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Since I got a Mixman DM2 and like to run Linux I decided to put the two together. Slight hassle, though, the kernel doesn't sit still while you're not watching. A slight tweak is needed to get the driver to work on a modern kernel; in my case, 3.0.0-14-generic on Ubuntu.

I got a used Mixman DM² and here's some notes on what I've done with it on day one. This is on Windows XP; you can use the device on earlier versions of Windows, but not later ones. Works fine on OSX and Linux supposedly, but I haven't tried it in either place.

Ubuntu has set the system clock to UTC since the Intrepid Ibex (8.10.) I didn't notice because I had upgraded through several other versions. Using UTC for the system clock is cool if you don't dual-boot, but I do. The functionality exists in at least Vista and later to use UTC for the system clock, but I'm using XP and don't trust it to work even if it appears to.

For some time now I have been using PS3 Media Server to stream video to my Xbox 360. Since solutions for playing various video streams on various devices have become more convenient of late I've become less picky about what I transcode to, except that I like to achieve fairly high quality. ogmrip has become less useful of late, failing on most source video on which I try to use it, so I've gone back to Handbrake, the most competent and arrogant of DVD transcoders.

Half-life 2 gave me a black screen on Maverick until I upgraded to latest nVidia from ubuntu-x-swat x-updates PPA, and wine1.3 from ubuntu wine team PPA. Before the update from wine 1.2 (from the regular Maverick repos) I also installed directx9 with winetricks (from the repos also.) Presumably those files are still in my wine setup.

Via VT6656 USB WiFi has been out-of-tree because of non-GPLness. The new driver is a candidate for inclusion supposedly but for now you need to build your own driver in most cases. I want it for Debian 5 on my DT360.

After installing plugbox linux on my Dockstar I found that new users' passwords expired on login and forced a logout forever. To fix this for a single user use this script:

#!/bin/sh
chage -d 1 -E -1 -I -1 -m -1 -M -1 -W -1 $1

Call it with the username you want to fix. It sets the last change date to a day after the epoch but it works.

GoogleCL is a python-based command-line utility for accessing Google. It uses gdata-python-client for the google interface. No Windows release is planned, but this is largely irrelevant because python runs fine on Windows, and so do gdata-python-client and GoogleCL. Here are simple instructions for installing GoogleCL under Windows.