Thursday, May 12, 2011

Mounting a .iso file and running a program through wine

I have a .iso file which I want to mount in Ubuntu 10.10.  I then want to run the program through Wine, but the issue is that Wine can't find the drive.

Solution:

Mount iso:
sudo mount -o loop /home/liz/image.iso media/cdrom

Tell Wine that this directory is where the cd is by making a symbolic link
cd ~/.wine/dosdevices
ln -s /media/cdrom e:
ln -s /home/liz/image.iso e::


The latter step need only be done once.  Then, when I installed the program on the .iso, it was able to find the cd when run.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Dear Ubuntu

Dear Ubuntu,

We have spent three wonderful years together, but I may have to leave you soon. When we met, I was a naive user who thought there was only one viable option for an operating system. I know now how wrong I was.

Through you, I discovered that I could actually control a computer and didn't just have to let Bill or Steve decide what I would want. I had access to every preference imaginable, everything from the color scheme of the windows right down to overclocking.

So, imagine my horror when I installed 11.04 with that awful Unity. It was like you pulled the rug right out from under me. I suddenly couldn't find anything. I couldn't control anything. The settings were so deeply hidden that even some basic command prompts were not going to fix the situation. There were bars on the side of the screen bouncing out of control, the top menus were gone, I couldn't even install a basic system monitor on the panel. Seriously?!?! I devote all this time to you, and for what? You seem to think I want a Mac. I don't want a mac. I want linux.

This is why I think it may be time for us to part ways. I have learned all I need from you, but we want different things. You want to be so user-friendly that you are a replacement for windows or mac for those that can't seem to find the file system, I want to have an OS that asks me what I want rather than making assumptions.

Please don't take this too hard. I will always remember the good times we had together.

All my love,
Liz




Grading is torture


After 7 hours of grading finals, I got to this little gem. It says "normal distribution, mean distribution."