Are we there yet?

Only a little over 3 weeks until Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx is coming out! Woo Hoo!

One of the fun things about each Linux distro release is the countdown banners (you can see 3 on my sidebar). Unfortunately I haven't see any official one yet so I'm going with this un-official one from Immanuel Peratoner's design.

I'm looking forward to this one not because of the hype, but because of the discussion and changes that are going into it. The new style, inclusion of social media, the UbuntuOne Music Store and usual round of updates and "tweaks".

Especially since it is a Long Term Support (LTS) release it will be interesting to see how it goes on both the desktop and the server. I'm in need to improve my home server now that I have some idea(s) as to what I'm doing (or does that just make me more dangerous?).

So Distro Updates are coming soon.. time to get ready!

Now that Ubuntu 10.04 is beta and due out in a little over a month with Fedora pretty hot on their heels coming out in the beginning of May, I have to start preparing my systems for the coming upgrades.

I'll be upgrading more this time than in the past because this coming Ubuntu is a Long Term Support (LTS) release and so this is going onto the family computer too.

I have 3 systems which will be upgrading; a family desktop and two laptop hard drives.

Part of the "preparing" process is going to be figuring out the best steps in upgrading and migrating.

The Family Desktop

This one will be a little easier to upgrade because not only is the distro going to be upgraded but the actual desktop will be replaced with a "new" (used) desktop so I am afforded the luxury of being able to return to the "old" system if something really breaks!

I'll be moving from Ubuntu 9.10 to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, and probably sticking with it until the next LTS release in 2012. Since it is the family's computer and I have my laptop, it is a little easier for me to keep it stable (read: for me to leave it alone). Plus I can test things out on my laptop to determine if the upgrade is significant enough to push past the LTS-to-LTS cycle I am trying to impose.

The new desktop will need to be as similar to the current one because I do have one user who is very visual, and needs things to be right where they expect it. The more exact it is for her, the happier she'll be and the sooner she'll be back to being up-and-running.

Success happens with happy users, not happy admins.

The other consideration is that this desktop has 2 hard drives, and the second hard drive already has Windows 7 installed on it. Now I hate the idea of having to fool around with registration keys, and system shutting down features if I don't "comply" (something I've been spoiled with Linux since it doesn't have these same "features") so it exists completely on a separate hard disk.

I'm keeping the Windows 7 in part for fooling around with it when I need to, as well as for compatibility purposes. The only downside is the Printer/Scanner/Copier I just got is because the previous owner just got a Windows 7 laptop for Christmas, and Windows 7 doesn't like this machine. Linux, on the other hand, loves it even in 9.04!

My Laptop

My laptop will be slightly more complicated but still should not be overly difficult. See, it starts with having multiple hard disks in their trays so I can slide out one hard drive and replace it with another just like an old-fashioned game cartridge.

One of my hard drives is a 60 GB hard drive which is currently running Ubuntu 9.10. The other hard drive I'll be fooling around with is an 80 GB hard drive which is the newest hard drive I have and after hearing hard drives lasting 5-10 years I've realized that this is the only hard drive that isn't near or exceeding the 5 year mark.

My 80 GB hard drive already contains a Windows XP installation which I am going to hold on to for added compatibility purposes. The other distribution I have on it is Fedora 12. That's where the complication begins.

What is going to make things slightly more complicated than just upgrading is that I want to switch the distros on the hard drive:

My Windows/Fedora hard drive will become Windows/Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and my Ubuntu hard drive will become my Fedora 13 system.

Of course I do not want to be losing all of my settings, applications and files. I will need to make sure I'm "organized" so I don't step over my own two feet and end up loosing all of the backups from one system or the other.

To help with moving things around, I'll be employing an 8 GB USB Flash drive and possibly some of the networked Server space though it is in desperate need of cleaning out at this point.

When all of this is done, then it comes time to focuse on the server, but that's a whole 'nuther story!

I'm a "featured user"

This site, OpenSource.com, is very interesting to read as it does not relate to Open Source as a technology, but instead the whole philosophy or concept and how it relates to organizations, businesses, government and life!



Anyway, I got ticked seeing one of my comments as the "FEATURED USER COMMENT"

The site itself is fascinating, and frequented by some very intelligent and insightful people. I feel as though I have to take time, think and carefully comment instead of a usual haphazard slap-on comment like so many other places.

It is a Red Hat community service, but I haven't found any reference or comment to any particular Linux distro (pro or con). The closest I find is a generic "Linux" when use for illustration or comparing against the way Windows or Apple does things.

I look forward to following this site and reading the articles. I think it would be great if people would look past the initial thoughts on open source the technology, and see how the philosophy can pertain to their everyday organization's life.

From Linux to Windows

well.. not really.

I've used Linux for a while, and my home computer systems are running Linux most of the time, and Windows only as needed (Skype, my son's Digital Camera, etc.).  In approximately 1 week, though, I will have my Windows 7 DVD and Christmas has been good for me as my brother got me enough RAM for a system to be able to run it (1 GB min requires) as well as XP Mode ( 2 GB min required for system)!  Thanks J.!

Yes, I am pretty excited.

For the past 7 + years I have been installing and re-installing Linux distributions on just about any computer I can get my hands on.  Each time I am trying to see what works, what doesn't work and pursuing my experiment to find out if I can completely replace Windows with Linux in my home life. 

I used to run into a lot of roadblocks, but 2 things have changed which has led to this experiment to success;

1. Linux has been getting better this whole time (Red Hat 8 -> Ubuntu 9.10/Fedora 12/openSUSE 11.2 = "you've come a long way baby")
   and
   
2. I am being more realistic as to what am I going to do with the darn computer! (Like why install Eclipse since I am not actually going to be doing any programming while at home. If I do, THEN install it, but no sense killing myself I am not actually going to USE it.)
   

For me, trying and testing Windows 7 is going to be like testing another distribution, except it is another operating system.

Windows 7 is going to be compared to some very tough competition; Linux.  I will be dual-booting Windows with Linux so that if Windows cannot hack it, I will be able to keep using Linux. Since the system is able to hold 2 hard drives I am planning on making it dual boot with each hard drive running a different OS. That way, if I remove one hard drive (or in case it fails) then the other system will purr along as if nothing has happened.  Plus, both OSes will enjoy the advantage of the 2.5 GB of RAM!

Meanwhile at work, I am looking forward to re-imaging my laptop and seeing if that will help to improve the performance that it really should have.

It will still be running XP, but when a system with less than 1/2 the power of it can boot up, install a DV Edit program (Kino) and start capturing video from a camcorder before the Windows system is booted and ready to go (not including connecting ot the network) then something is terribly wrong.

So this too will be an experiment of sorts, as I not only try being productive with approved applications and nothing else (well, maybe Paint.NET because I do need to manipulate images once-in-a-while).  Having come from open source and Linux I have gotten pretty used to having choices of multiple applications for a purpose.  This time around, though, I am going to try and hold off the best I can.

This means such things as using Internet Explorer ONLY; no Firefox, Opera or Chrome.  This alone will be an adjustment, but a  good experiment.  It also means only one image editing program but anything that I don't need, I am not going to get.

Only applications that are an extension of Microsoft official applications such as OGG Vorbis codecs so Windows Media Player can play OGG files, or applications (.NET) and scripts (.bat, .vbs) which I develop myself will be acceptable.

I think this will be an exciting experiment, and it does not mean I am leaving Linux. As I said, the home computer will be dual-boot with Linux as the primary system and my laptop will continue to be running Linux for my own personal uses as well as my home server.  In fact the old desktop may be upgraded and moved into the role of server(s) opening up a whole new range of possibilities such as a personal cloud?

Check back, and see how things go.

Fedora 12 and Broadcom wireless works out-of-the-box

Wow, what a past couple of weeks!  First Ubuntu 9.10 comes out, then Mandriva 2010 followed by openSUSE 11.2 and it ends with Fedora 12!

While Karmic is as impressive as any Ubuntu release the one that has really gotten me this time is Fedora 12.   Most specifically, the thing that got me initially "hooked" or interested is that my Broadcom wireless card worked in Fedora 12 out-of-the-box!  No hunting or downloading and cutting the driver! I wasn't even plugged into the network and I was able to connect to the wireless system while running the LiveCD.

I am using a laptop I received, which replaces the one that had and unfortunate accident with a cup of water a while back. Due to issues with the external CD-Rom drive I was not able to even boot up Ubuntu Karmic, or any other Ubuntu when I had a chance to try things out.  I was left with a blinking NUM and CAP LOCK indicators instead.

So I went ahead and installed Fedora 12 on the hard drive and started fooling around with it.  For the most part, it was as expected, with a different list of applications and what-nots, and using PackageKit makes updating and installing an easy prospect though not as easy as Synaptic in Ubuntu.  What did impress me was that not only did Fedora 12 recognize and enable my wireless card out of the box, but it worked better than it did in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope!  I would have the system on for hours and I never lost a signal.

When I first got the laptop, I was planning on replacing the Broadcom wireless with an Intel one I had in a Thinkpad T40 and hope that they are compatible enough.  After seeing Fedora handle it out of the box I decided it wasn't worth the risk.  Ubuntu and openSUSE did not detect the wireless card, which is expected.

I believe what I get to attribute the wireless card for working is Fedora including the OpenFWWF open sourced drivers.  I hope that development continues and that other distributions start including it so as to help alleviate the wireless hell that so many people go through.

Netbooks + Google + Linux = Great Cloud system

Beyond just the issue of running better on low-spec machines and the argument of better screen layouts compared to Windows 7 and Windows XP (don't have to worry about OS X since Apple doesn't have a Netbook and don't seem to have plans for one either), there are some cool reasons why Linux is a good choice for Netbooks especially if you have a Google Gmail account. Considering Google is working on their own netbook-friendly operating system (Google Chrome OS) plus their phone-based operating system (Android), both of which are Linux-based, the compatibility between desktop and cloud applications should only get better.

First off, the idea of a Netbook is to be a portable laptop-like device which connects to the internet and runs common activities such as email, browsing, instant messaging and more. To help with the portability it uses an energy efficient Atom processor which runs currently around 1.6 GHz (not talking about the dual-core variety here yet).  Actually, a Netbook is more powerful than most of my computers (sad, isn't it?).  At least I have finally moved away from the machine with specs less than that of Motorolla's newest Droid phone!

Anyway, as the purpose of the Netbook is to interact with the internet from just about anywhere, yet many, if not most, people prefer the feel of running native apps yet still want to have things accessible via the web from other machines. This way you can, say, work on a presentation in Google Docs or Zoho, on the desktop with a nice screen and keyboard, yet pull it up on your portable Netbook for the actual meeting without having the lug this huge desktop or even supersized laptop around!

Email is probably the easiest to coordinate since it is pretty much everywhere and everyone has it.  I'm not sure about Outlook Express or Live Email (or whatever it's called), but I know that the cross-platform Thunderbird can and my choice on Linux, Evolution, can access my Gmail account via IMAP.  The wonderful thing about this is that just about any changes I make with my mail, move, mark as read/unread or delete as well as every email I send is ultimately stored on the IMAP server and thus is accessible from all machines I connect to it.  It is also fully realized through the web interface.

What Thunderbird provides, with the Lightning add-on, and Evolution provides out of the box is the ability to connect to my Google calendars and while I have had mixed experiences, I have managed to successfully connect to my calendars in a bi-directional manner. This means, I can add/change/remove an appointment on my local client and it is changed on the server so the next manner I connect to it (application on another machine, over the web, etc.) the change will be present.

Also with an add-on in Thunderbird or included in Evolution is the ability to sync one-way all of your contacts.  This is great in centralizing your contacts so you don't go to a machine to email somebody only to find out you added them on another machine instead.  The shortfall of this, as far as I can tell, is that it is only one way. To add a contact you may have to go to the gmail web interface or Google Contacts and make your changes there.

So with something like Thunderbird, or Evolution and Google account you can almost have a Microsoft Exchange-like functionality without shelling out a lot of cash.

So now we turn towards files and the cloud because let's face it, while email and personal information management (PIM) usage is fine it still doesn't help when you need to create a presentation or invoice for somebody.

So this is where Google Docs and google-docs-fs comes in.  From the project website:

This project aims to allow you to connect to Google Docs and treat it as a file system. Combine the portability of Google Docs with the flexibility and power of using the office suite of your choice.

This will allow you to mount your Google Docs account as you would a normal filesystem. You will then be able to use it as if it were a file system on your hard disk, with all operations being transmitted seamlessly to Google Docs.

So in theory you can open your Google Doc with OpenOffice on your local machine and when it saves, it saves in the cloud!  How cool is that?

Of course you'll have to keep an eye on compatibility if you plan on accessing it via the web interface but if it is only being accessed by a local client app whether from one machine or another then it may not make any difference if you add a few things that Google Docs can't handle.

Either way, I will have to test this out and get back to you on how well it works, but I'm excited.

The last piece, though, is a little bit trickier and doesn't quite work in Linux at this time.  I do hope that the Linux clients will get this functionality in the near future though because I've been using this in Windows for a while and there are some really nice features missing from the Linux variant.  I am talking about Picasa and Picasaweb.

The current model of these online galleries is that you import your pictures into your local computer and then you upload what you want to the Picasaweb gallery.  This is great, but you don't necessarily have the originals on your local system. If you were to take your netbook on vacation with you and upload your pics from that machine, the originals are not available on your desktop to view on the larger monitor unless you use a USB thumb drive to transfer the files from one machine to another.

Yet with Picasa 3 in Windows you can not only upload your pictures, but download the entire album as well.  In this manner it matters less as to who has the original (and I would back up the originals regardless) as any system can download the entire album onto the local machine.  I do not know if PicasaWeb handles RAW files.  I would understand if htey do not because those files will quickly fill up the space limitation.  On a good note, they just dropped the price on how much memory you can store. You get 1 GB for free and for $5 per year you can increase that by 20 GBs (so $25 per year will give you 101GB!).  For a shutterbug this may be well worth the cost.

Last is something that hooks up to Google Reader.  I'm practically addicted to Google Reader and the idea of entering all of those feeds into a local client sounds daunting. Not to mention applications like Liferea only mimics the Google Reader, does not actually integrate.  The best reader, and the one I'd install in a heartbeat, is the one that would work WITH my Google Reader. This way, if  I read an item in the local client, my Google Reader item is marked as read, and if I read it in Google Reader then I don't want my local client to show it if I have filters to only show unread entries.

There is a project, though, which utilizes Adobe Air (which there is a Linux variant) to connect to Google Reader, called ReadAir.  While it is focused on the Windows and Mac version I really hope that they don't leave Linux out in the cold.  I'll have to research this some and see how it works.

In conclusion, there are a number of apps, at least for Linux, to take your Cloud life and bring it back onto the desktop!  Since I am not so keen on having dozens of web browsers opened in order to do something I like the idea of integrated native apps on the front end, but fed from Google Cloud where I can always access via browser if necessary, or another computer.

If Ubuntu 9.10 Tarnishes Linux's image, community needs to fix it.

So it sounds like Ubuntu is getting a bad rap with its latest release, 9.10 Karmic Koala. This isn't good right now because while Linux was making gains as Vista was failing and products like Netbooks, which Vista did not work on, were growing today the market has switched around. While Linux made some modest gains, this reversal of fortune could end up un-doing those gains and make it harder to pull people back since now its a fresh memory of the issues and not some long standing ones from when Linux was only a command-line operating system.

Windows 7 is still getting good reviews overall with the most significant piece being that it is stable, and "just works" for the most part. Considering this was one of the biggest issues with Vista and something people have gotten used to with Windows XP, it sounds like Microsoft has finally gotten something right for the time being. Of course there are issues, but the one beneift of it coming after Vista's marketing and technical difficulties is that the bar Windows 7 has to overcome is so much lower than it was after Windows XP.

Linux, on the other hand, still has to reach up to that bar and has been doing a very admirable effort in reaching that bar! I think Linux has reached heights only dreamt of in years past and still has momentum and opportunities so long as they, and the users, don't dwell on issues that have come up.

One good piece of news is that Ubuntu is just the first distribution to be releasing a new version. Mandriva has just released 2010 today, in one week openSUSE releases 11.2 and just under 2 weeks from now Fedora will release 12. So from a technical perspective Linux has 3 opportunities to "fix" its image with rock-solid and secure releases. I think Fedora can probably bring the most to help this image.

Fedora is long thought of as an unstable, bleeding -edge type distribution and testbed for a major North American Linux Vendor (yeah, Red Hat.. I just like the mysterious "major North American Linux Vendor" since I saw it on the CentOS website), so if Fedora can come out with a stable, up-to-date release it would mean more than if a distribution with a standard stability reputation comes out and says they are stable.

So what can the community do about this? Actually the community can a vital part in maintaining and/or helping Linux's image.

The process people will go through will be the same. Newer users will have questions and go to the forums for answers. The key, though, is that the community needs to be patient, upbeat and helpful to give people a reason to stick with it. A user will be much more interested in sticking with it if they see that they can still get help, that people are not upset or emotional about it and if these people helping the user are sticking with it why can't the user?

Remember, it is only 6 months until the next batch of releases, Ubuntu and Fedora at least. This next release from Ubuntu is also a Long Term Support (LTS) release which means it had better be more stable than the Karmic release because this one will be around for longer and has the more important users; companies. While having general users is all good and well, companies and enterprises are the ones that will bring in the money. If Dell were to stop or scale back providing computers with Ubuntu installed due to these issues then there goes one potentially important avenue of revenue, marketing and availability. And if Dell won't carry it then why would a business trust it?

So the community needs to stop complaining and work together to help those people in need as much as possible. In time this will be sorted out and honestly, by December or January I expect a lot of these issues to be addressed in one way or another. Will anybody retract their statements at that time? Of course not, so Linux needs its community members to push through this with a smile and helpful hand until such time as these issues are addressed in the next couple of months.

Unconditional Love

Unconditional love, for obvious sake, means to love somebody unconditionally.  This can mean for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health... you get the idea. Unconditional love is the basis of a marriage and when most people say "I do", I believe they feel that they do love each other very deeply, but is it unconditionally?

Let's take an example:
Say you are going out on a date with your significant other after the two of you have been going crazy with work, school, kids, etc. So you take this opprtunity to "gift" your partner by getting all dressed up, and even wearing that heirloom piece that isn't your style, or isn't very comfortable. Hopefully this isn't your wedding band, but if so then that counts.

When you finish you seek out your partner to show off the glamourous or dapper "you"! For some reason, though, your love of your life doesn't take much notice or doesn't seem very excited, even at the self-sacrifice of wearing their heirloom trinket you really cannot stand!

Do you feel hurt? resentful? unappreciated?  These are valid emotions, ... except in the case of unconditional love. That is not to say that unconditional love means you should suffer just because your prince (or princess) charming needs a good solid whap upside the head with a cluebat!

The issue, though, is that it wasn't done with unconditional love; there were strings attached.  You had unwittingly attached the strings of being wow-ed over and flaunted with affection and admiration from your lover and when you didn't get it your felt hurt.  You actually did it all for you, and for your own pride and when it wasn't received you threaten a form of retaliation such as not showing any affection for the rest of the night or by not allowing them (and you) from enjoying the night because of a storm cloud over your head all night.

Doing it with unconditional love means that no matter what or how much you do in the name of love, there is no recourse or punishment if it doesn't work out as you expect. You give, and that is the end of that and if anything comes of it great, but otherwise you don't hold anything in your heart if it does not. In this, the only ones that need to know how much effort and sacrifice you put into this effort is you and God.

Ideally your partner does notice your effort and does praise you accordingly.  In this situation you have your full rights to enjoy every ounce of praise and flaunting! In this manner, the praise you receive are more genuine which makes them a thousand times more powerful than one guilted out of somebody against their will.

Did I say it was easy?  No, it is not easy and is especially hard when there is a disconnect or there are issues in the relationship.  Even in good relationships, this level of giving of yourself is not easy to do and is even harder to do it every day.  To love unconditionally means with no strings attached, no expectations and no regrets.

On the other hand, when two people love each other unconditionally is not only a beautiful thing, it forms a union stronger than the sum of the parts.

I have to laugh. Microsoft marketing is such a crock!

Microsoft first touts that they will allow Windows 7 to run on Netbooks, but only 3 applications at a time.  Now they are considered more serious and competitive that they have lifted that restriction?!!  It's still the most basic version of Windows only, and without the cool features that the higher-end versions will include.  Plus, while Windows may take less resources, you still have to get all of the security applications (anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc.) which will take their chunk of resources leaving little for the applications you want to actually DO anything!

Meanwhile, Linux is running and as full-featured as the desktop versions you want and runs better on the lower-memory systems than the cluster-f$#% Windows that has had to be ripped apart to work on something so small!  It can run with the latest kernel with applied patches and applications of your choice. 

While I may not recommend running Blender 3D animator on a Netbook, if you really want to ... you can.  For many applications, too, not only are there alternatives, there are alternatives geared to being lighter on resources which may fit the bill.

Sad thing is, people are buying Microsoft marketing.

UbuntuOne Online Storage

Canonical is launching a beta version of it's UbuntuOne online storage!  Sounds interesting so far even if it parallels the existing, cross-platform DropBox.

Already, the Dell Mini 9 was sold with free DropBox accounts, a great idea for a netbook with a minimal SSD drive to store everything.

Apple has had something like this for a while, called MobileMe (formerly Mac.com). MobileMe includes Microsoft Exchange like features such as email, contacts and calendars which can be synched between systems as well as an online photo gallery and the iDisk online storage.  All of this for $99 per year.

Google has been offering something almost like this for a much better price; free. The Gmail, Contacts and Calendars can be accessed either online or client applications by IMAP (for mail) and various plug-ins.  They also include an online photo gallery through Picasa Web and integrates with Picasa on the client.  Unfortunately it only works with Windows as far as I know.  The only other downside seen with this system is that some personal information may be gleaned off of your content for directed advertisements and interest-gathering.

Microsoft has been making moves with its Live system. Admittingly, though, I don't know enough about what it offers, though the applications that will integrate with it will surely be Windows-only.

So now Canonical is offering its own online drive space only and at $10/month for 10GB, or 2GB for free, it makes me wonder why?

Why would Canonical do this?  I have a theory.

UbuntuOne is an added benefit for using Ubuntu that doesn't require tinkering with the operating system itself. It is an add-on that people can choose to use or not use, and it isn't being forced upon anybody which would surely raise howls of protests from some Linux users.

It also begins a platform for offering other features in the future, whether free or paid for, such as an email account (@UbuntuUser.com?), calendar, contacts, to-do's and such which actually integrates with Linux email clients without a lot of tinkering.  Imagine opening Evolution (Gnome's default email client) and being able to select UbuntuOne as the provider, enter your username and password and that's it, it's done?!

At the same time, this provides a perfect example for demonstrating the power and capabilities of Ubuntu Server and how it can be used for typical uses with alarge loads.

Canonical is shaping up to be a flexible company that seems to be taking pages from other company's playbook and is positioning itself very nicely.  They aren't as stogey as Red Hat yet they offer a solid Server contender. They aren't as flashy as Apple but are closing the gap of out-of-the-box usability, pre-installed channels and user-friendliness.

Of course, don't forget that there have been mention by Mark Shuttleworth about "blending" the desktop to the web. Combine this with the Cloud Computing ambitions with Ubuntu Server and I see UbuntuOne as the ante-up for Canonical to take this and go

I'm hopeful for this, and I hope I am granted a beta account. This could be the beginning of a whole new world.

Remind me, how is Windows the dominant OS?

It doesn't take long to come around and realize how easy Linux has made some otherwise mundane tasks. Let me back up a little.

This weekend our church is running its annual flea market and auction and for the auction we have a pretty slick deal.  We use multiple laptops including one in the auction audience which enters the winning number and amount once the auctioneer yells "Sold!".  So by the time the person gets out of their seat and walks to cash out the information is already entere!  The beauty of wireless technology.

The problem is getting enough laptops to all communicate wirelessly, as one has to run as the database server while each of the clients have to run their own copy of FileMaker Pro. Thus, we need all of the systems to run Windows or Mac.

That's the issue.  All of my home systems, and laptop, run Ubuntu or a special-use Linux. I have been Windows free for a while now.

So last night I took an extra hard drive I have for the laptop, and installed Windows XP on it, which was the operating system the laptop originally came with. Once it finished and I rebooted, that's when the difference between Windows XP and Linux became visible.

While I managed to install Windows on the laptop, it didn't include many important drivers such as the video, Ethernet, modem and wireless.  I was stuck in a 480x640 resolution with no access to the internet! Even clicking on the Internet Explorer icon displays a "What do you want to open this with?" dialog box!

Now, this laptop does not have any exotic hardware. I believe it has an Intel graphics and Broadcom ethernet and a Broadcom wireless card. It is a Dell Latitude D400.

Using a seperate computer I tried to download the drivers from the Dell website, place it on a USB drive and move it over to the crippled laptop.   When I tried running the self-extracting .exe I get an error that RPC (Remote Procedure Call) server is not running?!

So now, with one day to go, I have to try and find these drivers and install just the bare minimums so I can install FileMaker Pro and connect to the other computers on the network.

What gets me is that with Linux, and especially the later versions of Ubuntu, I have not had any show-stopping errors during installation or even running the LiveCD!  Linux has detected my display adapter and I get my 1024x768 resolution. The Ethernet is detected and turned on immediately so I can get online, updates, whatever immediately. The wireless drivers, I know, need to be downloaded but between the handy hardware drivers application that lists everything needing a proprietary driver, and that my ethernet connection is humming along nicely, getting the wireless to run is a snap!

For all those people talking about how difficult Linux is to install, have you really tried installing Windows lately, or is Windows easier only because somebody else (as in the manufacturer) did all of the work?

An Atom-based NetTop from System76

After the initial lust after a Netbook, I started thinking how cool a NetTop would be!

A Netbook is a power-sipping laptop that handles most basic tasks people use. It is geared to longer battery life over horse power (CPU speeds).  The biggest limitation is often the small size of the screen or keyboard.

At home, though, we have a spot where the laptop goes now where it is always plugged in. It's in our "Command Center" which is the center of activity in the house, next to the phone and next to the official (paper) calendar. I've always thought about replacing the laptop with a flat screen monitor and a basic desktop computer.

The problem has been not only space, even though there is space under the counter it can go, but having another computer on is a draw on electricity and after changing out all of our incandescent light bulbs for florescent I don't want to eat those savings with a desktop basically checking email and doing some browsing!

Since I'm already running Ubuntu on the laptop, desktop and server, I looked into System76 to see what they have available. System76 is a computer manufacturer that sells laptops, desktop and servers with Ubuntu installed. In fact they do not sell anything with Windows installed so you know they have to make sure the necessary drivers are installed.

Enter, the Meerkat NetTop.

It comes with an

• 8 Watt Atom processor at 1.6 GHz (which is 0.2 GHz more than my laptop)
• 1 GB of Ram  with space for an additional GB (my laptop is 512 MB)
• 80 GB hard disk upgradable to 750 GB (beats out my 30 GB disk)
• Available CD-RW, USB Wireless, and up to 3 yrs Ltd. Warranty and Technical Support

Not a spead demon or computational-crunching monster but definately adequate for what we would use it for, especially considering it's more powerful than what we're using now.

Then it got me thinking...

Why not set it up as a low power-consuming home server for files and stuff that uses more electricity for less power like the current Pentium IIIs I am running?  I definately do not need the high-end full-fledged "servers" and can easily set it up with Ubuntu Server or even CentOS (the Red Hat clone from Red Hat's own source code)!

Most home systems don't have RAID setup anyway.  Heck, could probably run two of these for less voltage than my Pentium III (and I have 2 of them running anyway) or run one with an external USB hard drive (1 TB?!) for backups!  Add a battery backup and see how long this sucker can keep going!

If all I do is max out the Ram (2 GB) and Disk Space (750 GB) it still costs less than $400!

Combined with the starting price of just over $300, I could get 2 basic setups to replace the laptop and desktop ($600) and a Server with max Ram and Disk Space ($400) and replace all 3 systems for a little more than $1,000 (plus tax, title and insurance...).  And the whole system would use less electricity to boot!

Then again.. maybe for a little more I can also get a System76 Netbook when they come out.. for me!

My KDE Experiment: prelude

I have long thought that a good Linux distribution with a stable and feature-rich KDE 4 environment installed on a good computer, like a laptop, with all compatible hardware would be able to compete with the latest from Microsoft of Apple.  Naturally, openSUSE is the first that comes to mind since they are the largest supporters of KDE and even innovations like the slab menu found in KDE 4 was available in openSUSE's KDE 3!

So to find out if this is true or not I decided to try a little experiment. I have an extra desktop around and I am going to install openSUSE 11.1 with KDE 4.2 and see how the overall experience is on a couple of different levels.

Of course openSUSE will be tested on its technical merit as I meander through the requirements for administrating the system after the installation. While this may be of interest, this is actually a very minor focus of the experiment.

The main focus, by large, is the supposed "consumer experience" one would have if they were to receive a comptuer system with openSUSE pre-installed and configured.  How does it look how responsive is it, how easy is it to customize, can I do all I want to do with it?  These and more questions will be looked at.

KDE is built from the Qt programming language and has spawned a huge number of applications in and out of the official "KDE Family".  Just about any application that is posed will have some form of KDE/Qt equivalent.  The advantage of using these is consistancy as is enjoyed with Microsoft products (well.. maybe except for Office 2007), where configuration files and settings are in the same location across most, if not all, applications! If I want to change a setting in the application I go to the Configure menu just as I would Tools > Options in Windows.

In order to do this, I will be using KDE or Qt based applications whenver possible, such as

• Krita instead of Gimp or Photoshop
• Konquerer instead of Firefox or Opera (though I will keep Firefox for website compatibility issues)
• Kontact instaed of Evolution or Thunderbird or Outlook
• Kopete instead of Pidgin
• KOffice instead of OpenOffice or MS Office
• Amarok instead of Banshee or Rythmbox
• Quanta Plus instead of Bluefish or Kompozer or FrontPage (unless I really need Kompozer)
• Karbon 14 instead of Inkscape
• DigiKam instead of Picasa or F-Spot
  

So not only is this going to be a test of the KDE desktop experience but also to put KDE applications through the test!

I am hoping, though, that my inexperience with KDE (let alone KDE 4) will be a benefit more than a limitation as it means that I will be learning the system just as somebody new to Linux will be learning the system. Who knows, maybe my family will like it better than their current Ubuntu Gnome sessions?... ;)

Back in the Ubuntu saddle again!

If my brain were a ping-pong game then this is probably the longest game in history!  Choosing between one distribution and another for my laptop has gotten me going around in circles for some time but it seems to keep returning to Ubuntu for a few different reasons.

 

It Just Works

Probably the biggest argument I have had for Ubuntu since I was introduced to the Breezy Badger (a badger with gas?) has been how easy it is to not only install it but to maintain the system.

In the beginning, when I was learning it wasn't such a big issue to take time to learn how to do or fix things. On the other hand with so much overhead required I wasn't about to add the frustration and difficulty in supporting Linux for anybody else but me.

Now, though, I have kids and want to spend more time doing things with (and without) the computer than spend time working ON the computer. This is in addition to providing a stable, maintainable platform for the rest of the family to use that won't keep me up all night.

Basically I've wanted a system that I can get up to what I expect my Windows machine to be; easy maintenance and facilitates (or at least doesn't get in my way of) doing things.  Whether it is really that much easier or that I've spent enough time with Ubuntu to know how to do things just as I have spent so much time learning how to do things in Windows, I don't know.

With Ubuntu, I have wireless working well, hibernate and suspend workings and volume buttons activated.  Except for the wireless, which was painless, these features have actually run without my intervention and, in the case of the power controls, just needed me to learn how to use them and where to access them.

Everybody Else Is Doing It

Yes, it seems if you run across somebody who doesn't look at you cross-eyed when you mention Linux there is a fair chance that they are running Ubuntu and a greater chance that they have at least heard of it!

I am part of a computer club's Linux special interest group and just at this last meeting I found myself outnumbered 4-to-1 on distro of choice.  Alone, this isn't enough to make me change.

On the same token, though, if I am in this Linux special interest group it behooves me to use a distribution that the other members will likely be familiar with so that not only are we all on the same page, but when I research a question or setting I will be less likely be caught in the "but they do it THIS way" or "we don't do things like that".

Plus Ubuntu is the #1 recommended Linux for newcomers and the easiest to get your hands on so the chances of new people coming to the meeting will be running Ubuntu is not an astronomical number!

Of course this doesn't account for the difference in how Gnome does things and KDE, but that's an even bigger battle than what little 'ol distribution to install on my laptop.

There Is A Future With Ubuntu

Now I'm not talking about the "End is Near" for any distribution or even operating system. What I am talking about is the momentum that Ubuntu has developed in their push to get into the Enterprise market.

Of course Red Hat is the biggest one, and Novell (SUSE) is a running second largest enterprise Linux in use, but when you look at smaller places the iron grip is not so tight.

When  I hear somebody running CentOS, I find that usually the small business has a larger company mind set which isn't wrong and I think they are doing the right thing going with CentOS or even openSUSE.

For smaller operations, I hear some people using Debian or even Gentoo. This market, though, is almost perfect for Ubuntu due to it's strong Debian underpinnings, Linux security and Ubuntu "just works".

Entering Dangerous Territory!

For a while now I've lived a double life.  (shh... don't tell my wife)

At work I've been immersed into Microsoft; Office (especially Excel and Access), VBA, SQL Server, VB6, ASP and now VB.NET (actually ASP.NET). Even if it doesn't come from Microsoft the clients have been Windows-only at work and home such as Cognos, Crystal Reports, Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Photoshop.

At home, though, I've been toying around with Linux distros ever since a friend of mine introduced me to Red Hat. At that time I was running Windows 98, Macs were coming out all nice and shiny and there was no way I could afford one (and all the software to do what I currently was doing in Windows).  Since then, I've been hooked; installed multiple distributions over-and-over again, active on multiple Linux forums and now the special interest group leader for the Linux SIG.

These two worlds don't meet very much because some of the things I use in Windows such as Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Publisher, Live Writer and Visual Studio do not transfer over the same to Linux. sure there are applications to do the same thing (Gimp, Scribus, Monodevelop) but they are either clunky or don't have some feature/ease that I am used to.  Photoshop is probably the one to lose out first.

I've liked the idea of Mono, the open source project that creates a framework allowing .NET applications to work on multiple platforms without having to rewrite the code.  Really cool, but hte problem for me is that the IDE, Monodevelop, is rather klunky for me and doesn't fit well on my laptop screen. Plus Mono is prmarily a Gnome-based tool, with close bindings to the GTK+ toolkit and I've been moving more and more to KDE.

So last night the person who started my computer schizophrenia has returned, and has planted another seed of restful night destruction!  He convinced me to download and install Eclipse and Java!

Danger! Danger!

My previous attempts at Java were failures because I didn't know enough about programming or object oriented programming. Now that I've been taking classes for .NET through work I have a better understanding than ever before. 

Now I know enough that last night it was easy enough to download and install everything, determine I was missing the Java development environment from Eclipse, and to write the ubiquitous "Hello World" application and understand what I was doing!

He says tonight he'll get me started on .JSP pages, which is appropriate since most of my VB and .NET programming have been web-based and this will get me into integrating a visual aspect with the code-behind piece.

Of course the real test (kiss of death?) will be when I can make something in Linux and use it on a Windows machine.  That, and once I get my home server running web pages I'll really be in trouble.

Frustration!

Don't you hate it when you are working on a presentation for a couple of weeks (days actually) and the computer you have the files in decides to crap-the-bed?

I have a Linux Special Interest Group meeting tonight and the subject I am going to cover is Digital Photography. I was going to go over F-Spot and digiKam for sorting, editing  and organizing pictures before moving on to using Gimp and possibly Krita.

I have my notes, as well as selected pictures on the hard drive. This morning I tried to boot it up quickly so I could copy the notes (OpenOffice.org writer, saved as a MS Word doc file) and go over them during lunch at work.

So I booted it up, put in the encryption passphrase and took a shower.

The HAL daemon is dying. It gets stuck on that.  The hard drive "clicks" make a rhytmic 4-5 clicks and the repeats... over and over and over...!

Normally it would be "LiveCD to the rescue!" except that the hard drive is encrypted so  I *should* not be able to get the files off of it (otherwise the encryption is worth nothing)!

Luckily I have other avenues for the meeting, just without notes and hoping the pictures are available on my USB (otherwise I'll have to find the link to the Flickr album I got them from and download them again).

It always seems to happen at the last minute! Argh!

(looks like I'll be taking Fedora 9 off this hard drive and replace it with something else. Experiment done.)

IPCop Gateway

A while ago I was struggling to get my old Dell GX110 CPU with 2 NIC cards to act as a firewall and DHCP server.  I thought by using a full-fledged Linux distro I would be able to later on add such things as Squid, or DansGuardian proxy server and content management controls.

Content filtering and logging is something that software seem to do one one level or another.  Microsoft Vista and the Trend Micro Internet security suite includes parental controls and content filtering options for Windows, plus DansGuardian can be installed on the kid's Edubuntu computer and even my laptop. That's not the issue. The issue is that the first one savvy enough to realize they can bypass it simply by running a LiveCD or  a distro on a USB stick instead of the protected operating system wins!  That is, of course, after thorough attempts at breaking into the controls on the system itself.

By placing these controls on a gateway for the entire household, not only do I protect my file server from being accessed by unwanted hackers, but I protect the entire household regardless of if the user is using the installed operating system or a LiveCD or even if somebody access the wireless network (which I hope to have in the near future). Combine this with making the modem and router physically inaccessible and then I can provide protected access through either the switch or wireless.

The people in the forums were very patient with me and tried to understand my questions as I muddled away trying to set up the gateway using the available documentation and miniscule networking knowledge. I got to the point where I almost had it, I think. That is until a friend at the computer club meeting told me about IPCop.

Actually he mentioned Smoothwall and IPCop, but admitted that he finds himself going back to IPCop. I took a look at it that night and saw the ISO download is rather small plus it facilitates DansGuardian and Squid as well as a scan utility.  That night I downloaded version 1.4.18  and copied it onto my USB drive.

Thankfully this friend also gave me some advice on setting up the system, and told me about IPCop's "zones"

IPCop has a number of zones [1];

• Green for internal (safe)
• Red for external, or the internet (unsafe)
• Blue for wireless (lock down so cannot access Green zone except through VPN or controlled "pinholes")
• Orange for publicly accessible servers (cannot access Green or Blue networks except vial controlled "pinholes") such as mail or web servers

I don't have wireless yet, so I opted for Green + Red zones with one NIC being assigned to each. When I do get wireless then I can either add it to the Green zone and try to lock it down as much as possible, or add it to the Blue zone and lock the wireless access point to bare minimums.

The other piece of information he provided that was a big help is setting the IP address and range.  I foolishly was trying to set up all of the IPs in the same sub-domain as the DSL modem (192.168.1.x). He gave me a suggested internal IP sub-domain of 10.0.7.x  and leaving the external IP with 192.168.1.x.

IPCop also runs a DHCP server, so I can manage to have

With this knowledge in hand I gave installing IPCop a go, and installed it on over my previous attempt.

The installation was very easy, took less than 30 minutes and that's with the installer scanning the NICs to determine it the internal is eth0 or eth1. It helped that I already knew the static IP addresses for the router/gateway, the modem and the server.

Once it is installed and the passwords are set you don't need the keyboard or monitor hooked up to the gateway because it includes a web interface for configuring things.  You just have to remember the passwords you entered for each of the different roles (3 I think).

I feel so much better knowing I've got the gateway and firewall up to protect my network. Now my next excursion is going to be installing DansGuardian content filtering and parental controls. This looks to need to install  the (Unofficial) IPCop Firewqall Addon Server, which seems to include an easy manner to navigate the available addons which I see  DansGuardian being listed as Cop+. Considering the added interest in the Internet by my son, I best get this installed and working quickly.

Successful Music Player in Ubuntu

Finally got a music player to actually play music on my Linux box! WooHoo!

For a while now, ever since I got an iPod shuffle for Christmas (2006) I have been trying to get my Edubuntu installation to be able to play music and manage my iPod. So far all attempts have failed.

Now the issue wasn't getting sound to work, that I know did work but only system sounds and video media players. Gnome's Totem and XFCE's Xfmedia was able to play my music, but they are video players, not music players. Gnome's Rhythmbox, Mono's Banshee and KDE's Amarok couldn't play music and the Listen and Exaile music players aren't in the repository for Dapper (6.06 LTS).

So, what happened? I'm not entirely sure. While looking through the media players I stumbled across a small entry in the Banshee's project website for getting Banshee for Ubuntu Dapper which referred to an alternate repository for more up-to-date Mono builds than Ubuntu's default, the badgerports.

Unfortunately the information on the Banshee website did not work, but they spoke of adding a website to the etc/apt/sources.list and I found much better directions going to the website they mentioned.

Once I ran the update, just like the Banshee website states;

"The above repository will upgrade about anything related to mono that ships with Ubuntu."

and upgrade it did, a lot of them. It didn't even include F-spot or Banshee (both Mono-based programs) which I didn't have installed on my system! Only Mono and Monodevelop were installed.

After upgrading everything, I figured I would give Banshee another shot since it would be the more up-to-date version of the program and the Mono framework. I also included mp3-fluendo (I think) in the upgrade.

Tinkering, I found out I had 2 Music folders and didn't have the RW rights to both of them while the program was looking in one place, and the currently imported files were looking in another and ... well it was just a mess.

I Removed the songs listed in Banshee and practically by accident I dragged my Music folder into the Banshee song list window and it imported them!

Not only did it import everything in that directory and sub-directories, but this time I could actually PLAY them! I'm not sure if this was the issue all along or not, but now I have my current music collection playable on my computer. Next step: the iPod.

Previously, Banshee never detected my iPod at all, let alone provide the ability to synchronize with it (Rhythmbox and Amarok detected the iPod at least). This time it detected it with no problems.

Seeing the option to export my music from my iPod onto my hard drive I figured I'd give it a try and was surprised that it worked!

To clean things up I deleted the entire music collection on the hard drive and re-exported everything from my iPod. This worked beautifully, and since the iPod has the most complete music collection I have digitized at this time it was a great way to clean things up!

Not only that, but as Banshee was playing the music I started seeing the album covers appearing for each song! Cool!

I ran out of time before I could finish testing, by adding a new CD to the music collection and then try and update the iPod but with the recent success I feel pretty good about this working.

Linux on the old Dell

First off, I finally got work's Cisco vpnclient running on Windows 2000 (formerly, only Gentoo was successful) which freed up the 20GB hard drive I am installing Linux on for playing around with.

I have given myself only a couple weeks before I move the Windows 2000 installation over to the 20GB hard drive so I can try and recover the data in the primary (80GB) hard drive after the partition tables were blown away last year.

CentOS
I started off with a Desktop installation of CentOS (RHEL) 4.3 with the KDE and minimal bells-and-whistles so that I could fool around with Yum and KDE's Yum repository.

I wanted to try a KDE-centric environment so I didn't install OpenOffice or even Firefox. Unfortunately, games don't come with the CentOS CDs.

Everything went off without a hitch and the whole system worked pretty smoothly. Once I got the phone numbers I could set up the Internet connection and surf the net.

Once I understood that I had to download the kde.repo file into my /etc/yum/repos.d/ directory I was pretty good to go. I also added Dag's Yum repository, but the script didn't want to run online so I downloaded the rpm file and ran it (# rpm -Uhv ...) locally without any problems. These, along with the default CentOS repositories, gave me a good starting collection to choose from.

One thing I noticed, though, was that Mono was a little behind. Dag has Mono-basic 1.0.6 while the latest version, 1.2.3, has much better VB.NET support and so for me is essential. Eventually I would have to look at seeing how to best manually download and install the Mono RPMs so it won't destabilize or cause problems with dependencies, but I won't have this system running that long to get into it at this time.

After a few days running Yum I actually kinda liked-it. It reminds me of my Gentoo days and seems to run fairly smoothly for my cursory overview. I am sure as time goes on I would find frustrating points with Yum but that is true for any system.

What got me, though, was that CentOS fails the video playback the same as all flavors of Ubuntu does, which would have been a major kudos and sticking point to stay with CentOS. So it seems if I want Linux on this box I will have to do some digging around to fix this.

Kubuntu

OK, after getting my feet wet with Yum, I was ready to try some more KDE fun. KOffice, KPim, Krita, Karbon, and more. With a dial-up internet connection, though, I was not about to start downloading all 116MB of packages (not including dependencies like Qt). Work does not look favorably on downloading anything and my USB key chain drive is only 64MB so I don't want to have to make 2-3 trips to the Library to use their systems.

The easiest way to "update" my KDE was to install Kubuntu 6.06 LTS from the CDs I had shipped to me for free (ShipIt!).

Kubuntu installs from a running LiveCD environment. Unfortunately the LiveCD makes use of any Linux swap partitions it finds on the hard drive. This may help make the system feel more responsive, but if you want to change anything with the partition scheme for that partition, you have to unmount it yourself. It would be nice if they let you know, or auto unmount it when you select to have Kubuntu installed on your entire hard disk. This took a few tries to figure it out.

When it was successfully installed it seemed nice enough. While the KDE is a little cleaner than CentOS, the Bluecurve theme still looked a little nicer than the default for Kubuntu.

When the installation is done, you have a fairly rounded desktop.. OpenOffice, Krita, Gwenview, Amarok, Digikam, etc. I've already fooled around with most of these so I didn't bother checking them out again yet. Eventually I want to test out Amarok with my iPod shuffle but first-things-first.

Time to get on the Internet! KPPP has worked fairly well for me even with RedHat/CentOS misconfigures my wvdial so that even in Gnome, KPPP works better.

To my dismay, I keep getting a KPPP Error Code 1 and no matter what I put into the password textbox it just doesn't want to connect! This is not good because without Internet connection, there are no program updates (install KOffice), no album information (Amarok) and no email (KPim)!

I will have to try again but if I cannot resolve this in the meantime, it puts a "nix" on my Linux testing.

I am such a wet noodle!

When it comes to computers I can be such a wet noodle at times and this usually gets me into trouble!

For the past 5 years or so I have been dabbling in Linux, and Linux offers some nice features which I have come to enjoy

1. The Desktop Environment, or GUI (Gnome, KDE, Xfce, whatever), is different than Windows or the Mac OS. Personally, both of those environments are rather "blah", and don't offer much to get excited over.
   
2. The package manager makes installing so easy and one-stop-shopping, the hard part is keeping from downloading everything under the sun! Practically everything you want to do, Linux has a program that does the equivalent.
   
3. Most open source programs are updated fairly frequently and these updates are available at no cost. So I don't have to shell out money-after-money to keep a program up-to-date with the latest features. Plus it usually involves one or two command lines or clicks of the mouse to check and install available updates to ALL of your system's programs, even the ones you don't realize you use because it is called by some other programs and this one is only on the back-side.
   

On the other hand, though, most of my experience in programming is based off of VB, which is probably the least portable language into the Linux world.

In my current job I will be dealing with .NET (VB.NET and ASP.NET) and they have already sent me to a number of classes to learn the .NET platform (VB.NET, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, SQL Server and the MSF).

I look forward to getting some experience under my belt and with the availability of Visual Studio Express, I am able to also develop things in .NET at home (without forking over the $$$ for the full version of Visual Studio!) which will give me the chance to look into features and things that work may not be interested in.

At this stage, I need the help and "hand-holding" that Visual Studio provides, otherwise the Mono Project would give me the best of both worlds (.NET on Linux). Unfortunately their IDE, Monodevelop, isn't as polished or helpful as the Visual Studios are for new programmers, plus VB.NET and ASP.NET has not been strongly supported until recently which leaves more opportunities of something not working and not knowing if it is a short-coming of Mono or of my programming skills.

So for now, I lead a double-life. I live Windows to develop my experience with .NET programming (plus my wife is used to the Windows programs; Office, Photoshop, Publisher, etc.) and I use Linux for my "personal" computing.