Linux Crusade

UK political stupidity knows no bounds

2011-10-28T11:06:00.002+01:00

This stupid trial will cost a fortune

They tried it decades ago - it failed - but it seems that they'll keep on pushing until they get their way. Bastards.

They obviously don't realise what this will cost in re-working IT systems worldwide, to cope with this "trial" - the expense will be horriffic and at a time of austerity, it is thick headed and daft beyond belief - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15490249

kmail2 migration problems

2011-10-18T18:34:00.000+01:00

In case this makes it on to any search engines, I had to migrate from kmail to kmail2 in a hurry. The automatic migration wizard failed.

It turned out that it needed the password for the passwords database, but the automatic migration wizard couldn't handle it.

In ~/.kde/share/config I had to "rm *migratorrc" files and then run "kmail-migrator --interactive" because that then started an interactive session which asked me for the password to the database.

Migration completed, but on starting kmail2, I had to right click on the top level folder and refresh that, and all subfolders. Then, mail started appearing.

I had taken a backup of my original kmail mail folder before I started.

Nervewracking when you don't have a clue as to what is happening!

My Installation Code - Part 2

2011-01-29T21:33:00.000Z

OK, so let's look at the detail here.

The first thing I'm doing is killing some applications.

I don't like Evolution mail system because it critically doesn't have a filter action to forward mails. My e-mail system is running 24/7 and checks for new mail every 10 minutes. If it spots mail from key people then it will forward them to my mobile phone, but only if it has the ability to forward, in the rules. That's why I install Kmail instead; true, it is part of the KDE build, but it works perfectly happily on Ubuntu.

I also remove the, "transmission," torrent client. I have no need of it. Instead I use ktorrent; I prefer its way of working.

F-Spot gets the heave ho as I control my picture library with Digikam instead. I back that up with Gwenview as an ad-hock picture browser.

Kaddressbook does get nobbled as well. For some reason, I'm not actually handling my contacts on the PC. Still haven't found a good system of keeping an address book on the PC. I did use my Palm T3 for a while, but that got to be a real pain. Most of my contacts live in the phone, at the end of the day.

The important stuff for me are Kmail for e-mail and Firefox for browsing. Open Office or Libre Office then provide all the standard word processing, spreadsheet and presentation functions; you can get the mathematical and drawing parts of the suite if you want to add them yourself. These are the basics.

Financial dealings are handled by Gnucash. This is the equivalent of Money or Quicken. Nice tool which I've been using since 2003 to keep track of my accounts.

Celtx can also be downloaded from their web site and I use this for my script writing. Don't forget to get the English British dictionary! It is mostly a case of unpacking the compressed file to your home directory and then running it from there.

If you unpack Celtx (and some others like it) in your home directory, and you transfer your home directory from one installation to the other, then the odds on that Celtx won't need to be installed again; it should just work.

---

For imaging, Digikam controls my library and Gimp with the uFraw plug in handle the editing. As I mentioned, Gwenview comes in as a nice little picture browser for folders which are outside my main libraries. You can learn how to use The Gimp at Meet The Gimp

Inkscape handles the vector drawing side of things that Gimp isn't too good at handling. I use this for my primary web design work.

---

Video work is something I've been doing a bit of lately and Cinelerra ended up being the choice. The fork called Cinecutie was better for me, but it seems to have dropped off the net. I also ran KDEnlive for a while, but it turned out to be buggy, especially with my twin screens.

Translating video from my camera, to a standard DV format needs the command line and "ffmpeg" - running with the -sameq options, it can go as follows... ffmpeg -sameq -i MOV001.MOV MOV001.DV ... and that would translate a video from MOV format to DV format while retaining the same quality. The -i defines the input file.

When it comes to Cinelerra output, I either output in DV format for uploading to You Tube, or if I want to go wide screen, I'll output in Ogg format. I posted basic tutorial videos here. Before translating the DV to YouTube, however, I translate the DV file to Mpeg ...

ffmpeg -i fulltitle.dv -b 1600000 -ac 2 -ar 44100 fulltitle.mpg

... again the -i for the input file. The -b is the bit rate which I find to be a nice balance between file size and quality. -ac specifies 2 audio channels with -ar being the audio bit rate of 44100. Finally, the output mpeg file name. Once that is complete, the video can be uploaded. It is a shame that ffmpeg is so powerful and has so many options, that writing a GUI for it is not that simple.

Blender is something I only use rarely. It is the 3D animation engine and you can see more of the output from Blender right here. This is no lightweight system. Learn to use it at Blender Underground.

---

Internet programs consist of Empathy for chatting on multi-systems at once. It handles my MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, and more, all in teh one client. It is also integrated in to Ubuntu itself.

Filezilla is great at handling file transfer. I use it for my SFTP transfering.

Clipgrab is the tool for downloading videos from services like YouTube. It manages to get the really good quality downloads.

Skype is also available, but I think I got this via an Ubuntu/Debian package from Skype's own web site.

---

Maintenance is done via the BlueFish program for editing web pages. It lacks some of the more powerful search and replace functions that I used in HomeSite, but it does a great job.

As most of my databases are MySQL, I use the MySQL Workbench which takes a little getting used to, and I still pine for SQLYog on Windows, but they wouldn't port Yog, so Workbench it has to be these days.

---

Audacity is the Open Source version of... you know, I haven't used the Windows package for so long now that I've forgotten what it was called. Goldwave. That was it.

There are also MIDI programs that I use in place of Cakewalk; Rosegarden something or other, but I havne't done Midi now for a while.

Ubuntu usually comes with Brasero as a CD/DVD burner. I suplement that with QDVD Author and DVD Styler if I want to make a playable DVD.

Handbrake is my loyal program for ripping my DVD's to quality M4V files. My tips, use a 12000 bit rate, change the audio DRC to 3, save that to your presets and make it your default. Those are my go-to setings.

Rythmbox comes with Ubuntu and behind this is not only a local audio file cataloguing system, but it can handle your pod casts and radio channels as well. Not only that, but once you've signed up for a free Ubuntu One account, you can use the shop to buy and download your audio files.

Ubuntu One, by the way, also has a synchronising area so you can synchronise files between computers and also access the files from any machine on the web as well. Cool. All built in and all for free.

VLC is my default DVD player. I can use it to see which track and chapter are playing along with any subtitle tracks being used. That is useful input for Handbrake.

Xine is my default media player for everything else. Adding the command, "xine -p" to the application launch types really makes things easy.

EasyTag enables me to handle the media tags of my MP3 and OGG audio files so I can ensure they come up properly in the media libraries.

Juice Audio CD extractor enables me to rip my audio CD's to OGG files as well (I prefer Ogg to MP3, but not many commercial players want to handle OGG. Their loss.)

This is backed up with Avidemux and DVD Encoder.

---

Added to this is Virtual Box. Part of Sun Microsystems kit, now rebadged to Oracle. It allows me to run Windows in a virtual environment on my machine.

Among the things that I do is use the "Menu Editor" to add an option to my System Tools. I select, "Application In Terminal" and call it, "Admin Browser". The command is, "sudo nautilus" and when selected, it will ask me for my admin password, before starting up a file browser with administration privs. This is useful for moving files around between media where permissions are an issue.

Other useful things to watch out for are GTK Disk Free, usually found in the system tools, it will give a graphical report on your media usage. Also, there is "Disk Usage Analyser" in the Accessories; simply point it at a folder and it will give you the sub-directory usage just like TreeSize Pro used to on Windows.

If the menus are getting too cluttered for you, then go in to the menu editor and simply remove the tick from the applications you don't want to see. You can also, if you want, introduce a new folder and move some items to a lower level.

By right clicking on the desktop and going for the background change, you'll notice a tab called "Visual Effects," and the high version of this is responsible for all the springy window effects. Note that if you use VLC, then it might have problems with Visual Effects set to high. This is a long standing bug; simply take VLC to full screen and back down again, and it will show the video properly.

The other thing I load up is the Compiz Config Settings Manager. As well as being responsible for the cool desktop cube effect, there is also a handy Enhanced Desktop Zoom in here. I bind it to the "Start Button" which is known in Linux world as the "Super" button. Pressing the supper button while using my mouse scroll wheel, allows me to dynamically zoom in on any area of the screen should it be too small.

There are a lot of options here, though, and they can take some time to work through.

---

At the end of the day, everything is command based. The menu editor is simply editing the launching commands. You can launch a program manually by pressing ALT and F2. When the box comes up you could type in the command "dolphin" to launch the dolphin file browser for example.

The shear weight and number of the customisable options can really seem confusing at first. You can almost change around anything you want to in the "panel" bars at the top and bottom of the screen. They're not fixed!

Also, if you're at the command line and are looking for options, go to a browser and look for "man " and that should bring up the manual options for the command you're looking for.

Some of the equivalent commands are...

ls = dir
ls -lat brings out more detail in the directory listing.
cd = cd - change directory. This is also the same with md and rmdir. Here the .. works as well, but remember that under Linux, the slash is forward "/" as used in the Internet naming convensions and not the Microsoft backslash "\".
mv - move files.
rm - remove files.
Putting sudo in front of commands will tell the system, "execute this command as if I was the root user." It will ask you to confirm your password. Also note, privileges to do this are only automatically assigned to the user that created the system; to allow anyone else to do the "sudo" trick, make them members of the admin group.

My installation code - part 1

2011-01-16T15:09:00.008Z

This is my application installation instruction set that I use after installing Ubuntu on a new machine. I store the commands as a text file on a memory stick. Once the operating system has updated, I issue the commands one at a time to install the majority of my applications in a little over half an hour ... it sure beats taking the day to rebuild Windows!

sudo apt-get remove evolution transmission transmission-common transmission-gtk f-spot kaddressbook overlay-scrollbar

--- used to ensure that overlay scrollbars are killed
echo "export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0" | sudo tee /etc/X11/Xsession.d/80overlayscrollbars> /dev/null

sudo apt-get install firefox digikam audacity ufraw gimp gimp-ufraw gimp-data-extras gimp-help-en empathy qmmp camorama gnucash gwenview gnomescan vlc xmms2-plugin-all gparted filezilla blender ffmpeg mpegdemux winff argyll xvidenc gddrescue foremost gnome-alsamixer easytag soundconverter clamav youtube-dl ktorrent okular regionset sound-juicer enfuse pfstools qtpfsgui rar bluefish clamav clamav-daemon clamav-freshclam clamtk inkscape pdftk pdfchain subversion alacarte avidemux ubuntuone-client libreoffice gnome-utils

sudo apt-get install xmms2 xine-console xine-plugin libxine1-dbg libxine1-ffmpeg xinetd gxine xine-dbg deejayd-xine libxineliboutput-fbfe libxine1-plugins libxine1-doc libxine1-all-plugins x11proto-xinerama-dev libxinerama-dev gxineplugin libxcb-xinerama0-dbg libxine-dev libxinerama1-dbg libxcb-xinerama0-dev libmp3lame-dev xine-ui wine ntp

-- ZFS system - not needed by many
sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bugs-sehe/zfs-fuse/ubuntu oneiric main"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get remove gvfs-bin
sudo apt-get install zfs-fuse gvfs-bin

-- Handbrake for DVD ripping
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install handbrake-gtk
-- if the above doesn't work, then use the developer version
-- remember to remove the other ppa first
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:stebbins/handbrake-snapshots
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install handbrake-gtk

-- Clipgrab for Youtube video downloading
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:clipgrab-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install clipgrab

-- Cinelerra video editing
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cinelerra-ppa/ppa
(that line on its own as it requires confirmation)
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinelerra

Remember that on seting up cinelerra for the first time, go to the Settings -> Preferences. Set the Audio driver from OSS to Alsa and also in the "Recording" tab, set the "Import images with a duration of..." to "ticked" and something like 5 seconds, otherwise you'll have problems importing your PNG overlays.

An interesting argument

2010-11-06T08:06:00.004Z

Over on The Register there is an article of ex-Sun founder Scott McNealy having a series of shots at Larry Elision, owner of Oracle who recently bought Sun out.

The comments are very interesting and include this one by an anonymous coward who shielded their name....
"GNU never said you're not allowed to make money out of your work
Posted Friday 5th November 2010 23:19 GMT

All it says is you're not allowed to enslave the end-users with your work. It is OK if you want to lock them in, twist their arm and squeeze their wallet, just don't use free software for that. Pick any proprietary license like others do.

Oh, and for me as an end-user, I certainly want that MY information remains free at least for myself if not for others. Even if this is crap for you, I don't want anybody to put a lock on my own data."

McNealy, the article and some of the posters make the principle point here, which is that it is a very dangerous game when you choose a closed system that will, once it has your data in its grasp, charge you a holy fortune to get away from them. You become a ready source of money for that company if you are not very, very, very careful. And how many organisations have the kind of money that it takes for the army of lawyers (or one very clever one) to spot all the traps and nooses in the contracts?

It is at times like this that it is worthwhile calculating the real, true cost of proprietary software versus hiring the team that it would take to run open source.

Fortunately for the general public, it has little information on databases save perhaps the address book on the mobile phone or perhaps the odd geek has the odd birthday list somewhere. For the corporates and more scary still, the public service, things are more serious.

As someone who is experiencing first hand the cost increases that Oracle are imposing on licensing and training now that it has bought Sun, it is concerning to witness.

The thing that has continuously struck me, year after year after year, is the people who buy mobile phones and put shed loads of data on them without ever giving a thought to what is going to happen when they move handsets. It is difficult enough when they change phones within the same manufacturer. If they want to change brand, then they're usually in very real trouble.

So long as we have people like this in charge of corporates and public services, then we will continue to waste copious amounts of money because of lack of forethought and vision.

Who among us believes that our mobiles will last more than a couple of years at the most, yet how many plan ahead for that moment? Why do these people think that database solutions and their supporting systems stay static forever more?

It brings me to mind of the classic You Tube clip by Fascinating Aida where the flight for fifty pence turned in to a very expensive trip by the time they'd finished. I particularly love the line for the end of the flight, "If you haven't prepaid to use the steps you'll have to feckin' jump."

Supercomputing Superpowers

2010-05-31T21:03:00.000+01:00

Heh, heh; I couldn't help but chuckle at this BBC graphical representation of the supercomputing superpowers by operating system. Linux is, ahem, ever so slightly the market leader in that environment :-D

Secure erasing a hard drive

2010-05-02T10:22:00.002+01:00

I thought I'd detail something that I happen to be doing right now and thought might be a good thing to share.

There are shed loads of security erasing systems on the market these days and plenty of them can cost you a packet. However, I've got a computer running in the background which I booted from a USB stick in to a, "live," copy of Ubuntu 10.04.

By simply dropping to a terminal window and issuing the command...
sudo shred /dev/sda -f -v -z --iterations=6
... it goes away and totally trashes the hard drive by writing garbage all over the sectors.

Firstly, you might have to change sda for whatever your hard drive happens to be. sda is usually the first hard disk on a SATA system, so for your average PC, this should work fine.

Secondly, how fast it is depends on a number of factors. These are the size of your hard disk and the speed of both the data channel and also the speed of the hard disk itself. Some hard drives also have secure erasing subsystems to help you out.

However, rather than my bland words, I think estaticd puts it much more eloquently in their video...

I shot the titles...

2010-04-14T08:04:00.000+01:00

...but I did not shoot the deputy.

I finally managed to get the titles running. Took a good deal of rendering and also re-rendering when I found out I had publishing problems at high resolution. Damn. Anyway, in this video I give you the references to the tutorials from which I learned to handle Blender and also how to use a modern keyboard to get a copyright free audio track without needing to be a virtuoso.

Of course, there are a few extra issues that cropped up here; some of them in Cinecutie also.

One of the main issues was that I can only produce Raw DV output from Cinecutie; none of the others work properly. I tried on another machine but no luck either. That meant I needed to re-render my output from Blender to match the only output from Cinecutie that I could make. Mucho wasted time. Do a test run first to ensure your process doesn't trip up somewhere.

The other major issue was that my video camera doesn't match the Cinecutie resolution. The fix was relatively straightforward...

By right clicking on the blue bar at the top of the imported video and going to properties, I could then tell Cinecutie the size of the video that was imported. Subsequent to that, a "scale" video effect can be applied to bring the video within reasonable constraints.

A trick that I was told by a film crew, was that they film at a ratio which is between TV (4:3) and widescreen (16:9) so that it doesn't appear to stretched on widescreen or squashed on TV. This is something to remember when scaling your imported video to Cinecutie.

Cinelerra / Cinecutie

2010-04-05T23:16:00.001+01:00

I have to admit that of all the video editing systems I've used, Cinelerra, or rather this branch, Cinecutie, combines easy of use and power in a very nice little package. Although I've used KDenlive for a while, the various codec problems have really caused me some grief and finally in among all the troubleshooting it ended up removed and won't install.

So I ended up with Cinecutie and after learning a few bits about it, I thought that there would be no better way to learn about the system other than to create a video while I was learning it! So, all throughout today, I have actually recorded four short videos and put them on Viddler for your review and pleasure.

Ladies and Gentlemen ... I give you ... What A Cinecutie ...
Note - I'm now using Cinelerra rather than the Cinecutie fork.

Nokia survey

2010-03-19T06:46:00.002Z

If you're a Linux user and a Nokia user, you might like to run this survey 'cause the more Linux using Nokia owners that do, the more they might get the message and write us some software!

Home Server Build

2010-02-27T09:27:00.002Z

If you are feeling particularly suicidal, then you can spend an hour and a half watching these videos.

In the first part, I talk about some of the hardware options available for building a fault tolerant home server. Providing that you are happy with command line entering, then you can follow the how-to and the theory plans in order to create your own Open Solaris home server.

Along the way you'll learn how to plan your directory structure, learn how to apply user and group permissions to control who can see what, and also a little about the security aspect of design.

I chose Open Solaris for a few reasons...

1) It is free.
2) It has Sun Microsystems engineers behind much of the design.
3) It is secure out of the box
4) It uses ZFS

You can get Open Solaris from here but I would STRONGLY recommend that you wait for the 2010-3 build first.

I have a good deal of respect for many of the Sun Microsystems engineers. Yes, it is true that Sun's philosophy ran it in to the financial mire and that Oracle ended up buying it out, but that philosophy allowed some really wonderful stuff to flourish. People really seemed to be free from the managerial grief and I think it ended up in some wonderful product.

Technical translation...

At work, I play my part in looking after Ingres databases on Sun Sparc hardware running Solaris (the non-open version) and in terms fo money and actual footprint of hardware, I don't believe there is anything in its league which can touch Sun. If we were to translate the systems on to i386 hardware running Microsoft, we'd be dealing with something probably four times the physical size and, with multiple copies of the operating system (we would need multiple copies of Windows Server and Windows SQL ... and even then each database is so big that the consultants that deal with these databases day in, day out, say that MS SQL wouldn't be able to deal with one of our database instances.) The costs would rise and the performance would drop off a cliff ... and even if we did it, there would be no way that they would support us. It would be a suicide move.

Non-Technical translation...

Microsoft products don't scale up, can't play with the big boys and ... well, if you chose the MS path ... good luck.

So Open Solaris has many sections that are locked down. If you want them, you have to open them up. It is a philosophy which ensures that you are safe.

One of the people teaching a Solaris course that I went on, told a story about some of the customers complaints. "I've installed this, but I can't telnet to the box." "Exactly. Telnet is insecure so it is disabled. If you want it, you just have to enable it, but it is at your risk." The customer wasn't happy with this; they wanted all the features to be ready and switch on after installation. They just didn't get the security philosophy. More on this later.

ZFS is the acronym for Zetabyte File System. You remember the problem we had with FAT reaching its storage file limit so FAT32 came along to replace it, and then that hit its limit and NTFS came along to replace that? Well, ZFS can handle a Zetabyte of data in a pool before it has trouble. A Zetabyte is many, many terrabytes. It is going to be around for a long time.

ZFS has much more to offer than this, however. Even in this tutorial I'm only going to show you a mere fraction of its flexibility and power. It has powers of error correction and file system maintenance that other systems don't have. While some file systems would come across an illegal block, there are times when it would just naively serve you that bad block fully believing it to be valid data. ZFS can detect these blocks and do something about it.

And there is more to ZFS than even this. However, if you've got the stomach for it, here is a complete home server build, in an hour and a half. Strip out the funny stuff, and once you are used to the concepts, you can have a secure home server completely installed on your hardware in under an hour.

Linux converts coming slowly

2010-02-05T19:17:00.000Z

A small handful of my friends, this last year, have been slowly converted to Linux. One of the stronger reasons for people switching recently was a post I made on one of my other blogs a short while ago, in answer to the question of why I used Linux. Most of these people have been mouse drivers for a number of years but aren't out and out beardies like me (I know I don't have a beard ... if you don't get the reference, don't worry!) and they seem to be getting on with it quite happily ... and they haven't been badgering me for help, either. To quote one recent e-mail, "Can't believe how easy and fast installation was. Shoulda done this years ago."

Of all the people I know personally, there seems to be a general abandonment of Microsoft for either Linux or Apple. On the whole, my friends don't seem to be relishing an upgrade to Windows 7. Perhaps this could be the beginning of the end for Gate's great vision. He got out with his fortune while the going was good, as Microsoft has lately taken a bit of a bashing for its lack of innovation and letting a number of important market opportunity boats sail without the company on board.

This is where I sit back with a glass of wine and watch events unfold. The battle between Apple, Google and Adobe is heating up; raw words have already been exchanged. There is the question over whether Firefox can survive if Google withdraws its funding. What will happen to Ubuntu if the millionaire continues to be unable to find a revenue stream for the project. The question of what Oracle will do to Open Solaris and ZFS now it has already pulled the plug on some projects. What will hapen to Novells SUSE offering? Will Debian survive? Will Red Hat be the last Linux man standing? 2010 is going to be a very interesting year.

Fit PC not as fit as I thought.

2009-12-16T12:40:00.000Z

A good look at the device leaves me wondering.

Firstly, the power button is a soft switch which appears to function the same way as any other soft switch, however the BIOS doesn't contain a function to restart the machine when power is returned.

"Auto resume," as Fit call it, is done "through a hardware re-work that is carried out at the board level and is thus not something that can be added post-purchase or through a BIOS change." That sounds alarm bells.

It also probably explains why Open Solaris doesn't respond to the keyboard when, during the installation routine, it fails to listen to the keyboard. Sounds like someone is cutting corners as there is also no legacy USB option in the BIOS either.

The situation sound to have a remedy in the pipeline, "This is a temporary situation for the Fit PC2 product line as the Auto-On functionality will be standard on all models and version from the middle-to-end of Q1 2010, but for the moment customers do need to specify when ordering whether they want their Fit PC2 with or without it." ... but if you check out the ordering process, all is not that straightforward.

Auto Resume is only available if you order Windows, but then you can't have wi-fi. If you order the diskless, as I did, you can have the option of wi-fi but not auto-resume. If you order the Linux model then you can't have either wi-fi OR auto-resume. Excuse me? What sort of insanity is this?

On top of that, the box it came in listed the wrong specs and be aware that if you don't go for the wi-fi, then they leave an empty hole in the back for dust, spiders and things that go bump in the night to intrude in to the unit; they don't even plug it.

At the moment, I'm very dissapointed with this. Be bloody careful of the small print and examine the ordering information very carefully ... don't do what I did and read all the blurb, decide, "This is exactly what I need," and then just hit the order button. Also, given what I've now found out about the hardware I'd have to give this a serious run through before I could trust it.

I thought it was too bloody good to be true.

ZFS in action

2009-12-15T07:05:00.000Z

These two videos show a small amount of the ZFS abilities in action. What you're looking at here are the commands and action as three 4gig memory sticks are used to create a RAID set, are pulled in, out, exported and imported ... the export and import can be on a completely different machine; a completely different operating system ... as long as it supports ZFS, it will read the set.

The second video shows the 4gig units being replaced with 8 gig units in turn and at the end of it, the set was exported and imported and then benefited from the extra space. This test, by the way, is being done on a 4 year old laptop with 1gig of RAM, so I know that Open Solaris will work on the incoming FitPCII without extra RAM. I'd love it to HAVE extra ram, or the ability to upgrade later, but I think it is soldered on board. More about that later, however.

The real magic here is that this kind of thing used to require dedicated, expensive hardware; and even then, a fault tollerant set couldn't be easily moved from one machine to another. Not only that, but finding a faulty device and replacing it could be a complete pain. The cheaper RAID cards I have encountered were a nightmare when it came to trying to talk with them to repair damage.

This, is nothing short of a bit of magic. No formatting, no fdisking, no nothing. Just put the devices in to the pool and away it goes.

We'll discuss some of the other benefits of ZFS and also some of the RAID strategies, in another post.

If I wanted to do this without the grief of getting knee deep in another OS and hardware, then I'd be looking at the DROBO but I'd be asking some questions about available storage, etc. before I invested the best part of £400 in a unit that doesn't even come with any disks.

It starts ...

2009-12-13T17:03:00.000Z

OK, the battle has started. I've had enough of the big machines costing me money, generating heat and I'm sure I could do it more intelligently.

After much searching, I have settled on The Fit PC II. Diskless, it came in at £228.85.

The plan is to install some memory cards in the unit and run Open Solaris on them, mirrored so that if something goes wrong, I've got a backup. The only drawback currently is that it has a DMI socket on the back. In the specs it says an HDMI socket and I've had to contact the company to find out whether it comes with a cable or not.

Be prepared for a blow-by-blow video and text account of what I do and how I do it.

First step, though, is to get a copy of Open Solaris.

Why Open Solaris? Well, it is all because of ZFS. This relatively new file system is gonna make big waves with everyone except Microsoft users. I was taught the basics of running a ZFS file system last week in the training course and it rocked. Administration was smooth with a capital SMOO and it has features that really rock the house.

Why the Fit PC II? A combination of features. The processor and RAM combination is really at a minimum for running Open Solaris, but it should do the job that I want it for, which is acting as my main server. I'll be posting amperage pulls and a comparison to my current main server as I go so there will be plenty for you to get your teeth stuck in to. It has siz USB 2 ports at the back and a gigabit interface. The transfer speed over USB2 to external hard drives should be more than I need using ZFS.

I didn't like the choice and cost of the drive options, so I went diskless and I'll install my own. You'll see the options later on. I'll talk you through all the commands, the pains and the triumphs ... as I'm fairly sure that this is going to succeed and give me a long term solution to the issue of a cost effective, low-power, large, flexible storage unit for home use.

Well, the blog is titled, "Linux Crusade" ... what did you expect of someone like me? Eh?

By the time this is finished, I expect that I would have spent around £600, possibly knocking on £700. What I will save in energy, space and gain in reliability and future proofing ... well ... who knows.

ZFS is here

2009-12-12T14:55:00.001Z

You've heard of FAT, FAT32, NTFS, Reiser, Ext ... well, ZFS is here ... and it is serious ...

Obviously, these blokes were doing some publicity stunts, they could have just pulled the mains, but the theory is quite sound. As someone who has worked on various systems over the years and done battle with hard drive array subsystems of all sorts of types, I was impressed last week when, on a Solaris 10 administration course, we were introduced to ZFS.

It has long been a problem for home users that protection of data has either been expensive, or flaky. The best solution I came across was actually in Windows which allowed for a reasonable RAID system to be set up. However, it was slow and suffered some issues, not least that you had problems if the system died and didn't have a recovery set of your configuration to hand. Also, upgrading was a nightmare.

The hardware RAID cards on offer were either proper equipment that cost a small fortune, or else cheap and nasty things that were near impossible to talk with to find out what had gone wrong, which drive needed replacing and then once you have replaced it, then get the system to accept the new drive and rebuilt it ... and even then the solution was only software on a chip anyway as opposed to being a dedicated hardware solution ... for crying out loud, there had to be a better way of doing this.

Well, now there is. This PDF on ZFS explains what was going on and how ZFS has solved the challenges. Now, even the need to fdisk (fsck) a drive system is gone.

I have some equipment on the way to me that will allow me to run some tests and show you how easy this thing is. Over the next few months I'll be planning and building a cheap but secure system using cheap components. If you know how to use Solaris, you'll get a kick out of this for sure.

Kubuntu Netbook Remix

2009-11-28T18:19:00.001Z

I think I've finally settled on my software for the NB200; Kubuntu Netbook Remix. Here is a picture of it below that you can click on for a larger version.

Of the missing things in the NB200 line up, there is an audio output that goes out through the headphone port but there is nothing through the on-board speakers, nothing through the system speaker and no control over the volume. The only control is via the external speakers that I hook it up to. Also, there is no camera or bluetooth. I was hoping the camera would be there, like it was under Ubuntu netbook remix, but it looks like I'm out of luck.

Still, the main things are there that matter to me and I think it is nice cross between the standard menu structure and the minimalistic netbook remix. I really like this presentation. They've done a great job on it.

Using Ubuntu to download you tube videos

2009-11-09T10:12:00.000Z

This is a really great and easy solution. At a console prompt, firstly type ...

sudo apt-get install youtube-dl

...then when you want to download a YouTube video, simply change in to the directory where you want to download the video and type ...

youtube-dl -b http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUezmc-DvcA

The -b specifies maximum detail option to get the best quality possible.

Installing Flash for 64 bit Firefox

2009-11-07T06:59:00.000Z

Many computers have been 64 bit for some years now, but many people are running the 32 bit version of XP on them and not really getting the benefit. Consequentically, Adobe has been slow out of the gate with the 64 bit version of Flash, but they did release a beta late 2008 for Linux. This page has the download link for it. Unpack it and you'll find a file. Close Firefox and put the file in the plugins folder and away you go.

KNOWN ISSUES - This beta it is a bit power hungry so best to use a multi-core processor to share the load so it doesn't choke your machine.

Vanishing Desktop

2009-11-06T21:33:00.000Z

If you loose the "cashew" at the right of the clock and also loose the see through Desktop folder that appears in the background of every window, like this, then help is at hand to get them back.

Go to your home folder and view hidden folders. In the .kde folder is another called "share" and in that is another called "config" - in here there are some files that start, "plasma-" and you want to rename some of them to .old and then restart KDE. Start with remaning the one called "plasma-desktop-appletsrc" and then log out and back in again. That should sort it out.

Why rename them and not delete them? In case something goes ga-ga and you need to rename it back again.

XP on Ubuntu

2009-11-05T07:08:00.000Z

How to get Windows XP working under Ubuntu. This will show you how to get Virtual Box from this page, install and configure it.

DISCUSSION - In order to give the virtual machine a, "hard disk," of its own, you create a large file under Linux. That is then presented to XP as a hard disk which XP can then partition as it needs it.

I created a separate partition on my operating system specifically to house this large file; I gave it 40gig. The reason for this is because I made it a fixed disk. A dynamic virtual disk would change its size depending on how much space XP took up, but this adds an overhead which makes it slower to run. More on this in a future post.

You can share out a portion of your home directory structure so that both Linux and Windows can see it at the same time so it is a simple matter to share files between the systems. Just remember that if you create a text file in Linux, you will need to use Word Pad in Windows to read it; Notepad doesn't handle the end-of-line very well.

Installing Kubuntu

2009-11-02T21:53:00.000Z

I decided to go for Kubuntu 64 bit because I wanted a half-decent, nice looking screen for a change, rather than the usual Gnome. Yes, Gnome is more efficient but I want something that looks nice for once, so I got a hold of Kubuntu 9.10 and installed it.

This is the starting journey in to installing and getting things runing.

Part 1 is a discussion about why I'm doing this. It is a talk about the philosophy.
Part 2 is a look at the things I use Winows.
Part 3 is a look at the manual partition handling.
Part 4 is the sound and twin-monitor problems and how they were sorted.

Nirvana is comming

2009-10-31T19:37:00.000Z

Ubuntu and Windows XP on the same machine, at the same time, running simultaniously - virtually seamlessly with a shared folder between them, the mouse moves seamlessly between them and the cut and paste works between them as well!!!

This wonderment has been brought to you by the Sun Virtual Box application for an operating system near you.

.NET hell

2009-09-24T12:50:00.001+01:00

Among my pet hates are the anti-Linux crew who love to use the line that anyone who uses that Linux end up having to go to the command line. Well, I've got news for you, buddy; in particular that Windows isn't all that helpful either. Especially when the .Net framework fucks up and screws the registry up; but you don't find out until who knows when and you've got no idea what kind of date you'd have to roll back to ... that is if you didn't dissable roll back because it chewed processor cycles and hard disk space in the first place.

.Net, as far as I am concerned, has a lot to answer for. It has enabled developers to churn out badly programmed crud faster than ever before. This kind of shite does nothing for the furtherment of the discilpine of programming.

Take this wonderful example when a piece of suppliers software went badly wrong and the finger pointed at yet another corruption of the registry by the .Net suite. Cue having to try and de-install the .Net junk in order to re-install it all again. Did it play ball? Did it buggery. I ended up having to rip it all out by hand.

I love things like this. Microsoft error messages that are unclickable and un-copyable. In order to access this knowledge base article I had to manually type it in to a browser.

Trying to uninstall .NET 1.1 helpfully came up with this error message. Excuse me, but if you know it isn't installed, why aren't you clever enough to remove it from the add/remove programs? Particularly as having it in add/remove programs counts as a detection that the software is already installed and prevented it being RE-installed again.

This is more stupidity ... read, lack of ability to logic check correctly ... as the error message says it can't be installed. Stupid twit software; doesn't it know that I'm trying to UN-install it?

Now this was a good one. Previous attempts to uninstall .NET 3.5 ended up with messages that it couldn't find the MSI. However, after I manually removed it and went back to add/remove programs again, it mirraculously found the MSI when it thought I actually wanted to install it!

(ps. a section of the "online readme" for known issues and troubleshooting information mentioned above is included after the next example of insanity. You'll see how wonderfully relevent it is to installation problems!!!)

And I don't half love this quaint message; I'm on a DSL line and .NET 3.0 helpfully informs me that I can now disconnect from the Internet! Excuse me, Microshaft, but the days of screaching modems are near over. Why do you pick NOW to actually tell me that; why couldn't you inform people of that during Windows updates since the days of auto update on 95 (was it that early?) when every man and his dog was hogging the family phone line, I don't know.

Just for your delictation, here is some of the stuff that Microsoft expect you to understand ... part of the document that you get should you be suicidal enough to click on the link that .NET provides you if a 3.5 installation fails... (and some people complain about Linux being difficult to understand?) You had to understand that I choked on my coffee after reading 2.2 below.

2.2 Uninstalling

There are no known issues.

2.3 Product Issues

2.3.1 General Issues

2.3.1.1 Misleading cryptographic exception thrown when a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) client or service does not expect the To header of an incoming message to be signed

When the following conditions are true...

- A WCF client or service is configured with a binding that has security mode = TransportWithMessageCredentials and a symmetric key-based endorsing supporting token (such as a symmetric key-issued token).

- The service or client receives a message that has the To header signed and referenced after the TimeStamp element in the Signature element, as in the following example:

&ltds:Signature xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" Id="Signature-9199266">
&ltds:SignedInfo>
&ltds:CanonicalizationMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#">
&ltds:SignatureMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#hmac-sha1">
&ltds:Reference URI="#Timestamp">
&ltds:Transforms>
&ltds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#">

&ltds:DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#sha1">
&ltds:DigestValue&gt...

&ltds:Reference URI="#To">
&ltds:Transforms>
&ltds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#">

&ltds:DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#sha1">
&ltds:DigestValue&gt...

&ltds:SignatureValue&gt...
&ltds:KeyInfo&gt...

...the following exception is thrown:

"System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089

Unable to resolve the '#To' URI in the signature to compute the digest.

at System.IdentityModel.StandardSignedInfo.EnsureAllReferencesVerified()
at System.IdentityModel.SignedXml.CompleteSignatureVerification()
at System.ServiceModel.Security.WSSecurityOneDotZeroReceiveSecurityHeader.VerifySignature(SignedXml signedXml, Boolean isPrimarySignature, SecurityHeaderTokenResolver resolver, Object signatureTarget, String id)
at System.ServiceModel.Security.ReceiveSecurityHeader.ProcessSupportingSignature(SignedXml signedXml, Boolean isFromDecryptedSource)
at System.ServiceModel.Security.ReceiveSecurityHeader.ExecuteFullPass(XmlDictionaryReader reader)
at System.ServiceModel.Security.StrictModeSecurityHeaderElementInferenceEngine.ExecuteProcessingPasses(ReceiveSecurityHeader securityHeader, XmlDictionaryReader reader)
at System.ServiceModel.Security.ReceiveSecurityHeader.Process(TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Security.AcceptorSessionSymmetricTransportSecurityProtocol.VerifyIncomingMessageCore(Message& message, TimeSpan timeout)
at System.ServiceModel.Security.TransportSecurityProtocol.VerifyIncomingMessage(Message& message, TimeSpan timeout)"

To resolve this issue:

Do not sign the To header.

2.3.1.2 Running the Assembly Cache Viewer in Windows Vista

The Assembly Cache Viewer (Shfusion.dll) is a Windows shell extension that lets you view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache by using Windows Explorer. Shfusion.dll is located in the %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 directory

In Windows Vista, the Assembly Cache Viewer does not run with elevated permissions even if you run it from a Command Prompt window that has elevated permissions (for example, by using the START command with the path of the global assembly cache). This is because the Assembly Cache Viewer is a shell extension for Windows Explorer, which does not run with elevated permissions.

To resolve this issue:

Use Shfusion.dll only for viewing.

For updates, open a Command Prompt window that has administrative privileges and use the Gacutil.exe command-line tool from the .NET Framework SDK.

2.3.1.3 In a return/out value of an ASMX service a property with an internal setter is null

Known Issues in ASMX Web Services:

Symptom: In a return/out value of a webmethod in an ASMX service, a property with an internal setter is null (ie. No value was serialized from the wire) after .NET 3.5 SP1 has been installed on the web service server.

The following conditions must be met for this issue to occur :
- A public type T is defined and it includes a public property with a public getter and internal setter, i.e.
```
public class T

{
              ...

               public Foo X { get; internal set; }

               ...
}
```
- The return type or the Out argument of at least one web method in a web service returns objects of type T, or objects containing T in their object graphs, i.e.
```
[WebMethod]

public T MyWebMethod(...)

{
    ...
}

Or,

[WebMethod]

public void MyWebMethod(..., out U)

{
              ...
}

where
public Class U

{
               public T Foo  { get; set; }
}
```
- Type T or U is not used in any web method as a non-out-only parameter
- The type of the property with an internal setter is not Enumerable or Collection. In the above example, Foo cannot be of the type Enumerable or Collection.
- The customer generated proxy code to the above Web Service using wsdl.exe before upgrading to SP1. After deploying the service and clients, the customer has now upgraded the server to SP1.
WARNING: The original behavior for sgen.exe was to fail on types with internal setters, with this change sgen.exe will no longer fail. Please do not take a dependency on this behavior .

NOTE: Future fixes ontop of .NET 3.5 SP1 will not contain this issue and sgen.exe will again fail on types with internal setters.

To resolve this issue:

Workaround options:

Change method signature to avoid the above conditions

Move away from using internal sets on the properties being passed in the type graph

Some stories about Open Source

2009-09-23T10:44:00.000+01:00

All is not doom and gloom in Open Source world and nor are they a bed of roses. By far the most realistic report I have seen lately is this report on The Register about how Sony and Sesame Workshop switched to Open Source. Worth a read.

Run with the Penguin

2009-08-06T10:45:00.000+01:00

A bit if a hoo ha has run up concerning Windows 7 and chkdsk /f. Some of the detail is on The Register.

To step back from the argument, chkdsk /f is what runs when something has gone tits up, a blue screen or a power cut, and the system has to check your disks on the next restart. This could potentially affect a lot of people over the time span of a few months. When was YOUR last blue screen?

Microsoft are blaming it on the hardware manufacturers chip set and claiming it is nothing to do with Windows; but they have said this before, as one of the commenters on The Register article recalls...

"They blamed the chipset firmware, yet the Windows 2000 drivers worked perfectly with the same firmware, so the BIOS firmware providers not unreasonably pointed the finger right back at Microsoft, saying they should fix XP since it was clearly XP that was broken, not the firmware."

So ... it looks like being more fun and games for Windows 7. As another commenter on the article said, "......one more reason to run with the Penguin"

Caizen breaks out

2009-08-05T16:54:00.000+01:00

The Register Reports that the next version of KDE has been significantly polished and bug-fixed-to-pieces. Once more, turning out a stunner of a desktop environment.

Microsoft recognises Linux threat

2009-08-05T13:36:00.000+01:00

Well, apparently I was wrong. The Register reports that Microsoft have officially recognised linux as a threat. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft repeats with PC manufacturers what Intel did.

I'll put together my thoughts on whether they will achieve their goal in a future post after I've read more about the situation.

Microsoft Chasing Their Tails

2009-08-03T12:10:00.000+01:00

"Turner is willing to discount prices aggressively to build market share. That was made clear in his comments to Microsoft partners and investors and through his so-called Deal Factories." reports The Register.

But why should this matter? What message does it hold?

Microsoft are trying to kick people off Windows XP with a carrot. They've tried to use the stick of stopping XP support for some considerable time now, but the voice of the consumer has beaten them back repeatedly. This came as a shock to Microsoft as it realised that it doesn't have such a grip on the consumer that it thought it had. Most organisations try the carrot and then the stick, that Microsoft have had to do the reverse shows their true colours ... but to be honest everyone knew that anyway.

So what is it about this business with market Share? Many mainstream vendors have already started ditching Linux builds on their computers which are offered for sale. In fact many people who have bought PC's and then converted to Linux have still paid the Linux tax anyway. So what is there to win?

Apple? Nah, if someone has switched sides and paid for the Apple hardware then they aren't going to come back to Microsoft and PC's that easily. They're Apples now for the lifetime of the hardware at least.

Linux? Hard to believe. Most PC's already come with a Microsoft Tax, as explained earlier. If they are after the home users who build their own machines then there is no way that any price cut is going to hack it against a price tag of, "free."

So who? They're shadow boxing. Once a copy of XP is sold, then their revenues hit the deck. The old reason for upgrading was that the PC wasn't a satisfactory experience. So much time has elapsed in the industry that XP is running on newer hardware and is doing a sterling job. While PC's run better, no one is going to buy a new PC or operating system because it is all working happily ... or happily-ish to a degree where no one wants to risk the upset of a new operating system.

One of these hassles is that PC manufacturers have a habit of supplying one massive C partition. Extracting data from Windows is not easy. Sure, there are the My Documents and stuff, but there is so much more like fonts, backgrounds and stuff like that. It is sometimes easier for manufacturers who create a second partition and perform a hack to get the entire, "Documents and Settings," folder relocated, but very few do ... not only that, but it is a difficult hack to find and would also probably different with the next version of the OS ... as things usually are.

So ... that just about summs that up. People who have gone over to Apple won't be won back with an OS price war. People who are on XP will need more than a price differencial as compensation for all the hassle. People who are on Linux have probably already paid a licence for an OS they aren't using anyway.

That leaves Microsoft looking like a dog, chasing its own tail while everyone else is looking on, wondering how stupid the dog looks.

Open Solaris

2009-07-24T15:30:00.000+01:00

Open Solaris is certainly one of the most business looking instances of Linux that I've seen. Solaris is a heavy duty operating system that runs Sun's business boxes. One of my jobs is looking after one such machine that takes care of some serious public services across three districts.

One of the problems with Linux and in particular with Sun systems, is that they very rarely break down which means that I have to utilise other methods of keeping my hand in on the system. That was one reason for running Open Solaris.

Right from the initial log on screen, this system screams, "compitent professional."

The installation of Open Solaris is prety much like any of the other modern Linux installations. A simple and quick installation routine sees the minimum of questions asked and the minimum of fuss on installation. I did have a problem with the i386 installation CD for 2009.06 and instead used the Live CD to install Open Solaris on a standard laptop.

As you can see from the pictures, Open Solaris is, for once, providing a very clean and professional desktop interface. It has to be admitted of Windows is that it always has looked a bit gimic like. It has always contained a visual impact element which was perhaps most tamed with the 2000 version. Open Solaris does contain elements which make it look and feel like a professional operating system.

Even though Gnome is its initial desktop system, it does not look like it came out of a visual candy superstore. My first impression of the system is that this is something that I believe conveys, "professional." I like it. As time goes on, we'll see how it measures up in terms of functionality. I'll be loading a copy of Open Ingres (as I look after Ingres databases as well) and seeing how well this whole package hangs together. I know that, as a professional back end system, Ingres on Solaris is the mutts nuts as far as I, personally, am concerned, but I will be reporting on this system as my experience of it grows.

At what point could I ditch Windows?

2009-07-20T11:04:00.000+01:00

Well, here we go...

The power gaming could actually be ditched for a console. After decades of playing games, I no longer get immersed in them like I used to. If the game manufacturers won't come to Linux, then they can sod off; I don't want to know them. I've got an original X Box and believe it or not, I'm still getting considerable moneys worth out of it.

Photoshop will go the way of the wild on the day that Gimp supports 16 bit processing and also there is a decent RAW picture browser that handles Pentax RAW images with the correct colour temperature settings.

That leaves the devices. To be honest, as the two above options are keeping me with a Windows installation, there isn't much in it ... but the moment that the two above are over, then I'll happily ditch Windows and the mobile phone, camera, PDA market will find me a much tougher customer when it comes to parting with my money. It'll be Linux or no sale.

So ... ultimately ... it all comes down to The Gimp. Once it handles 16 bit and Pentax RAW files properly, Windows is going bye-bye.

What would I do?

2009-07-17T10:45:00.000+01:00

What would I do if I had the cash for a new machine?

Probably a 10" netbook or a larger notebook.

You see, it's like this. An analysis of most of my work comes down to word processing, web browsing and e-mail. Listening to music and watching video. This is what I do. If this is what you do as well, then you might want to follow my reasoning and think about how this forms with your own situation.

On the odd occasion I have to deal with photos and until Gimp comes up to 16 bit handling I'm stuck with Photoshop. I also play power games, watch the odd DVD and that is about it. I also have a mobile phone, PDA, digital camera and assorted gear that needs to update.

This stuff needs a desktop machine; there is no way a laptop can handle the power stuff with any form of comfort.

The base operating system is Linux as it doesn't cost anything. Above that we have Windows and above that again we have Apple OS, whatever flavour it is now.

I have determined that I need two machines. One that accompanies me around the house, on the road and supports my basic daily operations. The other when I need to do work that needs a good bit of grunt.

I need to save power and money. What do I do?

Well, Apple are off the scale immediately. I just haven't got the cash for either an Apple desktop or portable machine. I'm not going to take out a loan to get in to that kind of gear. It just ain't gonna happen.

When I look at my mobile phone, my PDA, my camera and the rest of it, the only software that they come with are for Windows support; the rare piece of equipment comes with Apple and that is about it. The European competition commission don't seem to give a shit about this, so that situation isn't going to change; if I buy a device, then to get the most out of it and be able to update it, I'm going to need Windows somewhere in the mix.

The immediate conclusion is a desktop running Windows and a portable machine running Linux.

Why?

Straightforward. Through my list of daily requirements, there is no reason to spend the extra money on Windows; Linux does the job wonderfully well. In fact, from my experience of playing video media, Linux out performs Windows with much better codec control. I don't need complex personal organisation so I don't need Outlook. Something equivalent of Outlook Express will do me nicely. To date, my most favoured mail program is Kmail. Evolution scores a second because it lacks some important features, like being able to set up a rule that forwards e-mails.

Linux is also capable of talking with USB devices that present themselves as storage. This means that for file transfer I can actually hook up my camera, my mobile phone and some PDA's that allow this sort of connection. I can get my pictures off my camera, I can download music to my mobile music player ... I'm golden.

Open Office has been standing up very well against Microsoft Office lately. There are a couple of issues for power users, especially in Excel, but as a matter of emergency yesterday I had to replace a faulty laptop with another one which only had Open Office on it, and the Power Point presentation went smoothly; I'm not sure the person giving the talk actually noticed the difference.

Browsing the web is also much smoother on Linux for some reason. There isn't the, "temp," folder debacle that Windows suffers from and at present Linux hasn't got that many viruses out for it. The way that Unix has always worked, in a true multi-user manner, ported over to Linux, means that I have greater faith in the integrity of the machine as a whole. Also, as I don't run anti-virus on it, I get to use more of the machines power for myself.

Linux fulfills all my daily needs. This leaves Windows to clean up the mess and Open Office runs on Windows as well, meaning that all my documents are cross-platform. Great.

Windows is relegated to the desktop machine where it cleans up the stuff that isn't Linux yet, and delivers the applications that the vendors refuse to make available for Linux.

So, that is straightforward; now to determine the two machines, how they are bought and configured.

--------------

The desktop is going to be the main machine and will be the backup for the portable device. Generally, the pre-built machines offer the poorest value for money. Because I've usually got a monitor, keyboard, mouse, computer case, loudspeakers and power supply, then £300 will get me a motherboard, memory, processor and graphic card combination. I also invest a little in a better processor fan and some better, "compound," the sticky stuff that goes between the processor and the CPU fan to help the heat transfer between them.

If you need a PSU, then I personally go for Tagan; they seem to be good quality and have thought to the future built in. An overpowered PSU will always have plenty of juice to give, especially if you go for a powered graphics card. It is worth it. A good case will out last many computers; again the initial investment might be a little higher but a good choice will last you. Same goes with the keyboard, mouse and the other potentially expensive piece of equipment, the monitor.

An initial £600 will get you a PC which is more tuned to the way you like it and taking a bit of time choosing your monitor, etc. will give you more pleasure from its use than putting up with the standard garbage you get from a bundled deal.

Having said that, many of the bundled deals come with usable equipment; they have to meet certain standards and if you can make do with a cheap keyboard, mouse and monitor then there is no shame in it. Some companies will change their computers on a three year basis so if you snoop around then there are certainly bargains to be had. Talk with your IT department at work and see if they can help. 17 inch LCD monitors have been the office standard for a good few years now, so your chances of bagging one of these are reasonably high if you stick your neck out a little ... all they can say is, "No."

The key thing here is flexibility. You can choose your peripherals, whether it is for cost or comfort. The main thing that is at the heart of the machine is the combination of motherboard, processor, memory and graphics. It is best to buy these brand new so that you've got a warantee behind them.

If a component of a self build machine is going to go wrong, then it is usually going to happen in the first three months. Memory is usually the thing to watch as lately the failure rate has become quite high ... 50% of the memory I've bought has become faulty in the first three months. These days it is worth downloading and burning a Linux installation purely for the memory test that is available when you boot it.

As of a few years ago, Windows XP was basically 32 bit only; the drivers for the 64 bit version were chancing your arm; some people had a trouble free time while others had a nightmare, but with the take off of the 64 bit multi-core processors 32 bit XP wasn't getting the best performance from the hardware. Linux beat Windows hands down. The failure of Vista did nothing to change this situation. Windows 7 is the only operating system which could really make a difference here and only time will tell on this one, but I'd be surprised if Microsoft had got it wrong again.

Previously, therefore, the only way to get the best out of a machine was to run 64 bit Linux on it and run Windows XP on it ... or if you were a gamer then you just had to install XP on it and live with the fact that there was untapped performance available.

Windows 7 should change all this; we'll see what happens.

Data security is foremost on the mind of the desktop user. Two hard drives are usually the way to go. In fact, three hard drives. One for the operating system, usuallyl 40 gig. Two larger hard drives which are then, "mirrored," and you use these to store your data. Mirroring two hard drives in Windows is relatively easy; it is a little more of a faff in Linux if you're not careful.

However, it is this data partition which will be acting as your data security and the backup for the portable machine, so it is worth the extra expense here. Hard drives have an average life span of between three and five years in my experience, and the flash hard drives have not come down enough in price to make them practical for large data storage ... and lets face it, these days many more of us are storing more data.

On a personal note, I already have a Linux machine with exactly this configuration in it. Every time I open a fresh e-mail browser my home page gives me a report on the hard drives, so that when one fails (note that I say WHEN here, not IF) I am able to take action to keep my data safe.

So ... that's about it for the desktop configuration. Nice, straightforward and secure.

----------------

The portable machine is more of a puzzler. There is a flip up between a netbook and a notebook. The minimum size for a netbook really is the 10 inch version; anything smaller isn't really comfortable to type on. Also, when viewing web pages, many of them are more notebook type screen size anyway, so I have to admit that while a netbook has its place, if I had to choose between one of them as a main machine, it would be a notebook that I would have to go for.

The majority come with built in wireless and a reasoanble amount of memory and hard disk space. The key issue is the hard disk, I'd want flash memory if I could get away with it and also low weight.

Obviously it takes some looking around, but among the two that I'd look at for the moment are the Samsung R505-FA03UK and the Satellite Pro L300-299 both of which, unfortunately, come with Vista which involves a Microsoft tax even though the first thing I'd do is rip Windows off and install Linux.

If you don't want the hassle, then Linux Emporium has some good information although I never can tell how old the articles are. Of course, the best thing to do is research and slinging "linux," and, "laptop," in to your search engine.

You've also got, as usual, the information on the much lauded site, Linux On Laptops, to support your decisions.

Personally, I reckon I'd be from nowhere to fully kitted out for about a grand. If I didn't need the power stuff, then the laptop would do me fine, with just a little more cash for an external hard disk for backup.

The big hang up is the manufacturers reluctance to offer Linux versions of their hit machines and also for the manufacturers of phones, cameras, PDA's, etc. to actually ship Linux software with their products.

Time ... time ... give it a little more time.

Microsoft need to work out a little

2009-05-27T09:20:00.000+01:00

It seems that Microsofts market muscle is definately slipping. This report on The Register about Microsoft failing to renew a higher level deal with the New Zealand Government signals a few things.

Firstly, that open source is grown up enough to play with the big boys.

Secondly, that Microsoft is not the only option on a government table

Thirdly, that the New Zealand authorities have had enough backbone to do their jobs right instead of going along with the easy ride.

With job cuts at Microsoft these last few months, the future isn't looking as rosy as it once did. It is a certain signal that open source is serious competition and can deliver cost benefits in the workplace.

Linux to the rescue

2009-04-30T11:06:00.000+01:00

I have one installation of Windows. Sadly necessary because of games manufacturers and others who are so cheap that they think only of Windows. I fart in their general direction.

Anyway, for some time this one installation of Windows has been going a little ga-ga. The machine has two hard drives installed, a 40gig SATA drive and a 40gig IDE drive. Now and then, I get a blue screen muttering something about a hardware failure, and it then proceeds to reboot itself. No actual indication of what hardware was actually responsible for upsetting it. I'd tried the usual full memory scan, but that didn't indicate any trouble; anything beyond this would have been shooting in the dark without spare parts and a lot of hassle.

After I had a power supply blow up due to overheating, I switched around the power cables. For a few days I didn't notice that the IDE drive wasn't plugged in. When I did plug it in to get at the data, any attempt to access it caused the Windows blue screen. So, I was stuffed. No way to get at the photographs and other data that were on it. On every attempt to access files, blue screen and reboot. I did, at least, finally have a resolution as to what had been causing the intermittent blue screens all this time.

In comes Linux. Loaded a live installation from the CD and once it has sorted itself out and settled down (as installations run in RAM from CD inevitably do) I was able to access the drive. Sort of.

The first thing that came up when I double clicked on the drive in the GUI, was that the NTFS flag noted the last dismount as unclean, so I had to find the media in the /media folder and run a mount comment with a "-o force" option. This ignored the unclean flag and mounted the partition. I admit, the warning box that told me of the mounting problem was a box filled with a chunk of wordy data, but at least when I read it slowly, it did tell me what was actually going on and the command with which to remedy the situation.

So, the long story was that I had to go in to the /media folder and find out the case of the volume name. Once I knew what it was called, I could then issue the "mount" command necessary to get it mounted in the Linux file system, and accessible. Note the extra " symbols because the mount point name had a space in it.

It worked, and the data is currently being piped off to a server before I later remove the hard disk and replace it. I can't afford pernickity Windows to throw its toys out of the pram like this. Linux is obviously able to see and use the hard disk, but I would be running a risk if I were to continue to use it like this, so I've decided to take the hint and replace it. ... or possibly to run the server share as a mapped drive letter in Windows ... that'll help keep the heat down in the box until SSD drives come down to prices that mere mortals like me can afford.

I might as well ... I'm going to be ordering a new power supply, anyway!

Even Linux isn't safe

2009-04-17T12:07:00.001+01:00

As this post on The Register confirms even Linux isn't safe from vulnerabilities (and I'm not the kind of person that will carry on in the blind belief that Linux is bullet proof) ... but what will be interesting to see is how fast this gets patched.

Another convert to Linux

2009-04-14T12:38:00.000+01:00

In case you're wondering why I've been a bit quiet here of late, it is because I'm consolodating the information on the photography side of my life.

However, I recently rebuilt someones faulty laptop to Ububtu for them, and their partner was looking over their shoulder at how fast it was running, even on their old laptop and said, "I'll have to get that on mine," after having profile grief with Windows.

Excuse me while I pump my fist in the air and scream (in true football style), "Yeeeessssss!!!!!"

Another Microsoft blunder

2009-04-09T08:36:00.000+01:00

Well, there have been a number of comments from people who are still getting to grips with installing and running Linux, so I've held back from going forward. If anyone has any specific questions they'd like to see answered on the blog, rather than individually, please post them here.

It has also given me time to work on the photography side of my life and do some re-writing there.

Also, in line with the title of this post is a report that the allegations Microsoft lay against APple are actually true of Linux against Microsoft ... ie. that they've got their selling tactics interestingly wrong!

Commercial success out of Linux

2009-03-26T11:16:00.001Z

Red Hat are reporting profits. Not bad for a company pushing free software. Could this mark the real beginning of the end of the road for Microsoft? It is certainly a very reverberating bell toll.

Warning - secure your domestic router

2009-03-24T13:04:00.001Z

This isn't April the 1st, so unless The Register are getting their japes in early, this warning should be taken seriously. Ensure that there is no external facing administration interface on your routing equipment.

Black e-mail-eye for Microsoft

2009-03-18T10:42:00.001Z

Outlook has been kicked out of the Indian Prime Minister's office after e-mails failed. Pundits ponder why it took three months for anyone to realise the problem.

Linux the choice for customer interface

2009-03-06T11:07:00.000Z

Fancy Linux embeded in your car? Well, looks like Windows didn't make the cut for this system.

"Hello, hello, hello. What's all this then? Doing 230mph in a 5mph residential limit?" "Sorry officer, my car blue screened and I lost control."

Oi! Educators! Still want to exclude your charges from learning Linux and isolating them from the software engineering market?

Difficult Decisions?

2009-03-05T14:40:00.000Z

Corporations are facing difficult decisions. Governments are too. Open source projects, however, have more to offer than just the cost aspect of things.

Consider this. Companies all over the world are in competition with each other. Yes? Right. Accepted. But here is the twist. They all use things like financial resource packages, HR packages and many other pieces of software like this to run their organisations. Where do they get them from? They all get them from the same source ... other companies. When you look at it, they don't actually compete with much of the day to day software that actually underpins their business.

Think about this ... a company that employed 200 people would pay £220 each for Microsoft Office last year. That is £44,000. Put, say, £30,000 of this towards a member of staff to contribute to the Open Office project and not only are you saving money, but you are also getting a say in the development of the software.

Bingo - the holy grail - software off the shelf that you can customise without having to fork out a fortune to obtain the source code and extra licencing and support ... you'd already have a member of staff that is a core part of the project and can support it internally! How cool is that? You're also not supporting an entire in-house software project development team either.

With this method of in the middle thinking, an orgnisation can hit the middle ground running.

It also gets you out of the classic trip up. The software vendors who are actually a bunch of amateures that lock you in to certain paths. If the package you purchase for your organisation insists that you have a certain version of Word, then alarm bells should be ringing ... big style; because you're allowing them to tie down your organisations. Say that you then want another piece of software that requires a different version of Word ... you're then stuck between a rock and a hard place. You want to know the worst of it? It is usually Government agencies that are suffering because of this. If Central Government actually got its voice in order and roared at these companies, then local Government would actually get a better deal for its money ... but local government agencies are so small that they can only squeak.

For those educational agencies that think they are doing their children a favour by spoon feeding them Microsoft software ... what are you really giving them? Why ... you're giving them the gift of being users. They will be the children who will effectively be the customers of the world. What you really need to give them is the opportunity to get underneath the guts ... to be the creators of systems and have a thirst for getting down and dirty and being able to product software that the rest of the world will want. Face it; you'll never really get to the real innovation by being taught on a proprietary, locked down system that protects itself. With open source, your children can go down as far as they like; some will just stay at office level, writing macros and using things; some will get the LAMP bug and progress in to various degrees of high level programming; some will get in to Java ... and some will get right down to the kernel, writing drivers and assembler level coding ... the part that is more or less shut out in Microsoft systems; you go as far as the API and that's it.

There is more at stake in open source than just the money.

Little Daemons

2009-02-13T20:31:00.000Z

A daemon is accurately described as a program that lies dormant waiting for certain conditions to occur. In the case of Linux it is these daemons which are responsible for much of the improved user experience that is part of modern implementations of Linux. For example the daemons that are responsible for automatically mounting memory sticks and CD Rom's and placing that nice little friendly icon on the desktop. You'll see a large list of them, should you look at the process list, and the vast majority of them are sleeping. That's what they are there for. It is possible to disable these, but they do play an important part of the operating system.

Runlevels are levels at which different "services" or daemons, kick in. In cases of trouble it may not necessarily be desirable to bring the system all the way up to run level 5 (full operation) but to be honest this has been less necessary these days. Run level 0 is a switched off condition which run level 5 is full operation. Run level is changed with the "init" command at the prompt. "init 3" would thus be used to switch directly to run level 3. Any processes higher than this would be instructed to stop. The two most common commands seen are, "init 0" which is, switch off, and also "init 6" which is the command to reboot.

If you are at the command prompt and want the machine to reboot, you'd have to use, "sudo init 6" because only someone with root privileges can issue this kind of command. The system will ask you to confirm your password and then it will issue the restart command to the systems processes.

So why have I told you this? It is because the next post will be about processes, PIDs and, "kill" which can be useful to know.

Doin' the Compiz down Cairo

2009-02-10T19:55:00.000Z

Well, I've tempted your taste buds with Compiz, the utility that handles the three dimentional cube thingy and also Cairo which is responsible for the clock and the Apple-esque tool bar at the bottom of the screen. Now, I'm going to show you how easy it is to install them.

I'd like to take this moment to tell you that these aren't the only options available. These are things I saw elsewhere on the web and decided to take a look. That is one thing about Linux; taking a look and adventuring in to what is available. I also went for these because they are selectable via Synaptic manager, so for the Windows converts who are reading this, there isn't any of the compilation hassle that had to be gone through prior to the Ibex release.

Compiz is relatively easy to install. It also doesn't require a 3D graphics card but it does make things smoother. The two packages you need to install on Intrepid Ibex are Compiz itself and also the Compizconfig-settings-manager - these two packages will resolve all the dependancies and will also give you a very easy to use configuration interface to the Compiz system.

I've actually installed Compiz on my four or five year old Toshiba Satelite Pro A10, reported by the system monitor to be a single core 2.5Ghz Mobile Celeron chip with a gig of ram and next to nothing in terms of graphics hardware acceleration. I have to admit that although the 3D cube is active, it does run a little bitty and I haven't got the 3D pop-out desktop folders enabled.

It is up to you to decide what you want to install on the system and, indeed, many people in the end are just happy with the standard menus and toolbars, which is not a problem.

The other thing which helps make things cool is the Cairo applications for dock and clock. The clock can be a minor drain on system resorces so the advice I'll give you is to turn the refresh down to low. The only noticeable difference I've seen is that the second hand doesn't have that classy expensive watch, s-w-i-s-h, to it any more but I can live with that.

The dock bar, however, takes a little getting used to. The good news is that like everything else, the dock configuration is stored in your home folder so should you change machines, you're settings are retained in the apropriate hidden folder.

There are a few minor niggles with the dock bar in that if you don't give the mouse enough of an upper swish when selecting a sub-dock, it can bring up a neighbouring sub-dock's options. It has caught me out on more than one occasion. The dock does do one good thing, however, which is that it completely minimizes and hides which gives me another critical few pixels for the main application window; a decided bonus on a laptop or netbook.

The clock has an annoying habit at the moment of not remembering where it was put unless it is closed, so if you shut the machine down every time the clock will always start in the top left corner. The way around this is to place the clock where you want it to be, and then right click and quit the clock. It will then write its last position to its configuration file. Then you can use Alt+F2 to restart cairo-clock and it should pop up where you left it.

Applications

2009-02-09T23:17:00.000Z

One of the main things on your mind is probably, "Yeh, that's all well and good, but what can I DO with it?" Well, here are two short videos that show you some of the applications that are available...

Finally, a video that can show you just how cool this system can get. If you think that the way Apple or Windows handles their desktops and application selection is visually appealing, then you need to have a look at this; and I think you'll gulp when you realise that on Ibex it is installed with a couple of clicks in Synaptic...

Comming soon, I'll show you which applications have to be clicked and how to install this, a natty taskbar and a different clock.

Backgrounds

2009-02-08T23:04:00.000Z

Backgrounds are a funny old thing. In Windows, you just slam all your background files in to the c:\ windows directory and everyone can see them. Not so in the world of Linux separation.

The long story short is that the background selection thingy is actually a "list" of picures that you want to use as backgrounds. You can add any picture from any location to your personal background image list, but if you then subsequentially move the graphics file, the image dissapears from the list.

A location does exist for the default dumping of background images ... /usr/share/backgrounds ... but if you're going to dump files in there, be sure to change the permissions so that "other" can at least read the files. The usual shortcut is to use CTRL+A to select all, then right click on one of them and go to properties. In the security tab, change the permission for "other" to "read" and that's it ... job done. Any user can then browse to that directory and see the images concerned.

But if you're on a multi-user system and you want everyone to get a nice selection of default background images ... then what? Well, here's how you do it...

Long story short is that you set up your own personal background collection, which is then stored in a file (make sure you do it only of files that you've put in the /usr/share/backgrounds directory.) and then replace the standard background file with this one.

There are a few oddities, however, depending on what graphical interface you're using. By default with an Ubuntu installation, you'll be using a graphical system called Gnome. There are others and, indeed, there is a running battle between those who favour Gnome and those who favour KDE; but it is an argument along the lines of, "Is 0 a number?" so my advice is don't get drawn in to it and stick to the default until you're confident with changing things and messing around.

If you do switch to KDE then the background images are usually stored somewhere like /usr/share/wallpaper and I think that any image put in there is included by default ... so be aware that there are differences.

This is one of the consequences of power, security, portability and choice.

Virtualisation - The Matrix for computers

2009-02-07T23:04:00.000Z

You don't have to say goodbye to XP when you switch to Linux. You have an option called virtualisation. With the Intrepid Ibex version of Ubuntu virtual PC operation is much easier and more reliable than ever before. There is even a GUI version called VirtualBox so you are, once again, spared the fearsome command line.

If you're new to virtual computers, just think of the film, "The Matrix," and you won't be far wrong. It is where one operating system creates an environment in which a second operating system can run, whilst being made to believe that it is the only operating system on the computer hardware. Here, Windows XP is being installed on Ubuntu using an emulator called Qemu.

There is also software from Microsoft called Virtual PC which I believe is free as of the time of writing and you can use this to install your first experience with Ubuntu if you wish.

Whichever way you do it, however, there are some things you need to think about.

The first is which is going to be your core operating system and which is going to be your virtual. There are some good and bad points to each and I'll explain them.

*) The virtual machine will eat up hard disk space. You will have to set asside a specific amount of space, usually in the form of a single, very large file, that the virtual machine will be fooled in to believing that it is a genuine hard disk. Once set up, it won't be easy to resize this file. You can use dynamic allocation but it doesn't help performance.

*) A virtual machine is running within another machine; therefore you can't give it all the memory of the physical machine and nor can you expect it to run as fast as if it was the native operating system on the machine. Processor grunt is very important to get the best out of a virtual machine.

*) As it is within a software environment, the virtual machine won't have direct access to the hardware, so things like 3D games and surround sound performance will not be possible.

*) Most virtual machines allow use of CD and networking but few allow connection to USB devices so if you rely on Windows to control or backup your mobile phone or download drivers to your camera or PDA then you could have problems.

*) One of the bonuses of a virtual machine is that it can easily be moved to another machine. It can even be compressed and stored on a DVD. Because it is, effectively, a file, you can do to that file what you would be able to do with any other, including compressing it and e-mailing it around the world if you wish.

*) Also, as it is a file, you can keep what is known as a, "revision," so you can quite easily turn back the clock if something goes ga-ga and damages the operating system.

*) You can also then make multiple copies of the file and run multiple copies of the same machine simultaniously ... and on different hardware if you wish!!!

Things to consider...

The first is to choose which operating system will be the host. The situation that most people find themselves in is that they prefer Windows XP, but that the machines that have been coming out for years now have all been 64 bit processors.

What this means is that running an 32 bit operating system (XP) on a 64 bit processor isn't going to do you many favours. It isn't going to use your computer to the maximum potential.

Yes, there is a 64 bit version of XP around, but I don't recollect seeing it and I'm not sure about the driver compatability. Also, I'm not sure about the stability of XP on a multi-core system anyway.

Common sense says that a 64 bit version of Ubuntu is the ideal base, with the 32 bit version of XP running in a virtual machine on top of it.

However, to make the most of a virtual machine you are going to need a good processor and plenty of RAM. XP can only use about 2gig of RAM efficiently and if you put 4 in a machine you cna restrict the virtual machine to only using 2gig of it, which leaves pleanty left for the host operating system.

You're going to need a reasonable hard disk to house the virtual machine and the applications you are thinking of installing on it. You need to give it enough elbow room, but not so much as it takes over the host operating system itself; or there isn't much point in doing it. Also, as mentioned before, if you've got USB devices that only work on Windows, you'll need a virtual environment that will let these work for you.

In short, the only reasonable way forward is to make a major commitment to one operating system or the other. If you're running Windows in a virtual machine, you are still officially going to need a licence for it and separate licences for any other copy that you run simultaniously.

In the ideal world you would be looking to leave Windows behind and commit to Ubuntu while using the virtual machine to keep running the, hopefully, very few applications that you simply can't do without.

For most home users, though, this means some difficult decisions. Thanks to the commercial world being what it is, many games houses are not creating their games for Linux. There are some startling and very welcome exceptions, for example the Unreal and Quake engines, but for things like WoW, L2, Halo and many more games, Windows and, at the outside, Apple, are the target platforms. The games, alone, are what will keep many people running a Windows computer and, because of the power demands of these games, it usually means that the most powerful PC in the home will be running Windows.

The Catch 22...

The games vendors aren't going to put in the expense in going cross platform unless there are enough potential customers out there to make it worth while. The problem for the customers is that while their favourite games aren't available on Linux, they have no impotus to switch their operating system.

But what is happening?

Computing power is changing. A significant portion of games are comming off the PC and are translating to the console. The Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii went head to head and uncovered a considerable difference in peoples aproaches ... no longer was shear power the thing; people went for playability and the Wii won the battle in spades.

Other devices are taking over some of the other traditional roles of the PC and yet more are being created. Sat nav devices are running Linux; mobile phones are able to finally do many of the multimedia tasks; netbooks are finally making laptops portable enough to be useful. Small Linux PC boxes are enabling people to do browsing and e-mail at home without needing a full powered PC.

Anyone with any sense is now running Linux on their netbook, laptop or small footprint PC to get the most out of the mobile and efficient nature of the equipment. Wireless comms means that people can spend less time sat at their PC and more time in the garden with a netbook and a glass of something long and cool.

The major communications applications have moved away from the desktop. This has taken many of the roles away from the PC, effectively leaving it only with a clear shot in the games field and anything which requires serious screen real estate, masses of processor grunt or 7.1 surround sound.

The games arena is the only driving force which has locked the desktop in the catch 22, so we're unlikely to see a change unless customers start screaming that they want products that run on Linux. Let's face it ... most product vendors haven't got the staff to program their products on Linux so until they start getting hurt in the pocket, they ain't going to budge.

These, and more, are things you need to consider when you want to venture in to virtualising machines.

Commercial numbers...

Specialised virtual machines are used in business quite often. The situation is relatively straightforward ... three or more physical machines exist. Each machine runs Linux and some powerful virtualisation software. They all share the same networked hard disk space and run multiple virtual systems.

Thanks to some nifty operating and the shared hard disk space, should one physical server die, the virtual servers that it was running can be picked up automatically by the hardware machines that are still running. Usually a few seconds are lost but the service to the business or customer is kept running.

Breaking the link between the operating system and the hardware that it runs on, opens up masses of new possibilities.

However it is up to the consumer to tell the industry that they want their goodies to work on Linux; until the consumer does that, it won't happen. The big guys with the money are the ones who can put that money behind every persuasive power and media they have to convince you that Windows is the only way forward.

So ... dear user ... it is up to you to not actually make up your mind between Linux or Microsoft, but first of all whether you are going to have your own mind or just follow the fat cat spiders in to their money sucking web.

Synaptic Package Manager

2009-02-06T19:50:00.000Z

This is an important part of Ubuntu that you're probably going to have to use at some point in time or another. Forgive me if I explain something that you already know, however.

A, "repository," is a location where packages are kept. For most practical purposes the repositories are on-line at various web sites. Repositories can also be on CD's, memory keys, whatever, but on-line and CD are the two most common.

The repositories hold, "packages." The packages are like the executables that you install for Windows. Certain packages are installed when you install Ubuntu and it is the job of the update manager to check when your installed packages are updated. In effect it is like one large software library and the update manager is keeping track of everything for you.

There is a thing called, "dependancy," and you might have heard of dependancy hell. It is less of a problem in modern installations of Ubuntu providing that you are keeping to the Synaptic method of installing applications. Stepping outside Synaptic does require a degree of confidence with the system that, if you're learning from these posts, you won't yet have ... but don't worry, we'll work on it in time.

Ubuntu is built on the Debian variant of Linux and the packages for Debian are labelled .deb so that is the type of package that you're looking for. It is perfectly possible to download .deb files and request Ubuntu to install them for you, but expect to come over the problem that it requires something else to be installed first ... a dependency. I'll talk you through this in the future and you'll see an example of what I have to go through to get something installed this way.

In Synaptic, if A requires B to be installed and B requires C to be installed, then if you want to install A, the system will check down the chain to see that B and C are already installed; if not, it will mark them for installation for you. It is a relativley safe environment that is easy for those new to Linux.

Permissions in action

2009-02-05T19:01:00.000Z

Right ... tighten your seat belt. This is where we bring it all together. You may need to review the video a couple of times to get the gist of what is happening. You may also want to read the explanation of what happens before reviewing the video if your way of learning goes better this way.

The long story short is that the home directory is where the user data is kept, so as everybody can only get access to their own folder, we're going to create another folder here called, "data" and to do this, we're going to need to be the root user.

We set the permissions up for each user as follows ...

Michelle - photos - users
Tom - photos - users
Dick - users

The permissions on the data folder is set that root is the owner, any member of the group, "users" can get in but can not change anything, and anyone who isn't a member of "users" is denied access.

Looking at all the three users above, they are all members of the "users" group, so they can go in to the folder, but they can't actually create any new folders in here.

So ... as root, I create a new folder called "pictures" and I deliberately change the owner to michelle. I then change the group to "photos." I give myself full permissions to the folder and I also give the group "Photos" full permission. To others, I give access only.

This means that I, as the owner, can do what I like in that folder. Tom, as a member of the group "photos" can also do as he likes in that folder. Dick, however, is not the owner and is not a member of the "photos" group, so he falls under the "other" section, which means he can access the folder but can't change anything within it.

Lastly, within the photos folder I create, "private photos." To this folder, I change the owner to Michelle and give full control to the owner. I then give the group photos, access ability. I deny the others any permission at all.

I, as the owner, can get in and make changes. Tom, as a member of photos, can get in but can't change anything. Dick, who is neither the owner, nor a member of the photos group, can not get in the folder at all.

So ... this is how it works. Within your structure you can use groups and permissions to gain significant control over access to shared data folders. It does, however, require a little sitting down and planning who you want to have access to what.

Try and think of it in terms of groups and then later assign people to those groups. You may come across a problem in terms of wanting two groups of people, one to have read access and another to have write access, and then you will have to employ a two-folder strategy. It is one of the difficulties of this kind of system.

What IS the two folder strategy?

OK, so you have two groups, "read" and "write." People who you want to have write access need to be a member of both the read and write groups. People who only need read access are just a member of the read group.

The first folder is set to ... owner (you; doesn't matter) ... group (read, access only - this is how the write group get through, as they are also a member of the read group) ... others (no access - blocks all users other than members of the read group.)

Within this folder, you then have another folder. This folder is set to ... owner (you) ... group (write - set to read and write) ... other (set to access)

Thus...

The first folder is filtering out anyone other than the people who are in the read group. As you have made the people who are a member of the "write" group members of the "read" group as well, then they will pass through this "filter" folder.

The second folder then allows you to determine that the write group has read-write while the other group has read only.

Permissions

2009-02-04T21:41:00.000Z

Nine times out of ten when you fail to do something in Linux, it is because of permissions. Due to the protection of the Root user, it becomes difficult. In a post not too far away from here, I'm going to show you how to get around the root restriction thing, but for now I'm going to show you how permissions work.

Right - long story short is to master the concepts individually and not attempt to link them to each other. That will come later.

A user is a user just like on Windows. This video will introduce you to users and also groups. A list of groups is even more simple than a list of users, and then you add the users to the groups.

IMPORTANT - If you add a user in to a group, some systems may need the user to log out and log back in again (if they are logged in when you make the change) and it is most annoying if it happens to be your own group membership that you're changing. I'll have to hunt down a shortcut to this but I haven't looked too far for one yet.

It is safe to think as groups as memberships of certain clubs or societies. If you're name ain't on the list, you ain't going in.

In the video above, we've created a few users and a few groups. We're going to be using these to show you how to use things later on. The next permissions post will be about the permissions attached to files and folders.

File Structure

2009-02-04T18:57:00.000Z

We're going to take a closer look at the file structure and how it compares to Windows. Some people have asked for a video explanation, so here it is...

Bypassing root

2009-02-03T20:03:00.000Z

There are two common ways to bypass root. I highly recommend only using the first one and never using the second unless is really is the only choice.

The first option is how to start a file browser window which has root privileges. This means that you can drag and drop files in to that location. Great for moving things like fonts and backgrounds in to awkward locations during setting up a new machine.

The second option is to activate the root user itself. This is for documentation only and it is not recommended that you do this.

Why is it not recommended to activate root? This is because any hacker comming up against a Linux system will know that there is an account called root. They can then start attacking that account in order to guess or even brute force the password; and once they've done it, they have full access. It is a major security hazard.

It is possible to activate root but then not enable the root account to log on locally. This means that you can log on as another user and then when you've got a lot of work to do that needs root permissions, then you can "su" in to being root at a command prompt. Even though root is then active, hackers can try as much as they like to guess the password, but Linux will just ignore any attempts that root makes to log on.

Normally, the average user will not need to do heavy duty things as root. The "sudo" command should suffice for people to do the odd things that need to be done.

A video showing the font installation

2009-02-03T07:11:00.000Z

It seems that my written explanations might have been a bit short of the mark, so here is a video showing the fonts being installed on the system.

Case sensitivity and TAB file names

2009-02-02T08:48:00.000Z

In the human world, there is syntax to our writing. We put a capital letter at the start of a word if it is the first word in a sentence or if it is a name, etc. To us it is, however, the same word.

Not to any other machine except a Microsoft machine ... or maybe an Apple machine. This is a deliberate bent to help the user.

As far as the machine is concerned, the letters we use to describe our file names are merely symbols and a capital A is a different symbol to a small a. Hence, it determines that they are different. Most file and directory names in Linux are kept to lower case to get around just this problem.

Thus on the Internet you can determine whether the server giving you the pages is a Linux or Windows machine. Simply change one of the letters (after the primary domain name) to an upper case.
http://technilife.blogspot.com/2009/01/cherrypal-unboxing.html - will work
http://technilife.blogspot.com/2009/01/Cherrypal-unboxing.html - won't work.
... hence it is a Linux server.

http://www.furnituretoday.co.uk/about_furnituretoday.html - will work
http://www.furnituretoday.co.uk/ABOUT_furnituretoday.html - will also work.
... hence it is a Windows server.

So, when dealing with Linux, remember that file names are case sensitive.

Linux does, however, give you a hand with auto completion. If you press the TAB button it will help you out by completing commands for you. I don't expect you to start using this immediately, but remember that it is there as it is a very useful everyday tool to use, should you start getting in to Linux. We'll have an exercise on it in the future.

Root - part 2

2009-02-01T08:08:00.000Z

The second root is the filesystem. Under windows you'll be used to drive letters. It was somewhat restrictive because you only had 26 of them. Not under Linux.

Think of it as a family tree. When new filesystems are added, they are attached to the tree. They are, "mounted." If you add a USB key or attach a CD Rom, they will be mounted in to the Linux family tree. Something else you can do under Linux, however, that some people wish they could do with their families is un-mount them again.

On most desktop systems, there is a program running that will sense new media and mount it automatically for you. It will normally even put a helpful icon on the desktop for you. Right clicking on this icon will give you the, "unmount," option and it is very wise to unmount your media before removing it. Some items, like the CD Rom, may refuse to eject until they have been unmounted. It is the safe thing to do.

This is a view of the top of the tree on my laptop...

The most important ones from our perspective are...

Home - This is where all the user files are kept. There is one folder in here for each user on the system. It is created automatically when the user is created. Inside this folder are a lot of hidden files. The hidden files control exactly how the user likes to see their system configuration. It covers the screen control, the keyboard set up, prety much the whole works. For the majority of things you won't see it, nor do you need to. The configuration graphics will sort that out for you.

Root - This is the same as the home folder, but it is for the Root user. The root user is more machine specific. While the user can be detached from the machine, it is less true of the root user.

Boot - Here, the files are kept that are necessary to boot the system. If you wanted to change the behaviour of the system at start up, you would be adjusting the files in here.

Bin - Binaries. Executables to the Windows orientated.

Usr - Various user-ish system files. This where the user and the system crosses over. Here, for example, is where you find the fonts folder ... at /usr/share/fonts/ ... so you can copy all your favourite TTF fonts here from your Windows folder.

Those eagle eyed of you will have noticed that the directories are separated with a forward slash "/" instead of the Microsoft backslash, "\" and those of you who are more attentive still will notice that the Internet addresses also use the forward slash, "http://mypage.com/pages/index.html"

But you have a problem. If you try to drag and drop the fonts here, you've got a problem. Permissions. So what do you do?

Well, option number 1 is the easiest. Just select "Home" from your places and put /.fonts at the end of it. This will bring up your personal fonts directory and you can just drop them in here. They will only be available to you, however. If you're going to be the only person using the machine, that's fine.

The hardest is to do it by command line. First, use the browser to check that the location /usr/share/fonts/truetype exists. Then make a directory on your desktop called fonts and put the fonts in here from your CD, USB stick, however you want to get them on to the machine. Next you want to go to the terminal and execute the following command, replacing, "michelle" for your user name.

BE WARNED ... you must get the case exactly right. I'll explain case in the next post. There is a space between each of the segments here, and note that the D in Desktop, is a capital letter.
sudo cp /home/michelle/Desktop/fonts/* /usr/share/fonts/truetype

It will then ask you to confirm your password and then it'll get on with the copy.

sudo says, "I have the power! Treat me as being root."
cp is the command to copy.
/home/michelle/Desktop/fonts/* is the source
/usr/share/fonts/truetype is the destination.

A few things to note about this...

1) This command, in its current form, won't do directories. There is an option switch, but I've left it out for simplicity

2) It assumes that you have typed the name of your font directory is all in lower case. If you haven't, just change the name in the command, to match.

3) It didn't give you any message to say it had completed the job. It simply returned a prompt back to you. This is how Linux behaves. It will only give you a message if it was unable to complete the task. It is up to you, as the operator, to ensure that the task you are asking of it is the correct one. Believe it or not, this is actually a responsibility that some people are scared of, but it is understandable as root can do anything, including format the root folder ... so a little caution is justified ... just be careful.

Now browse in to the /usr/share/fonts/truetype directory and your fonts should all be in there.

Root

2009-02-01T07:54:00.000Z

There are two types of root in linux. One is the root of the filestructure and the other is the administration logon. We'll talk about the latter here.

The root user is the most powerful user account on the system. When using it, you can do anything to the machine. It exists on all Unix and Linux systems and their variants to my knowledge. Hence it is the account most targetted by hackers in brute force attacks, because they know that it exists.

Ubuntu these days comes with a few rules out of the box. The first is that root is not allowed to log on via the console. The second is that root can not log on via telnet. The third is that root ... well, basically if you can think of a connection mechanism, then root isn't allowed to do it. That basically helps prevent a lot of attacks.

The other is that the user can't actually get at the root account (that is, strictly speaking, untrue as it is possible to activate it) which further helps with security. Should anything require access to certain levels of the system then the user is prompted for their password. This includes functions like adding new users to the system, even.

This may seem like a pain for some things, but it is this philosophy which keeps the core of your system as free from attack and damage as possible. Later on, I'll share with you the secret of opening up the root account, but for now I'll keep it under my hat.

The reason why Windows failed so badly was that its core files are open to anyone. This included under XP. The application vendors knew this and their installation routines took for granted the ability to change system files at will. When Microsoft released Vista, this changed and access to certain files were restricted. This was one of, if not THE most, single upset of applications then refusing to work on Vista. The only way to get around it for the user, was to grant full administrator access. That, basically, meant turning the new security system off. Not much use then.

It will take a few years for application vendors to catch up, but many legacy systems won't be caught up and that is why, for some companies and a handfull of small, favourite applications for users, it will be impossible to carry some applications forward ... they are stuck with XP, or ditch their way of working.

Why did the open no-security aspect of Windows fail? Mostly because applications ended up over-writing each others areas and standing on each others toes. For those of you who remember the early days, each application had its own .ini files that retained its settings. It was also difficult to control different settings for different users. Microsoft determined that this was messy and invented the registry, so that applications could not only put their settings in one place, but it separated user and machine settings. However, corruption and other problems continue to dog it.

Linux maintains the .ini file approach. If you browsed your home folder with the setting which enables you to see hidden files, you'll see them. They do more than just store your individual application settings, though ... all your personal data is in the home directory. You can effectively pick up this directory and move it to another machine, (almost; some things like video settings might differ) unlike Windows where you have to pick things out from all over the operating system.

The next root we will discuss is the file system.

Having to get dirty

2009-01-30T21:48:00.000Z

There are some cases when you are going to have to get dirty and run the command line to enable some features. I'm also going to be interjecting the how-to's with theory on how Linux works, so that you can start to understand how it hangs together. Knowing these things will help you feel a little more comfortable in the short term.

This one will enable you to access the flash components that allow YouTube and BBC iPlayer to function.

We'll start with telling you how to get it to work. From the Application tab, under Accessories, click on Terminal. A terminal window should open.

Type the following in to the terminal window (be careful to put in the right spaces) and press the Return button...
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
...and then the system might ask for your password. It will then begin the installation of software that can not be bundled with the CD.

Occasionally, it might ask you other questions, so keep an eye on the bottom of the terminal window. Very rarely you might get screens like this. The secret of handling these windows is to press the TAB key (usually the one to the left of the Q key) until the option for Yes, OK, Accept, or whatever is highlighted in red, and then press the Return key.

When it has all finished, type the word, "exit" in to the terminal window (followed by the return key) to close the window.

But why is all this necessary?

Linux is an open and free system. Some components, however, are controlled by commercial organisations and they hold various patents which at the very least require some form of agreement to be confirmed by the user. Flash, for example, is owned by Adobe but even though it is free there is still a licence to be agreed to. Even Windows has a licence but how many people actually read it? Ubuntu, too, has a licence even though it is free software ... there are still rules to using the software like the inability to hold Ubuntu responsible for any loss of data and also not trying to sell their software.

It makes things more difficult for the user, yes, but it is sadly necessary.

Preferences and Administration menus

2009-01-30T07:38:00.000Z

These two videos take a look at the options under the Preferences and Administration sub-menus. They show you where the equivalent tools from the Windows control panel are.

Community Power

2009-01-28T21:45:00.000Z

Linux has not only had the image of being for the geeks but also as being no actually practical use. Another of the purposes of these posts is to show that this image, built in the 90's, is no longer applicable.

If you hang on in with Linux, you'll see just how powerful it can be. OK, I'll admit that there is a fair bit of legacy in the way that it operates and it could do with moving forward, particularly in the user and group permission areas, but that probably isn't going to happen any time soon.

First Run

2009-01-27T19:59:00.000Z

Probably the first thing that will happen when you start Ubuntu for the first time is that some icons in the top right of the screen will demand your attention. They are the two leftmost icons here and are the green, "hardware," indicator and the (normally red) update manager. The update manager is showing grey here because there aren't any more updates.

The update manager, if connected to the Internet, will check if there are any updates available and it will turn red if there are. It is up to you when you go get them but typically after a new installation there will be a few security updates and the like. Best to go get them.

The other is the, "proprietary driver," notification ... the green hardware symbol. Linux is an open system and the drivers are created by the community at large. Occasionally, however, the hardware vendors will release their own drivers. In this case it was drivers for the Nvidea card. It gives you the choice of what drivers you want to use.

Once this is done, the system is prety much your oyster. The next posts will be taking you on a tour around Ubuntu and give you an idea just how powerful a machine you now have at your control.

Installing Ubuntu

2009-01-26T19:20:00.000Z

Installing Ubuntu is probably easier than installing Windows. I do believe it is actually quicker. I think I got this system loaded and configured in less than half an hour.

One common error that can happen is pictured below. The give away is the code, "sr0" which says that the error is happening from the CD drive. This usually either means a badly burned CD or a damaged CD rom drive. In my case, it was the latter.

The installation screen starts up with a few options. The first option allows you to try Ubuntu in what is known as, "live mode," and you can also get a specific Live CD of linux. This is a version that runs without leaving anything on the hard drive so you can safely use this without upsetting an OS already installed on the hard disk. The second option is self explanatory, while below this are options to check the installation CD for errors and also to check the memory. One of the most common parts to arive DOA (Dead On Arival) is the memory, so this utility allows you to check it out.

The installation screens thereafter are straightforward. The first allows you to select the language that you want to install in. English is pre-selected.

Next comes the location, done easily by selecting the dot on the map that is you. This will also pre-determine some of the other options for you.

The keyboard language and layout are among these options but it gives you the chance to change them.

If this is your first installation and you are using a hard disk that you don't care about, then select the middle button. To be honest, until you understand a bit more about Linux partitions, this is how you should install the OS; on a hard disk that you don't mind wrecking. A later post will explain partitioning. Doing things this way will reduce some of the fear factor in learning Linux and should help you learn more quickly if you know that you're not in danger of damaging any important data.

Finally it asks you for your name, a password and the computer name. At this point you can select a box to bypass the logon screen and go straight to the desktop if you are confident about it.

Once this is done, Ubuntu will then install itself. The more usual time for this is about fifteen minutes before it is ready to reboot and launch for the first time. After installing it should open the CD bay for you to take the CD out of it before it reboots; this is to avoid you accidentally re-starting the installation process again.

Inside our machine

2009-01-24T18:56:00.000Z

This is the spec of the machine that we're going to be playing with throughout this little test. The specifications are to let those who understand hardware, what the benchmark is that we're going to be running these Ubuntu Linux tests on.

(If you don't understand the numbers in this post, I'll help you out by giving you the conclusion at the outset - it is nearly three year old technology; prety good for its day but very out spec these days. Still not a slouch, but not leading edge either. You can get much more for the same money these days.)

The processor is an Intel Pentium 4, 64 bit with 256K cache. It runs at 3ghz and is a twin core. It is coupled to 1gig of ram in a single chip. This technology was a step or two off leading edge technology back in June 2006 when I bought it. (I can remember because I'm looking at the invoice!)

The graphics card is a gigabyte board running an Nvidea 6600 chipset. The graphics card has 256meg on board. Gluing everything together is a Gigabyte motherboard and I think the system bus is running at 800Mhz. The motherboard has a network card and sound as part of its on board systems. The DVD drive and the hard disk drive connected are on the IDE channel; they're not even SATA.

These days I find I can get less than leading edge components for about three hundred pounds, providing I've already got the case and the power supply. The result is a machine that knocks the living daylights out of most pre built systems of the same price and era; an equation that is still true today.

All the videos you see me create are thus going to be watching the operation on this nearly three year old system.

Starting with Linux

2009-01-24T12:57:00.000Z

Getting started with Linux isn't actually that difficult. This blog is aimed at those wanting to shift from Windows to Linux but haven't got the necessary information in order to do it. Well, I've been playing around with Ubuntu for a while and I'm going to show you the basics.

Many of you have probably seen the flashy thing that Linux is capable of. I mean, when it comes to serious graphics and user interface power, Linux puts Microsoft and even Apple in to the shade.

I mean ... you want the coolest operating system running? I'll show you what's fucking cool... Ubuntu Linux running the Beryl desktop system ... THAT is what is cool ... and here is its multi-desktop rocking functionality and looks compared with Vista's Aero...

OK, so if that has whetted your apetite, then where do you get Ubuntu? Well, you get it from the download page as pictured below. Note that you need to download the correct version for your processor, either 32 or 64 bit verisons.

Note that there are "server" and "desktop" versions, which are already tuned for what you need, whether you're going to be running a back end server to do some serious grunt work, or whether you want all the bells and whistles system on which to do your work.

So that is what this blog is all about, taking you through the process of installing Ubuntu, kicking back and rockin' the boat.

Me, I've got a 32 bit machine sitting around doing not a lot, so I'm going to take you through installation, some configuring, discussing a few bits about using and security, taking some applications for a spin and then showing you how to get some support should you need it.