CompHobby! - AltOS

Ubuntu 8.04 Beta

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:10:00 -0500

Well as almost always I decided to give the latest beta release from Ubuntu a try. I always start from scratch just like someone trying it out for the first time might do it. As usual I burned two CD images the i386 desktop and the alternate install ones. My experience has been that only one time I have been able to get the desktop image fully booted and installed. This foray proved no different than what I am generally used to. I just gave up I didn't want to spend hours with the task and used the alternate install CD instead. All went smooth with that except the part near the end where it comes time to install GRUB not only did the install program not ask me where to put it, the program itself couldn't figure it out either and kept giving some message to the effect of "/target" wouldn't work. Luckily good old reliable LILO boot loader thing was available and even asked where I wanted to put it (complete with a list of reasonable choices so I had to just pick one). Not exactly beginner stuff but not that bad as long as one pays attention to the whole install routine as it happens. Since this was a from scratch type install I repartitioned the drive on which I always put my Ubuntu installations as I had saved everything that mattered to me to a my rather recently acquired NAS device. One thing that was different this time was that my drives were being identified as sda* and sdb* instead of the usual hda* and hdb* flavors if the LILO thing had not been so automatic, not noticing this might have been an issue. Well that was it the system was installed and I was ready to reboot back into XP just long enough to modify my boot.ini file and then continue on to Ubuntu.

I used to use another boot manager utility which worked really well but somewhere along the line I lost my license for it and most of the cooler features were tied to the license so the last couple times I went another route. The instructions make using the thing sound difficult but basically it just boils down to something similar to this.

Download th zipped archive
Copy the executable bootpart.exe to Drive C:\
Run bootpart.exe (there is a tool to simplify even this)

At this point the program will read the partitions on the hard drives installed on the system and output a list with information about the different partition types.

Next run:
bootpart 4 c:\bootsect.lnx "Some Linux I Like"

After this the executable bootpart.exe can be deleted or moved as it is no longer needed and leaving it in the root of ones system drive is some sort of risky behavior I would think. Although on second thought one might want to successfully boot Linux first.

The way the program fleshes out is "bootpart 4" is telling it what partition is the root partition or contains LILO or GRUB and this would be whatever number the program identified "4" is just an example. "c:\bootsect.lnx" is where the program will create a small image file that allows XP's bootloader to hand the booting process off off to GRUB or LILO and last "Some Linux I Like" is what will appear in the OS choices menu when the system boots (could be almost anything really but Iwould probably stick with letters and numbers). The only reason I am getting into all this is because the installer gave no options on how to boot other operating systems and I didn't feel like restoring XP's mbr later. Again not exactly beginner stuff but not that bad as long as one pays attention to the whole install routine as it happens. Fooling with way ones computer boots can and often does have consequences attached so proceed with caution.

The first reboot into Ubuntu was a seamless experience and not long after I was greeted with the message that I could install some 400+ updates which I went ahead and did the update thing and was suggested to that I reboot for best results. I forgot the first time to enable my restricted drivers and was obliged to reboot again. After that setting up is sort of like shopping add some additional repositories to simplify things somewhat and then get to picking and choosing what packages one wants. My printer/scanner both worked straight away with no additional configuration which is always a plus as I actualy like to print a fair amount of things like instructions for instance. Included of course is Firefox 3.0b5 (don't really know if that was the original installed version or from that initial 400+ package upgrade). Interesting thing is that while it still has a few rough edges it runs smoother on Ubuntu than same version for XP on the XP side of my PC. I am basing that on certain pages from CNET in particular (the next link could possibly lock your browser or even result in a BSOD) LIKE THIS ONE freeze Firefox on either Ubuntu or XP but in Ubuntu it recovers and asks if I would like to stop running the embedded script and then all is fine. On XP though it ends up being an end process type event and has caused the PC to crash completely. It only seems to happen on the CNET pages but that is not completely tested as it could be just certain CNET pages. Not scientific or anything just a observation on what I have experienced. So for the most part Ubuntu provides me with a decent multimedia PC experience (music, movies, light text-graphics editing, web, email, simple 2D game capabilities, printing...etc).

Once one gets it all up and configured Ubuntu is a very well behaved OS. It is not not for people who don't like tweaking however and therein is why it remains sort of an an anomaly, perfect for some (tweakers) to much trouble for others (pointers/clickers) even though the learning curve is really not all that steep. Once either group has it configured properly it is extremely easy to use. Each subsequent release gets more features and since they occur in a predictable cycle it is more like upgrades to than a radical departure from the base system. Unlike some commercial offerings Ubuntu seems to try and compliment the current installed hardware capabilities of the average user whereas some other OS products seem more like they are out to consume the current installed hardware capabilities of average user. I have been able to install 5 successive versions of Ubuntu on the same PC each improving over the last and to me that is impressive. If Ubuntu (I know I am looking at this from a beta release standpoint) ever gets some polish on some of those rough edges... who knows what could happen! Finally as always here is my new again Ubuntu Desktop Picture.

Some Quick Notes

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Tue, 01 May 2007 20:46:00 -0500

For Dell Ubuntu it is..

In February when Dell launched IdeaStorm as forum for customers to contribute ideas for product offerings, we received overwhelming feedback that customers wanted Linux on desktops and notebooks. As part of an overall effort to update our Linux program, today we are announcing a partnership with Canonical to offer Ubuntu on select consumer desktop and notebook products.

Anyone who reads this site with any regularity might have guessed I am a Ubuntu fan. I really hope Dell can pull this off but realize all experiences with Ubuntu are not always fun.

Saw on another site today there is some really wicked malware that can allegedly destroy a PC in than 10 Minutes.

A good 30MB+ of individual files are downloaded onto the PC, and it just kills it. Kills it right in the face. Kills it right in the face with a brick and then comes back with a breeze block to finish the job.

Really sounds nasty I am looking forward to the follow up on that one.

Then lately there is this whole Joost thing going on. Taking a page from Google and Gmail by making it an invite only thing at first to peak interest these guys have got it going on for the moment. We'll see how it works out as some big players have jumped in with them. Still not having seen the service myself it sounds like yet another way for them (whoever them represents) to get advertisements onto my PC. Self directed reruns and commercials sort of like cable only the way I want it instead of the package cable provides. Curious yeah but not that much though.

Of course with Microsoft's recent release of Vista things are starting to get interesting in the hackasphere. Shall we say game on?

Las Vegas (NV) - A hacker duo will demonstrate several ways of getting past Windows Vista security in an upcoming Black Hat training class. Polish security researcher Joanna Rutkowska and Alex Tereshkin will show off new rootkits and ways to defeat Vista’s vaunted BitLocker drive encryption.

An actual class on the subject of defeating a platform's security features for 3,000 dollars. Not my thing but I do find it interesting. I wonder if people attending a class like that sign NDA documents or something similar.

Last off in the incredible greed department there is this whole lets screw up internet radio thing happening as well. One thing is for certain the entertainment industry really doesn't get their target demographic anymore in fact they are completely clueless about them... a side effect of greed I am sure. Well thats it for this installment.

Saw This Today

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 20:53:00 -0500

What OS do some billionaires (at least one anyway) run on their laptops.

What operating system do the heads of Fortune 500 companies run on their personal laptops? In the case of Michael S. Dell, president and CEO of Dell, it's Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn.

Yes, the head of Dell Inc., with a market-capitalization of just south of $56-billion, isn't just saying that Dell will be selling Linux-equipped PCs in the near future -- he's already running Linux at home...

The whole synopsis of Mr. Dell's $4000 rig can be found at DesktopLinux.com. Other things that I just happened to notice today was that as advertised Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn went final today.

Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Beta

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 21:40:00 -0500

I installed the Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Beta well actually I had tried one of the previous herds as well. The herd didn't work to well for me the operative word would be slow so I was skeptical how much improvement I would see with the beta version. However on my PC at least the difference is unbelievable. It is not only fast but almost everything and every update since installing it has worked flawlessly. I have so far only experienced two glitches with one being that enabling desktop effects (compiz) makes the machine unstable and using Totem for web based video is only acceptable at best as from time to time it will crash. The first I could care less about wobbly windows and multiple desktops on a cube mean little if anything to me and seem more like bloat than an actual feature. The second issue was easily remedied by installing MPlayer although I still let Totem do DVDs as that works very well. Upon first booting there was an icon in the system notification area of Gnome Panel something called the Restricted Drivers Administration. Clicking on it opened a dialog that allowed me to enable my wireless card and graphics driver. Doing a search for codecs in the Add/Remove applications got the system more multimedia ready but to play windows media files the w32codecs still had to be installed by hand and to play commercial DVDs an additional repository had to added to get libdvdcss2 installed. From the same repositry I also installed Google Earth and Adobe Acrobat Reader. Network connectivity is now handled by Network Manager which to my surprise just worked and worked flawlessly as compared to earlier attempts I had made trying to use the tool. As far as installing the OS went I went with the Alternate Install CD as I don't particularly care to have my Master Boot Record over written, I actually use a Windows tool for managing my multiboot needs. in addition to that for whatever reason I always have to set my IP address manually for the wired portion of my connectivity options when installing the the various releases of Ubuntu but the wireless portion always does everything correctly once the router is associated (i.e. in the past this meant once I got wpa-supplicant working). I don't really know why this is like this but it been this way for awhile even though everything is automatically assigned for either connection under Windows (i.e once I get through the connection wizard). Maybe I have a winrouter or something but Ubuntu will not pull an IP address or the router won't assign one for the wired portion of my network, however once one is manually assigned everything works fine network Windows shares are exposed, the router can be logged on to ...etc.

I of course have my favorite lineup of programs as I have always said for a Linux distro to work for me I want to be able to surf the web, listen to music online, watch video on the web, watch DVDs, email, print, scan and do lite image and text editing. Ubuntu 7.04 Beta delivers and then some. It is still an 80%/20% proposition meaning that the system is 80% percent finished after the inital install. That being said I can't really call Ubuntu a beginners distribution although the 20% part seems to be progressively easier to navigate with each subsequent release. The thing is though once it is all configured it becomes a very very user friendly OS maybe could even pass the grandma test. I really don't mean any disrespect with that comment as since I am using Ubuntu it could probably be referred to as grandpa safe. Suffice it to say that this release of Ubuntu is my favorite to date and for the heck of it I have Included some screen captures just like them big time sites do...
Nothing to extravagant here just a few shots of the desktop to let any one who is not familiar with Ubuntu or Linux in general see that there are really are other OS choices out there that can and do deliver. Oh yeah each picture is linked to a full size image.

Nothing to fancy here just your basic screen capture the Google Earth application is available with Synaptic using the Medibuntu repository.

A very very important capability to me anyway is the ability to stream WMV files. MPlayer is doing the deal here with help of of the w32codecs.

Here is a root file browser which is probably not recommended as from this window the system could be trashed. Here are my Windows paritions laid open with read/write access enabled. Also probably not recommended as from that window Windows could be trashed. Of course it is convenient to be able to move some files back and forth. Browsing files as root takes one out of the command line for a lot of tasks as well.

My printer/scanner combination was identified and all features work.

Nvidia settings and adjustments worked as expected which is always a big one with Linux in my limited experience anyway. This pretty much concludes my overview of the Ubuntu 7.04 Beta. A couple quick items for the geeks types out there I am running the 32BIT version with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ (both cores identified and functioning) with 3GB of DDR3200 RAM on a Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro-SLI motherboard with a 256MB GeForce 7600 GT PCIe video card. In as much as we know our PCs this system (for the moment anyway) is running very well.

Dell Might Be Listening

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 21:09:00 -0500

It seems that a major player in the PC manufacturer sphere might actually get past talking about offering the average end user a choice in a desktop OS. No word on which Linux yet or what support options will be available, but the whole overall strategy is more less explained on Dell's blog. From their Ideas in Action website is this bit.

Dell has heard you and we will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line. Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems. We will provide an update in the coming weeks that includes detailed information on which systems we will offer, our testing and certification efforts, and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available. The countdown begins today.

By all accounts I can find Dell isn't saying a whole lot about this other than it will happen and may happen fairly soon.

I for one would like to see this idea succeed. i hope they give this a lot of thought and planning so time frame in my opinion is not the biggest issue but rather getting it right for the end user is. Things like offering at least two popular distributions and some cool hardware options (as cool as hardware on any Dell is in a relative its got to work seamlessly with Linux sort of way). Then most importantly really promote the products as a valid choice (and the products should be really thought out well enough to be one) to their customers. If Dell can pull this off then that would be really awesome as finally there would be something out there beside OS X and Windows based PCs. I mean since PCs are what every one is building for the desktop/laptop market these days why not have another OS or two supported by at least one of the big time PC manufacturers.

On The Desktop

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 14:49:00 -0600

I see Windows Vista showing up in my visitor logs with increasing frequency here lately. While I am sure I'll upgrade eventually I find myself spending more time with Ubuntu than anything else lately. It seems to work fine almost everything I need to do from an Internet slash entertainment perspective anyway. My only complaint about Linux in general is that drivers are often non existent for many popular peripheral hardware devices. The words will work with Linux carry increasing weight with me as time passes. Other than that though the platform works for my basic needs.... web browsing, email, listening to music, watching most video (some idiot sites are so under Microsoft's proprietary spell that they refuse to play nice unless they see IE on the user end which is most idiotic on their part but sheep will be sheep I guess), some lite word processing, and graphics manipulation. I even have to admit that it is sort of satisfying when I am going for days on the Linux side of the hard disk to not have to stop and do the monthly patch cycles from Microsoft. Of course other PCs in the house have to be checked to make sure that the Windows auto updating feature did indeed do its job and eventually of course I will find myself back in Windows for one reason or another and that means bringing my PC up to date as well. The whole Linux is free thing is nice as well... if some major manufacturer just had the nerve to offer Linux as an outright alternative to Windows and really try to sell the idea by offering really quality machines and then maybe discount the price of PCs that are sold with Linux since it is free or cheap. The last time I checked Vista don't come cheap especially considering a lot of people will need a new PC to run it. It could only improve the whole alternative OS experience as far as end users are concerned, not to mention Linux has software suites to do almost everything imaginable (numbering in the thousands) for free as well. However no major PC manufacturer would have the nerve to piss of Microsoft like that. Oh well this is where I will stop and just get back to my that is just way things are logic.

Linspire 'Click And Run' To Work With Other Distros

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:38:00 -0600

Sounds interesting enough I guess if they can really make it work seamlessly across the different distros. They will also offer access to free as well as pay for software offerings. I could actually see this having an at least small following if reliability and ease of use can be achieved.

Launching in the 2nd Quarter of 2007, CNR.com will be a free on-line digital software warehouse and one-click delivery service designed to solve the complexity of finding, installing and managing software applications on your Linux desktop computer. CNR.com will be the most extensive resource available anywhere for desktop Linux software. Search from tens of thousands of Linux software products, packages and libraries by title, popularity, similar software, category, author, or function, and then install the software with just one click of your mouse.

Finding, installing and updating software has been confusing for many desktop Linux users, with each distribution requiring their own installation process. With over five years of development, CNR will now normalize the process of finding, installing and updating Linux software for the most popular Linux distributions, both Debian and RPM based. Support for different Linux distributions will begin being available in the 2nd Quarter of 2007 via a new website, www.cnr.com. Distributions expected to be supported during 2007 are (alphabetically): Debian, Fedora, Freespire, Linspire, OpenSUSE, and Ubuntu, with other distributions planned to follow.

I personally like Linux and would love to see it succeed as a mainstream desktop OS. In my experience however it doesn't pan out that way and ends up being a hobby OS. That's fine for me but the average user though probably sees it more like a frustration or even a waste of time. I mean when someone asks "what time is it?" Do they want the time or instructions on how to build a clock. That is how the whole Linux on the desktop scene strikes me anyway. So if any company or individual could simplify the experience for end users I would support their efforts. Some people close to the source don't always see it that way while others seem more realistic. If anyone is interested check out this press release.

Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:55:00 -0600

Well I have the machine running the Edgy Eft now and aside from the fact that I could not get it to do an in place upgrade from its Dapper Drake self, and it took me two attempts before I got it installed to my satisfaction I like it. For the record I did not try the Desktop install CD but instead used the alternate install CD not to say the Desktop CD would not have worked I have just always done it this way. However once I got it running I found it very suitable. I am running the 2.6.17-10-generic kernel with the nvidia-glx drivers offered from the restricted repositories and both cores of my AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ are recognized. I was able to get sound out of all my speakers without to much trouble and as I did with the Dapper Drake I am using mplayer with mozilla-mplayer packages to handle most Internet based multimedia needs such as playing WMV files from sites such as CNN. Flash just worked this time so no tweaks were need to get sound in flash videos. I have net dabbled with my wireless card as for the moment I am using the onboard ethernet port and a wireless bridge client so I can not say how easy or difficult it is to get WPA-PSK working. I may give it whirl later. The printer/scanner I use was recognized and works perfectly. I didn't try to setup SLI with the video cards as that has been problematic in the past. Goals for this latest incarnation of Ubuntu include setting up a webcam and maybe installing some virtualization software and trying to get some Windows applications to run.

Just A Quick Post

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 18:07:10 -0500

Hey just a quick post to let people know I am still around. I started a new job a little over a month ago and most of my time has been devoted to that. When I have had spare time recently I have been involved in things other than reading the latest web/PC related news. I have been suffering from some sort of web burnout I guess. I have managed to keep everything patched and am now sporting the latest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer. I am primarily a Firefox user as it lets the user customize it more. Internet Explorer may be big improvement from the safety standpoint but in my opinion from the user interface perspective is a giant leap backwards. It just don't move me. I have noticed also that Ubuntu has their next release up to release candidate status so when I get some time I might try it out.

Ubuntu Developers Apologise

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 23:16:00 -0500

I may have been a little harsh in original assessment of the X server upgrade issue that occurred last Monday with Ubuntu. Anyway they have issued an apology and instructions for anyone who still may be experiencing this issue..

A series of errors during the update process has seriously affected some Ubuntu 6.06 LTS users who installed updates between 17:30 UTC on Monday 21 August and 10:00 UTC on Tuesday 22 August. For certain users this will have caused the graphical interface of Ubuntu to fail.

You should follow the steps outlined below to resolve the issue. Note that no data will have been lost or corrupted, and that there are no security vulnerabilities associated with this problem.

We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused.

Timely response to an issue is a big deal in my opinion so I will give them good marks for their resolution of this issue. As far as my reaction to such events goes it's sort of like that Hewlett Packard commercial where the guy says "that's my life in there" referring to his laptop. That's pretty much how I feel about my data. When things go wrong I tend to get upset.