The Master comments: From what I've read, the GeForce has S3TC in hardware, but S3 wouldn't license it to NVIDIA, so they couldn't support the feature at the driver level. This should allow them to do that. And get access to a whole bunch of cool patents from each other. Hey 3dfx! Get yer stuff together-your gonna lose if you don't :-)

A.T. Hun comments: I'm sure that Epic would be very happy to have thousands more users be able to use those nice big textures they made for UT.

Northwest Airlines searches employees' home computers -- 9:47 am CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Northwest Airlines has begun searching the home computers belonging to some of its employees for email evidence that the employees helped organize a "sickout" over New Year's. Scary stuff. Still eager to take that "free PC" from your employer?

Carmack, Part II -- 9:11 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Firing Squad has posted the second half of their interview with id's John Carmack. Topics include his current research items and plans for id's next game.

Past Two Days' News

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