February 2010 Archives

My whole "relationship" with and to Ubuntu has been all over the place since I first discovered it in the 6.10 era (using 6.06 LTS more than anything else at the time).

Now that I've resolved my Xorg issues with Intel i830m video, I can concentrate on using Lucid, at this point in the live environment with the Alpha 2 DVD image.

Things are appreciably quick, everything seems to work, and it's a nice environment in which to work. Today I got MP3s to play after the dialog to install the restricted extras popped up while I was running the Rhythmbox player. Works great.

My laptops using Intel 830m (aka i830m ... aka 82830 CGC) video don't like kernel mode setting. They don't work with it.

But turning it off, they work wonderfully with no xorg.conf in anything with a 2.6.32 Linux kernel — and that means Ubuntu Lucid (currently in Alpha 3 stage, though I'm using the Alpha 2 image at the moment) and Sidux 2009-04 (and presumably Debian Squeeze, the current Testing release for the distribution).

Until now I've been turning off kernel mode setting in the boot line with:

i915.modeset=0

I just discovered, tested and confirmed that this boot parameter does the job just as well:

nomodeset

The latter's a bit "cleaner," don't you think. I promised in a comment that I would look into bugs related to this problem, but things look in a whole lot of disarray. Some people submit so many log files, outputs and other things that I wouldn't have the expertise to assemble in a dozen years. Others haven't yet landed on the solution I've written about in a couple dozen of these entries.

So unless someone out there can direct me to the "best" bug in either Debian, Ubuntu, Xorg or the Linux kernel itself, I'm gonna stay out of it and just continue writing about it here.

Am I the only person out there with not just one but THREE laptops using the Intel 830m chipset?

If not, either of the two boot parameters mentioned above make the X problem go away. I'm sure kernel mode setting is a wonderful thing, just not for this particular graphics chipset.

I've never fallen for a phishing scam before. But I did today.

I got one of these "this you???" messages from one of my Twitter followers, clicked it and got what I thought was the Twitter login screen.

It wasn't.

It was a phishing scam that throws up a fake login screen, into which I duitifully typed my Twitter login and password.

I even got a warning screen from Firefox that said "Reported Web Forgery." But the last time I got such a screen (when, for a day or so, every Web site was a "reported forgery," shaking my confidence in the Firefox feature) I again thought it was a false warning, just clicked right through it, and ...

Yes, I was pwned.

I've managed to avoid this sort of thing before. If you look at the URL box before you type in any logins and passwords, you can avoid such things. This time I was busy. Didn't look. Got pwned.

Sorry to all my Twitter followers who got direct messages (DMs in Twitterspeak) from my Twitter account. I've since changed the password, so the damage has been contained. I have more than a few different passwords I use. Now I need to go to all the places I used this particular password and change it there, too. These phishing scams can go further than you might think.

While it's the proverbial cold comfort, I'm far from alone. This sort of thing has been going around big time over the past few days as Twitter users have fallen prey to this attack.

I should be smart enough NOT to click past Firefox's warning screen. The browser tried its best to save me from being an idiot.

I just checked one of the suspect messages and clicked through the screens just to see what I saw before. Yep, the screen looks just like the Twitter sign-in screen, only the URL is not http://twitter.com. Bad! I really shouldn't have fallen for this. But I did.

So if you get a warning from your browser, heed it! And be careful with Twitter, Facebook, or just about any site that requires a login and password.

The FreeBSD - The Unknown Giant news page (which I refer to often) offers an announcement of the PC-BSD 8.0 live DVD that told me a few things I'm very happy about:

• It's a live DVD (didn't used to be but could've been so longer than I know), which means it's a great way to test the compatibility of a given machine with not just PC-BSD but also FreeBSD 8.0.
• The disc allows for the installation of both PC-BSD and FreeBSD

I like that. I tested PC-BSD back in the 1.x days, and I've thought the installer was one of the best for any open-source operating system. I wasn't in love with the PBI packaging system (and still am not), and I wasn't crazy about being forced to use KDE and not having the option of GNOME or Xfce during the install.

So I'd probably be better off with FreeBSD, adding the packages or ports I want after the fact.

Now I can test my systems' response to FreeBSD and install either the KDE-based PC-BSD or the roll-what-you-want FreeBSD from a single DVD image.

I'll be downloading and burning this one as soon as possible.

I'm not the type to run alpha software. Even beta is too cutting-edge for me. I'm a bit better about release candidates, but I tend to wait for the official release (or preferably a few months after that) before I put something into my production flow.

Not so these days. I'm planning ahead to see where I'm going with my personal machines in the next few years, and I've been looking at the near futures of both Debian and Ubuntu.

I've been testing the Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04 LTS) Alpha 2 DVD image for the past few weeks on everything I can.

Now Lucid Alpha 3 is out. Whether you love or hate the direction Canonical is taking Ubuntu, they're certainly shaking things up.

Here are some of the changes in Alpha 3 that should make their way into Lucid's April 29, 2010 release (these are copied from the Lucid Alpha 3 page and edited/selected by me according to what I'm interested in):

Ubuntu Lucid Alpha 3 includes the latest GNOME desktop environment with a number of great new features.

Mozilla: Default search engine has been changed to Yahoo! Default Home Page will use either Google or Yahoo! depending on user setting.

Linux kernel 2.6.32: Alpha 3 includes the 2.6.32-14.20 kernel based on 2.6.32.8.

Hal removal: Lucid Alpha 3 sports full removal of the hal package, making Ubuntu faster to boot and faster to resume from suspend.

Social By Default: We now feature built in integration with Twitter, identi.ca, Facebook, and other social networks with the MeMenu in the panel, which is built upon the Gwibber project, which has a completely new, more reliable backend built on top of desktopcouch. Gwibber now also supports a multi-column view for monitoring multiple feeds simultaneously.

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

While I haven't done any installs of Lucid as yet, I like what I'm seeing in the live environment (and if you've read this blog at all over the past few months, you know that turning off kernel mode setting is the key to Linux happiness for those with Intel 830m video hardware).

I've been thinking about building my own very small machine around the dual-core Intel Atom processor with Nvidia graphics. Yes, I know that Nvidia is freedom-hating and all, but I think that for the small form factors such as Mini-ITX, Intel and Nvidia are heading in the right direction when it comes to compactness, power consumption and graphical sophistication.

I usually begin my search with my favorite Mini-ITX vendor, Logic Supply, but I have also begun looking at pre-assembled systems that ship with Linux. Both ZaReason and System 76 are building small boxes around the Intel Atom/Nvidia platform, some single core, others dual core — and I do recommend the latter.

The one stopping point for me, other than money, is that I'm not sure whether or not these pre-built boxes have CPU fans or use passive cooling from massive heatsinks. For years now I've been leaning toward machines with no spinning fans either in the box itself (on the CPU or elsewhere) or the power supply. With Logic Supply I can easily make this happen.

At ZaReason, the Ion Breeze 4220, starting at $399 for single-core, offers a variety of options, including the above-mentioned dual-core Ion CPU. I don't know if Earl, the ultra-accommodating chief technology officer at ZaReason, is offering the option of a fanless motherboard — I'll ask him.

System 76 offers its Meerkat Ion NetTop with dual-core Ion starting at $359.

One thing that ZaReason offers in the Ion Breeze that I like is an optional external fanless power supply.

I've been running my converted Maxspeed Maxterm thin client as a standalone Linux/BSD box almost since the beginning of my foray into open-source operating systems, with only a single fan blowing across the Mini-ITX motherboard and its heat-pipe-cooled CPU. The fan doesn't work when the box is upright, so for all intents and purposes this is a fanless computer, and I've never had a problem with thermal issues — in fact, it runs quite cool, if not quickly with its VIA C3 Samuel processor (that's supposed to be a 1 GHz model but for some reason only runs at 500 MHz), maximum of 256 MB RAM and woeful sound and video chips.

Right now the Maxspeed is running Debian Lenny from an 8 GB CF card inserted in the thin client's built-in CF-to-IDE interface. Yep, no spinning hard drives either.

System 76 does offer solid-state drives on the Meerkat Ion, starting at $110 extra for a 40 GB Intel drive.

If the Intel Atom Ion processor isn't what you're looking for, both System 76 and ZaReason have plenty of other desktop, laptop and server machines to look at.

The best thing about buying a computer from a shop that ships with Linux (in the case of these two retailers, Ubuntu) is that your hardware is pretty much guaranteed to work. You'll have audio, video, suspend/resume, all that stuff that sometimes is hard to get straight on the box that shipped to you with Windows.

In the times I've spoken with ZaReason's Earl, and the company will build, test and ship pretty much anything you want. They specialize in Ubuntu, but you can ask for a box to be loaded with Debian or CentOS, and I believe they'll do it.

Do ZaReason and System 76 charge more than your standard computer seller? Probably. You can't get the kind of bottom-of-the-barrel deals that are offered on the cover of the Office Depot circular, but those machines often do have bits of hardware that you'll tear your virtual hair out to get working properly.

When you get a machine from a company that specializes in Linux, not only will everything work, but you'll get support that will help you clear up any issues.

And for many people — and I'm getting more like this myself with less time available for banging-my-head-against-the-wall tinkering — it's worth a little extra money for somebody else to have figured out all the issues, or in the case of these companies, to choose hardware components that work well with free, open-source operating systems from the start.

And even if you are a tinkerer, chances are it ZaReason or System 76 have built you a machine, it won't just work well in Ubuntu but will be a great platform for other Linux distros you might want to run.

Not wanting to leave out BSD, you can get a pre-built and -loaded PC-BSD (based on FreeBSD) laptop as well as two workstations (prices unknown) from IXsystems, the company behind PC-BSD. They seem to specialize in selling servers running FreeBSD and ask that interested buyers request a quote to receive pricing info. They're also offering CD and DVD sets of FreeBSD 8.0 if you don't want to bother downloading the ISOs and burning your own discs.

Not to go off on a tangent or anything, I've been giving FreeBSD a lot more thought lately. I've run OpenBSD on the desktop as my primary system for about six months, and I'm considering FreeBSD instead for a future test for the following reasons:

• Easier upgrades and much longer cycle
• More focus on desktop users with hopefully better (and more meta-style) packages for things like GNOME
• Flash 9 and possibly Flash 10 support through the Linux compatibility layer
• Better performance
• I really don't need it for architectures other than Intel/AMD (although PowerPC and SPARC 64 are available; side note — on the various pages emanating from its platforms page, FreeBSD offers not only official manuals from the makers of the hardware in question but also links to other BSDs that run on the architecture. A very nice touch, I think)
• Community that actually cares about end users who aren't developers

I need to try some live images of recent FreeBSD/PC-BSD releases. (Is PC-BSD a live CD yet? I haven't kept up, but I did utilize the live environment of DesktopBSD back when I was testing it).

I never did the full review I promised of Dru Lavigne's excellent "The Best of FreeBSD Basics" book, but I find it to be an excellent reference for the FreeBSD and PC-BSD user. Dru is one of the best writers around in the Unix community, and even if you don't run BSD you can learn a lot about using Unix/Linux from this book. I got a whole lot about the shell, file permissions and other Unix sys-admin tasks, from "Basics," just as Michael Lucas' discussion of sudo in "Absolute OpenBSD" makes that now-way-out-of-date book extremely relevant and useful for anybody running any kind of Unix/Linux today who wants to make the most of sudo in their own environment (and especially on the server).

On the same tangentially arrived-at topic, Dru Lavigne's latest book, "Beginning PC-BSD: Frugal Unix for Power Users," is slated to be released three days from now. If past work is any indication, this will be an excellent book for anybody contemplating the use of PC-BSD.

I'd rather Dru write a book on using FreeBSD on the desktop — not necessarily PC-BSD but building out a FreeBSD-based desktop through ports or packages — but I can understand her focusing on PC-BSD given that the iXSystems-led project is a lot closer to what Linux users are used to.

I was writing some CSS today and needed to Google a few things — that's how hacks like me figure stuff out.

I came across a site that has helped me before, A List Apart - For People Who Make Web Sites, and I just wanted to mention it here as a great place to learn about Web design. It goes back very far and has a whole lot of quality material.

It looks great, too — as it should, since it's all about design.

The last time I wrote a column about what kind of CPUs you should be looking for in a desktop or laptop computer, it was all about Intel's Pentium Dual-Core and Core 2 Duo, with a smattering of AMD Athlon X2.

Well, it's been awhile and everything's changing.

The newest Intel CPUs start out with the word "Core," followed by a little "i," a number between 3 and 7 and then, after a dash, another number, as in Core i3-530, Core i5-750, Core i7-860 and many more.

Newer AMD processors include the Athlon II X2 255, Athlon II X4 635 and Phenom II X4 965.

I've been reading about all of these in Maximum PC magazine (yes, the paper edition - it's cheap and if you're at all interested in PC hardware, you should definitely subscribe). It focuses on hardware for gamers, but what's used by gamers today will probably be standard for the rest of us either six months or a year down the road, and it's nice to get a little ahead of the curve, if you know what I mean.

But the number of CPU choices is dizzying, there are different models for laptops and desktops, and since these chips are all relatively new, the market is still flooded with computers sporting "older" CPUs but not sporting lower prices.

What I'm trying to say it that it's not a bad idea to know something about the latest CPUs and to either get a deep discount on a computer that doesn't have one ... or just accept reality and buy a new computer that includes one of these newer chips, if only to give your purchase an additional year or two of usable life.

This excellent article at The Tech Report is a great way to see the performance relative to the price of the latest from Intel and AMD. The whole site is great, and I'll be adding it to the blogroll immediately if only so I can more easily find it the next time I want to read about the latest PC hardware.

Not that I'm a big buyer of "new" anything ... but it's nice to know how the other half computes.

Before I get into this entry, after I wrote it I saw the following in the Sidux release notes:

Kernel 2.6.32 doesn't only improve and stabilise hardware support for newer devices, it also allows enabling KMS (kernel based modesetting) for Intel graphic chipset ...

Note to Linux kernel developers: This doesn't work with the Intel 830m. DOESN'T WORK.

And now back to our regularly scheduled post on how turning off kernel mode setting is the best way to get "today's" Linux distributions to boot into graphical desktops on computers with the Intel 830m graphics chipset:

Remember the last time I figured out how to run both Ubuntu Lucid (via the Alpha 2 image) and Sidux 2009-04 on my Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 and its Intel 830m video chip (aka Intel 82830 CGC)?

I used two methods: using the VESA driver and turning off kernel mode setting.

Both methods worked in Ubuntu Lucid — the project's upcoming 10.04 LTS (long-term support) release.

I tested the live KDE DVD image of Sidux 2009-04 for a number of reasons, one being that I think Sidux is a great project that allows users to run the "unstable" Debian Sid with a minimum of pain, all the while providing a very usable desktop. The other reason is that I know of no other live image (especially a live DVD+R, which my quirky Toshiba likes much better than a CD-R) with which to test the upcoming Debian Squeeze release, now in Testing but eventually slated for Stable designation.

The equally useful Debian Live project allows prospective Debian users to try out Debian on their hardware before committing to a full installation — just like Ubuntu and many other popular distros. As far as I know, you can't install the distro from the Debian Live image, but it is invaluable in terms of seeing how a given computer will respond to Debian.

But Debian Live doesn't appear to have any DVD images (I'm not sure whether or not a CD image can be burned to a DVD+R disc; if anybody out there knows anything, please let me in on it). And I don't see any Squeeze images. They appear to be in Lenny-only mode.

So I turn to Sidux. Despite the "2009-04" tag line, it was released in December 2009. I'm sure Debian Squeeze will move further along by the time it is released as Debian's stable distribution, but it does allow users to try something farther from Lenny and closer to Squeeze without committing to a full installation.

So today I decided to try to boot Sidux not with the VESA driver but by turning off kernel mode setting.

As with Ubuntu Lucid, I started to boot the Sidux 2009-04 DVD, and at the boot screen I added the following to the boot parameters:

I was soon in the surprisingly snappy KDE 4.3.4 environment.

This leads me to believe that turning off kernel mode setting will allow users of Intel 830m video (and most likely other Intel video of similar vintage) to not only run Ubuntu Lucid but very like Debian Squeeze as well. In case it's not implied, for me this is huge. It means I'll have choices as to where to go after Debian Lenny.

While in the Sidux live environment, which I'm enjoying very much by the way, I worked a bit in both the Kwrite and Kate text editors, both of which run great on this machine (1.3. GHz Celeron, 1 GB RAM) — much better than the last time I moaned and complained about KDE.

Sidux with KDE on this live DVD — and on this not-so-new hardware — seems no less responsive than Debian Lenny with GNOME. I guess that means I'd be more inclined to use KDE in the future, but I imagine I'll be sticking with GNOME at present (if only because it's working well for me).

In case the message got lost in all of this, the main thing I'm trying to say here is that kernel mode setting is becoming an increasingly big deal in Linux, and for users of Intel video, it not only doesn't help but pretty much renders the given distro unusable.

Turning off kernel mode setting is the key to actually having a working computer and if you can't boot either the live disc or resulting installation and get a working desktop, this is a tweak you should try before messing with xorg.conf or pulling what's left of your hair out.

Attention developers: This "improvement" you call kernel mode setting is pretty much a regression for users of my particular video chip, the Intel 830m, and could be equally useless for other Intel video hardware. Maybe figuring out why kernel mode setting doesn't work in these cases is the thing to do? And how about dropping in some code that automatically turns off kernel mode setting on hardware that doesn't like it until this show-&*^-stopping bug is dealt with?

I don't know who to blame here. I'm no expert, but my gut reaction is that this is a kernel-development problem. My question to you users and developers out there is this: Is kernel mode setting working for you and your Intel video hardware?

Before I end this entry, did I mention how much I like Sidux? I could get used to a distro this good. I'm not the kind of person who needs or wants the latest in everything. To me stability and lack of breakage is key. But just like the first time I tried Sidux (with Xfce), I'm extremely impressed by what its developers have done — and by how quick and usable Debian — be it Sid, Squeeze or Lenny — continues to be.

Remember this little guy, the orangish icon that appears in your upper GNOME panel in Debian Lenny when you have software updates?

Ubuntu has a similar yet different icon (which you can see in the screen-grab below this paragraph). Or had it, I guess. Now that the Ubuntu Project decided to completely change the way users are notified of software updates, opening an update window either in the foreground or background (I seemed to get both at random) at some point during the week the update is released, the cheery orange (or whatever color it used to be in Ubuntu) icon doesn't get much play.

I like the software-update icon. I know what it means. If I didn't know, I could either mouse over it, or actually click it to determine its purpose in my computing life and act accordingly.

I wasn't fond of those randomly opening update windows in Ubuntu Karmic. (Did they have them in Jaunty also? Who can remember?) You see, sometimes I turn the computer on, after which it checks the repos for updates and puts the orange icon on my upper panel.

But I'm not always ready to drop everything and update the system. (That's why I don't mind that the Xfce install of Debian doesn't include the GNOME update manager ... because it's part of GNOME, after all; it's not all that hard to use apt-get or Aptitude to check for updates periodically. But I do like the Update Manager, and it's one of those things I like about GNOME and one of many reasons I use GNOME as my desktop environment.)

No, sometimes I need to get stuff done and don't want to run the update. The orange icon doesn't complain. It waits until I'm ready. It doesn't open any windows on my screen unless I click on it.

And that's the way I like it. It's one of those things that Ubuntu did right in the Hardy days and Debian still does right, Lenny being just about the same age as Hardy.

I guess Ubuntu changed the update notification system in an attempt to, in the minds of its developers, either help new users not accustomed to the ways of things not-Windows, or somehow do updates better than they've been done before.

I'm not sure about the outcome. I guess new users wouldn't know to click on an update icon and might let it sit unclicked for days, weeks or months at a time. They won't ignore an open window on their desktop that tells them they have an update.

But I seem to remember a little dialog shooting out from the Ubuntu update icon that told the user that updates were available. The little dialog - that's a subtle innovation that, in my opinion, addresses users new and experienced equally well.

No matter how GNOME, Debian, Ubuntu and any other projects or distributions treat update notifications going forward, I'm letting it be known that I like a little icon at the top of my panel that doesn't badger me into doing anything but just lets me know that I can do something about updating the box when I have the time.

Here's a rundown on what operating system I'm running on my hardware stable:

Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101

1.3 GHz Celeron, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB hard drive, internal Ethernet port, Cnet CWD-854 USB wireless adapter

This is my main laptop. I do most of my work on it. I just swapped in the LCD inverter from my identical Toshiba, the latter suffering from a severly cracked LCD screen and hence not having much need for a "good" LCD inverter. The working Toshiba's sound module is dead. I just recently found out that this module is indeed modular and could easily be replaced with that of the more-ailing Toshiba. I might just do that, but in the meantime I'm using a sub-$3 USB Sound Module (which identifies itself in the system as USB Headphone Set) from DealExtreme.com. This little thing actually works. I need to adjust the mic gain in AlsaMixer, after which I'm going to record some audio so everybody can see how it sounds.

OS: Debian Lenny with the Debian Multimedia repository hooked up. I can play pretty much any multimedia out there. Even the 3gp cell-phone video from my LG Neon phone plays with sound (but didn't in Ubuntu). I recently added Bordeaux for Wine, and after installing Debian's Wine over Bordeaux's, I have the ability to run selected Windows apps if I wish. I added Wine so I could run the IrfanView image viewer/editor, which is an essential for my work.

Gateway Solo 1450

1.2 GHz Celeron, 512 MB RAM, 30 GB hard drive, internel Ethernet port, Cnet CWD-854 USB wireless adapter (borrowed from Toshiba laptop when needed)

This is the first "big" laptop that came into my possession. I got it for free from someone because it had a busted power plug, and the quote for repair was extremely high due to Gateway insisting that the entire motherboard needed replacement. I instead bought a $3 part at Fry's, split the case open as much as I could and soldered wires leading to the new plug, which I then screwed into the back of the laptop. It works. I gave the drive back to its owner and replaced it with a 30 GB drive I got on eBay.

This laptop is tricky because you generally need to use a shell script to control the CPU fan. It works automatically under Debian Etch and Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS 5.x, or anything with a 2.6.18 kernel, but after that, a lovely regression makes it so you have to run a simple script (mine is much, much simpler than those that I saw on the Web before I accidentally discovered that simple was better) to set the fan to turn on and off at the proper times.

It has only two USB ports, one of which is broken (the plastic tab pretty much just broke off one day). The Cardbus slot has bent pins (there was a little screw stuck in there, and when I first tried to put a wireless adapter in there, it bent the pins; I need to look into replacing the part, which I probably can find in one of my dead laptops).

Our 6-year-old uses this laptop. That means it gets heavy use of Gcompris, Childsplay and TuxPaint.

OS: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy). The laptop still has CentOS 5.x on it, but I haven't booted into it in a long, long time. The Gateway runs so well in the Ubuntu LTS that I've been very reluctant to upgrade. I'll try the Lucid live CD when it goes into release, or some months thereafter, but I'm not looking forward to it, given all the trouble I've had with the Toshiba, which in hindsight I probably should've left running 8.04; I think my Wifi-related crashes would've stopped at some point in the patching cycle, but at the time I felt that I had to upgrade.

I looked back in the blog, and I began running Debian Lenny as my main desktop distribution just about two months ago.

I've got pretty much everything working. I even get sound in 3gp videos from my cell phone. I think I have Debian Multimedia to thank for that one (and all my other codec issues, for that matter).

Debian is snappy, as it has always been for me, even with GNOME. I don't even see any performance issues due to using fully encrypted LVM. And with that encryption on my laptop, any anxiety over it being lost or stolen is gone. The machine's worth nothing, and the data on it can't be accessed without the passphrase. I've got unencrypted backups in different locations, so I'm covered for any issues with the laptop disappearing, being destroyed or having some kind of disk issue.

I've pretty much stayed in the GNOME world for this install. I don't have Xfce, which I usually do install.

There's no Mono on this machine. Gthumb was the default, so there was no F-Spot, and I don't think there was Tomboy notes.I didn't install the C++ equivalent Gnote because I really don't need a notes application. I just use regular text files.

I thought about using some Debian Backports, but I really see no need. I'm more than OK for now with Iceweasel/Firefox from the 3.0.x series, and I haven't needed anything beyond OpenOffice 2.4. I've had enough of Ubuntu's six-month Intel video-killing cycle for the time being.

What's different about my use of free, open-source operating systems and applications in 2009 and now 2010 than in 2007 and 2008 is that now I'm not in the testing, installing, wash-rinse-repeating phase.

For the past nearly two years I've been using OpenBSD and now Linux to do a great deal of my work. I still have a company-supplied XP box on my desk, but my personal laptop, which I use for work as well, has never run anything but OpenBSD and Linux. I have a whole lot of data on here, including a growing mound of e-mail in Thunderbird, and since 2009 it's been through OpenBSD, Ubuntu and now Debian.

I don't have time to distro-hop and continually fix the breakage that results, especially on this hardware.

So it looks like I'll be sticking with Debian Lenny for awhile. I did resolve my Intel video issues in Ubuntu Lucid, which is an LTS release, and hence something I'll be considering for future use.

But I won't be jumping on that release until at least three months after its April 2010 debut ... so I've got another six months ahead of me in the Debian Lenny world.

Sure I've tried Wine before. But never successfully.

I took the plunge recently, forking over $20 for the Bordeaux GUI front-end for Wine, the non-emulator that allows users of Linux (and Solaris and FreeBSD) to run Windows applications on their Unix-like computers.

I decided to use Bordeaux because its developers (or developer singular ... I'm not sure) promised that IrfanView 4.25 would run with it.

And I saw plenty of Wine users have trouble with Irfanview. Codeweavers, who I'd rather deal with than Bordeaux, doesn't make any promises in regard to Irfanview. Bordeaux does.

Why Irfanview? It's the best photo editor on any platform for my particular workflow at the L.A. Daily News. It's quick, batches well and lets me get to every part of the IPTC metadata I need to edit.

So getting it in Linux — in my case Debian Lenny — is a huge win.

I had problems but by sheer luck (Bordeaux's lack of documentation is astounding for something I paid actual money for) I was easily able to install Bordeaux and then use it to install IrfanView. It's almost too easy.

Getting the IrfanView plugins installed was another matter.

After the Bordeaux install, none of the Wine tools worked — either from the Bordeaux GUI or on the Linux command line.

I don't know how I thought of this (it's a bit above my FOSS geek-level pay grade), but I came up with the idea that I should install Debian's Wine packages over those installed by Bordeaux.

That did it. I could now use Bordeaux's tools to "run" Wine and all of its utilities. I was then able to install the IrfanView plugins from the .exe file I had previously downloaded from the IrfanView site.

I even found a PNG logo for IrfanView with which I added the app to my upper GNOME panel. (And yes, I'll be sending some cash along to IrfanView developer Irfan Skiljan very soon.)

What's the takeaway?

If you're running Debian Lenny, first install Bordeaux, then use Synaptic (or your favorite package-managing tool) to install Debian's own Wine package and dependencies.

I have a feeling that the Wine included in Bordeaux 2.0.0, which is Wine 1.1.36, doesn't work perfectly (or all that well) in Debian Lenny because it's too "new."

Lenny installs Wine 1.0.1-1. Thus far, I can say that with the Lenny Wine, everything works like it's supposed to.

I don't really have any other Windows apps I'm dying to run. Bordeaux offers easy GUI installs of the IE 6 and 7 browsers, a bunch of MS Office programs as well as a few versions of Photoshop up to CS2, I think (I imagine you need either a bona fide Photoshop disc or a product code) as well as the Steam gaming engine (barely know what that is, to tell you the truth). I really don't need any of that stuff.

But having IrfanView in Debian is a huge, huge win for my personal workflow.

When you order Bordeaux from the Web site, it looks like you're ordering a physical DVD. Not true. You get the ability to download the Bordeaux package in a variety of 32- and 64-bit formats, including .deb and .rpm packages. No DVD.

I expected some detailed documentation for my $20. Didn't get it. It would have been nice for the Bordeaux "Group" to inform me of its Wine's incompatibility with Debian Lenny. A forum would be nice. I seem to remember one being on the company's site, but I couldn't find it yesterday.

I can't complain too much: The Windows app I intended to run in Linux is running — and well.

I've always wanted a Thinkpad. With the Lenovo Outlet, it looks like if I come up with $500-$600 I could actually get one.

Thinkpads, both in their IBM days and now that the Chinese company Lenovo owns the brand, have seemingly always played nicely with free, open-source operating systems based on Linux and BSD.

That's because lots of developers tend to use them. And they want their stuff to work.

Me too.

Me and Xorg. It's a long, dramatic tale.

OK, it's not so much me and Xorg as it is my Intel 830m graphics chip and Xorg, or more specifically my Intel 82830 CGC and Xorg.

Whatever you title this epic — and make no mistake, this is epic, let me preface this by saying the c%$ I've been through since the days Debian Lenny was in Testing is something I wouldn't wish on any other user.

If you want to read every sordid detail, start with my three-part series, or just read my fix for Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala).

Long story short, I've managed to get my Intel 830m laptops (yes, I do have more than one) to run in Debian Lenny and all the Ubuntus from 8.04 through 9.10 with the various methods detailed in the posts above.

There are two ways to go about this. One involves hacking into xorg.conf to make the display work. The other involves disabling kernel mode setting.

In Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) Alpha 2, which I've been testing with a live DVD, there are two ways to boot the disc and get actual video.

The first is booting in "Safe Graphics Mode," which invokes the VESA driver.

The second is something that worked for me in at the beginning of the 9.10 era, which I didn't need later but now seem to need again in 10.04. And that is disabling kernel mode setting.

Both of these methods work, but I prefer the second, disabling kernel mode setting, because a) you're not using the VESA driver and b) you are running X without an xorg.conf file, which is something I quite like to do (and have done in OpenBSD and a few Ubuntu releases).

To run in Safe Graphics Mode, once you boot the Ubuntu Lucid DVD, click F4 for the various "modes," and select "safe graphics mode." Then click Enter to either "Try Ubuntu Without Installing."

You will boot into Ubuntu Lucid, and the system will create an xorg.conf file that calls the VESA driver.

It looks good. It is good. I don't think you'll be able to get Compiz, but I couldn't get it with my other method either. I've been able to use Compiz before on this hardware, but I always disable it anyway because all that wobbling and sliding makes me nauseous (literally).

I prefer the second method, disabling kernel mode setting. I wrote up this hack for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic, and it works here just as well.

Here's what you do:

You need to get to the Boot Options line. Do that by hitting F6 (Other Options). Don't actually choose one of the options presented. Instead, click your Esc key. The Boot Options line should appear just above the F1 through F6 line at the bottom of the screen.

To access that Boot Options line, just hit one of your arrow keys, and your cursor should appear. At the end of the Boot Options line — after quiet splash — enter the following:

i915.modeset=0

Then click the Enter key to boot into the Ubuntu 10.04 live environment.

If this works for you the way it works for me, you'll soon be in the Ubuntu desktop, and if you open a terminal and run:

$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf

You'll see that you don't have an xorg.conf, but you're in X. And it works. I like that.

I tried to turn on Compiz just to see if I could, but it didn't work.

If turning off kernel mode setting works for you in the live Ubuntu 10.04 environment, what do you do if you want to actually install Ubuntu? How do you turn off kernel mode setting permanently?

(Remember that while I initially needed to turn off kernel mode setting in Ubuntu 9.10, at some point in the update cycle I was able to turn it back on ... before I started having more trouble with X, prompting me to retreat to Debian Lenny, which I'm running on my main laptop right now.

Ubuntu 10.04 is only in the alpha stage now. This issue might be "fixed" by release time in April of this year. Or not. But you can always try this hack if you have trouble.

I'd love to tell you how to make this kernel mode setting fix so the GRUB bootloader will turn it off every time you boot into Ubuntu, but I can't. GRUB has "moved on" to GRUB 2, and it no longer works the same way as the GRUB I've been hacking into for three years now.

And now I'm hearing that GRUB 2 isn't quite ready for production from a security standpoint.

Update: Here's a pretty good tutorial on working with GRUB 2.

I did a little checking around — and I encourage any of you to do the same, since I'm not running GRUB 2 on an actual install — and it looks like you can add boot parameters in /etc/default/grub, then run update-grub to update /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

It looks like the line in /etc/default/grub with "quiet splash" in it could be appended with i915.modeset=0, and after saving it, you run update-grub, and then you should be good to reboot.

Again, I don't have Ubuntu 10.04 installed on any boxes, so I'm speculating here.

If I'm correct (and I'd love confirmation):

You open a terminal and use sudo to accomplish this (with your favorite text editor; I'd use vi or nano, but I'll use Gedit here because I imagine the average Ubuntu user is plenty comfortable with it):

$ sudo gedit /etc/default/grub &

Then when you're in the file, change this line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

to look like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash i915.modeset=0"

Save the file in Gedit and close the window.

Then run this command:

$ sudo update-grub

You should now be able to reboot the machine and have GRUB turn off kernel mode setting automatically. If not, I imagine there's a way to edit your boot line "on the fly" like there is now with the "old" GRUB. (Again, if anybody has installed Ubuntu 10.04 and can confirm this, I'd really appreciate it).

My initial impression of GRUB 2: I like the idea of GRUB 2's configuration files being in /etc instead of in /boot/grub. It makes it easier to keep backups, and if you kill the bootloader (as I have on many an occasion) with a dual-boot install, you'll still have your configuration, or so I think.

Hello LTS: Disabling kernel mode setting worked for me in the early 9.10 era, and at some point either a kernel or Xorg update made it so I no longer needed it. Now it seems that I need it again to make Intel 830m (82830 CGC) video work. Whatever. If disabling kernel mode setting makes Ubuntu 10.04 work, I've just bought three more years (Lucid is a long-term-support release) of security updates in an OS that I like a whole lot.

What about Squeeze? Does Debian Squeeze use kernel mode setting? I ask because I had the same problem in Sidux 2009-04 (which I used to peek in a live-disc kind of way into what Squeeze might be like), and the Vesa driver came through for me there. At some point I'll try turning off kernel mode setting in Sidux and see what happens.

This kind of BS amounts to one thing and one thing only: New user repellent. If you haven't been hacking around with Xorg for years, and you're just thinking of trying Ubuntu and happen to have a laptop like mine — of which there are MILLIONS out there, Intel video being pretty darn ubiquitous — you're going to get a Ubuntu disc, try to boot it, get no video and wonder what all the fuss is about Linux since you can't even get to the desktop. It's a huge fail.

How could Ubuntu (or Debian, Slackware, Arch ...) solve this issue? During hardware detection, if the Intel 830m graphics chip comes up, use a script to turn off kernel mode setting (and if this hack works for any other graphics chips having this same trouble, include them in this "configuration" script). There's no reason why a very common graphics chip shouldn't work without resorting to the kind of hackery that's way, way above the pay grade of almost every new Ubuntu user.

Readers of this blog know that I have two identical Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptops that I saved from the trash heap about two years ago.

They were made in late 2002 — a fact I'm more sure of now than ever because of all the date stickers I saw when cracking the cases and swapping the LCD inverter board from one into the other.

In recent months one of the Toshibas was running Ubuntu, going from 8.04 through the upgrades to 9.04. Aside from having trouble with 9.04, the LCD screen developed a crack that spread all the way across and rendered it unusable. Its CMOS battery was also dead. But it had working sound ...

The other Toshiba was running a test of Debian Lenny with fully encrypted LVM. It's sound was dead, its space bar is a little flaky, and the backlight in the LCD screen would periodically go out, only to be brought back for either seconds, minutes or hours with a press on the lid-closing switch. Well, it's been more seconds than minutes lately on pressing that little button, so I decided to do something about it.

Googling the problem told me that the intermittent backlight behavior was due to a bad LCD inverter board, a part that runs about $50. But who's going to spend $50 on a 2002 laptop?

Last night I pulled a few screws, pried off the bezel and disconnected the LCD inverter from the Ubuntu laptop with the cracked LCD. I also took a few other parts off, including the keyboard.

Today I cracked the Debian laptop's bezel off, removed its dying LCD inverter and replaced it with the "good" one from the Ubuntu laptop.

I had to cut actual Scotch tape used during the laptops' assembly to free both inverters and replace that tape to keep the flimsy ribbon cable attached to the inverter (this Toshiba is all flimsy ribbon cables), but once I screwed the inverter back down to the laptop and had its ground in contact with that of the laptop itself, the screen began working.

A fairly easy repair.

In doing my research, I learned that the sound chip in the Toshiba 1100 is indeed a removable module, one that costs some $40. In the near future I'll be looking into pulling the "good" one from the Ubuntu laptop and replacing the "bad" one in the Debian machine. Then I'll swap the keyboard (and probably should drop in a bigger hard drive than the 20 GB model in there now).

If there's any moral to this story it's that having two identical hunks of hardware is the best and cheapest way to keep one of them going for a long time.

To come: I photographed much of this repair, and while quality won't be great (it's a cell-phone camera), I will re-write this narrative with those images included.

I suppose I've reached some kind of Twitter milestone: My Twitter feed has slowly, finally reached 150 followers.

It's not like I've been really trying or anything. Gave that up months ago.

Thus far I've tweeted 826 times. I used to do "original" tweets on things that were happening, mostly in the world of technology. And I'd do my little updates, "Ubuntu just crapped out again," or what have you.

And my followers would go up, then down. That's due to Twitter's dirty little not-so-secret: A good many Twitter accounts are blatant attempts at shady marketing, in which the user or company or wanna-be-company involved tries to get as many followers as he/she/it can in order to have a vessel into which to send marketing messages of dubious use and quality.

They follow you in hopes you'll follow them and be subject to their pleas/ploys.

I don't do that. I only follow people who's tweets interest me. Right now I'm following 95 Twitter feeds. That's a pretty good number.

Just like having too many Facebook "friends," and missing most of what your "real friends" are doing because they might not be as active as some of your less-than-friendly Facebook friends, some people tweet every minute and clog out the people whose tweets you might actually want to see.

Enough grumbling about that aspect of Twitter. Now you can make and share lists of select Twitter feeds/users and have a filtered/better experience. I've made a couple of lists, but I just don't have time or care much.

If I really want to see what's going on in the world of Twitter, I generally enter a keyword in the search box after logging in and that way tap into the virtual pulse of whatever it is I'm interested in.

Here's the important part: It's like me to put the "important part" at the end, isn't it?

Well, here's how I "do" Twitter. I don't waste my time writing "original" tweets. I only use Twitter to promote links to other things I've written, either in this blog or elsewhere.

Every once in awhile I'll click one of those "ReTweet" buttons and create a tweet that way to call attention to something on the Web I think is worth noticing. But not that often.

For me, unless Twitter is doing something for me, I'm not doing something for it. Twitter is still white hot in terms of buzz and popularity, so it remains a great place to draw attention to just about anything. But if it doesn't drive traffic to one of my sites, it's not doing what I want or need it to do.

And Twitter is the ultimate in ephemeral mediums. I don't know how long a tweet remains on the Twitter servers, but I don't think it's very long at all. It's there, people see it or not, and then it's gone. And there's really no way of knowing how many people have seen any given tweet. The numbers could be huge. Or not. You can tell how many people are following you, or how many people have clicked your links. But how many have seen your tweet and just read it? There's no way of knowing.

And people seeing what I wrote on Twitter and not clicking back to anything does nothing for me. I'm not sure what it does for Twitter, either. But that's their business (and I'm not sure when it comes to business that they're actually doing any/)

So I habitually use the "ShareThis" button on my blog to tweet my entries.

But even if my non-linkable thought runs 140 characters or less, I'll be expressing that thought in a way that I have more control over and that lasts longer than the week or weeks that it's still accessible on Twitter.

The hiring of Linux-savvy and revenue-minded exec-slash-blogger Matt Asay as the new chief operating officer of Canonical looks like a very good — and telling — move for the Isle of Man- (really London-but-don't-tell-anyone) based company that oversees the growing-by-leaps-bounds-and-all-other-ways Ubuntu Linux distribution and surrounding universe.

Asay is pretty much singular among bloggers for a) being an actual, paid technology and open-source executive for a company that must take care of both community and customers. He helped Novell gain traction in the Linux business, and he continued that success with the Alfresco conten management system (and company of the same name; that there is a company that is out to make money is telling; Canonical desperately wants to become self-sustaining if not world-dominating).

I've thought well of Asay for some time: How many other blogs do you know that have an actual category that bears his name? Not many, I figure. (In case disclosure on my part is not just piling on at this point, yes I'm an avid reader of The Open Road, and Matt and I have exchanged maybe a couple of messages over the past year ... I won't mention the 5,000+ Twitter followers he has while I limp along with fewer than 150.)

It is certainly Matt's business experience and acumen that got him from Novell to Alfresco and now to Canonical, the latter of which to many is the uncontested front-runner in furthering Linux's ambitions on the desktop but also is serious about grabbing its share of the server and cloud markets as well.

But in some small way, or maybe a larger way than that, his work as the Open Road blogger cut the trail for him to go to Canonical. It's a company of big, public personalities: Mark Shuttleworth, Jono Bacon, even Dustin Kirkland (I seem to read his blog posts on encryption and hear him on podcasts a lot ...). And if you're a popular blogger for a huge tech-news site, you're in that big-personality category.

In Matt's own post, he outlines his mission at Canonical:

As COO, I am tasked with aligning the company's strategic goals and operational activities, the optimization of day-to-day operations, and leadership of Canonical marketing and back-office functions. Some of these things are very familiar to me; others aren't. That's precisely the challenge I feel I need.

Before that he calls the position "an opportunity to expand my experience and to work on some really hard and varied problems, including cloud computing, consumer Linux adoption, and community development."

Those are all uphill climbs, even for Ubuntu/Canonical. In the parlance of Steve Jobs (no fan of open source, to be sure), it's the opportunity to do something great.

I've written numerous times that I expect more from Canonical and Ubuntu than I do from any other open-source company and project (and yes, that includes Red Hat, Novell and the Linux distributions they shepherd/produce).

It's not just the Shuttleworth fortune behind the company, but that is part of it. A lot of it is the "Linux for Human Beings" motto of a company that, like Google also doesn't want to "be evil" but is being watched by legions of fanboys for just such evil-doing, which to some is any stab at making actual money.

If anybody can thread that needle — making money while keeping the non-Canonical-employee community, the greater user community and any customers happy — Matt Asay seemingly can.

Or at least I hope he can.

From where I sit, as a technology writer, user of open-source operating systems in my daily work (recently Ubuntu but currently Debian), success for me will be Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular taking a significant share of the operating-system market from Microsoft and Apple both on the desktop and the server (though the former is vastly more important if much less lucrative than the latter).

What is a "significant share"? I'm not sure. Even 3 percent would be a huge number. But it's more about momentum than any given numerical goal.

For me, "significance" means lots of preloads and the marketing to go with them, from major computer manufacturers like Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, etc., and through many, varied retail channels (everything from TigerDirect and Newegg to Staples, Office Depot, Target and Wal-Mart).

Free, open-source software in general and desktop Linux in particular might not be the best solution for everybody, but it sure is a better way to go for many people in many situations, both at home, in the office and across the enterprise world.

If Matt can straighten out the mess with older Intel video hardware that affects the entire Xorg-using world, he'll have earned his first year's salary — and then some — in my opinion.

First thing we'll have to deal with is Matt's Apple-fanboy situation (not that I don't use Macs, too, on a semi-regular basis ... but that's another topic for another day).

More seriously, I wish Matt good luck in his future endeavours. Keep in touch ... have a bitchin' summer ... see you in sixth-grade ... all that yearbooky stuff. I'm expecting a Jono Bacon-Matt Asay hip-hop duo performance at the next convention.

Official announcements are available from Canonical, Alfresco, and how the former COO becoming CEO seemingly places Asay in line for the top non-Mark-Shuttleworth spot at the company.

For analysis that isn't mine, go to brother/sister blogs (both of which I read regularly) WorksWithU and The Var Guy. Also see my other favorite FOSS blogger, SJVN on Matt Asay's move to Canonical.

Run the operating system and accompanying application software that ...

• Works best on your hardware
• That you feel personally/technically competent about (or want to get there)
• That includes the applications you want and need to use
• Which has an acceptable term of support from the project/vendor for your needs
• Which has an acceptable distance from (or to) the cutting-edge of software for your needs

When Debian issues a point release, as it just did with the current Stable distribution Lenny going from the 5.0.3 to 5.0.4, it's no big deal. They happen. But you don't need to throw out your Lenny install CDs or do any kind of reinstallation.

The updates have been flowing to your Debian-running machine (assuming you have one) all along if you've been using the Update Manager that ships in the standard desktop, or regularly checking for updates with Aptitude or apt.

If you are in need of a new Debian install CD, be it the network installer, the business-card size installer or a full CD or DVD, there will be new images with all the patches up through 5.0.4. But you can always install with even a 5.0.0 disc made when Lenny went Stable (Feb. 15, 2009) and then update the box and have everything in 5.0.4.

And Debian installations are generally upgradeable from one distribution to another, say from Lenny to the current Testing branch, Squeeze, or to Squeeze once it becomes stable itself (sending Lenny into Old Stable territory, at which time it will still get security patches for an additional year).

I'm no expert on Debian point releases, but I did think it was unusual to have, as I did, 29 updates waiting for me. I've been waiting to install them until I wrote this blog post, and as such I will be letting Update Manager do its thing.

One thing I noticed was that via the Update Manager, in recent weeks (many, actually) I haven't been able to see the "changes" notes on the various packages ready for upgrade. Now I can. I don't know what fix was made previously in Debian, either to my installation or to the way the packages are configured at the Debian mirrors, but it's nice in any event to see that information in Update Manager.

Once again I'll give my pitch for Debian Stable. It doesn't have the newest packages, but everything is of an acceptable age for my purposes. Debian runs faster than Ubuntu on my old hardware, and I really enjoy not needing to mess around with xorg.conf settings or any kernel mode setting configuration, as I have all too often in the past six months running mostly Ubuntu.

I'm not saying I won't be giving Ubuntu Lucid a try. In fact, I already have. It looks good ... with the VESA driver. If the folks at Xorg/Ubuntu/Debian/the Linux kernel can see fit to allow my Intel 830m video chip to work with either the Intel or i810 drivers (and why the i810 driver has been drummed out of the Xorg world is both a mystery and a personal affront to me).

My whole sense of open-source operating systems used to be that the newest hardware isn't so well-supported since drivers haven't been written/ported, and the very oldest hardware is tough because all of that stuff is falling out of the kernel/system. I found more than a few distributions/projects that could handle my aging stable of computers (with much success using OpenBSD, Debian and Puppy Linux).

But the Xorg issues I began having way back in Debian Lenny's Testing days have caused me a whole lot of trouble. Now that I've overcome enough problems to run X in Lenny, all the Ubuntus up through Karmic, as well as OpenBSD 4.6, I'm worried once again; I've had to resort to the VESA driver not just in Ubuntu Lucid Alpha 2 but also in Sidux 2009-04 (which I tried to give me a clue as to how Debian Squeeze will turn out).

Thus my holding onto Debian Lenny with both hands. I'll be looking into Debian Backports with an eye toward upgrading a few key apps and staying in Lenny longer than I otherwise might.