Tag Archives: linux

No more WIndows – linux only

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I’ve been using Linux Mint as my main home desktop for 11 years now and as of about a month ago I finally got rid of Windows. The two things that were holding me back were gaming and Overdrive ebooks.

Linux gaming has come a LONG way and it now works good enough for me to ditch Windows. I successfully got most games working:

  • Steam – most games work
  • Epic Games, Ubisoft, GOG, via Lutris
  • Amazon Gaming via Nile – not elegant, but it works

As for Overdrive, I found Knock on github – it will take the downloaded .acsm file and download the epub file. I originally got Adobe Digital Editions installed and it worked, but Knock is much easier. I just put the knock executable into my ~/bin and once I download the .acsm file I run knock on it.

Upgrading Perl in Linux Mint

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WARNING: don’t do this – it could hose your system like it did mine… details to follow once i figure out how to undo it.

Figured I’d share this since it was a PITA to figure out. Linux Mint 11 ships with Perl 5.10. I was trying to install icinga and it needs Perl 5.12.4 or greater.

To make it happen I had to:

  • add this line to /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian wheezy main
  • install/upgrade with this: apt-get install gcc perl -o APT::Immediate-Configure=0 (from linux mint forums)

and Bob’s your uncle.

AND…. to put 5.10 back in place…

  • remove the entry you put in /etc/apt/sources.list and replace it with deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian squeeze main
  • sudo apt-get install perl=5.10.1-17ubuntu4 perl-base=5.10.1-17ubuntu4 perl-modules=5.10.1-17ubuntu4

upgrading to 5.12 caused lots of problems – Pidgin wouldn’t work and most importantly, my VPN stopped working – it would disconnect after about 30 seconds.