Nou is het natuurlijk opmerkelijk dat een regering die graag in de top 5 kenniseconomieën van de wereld wil komen, dit tracht te bereiken door minder in onderwijs te gaan investeren. Maar waarschijnlijk zijn een hoop mensen het er mee eens dat als iemand achterover leunt en niet veel uitvoert, hij dat maar zelf maar moet gaan betalen. De regering komt dan ook met krachtig uitspraken over hoe men nu ‘eindelijk’ wordt gedwongen iets te doen en hoe het je eigen verantwoordelijkheid wordt als je te lang over je studie doet.

Maar is dit populistisch taalgebruik wel gelieerd aan de realiteit? Vaak hebben mensen die meerdere studies tegelijkertijd doen meer jaar nodig om deze te voltooien. De huidige plannen zouden deze mensen straffen, terwijl het voltooien van meerdere studies toch aan te moedigen valt als je een kenniseconomie wil zijn. De komende bezuinigingen moedigen mensen aan om braaf 1 studie zo snel mogelijk te voltooien, waardoor er weinig tijd over blijft voor verdieping en verbreding. Juist een kenniseconomie moet mensen de gelegenheid geven om zich breder te kunne ontwikkelen om zo goed opgeleide mensen haar economie in te sturen.

Wat sommige kamerleden ook zeggen is dat de hoeveelheid bijbaantjes van studenten ervoor zorgt dat ze langer bezig zijn met hun studie. Ik voorspel dat als studeren duurder wordt, de hoeveelheid bijbaantjes van studenten alleen maar toe neemt. Niet iedereen is immers vermogend genoeg om op eigen kosten bijvoorbeeld 11 jaar te studeren. Het mooie taalgebruik van de regering dat studenten meer eigen verantwoordelijkheid moeten nemen, komt er in feite op neer dat studeren weer iets voor de elite gaat worden, mensen die zelf genoeg middelen in handen hebben om studeren te kunnen betalen. Wat dat betreft is het hilarisch dat een volkspartij als de PVV dit plan zo fanatiek ondersteunt.

Om studeren mogelijk te maken voor iedereen in Nederland die hier de hersens voor heeft en niet alleen voor mensen met geld, moet er nou eenmaal geïnvesteerd worden in studenten, zodat ze later hun bijdrage aan de economie kunnen leveren. Als je een kenniseconomie wil zijn, is het vrij logisch dat je in kennis moet investeren. Ik vind het er op dit moment op lijken dat de regering gewoon ergens geld vandaan moet halen en dit met mooie woorden maskeert, omdat uit de huidige plannen niet iets bieden dat onderwijs verbeterd. Hopelijk zal 23 mei ons een mogelijkheid brengen deze bezuinigingen te blokkeren of zal de regering toch nog het licht zien.

In tijden van nood zijn mensen vaak bang te verliezen wat ze al hebben en zien verandering niet erg zitten hierdoor. Conservatisme is bij uitstek een spreekbuis van deze mensen en het valt ook te zien dat deze stroming weer in opkomst is. De conservatieve middenpartij bij uitstek in Nederland, het CDA, lijkt nu echter ook bang te zijn: bang om niet mee te mogen regeren. Steeds meer drijft deze vroegere baken van rust af naar rechts.

Het gevaar is nu dat zonder sterke middenpartijen Nederland weet verzuild, nu echter in een links en rechts Nederland. Nu al worden bepaalde bladen, kranten en tv-zenders met politieke stromingen geassocieerd. Net als vroeger kan ook nu weer gebeuren dat mensen bang worden om in contact te komen met mensen van buiten hun eigen zuil of groep.

Juist in een handelsnatie als Nederland is het van groot belang dat we niet uiteenvallen in twee verschillende groepen en wel blijven praten met mensen die een andere, afwijkende mening hebben. Zoals mensen die filosofie hebben weten kan een stevige discussie je versterken in je standpunt of je er eens op een andere manier naar laten kijken. Mocht je wel van je standpunt af worden gebracht, dan wie weet had je het misschien wel fout.

Wees niet bang om erachter te komen dat je fout zat. Een samenleving kan beter samenwerken als mensen open met elkaar over dingen kunnen praten en niet krampachtig aan hun eigen mening vast houden zonder naar rede te luisteren; te veel zien we dat politieke debatten eindigen in eindeloze monologen omdat de deelnemers niet luisteren naar hun tegenspreker of gewoon niet willen ingaan op argumenten tegen hun stellingen. Wees moedig genoeg om te kunnen toegeven dat je fout zat.

Als je iemands standpunt niet deelt, vertel hem/haar dan waarom je dat vindt, maar ga nooit iemand demoniseren in een hokje stoppen. Dit splijt juist groepen; mensen die zo worden aangevallen zullen niet jou tegemoetkomen omdat mensen nou eenmaal een groot ego hebben en er niet van houden als dit wordt gekwetst. Wees begripvol voor de mening van andere mensen.

After rebooting I still had the GNOME theme from the old Ubuntu Jaunty installation because I have my /home map at a seperate partition(I never got the X-server working in Arch). I went to a virtual console (Ctrl-Alt-F3) logged in as my normal user and wrote rm -r  .gconf to remove the old settings. After restarting gdm I got the basic UNR-theme with the main menu showed at the desktop. Because I installed without internet-connection I had to activate the offical repository in Software sources. I also added the medibuntu repo(instructions can be found here ) and the ppa from Ubuntu-X-swat to get the latest openchrome version. This ppa can be found here.

After updating I also had to run the Restricted Driver manager to install the Broadcom B43 wireless driver and had to update my language package(Dutch). I like so far how Ubuntu Netbook Remix works, only the menu responds a bit slow.

Although many people report problems with the HP mini-note’s wifi card I didn’t experience any so far after an hour of ad-hoc connection with my big laptop.

I didn’t try Compiz yet, but wouldn’t advice to use it, because the menu is already slow enough.

So far all hardware seems to work, the webcam works great with Cheese, which is pre-installed.

This is how my system looks now:

I’ m happy with Jaunty so far, no problems experienced anymore since the crash. (although it’ s only 45 minutes since)

And there’s the frirst problem. When upgrading I overread the fact that fglrx only works for Radeon 300 and newer cards, so I’m forced to use the ati or radeon driver, which is useless to play games. I’m still wondering if I should use the ati or radeon driver. It’s been said that later this year the open-source driver will get proper 3D support.

Wifi gives no problems and I notice a faster booting time of both a normal boot and the recovery mode. Only, after I entered username and password in in the long screen loading the desktop is a bit slower than in Intrepid. I also sometimes notice that scrolling or typing slows down.

The new notification style looks nice, clear and is easy to read.

I haven’t used 9.04 for long yet, but I didn t notice much changes so far. Hopefully some slow down problem will be fixed when Jaunty is released and I also hope it won take long until the open-source driver becomes better in the 3D part. I’ll make a clean install when it’s released (maybe with ext4) and then see again.

While writing this I just heard that there’s an update to the update manager to ease upgrading from 8.10 to 9.04 and setting up fglrx correclty, I’ll search out how this works.

[edit] I just found out this update is only for Intrepid, so I upgraded a bit too early I guess

Urban Terror is a free game and partly Open Source made by 11 developers from out the whole world. It runs on Windows, Macintosh and Linux. The game is based at Quake 3, but if you don’t have Quake 3 you can use ioUrbanTerror as base instead. Installing is very easy, you download the archive from www.urbanterror.net and unzip it where you want, like your home directory. In the map there are 6 executables, 2 .exe files for Windows which we don’t need, a 32 bit client and server for Linux and a 64 bit client and server. In order to run the file click the right mouse button at the executable you want to use, click Preferences and go to the Permissions tab. There you need to check ‘Allow executing file as program’.

I couldn’t run the program by clicking at it in the map, but instead had to navigate to the map in the terminal and then write the name of the program:
dirkheine@QWERTY:~/Desktop/dingen/UrbanTerror$ ./ioUrbanTerror.i386

Another thing, which I prefer, is to make a launcher at the desktop. Just press right mouse button at the desktop and click ‘Create new Launcher’ The menu which pops up then is pretty self-explanatory. Just write the name you want in the Name field and click ‘Browser’ behind the Command field to navigate to the executable you want to use. You can also change the icon by clicking at it the the Preferences menu. You can then browser to the image you want to use.

Then you can start the game. You can there setup your player’s look for the two different teams, adjust your settings, and very important follow the demo. In the demo a lot of handy things are explained. Urban Terror is a Multiplayer-only game, which means you can only play against other players over a network.

In the Play Online menu you need to press Refresh list first to get servers into your list. It’s here where you can set a filter to search for servers of your preferences. Punkbuster will only work if you have a copy of Quake 3 Arena, if you don’t have it, you’ll have to play without.

The different game types offered by Urban Terror are:
Bomb and Defuse (Bomb)
The red team needs to bomb a certain location and the blue team has to prevent this. If you die, you are dead until the end of the round.

Capture and Hold (C&H)
Various capture-points are spread out over the map. For every minute you hold a flag you get a point, the team with the most points wins. If you die you’ll respawn after a short delay.

Capture the Flag (CTF)
The red and blue team both have a flag. The goal is to capture the enemy’s flag as often as possible without losing your own flag. If you die you’ll respawn after a short delay.

Free for All (FFA)
There are no teams, the target is to kill as many opponents as possible. If you die you will repawn after a short delay.

Follow the Leader (FTL)
Each team gets a leader appointed. You can score points if the leader touches the enemy’s flag or if you whipe out the enemy’s team. If your leader survives you’ll get more points. After you died you’ll need to wait for the end of the round before respawning.

Team Deatchmatch (TDM)
You can score points by killing enemies, the team with the most points at the end of the game will win. If you die you’ll respawn after a short delay.

Survivor
The red and blue team have to kill each other to win the round. The one who wins the most rounds wins. If you die you need to wait until the end of the round to respawn.

Urban Terror offers various weapons, sniper guns, assault rifles, a shotgun, pistols, grenades, machineguns and many more. You can choose your equipment at the start of a game of after you respawned. You have to choose a pistol anda primary weapon and then you can choose if you want a secondary weapon, which items you want and if you use grenades. You can’t take it all, so you need to make choices, also some weapons like the IMI Negev don’t allow secondary weapons. A few items you can choose are kevlar vest, a helmet or a medkit(allows healing players faster) For more information, look at the manual of Urban Terror about this.

Things why I like this game are:

1.There are so many choises. You can pick exaclty the weapons and game type you like. If you’re borded with one thing you just pick another.

2.The community doesn’t call each other names. I never saw people calling other people ‘lagger’, ‘cheater’ or any other name because they got killed or simething like that. Things I do see a lot in other First Person Shooters.

3.It works flawlessly at Linux. The only problem I ever experienced with is was when I used in combination with Compiz.

4.It’s free. Unlike other good FPS this one is free and the quality is stil great. There are no bugs I’m aware of, it’s balanced and it looks nice. (more graphical enchantments are to be expected for the coming version 4.2)

Go and try it out yourself!

Urban Terror Homepage

Credits go to my brother,  Sense, who told me about this, but I thought it would be a good idea to put it together in one place.

First thing I did was installing Gnome-do,  a tool where you can start applications by just typing. I selected as theme docky , which makes it something that looks a bit like the Mac OsX, but different. In OsX you can’t type to start applications, which is the key feature of Gnome-do.

First thing to do is to go to launchpad.net/~do-core and click the Personal Package Archive link in the menu in the right upper corner. Don’t forget to select the source path of your current distro,  as it is standard set at Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope.

After the repositories are added and verified install the gnome-do package and start it. If you want the docky theme, go to the Appearance tab and select the docky theme. Gnome-do will go to the bottom of your screen and will form some kind of toolbar. You can remove the program bar now, since it’s not needed anymore. To be able to type to search for programs you need to press the key combination <super>space. On most keybord the <super> key is the one with the Windows logo. Active programs are showed with a blue dot below them, together with programs you often use, in the bar. You can click with the left mouse button at them to activate them or right mouse button to get access to a few options. Same tasks can be done by typing and replacing the elft and right mouse button my enter and tab.

If you have problems getting it to work you could take a look at this post by Stefano Forenza.

To get more out of my desktop and Gnome-do I use Compiz. The opinions about this program vary, but I like it in general.

To activate Compiz you need to go to System->Preferences–>Appearance. Go to the Visual Effects tab and select Extra. Then go to System->Preferences–>CompizConfig Settings Manager or, if you’re already using Gnome-do, press <super>spacebar and type the first part of the name until CompizConfig Settings Manager shows up and press enter. Don’t be too scared by the many functions Compiz offers. I know it’s not really a clear interface, but you’ll find your way trough it.

Two functions who are really useful combined with Gnome-do can be set this way:

1.Show Desktop

Go to General Options at the head of the Compiz menu.

Select the field saying [none] behind ‘Show Desktop’ and select the side/corner of the screen where you want to hover your mouse to show the desktop.

2.Show all windows next to each other at the screen

Go to scale under Window Managment(you can also write ‘scale’ in the filter field to get there faster.

Activate it and press the field saying [none] behind ‘Initiate Window Picker’

Select the corner/side where you want to hover your mouse to view all windows next to each other at the screen

Now if you hver your mouse to the corner/side you selected you’ll see all your active windows next to each other. With the right mouse button you can pick a window to grow big, press right mouse button again to go back. With the left mouse button you can select a window and be able to use it.

You can do many more with Compiz. Many more screen effect and shortcuts are available. But keep in mind that it takes RAM and don’t activate too much unless you have a very good computer.

Have fun.

My hobbies are playing football(soccer in the USA) where I’m goalkeeper, playing both Alt and Tenor Saxophone, building scale models and of course messing around with my laptop and mini-note. I’m using Ubuntu 8.10 at both. One is a Packard Bell EasyNote MZ35-V-054 and the other, which I have got from school is an HP Mini-note 2133. I’m trying to get more involved in the development of Ubuntu and the great comunity around it. Currently it’s the Artwork team I’m trying to get involved with, but I’m also learning a bit Python. Tools I use are Inkscape and The GIMP, both great examples of what Open-Source can do.

Hopefully you will hear soon more of me.

PS. If you’re reading this on my weblog and not at Ubuntuweblogs.org, that’s where I’m talking about

Of course I installed Ubuntu as fast as I could, like you can see in my last post. The performance is great and unlike classmates I have no trouble with crashes and the battery not wanting to charge when plugged to the net sometimes. For making notes in class I’m now using Tomboy, a great, simple and fast notebook-programm. I showed it to a teacher, who liked it and wanted to install at his Windows machine. At the moment I’m trying to find out if that’s possible(there’s no Windows installer available).

Because the laptops aren’t used often in class and teachers don’t exaclty know what to do with it I’m going to suggest to the headmaster to start a group of a few teachers and pupils about how to use the laptops in class. Of course I will use this to get the school to use more Open-Source software. It’s not only better, more stable and secure but also free and a school always has not enough money.

I’ll keep you informed how this will develop further.

The first thing you’ve to do is to make a startup USB-stick or SD drive. You can do that in two ways. If you have a computer with Ubuntu at it and a CD of Ubuntu, the easiest way is to insert your USB stick and the CD disk in your system. In System->Administration there’s a program called ‘Create a USB starup disk’. There you select your CD drive and USB stick and create the startup stick.

But if you are using your mini-note, with Vista it it you need to follow this tutorial.

After you’ve got your Ubuntu startup medium you just need to insert the medium and start your HP mini-note. Press F9 when starting up and select the USB/SD medium from the list.

After the Ubuntu boot menu is loaded you need to use a boot option to boot correctly. Select help and insert ‘live xforcevesa’ Press Enter and a live session will boot. The progress bar can freeze for a while when loading, don’t worry, it doesn’t have to mean anything. Now you can just follow the normal installation procedure.

When your system is installed and you booted it you will have a 640×480 resolution. You can fix this. I suggest you to try this first, but if it doesn’t work, you can not use the standart resolution 1280×769, but you’ll have to use 1024×600. You will need the following xorg.conf for this:

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, and then by hand by Who
# Thanks to mikez’s docs and examples for teaching me!

Section “Device”
Driver “via”
VendorName “VIA Tech”
BoardName “via”
Identifier “Configured Video Device”

Option “ActiveDevice” “LCD” #required to make the resolution correct without RandR
Option “DPMS”
Option “PanelID” “3″ #SUSE uses this, seems not to be reqd

#Option “UseRandR12″ # I WANT to use this (it works, almost)
Option “HWCursor” # Doesn’t restore cursor with RandR on (this option is ON by default anyway
#Option “SWCursor” # Does restore cursor when RandR on. But distorts when I use Compiz
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Monitor”
ModeLine “720×480″ 26.7 720 736 808 896 480 481 484 497
ModeLine “720×576″ 32.7 720 744 816 912 576 577 580 597
ModeLine “800×480″ 29.58 800 816 896 992 480 481 484 497
ModeLine “848×480″ 31.5 848 864 952 1056 480 481 484 497
ModeLine “856×480″ 31.7 856 872 960 1064 480 481 484 497
ModeLine “960×600″ 45.98 960 1000 1096 1232 600 601 604 622 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1000×600″ 48.07 1000 1040 1144 1288 600 601 604 622 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1024×512″ 41.3 1024 1056 1160 1296 512 513 516 531

Modeline “1024x600_60.00″ 48.96 1024 1064 1168 1312 600 601 604 622 -HSync +Vsync

ModeLine “1088×612″ 52.95 1088 1128 1240 1392 612 613 616 634 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1152×720″ 67.32 1152 1208 1328 1504 720 721 724 746 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1200×720″ 70.18 1200 1256 1384 1568 720 721 724 746 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1280×600″ 61.50 1280 1336 1464 1648 600 601 604 622 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1280×720″ 74.6 1280 1341 1474 1688 720 721 724 746
ModeLine “1280×768″ 80.1 1280 1344 1480 1680 768 769 772 795
ModeLine “1360×768″ 85.50 1360 1392 1712 1744 768 783 791 807 +HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1366×768″ 85.86 1366 1440 1584 1800 768 769 772 795 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1440×900″ 106.47 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 901 904 932 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1440×1050″ 126.2 1440 1536 1688 1936 1050 1051 1054 1087
ModeLine “1600×900″ 119.00 1600 1696 1864 2128 900 901 904 932 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1600×1024″ 136.36 1600 1704 1872 2144 1024 1025 1028 1060 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1792×1344″ 202.97 1792 1920 2112 2432 1344 1345 1348 1391 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1856×1392″ 218.57 1856 1992 2192 2528 1392 1393 1396 1441 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “1920×1080″ 172.9 1920 2043 2249 2578 1080 1081 1084 1118
ModeLine “2048×1536″ 266.95 2048 2200 2424 2800 1536 1537 1540 1589 -HSync +Vsync
ModeLine “720×480″ 34.9 720 752 824 928 480 481 484 502
ModeLine “720×576″ 42.6 720 760 832 944 576 577 580 602
ModeLine “848×480″ 41.0 848 880 968 1088 480 481 484 502
ModeLine “856×480″ 41.3 856 888 976 1096 480 481 484 502
ModeLine “1024×512″ 53.3 1024 1072 1176 1328 512 513 516 535
ModeLine “1280×768″ 103.0 1280 1360 1496 1712 768 769 772 802
ModeLine “1440×1050″ 160.0 1440 1536 1696 1952 1050 1051 1054 1096
ModeLine “1280×768″ 118.5 1280 1368 1504 1728 768 769 772 807
ModeLine “1440×1050″ 184.5 1440 1544 1704 1968 1050 1051 1054 1103
ModeLine “848×480″ 47.4 848 888 976 1104 480 481 484 505
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Monitor “Monitor”
SubSection “Display”
Modes “1024x600_60.00″
Virtual 1024 600
Depth 24
EndSubSection
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “Configured Video Device”
Option “ForceLCD” “true”
Option “ActiveDevice” “LCD”
Option “VideoOnDevice” “LCD”
Option “SetMpegFBNumber” “true”
EndSection

Section “Module”
Load “glx”
Load “dri”
Load “extmod”
EndSection

Section “DRI”
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Option “RandR” “False”
Identifier “main”
Screen “Default Screen”
EndSection

You will also need to use the via 3D drives, which you can get here. Select Ubuntu 8.10 in the drop-down menu and download the 3D driver. After extracting go to the bin map inside and move the via.drv.so and via.ko files to /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers by:
1.copy via.ko, via.drv.so
2. press alt-F2 and write gksu nautilus.
3.Navigate to /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers and copy the drivers.

Reboot and your HP mini-note is supposed to work.

Note:
The xorg.conf file here is created by Who at http://forums.mininoteuser.com with some small additions by me.

What I will do is post about things I do in life, my hobbies, school and more of such things. My hobbies are playing saxophone, being keeper in a footballteam(soccer for the Americans), building scale models and playing computer games. I am also going to be more involed in the developing of the OS I’m using, Ubuntu. I will report bugs and help with the translations. Also will I try to contribute to the artwork team of Ubuntu