February 2007 Archives

Took a look at the Ubuntu books today, and I didn't see "Ubuntu Linux for Non-Geeks," which I think will be pretty good, but I did see a few of the others (here's what Amazon offers).

The best I did see was "Beginning Ubuntu Linux: From Novice to Professional," by Keir Thomas. It reads well and has a lot of good information for Ubuntu users, present and future.

I've been looking all over for Mini-ITX systems -- with smaller motherboards than even mini-ATX -- and have been disappointed by the prices. Seems that it costs about $400 to put together a decent system.

The problem is that there are two ways to go -- regular "small" 200-watt power supply (with a fan) and either fan-cooled or fanless CPU, or a totally fanless system with lower power consumption and ... silence. Not that I notice the fan in my Dell (I'm in a newsroom, you know -- it's not silent here), but the idea of being able to, with good conscience, leave a computer running all the time and not burning off a lot of power, well, it makes a fanless, low-wattage system all the more attractive.

The places I've found that offer such miniature systems include Cappuccino PC, iDOTpc and the Damn Small Linux Store.

Now, you might say, "Why not just get a laptop?" That's a very legitimate question, since a laptop packs the screen, keyboard and mouse into one small package. But there still the fan problem, even the power-consumption problem -- and for a desktop system, why not also have a low-power alternative?

OK, I'll admit -- it's a geek thing. You gotta geek to understand it.

But back to mini-ITX. There certainly are Intel processors in the mini-ITX world, but the space, small as it is, literally and otherwise, is owned by Via Technologies, the company that created it. Since quasi-thin-client and other non-traditional uses, such as home-theater management, are common applications for mini-ITX, and since quiet, fanless construction is encouraged, these boxes, when assembled, are generally not as powerful as regular PCs. Not a lot of 3 GHz chips, meaning.

But many of the mini-ITX systems use processors as slow as 400 MHz ... not the greatest, for sure. And once you get the fan for the traditional power supply, and a fan on the CPU, you might as well do a mini-ATX box for half the price.

Getting to my point ... you can configure these little boxes with internal hard drives, and CD or DVD drives, or you can go diskless and use Compact Flash or Disk on Module internal storage. That's what I'm interested in at this point -- running Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux from a flash drive on a small, silent, power-sipping system. Even the problems with flash memory longevitiy aren't that big if regular backups to an external CD drive are performed. I recently bought a 1 GB Compact Flash chip for $17, and replacing that on a yearly basis is not something I'm totally against. And with a system like Puppy, you only write to the drive once per computing session, so the CF or DOM would last a good long time.

Initially I wanted to have at minimum an internal CD-RW drive, and for that the Cappuccino systems excel. But for real-world use, I think a totally driveless, fanless system -- and one with a little processing power to make it all run good -- is what I want. The best I've seen is the Bargain Fanless Mini-ITX BareBones Computer (pictured above and at right, next to a "big" mini-ITX box) from DSL. Case dimensions are 213 x 45 x 200 mllimeters ... which to you and me is 8.4 x 1.7 x 7.9 inches.

It runs at 1 GHz, yet is still fanless, with a rubberized heat sink that makes contact with the case for additional cooling. A barebones system, it doesn't come with RAM, but does use common DDR memory, which is pretty cheap these days, going for about $30 for 512 MB. It has all the usual connectors (parallel, serial, PS2 for keyboard and mouse, 10/100 LAN, plus mic and audio in, and four USB 2.0 ports. The latter is significant because many of the systems I've seen, especially those destined to be "thin clients," meaning diskless workstations connecting and getting applications via a network, have USB 1.1 only.

I'd run it with Compact Flash as opposed to Disk on Module so the CF chip could be pulled and worked on with a card reader connected to a bigger PC.

The best part: The box costs only $245 ... add $20 for the CF chip, $30 to $70 for your DDR memory stick, and you have a usable fanless system that's about the size of a book. Other systems are comparably priced ... and it's worth checking them out ... but this can get you out the door -- fanless -- for $300 flat. Other than thin clients, it's hard to beat that AND have the 1 GHz processor, which I'm loathe to give up because I want the system to not just be small and efficient, I want it to run well, too. And if I wanted or needed to run a CD or hard drive, they could be hooked up via the USB -- and since this is a Via motherboard, it boots from USB, too.

For comparison's sake, here's a system from Cappuccino PC, the Light 5000 (LT5) 3LAN Fanless Mini PC, measuring 9.2 x 6.9 x 1.9 inches -- and seen at left.. It has a Via processor at 533 MHz, 3 LAN ports (why so many??), 2 USB 1.1 ports, all the other usual inputs, plus interfaces for 40- and 44-pin IDE drives, Disk on Chip and CF capability. The Barebones system is $299. That's without memory or hard drive. You can't add a CD drive on board, but you can stuff a 2.5-inch hard disk in there. Also, there is available Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Putting together a system with only one LAN port (yes, you can do that) saves $30, boosting to 512 MB RAM is $50 (you can probably do better on your own), taking out the HD saves $69, and you are out the door for $380. Add $20 for your CF chip, and that's an even $400. So, let's take away $20 for the memory and say it's $380.

So ... for $300, you get a faster processor and faster USB than you get for $380 ... and that means I've got my eye on the DSL system. Still, should I be all hyped on the fanless aspect, or should I just bite it and get a more mainstream system from iDOTpc, such as the iBox Falcon C3 (pictured in various states of undress below) -- dimensions are 5.31"(W) x 11.75"(H) x 10.24"(D) -- and highly configurable. It does have a more traditional, fan-cooled power supply, with options for motherboards both fan-cooled and fanless. And it can hold both a hard drive and CD or DVD drive -- hey's it's bigger, all right!

The barebones unit is $272. With 600 MHz fanless motherboard, 512 MB RAM, 512 MB Compact Flash (or add your own 1 GB CF for about the same money), the price is $280. Not bad. I'm not sure if both 1 GHz motherboards are fanless, but one of them adds $43 to the price for a total of $307. Pretty good. It's never entirely fanless due to the power supply being a traditional PC type, albeit smaller and rated at 200 watts. But you can add the hard and optical drives, and that makes it more like a traditional PC. At least you have the option -- and you could run a bigger Linux than Puppy or DSL, like Ubuntu, Fedora, or what have you, and get it installed without opening up the box and jumping through hoops. There are many, many more systems available from these three companies, and others are in the mini-ITX business, too. If you're OK spending $400-$700, there are a lot more options. But if you want to go fanless and keep it under $500, I have your best deals right here.

Sure open-source applications and open-source operating systems are intertwined, but I think the near future is all about people using open-source apps on non-Linux operating systems, i.e. using free software on their existing Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows platforms.

It's a natural progression from paying for all software (or, all too commonly, "stealing" those apps) and suffering through the upgrades that follow, paying again and again, yet not having the shock to the system, bodily and computer-wise, of trying to get Linux to work.

I say this partially because my experiences with OS X and Windows XP on newish hardware are overwhelmingly positive. The OSes pretty much never crash, and apps only crash regularly (and recovery is easy). Additionally, the major apps, in Windows anyway, are tuned to load and work quickly. Try loading Word or IE in Windows -- it's almost instant. That's because, as some say, major components of those programs are preloaded with the OS kernel. Whatever the reason, I like it. I don't see the same speed in OS X -- many apps take too long to load, although they're plenty fast once they get going. But from a stability and compatibility point, the two "major" PC OSes work very, very well.

But since I don't want to pay $140-$200 every couple of years for "upgrades," I'm looking extra closely at Linux.

Still, for the business world, it's possible to use Linux and save money, but it's not likely for the majority of businesses, which are pretty much going to order Windows boxes and plop them on desks. That's where open-source software can really shine. Everybody already uses Firefox, and more and more are using Open Office, even if it is slower than MS Office. It's a lot freer, as in NOT $400 or so, and that makes a big difference when it comes to equipment budgets.

Already at the Daily News, we use OO, and a lot of us need the functionality of Photoshop (or even the "light" version). But the company is not running out and purchasing either the $700-ish Adobe CS or even the $70-ish Photoshop Elements. Instead, a bunch of us are using The GIMP, the open-source image-editing program that runs on Linux, Windows and OS X and, again, while possibly not quite as good as the full version of Photoshop, is a whole lot cheaper, being free and all.

So when it comes to apps, it's a slam dunk to pay nothing instead of hundreds of dollars. For operating systems, it's a tougher non-sell, since the OS generally comes "bundled" with the hardware and is good for the life of the box. I can assure you, this newsroom full of Dell Optiplexes with Windows XP will never see Vista -- and that's a good thing, too, since they don't (and never will) have enough memory or graphics power to properly run the latest MS operating system.

Of course, open-source apps on closed-source operating systems is closer to wholly open-source computing, and the needle is most definitely moving.

Many improvements have gone into Puppy 2.14, as Desktop Linux reports, and I figured, maybe this is the kernel (and other various and sundry add-ons) that will work with my Airlink 101 AWLH3026 PCI wireless card ... without me getting all geeky and opening up a bunch of configuration files and typing in stuff that I really don't know about ... of course, if said typing was LAID OUT FOR ME somewhere, I'd gladly do it.

I fired up Puppy 2.14 on This Old PC and tried to configure the wireless adapter. As in 2.13, the system found the adapter and suggested the ra61 Linux driver. I have yet to get rock-solid confirmation that this is the correct driver for my particular wireless card (even the same model numbers can have different chipsets -- I'll have to pull the card and look for that info). Again, as in 2.13, if I try to search for networks or otherwise connect with the card, nothing happens, and I can't get into the network settings again until I reboot ...

Frustrating, yes. ... I've read many a post from people who had to do all kinds of things to get their wireless adapters running in Linux. And I am ready to try Ndiswrapper with the Windows driver, but for Linux to really be ready for prime time, all these issues -- networking, sound, reading Windows filesystems, USB, PCMCIA compatibility, need to somehow be dealt with in a less-geek-intensive way. That's what Windows and Mac offer (and mostly deliver) -- a whole lot of hardware compatibility out of the box ... except when it doesn't work, of course (principally when computing "outside the box," which in my case meant using Windows 98 instead of 2000).

I don't have a lot of time with This Old PC, but I'd sure like to get Puppy working with wireless.

Abiword is one of the great free, open-source, multiplatform programs out there. It looks like Microsoft Word, acts like Microsoft Word, yet is faster than Word -- and it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. The only problem -- no smart quotes (since to the Linux geek world, smart quotes are the devil's -- e.g. Microsoft's -- plaything). But I'm learning to live without them, and Abiword is so damn fast, at least I'm getting something for my trouble.

Jeremiah Foster of O'Reilly's Mac blog tells of his brother's surprise when the Microsoft Word on his new Mac suddenly stopped working. Seems it was a "trial" version. He figured that he already paid for Word (even though he didn't), and didn't want to pay any more, so Jeremiah told him about Abiword:

Abiword looks a lot like Word, or rather how you expect Word to look. I have no idea what Word looks like today, with the release of Vista surely the interface has changed in Word but I do not use it. Abiword has all the right buttons in the usual places, it is very easy to get acquainted with its interface. It has all the tools you’d expect, spell checking, various formatting, plus some things you might not expect. One very handy feature is that it reads and writes all kinds of documents. You can use it to write html for example and of course it can read all your Word documents (.doc) and rich text (.rtf) documents. Abiword also has a versioning system. This is particularly useful if you make multiple revisions of your documents or need to get back text you wrote previously. It changes the text of different revisions to make it clear what has changed. It even has a built in tool to report bugs so you can aid in the development of the software.

I already like Abiword better than Open Office (although OO does do smart quotes) because Abi is so much quicker to load, especially on my older hardware. I also like Ted, another slick word processor, which is even quicker to load than Abiword. The only problem: Ted doesn't save in Word's .doc format ... and it's Linux/Unix only.

Another word processor I've had occasion to use in the last week was KWord, part of the KOffice suite that works with KDE desktops under Linux. KDE is known for being slow, but that doesn't have to be the case, I've learned. MepisLite, the still-developing little brother to the SimplyMepis Linux distribution, is surprisingly responsive for a KDE-bases system -- and it's designed to work on older hardware. KOffice ran great, but the one problem I see so far is, again, no .doc option for saving files -- is that so hard, people? Like it or not, and I really do not, Word is the de facto standard for formatted documents, and it's almost as make-or-break as smart quotes for professional publishing. And if you're calling your suite KOFFICE and KWORD, shouldn't they be compatible with the programs from which their names were derived?

I plan to explore MepisLite and SimplyMepis further, so I imagine I'll spend more time in the KOffice world. For real geeks, including Linux creator Linus Torvalds, KDE is much preferred to GNOME due to the former's greater configurability ... and the geekier the better, right?

If you're interested in Linux news, Lxer stays right on top of it, linking to relevant news, blogs and other meanderings about the free, open-source operating system all day, every day. It's the place I go when I want to find out the latest in Linux.

Here's what Lxer says about itself:

LXer (http://LXer.com/) is a fully independent news and opinion site, established in January 2004, by Linux veteran Dave Whitinger, a well-known personality in the free and open source software community.

LXer is one of the most widely read Linux community news and opinion sites. People turn to LXer for its frequently updated news feed and comments. Over 400,000 unique users from over 165 countries visit LXer each month, and LXer is syndicated by Google and dozens of other community sites. CIOs, CTOs, government officials, as well as programmers, system administrators and end users make up our very active community.

Our top quality editors create, edit, and present information about GNU/Linux and free/open source software via our frequently-updated newswire.

Here are the people behind Lxer (check out the headgear).

An example of the great stuff that Lxer has led me to, is this entry, 13 Things to Do Immediately After Installing Ubuntu, which leads here, if you want to skip a click. It's a way to take care of all the stuff that Ubuntu doesn't do for you, the reasons being mostly political and geekical (no closed-source software, no access to NTFS file systems, no proprietary CODECs, no Microsoft fonts, enabling the "multiverse" to get more software, etc.) Do this after installing Ubuntu and you'll be that much closer to having a system that does all the stuff it should be doing.

And, after that, get the Kubuntu and Xubuntu add-on packages so you can toggle between the three desktop environments while not being limited to one or the other.

Puppy Linux gets a new version -- 2.14. It can't be more than a month since the last Puppy, but since it works so well as a live CD, it's easy to just download a new 80 MB ISO and burn a new disc. I'm writing this entry on the new Puppy, which I got via the download page.

Here's what's new in Puppy 2.14.

Upon first boot, my pup_save file was modified -- the boot script told me everything -- and at this point I don't know whether to save the configuration or revert back and stay with 2.13 for now. I'm very averse to upgrading anything when I don't have to, but in the case of Linux, anything that promises to recognize more of my hardware is something I want -- and now.

For a quick Puppy progress report, on the newish Dell 3 GHz, everything works great -- sound, Ethernet, printing and video. I'll have to try this new build on This Old PC to see if I can get wireless with it. As I've said before, the first Linux to get everything working on both of these boxes wins.

In the running for best small Linux is Damn Small Linux. The bigger DSL-n rendition does Ethernet on the Dell, but I've yet to get wireless on This Old PC working with anything -- and the regular DSL won't even find the Ethernet on the Dell. The closest so far has been Ubuntu -- I see routers but get nothing in Firefox. I need some time to test this new ... Puppy ... and do more DSL work as well.

The first thing I notice in Puppy 2.14 is that it seems faster. As always, Puppy runs totally in RAM, but Abiword and the Seamonkey browser load instantly -- not even a 2-second wait.

The G5 CPU is fairly new, super fast ... and fading into obsolescence.

The same is true for the G4 (except the "new" and "super fast" parts).

The G3: down on all counts.

Many G4s can comfortably run OS X 10.3.9, and I bet most will run 10.4.6 and the soon-debuting 10.5. But that will likely be the last Apple OS upgrade that will even be compiled for any chip in the PowerPC family, I think.

A G3 can run OS X, if it's fast enough. But those machines really thrive on OS 9.2.2. Except that there's no modern Web browser that'll run on them. Oh, and there's been no innovation, support or applications coming down the pike for, say ... seven years now.

Did you know that you can bring a G3 Mac into the era of current browsers and more free apps with Linux? Well ... you can, but it's not all so rosy.

There are a few Linux distributions that compile for PowerPC (going back to G3 and previous PPC chips, but not all the way back), the most popular being the fast-rising, easy-loading Ubuntu.

I have burned PowerPC CDs for Ubuntu and Xubuntu. On my iBook G4, Ubuntu ran right away, with sound and Ethernet auto-configured to work. I've never before gotten sound to work on anything without a little tweaking. Would I dump OS X 10.3.9 for Ubuntu? Probably not, but I'd consider dual-booting for the time being. (Since that machine is used mostly by Ilene, I'm going to leave it as is.)

The relationship between Ubuntu (funded by a weathy South African whose name escapes me) and the PowerPC chip is straining. Since PPC accounts for about 5 percent of Ubuntu users, Ubuntu creator Canonical has recently converted the PowerPC versions of all the 'Buntus from fully supported product with twice-yearly updates to a "community maintained" port ... and a more tenuous status overall.

There is much hair-rending and teeth gnashing in the very busy Ubuntu forums over the distancing from PPC, but the beauty of Linux is that there are hundreds of distributions -- and at least a few of them have PowerPC ports and will maintain them. (Yellow Dog and Suse come to mind).

Let me emphasize: If you're running OS 9 on a G3 or early G4, you might want to give Ubuntu Linux (or its less-powerful cousin Xubuntu) for PowerPC a try.

While the live CD of Ubuntu worked perfectly in the iBook, it didn't fare so well on a Power Mac G4 tower, which pretty much screams on OS 9. On that machine, Ubuntu booted slowly (slow CD drive, I think), Ethernet wouldn't work (I did a quick config and got nothing) and upon launch of Open Office, the whole thing crashes. No 'Buntu live CDs would even load on the iMac G3 500 MHz. Many commenters have said that using the alternative install CD of Xubuntu allows installation to the hard drive, and that method does work.

The upshot: If Ubuntu, or any other distribution, can bring a modern Web browser to G3 Macs, that is huge.

Got here via Digg: Windows Vista vs. Ubuntu Edgy Eft, a side-by-side review by Jack Slingerland.

Some excerpts:

With Windows Vista, Microsoft has taken a giant leap forward with the usability of networking. For once networking(both wireless and wired) works out of the box. Setting up home networks is a breeze with the new interface, and the system doesn’t hang as nearly as often as it did before. One of the nicest features I’ve noticed in Vista’s networking window is the ability to decided who sees what. You can set it up so that you can browse people, but they can’t browse you. Or you can lock yourself down and not be able to browse anyone. While it may not be practical sometimes, it’s nice to have that kind of control.

Ubuntu has some work to do in the networking department. By default, it will detect nearly any network you put it on, but if you need to configure this network at all… good luck. Ideally I’d like to see Ubuntu with a more user friendly network setup. The one thing Ubuntu does do right though is the ability to connect to a plethora of different servers(SSH, FTP, HTTPS, HTTP, etc) with a simple click. I personally use the feature all the time. All in all, I’d say that Vista and Ubuntu are neck and neck with networking, with Vista inching a little forward because of the ease of use.

It's great being next door to Fry's, but they don't have deals like this -- in fact, they don't seem to package much of anything together when it comes to barebones computers, preferring to cede that area of the business to ... others.

The deals I'm talking about are on barebones systems at Tiger Direct.

The first includes a motherboard, 3.33 GHz Intel Celeron processor with fan, case and power supply, all for $99 after a $60 rebate. Add a hard drive, memory and a CD drive and you're done.

If you want more in the box, for $249 after a $102 rebate, there's a system with case, motherboard, 3 GHz Pentium with fan, power supply, 160 GB hard drive, 512 MB RAM. Add a CD drive and that's it ...

Oh ... both don't include the OS. Or a monitor, keyboard or mouse. These are perfect for people who are replacing an aging system and are OK with keeping the peripherals that came with it ... like the CD-R or DVD drive, and all that other crap that plugs into it.

Photo: The $249 system from Tiger Direct.

I finally broke down and saved my Puppy Linux configuration to the hard drive so I don't have to type in the various paramaters every time I boot. Now Puppy loads from CD-ROM in under 2 minutes. I'll have to do a more geeky, exact-second count later, but for now, it's all good.

Tip: When printing, the LaserJet 5 driver doesn't work. Pick Generic Postscript instead.

Puppy services working tally: Ethernet, sound, printing. In short, everything works on the Dell 3 GHz PC.

on This Old PC, Ethernet works. I haven't gotten sound yet. That machine's sound card is not PCI, hence not plug 'n' play. It's an old ISA card, and I'll have to spend a little time (or spend $9 for a new sound card, but I'd like to make the old one work). I'm getting close on wireless. It turns out my Airlink 101 AWLH3026 PCI Wi-Fi card has the Ralink 2500 chipset. Puppy knows its there and suggests the rt61 driver. But then when I try to do anything, the Network Wizard dies and can't be resurrected until the next boot.

Is it possible that I can't have Ethernet and wireless running at the same time? I'll have to try that. Since the driver is right there -- a Linux driver, mind you, it should work.

Funny. In Ubuntu, I can even see the neighborhood routers, but nothing in Firefox. At least I know that Linux and the Airlink are speaking, if not fully.

I'm thisclose to getting printing on This Old PC (parallel port, old LaserJet). Add sound and wireless, and I will have both systems working completely.

P.S. the mount/unmount tool in Puppy saw all my drives -- both CDs, Zip, USB flash, HD and floppy. The neat thing is that when you mount a drive, a file-manager window of what's on it pops up automatically. Neat and quick.

And have I mentioned in the past three entries or so that Puppy 2.13 comes equipped with Flash. It's a must for any Linux distro, but few include it. And even though it's not open source, Flash has taken over the video world. You can't watch YouTube without Flash (or most anything else, for that matter).

I wasn't feeling too charitable about the progress in my live-CD Linux "project," as I couldn't get much done on This Old PC, but since I've gotten everything I need out of This New PC, i.e. the Dell, I'm pig-in-shit happy today.

This Old PC tidbit: In Windows 2000, Internet Explorer 6 loads in about 4 seconds. Firefox takes about 20 seconds. That's why I cling to IE. Word 97 loads in about 5 seconds, too. I wonder why it takes about 30 on This Old Mac to load Word 6.0, and would I see any improvement with Office 98 (which I have on disc), or would things get worse?

It's official. Ubuntu for PowerPC goes from fully supported to community supported.

What's left for PowerPC people. Open SUSE, Yellow Dog ... and ???

Question: Will the PC version of Ubuntu work on Intel-based Macs?

PowerPC -- it's not the beginning of the end. It's more like the middle (of the end).

By now it's old news that Apple abandoned the IBM-made PowerPC line of CPUs in favor of Intel inside (or is it Inside, capital I?). For the first time, Apple shares a processor family with its Windows-running bretheren. Now if the market share between Mac and PC was 50-50, or even 20-70, this would be even bigger news than it already is. But Apple is still in single digits when it comes to percentage of market share in the computing landscape.

What would really turn the computing world on its ear? An official Mac OS X port for the PC platform. It could be done. Apple could make billions.

They'd piss off everybody in Redmond, and Microsoft might pull the plug on Office for Mac. But Apple has already seen that kind of "trouble," with MS orphaning Internet Explorer for Mac. In that case, Apple thrived with its own Safari browser and the widely used Firefox, now the only browser to run on OS X, Windows and Linux (and yes, I am counting all the Mozilla derivatives as part of the Firefox family, even if Mozilla's the daddy and Firefox the fast-growing baby).

While on the subject, any software that has versions for all three major platforms -- Mac, Windows and Linux -- is a-OK by me. In addition to Firefox, the Abiword word processor and the Open Office suite are fine examples. It just makes it glaringly obvious how badly iTunes needs a Linux port. Keep it closed-source -- I don't care, just get iTunes on Linux already

Now back to our regularly scheduled computer whining ...!

Anything Microsoft did to "punish" Apple in the unlikely event that OS X for Windows is ever released would be dwarfed by fanfare, sales and sheer market-changing force by a real Windows competitor. After all, OS X 10.4 is the product upon which Windows Vista is modeled.

Hey, wasn't it the Classic Mac OS that drove Microsoft to develop Windows in the first place? (Answer: yes, for those of you too young to remember.)

OS X on a PC? You can already run Windows apps on an Intel Mac with Bootcamp or Parallels, and that has -- in some way -- boosted the esteem for Mac in the greater Windows-dependent world.

But a full OS X for PC can be done -- and should be. The fact that it hasn't, though, probably means it never will.

I was looking on Craigslist for bargains. Maybe a 300 MHz laptop with 128 MB RAM for $100. Or an 800 MHz desktop for the same $100 -- or less.

What did I find?

A lot of crap from people who are totally deluded as to its value -- if it has any at all.

Laptops with 100 MHz CPUs and 16 MB RAM for $75 -- hey kids, it comes with a Windows 98 disc! Bargain city! This, clearly is a $25 item, again, if it's worth anything at all.

And desktops -- where are the $50 PC desktops out there? It's hard to get rid of these for NOTHING -- even the Salvation Army doesn't want 'em. My very own This Old PC isn't worth $25 -- and on Craigslist I couldn't find anything priced ... to move.

I'd like an old laptop on which to test Linux. But I'll be double-damned if I'm paying $300 for 5-or-more-year-old hardware. If it cost you $600 in the year 2000, it's not worth $300 in 2007 -- it's just plain not.

Hell, Fry's periodically has a new laptop under its "Great Quality" label for $250 or so. No PCMCIA port (come on, now!) no WiFi. But it's a real PC laptop with a new, working battery, USB ports on the back ...

If they can blow out a new laptop for $250, surely you can let a five-year-old one fly for $100 or less. It's not doing you any good molding in your coat closet.

Every once in a while, somebody breaks out of the beige box when it comes to computer hardware. Not just in case color or size, but in conception, execution -- and even price.

Not that it's happening a lot, Apple being the leader when it comes to all the above angles on innovation -- excluding cost, of course, which remains high for Mac hardware.

But on another front, taking inspiration from the Mac Mini for size, from Linux for value, adding the flash-memory version of Puppy Linux, Michael C. Barnes, the Desktop Linux writer whose articles have been so helpful, has a company in Thailand called NorhTec, that specializes in small, rugged, fanless PCs -- one of which costs $120 and can run Puppy Linux from a Compact Flash memory card. (The people behind Damn Small Linux offer a similar setup but it costs $375-$399.)

The Norhtec machine doesn't have a hard drive. But it's $120. Yes, a new PC -- Mac Mini-style -- ready to be connected to your own keyboard, mouse and monitor. It's got USB ports -- so add a drive that way, if you must.

But in any event, you can run Puppy to get on the Internet, write e-mail, do word processing, spreadsheets and more. Remember -- there's no hard disc, no CD-ROM (or CD-R, or DVD), just a Compact Flash plug on the front, USB and Ethernet on the back.

It's a Linux-running Mac mini footprint minus the drives -- and at less than 1/4th the price.

So you want to run Linux from a floppy disk? Here's where to get it. And here's how to make the floppy. I tried it in Windows, but there's some problem running .bat files in XP, so I did it through Puppy Linux.

It works. I think you can only make it through Windows if you can somehow get a DOS prompt, which my version doesn't seem to allow. But downloading the tar.gz into Linux and following the instructions in the FAQ yielded me a perfect boot floppy. You can also make a bootable CD-ROM, but for a Linux this small, the floppy is perfect -- and just about every PC is set up to check the floppy drive first in the boot sequence.

The tomsrtbt floppy is a barebones Linux, for sure, but it did boot on an old Celeron 400 MHz with 32 MB of RAM (it wouldn't run on the newish Dell; that's why I sought out one of the few remaining old, creaky PCs in the building). I checked out a few directories, ran vi (man, I've forgotten a lot of old Unix) and shut it down. But if you want to screw around with the lightest Linux around, give tomsrtbt a try.

Linux on a single floppy. Does it get more geeky?

If you're among the Google geeks who likes to go to Google's home page on holidays just to see how they've doctored their logo, hit it now (or just look at the handy facsimile at the right). Somebody was so charmed with his or her creation of the chocolate-dipped strawberry for the lower-case G, the L got lost in the shuffle. Guess that means if you're looking up a subject on that search engine today, you're Googing it.

This 24-year-old teacher has been converting old iMac G3s to Linux with Xubuntu. He's got a helluva lot of comments on this post (which I found at Low End Mac).

He asks about whether or not he's using the right distribution, and in the comments, there was a link to this page on how to set Ubuntu up for high speed on low-spec systems. The writer, K. Mandla, says that his experience with Arch Linux made him (or is it her?) want to tweak Ubuntu for Arch-like speed:

I’ve built these systems on a variety of hardware. I used the core elements of this to put together a 75Mhz Ubuntu box, a 120Mhz Pentium system, a 300Mhz laptop for my mom to use, a 750Mhz laptop for music and movies, a 1Ghz desktop for gaming (you laugh, but I can run NWN at 1280×1024 on that ) and a 2.26Ghz see-if-you-can-break-it machine.

The results depend on the hardware, as you might imagine. But my proudest achievements are the fact that the 75Mhz Pentium build gets to the desktop on less than 22Mb (19Mb for the 300Mhz laptop!) and the 2.26Ghz machine goes from the Grub menu to the desktop in 27 seconds. It’s a joy to watch.

I've been getting up early every day -- 6:15 to 6:30-ish -- to work on Linux in The Back Room on This Old PC.

Briefly, here's how it went:

Damn Small Linux -- no wireless. Tried to get the driver off the CD-ROM. I had trouble transferring the file. I'll have to try again with the file moved off the CD and onto the hard drive or USB flash drive. Can't remember if I checked Ethernet. I tried to get printing going. The config seemed to go OK. The "test" print printed out the test page and then proceeded to feed through the rest of the 30 or so pieces of paper in the printer. Then nothing would print. I did manage to mount all the drives (HD, two CD drives, USB) -- and easily, too. I found out how to easily change between the Fluxbox and JWM window managers. Fluxbox looks better in this case (although I love JWM -- which stands for Joe's Window Manager -- in Puppy).

In Puppy Linux, all I tried to do was get the printer working. Did I mention that it's a parallel printer? Again, nothing.

Xubuntu 6.10, for the second day, wouldn't load at all. But Ubuntu 6.06 did. It's slow on the Pentium II 333, but it does work. And just about everything was autodetected. Ethernet, perfect. It saw my printer but wouldn't print. I have to look at the configuration again. Ubuntu is so slow, though, on this old machine. I'd love to be working with Xubuntu or Fluxbuntu instead. I'll have to burn a couple of new Xubuntu discs SLOWLY (6.06 and 6.10) and try again. If it can run Ubuntu, it damn sure should be able to run Xubuntu.

Wireless was also detected in Ubuntu. I could even see all the local routers in my neighborhood, including my own. But I couldn't get anything in Firefox. Something is a bit fishy, and I suspect that it can be easily solved -- for both wireless and parallel printing, but it'll take a little more doing. Still, I am not underestimating the power of automatic detection of my Airlink 101 wireless PCI card and parallel printer. If they only worked the whole way.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Windows XP works. And works well. All the stuff I'm doing with Linux is really fun, and it's a different, viable way to get stuff done on computers, but at many levels, you can have a very good computing experience with XP.

Windows has truly gotten better with each successive release, from 3.1 to 95 to 98, 2000 and XP. I can't vouch for ME, NT (although I do have a disc for it) or even Vista, but Microsoft seems to know just how much to bring to the table to push their OS forward.

I do the lion's share of work in Windows, a little bit on OS X, and now a little on Linux. Each has its merits, and demerits, for that matter. And the right tool for the job isn't always the same tool. So that's where my interest lies -- in matching up tool with job while having fun and ... yes ... getting stuff done.

See ya.

First of all, I love that song.

Second of all, the Wine emulation program for Linux, which enables users to run Windows apps in Linux without needing Windows at all, is notoriously difficult to install. In fact, there's a whole company -- and resulting software package -- called Codeweavers to make to process doable for those who aren't full-time geeks.

Now I need to run Internet Explorer for one task -- yes, it's a freakin' pain in the ass -- and have had no success in installing Wine on any Linux distribution.

But I came across IEs4Linux, which claims to offer a way to get Wine and IE into your Linux distribution with minimal effort.

It took a small bit of doing, about 5 minutes work -- and you have to open a terminal window.

But it works.

I installed in Xubuntu, using the instructions herein.

In a few minutes, I had a working IE 6 window on the screen. So if you absolutely, positively need to use IE, want to run Linux and can't seem to get Wine working otherwise, I heartily recommend this method -- again, it worked for me.

I'm running Puppy Linux on top of Windows XP with the help of the QEMU virtual machine -- and the hard work of Erik Veenstra. It's a lot slower than plain, pure Puppy, but since I can't spend all day in Puppy and must use XP to do real work, I can only snatch a few minutes here and there, and having Puppy ready and waiting in the QEMU window -- however slow it may be -- is better than no Puppy at all.

I say it's slow, and this is on a 3 GHz processor. I tried QEMU-Puppy -- the only QEMU-based version of any Linux I've been able to get working thus far, by the way -- on This Old PC at 333 MHz, and it was so slow as to be unusable. But on a fast machine running XP, you can get stuff done.

While in the QEMU Puppy, I changed the dark desktop background to the familiar Puppy blue (and now can see the names of the icons -- black on black never works, people).

I easily added the Ted word processor/text editor with Puppy Package Manager. I tried to add Open Office, but I didn't have enough space on my USB flash drive.

Ted is the word processor in Damn Small Linux. It doesn't save in .doc format, but uses .rtf (rich text format) instead -- a format still readable by Word, by the way. But I like Ted. That's one of the great things about using 10 or more different live-CD Linux distributions -- you get exposed to many different programs that you'd otherwise never see. And both Abiword and Ted have proven to be able writing programs. I like the way the characters look better in Ted, so if I can get away without using smart quotes or saving in .doc format, I will.

Those familiar with my smart-quote obsession might be interested in knowing that the smart-quote debate, while not exactly raging, is simmering in the Linux/open-source community. It seems that at one time, Abiword (which does save in .doc format, and which runs on Linux, Windows and OS X) had smart quotes added.

But in the geek world, smart quotes = Microsoft hegemony. Yes -- Microsoft is being blamed for smart quotes, and real geeks use straight quotes.

I will touch that last sentence no further. So the upshot is that of the leading word-processing programs in the Linux world, Abiword and Ted do NOT have smart quotes (I don't even know if you can drop them in manually), while the more bloated Open Office (not bloated compared to MS Office) offers them.

On the subject of working with Puppy ... there are so many ways to use Puppy. The easiest is the live CD. With that, you can save your session (and parameters) to the hard drive, to a USB flash drive, to an "open" CD or DVD ... or you can mount those drives, save the files you create (they are readable in by Windows apps, by the way -- a nice touch) there ... and do these in various combinations. You can even save multiple configurations (much like the multiple user accounts available in most Linuxes but not Puppy, in which you always work as root (if you don't know what that means, consider yourself lucky).

In fact, I'm going to try that now -- to make separate Puppy config files for running QEMU and the Live CD on two separate PCs.

Wish me luck.

I could never get Damn Small Linux to recognize the Ethernet on the Dell GX 520, so I couldn't really evaluate Damn Small Linux, one of the few, the proud mini-Linuxes that run fast -- and do so on old hardware.

I downloaded the ISO for DSL-n, which is 90 MB, as opposed to plain DSL's 50 MB. Sure it can't fit on a business-card-size CD anymore, but the net configuration in the bigger -n version runs much like its big brother, Knoppix (on which DSL is based). I was on the Web in 2 minutes.

And I'm posting this through the SeaMonkey browser.

On a somewhat related topic, the Daily News blogs moved to a new server over the weekend, promising a better experience for both readers and bloggers. We've had quite a time of late, with CGI timeouts and plain inaccessibility. Hopefully all is now well. I'll report back in a few days.

Meanwhile, I'm exploring DSL-n.

Here's a great site that introduces newbies to Linux and kind of gives you the lay of the land, as it were. It's called Make the Move, and is very, very well done. An excerpt:

Linux comes with thousands of free applications, which are maintained by thousands of volunteers around the world. These projects also release their source code, which means they too are 'open source'.

"But how can they do all this for free?" I hear you ask. The Linux and open source communities do all this for free because they love the software, not because they try to make money from it. They are doing it for prestige, honour and because they believe in open source ideals.

It is important to note that due to the nature of open source software (the ability to customise it however you like) there are many different version of Linux. This is great because you can find a version that suits you best! These different versions of Linux are called 'distributions'. This is because the creators of the various versions take Linux and make their own changes to it, add their own packages and then distribute it for free. It might sound complicated, but it's not. So don't worry, we'll help you get started on the right track!

We invite you to look further into Linux and welcome you to 'make the move' into an amazing new world.

...

Linux runs on anything. In fact it is the most widely supported operating system in the world! From brand new computers to old ones you were going to throw away there is always a Linux version for you. With Linux you can still browse websites all over the internet, watch movies, listen to your music, access your digital camera, use your scanner and much much more. You can also send emails and create documents that are compatible with Windows systems.

I've grown to like the blogs on O'Reilly's Linux Devcenter, and was especially taken by this entry from Caitlyn Martin (for one reason or another, O'Reilly has a high number of female writers -- a refreshing difference from most other techy-geeky blogs). Go here for all the Linux blogs from O'Reilly (which publishes those "in a Nutshell" books with the freakily illustrated covers, by the way).

The big news in the Linux and open-source world is the agreement between Canonical -- the company/entity/I-don't-exactly-know-what-the-hell-it-is behind super-fast-growing community-rich Linux distribution Ubuntu (and Kubuntu, Edbuntu, Xubuntu and Fluxbuntu) and Linspire/Freespire to bring their distributions together.

This means that Linspire and Freespire will be based on Debian-centric Ubuntu rather than Debian itself. Besides all the bells, whistles and other knickknacks that Ubuntu builds onto Debian, the 'Buntus are released in six-month development cycles, with support continuing for each distro for three years.

In exchange, Ubuntu gets Linspire's CNR (Click and Run) package installer, making adding new software and configuring hardware easier than ever. A key part of this is CNR's amassing of proprietary drivers that promise to make more hardware -- and especially more forms of video -- work in Linux without too much geekery on the part of users.

And as Ubuntu grows in massive leaps and bounds -- it's got to be the go-to distribution for people looking to move beyond Windows -- this will only help Linux in its quest to grab a larger share of the desktop market and, in turn, create a more seamless and enjoyable experience for the user.

Thanks to Desktop Linux for this news, and read their analysis for more:

Jeremy White, the CEO of CodeWeavers, publisher of the popular CrossOver Linux, a program that enables Linux users to run Windows program on their Linux desktops, said, "I have to confess that I've clearly been around too long. I'm just now shaking off this sense that this Ubuntu 'fad' is just a flash in the pan, like many others before it, and Linux enthusiasts are soon going to be moving on to the next 'new thing'."

"But that's clearly wrong; Ubuntu is clearly the 800 pound gorilla in the Linux desktop space, and I don't see that momentum slowing much anytime soon," White said.

"But this is all just good. Ubuntu isn't winning primarily on the basis of marketing (okay, having a billionaire backer allowing free CDs doesn't hurt), but the core reason for their success is simple: they write great software. And that can't help but be good for users," continued White.

That's the word, according to Apple and via Information Week:

It's not just Apple's iTunes software that won't work properly with Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system.

According to a document that Apple has posted on its Web site, none of the software that it's made available for the Windows environment has been updated for Vista compatibility.

That includes not only iTunes but QuickTime, Airport For Windows, Bonjour For Windows, iDisk utility, and AppleWorks for Windows. All of those applications or utilities are listed by Apple as compatible with Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows, but not Vista.

A Vista patch for iTunes is on the way, but for now, iTunes users are advised to NOT USE VISTA.

QuickTime is another Apple app that doesn't play well with Vista. Earth to Apple: QuickTime stinks in XP, too.

I wondered where all those comments on this Ubuntu post were coming from. Click got a link from Low End Mac, the premier Web site for ... low-end Macs, and one that I highly recommend to anybody who wants to both keep their older Mac going (and remember, any Mac is considered "older" after a couple of years) and to get news on where Apple and the Mac platform is going.

My previous Ubuntu post on my inability to boot from the live CD of Ubuntu (or Xubuntu) on an iMac G5 500 MHz has sparked a few comments from G3 users who installed both Ubuntu and Xubuntu directly to their hard drives.

The best report was for Xubuntu -- something I'd second due to its lighter graphics load on the system. Unfortunately, I don't have a G3 on which I can do such an install ... but I will be on the lookout for one.

The situation isn't so dire for most older PCs, as they can run Firefox and IE6, even with Windows 98, but these older Macs have basically been thrown under the bus by both Apple and the browser makers. Hell, Microsoft doesn't even allow its IE for Mac to be downloaded anymore. And I am disappointed in the people behind Firefox for not porting to classic Mac.

But with Xubuntu, you can bring modern browsing back to the G3, plus get apps for writing, spreadsheets, photo editing and just about anything else in the Linux world. It's the best solution today for keeping a G3 relevant and ready for action.

Answer me if you will, why Linux?

I'm having a lot of fun, that's for sure, but is there really a compelling reason not to use Windows or OS X and turn to Linux instead?

I'd say the same thing about open-source software for Windows, but here I am using a bunch of it to get real work done.

Will I be saying the same thing about open-source operating systems a few years down the line?

That said, how much does an OS cost when you buy a new PC equipped with Windows? I'll have to look into it. Buying Windows Vista on its own runs anywhere from $99 for a crippled home version up through $200 for the deluxe renditions. And upgrading Mac OS X 10.3 to 10.4 costs about $150, if I have it right. That's over and above what you paid for the original Windows OS. So over the life of a single computer, and certainly over the lives of many PCs and Macs, the money spent on operating systems can add up.

So you can have fun and get things done on your own desktop, or you can save a business thousands of dollars in software costs by using Linux. On the other hand, while shit happens with Mac OS and Windows, for the most part you plug stuff in, get the drivers loaded and it works. That kind of plug and play is a bit elusive with Linux. But I can't forget not getting ANYTHING to work in Windows 98.

Put your foot in the Linux shoe. If it boots, and if the shoe fits, then wear it.

Yeah! Flash is working -- I just viewed a YouTube video in Puppy Linux.

Puppy isn't as polished-looking as Xubuntu or Zen Walk, but the whole damn thing runs in RAM, and the Puppy community is plenty active. Nothing is as extensive as the Ubuntu Forums, but the Puppy people are very enthusiastic and helpful -- and growing in number by the day, it seems.

I tried opening a terminal window and using alsamixer, and sure enough, the mono sound was muted, so I unmuted and seconds later was enjoying a live stream from the BBC World Service via Gxine.

So I can now get sound in just about every live-CD Linux I've tried. I can't remember whether or not I did this sound hack with Knoppix, but I plan to try it for sure.

I looked into "solid state" disk drives, which Tiger Direct does sell, and IDE-to-Compact Flash adapters, which it does not. I finally found the adapters at a price that wouldn't kill me via Froogle (I'll supply the link later). The solid-state drives -- used in a lot of military applications where the jostling and other sundry sand and crap is adverse to a regular, spinning hard drive -- are minimum of $100 for a 4 GB model.

I'm going to opt for the IDE-to-CF adapter, which goes for between $10 and $20, with shipping all over the map, and a 2 GB 80x CF card. That should run me a total of about $30, and I can have a bootable CF-based hard drive to pop into This Old PC.

Back to the Linuxes. If I can get sound from This Old PC -- the Pentium II MMX 333 MHz ... and then wireless (almost too much to ask at this point) I will have accomplished my basic goals with Linux.

See, I set the bar low ...

Get a Linux PC ... the whole damn box, for $139.

Thanks, Ubuntu Forums, for the hack that has gotten me sound -- now on Zen Walk Linux. Forget the graphical interface. Here's how I did it:

Open a terminal window, type "alsamixer" (without the quote marks)

Use the left-right arrow keys to navigate over to the Master Mono volume control

Hit "m" (again no quote marks) to unmute

Use the up arrow to pump up the volume

Success!!

I have Ethernet AND sound in Linux on the Dell. Halle-freakin-lujah.

I downloaded the .iso for the live-CD version of Zen Walk, which is based on GNU/Linux. It runs on the Xfce window manager, which I like so much in Xubuntu, and since it comes from a different branch of the Linux tree (GNU for Zen, Debian for the 'Buntus), I figured I'd give it a try.

I like the application set. It's got Firefox, Thunderbird, Gaim, Gimp, Abiword, Gnumeric and more. And I like the clean look of Xfce -- it's that much cleaner than IceWM.

The first test is network configuration. In Zen Walk, you need the root password to get into the Zenpanel (it's ZenLive, case sensitive) and then you need to click on the various items a bunch of times. I kept getting hung up, so I would log out and then log back in. Finally I got it. Total time, about 10 minutes. At least I got Ethernet running.

Zen Walk also has an app called Wi-Fi Radar ... not sure what it does, but any acknowledgement that Wi-Fi exists and just might work on a Linux distro is a-OK by me.

As far as hardware requirements, the Zen Walk people say it's Pentium III minimum, but you can try Pentium II:

Hardware requirements:

These are the minimal hardware requirements to run Zenwalk in Xwindow mode, with correct performance (some lower configs work - ie : PII - , but might be slow) :

* Pentium III class processor

* 128 Mb RAM

* 2Gb HDD

Well, at least it's realistic. I really do like the way this distro works so far (clunky net config notwithstanding). I've gotta tell you, the net config of Puppy, Knoppix and Ubuntu/Xubuntu is a whole lot easier. As I said, Damn Small Linux won't even admit that I've got an Ethernet card, let alone allow me to configure it. At least Zen Walk let me run network services. Now ... if I could only get sound.

Since the live CD of Ubuntu wouldn't load from CD on the iMac G3 (5oo MHz, 128 MB RAM), I figured I would try Xubuntu, which is supposed to present the system with a lighter load.

Didn't work.

But I heard from a few iMac G3 users who reported success with Ubuntu, but not with the live CD. Either installing to the hard drive from a disc or using an Internet-based install, they've reported success with Ubuntu and a Mac desktop computer that really couldn't run OS X without a whole lot of trouble.

Think of it ... you can get Firefox ... can't get that in OS 9.

I've been learning about what makes PCs go together, and I've been fascinated by the Mini-ITX standard, freakishly small motherboards, with cases and peripherals to go with them. Via Technologies spearheaded this small-is-beautiful movement, which also champions low power consumption and, in many iterations, fanless processors for low noise.

A small, silent PC? Remember the original Macintosh? Well, many want that experience again. The Mac Mini comes close, but what about PC users? That's where Mini-ITX comes into play.

The stuff is more expensive than the standard Mini-ATX size boards and cases, but for the small form factor and quiet operation, I think it's a tradeoff that many are willing to make.

Also intriguing is that these systems are often configured to run entirely from flash memory. No disk drives. No moving parts.

Some links:

Epiacenter, "the Mini-ITX professionals"
Mini-itx.com "the next small thing"
NorhTec "networking out of the box"
Mini-Box.com "Pico-sized computing"
Cappuccino PC
Logic Supply "Leaders in Mini-ITX solutions"

I've been looking for a place to get Mini-ITX hardware without going broke, and besides NorhTech's MicroClient Jr., which can be had for about $200 with Puppy Linux installed (but which can't really do much else, since it's limited to 128 MB RAM), the next best place is Cappuccino PC, which has a bunch of great-looking little boxes for around $400 and up.

But the best so far, and I've only gotten a quick look, is Damn Small Linux's Mini-ITX Store has complete systems from $245 to $495.

The DSL store offers this tempting option:

We, are also offering Damn Small Linux pre-installed on Compact Flash units. Combine these with an IDE/CF adaptor and you can convert old atticware into a useful and secure Internet station.

You wouldn't even need a USB-bootable BIOS to take advantage of this, since it would be running through the IDE interface. I don't know if they have the CF-to-IDE converter, but Mini-ITX.com has them here. And it would be even easier to put Puppy Linux on one of these CF "drives." Or bypass CF entirely and get a IDE solid state drive (same link as before, but also here from PC-parts giant Tiger Direct.

Photo: NorhTech's MicroClient Jr. with a Compact Flash drive that can hold a Linux OS.

It turns out that there is no stable .iso from which to make a Ubuntu Lite CD, but you can turn your existing Ubuntu installation into the Lite version with apt-get. Here's how.

There was some antipication about a Ubuntu Lite CD being ready "in the near future," but these posts are a year old now ... and a year is an eternity in Ubuntu Standard Time.

My 2 cents: The method described -- and the problems therein -- are beyond my geekery capabilities. I'll stick with Puppy and Xubuntu for now.

I first saw word of it on Wikipedia. But there's little else to indicate what's going on -- if anything with Ubuntu Lite, the rumored Ubuntu Linux flavor that's lighter than Xubuntu (which, in turn, is lighter than papa Ubuntu). I can't even load what's supposed to be the official Ubuntu Lite Web page, but this post from Mad Penguin lays it out. And see what the madding crowd has to say on Digg. And there's talk of Ubuntu Lite on the Ubuntu forums.

Ubuntu Lite is meant to run on hardware that even chokes a bit on Xubuntu. 64 MB of RAM will be OK. Lite will run the IceWM window manager (same as Puppy Linux) instead of the Xfce window manager used by Xubuntu. But you will still have the pros of Ubuntu, mainly the easy access to software packages via the distro's install capability.

I'd love to try Ubuntu Lite, if it even exists at this point. So far, I'm really liking Xubuntu, but to have something that can compete with Puppy and Damn Small Linux (which hasn't really worked for me at all, by the way -- I'm getting nowhere even with Ethernet) would be great. At this point, Puppy is getting better all the time, so it would be quite a race if the Ubuntu community got involved in a similar Linux distribution.

That said, some of the commenters recently, and my own look at the situation, tells me that a system that needs 128 MB of RAM or more to run from a live CD would probably do well with a lot less memory if the OS is installed to the hard drive. Damn Small Linux, for instance needs 128 MB to run from CD but can run from as little as 16 MB from the HD, according to the give specs.

I wrote a long post (not up here yet) about how Ubuntu Linux for PowerPC could potentially save G3 Macs from OS 9 obsolescence, principally because modern browsers won't run on anything older than OS X.

Boy was I wrong.

Ubuntu ran great on my iBook G4, which shipped with OS X 10.3, by the way, and for which I really don' t need Linux to save it. It was the smoothest boot of a live-CD Linux yet, on Mac or PC, but for a laptop designed from the ground up for OS X, and which runs quite well on it, the use of Ubuntu is strictly a geek curiousity.

So I tried Ubuntu on two Macs that could actually benefit from Linux and the modern apps that go with it.

An old Power Macintosh G4 tower booted Ubuntu all right, although it did take awhile (slow CD drive). Sound came through fine, as it always does with Macs and Ubuntu. I couldn't get Ethernet working, but I also didn't spend a lot of time on it. But when I tried to start Open Office, the whole thing crashed. It does have at least 128 MB of RAM, by the way.

Today I tried an iMac G3 500 MHz slot-loader with 128 MB RAM. I got the sound, but after 20 minutes, nothing from the CD, not even a full boot. Now I could have let it run for an hour, and I just might do that at some point, but not booting off of a live CD after 20 minutes?

Maybe Xubuntu will work better, but I'm not holding my breath.

No, Ubuntu is NOT a saver of old Macs. If there's a lighter Linux for PowerPC, that might be worth trying. Otherwise, try to shoehorn OS X in there, or stay with the swift and the brave OS 9.2.2.

That's this doctor's recommendation ... and yes, I only play one on TV.

I'm addicted to Puppy Linux and its ability to boot from CD, run entirely in RAM and save to a connected USB flash drive. You could unplug the hard drive and throw it out. New apps that aren't on the CD are saved on the USB drive.

But everybody needs a couple of Windows apps to keep the peace. For me, they are Internet Explorer (one Daily News system requires it) and our networked publishing system, Unisys Hermes. Oh ... and I guess Palm Desktop, unless J-Pilot for Linux happens to work.

So this means I'd need Wine, the Linux program that runs many but not most Windows applications over Linux.

I'm already screwing with the ethos that is Puppy, but if I could get, at minimum, Wine to work with IE 6 and ... shudder ... Hermes, then I could have my entire computing life on a CD-R and USB flash drive to carry with me at will -- and which could turn most PCs into my own personal workstation for as long as I needed it.

Total weight: about 2 ounces. Lighter than any laptop.

This is my dream system ... could it happen? It's my new project.

I've made no secret of my satisfaction with Windows XP and the fact that it's hard to beat -- hell, it can't be -- in the business world. This comes after about a year of daily use (following a few miserable years with Windows 98, not even "second edition" and its inability to even run a single IE window with any degree of normalcy).

From the Linux world, Michael C. Barnes lays out the argument for XP vs. Linux:

Taking on Microsoft Windows 98 on the desktop is one thing, but taking on Windows XP is quite another. Microsoft XP is a magnificent piece of work. We have all heard the arguments about viruses and the arguments about costs. Microsoft Windows XP will certainly run on 100% of the new computers on the market and it will support 100% of the new peripherals made for computers. No Linux distribution can make this promise.

It is also possible to run most major Open Source applications on Microsoft Windows XP. Open Office, GIMP, Mozilla, and many other Open Source applications are available for Microsoft Windows XP. A very good starting place for Open Source software for Microsoft Windows is TheOpenCD. A copy of Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition and the software contained on TheOpenCD is another way inexpensively introduce Open Source.

Linux does have advantages over Microsoft XP. Linux is more secure and it requires less resources than Microsoft XP. Linux distributions also allow for faster installs as most distributions install the applications as well as the operating system. The best of the Linux distributions preconfigure everything for the user.

Here's more insight into Barnes' computing life. He again lays out the general parameters for choosing a home OS:

For home computers with 16 Mb to 32 Mb RAM, Windows 98 is the best solution. For computers with 64 to 128 Mb of RAM, GNU/Linux (with all the bells and whistles) becomes and option. Microsoft Windows XP needs 128 Mb or more.

If your computer originally came with a different OS, such as Windows 98 or Windows Me, you must purchase upgrades for each computer. One license is only good for one computer. If I ran Microsoft Windows Home Edition on all five of my home computers, the cost for just the upgrades would be about $500.00 USD. This does not get me the application software I need.

He recommends an Office-compatible suite, 602 PC Suite, that, while not free, is available for $40 -- much less than Office, and even a bit less than Microsoft Works (which Barnes also recommends for home use). 602 also edits photos and creates PDFs. That's pretty useful on both counts. A 30-day free trial is available.

More Michael C. Barnes on "Desktop Options":

Here's a good tip for migrating from Windows 2000 to XP:

When you install XP or Windows 2000, you have a decision to make. The decision is whether to convert your drive to NTFS or not. I have done both. I believe that for most users, leaving file system FAT32 is best. NTFS is suppose to be more stable and faster, but it is also very difficult to convert back to FAT32 in case you change your mind.

More words of wisdom and reason:

The area where Microsoft Windows has been criticized the most is for security. One of the unfortunate facts of life is that one of the biggest challenges anyone using Microsoft Windows will face is viruses. Viruses are not something we can blame Microsoft for directly. If GNU/Linux were more popular than Microsoft, then GNU/Linux's would be the victim of more viruses. Viruses attack Microsoft products because they are the most popular and any weaknesses are well documented. Anyone using Microsoft Windows is well advised to use and update virus protection software.

Go to this article for much more on what OSes are good for what computers.

The gist of Barnes writing is something I almost all the way agree with. He says that while LInux is fun and all, if you have XP, that's the best way to ensure compatibility (and all the free software for Linux is available for Windows as well). But if you're running Windows 98SE and things aren't going well, give Linux a try and find the right flavor for your system. He's not as hot on Windows 2000 as I am. He rightly points out that when upgrading from Windows 98, there are a bunch of driver issues (I also had to junk a lot of stuff when moving), but for me, the superior (i.e. working) handling of USB and CD-R in 2000 made any other issues pale in comparison.

I've still got some quibbles with Windows 2000, but it's pretty stable overall. I'm surprised to learn that my 333 MHz system with 256 MB of RAM can run XP comfortably. Too bad I don't have an XP disc. I am not paying for XP. Not gonna happen.

Photo: Michael C. Barnes from Desktop Linux.

Some are exasperated with smart quotes, others live and die by them. AbiWord at one point did smart quotes, but it didn't work so well, and its developers took out the feature for the time being. Microsoft Word, of course, is king of the smart quotes, and most full-features word processors offer the feature. Open Office does.

My obsession, for a couple of weeks, anyway, was figuring out how to enter smart quotes, em dashes and the like, in the Palm handheld. I figured it out.

But is it really that important? And why am I so concerned.

It's because I had an editor for a time of a smallish, home-produced magazine who never got them right unless I did. If I e-mailed in straight text in the body of the e-mail, I'd get all straight quotes, and I think it looks terrible. So I then sent in Word files only, with the smart quotes and spacing set just so. He'd still screw it up (such is the lament of a copy editor when it comes to his own writing being edited).

But as some correctly point out, any halfway decent publishing software (everything from Quark to InDesign) will apply smart quotes to any text file, and do a better job, probably, than Word alone.

It's certainly true for the Daily News' Unisys publishing system. It gets most of them right. Possible exceptions are when single-quotes follow doubles. Some are the wrong direction. Same for years, like '83. Those are usually backward. But the bottom line is that for the work I'm doing now (especially on the Web), smart quotes don't matter so much, and the effort to generate them is wasted.

So I've got to let go. I've got to know that I CAN make smart quotes if I need to, but it's not the end of the world if I don't.

What are/were you obsessed by that you decided to let go. And I mean this in the geekiest sense, by the way.

Of all my various projects over the past year, documented here and on This Old PC and This Old Mac, the most fun so far has been the discovery and use of bootable-CD versions of Linux. I've got about a half-dozen burned so far, with a few more than that ready to try. I still like Knoppix and Ubuntu and was intrigued by Damn Small Linux, but it's Puppy Linux that has worked the best -- it boots from the CD and then loads the entire OS and all apps into memory, so it's blindingly fast (in contrast to the bigger CDs, which are less so).

I'll do a giant Linux link dump later today, but for now, here's this list of all the known CD-bootable Linux flavors.

The one thing you have to be able to do is download the .iso images (faster connections are better, of course) and then make CDs out of them. It's not as easy as it should be. If you have Nero (a real CD-making program), you can do it, but with naked Windows, it's not possible without a helper application. From the Knoppix help pages, I learned how to use ISO Recorder, which is XP- and Vista-specific. I think the instructions that come on the Ubuntu Wiki pages are better because they cover everything from Windows 95 on forward, plus Mac OS X (good for Ubuntu's PowerPC distribution AND for making a PC-compatible disc, by the way) and even Linux itself.

Of course Ubuntu will send you a free CD, and just about every Linux CD and DVD is available on the Web very cheaply. Knoppix, for one, offers this extensive list of places that sell Linux CDs and DVDs, many of which go for $2 or less each. The best thing, though is a fast connection, your own CD or DVD burner, and a big stack of blanks. (I'm headed to Frys to replenish my supply.)

Once you can burn your own discs, you're well on your way to sampling all that the many Linux distributions have to offer -- and you can really find what works best with your hardware, your work ... and you.

And did I mention that my favorite app of the day is Abiword, available for Windows, Linux and OS X, and way, way lighter in resources than Word, but able to create compatible files nonetheless.

Since Mozilla is derived from Netscape (no ...
Netscape didn't die ... it was just reborn as Mozilla
and then Firefox), SeaMonkey -- the browser in the small, CD-booting Puppy Linux -- wisely kept Netscape
Communicator's ability to read and send e-mail, read
and post to Usenet newsgroups AND ... my personal
favorite at this very moment ... create Web content
with Composer.

Man ... I've got nothing on my Windows machine to
write HTML, and now I've got the rudimentary but very
useful Composer (love it on This Old Mac) at my
service.

Again ... you may pet the Puppy.

I was able to configure Gaim, Puppy's IM client, to
work with Yahoo's instant messenger service. It was
surprisingly easy.

I will say it now. If you tried Ubuntu or Knoppix and
thought them too resource heavy, give the Puppy a try.
It's working way better than Damn Small Linux.

Did you ever run a DOS-only PC with simple apps? Not
Word (even in the days of DOS 5, MS Word was a dog). I
can't remember the apps we used to run for word
processing and database in the old DOS days (Ilene
used them at work when computers were first coming
onto the desks of regular people), but you'd load and
run stuff really quick, since it was pre-Windows with
no GUIs to speak of.

In Puppy, there's a GUI, but it's blindingly fast. So
far I can browse the Web, create Word files, edit
photos, write IMs, get e-mail and newsgroups. And all
without accessing the hard drive. For laptop users,
this could be the key to running your portable PC fast
and keeping your battery running longer, too -- no HD
spinning means less power drain.

The SeaMonkey browser is a Mozilla derivative, just
like Firefox, but in this case leaner and ... you know
... meaner.

But back to Puppy. I was pleased to find mtPaint, an
image editor that both sizes photos and puts borders
on them. So I'm definitely good.

The great thing about Linux on a CD or USB drive, is
that if you can boot off of them, you can take the
Linux you know with you and work anywhere with a
familiar set of apps and, if the PC cooperates, a
place to store your data (either on a USB drive or the
open CD itself). It can really change the way you view
computing.

But while it's assumed that PCs can boot off of USB drives, this Dell Optiplex GX520 won't do it. I don't think Macs can boot off of USB (they do boot from Firewire). Does anybody have PCs that boot from USB? One workaround is a boot floppy. I think both Puppy and Damn Small Linux offer images for boot floppies. But by the time you have a boot floppy and a USB drive, isn't it just easier to carry a CD instead of a floppy? Just asking.

My tour through the world of Linux distributions
bootable from CD has taught me one thing. There are
about 100 different flavors of Linux that are bootable
from CD (I will give the link later to a list of just
about that many).

I tried Damn Small Linux yesterday (couldn't get
network services established) and was set to try
DSL-n, which is bigger and presumably has more
flexibility in drivers, but I stumbled across href="http://puppylinux.com/">Puppy, another
small, CD- and USB-drive-bootable version of Linux.
The best thing about it (and yes, I am using it right
now) is that once it boots from CD, the entire OS and
all apps load into RAM (assuming you have enough,
which is somewhere around 200 MB, I think).

That means no accessing the CD every time you load an
app (like Ubuntu
and Knoppix). I
wanted to try Abiword, the lighter (than Open Office)
word processor that produces Word-compatible files. I
wasn't prepared for it to start in under a second. But
it did. Running everything in RAM. It's like starting
every program you're going to use and having it in
your taskbar, or whatever it is they are calling that
thing at the bottom of the screen.

To keep Puppy small, it uses the SeaMonkey Web
browser, which is working great. I'm not sure what the
GUI is, but it looks great. And supposedly it's easier
to make a bootable USB drive out of Puppy than it is
from DSL (a task at which I didn't succeed yesterday).
I plan to try it.

Another thing about Puppy. You can burn an "open" CD
or DVD and save your work on the disc for as long as
you have free space. Or you can create space on your
system's hard drive, save to a plugged-in USB drive
... or to a ZIP drive (something that excites me since
I've got about a half-dozen of them in various states
of usability). You can even boot off of a ZIP disk.

But running everything in memory is brilliant. Now you
are giving up some things to do this. No GIMP, like in
Knoppix and Ubuntu. That might be hard to give up, as
I do a lot of photo editing for the Web. But maybe
there's something good enough in Puppy. This little
Linux can also be installed to the hard drive, and
then additional software can be added, so if I feel
like I need to use this Linux distribution, I can run
it like any regular HD-based OS.

I had to answer a few questions about my display
preferences while Puppy booted, but configuring the
network services was easy. I'm not quite sure how to
get a printer hooked up over the network. I think you
have to choose the model of printer and then select
from a list of available printers on the network.
Since there are about 200 or so printers hooked up
around here, I guess I'll have to do a walk-around and
see what's available. Ubuntu and Knoppix were very
smooth when it came to printer config.

And I am having one glitch in the SeaMonkey browser.
It does automatic Web links just fine, but when trying
to create a new category, a blank window opens, never
to be filled. Puppy also offers the Dillo browser, so
maybe that will work better. I'll try to upload a
photo and see how that goes.
But this running in RAM, apps available nearly
instantly. I could really get used to this. And while
the fatter Linuxes are sometimes billed as able to
resurrect older PCs, a distribution like this really
can do that. Breaking the chain to the hard drive and
running light apps is key to maximizing limited PC
resources.

Now pet the Puppy.

Upon booting my XP box today, there was a message in the bottom right side of the screen saying that "updates are available." I clicked -- maybe it was a security patch or something I actually needed.

But it was Internet Explorer 7, which MS "recommended" I load. Now if you know me, I tread very, very lightly into major upgrades. I'm even holding back on Open Office 2, even though I'd like to be able to create .odt files (as opposed to OO's .sxw files from its Star Office beginnings).

Now if I could try IE7 while still keeping IE6 on my drive, I'd be all for it. But destroying my ability to go back if I don't like IE7 ... no freakin' way, Redmond.

There's a reason I have Netscape 4.7 and 4.8 on This Old Mac and still have IE5 on both it and the iBook G4. Just because Safari or Firefox are there doesn't mean that I need to pitch an old browser that might be useful. For my old, free Netgear router, I can't work on the parameters with any browser except for IE5 on the Mac. The newer browsers and the router don't get along well.

And while Microsoft is still supporting IE6 (if in fact they are ...), I'm sticking with it.

I really wanted to run Linux from a USB drive, but the BIOS in this newish Dell doesn't allow it.

I call this disappointing, since the ability to boot from USB would also allow the computer to be usable if the hard drive failed but a mirrored backup on a USB drive existed.