Kororaa Linux

It's been a long few months!

I've been busy lately, hence the lack of updates. I'm back to work at LSST, integrating the Moving Object Pipeline System (which identifies objects in various images of the sky, then identifies common objects in images, then builds a database of their orbits and predicts their motion) into the overall LSST data framework.

Today, I took a break from it all to install Kororaa Linux. Kororaa is a Gentoo fork which has a LiveCD with full AIGLX/XGL environments, allowing all the nifty "wobbly windows" effects and OS X-like expose features. Since I now have an ATI Radeon card, I thought it might be a fun toy. Best of all, the install feature actually gets a whole running Gentoo system installed in under an hour, and pre-configured for super-slick video tricks.

Kororaa uses only open-source drivers, so it is morally correct, but unfortunately, the open-source Radeon drivers proved to be tragically slow. While I thought the lagginess of the system was related to running off a LiveCD, it didn't go away when I installed to a hard drive.

Furthermore, it didn't install cleanly. GRUB was set up incorrectly, and the xorg.conf was actually not quite right. I was willing to forgive all this - after all, GRUB hard disk nomenclature doesn't always coincide with Linux's, and the whole thing is based on Gentoo, so I could tweak the video drivers all I wanted. Or so I thought.

Unfortunately, 'emerge sync' managed to break Portage.

Three strikes, Kororaa. You were fun while you lasted. I might be back, someday, to manually install portage and try out some new video drivers, but don't count on it.