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Posts Tagged ‘Linux’

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Ubuntu 8.10

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Jumped on the RC just before it went official late this afternoon (EST) so that I could beat the crowds.  One of the faster upgrades that I have experienced with the package downloads taking around 20 minutes on my 6MB DSL and the install and clean up taking a little under an hour.  So easy it was kind of boring.

Highlights are the revamped network manager which now has support for mobile connections which will make it easier for me to poach one of the Verizon data cards from work should the need ever arise. The new Bluetooth wizard also appears to have upped the functionality and UI quotient so I’m looking forward to pulling out my headphones and going wireless again.

Downsides are that the shutdown button has been subsumed to logout/fastuser switching something I nearly never do but could understand the logic for a desktop user but, seriously, who uses a desktop these days anyhow? Unrelated to the actual upgrade but still nagging issues are the Glipper crash on launch and the fact that my webcam still remains unsupported (05e3:f192 Genesys Logic, Inc.)–I’ve got to complain about something, right?

Overall, I’m happy with how things turned out.  Thumbs up to the Ubuntu team for all their hard work.  Thanks!

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Posted in Linux | 3 Comments »

Building Google Chrome on Linux

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

Why not play along? It is that exciting. Like a Gentoo install fest.

/edit

A better part of the afternoon flushed down the drain for two executables: base_unittests and net_unittests.  Passed with flying colors but neither is a browser.

rm -rf /chrome

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Posted in Linux | 6 Comments »

Linux is ready for the desktop or ZaReason is mother-in-law approved.

Monday, April 28th, 2008

I’m sort of tired of the question whether or not Linux is ready for the desktop or if it is grandma suitable.  Maybe it is because Management and I have been using it with no exceptions for the last 4 years that I am a bit touchy on the subject but the question is silly and the often the responses more so.  Think of it, would you ask if OSX is ready for the home user? Is Microsoft ready for the enterprise? No, you likely wouldn’t unless you are being snarky.

Case and point.  My mother-in-law wanted a laptop for her birthday.  She is running Windows XP on an aging HP desktop and wanted an OS that is secure and easy to use as well as a laptop that is well made and affordable.  My recommendation? Go with ZaReason (she got a LightLapSR and now, after playing with it, Management wants one for herself).

Yes, I know I keep beating the drum for this builder but they build a great machine and have an excellent support team but more importantly, their machines “just work” and with all the peripherals she has collected over the years. From printers, scanners, to cameras, and iPods she is not left out in the dark with any of those devices.  She was able to flip open the laptop, register herself as a user, sign onto her network, and check her mail in less time than it takes to make a cup of tea.

My mother-in-law is not a technocrat.  It has taken her years to get comfortable with her XP machine but only comfortable in the sense that she has a passing familiarity with the way things are done on it.  A couple of minutes after getting set up she found Mahjongg and was busy collecting tiles.  She is much like 90% of the users out there.  They want to surf the Internet, check their email, watch movies, manage photos and music, and maybe play a couple of hands of solitaire.  Linux can do all of that and more.

Bottom line, Linux is ready for the desktop and ZaReason is mother-in-law approved.

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Posted in Linux | 7 Comments »

iPhone, A Tale of Love and Hate

Monday, April 14th, 2008

This is one of those posts that has been tickling the back of my head for sometime and I have essentially avoided it up until now–mostly at the prodding of Tyler. Since I am epically lazy–notice how the bulk of my posts in the past year have been photos? Yeah, I’m to lazy to string letters into words and then into sentences. Complete thoughts? Pffffft–I’ll be presenting this as a list.

Love It

  • Voice is a service–unlike my past phones voice on this one is just another part of the service mix.
  • Internet scaled for your hand–best mobile browsing experience I have ever had.
  • Email whenever, where ever–be it the mail application (which could use some feature love) or the sublimely designed Gmail for iPhones I can quickly retrieve and respond to messages
  • No keypad–I love the touch pad and how it learns alternate spellings and will offer them up as you type making the process fast and efficient.
  • Wi-Fi–Sure other phones have it but the stumble feature works great.

Hate It

  • Crippled bluetooth–Great, I can hook up a headset but no file transfers or even laptop tethering. That sucks, Apple.
  • iTunes–Yeah, I know. I bought a something from Captain Product Lockdown and I am bitching about having to use proprietary software but seriously, if Amazon can offer a DLM for their music store why the hell can’t Apple port iTunes to Linux? It is a real cramp in my ass to have my phone decoupled from the rest of my computing existence. As for jail breaking, it is not an option because I cannot afford the remote chance of bricking it as this is my primary tether to my job.
  • Rebooting–Like a Windows box, Management and I are finding we need to reboot our phones on a regular basis to keep the touch pad and Safari gremlins at bay. Methinks they need to take a look at memory leaks on the device.
  • No multimedia SMS–Seriously. WTF. Almost as stupid as breaking the legs off Bluetooth.

Bottom Line

The shine has worn off and my infatuation has mellowed into affectionate ambivalence. The iPhone has changed how I view cellphones and voice services in general. The device truly is a hand sized computer, allowing you to do many of the things you would on a laptop and it represents a paradigm shift: data is data is data. That said, it doesn’t blend well with a computing life off of either Apple or Windows. The inability to backup the device and sync content to it from my laptop handicaps the device enough that I will be seriously looking at what the Android based handsets will be offering this fall.

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Posted in Hardware, Reviews | 2 Comments »

Springtime Hack

Sunday, March 9th, 2008

I could easily mark this as the worst morning in as far back as I can remember. Without the first cup of coffee I sat down to scan our servers like I do everyday, just looking for anything out of the ordinary, like services that failed to run. For the most part it is a ten minute job that rarely varies day to day. This morning was an exception.

Nearly every nightly job failed. Worse than that there was an hour and ten minute hole in the logs, 0155 to 0305 was completely unaccounted. I scanned every log from authentication to our application logs and every single one of them showed this hole but checking our external monitoring service showed that we had zero downtime. What the hell happened?

A cold hand of desperation and fear gripped my stomach leaving me dizzy. I ran chkrootkit but came up clean so I mentally prepared myself to rebuild the server and possibly be eviscerated by my bosses. How would I explain this? How could I protect us from it happening again, that is if I still have my job?

Sitting helpless I realized, “Spring Ahead”.

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Posted in Sysadmin | 4 Comments »

ZaReason in the EU!

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

Read some great news over on The Debian User last night:

Why not offer computers, pre-built with Linux, to the people I like, or to their friends and families? I’m not a great coder, but as a former sysadmin I know my way around hard- and software enough to set up solid systems. So if these people (Debian Developers and such) provide all that great software, I could at least offer them some hardware, right?

Going that way with ZaReason was only the next logical step. Why re-invent the wheel, or try to set up competition, when there could be co-operation?

After months of hard work Wolfgang has launched a EU branch of ZaReason something that makes this happy ZaReason user just plain giddy. Congratulations and best of luck!

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Posted in Hardware | 1 Comment »

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