Recently in OS X Category

I've been contemplating an installation of Mac's OS X operating system on my old Power Macintosh G4/466 (466 MHz PowerPC CPU, currently 384 MB of RAM but a maximum of 1.5 GB on the motherboard).

That circa 2000/01 machine has been very happily running the PowerPC build of Debian Etch Linux for quite awhile now. But to truly be a work machine for what I do, I need to have Flash capability, and that's something that just isn't easy to do (and do well) on a PowerPC system not running OS X.

It's the tyranny of Flash as the predominant video format over the Internet. Flash is a proprietary system that is wholly controlled by Adobe, and both the apps that make Flash as well as those that display it are tightly controlled by this single company.

And while Adobe appears happy to code Flash players for Intel-based Linux, it is not so happy to do the same for other architectures in Linux (including PowerPC) as well as for other Unix-like operating systems such as FreeBSD (which uses the Linux version to some degree of success, as does OpenBSD, but in both cases on i386 only and not on PowerPC, which is what I'm aiming for).

I'm already running OS X on our iBook G4 laptop, and I figured that a "backup" OS X machine wouldn't be a bad idea all the way around.

I left the Debian Etch drives in the G4 (there is space for three drives on the bottom of the box, and I have one Debian "root" drive and another devoted to backups) but unplugged them and added a 40 GB IDE hard drive I pulled from a dying Compaq desktop a while back.

Once I figured out with the help of my Mac guru (and fellow LADN online worker) Tom Gapen that the OS X installer wouldn't even recognize my new/old hard drive until I used Apple's Disk Utility to put an OS X-recognized volume on it, I was able to continue beyond the first few screens of the install process.

Even then, I had to create the HFS+ volume in the Disk Utility and reboot before the installer would allow me to actually begin the installation.

Since this Mac is so comparatively old, it doesn't have an internal DVD drive. Being CD only, I used my OS X 10.3 discs to install the system. I figure I'd try later to hook up a Firewire DVD drive and upgrade to 10.4.

Once I had the disk-volume issue out of the way, I just let the installer run. The first thing it does is painstakingly check the first of two CDs for errors. Probably not a bad thing, but time-consuming.

I just let the installer run as I did other things, changed discs when needed, and then entered the barest of personal information when the system asked for it to make the first user account.

So I now have a relatively old Macintosh G4 with a single 466 MHz processor (we still have a few dual-500 MHz G4s in service at the Daily News; they run well with OS X 10.4) probably not quite enough memory at 384 MB, but a spare 256 MB module that I'll stuff in there as soon as I can (and the hope that I can scare up one or more 512 MB PC100 or PC133 modules to build it out).

I don't have the box connected to the Internet yet, and I'll have to load some software — especially the Firefox Web browser — in addition to first patching the OS X 10.3 installation and then upgrading to 10.4 and patching that ...

And if I can get networking into the box (I'm thinking either powerline networking or stringing some CAT5e from the home network to the box, which is far away from said home network), I will hopefully have a somewhat serviceable OS X machine on which to do work at home.

And if it doesn't work out, I can just unplug the OS X drive, replug in the Debian drives, update the Etch installation to Lenny and return to all the goodness that Linux has brought to this box in the recent past.

Jono Bacon goes on at length at his blog on the contrast between the euphoria over the release of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and the reports of problems by users.

Read the 10 or so entries below this one and you can see the problems I've had.

It's time to put this in perspective. I've had plenty of problems with all manner of Linux and other Unix-like operating systems over the past few years. Given all the hardware that a modern OS must contend with (and I'll include Windows in that number since it runs – or is supposed to, anyway – on a wide variety of hardware), there's bound to be breakage.

Apple has it easy because it controls the hardware and the software and hence has an easier time making all the bits work together.

In my experience, Ubuntu generally performs well, and its developers seem genuinely worried about whether or not hardware will work with the distribution's constant stream of releases.

In both Linux and OpenBSD, for instance, wireless support has only gotten better over time.

I wish I could say the same for sound and video. PulseAudio has been somewhat of a disaster over the past year or more. It just wasn't ready for the average user, and the above-average user is demanding Jack and real-time kernels to do sophisticated audio work.

Now PulseAudio seems to be getting better.

For me, my Intel video hardware on a couple of laptops (Gateway Solo 1450 and Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101) has been causing problems beginning with Debian Lenny's time in testing. Whenever you need xorg.conf hacks just to make video work, and those hacks aren't crystal clear and easy to find, there will be problems. People will try Linux and run away from it as fast as they can if they can't get the basics (sound and video) to work.

And for my particular Toshiba laptop, the use of Kernel Mode Setting killed X in my Ubuntu 9.10 upgrade. Once I figured out how to turn KMS off (with a new line in GRUB), I could run X without an xorg.conf for the first time since Ubuntu 8.04 and OpenBSD 4.4. That's a nice change.

But to get there — to get basic functionality — I had to bring my 2 years of FOSS knowledge to bear in order to solve the problem.

Then just about every ancillary GNOME app (Brasero, Rhythmbox, Empathy and the non-GNOME Pidgin) stopped working after the upgrade. A quick search determined that my previous installation (in 9.04) of KDEnlive brought in a plugin that kept the other four apps from working. I saw lots of chatter on the problem, but none of the solutions worked for me. I had to remove the offending plugin and then reinstall three opencv libraries to clear things up (you can see all the details in the previous entries on this blog).

Many will say that I should've stuck with the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (with the initials standing for "long-term support"), which performed well for me but wasn't as stable on my particular hardware as 9.10 (for which I had to do some hackery to get NetworkManager to manage my network).

And both Ubuntu 8.04 (I'm still using it on the Gateway laptop, where it's very solid) and Debian Lenny (now stable and running very well for me on two other machines) are viable options, but for my main laptop I want newer packages, especially Firefox 3.5, and I've been more inclined to upgrade the distro itself rather than use backports or PPAs to bring newer apps to older distributions.

Maybe I've got that wrong (or maybe not).

I've been meaning to move all of my user files to a Debian Lenny machine and see how well that performs with my regular abuse of the hardware and software. And there's always Fedora (and Mandriva ... and PCLinuxOS ... Mepis ... and dozens of others).

But despite all my grumbling, I do have a functioning Ubuntu 9.10 system. I even ditched my own "blue" theme and wallpaper and brought in the "human" theme and wallpaper that shipped with the upgrade. I'm back to Ubuntu s**t brown and orange, and I'm liking it. The new GNOME icons are cool. And we all have the next Ubuntu release — and 10.04 will be the next LTS — to look forward to with hope that many bugs will be squashed in the service of a stable desktop that will have the customary 3 years of desktop support.

In a nutshell: Ubuntu's under the hot lights. People expect more from it than they do from any other FOSS operating system. And it generally delivers more than any other, if not as much as people are counting on in their lofty expectations.

I use Ubuntu for many reasons: It seems to have the right balance between total "freedom" and the ability to play most multimedia, its developers are focused more on the desktop and less on the server (although Ubuntu is making a big play there), and its vast user base means that when there are problems, the community (including me in this blog) can often solve problems that benefit all users.

We're all looking for the time when Ubuntu (or some other distro, or some other OS entirely) can be easily handled by the average computer owner. That time really isn't here yet. With a Windows preload, the manufacture of the hardware generally makes sure there are drivers for all the hardware. Linux preloads — a few of which do exist — generally do the same. But in the wild and wooly world of geeks burning ISOs and installing Unix-like operating systems on all manner of hardware, a foolproof experience just isn't in the cards. Yet.

Will we ever get there? I hope so. I also have at least a little bit of hope for more preloads of Ubuntu and other Linux distros and maybe even a BSD.

There has been a whole lot of progress over the past few years on the Linux desktop. It's hard to predict where the state of FOSS will be five years from now.

In the near future I'll settle for Xorg and Intel playing well together, mass adoption of a free and open video standard and a move away from proprietary document formats since we barely need to print anything anyway.

As an experiment, I decided to bring my Evolutionary Computing presentation on making the journey into free, open-source software — a slide show originally created in OpenOffice Impress 2.4 — into Google Docs, which happens to have a presentation app in addition to the better-known Docs and Spreadsheets components.

I revised the presentation — taking some things out, adding others and providing some updates on what I'm doing — and output it as a PDF.

Download that PDF for your reading pleasure by clicking on the image above or the link below:

Evolutionary Computing (revised July 2009)

Interesting note: I believe that no previous entry on this blog has been filed under so many categories. (And I've been considering dumping Categories entirely and just using tags ...)

Scrolling through this week's Distrowatch, I came across an interesting new distribution in the "waiting list" of projects that will eventually be tracked by Distrowatch, should they survive long enough to ...get through the waiting list.

Lin-X aims to follow the Ubuntu distribution on which it's based but look as much like Apple's OS X as possible.

While I'm a user of OS X as well as Ubuntu (and Windows and OpenBSD ...) and I do like many things about the OS X user interface — the chief of which is the ability to keep an application running but NOT have a window of that application open at the time if I choose not to — I'm not one of those people who think OS X has it all over GNOME, KDE or even Windows XP.

But others might feel differently, and the ability to create a distro such as Lin-X from the parts provided by Ubuntu (and before that by Debian, and before that the Linux kernel, GNU userland, Xorg, GNOME and the many thousands of applications and utilities that go into many Linux distributions) ... that ability is something to be celebrated, since it gives us, the users, more choice and more freedom.

Anyhow ... while the OS X look of Lin-X is somewhat intriguing, what's even more intriguing about the distro is its revenue model.

Revenue model?

Yep, it has one. Aside from donations (which enter you in a drawing for a free Macintosh, there's an offer of e-mail support at $15 a year.

While it's not free, it's extremely cheap. Desktop support from the likes of Canonical, Red Hat or what have you will cost much, much more.

I won't get into why people who want to run an OS X-looking Ubuntu/Linux-acting OS on their PC hardware would be overly interested in winning some free Macintosh hardware — OK, maybe it's not as incongruous as it seems to me — but if this support is worth anything at all, it could be an extremely good deal for a business or individual who wants to run Ubuntu on the desktop, especially a Ubuntu designed to look as much as possible like OS X.

If you have any interest in Lin-X, download it here via Torrent, direct link via Adrive or Megaupload (the latter two of which I've never heard of ... but they appear to be legitimate ways of getting the ISO).

The only "stopper" here is that I can't find the name of the person or persons behind Lin-X, also known as probably the guy who wants your $15 and is promising you the chance at a free Macintosh in order to get it. Neither the About page nor the FAQ mention a single name.

That makes me a little squirrely about the whole endeavor, but then again, if you download Lin-X, run it and like it, $15 isn't much to part with even if you don't expect any support in return. So if you expect little, you probably won't be disappointed.

Disclaimer: I have neither download nor run Lin-X; I'm basing all of this on my reading of the Distrowatch article and the Lin-X Web site. My interest in running Ubuntu-derived distributions is limited to those that offer scads of audio-, graphic- and especially video-editing software; if it includes Cinelerra or whatever Cinelerra is morphing into by default, or anything aspiring to be the next Final Cut for FOSS, I'm there. In that aspect, I'll probably need a Mac eventually, but I'd much rather edit video in an all-FOSS environment, and that remains my goal.

I've been writing updates in my print column of the things I've bought/used/discarded/loved/hated over the past year, and that got me thinking: I got started with Linux in early 2007 and used many a distro on the machines available to me.

But for the last six months, I've pretty much stuck with the same OSes on the same machines. There are two reasons for this:

1) I've found stuff that works

2) see 1)

OK, that's one reason, but it sure feels better as two.

Anyhow, the other reason I've kept the same operating systems on my half-dozen or so active computers is that I need them to run — and run well. And they do.

Here's the rundown:

On my main laptop, the Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101, I've been running OpenBSD 4.4 for nearly six months. The only "sticking" point is not having Flash 9 or 10. Flash 7 works for YouTube but not much else. I have a few things that I do that need more up-to-date Flash, but otherwise the OS and applications in packages and ports have been extremely stable. I just upgraded it from Firefox 2 to 3, and tonight I added Mplayer and successfully played a Quicktime video. (Too bad the sound chip on the Toshiba is broken; the video itself looked great.)

If OpenBSD weren't so good, I'd use the Flash situation as a excuse to run back to Linux. But I've enjoyed using OpenBSD and learned so much over these months that for now I'm going to stick with it.

I have an identical Toshiba Satellite laptop running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. It, too, is performing very well, although I seldom use it since I have all of my data on the OpenBSD laptop. I have few complaints about Ubuntu 8.04, and before it came out I vowed to stick with the LTS for at least a year, maybe longer. I could be persuaded to upgrade if I needed to get a newer wireless adapter to work, but so far I haven't needed to do that. Ubuntu remains very solid, and with better Flash support than OpenBSD it's nice to have it as a backup.

Our daughter has what used to be known as the $0 Laptop, a Gateway Solo 1450. The Gateway could never comfortably run OpenBSD because of its noisy CPU fan, which Linux can manage most of the time (with a simple shell script). FreeBSD managed the fan even better, but only during the first boot after the install. After that, it all went to hell.

Our girl has all her educational games on the Gateway, which is also running Ubuntu 8.04. I still think that the Debian Project packages Gcompris, Childsplay and TuxPaint just that much better than Ubuntu, but all the problems I had with Debian Lenny and X on both the Gateway and later the Toshiba had me running back to Ubuntu and OpenBSD — both of which run X perfectly on both laptops with no xorg.conf file needed.

I'll concede that installing, customizing and maintaining just about any Linux distro is easier than doing the same in OpenBSD, but as I say above, I'm grateful for the learning experience and most of the time can figure out how to do what needs to be done in OpenBSD.

My Self-Reliant Thin Client, the first test machine that I began running Ubuntu, Slackware, Debian, ZenWalk, Puppy, DSL and other distros on in 2007 has been running Debian Etch on a bootable 8 GB CF card for quite a few months now. I don't have it networked at the moment, so I can't upgrade to Lenny. I'm keeping the converted thin client powered on these days in another informal long-term test, and I hope to have networking hooked up to it soon. With 128 MB of RAM and less-than-great video and sound hardware, it's not the greatest machine, but I love having something with no moving parts and minimal power consumption.

I have the Mac G4/466, aka the Debian Mac, running Debian Etch, which I continue to think is the best non-OS X operating system for this particular hunk of hardware. I managed to get 640 MB of RAM into it, and it's a great machine. Since it's a PowerPC box, there's no Flash Player in any OS that isn't OS X. I'm considering an OS X 10.4 install to see how that runs. We have dual-500 MHz G4s in the office that run OS X really, really well. I wonder how this single-CPU 466 MHz box will measure up. We could use a Mac OS backup machine in the house.

Earlier this week, I pulled out the $15 Laptop, a 1999-era Compaq Armada 7770dmt with 233 MHz CPU and 144 MB RAM and fixed what was ailing it: It wouldn't run X in OpenBSD 4.2 in my user account, but would in root. That's because when it comes to screwing around with X, I don't know what I'm doing some of the time. I had created an .xinitrc file with a single line reading "xset b off" to silence the system bell in X, and that was enough to keep the Fvwm window manager from loading. I killed .xinitrc and all was well with the Compaq. I'll probably do a reinstall of OpenBSD, since upgrading from 4.2 to 4.3 to 4.4 to ... is just too much work. Yep, after a long search for the right OS, the Compaq has run OpenBSD for a long, long time.

The real workhorse of our stable is the iBook G4 1 GHz laptop. In the past year I've replaced the hard drive, pumped 1 GB of memory into it and upgraded from OS X 10.3 to 10.4. We needed 10.4 in order to run Firefox 3 and Flash 10. Yep, that's when I upgrade — only when absolutely necessary.

To make a long story short, until I have a burning desire to watch Web video all the time, or until I need to edit and process video into Flash, I just might stick with OpenBSD on my i386 hardware. Otherwise I'll probably move back to Ubuntu or Debian, the latter only if those nagging video problems somehow go away. (I've had similar issues with Slackware ...).

My next "challenge" will be to run OpenBSD -current instead of -release. Since I already hate waiting for things to compile, I don't know how I'll react to keeping a -current installation up to date. There's only one way to find out.

The blogospheric din is rising about Apple's supposed $800 laptop, which if it ever happens (and I have my doubts) will really hit hard on the Windows-based laptop market.

With Linux starting to eat away at the very low end of the laptop market on the ASUS EeePC and other netbooks, Apple dominating on the high-end (where it's share is considerable), the mushy middle is where most of the action is.

Having an $800 Macintosh laptop hits the bulk of the market and would steer plenty of people away from Windows and toward OS X. And like the iPod and iPhone's tendency to get their users to think about going all-Apple with an expensive desktop or laptop machine, a relatively inexpensive laptop is a hell of a game-changer.

Should this actually happen, Apple will have what looks like the right product at the right price — and at the exactly right time.

Let's see: Windows Vista not doing so well, and certainly not driving PC sales. Economy in the tank. The holiday season upon us.

If anything, it's a good time to buy some Apple stock.

Matt Asay thinks (and has thought for some time) that the Macintosh is the best place to do open-source development. And he points out that he's not alone in this opinion. (And here's another post along the same lines.)

I happen to have a Mac — a 5-year-old iBook G4 running OS X 10.3.9 that I just recently gutted to replace a dying hard drive — and I've been thinking more and more about running Unix apps on it.

I've been reading an O'Reilly book on the subject, and here are two places that seem essential for bringing free, open-source apps to the Mac:

• The MacPorts Project
• The Fink Project

If anything, the relative uniformity of hardware in the Macintosh world, and the tight integration between OS X and the machines on which it runs, makes a lot of the Linux/BSD problems we have in terms of hardware compatibility go away.

What I can't get with, though, is the high cost of Mac hardware and software (and yes, you are paying for both when you buy an Apple machine).

Still, this does bear thinking about. And so I will.

Why this could work for my company: While there are a great many image-editing programs in the free, open-source software world, the work we do here, fortunately or not, depends on features that only Adobe Photoshop offers. Yes, I've been learning to use Photoshop because for some of the things I need to do, there's no alternative.

And then there's Flash. I don't like technologies for which the development tools are not free and open. But there's Adobe again, with Flash development nestled in its Creative Suite.

And then there's the print publishing system that our company only supports on Windows.

And I still want to run the free, open-source applications I've grown to depend on, including OpenOffice (which is coming to Mac natively in version 3 anyway), the lightweight image editors that I still can use (MtPaint!!) for some tasks, excellent text editors (Geany, the HTML-focused Bluefish) and even full desktop environments like GNOME and KDE.

If costs be damned, the Mac with Adobe CS, Windows and X11 with all the Unix apps I want just might be the ideal platform.

But I'm not throwing Linux over the side of the boat just yet. There's the part about Apple's hardware and software being closely guarded and ... closed source. Then there's the cost. More to start with, and more continually for operating-system upgrades and proprietary software upgrades as well.

In the corporate world, where money is supposed to flow like so much water, this Mac solution very well could work.

But in the real world, who can afford it?

For many, the solution remains free, open-source operating systems with greater stability, longer support, better hardware detection and configuration, full power management and better applications that can do all the things we need to get done.

And as Linux in general, and distributions like Ubuntu in specific, gain(s) traction, hardware makers just might start paying attention to drivers that make their equipment work seamlessly with Linux without making the user dive head-first into geekery. That would level the playing field considerably, but the issue of mixing proprietary software with FOSS still looms over the discussion. (And yes, I'm not mentioning WINE on purpose, though maybe I should.)

Google didn't get where it is today by charging end users for software and charging them again and again for endless upgrades.

Back in the early Macintosh days (i.e. the mid- to late '80s), Apple used the OS to sell hardware. Upgrades were free.

Today, Apple sells music at 99 cents a track, but what they're really selling is iPods, iPhones, iMacs, and any other damn thing they can slap an "i" in front of. And while the music is available in 99-cent increments, the iTunes software -- which runs in Windows and OS X -- has always been free. iPods would've never gotten to be such a huge business in any other way.

It's no different for the OS.

With that in mind, Apple wins on the desktop -- and crushes Microsoft -- in one way:

Make OS X free -- or very cheap. And make it run on Windows-compatible PCs.

Everybody wants that new MacBook Air. They'll still want it, even if they can also run OS X on a crappy PC. While not getting $129 for each OS X upgrade, Apple would get market share, still move a whole lot of hardaware. And they would gain that all-important "mindshare."

Most people have heard of Linux, but few have seen it on the desktop, even though they "use" it every day when they browse the Web. Most have seen OS X, a significant portion have used it a bit, and a few are rabid fans.

And while I'd like to see OS X go free and open-source, I won't hold my breath on that one. As I said above, I'd prefer -- at a minimum -- that Apple port OS X to Windows PCs, i.e. make a native version that installs from CD and runs on non-Apple hardware.

But even making new versions of OS X free for Apple hardware would prompt more users to upgrade the software. When running the latest and greatest gets slow, they'd be more inclined to buy new hardware, most likely from Apple.

Right now I'm still running my 2003-era iBook on OS X 10.3. I saved $129 twice by not upgrading to 10.4 and 10.5. I can't even use Apple's newest Safari browser because it doesn't run on 10.3. Firefox does, so that's what I use. As a result, Apple misses out on any browser-generated ad revenue. Would 10.5 run well on my laptop? Who knows? I sure don't want to spend $129 to find out.

By flooding the market with a free or very cheap OS X, Apple could blunt the effects of Microsoft Windows, which customers pay for but don't really feel they're paying for because the cost is bundled into just about every PC sold.

Even if a free OS wouldn't fly at Apple HQ, if the company still ported OS X to Windows-compatible PCs, they could -- and should -- compete with Microsoft when it comes to pre-installed operating systems on non-Apple hardware.

Imagine if you could order a PC from Dell with Windows, Linux or OS X ... there would be real competition for the hearts and minds of computer users everywhere from the home to the enterprise.

And since Apple's hardware is so ultra-cool (and ultra-pricey), they'd probably sell even more of it if OS X had a much larger of the overall worldwide OS pie.

Why a desktop installation of OpenBSD?

It's a legitimate question. According to Distrowatch, among the three main BSD projects (they don't like to be called "distros"), FreeBSD is way out in front -- and is the base for PC-BSD and DesktopBSD -- followed by OpenBSD and NetBSD.

And even though there are two desktop-focused versions of FreeBSD, and it's possible to turn all three of the major BSD projects into a desktop-worthy system, the question remains: Why not just stick with Linux, with its usually superior hardware detection, vastly larger community of users (who in theory and often in practice can provide all the help you need to get a system up and running) and much larger choice of distributions?

For one thing, Linux isn't alone on the desktop, nor should it be. Apple has a hugely popular desktop operating system based in part on code from BSD. And another operating system derived from Unix -- OpenSolaris -- is also inching onto the desktop with its Indiana project.

I think the competition is enormously healthy for free, open-source software, and I support that competition and choice wholeheartedly.

And using OpenBSD to build up a desktop system is just plain fun. It's more of a challenge, and all the configuration that I've done and am doing just teaches me more about what makes operating systems tick, even in my technologically feeble state.

I'm no coder. I've never programmed anything. I just mess around with hardware and software and then write about it.

I'm pretty much compelled to do all the things I've done over the past year and a half. It hasn't gotten boring.

And while I'm not going to move away from Linux, if the hardware and software cooperate -- as they have on this test machine -- I see no reason not to spend some considerable time running OpenBSD and seeing what I can do with it.

Again, my thanks go to all the people behind OpenBSD as well as the bloggers whose experience has paved the way for me to consider running the operating system and then to install and begin configuring it.

Going forward, I hope all of the major BSD projects -- FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD -- will continue to grow, keeping their documentation of the same ultra-high quality and enabling users to get more and more hardware working to the point where both server and desktop users have a greater number of choices than ever with which to get things done.

Linus Torvalds, father of the open-source Linux operating system, says that in some ways Apple's OS X is "actually worse than Windows. He saved the phrase "utter crap" for OS X's filesystem. He says:

"An operating system should be completely invisible," he said. "To Microsoft and Apple (it is) a way to control the whole environment ... to force people to upgrade their applications and hardware."

I'm no Linus, but that seems a bit harsh. Even so, there's a new OS X filesystem on the horizon, I've heard.

Back in the Linux realm, Torvalds says he admires the One Laptop Per Child initiative as well as the low-cost -power and -size ASUS eee-PC laptop.

Let's get to it: I have one Web site that I work on infrequently that requires Internet Explorer, but since I barely have to do anything on it, I am free to use IE, or not.

And I waited at least a year to "upgrade" my IE6 to IE7 on the XP box at work. Yeah, it's an upgrade because now IE has tabbed browsing -- a feature Firefox has had for years, and which IE probably would've never added had FF not had it first.

I like IE6 because it was a fast program -- it opened fast and did the rest of its thing fast. And I could use it as an FTP client.

Now that I have IE7, sure there is tabbed browsing, and it looks a little better, but it's way slower than Firefox, and I pretty much only fire up IE for ONE Web site because it's at the top of my IE favorites and the bottom of my FF favorites.

IE loads more slowly, the favorites come up slower -- basically it gets beat by FF in performance by every measure. (I'm running a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB of RAM.)

And I can run Firefox in Windows, Linux, BSD and Mac OS X ... and I do (though I'm partial to the Mozilla-derived Epiphany in the GNOME desktop, as well as the Seamonkey browser/e-mail client/HTML editor suite -- also based on Mozilla).

Truth be told, if it really bothered me, I'd try to roll the box back to IE6, if that indeed can be done. Since IE7 installs over your IE6, I think it might be a problem to "go back."

Note: While I can't get the same FTP functionality out of IE7, I have a Windows workaround: Open up My Computer from the Start menu, and type your FTP address in the search bar. The window functions pretty much like IE6 -- it's the same "Explorer"-like interface Windows uses to let you examine your own files, and it does FTP just like IE6. Thanks, Microsoft!

I used to think IE was the best browser for OS X, too -- that final version of IE5 for the Mac was a masterful, innovative application, and I'm sorry Microsoft abandoned it. Safari doesn't have enough critical mass to cut it -- many Web sites don't look so hot in it -- so Firefox is pretty much the browser of record for the Mac, too.

And Mozilla is making hand-over-fist money by getting a cut of the Google searches made through the browser. All it means is more money that Microsoft isn't making.

Hope you're happy, Microsoft!

After yesterday's post on sharware vs. freeware vs. free, open-source software, I decided to install Geany on my Windows box. I've always liked Geany in Puppy Linux, and when I learned from the Geany Web site that the full-featured text editor was available for Windows, I had to try it.

To run in Windows, Geany needs the GTK 2 runtime libraries. Since I already have the GIMP image editor installed on this XP box, I already had GTK 2, so I was able to choose a version that didn't include the libraries.

I just started using Geany in Windows. I opened all the files I was working on last night in EditPad Lite, and now I'm not violating the EditPad license by using the program for "commercial" purposes.

So not only do I feel wrong about using pirated copies of commercial software, I'm not even comfortable running shareware or restricted freeware without paying. And with great FOSS alternatives like Geany, I don't have to.

As I say above, I first used Geany in Puppy Linux, where it is the default GUI text editor. And besides the Windows version, Geany is offered in source code as well as in packages for Gentoo, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, Suse, Slackware, Mandriva, ArchLinux, AltLinux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Solaris.

And it looks like Geany can run in OS X (if you have the GTK libraries, I presume).

I have plenty of text editors on my Linux boxes, but I just can't work with Microsoft's Notepad. I'm no fan of Apple's text editor in OS X, either -- I'd rather open a shell and use Nano (or is it Pico that's included ... I can't remember).

I've barely begun to scratch the surface when it comes to text editors. There are dozens out there, and Wikipedia does a fairly good job of attempting to categorize and compare them.

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS -- the distribution's first "long term support" release -- now has a new installer that incorporates some 600 bug and security fixes and makes installation easier, especially on servers.

It's no secret that Canonical, the company that runs Ubuntu, is making a big play both for the desktop and more-lucrative server markets, and a big part of that play is the LTS release. And even though the next Ubuntu release -- 8.04 (due 4/08 ... also known as April 2008) -- is going to be a Long Term Support release, with fixes, patches and the like for three years on the desktop, five years on the server, there's still quite a bit of time left for the current Ubuntu LTS, which will be supported until June 2009 on the desktop and June 2011 on the server.

The new installer -- you don't really need it if you can successfully use the old installer, already have a 6.06 LTS install (like I do) and have done all the updates -- underscores Canonical's commitment to the LTS concept. While the twice-yearly releases of Ubuntu get most of the light and heat in the uber-geek community, there are many who depend on the relative stability of the LTS release to keep their hardware running. That's especially true on servers, where major upgrades every six months are impractical at best and detrimential at worst -- nobody wants to break a system that's been running well.

And the LTS is vital as a counterweight to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server/Desktop, both of which are supported for years on end.

I'd like to say that Debian Stable (currently Etch) and Old Stable (Sarge) are equivalents, but since you can't pin down a date certain for length of their support, there is a bit of an unknown factor there, although once the Stable release goes to Old Stable, you pretty much know that the new Stable release won't give you too many problems.

Sure, many desktop users generally want something more cutting-edge, mainly something like the regular Ubuntu releases, but there are many people -- and many situations -- that warrant hanging on to a Linux installation as long as possible. Over the time I've used Ubuntu and Xubuntu (from 6.06 LTS through 6.10, 7.04 and 7.10), I've seen some parts of the installation improve dramatically, I've seen hardware work better, then worse, and occasionally not at all.

And we all know an individual or organization that hates doing major upgrades, ever. Those coming from a Windows or Macintosh background aren't all used to major OS upgrades. In the case of Windows AND Mac's OS X, major upgrades almost always cost money. $129 for an OS X upgrade might not sound like much, but paying that much every couple of years when your computer runs just fine the way it is? No thanks. That's why I'm still running OS X 10.3 on my Mac. And Windows? I have a disc for Windows 2000, and I'm not about to pay ANYTHING for the privilege of upgrading my sole Windows box (which I boot maybe twice a year) to XP.

And in Linux, just because we can change out distros 10 times a day if we wish, it doesn't mean that we have to -- or should. For people who crave the stability of long-term releases, one thing generally drives upgrade: newer software they need to get their work done, and new hardware that needs new software to run properly.

I did this most recent Ubuntu 6.06 LTS installation for testing purposes, but I've stuck with it because it just works. On this test box, it's flawless. On my Gateway Solo 1450 laptop, it manages the fan as well as 7.10 (i.e. not at all without a cron job; but well with said cron job), but less well than 7.04 (which has the ACPI working with no coding needed). (Note: I'm not currently running Ubuntu at all on the Gateway laptop, which is currently dual-booting the Slackware 11-based Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 and Debian Lenny, which I upgraded from the stable Etch.)

Using Ubuntu 6.06 LTS on this test box, sure I'm stuck with Firefox 1.5, OpenOffice 2.0, GMOME 2.14.3 and Evolution 2.6.1, but everything works. And there's nothing I do that I can't do with applications of this "vintage." If I this machine had wireless and it didn't work with 6.06, I might feel differently about LTS, but with the hardware I have now, LTS is a good fit.

So if you're looking for stable, supported releases, especially ones that won't cost you anything, it's nice to have Ubuntu LTS as a choice along with CentOS and Scientific Linux (both free versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux), SUSE, Debian and Slackware.

As far as stable, long-term releases go, I have run CentOS (3.9. 4.2 and 5), Debian (Etch and Lenny) and Slackware (12), as well as Ubuntu LTS, and Ubuntu holds up very well on the desktop in this crowd. It's more flexible, as far as adding software, than CentOS and Slackware -- it doesn't have as many packages as Debian, but it does have plenty -- and the desktop and menus are a bit more tame than Debian's, with a better out-of-the-box experience, especially for inexperienced users.

And the support available from other Ubuntu users is a major component of the distro's success. All the advice may not be of the best quality, but there's just so much of it that you're bound to find the right answer to whatever it is you're asking. Not that the Debian community isn't helpful (I love DebianHELP and the Debian User Forums, but they just don't have the sheer volume of the Ubuntu Forums. Like I said, there's a lot more noise among the Ubuntu people ... but that's the price you pay, I guess.

And since Ubuntu is based on Debian, what you learn in one community is more often than not directly applicable in the other.

Another thing I discovered today: I enjoy reading the Planet Debian blog posts from Debian developers, and I had no idea that there's a Planet Ubuntu as well. Both are more than worth adding to your favorites and checking on from time to time.

Over the past year, I've used both Debian and Ubuntu extensively, and I always say that Debian isn't as "hard" to use as some would make it appear. Nor is Ubuntu a relative cakewalk. Both require, at times, a bit of wading into the muck to make things work. As far as installation goes, Debian's installer -- upon which Ubuntu's "alternate" installer is very closely based, is quite good, and has succeeded for me many more times than Ubuntu's live CD and alternate-CD discs, but Ubuntu works often enough.

What Ubuntu has that Debian lacks is a marketing plan. For some -- especially the average Linux user (read: geek) -- having no marketing plan is, in and of itself, a marketing plan of sorts. Nobody's trying to make Debian "cool," or giving you reasons why you should or shouldn't run it. And while there are a few Debian evangelists out there, and a few for Slackware as well, there's nothing approaching the fervor over Ubuntu.

That might be good, or bad, depending on how you look at it.

A lot of people are running Debian and Slackware -- they're just quieter about it, I guess.

Anyhow, this post has gone on for far too long. All I want to say is that I'm in favor of long-term, "stable" releases with defined periods of support and a smooth upgrade path, and I'm glad that Ubuntu has pretty big foot in this very door.

And I like the fact that 6.06 LTS will be supported for over a year after the next LTS -- 8.04 -- is released a few months from now.

In reaction to recent security breaches, the U.S. Army is adding OS X servers to its data arsenal.

The Army isn't exactly saying that Macs and their OS are superior from a security standpoint to competing systems, but I do find the explanation interesting:

The Army isn't using any particular software package or OS X technology to improve security, though. Instead, it's hoping that having a more diverse mix of systems will make its networks harder to infiltrate. The security of the UNIX core of OS X, combined with the fact that less hackers are interested in Macs, were also given as reasons for introducing more Apple hardware.

...

Outside security vendors have leveled a number of criticisms against the Army for its Apple program, and have pointed out that Apple issues significantly more patches than Microsoft. The Army responded by saying that a large number of patches shows a greater commitment to security by Apple. Ultimately, the Army seems to be banking on paying off the extra cost of Macs by making its networks at least a bit less vulnerable to Windows security exploits.

I find Apple's recent efforts in the server space to be an interesting development. The more competition in the server area, the better. I think there's a definite space for Apple in betwen the high end of Solaris and traditional Unix, the Windows Server offerings and the vast Linux server market. If I knew more, I'd say more, but I don't, so I won't.

Go here for a great list of traditional (read: expensive) commercial software and the free, open-source programs you can use instead. The Webi page includes links to the home pages of all the FOSS (free, open-source software) programs it cites.

Two I plan to try are Cinepaint and Paint.NET, both image editors.

Many of my favorite apps are missing -- but the fact that there are enough FOSS apps that you can miss a bunch and still have a credible list is a very good thing.

Still, what's nice about this list is that it includes apps for Mac, Windows and Linux. I've always said that the best way to experience open-source is to do it on the OS you already know. Then the transition to a free, open-source OS like Linux will not be so daunting.

Free, open-source software is important for many reasons, but one of the biggest for me is that it enables me to compute with a clear conscience. Let's be real, most of us are using PCs with pirated software. Even if Microsoft Office, Photoshop and what have you are made by big corporations who charge many hundreds of dollars for their products, that's still no justification for stealing them. I feel a lot better using software that's meant to be free -- and freely modified, as are all FOSS programs.

And remember, you can't have freedom without "free" in the first place.