Wine 1.4.1
Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quezal
Mozart 2005
TiMidity
While I have been aware of the existence of Wine for years, and used it in some very limited cases, I hadn't really considered it as option for dumping my Wintendo. I was inspired, however, by a post on PC World, to give it a go.
One of the few pieces of software that motivates my maintenance of a Windows machine is Mozart, a piece of music writing software that both my wife and I use. As it turned out, installing and running it under Wine was disturbingly easy! I installed Wine from the repository, used Winetrix to install the recommended packages, installed TiMidity to process Mozart's midi output, then stuck the Mozart CD in the drive and double-clicked on the installer. It installed just as it would under Windows XP, ran first time, and played sound without a problem. Whole thing took about ten minutes (including reading the instructions).
If I can get Empire: Total War to run, then the Windows drive might well get formatted.
Tuesday 5 February 2013
Thursday 3 January 2013
My New HTPC
My first Home Theatre PC was made from scrounged components, but satisfied of the concept I decided to upgrade. The new machine consists of:
Gigabyte GZ-M1 Black, Mini Tower Case
Core i3 Ivy Bridge 3220 3.30GHz Processor
ASRock Z77M Intel LGA Motherboard
Seasonic 430W Power Supply
2xKingston HyperX Blu 2GB 1600MHz DDR3 Memory
Lite-On iHAS324 Super All Write 24x DVD Writer
Intel 60GB SATA3 SSD
Old 500 GB HDD
Wireless (USB dongle) Logitech mini keyboard/mouse pad
Wireless internal ethernet card from Dick Smith
Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal
The Ivy Bridge setup is doing a great job of audio/visuals. The signal goes to a Marantz receiver, and thence to tv and speakers. So far, I'm happy running off regular desktop (Rhythmbox for music, Totem for video files, VLC for DVDs). One disadvantage of the mini-tower case is that the case fan is far from silent. It's possible I can do without it (the processor is hardly ticking over); I'll get around to doing some temperature tests at some point. Alternatively, the motherboard has a connector for a four-pin, speed controlled fan, if I can find one. And I'll need some extra storage soon.
We don't even have the television connected to an antenna anymore :)
Gigabyte GZ-M1 Black, Mini Tower Case
Core i3 Ivy Bridge 3220 3.30GHz Processor
ASRock Z77M Intel LGA Motherboard
Seasonic 430W Power Supply
2xKingston HyperX Blu 2GB 1600MHz DDR3 Memory
Lite-On iHAS324 Super All Write 24x DVD Writer
Intel 60GB SATA3 SSD
Old 500 GB HDD
Wireless (USB dongle) Logitech mini keyboard/mouse pad
Wireless internal ethernet card from Dick Smith
Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal
The Ivy Bridge setup is doing a great job of audio/visuals. The signal goes to a Marantz receiver, and thence to tv and speakers. So far, I'm happy running off regular desktop (Rhythmbox for music, Totem for video files, VLC for DVDs). One disadvantage of the mini-tower case is that the case fan is far from silent. It's possible I can do without it (the processor is hardly ticking over); I'll get around to doing some temperature tests at some point. Alternatively, the motherboard has a connector for a four-pin, speed controlled fan, if I can find one. And I'll need some extra storage soon.
We don't even have the television connected to an antenna anymore :)
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