I just read that Debian is removing Flash from its repository:

Flashplugin-nonfree has been removed (see below), as this is closed source and we don't get security support for it. For security reasons, we recommend to immediately remove any version of flashplugin-nonfree and any remaining files of the Adobe Flash Player. Tested updates will be made available via backports.org.

Since adding Flash from the repository never seemed to work for me in Debian -- I always have to get it through the browser dialogs -- it's kind of a moot point. I haven't yet investigated Gnash -- the free, open-source Flash clone -- but I'd sure like to do so. Flash is a resource hog, and I wish it would go away, but that's probably not going to happen. I just hope that Gnash or some other open-source alternative can replace it -- and quickly.

Back to Debian: The Flash news is part of Debian's main announcement that there's a new netinstall image for Etch:

The Debian project is pleased to announce the third update of its stable distribution Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (codename etch). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustment to serious problems.

Please note that this update does not constitute a new version of Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away 4.0 CDs or DVDs but only to update against ftp.debian.org after an installation, in order to incorporate those late changes.

Those who frequently install updates from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update.

So you don't really need it, unless you don't already have it, in which case you need it.

I've been running Debian Lenny (testing) on the $0 Laptop (Gateway Solo 1450), and it's making significant progress -- it works way better than it did a month ago. I'm dual-booting with PCLinuxOS 2007 at the moment.

The older, weaker $15 Laptop (Compaq Armada 7770dmt) is still running Debian Etch (Stable), with the Xfce build's software, but now set to use Fluxbox as the window manager.

I can't decide whether or not to install Etch again on the Gateway just to see if any other bugs were fixed. For me, Lenny has resolved most of my issues, and I'll be happy to stick with it as it goes Stable.

And while I'm considering building an experimental server with OpenBSD, I might make it easy on myself and use Debian Etch instead.

My advice: If you're worried that either Debian or Slackware is too hard to figure out, don't be so worried. The not-so-hidden secret out there is that Ubuntu isn't that much easier. If you've got Ubuntu figured out even a little, you can handle Debian (and it's a bit faster, with more in the default install, besides). Slackware, you can probably figure out with a little hand-holding. Adding software and doing updates isn't as easy as in Debian/Ubuntu, but it's still fairly easy -- and you'll definitely learn something; actually quite a few somethings.

The flexibility of Debian is legendary. With one little netinstall CD, you can roll out a GNOME, KDE or Xfce desktop, a minimal console-only system (from which you can build what you want), plus any number of server configurations.

Slackware is also very flexible, but in a different way. It can't compete with Debian's 20,000+ packages, but there's a lot in the full Slack install. A full KDE desktop (with Xfce and Fluxbox, too). And if you want to spend a lot of time on the install process, you can pick and choose each individual package before committing to the final install.

Both put a lot of power in the hands of the user. And you do want power, don't you?

Flash update: Sander Marechal provided this very illuminating bug report (in this LXer thread) about the discussion in the Debian community over whether or not (and if so, then how) to include Flash in Debian.

At this point, it looks like the flashplugin-nonfree will be available to Debian users via Backports.org.

In the bug report, Ramond Wan says:

As a Debian user, but someone who isn't related to how Debian is run...I think you are correct and more importantly, what makes you think that Debian isn't political? Every time I visit a web site with Iceweasel and the server pops up an annoying message saying that Firefox is supported but not my browser, I sense only a part of the overall politics in Debian. In this case, I blame the server developers, too, for having such a message (how about if I used lynx?).

Anyway, there is a lot of politics within Debian and it stems from them
drawing a line that forms the basis of what Debian is (i.e., "free").
If they start making exceptions, then that line has no meaning.
Backports is a patch that helps make it easy for many of us. We give up
some things to be able to use Debian (rather than one of the many other
Linux distributions).

Carlo Wood says:

I'm sorry, but it doesn't seem to make much sense to let the debian users of stable and testing suffer like this. It's not like Adobe is going to be like "Oh My God!" and change their ways. They clearly don't give a damn.

I can't help but sense a political reason not to
support flash, just because it's "non-free", the
maintainers of debian WANT it to be broken, almost,
and certainly don't look hard for a way to give
their users an easy way to use flash. Just as long
as the result is that the users blame Adobe, and
not debian, it's ok - regardless of how much the
users suffer because of it.

And Timo Jyrinki says:

YouTube already works with Gnash the free Flash player, so that in particular should not be a problem. Many other sites are not yet working, but Gnash could be possibly defined as working "well enough" in time for the Lenny. At least I'm using it exclusively anyway, and I'm just using the 0.8.1 version, which lacks development for the last four months. But I don't find it problematic to skip sites that don't work with Gnash, so I'm not an average user.

In summary, Gnash works rather well for Flash 7 sites, but quite a large
portion of sites has moved to Flash 8 and 9 which are only a
work-in-progress with regards to Gnash, and most do not work properly.
Time will tell how fast Gnash will progress.

And here's what I say: I'm ambivalent about Flash. Some sites -- yes, even some that I personally help maintain -- use way too much Flash. You can barely navigate a site when you have two to four Flash apps running on a given page. The people who are all hot to use this much Flash obviously don't spend much, if any time using their own sites.

As far as video goes, Flash just seems easier than the alternatives. I know that QuickTime, for instance, runs like an old, three-legged dog on non-Apple hardware. It's just a lousy app.

So as far as video goes, I'd love to see some alternatives to Flash, especially open-source alternatives.

But as I say above, it may be a security issue, but on Debian I've always just gotten the Flash plugin straight from Mozilla through the browser itself.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 5:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I've taken a few days off from OpenBSD, and in the interim I ran the NetBSD live CD for the first time on the Gateway Solo 1450 (the $0 Laptop). Again, it looks great, but I'm so far from figuring out how to manage the CPU fan in any of the BSDs that I'm not optimistic about running any of them on this laptop. I wish it were different, but until the heavens open and the path forward is made much more clear, I'll stick to desktops (and my old 1999-era Compaq Armada pre-ACPI laptop) for BSD.

During that time, I booted into Debian Lenny on the Gateway and installed 141 updates. Debian Lenny is moving along very quickly. I'm ready to put an Etch install alongside it for comparison's sake during the wait for Ubuntu 8.04 ... which is two months at this writing.

The best text editor for the job: The other day, I needed to do some work at home, and I wasn't having a great time with the Gedit text editor in Lenny. I somehow thought that Gedit had a way to change the case of words, but the Lenny version (Gedit 2.20.4) didn't seem to have it. Was I imagining it, or did the Gedit in Ubuntu 7.10 have this feature? (See below for the answer.)

Anyhow, I need a better editor ... so I went into Synaptic and installed three: Geany, Bluefish and Scite. I'm going to try them all out. So far I can't seem to change the case of letters automatically in Bluefish, but there are so many features that can help with Web development that it's probably worth using. But for the level of work I'm doing, I'm relying on Geany the most at the moment. I haven't used Scite much, but I do plan to give it a try soon.

But ... GEdit does have the ability to change the case of words/letters. Under Edit -- Preferences -- Plugins, there's a Change Case plugin. I enabled it, and now I can change case via the menu with Edit -- Change Case. I prefer to use the keyboard to do this ... so I'll probably keep the other editors in contention.

Foresight Linux: The Foresight Linux booth at SCALE 6X was fairly busy. I could barely get near it during the show, and since I didn't really put 2 and 2 together and remember that Foresight is dedicated to presenting the latest in the GNOME desktop environment, I didn't linger. But I do want to give Foresight a try. It has separate install and live images, so I downloaded the live CD image and am m going to see what it's like.

I'll be your server: I've never set up a server, and all this work with OpenBSD makes me want to roll one myself. I'm going to try to do one on the local network with NFS, Samba, FTP and Apache. I'll probably try in OpenBSD and Debian as well as Damn Small Linux.

Two excellent Linux books: Since I'm not made of money, I got both of these from the library. The "Linux Administration Handbook, " by by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent R. Hein and an army of more recent contributiors, is a hefty tome that's long on advice, Unix/Linux history and what people like to call "best practices."

While much of the book is flying right over my head, and I don't think you could really administer a system without a secondary reference that's specific to the Linux distribution you're using, this is a very valuable book that every serious Linux user should have. Especially when it comes to servers, there's a lot of information here.

"Linux Administration Handbook" is heavy on the philosophy of how to set up and maintain a system, and amid a sea of distro-specific how-tos that expire with every six-month release, that's a good thing to have. Still, what books like "Linux Administration Handbook" make evident is that at one level, most Linux systems are more alike than they are different, and the skills you develop using one distribution are very much transferable to the others. However, there are pointers everywhere in the book to specific instructions for Red Hat/Fedora, Debian/Ubuntu and Suse.

And if you want to see how professional sysadmins (or at least the good ones) go about their work, this is the book to get. It can't be the only book on your Linux shelf, but "Linux Administration Handbook" pairs very well with a doorstop-sized distro-specific how-to (like the "Unleashed" series of books, or Mark Sobell's "Practical" guide series) to help you get a handle on making Linux work for you.

The other book I got from the library, "Linux Administrator Street Smarts: A Real-World Guide to Linux Certification Skills," by Roderick W. Smith, is a great book for anyone who wants to figure out how Linux works from the command line. The book doesn't assume a vast knowledge of Linux or Unix. It offers many tips, instructions, and again, "best practices" on how to configure and manage a Linux system. This book is also not distro-specific; instead, it's one of the best command-line-centered books I've seen when it comes to basic system administration.

I don't know how good "Linux Administrator Street Smarts: A Real-World Guide to Linux Certification Skills," in helping you get actual "certification skills," but it will definitely help with the basics of setting up and maintaining a server or desktop.

Smith's style is clear and concise -- a rarity in these kind of books, which often leave me more confused than not. I definitely recommend taking a look at this "Street Smarts" volume.

So I had two winners here. I would probably buy both of these books, but that said, I still turn to Carla Schroder's "Linux Cookbook," which I'd love to see updated, and Michael Stutz's same-name-but-different "Linux Cookbook," which could use an update even more.

If I was in a buying mood, I'd get a more recent O'Reilly book, "Linux System Administration," by Tom Adelstein and Bill Lubanovic, and I really like Chris Negus' new "Toolbox" series of distro-specific books. They're fairly cheap and filled with good, timely tips, emphasis on the "timely" part. If only all of these great books were updated every couple of years instead of five years ... or never.

Click frequency: The "publish every day at 5 a.m." thing hasn't been working out so well of late. I just haven't had all that much time to do entries in advance, but I have had an entry every day ... just not prewritten to publish at 5 a.m.

One man's FreeBSD: I admire this guy, William Denton, for chronicling eight years of personal use of FreeBSD.

Debian ... ah, Debian: In case it's not evident, I still really enjoy using Debian. While I'm a great believer in the slimmed-down application mix in the default install of Ubuntu (which is based on Debian) -- with less indeed being more, on many levels I've had a whole lot more success with Debian.

I've done the default GNOME install of Debian, the Xfce and KDE installs, a "standard" install to which I've added X, and a few "standard" installs that were console-only. The flexibility of Debian is legendary, as is its stability and usability.

Some of my hardware has been supported better by Ubuntu at times, but I keep coming back to Debian. I'd love for Debian Lenny to support the Alps touchpad as well as Ubuntu Gutsy does. I'm hoping it'll happen before Lenny is frozen, and I will be trying Ubuntu Hardy when it comes out, but I'd love for Linux in general to get everything right for my Gateway laptop.

But since fan management has gotten worse, not better, over the past six months in the Linux kernels I've used, I'm only cautiously optimistic.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Getting my feet wet in OpenBSD has gotten me thinking about how different operating systems handle software updates -- and how important security patches and bug fixes really are.

I'm thinking most of you will say they're very important. If you have a Debian-based Linux system, for instance, there are updates available almost every day, both security- and bug-related.

Live CDs are different. Knopix 5.1.1 has been around a very long time -- over a year at this point -- and plenty of people are using it, even though it's had no update of any kind in that period of time. But live-CD distros like Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux have a new release every two or three months, and while the developers don't patch every single conceivable thing, I imagine that quite a bit of upgrading is done over the course of, let's say, six months.

OpenBSD, FreeBSD and NetBSD all offer apps in the form of ports, which are source files that you download and compile on your own machine, as well as precompiled binary packages for a variety of architectures (i386, powerpc, sparc, etc.). And the method for updating these ports and packages is something I'm still investigating.

m no expert yet, but I think the bulk of the updating for these BSD systems is done with ports through a CVS server. Taking OpenBSD as an example -- especially because that's what I'm running at the moment -- there are precompiled binaries for OpenBSD 4.2 that haven't changed since the version's release. So if you point to the packages created for OpenBSD 4.2 in your PKG_PATH, you get Firefox 2.0.0.6.

But if you look in snapshots, OpenBSD has a 2.0.0.12 package for Firefox on i386 that was uploaded two days ago.

(A quick check of the NetBSD repository for binary packages yielded Firefox 2.0.0.11, as well as preliminary versions of Firefox 3, for NetBSD 4.0.

So is it better to stick with the 4.2 packages, or to use the newer "snapshot" packages?

I'll give myself the answer: RTFM. While much is the same in the various BSD projects when compared to the hundreds of Linuxes out there, much is different -- and in the service of user choice.

But when it comes to getting the latest versions of ... well, everything, thus far I haven't yet figured out if there's a prebuilt script for updating binary packages en masse in OpenBSD and NetBSD. I know that FreeBSD has an app called freebsd-update that accomplishes this task, and I'm anxious to try it, but I'd like to know if I'm missing a similar utility in NetBSD and OpenBSD, or if the absence of this sort of tool is intentional.

My question: Am I compromising my OpenBSD system by running older precompiled binary apps? Does it really matter?

I'm conditioned by using Debian, Ubuntu and Slackware to expect updates on a continual basis and I wonder if I need to have the same level of vigilance with the BSDs. And should I be using ports instead of packages? While I'm on the subject, here's a way to keep up with new ports for OpenBSD. And here's the listing for Firefox.

Helpful site for OpenBSD: From OpenBSDSupport.org comes this page on how to replace Windows with OpenBSD. While it's based on OpenBSD 3.7 instead of the current 4.2, and that makes some of the information out of date, there are more than a few tips that can be applied to the newer version.

Plugging into OpenBSD: I've just signed up for a bunch of OpenBSD mailing lists, but there's also the OpenBSD Journal to help you keep up with what's going on.

Summing up: So far I'm having a lot of fun looking into the BSD operating systems. I met networking and security instructor, as well as prolific author Dru Lavigne at SCALE 6X, and she's going to send me a copy of her new book, "The Best of FreeBSD Basics," which means I'll be doing some work in FreeBSD in order to evaluate the book. In case you want your own copy, here it is on Amazon.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Damn Small Linux won't add just any application to its 50 MB distribution. But when there's a big hue and cry, things that users really need tend to get added. I thanked Robert Shingledecker for adding my favorite lightweight image editor, MtPaint, to DSL, and I'm anxiously awaiting another improvement:

Firefox in DSL will move from the current version 1 to the GTK 1 version of Firefox 2. That's a big deal because a lot of Web sites require at least Firefox 1.5 for full functionality. It means, for one thing that it'll be possible to use Google Docs and Spreadsheets with Damn Small Linux.

Robert has two machines running DSL at the booth. One was that really, really small Sony laptop, on which DSL looked great. The other was one of those great little Damn Small Machine fanless Mini-ITX PC's that are sold at the DSL Store. It had no hard drive. DSL booted off of a USB key, which was then pulled out of its jack.

I really, really want one of these little computers. I'm a huge fan of Mini-ITX and fanless machines in general. They save space as well as energy, and I really enjoy the quiet.

As far as the 3 series of Damn Small Linux, Robert is keeping its development going for at least the near future because it's the version that the Damn Small Linux book is based on.

As far as competition among the smaller-footprint distros go, Robert said there's no bad blood between DSL and Puppy Linux. "We're doing our own thing -- there's no rivalry," he said.

I mentioned the nascent Damn Small BSD project to Robert, and all he would say was that DSL's John Andrews was looking into the situation. I took that to mean they're not ecstatic about another project appropriating the "Damn Small" name.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The highlight of SCALE 6x for me so far has been meeting Robert Shingledecker, whose Damn Small Linux is one of the best distributions out there for hardware that's seen better days.

I won't go into all we talked about, but in the way of news, Robert told me that Damn Small Linux will soo go beyond the 2.4 Linux kernel and put out a release based on 2.6 at some point in the near future. Robert plans to keep the 2.4-based version of DSL going because he foresees continued demand for it, but the newer kernel will be welcome news to many DSL users.

Robert talked a little about replacing Fluxbox with JWM as the main window manager for DSL. One of the reasons was the fact that JWM is smaller than Fluxbox and makes it easier for DSL to stay within its 50 MB size limit. That limit appears to be something that Robert is content to stick with going forward.

I hadn't yet tried DSL 4.2, but Robert showed me how the right-click application menu has come back into the distro, and he explained how the DFM file manager, besides being smaller in size than the ROX-filer, works well -- and shares icons with JWM.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The "L" in SCALE may stand for Linux, but each of the three major BSD projects has a table at the Southern California Linux Expo. While the FreeBSD booth was giving away PC-BSD CDs (they still have about 500 left, so have at it, people), the OpenBSD booth was selling Version 4.2 CD sets for $45, and the NetBSD people were selling T-shirts for $15.

But it's not all about stuff.

I spent a lot of time talking to Kevin Lahey, a developer for NetBSD who is also a programmer for the Information Sciences Institute under the auspices of the University of Southern California. His organization does work for the Department of Homeland Security, and in the past Kevin has worked for the NASA Ames Research Center, and he told me that NetBSD has a lot of uptake in both government and university settings.

The NetBSD project began in May 1993, and is edging closer to its 15th birthday. It was nice to see Kevin's IBM Thinkpad running NetBSD with a GUI desktop. I've been impressed by the way NetBSD both looked and performed in the 2006-era live CD I tried on Friday, and while NetBSD is increasingly aimed at embedded applications, I think it's a great candidate for desktop use.

Kevin told me that NetBSD has over 200 active developers, most of whom do IT-related work for companies, many of which use NetBSD as part of their business.

As far as the desktop goes, NetBSD is getting better all the time at supporting the ACPI standard for power management -- something that will also see considerable improvement in the forthcoming OpenBSD release, as I learned at that booth. The NetBSD kernel also supports gigabit and even 10GB Ethernet, so it plays very well in many networked environments.

While OpenBSD encourages users to use the precompiled packages for the various architectures, NetBSD users rely on ports for adding applications. Also at the NetBSD booth was David Maxwell, and he told me that thera are about 16,000 ports for NetBSD. It always amazes me that there is so many applications available for the BSD operating systems.

I didn't quite get how NetBSD handles software updates, and Kevin tried to explain it to me, but there is some mechanism at work that can bring the needed updates down to your box as needed. It's something I'll have to look into more. Luckily, every one of the three BSD projects includes excellent, comprehensive documentation on their Web site.

As far as that documentation goes, David told me that NetBSD takes extra care to make sure its man pages are up to date.

Again, it's great to see a worthy project and the very smart people behind it.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chief technology officer Earl Malmrose of the Berkeley, Calif.-based ZaReason and I didn't just talk about the Everex Cloudbook.

Also on display were a $299 desktop machine and a few laptops (beginning at $899), all running Ubuntu 7.10, which ZaReason preinstalls and configures for its customers.

Why buy from ZaReason? I thought they just took off-the-shelf laptops and slapped Ubuntu on them, but they in fact have the computers made for them by ASUS, with final assembly and tuning taking place at their Berkeley headquarters.

And they're doing the entire thing with 5 employees -- final assembly, support, shipping. Earl said business is growing, and the company is set to open a site in in Germany to take care of its European Union customers.

Things are getting even more cozy for the company, which is close to the Fremont-headquartered Everex and now to gOS, which recently gave up its Wilshire Boulevard digs in Los Angeles for Berkeley to be closer to Everex.

Earl also told me that ZaReason is committed to rolling out its machines with the latest version of Ubuntu. When 7.10 ships in April, that's what will go on ZaReason's computers immediately.

So if you're in the market for a new desktop or laptop computer and want it to "just work" out of the box, and you like the idea of a 1-year warranty backed by some pretty nice people, ZaReason is a great company with which to do it.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been as critical of gOS as anybody, maybe even more so. The Ubuntu-derived OS that first ran the $199 Everex desktop offering that sold through Wal-Mart and a few others was a distribution that was far from ready for prime time, as they say.

At the ZaReason booth, the company, which sells Everex in addition to Ubuntu-friendly desktops and laptops, had an Everex Cloudbook running. Sure it's small, but the screen looks great.

The gOS desktop was as green as ever, but something looked different. Earl Malmrose, the CTO of ZaReason told me that the version of gOS on the Cloudbook includes the GNOME desktop and all the GNOME tools. It's still green in hue, still has that toolbar across the bottom for all the Web 2.0 applications that gOS is built around, but with GNOME instead of Enlightenment, doing any kind of configuration will be much, much easier.

I don't know who's whose idea this is, but whoever it is, we're thinking alike.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I got to SCALE 6x today just in time to hear Ubuntu's Jono Bacon deliver the keynote speech to a standing-room-only audience in the theater at the Los Angeles Airport Westin hotel.

The room was packed, with people bunched up in the back and along the sides.

His talk focused on the importance and purpose of community in the entire open-source world, not just the Ubuntu project. The point was that the community -- from developers all the way down to users -- will make some year (maybe not this year) "the year of the Linux desktop."

"The desktop is rubbish," he said. I'm not sure exactly what he meant by that, but he did say that keys to the implementation of open-source software on the desktop hinges on an effort that's "managed, reliable and sustained." As far as the "sustained" component goes, Bacon talked about the importance of "regular releases, predictible releases."

That's what Ubuntu is all about -- setting a six-month interval between releases, with those releases supported for a fixed length of time.

And when it comes to businesses, "they want reliability," Bacon said, but when it comes to the biggest part of the open-source world -- community -- the business world (and the rest of the computer-using world that isn't using open source right now) can't quite wrap their collective heads around it.

"Businesses don't understand community -- they just don't understand how it works," Bacon said. "It's so alien to them."

And open source breeds a different kind of community, Bacon said. "We're a community that builds stuff. It all boils down to us -- everybody has an impact."

But don't let it go to your head, Linux geeks. While open source in general, Linux in particular and Ubuntu in specific are certainly growing, open-source software has a 1.77-percent share of the market. Yes, it's almost doubled from the 1-percent share of previous years, but there are other ways to measure it, Bacon said.

"It really doesn't matter -- what's more important is 'mindshare.' You may not use it, but everybody's talking about it."

Bacon cited Google Trends, which keeps track of what people are searching for from year to year, showing how searches for the keyword Linux have gone down while those for the keyword Ubuntu have gone up. "We're feeling a change in mindshare toward distributions," he said.

"More and more people are talking about Ubuntu and Red Hat as opposed to just talking about Linux."

And the open-source community is vital to the success of the technogies it's producing, polishing and using.

"The community can make the year of the desktop happen -- everybody in this room can make a difference in how it works."

To that end, Bacon said that being a member of the community includes everything from filing bug reports (which can be followed by anybody, since they're as open as the software that produces them) to learning how to build packages and basically not being a big ol' jerk.

That led to the reasons for Ubuntu's Code of Conduct. "It basically boils down to 'be excellent to each other,' " Bacon said. And key to that excellence is inclusion, diversity and, again, making it so everybody feels they have an impact.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I think I'm "discovering" the NetBSD live CD, but I learn that Distrowatch announced the damn thing in 2006. All I can say is that I'm very, very impressed.

It's NetBSD, it boots on my temperamental test box, and not only does it have X, it has a full KDE desktop with tons of applications -- the full KOffice, Konqueror, Firefox, Abiword, K3b, Krita, the GIMP, Inkscape, JuK, XMMS, -- hell, just say it's got a full KDE 3.5.4 setup and then some, and NetBSD autoconfigured for my monitor (with the VESA option) and looks absolutely gorgeous.

If the NetBSD people could someday, someway, make this an installable live CD, they'd really have something here. So far, this looks and works better on my computer than DesktopBSD and PC-BSD. I guess the one thing this version of NetBSD is missing when compared to DesktopBSD and PC-BSD is graphical package managment, but the rest of it looks and works so well ...

While the NetBSD live CD attempts to configure a static IP address for you (ignore this if you use DHCP), it didn't work. To configure a static IP in NetBSD at a terminal -- and it is slightly different than doing the same thing in Linux -- here's how to do it (adapted from my similar tutorial for the FreeBSD-based FreeSBIE live CD):

My Ethernet interface, usually eth0 in Linux, is called rtk0 in NetBSD. If you're unsure, run this command:

$ ifconfig -a

That should output the name of your Ethernet interface.

To set the static IP in NetBSD I either used the same terminal window or opened a terminal window (Konsole in the KDE menu works fine) and became root:

$ su
(When prompted, for a password, the root password is root. If you signed on as root, you don't have to su, since you're already root).

At the # prompt, do the following (substituting your own networking numbers, of course):

# ifconfig rtk0 192.9.200.20 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.9.200.255

# route add default 192.9.200.254
(Note: don’t use route add default gw, like in Linux — gw is not needed. As above, enter your own router/gateway address)

I also set up my name servers in /etc/resolv.conf (I used vi because I knew it would be there. You can also use any of the other KDE text editors in the live CD environment. Use any text editor you wish in its place:

# vi /etc/resolv.conf

once in the file, I added these lines:

domain yourdomain.com
nameserver 192.9.200.4
nameserver 192.9.200.2

(as always, add your own search domain and name server IPs, then save and close the file; you should now be ready to start Firefox and begin browsing the Web. Note: my connection doesn't require use of a domain in /etc/resolv.conf)

And again, if you have a dynamic connection, ignore this completely.

Additional info: Look at this PDF, which looks like a PowerPoint presentation for some background on BSD live CDs.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Every once in awhile, I write for a, shall we say, less specialized audience. Here's a story about this weekend's Southern California Linux Expo aimed at a more general audience. If all goes as planned, this will run in Saturday's print edition of the Daily News:

By Steven Rosenberg
Staff Writer

Google will be at this weekend's Southern California Linux Expo, but talk about the search giant's effort to keep Microsoft from buying Yahoo! won't be at the tip of everyone's tongue.

Instead, the talk among the exhibitors and in the meeting rooms will be about free, open-source software (yes, the very same software that made Google into a massively-scaled search-engine powerhouse), the hardware that runs it, and what you can do in everything from medicine to education to concert-ticket distribution with tools that anyone can download and run without paying a dime.

While the focus is on the Linux operating system -- made to work like the mainframe stalwart Unix but now available for servers and desktop computers of all kinds, a big part of the SCALE 6X show Saturday and Sunday at the Los Angeles Airport Westin hotel will be how companies like Google, Ticketmaster and Shopzilla use free, open-source software to build huge businesses.

And there's plenty for home computer users to learn, said Simi Valley resident Orv Beach, publicity chairman for the show and also the information-technology director at Simi Valley Hospital.

"SCALE has always had a focus on the end-user of Linux and the education of that end-user, whether they're in IT or not. We try to fill the booths with people who have stories to tell about free and open-source software and who are eager to show attendees cool stuff," he said.

To that end, exhibitors will include Damn Small Linux, an operating system assembled specifically for use on older, less powerful computers, as well as IBM and Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, which will show off the latest technologies based on free software.

"The interest and excitement on the expo floor is palpable," Beach said. "It's a fun show and is a great place to come for both the experienced computer user and the newcomer to open-source software."

For more information on SCALE 6X, go to the convention Web site, www.socallinuxexpo.org, or read about it on the Daily News' Click blog, http://insidesocal.com/click.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the interim, I was able to try OpenBSD in a desktop configuration with the OliveBSD live CD, and that made me want to try a hard-drive installation of OpenBSD, which not coincidentally is the only one of the three major BSD projects (which include NetBSD and FreeBSD) to boot on my test machine -- a converted Maxspeed Maxterm thin client with a VIA C3 Samuel CPU.

First of all, OpenBSD has excellent online documentation, and since I have two computers right next to each other, I was able to use my Windows box to follow along as I installed OpenBSD on the converted thin client.

As was the case the last time I installed it, OpenBSD went on the box without a hitch. I created a user account, added it to the wheel group, which gave me sudo privileges, and I added the path to an FTP site for the precompiled packages to my .profile file. That enabled me to begin adding applications.

This time, since I figured out how to set the path to my local FTP mirror, I was able to begin turning my OpenBSD box into a usable desktop system. As I might've said above, I'm trying to be way more methodical this time about how I proceed. So far, everything's working perfectly.

I've added the following applications:

Dillo (lightweight X Web browser)
Geany (GUI text editor)
Firefox
Nano (console editor)
MC (Midnight Commander console file manager)
Rox (the ROX-filer GUI file manager)
Abiword (also added aspell, but Abiword and aspell aren't working together as yet)
Xscreensaver (which tended to freeze X, so I removed it)

That's all I've added for now.

What I'm going to do next:

-- Attempt to configure X for my 1024 x 768 CRT monitor (Done 2/6/08 with help from the Anonym.OS live CD ... and a little help from Puppy Linux after X began crashing)
-- Add applications to the Fvwm menus (I think Fvwm uses the Twm configuration file, and I've already located it) (Still working on it ... adding to the Twm configuration file didn't work, and I can't find the Fvwm configuration file)

A big part of this is the SCALE 6X convention this weekend in Los Angeles. All three of the major BSD projects will have booths at the show, and I wanted to have a successful BSD install under my belt, so to speak, before I hit the floor (literally and figuratively).

An aside: If I had a chance in hell of figuring out ACPI and my Gateway laptop's CPU fan, I would've installed OpenBSD on it -- and I still might do that on my older Compaq laptop -- but for now I'm sticking with the desktop and wired Ethernet.

Another thing that prompted me to do the install was finding Jem Matzan's Web page. There's a whole lot of good stuff to read there on Linux and BSD, and Jem is the author of two PDF-only books, one on FreeBSD, the other on OpenBSD. I definitely plan to get the latter one.

Michael Lukas has a new FreeBSD book out, but his OpenBSD book is out of print, though it is available as a PDF, which I think I'm going to spring for. I've seen Lukas' new FreeBSD book, and he's both very good as a technician and as a writer. I highly recommend anything he's written.

Another inspiration in this has been Denny White, a desktop OpenBSD user with a whole lot of knowledge -- and a willingness to share it.

I've also learned that it's relatively easy to create your own BSD live CD -- something I just might do in the future.

But the main reason I wanted to install, configure and use OpenBSD was that it's different -- and fun.

And again, if you're anywhere in Southern California, you are going to SCALE 6X, aren't you?

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Even though I found very specific instructions for making the Airlink 101 AWLL3028 USB wireless adapter work with Linux using ndiswrapper, I've pretty much given up.

In all cases, I can get the wireless adapter to light up, and I can find a wireless network. I just can't get a DHCP connection started.

Doing the instructions in Ubuntu was fairly straightforward. But since I don't have an Ubuntu install anywhere but this WiFi-free office, I couldn't test it.

So I did the procedure on my laptop in Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 and in Puppy Linux 3.00. The easiest configuration was in Puppy, which makes using ndiswrapper almost a pleasure. In both cases, I can find the wireless network but can't get a DHCP connection to work.

Configuring ndiswrapper (the open-source program that uses Windows drivers to make hardware work in Linux), I used the Windows XP, 2000 and 98 drivers, all of which worked equally poorly.

In my experience, newer wireless adapters are a bitch to get configured in Linux, whereas older adapters like my Orinoco WaveLAN Silver pretty much configure themselves.

As far as the Airlink AWLL3028, I don't have enough skill or patience to keep going with it. It's disappointing, but that's the breaks.

I was steered by a reader to this Linux Questions page, which lists many networking cards (wired and wireless) and how well they perform under Linux. But for newer cards, I think the best resource is the comments at Newegg, where there are many Linux users to weigh on on whether or not something works.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

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.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of those people is Orv Beach, publicity chairman for SCALE 6X -- the Southern California Linux Expo -- being held Feb. 8-10 in Los Angeles. Since I'm covering the convention for Click, I took the opportunity to interview Orv after hearing from him about getting press credentials for the event, which I wouldn't miss, by the way. And if you do plan on attending, Orv told me that using the promo code CAST when registering for SCALE can get you 40 percent off of admission.

Orv, where do you live, how old are you, and what do you do for a living?
I live in Simi Valley, California, with my wife Beth. I'm 58, and I have four grown kids and four wonderful grandkids. Professionally, I'm the IT director at Simi Valley Hospital.

How did you first discover open-source software, and what part does it play in your work and home life today?
I've been interested in technology all my life. I got my amateur radio license when I was 17, and enjoyed building radio equipment as much as operating.

I got my first computer in about 1979, and when amateur packet radio was authorized by the FCC, it was a natural to use a computer with it. A popular packet radio program at the time was TNOS, written by Brian Lantz. It ran under DOS, and was a communications program & BBS. Brian had an active users group and was happy to add features to TNOS. As it grew in size, the C compiler he was using had more and more difficulties compiling it (It was Borland Turbo C, I think). So he moved TNOS over to Linux to use GCC as the compiler, and a large percentage of his users followed him.

I got Linux from a programmer at work. At that time it was 16 floppies, and that minimal version didn't include X Windows. I ran it on a 40 MHz 386 with 8 Megs of RAM. I've been using Linux steadily ever since and moved my desktop computer over to it full time about six years ago, and my wife's about four years ago.

At work, while Adventist Health isn't a full-blown user of open-source software, they're edging that way. The web programmers at our corporate office seem to have fallen in love with Plone. Some of the programming groups are moving to Project.Net for project management, too. Locally, I use Nagios to monitor over a hundred devices on our hospital network, and we use ZoneMinder to monitor some video cameras.

Now that SCALE is in its sixth year, how big was the convention the first time around, and what kind of growth has it seen? How many exhibitors, speakers and attendees do you expect this year?
SCALE is an offshoot of the "LUGFests" that SCLUG (the Simi-Conejo Linux Users Group - http://sclug.org) held every 6 months where they met at the Nortel building in Simi Valley. They were miniconferences, with people demonstrating open source software and even a few commercial vendors. Even as limited as they were, they drew Linux users from all over Southern California. SCLUG held 4 of them before Nortel closed down that building. (There's an article on LUGFest III here).

The last LUGFest, LUGFest IV, drew 400 people over two days. Based on the response to the LUGFests, we knew we were filling a need for information and education on open-source software.

So after a hiatus of a year or so, SCLUG, UCLALUG and USCLUG jointly started SCALE. The first was held in the Davidson Conference Center at USC. It was one day, with two session tracks. We had 11 speakers spots and a panel, and it was a struggle to fill them. That first Linux Expo drew 400 attendees.

Contrast that with SCALE 6X, which will be held in February, five years later: The main Expo is now on Saturday and Sunday, has 32 speaker slots and two keynotes spread over four session tracks per day. You'd think that number of topics and speakers would be impossible to come up with. Yet we received over 105 submissions to our call for papers! Whittling them down was difficult, and it was painful, as we had to turn down lots of good proposals. We expect to have about 1,500 attendees for SCALE 6X. The Westin hotel will be bursting at the seams.

Continue reading "SCALE 6X -- An interview with publicity chairman Orv Beach" »

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When my Orinoco WaveLAN Silver PCMCIA card "just worked" with every single Linux distribution I tried, I was happy.

When two el-cheapo cards from Airlink 101 didn't work with every single Linux distribution I tried, and still didn't work when I resorted to ndiswrapper and a console, I was unhappy.

Native drivers for the Airlink adapters (the most recent I've owned being an AWLL3028 USB model with the Realtek 8187b chipset) would help. A way of using ndiswrapper as sane as the one in Puppy Linux would also help.

I know -- A $10 wireless adapter with no guarantee of working with Linux is just buying trouble, albeit cheaply. I could've bought a used AWLL3026 Airlink adapter and been pig-in-shit happy; that one's supposed to work. Nobody told Fry's, where the 3028s look just like the 3026s, but have an entirely different chipset.

And I know the Linux kernel will catch up with the AWLL3028 eventually. But I have this damn thing now. And I want it to work -- with WPA, the whole shebang -- NOW.

I've been pretty lucky with wired Ethernet in Linux. There's never been a time when it hasn't worked. Wireless should be the same. Apple gets around the problem by only supporting its own wireless adapters. Microsoft has the whole industry writing multiple drivers for every product. And still I've had problems with wireless in Windows.

This is a chance for Linux -- and the Linux community to do it right. The more support at the kernel level, as well as in the surrounding applications in every distribution, the better.

So either we make it all plug-and-play -- and publicize the hell out of which exact wireless equipment is compatible, or we have native drivers and an easy way to install them.

Hardware detection and configuration is important, and wireless is a huge part of that. Linux can win with it, but it sure can't win without it.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Update on 2/4/08: So far I've gotten the computer to recognize the wireless adapter in Ubuntu 6.06, Wolvix 1.1.0 and Puppy 3.00. The latter two I've tried in the presence of actual wireless networks, but I still can't get a DHCP connection. I doubt it'll work in Ubuntu, either. In Debian Lenny, I got stopped at modprobe ndiswrapper, which didn't work.

(Original post begins here ... proceed knowing that this so far hasn't worked for me)

Only a few days ago I said I never had any luck with ndiswrapper -- the program that enables you to use Windows drivers to configure networking devices in Linux and BSD.

A few months ago, when I heard that the Airlink 101 AWLL3026 USB Wi-Fi adapters, which go for $10 at Fry's during periodic sales, worked out of the box in many Linux distributions, I decided to buy one.

Well, it turns out that I got the newer model, the AWLL3028, which has an entirely different chipset -- it's a Realtek 8187b. It didn't work with anything. I couldn't even get it to work in Windows XP without the driver.

Anyhow, I decided to Google my way into the problem today, and I found the following:

You need to use the Windows 98 driver to get the AWLL3028 to work with ndiswrapper

How to install and configure ndiswrapper in Ubuntu

How to troubleshoot your wireless connection, especially with the Realtek 8187, in Ubuntu

A modified Linux driver for the Realtek 8187b, with explanation

Hacking the RTL8187b

I knew it was only a matter of time before a wireless adapter sold for $10 at Fry's became usable in Linux. Let's hope it's plug-and-play -- and we won't have to do any of this -- very soon (perhaps in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS).

I decided to try ndiswrapper on my test box running Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. Instead of downloading and compiling my own ndiswrapper, I just searched for it in Synaptic and installed it from there.

Then I did the following:

Go to Places -- Home Folder and make a new folder (or "directory" if you want to put it that way) -- call it wireless -- for the two Windows drivers. Then open the new wireless folder.

Then, put the Windows driver CD in the CD drive, open it with the file manager (double-click on the CD icon on the desktop).

In the CD window, navigate to the Windows 98 folder and drag the two drivers, with filenames rtl8187B.sys.sys and net8187b.inf, into the wireless folder.

Then open a Terminal window and do the following:

You should already be in your home directory, so chage to the new wireless directory you made:

$ cd wireless

Now start using ndiswrapper to make your new wireless driver:

$ sudo ndiswrapper -i net8187b.inf

Verify the installation:

$ ndiswrapper -l

Put the ndiswrapper module into the Linux kernel:

$ sudo depmod -a

$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

Then run dmesg and look for something like "ndiswrapper version version loaded" in the output:

$ dmesg

Create an alias for wlan0:

$ sudo ndiswrapper -m

Make sure ndiswrapper is loaded at boot:

$ echo "ndiswrapper" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

Then reboot. At this point my wireless adapter began flashing, and wlan0 was among the choices System -- Administration -- Networking.

But since there's no wireless in this room, I'll have to try again tonight, except this time in Debian Lenny or Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0. (In those, instead of sudo, I'll just open a root shell with su).

Thanks to Kevdog, from whom I got all of this information. I made some modifications to his instructions, substituting pointing and clicking for work in the terminal (and leaving off a few precautionary checks) where possible.

And I'll tell you later whether or not this actually worked. I did this all in Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, but I don't see why it wouldn't work in Debian, a newer version of Ubuntu, or just about any other version of Linux (I plan to try in Puppy and Damn Small Linux at some point, too).

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've complained numerous times in the past about the Ted word processor being broken in Debian. On my many Debian installs, I could neither create a new file in Ted nor open an old one.

But on my Gateway Solo 1450 (the $0 Laptop), after doing my big Debian Lenny update yesterday -- which fixed an annoying Nautilus bug by updating to Nautilus 2.20 -- I decided to give Ted another try.

It works.

I can create new files in Ted and open old ones. I tried Ted again on my Compaq Armada 7700dmt (the $15 Laptop), now a Debian Etch machine (with Xfce and, since last night, Fluxbox) that could really benefit from Ted working. No go.

I figured that it was maybe a Lenny-only thing -- some other dependent package got updated and magically made Ted work. Here's Ted's bug status in Debian. I remember trying this "transcoded fonts" solution and having it not work.

So this morning, on my desktop Debian Lenny install, I tried Ted again, and it didn't work. I even installed the transcoded fonts. Nothing.

Yes, I have three Debian installs (two Lenny, one Etch), and Ted works on one (Lenny) of them. That's better than Ted working on none ... but.

I'm wondering if I should even be running Debian on this 233 MHz Pentium II MMX, 64 MB RAM, 3 GB hard-drive laptop. The Compaq performs OK with Puppy Linux and a bit better with Damn Small Linux. And while on my faster, 1.2 GHz laptop I detect almost no difference in response time between Xfce and Fluxbox, on the 233 MHz box, Fluxbox is much snappier, so I take back my previous assertion that Fluxbox doesn't give you much of a performance edge. When you're running really old hardware, Fluxbox can really help.

The problem: I want to have a "full" command-line system in addition to X, and that's harder to do in Puppy or DSL. And I like the fact that Debian and Slackware stay on top of security issues and frequently issue patched packages. And Debian (or Slackware, for that matter) makes it relatively easy to install any console app I want. However, I put a lot of stock in doing as little modification as possible; in my experience, things can get mucked up pretty quickly. And while both Puppy and DSL offer command-line features, neither is a full, modern, updated Debian or Slackware.

And just to provide a little background, Debian, Slackware, Puppy and Damn Small installed just fine on this old Compaq. I can't say the same for Xubuntu, which I did try.

And while I'm mentioning Xubuntu and Debian with Xfce in the same post, let me just say that of the two, Xubuntu is way more ready for prime time. Debian's default Xfce install is missing too many things; I stick by my assertion that Debian is great with the default GNOME, less so in the Xfce and KDE installs that you can do with the Xfce and KDE Debian disks (or desktop= boot parameter in the netinstaller).

Back to the Compaq. Both Puppy and DSL are way better at recognizing and configuring the hardware of this old Compaq laptop. At this point, I'm considering running both Puppy and DSL as live CDs with no OS on the puny hard drive, which would only be used for swap and storage (I could even replace the spinning hard drive with a Compact Flash chip or disk-on-module).

I hate to give up running Debian or Slackware on this laptop -- I've tried both. But when I try to build up the apps on my own, I can never do as well as Puppy and Damn Small Linux -- both of which I've used extensively over the past year and which I value very highly. The people behind Puppy and DSL really know what they're doing.

And while I'm grateful to get Ted running on my Lenny laptop (where I don't really need it), can't Debian just make Ted work everywhere, all the time? Like I've said before, there's probably a good reason that Ubuntu doesn't have Ted in its repository, and I'd say the package not working is a pretty good reason.

I haven't even complained about Ted not showing up where it should in the menus and my not being able to figure out how to put Ted where I want it in GNOME (yes, I used alacarte (here's the Debian bug situation), and no, it didn't let me add menu items (another Lenny bug, perhaps?) -- it almost makes me want to run straight toward Xfce and Fluxbox ... or Ubuntu).

Moral: Debian giveth and taketh away, but it remains damn good.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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!

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back in the BBS days, I actually did pay for a shareware program. I used a couple of related programs that allowed for the reading of and writing to QWK packets, which enabled me to download my Internet mail and USENET messages, read them offline, do my replies, new messages and the like, and assemble them for upload. I can't remember the name of the programs, but I actually paid something like $15 for their use, for which I actually received a couple of 5 1/4-inch floppies in the mail.

Now I prefer FOSS -- free, open-source software -- for everything, and in Linux it's easy to get a distribution with thousands of packages -- all free to use and modify as any of us sees fit.

But back in the worlds of Windows and OS X, there are quite a few FOSS programs, but more that are released under the old terms of "shareware" and "freeware." Not being entirely free at all. Some ask for donations, others say that for "commercial" use, you should pay X amount.

The two I use most in Windows:

IrfanView, which is free for personal use, with a donation requested for businesses. I think the amount requested is $10.

EditPadLite can be used "only for private purposes that do not generate any income and by registered not-for-profit organizations ..." There is the non-free program EditPad Pro for "profitable" usage, which costs "only $49.95."

I'll make my confession now: I use both programs for "business use," though I'm never quite sure if such use is, indeed, generating any profit (even though that is way beside the point).

As I say, even though I prefer FOSS, I'm inclined to pay the $10 toll for Irfanview. It's worth way more, seeing as I can't find even one application that can do what it does as well and as fast.

The $49.95 for EditPad Pro? That's too rich for my blood.

Sure I could get my frugal employer to pay, but as they say, I've got other fish to fry ... I should probably just find a FOSS editor that works with Windows and be on my merry-friggin-way.

I do have Gvim installed ... but that seems like too much trouble.

I like using Geany in Linux, and there's a build of that for PC. Maybe I'll give that a try.

But again, I ask: Have you ever paid for shareware?

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And now I'm gonna read "A Brief History of Debian." Where's the "lengthy" version?

And I do like this Dive Into Mark blog/site.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I half-expected today's massive Debian Lenny update to solve my Nautilus-crashes-when-I-try-to-get-the-properties-of-a-file bug. It did not, but I'm not disappointed. I went back to the original bug report, which was filed with GNOME, not Debian, but is clearly a Debian-only bug.

I saw the "solution," but didn't understand it until now. I still don't know how to actually "do" the solution, and for now I'm content to let it ride and see if Debian Testing catches up.

Briefly, users have learned that upgrading from the version of Nautilus in Lenny (2.18) to the version in unstable /Sid (2.20) fixes the problem. So all you have to do, theoretically, is switch over to the Sid repositories, reinstall Nautilus, and the bug is gone.

I don't think the package list is "frozen" for Lenny, so it's entirely possible that the Debian people don't think Nautilus 2.20 is ready yet for the Testing distribution. Perhaps there are other problems, or the app has not been checked out. Whatever the reason, and I do hope there is one, I'm eagerly awaiting Lenny to upgrade Nautilus on its own.

I would go back to Debian Etch (stable), but I like the look of the newer GNOME so much that I am reluctant to do so. And the prospect of running Lenny now, while it's still Testing, and continuing to run the same install as it becomes Stable, is an enticing one.

But ... the new Ubuntu LTS is only about three months away, and I just might want to give it an extensive try. The question: Do I replace Wolvix Hunter or Debian Lenny? I might want to run Wolvix as a live CD, freeing up its spot on the hard drive.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

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.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

And "not just currently" also means that you can select a distribution and go back in time, following the news all the way back to when Distrowatch first began publishing on the Web, May 31, 2001 -- eons ago in "Linux years."

Whenever I write about a distribution, looking backward on Distrowatch is essential in order to get a picture in my mind of how far that distro has come and when the milestones in its development happened.

Distrowatch sums up the activity for the past seven days in the DistroWatch Weekly, at the bottom of which you will find what Ladislav is keeping track of. It's staggering. For this week, here's the tally:

* Number of all distributions in the database: 557
* Number of all active distributions in the database: 357
* Number of discontinued distributions: 125
* Number of distributions on the waiting list: 218

That's a lot to follow, and without Distrowatch, we'd all be in much worse shape. If there's any justice in the world, Ladislav is making a mint off of this site.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While I'm pimping Web sites, I might as well put in a plug for LXer, which collects links to posts and articles everywhere about all things Linux and open source.

The beauty of it is that anybody can become a member of LXer and submit their own links of things that look interesting on the Web.

I did it ... and now I'm a contributing editor. I mostly post links to items on Click, but every once in a while I find something not already on LXer that I can post a link to.

The site is valuable because it acts as an intelligent clearinghouse of open-source news. If something's happening in the world of Linux, BSD, or anything in the open-source software (and related hardware) world, chances are the LXer community already knows about it and has links to everything they can find concerning it.

Equally important is LXer's "Latest Discussions," where users bat around the dozens of articles linked from the site.

I've asked my LXer guru, Scott Ruecker more than once: The LXer concept is so novel and works so well -- everything from the conception and ideas behind the site to its programming (no pictures, just ultra-fast PHP and MySQL) -- that I wonder why there aren't LXer-type sites for Windows, Mac, and even for things outside the realm of computer hardware and software. It's a concept that just might work in both larger and different spheres -- everything from politics to quilting could benefit from an identically programmed forum.

LXer isn't as complicated as Digg, nor as chaotic as USENET, and it's not a fiefdom in any sense ... it truly reflects its community. And I couldn't imagine not being a part of it.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I haven't linked to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols of Desktoplinux.com in awhile, and he had a great opinion piece today about the $150 PCLinuxOS box and other cheap computer solutions called "How low can you go and still run Linux?"

He does a good job of going through the distributions and recommending many low-spec software solutions for hardware of less than current vintage. He mentions many of my favorites, including Damn Small Linux, AntiX (which I haven't tried in awhile ...), Zenwalk, plus another I really should try: the PCLinuxOS "Mini-Me" spin.

He also talks up gOS, which is going from version 1 to 2. I booted into gOS today to see if Synaptic would magically do this upgrade for me. It did not. I got a couple dozen Ubuntu updates, but nothing indicating anything new or improved. And gOS is still as much of a dog as it ever was. On my hardware anyway, Ubuntu runs way better.

And I'm disappointed that Vaughn-Nichols didn't mention Slackware derivatives Vector or Wolvix (the latter being my current favorite distro), or even Slackware itself. He could've also put in a word for Debian and even Ubuntu.

One thing I've learned is that whatever anybody says about how fast or slow a particular Linux distribution is, a little experimentation on your own hardware is in order before settling down with any one setup. I recommend creating a partition for /home, which you can keep intact (and backed up) while rolling different distributions in and out of there. That's what I'm starting to do; my New Year's resolution is "less dual- and triple-booting, more separate /home partitions." See, I'm setting the New Year's resolution bar very low -- then I'll be sure to succeed (unless I'm caught triple-booting anytime soon).

Anyway, I'm still using Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 and Debian Lenny on the Gateway Solo 1450. I'm packing the Lenny install with a whole lot of software, including lots of educational stuff for our 4-year-old.

I have Wolvix using a separate /home partition but not Debian. I might change that in the weeks ahead and see if they can share /home. I still can use Puppy 3.00 as a live CD -- I have a pup_save on the Debian partition. For me, this is total, complete stability, the likes of which I haven't seen in the past year.

I still have Debian Etch with Xfce on the Compaq Armada 7770dmt, with Damn Small Linux 4.0 as a live CD. I'm thinking of trying Wolvix Cub on it, but with 64 MB of RAM, it could be a little dicey. What I need to do there is bump up the RAM to 144 MB (maximum of this circa 1999 laptop).

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Sure it ran in RedmondMag, the "independent voice of the Microsoft IT community," but Google's Secret Weapon by Glyn Moody lays out very clear how and why Google is leveraging open-source software -- and the people who make it -- in its battle against Microsoft. While I've heard much of it before, it's still the best thing I've read all week.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I knew that Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 had Gslapt -- the graphical front end to the get-slapt package manager for Slackware -- but for some reason I had no idea that it would be useful for updates.

But commenter Morten Juhl-Johansen Zölde-Fejér gently told me that Wolvix's get-slapt/Gslapt indeed points to a Slackware 11 mirror, as well as Wolvix's own repository.

So I opened up Gslapt, updated and upgraded. I didn't add anything, so I can't vouch for get-slapt/Gslapt's ability to satisfy dependencies, but the upgrade went perfectly, and now I've got a fully up-to-date Wolvix distribution.

Already I've said that Wolvix (and perhaps by extension Slackware 11 -- not 12) is the best-performing Slackware-derived distribution I've tried. I've had no configuration problems whatsoever. And a look in Gslapt shows me that there's a huge number of Slackware packages that I could potentially install.

But one of the great things about Wolvix Hunter is that it pretty much has everything I want. It looks great, now has the latest Firefox browser, OpenOffice, MtPaint, the GIMP, AbiWord, a ton of multimedia apps, just as many networking apps, even a bunch of text editors (I'm currently exploring what Bluefish has to offer, but there's also Mousepad, KompoZer, SciTE, medit, vi, GNU nano and JOE). Mail clients? Hunter has Claws Mail and Thunderbird in the GUI, plus mutt at the console.

And the Wolvix Control Panel is one of the best configuration GUIs I've seen.

Never mind that the current versions of Zenwalk and Vector won't run (they'll install, but they won't even give me a shell login; it's probably something having to do with a hardware hangup).

The more I use it, the more I like Wolvix.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Los Angeles may be the second-largest city in the United States, but when it comes to overt, shouting-at-the-rooftops open-source software evangelism, you'd never know it. But there's one shining beacon of activity in the City of Angels, and that's SCALE -- the Southern California Linux Expo -- coming to the Westin Los Angeles Airport hotel Feb. 8-10.

With it's full title of SCALE 6x -- (it's the sixth-annual show) -- the event features exhibitors, speakers and, I hope, a lot of open-source geekery.

See, I write this blog, hammering home the joys and sorrows of Linux and BSD, but many of us do this kind of work in near isolation. Sure, I turned on my friend Bruce to Linux (he's running Ubuntu and Mint right now), but he was tearing apart mainframes from the big-iron age for scrap while I was still launching GI Joes off of the roof and watching "Speed Racer" on L.A.'s Channel 52. So he had a bit of familiarity with Unix (he still waxes rhapsodically about coding with Emacs).

The point is, I don't often get out among "my own kind," when it comes to this kind of stuff.

But I will at SCALE 6x. Already I've heard that my fellow LXer Scott Ruecker will be there, and with exhibitors representing Damn Small Linux, Debian, Fedora, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, IBM, Novell, Red Hat, HP, Google, Sun and more, I'll have plenty of fodder for my next couple dozen blog entries, hopefully meeting enough people to being steering this blog in a little more of a "journalistic" direction, meaning getting experts to comment on things, over and above my own opinions and noodlings about the open-source movement (and the business behind it).

Check out the list of sponsors, which, in addition to the usual heavy hitters, includes our very own LXer, Linux Pro magazine, Linux Journal, Free Software Magazine, Trusted Computer Solutions, Wind River, and the previously mentioned Linux giants.

Among the major emphases at SCALE is women in open-source, with many speakers on that topic, open source in education, and open source in health care (you don't want your medical data held hostage to proprietary apps, do you?), as well as a barrelful of others http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale6x/conference-info/schedules/ .

I guess what I'm saying is if you're in any way involved in open-source software -- Linux, BSD (there's a lot of BSD here for a convention with "Linux" in the title) -- or want to be, and you're anywhere in the Los Angeles area, you should get yourself registered and get down there.

And for more SCALE news, follow along at the convention's own blog.

And if you want to hear about SCALE, L.A.'s KPFK is the place. A show called "The Digital Village" will welcome the convention's Gareth J. Greenaway and Orv Beach to talk about what's in store at 10 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 26, on KPFK-FM (90.7).

Final note: Remember how I lamented about Los Angeles' lack of vocal open-source activity? Well, I tried to find out what the SCLUG acronym after many of the SCALE principals' names stood for. It's not the Southern California Linux Users Group. Instead, SCLUG stands for the Simi Conejo Linux Users Group, which started way, way back in 1998, and now meets every other Saturday at the Simi Valley YWCA. And they put together this huge show. Clearly, they're better men and women than me, and I salute them.

And if you need a visual, check out this banner from the SCALE site:

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are quite a few good Web sites for free-software users, but when it comes to sheer volume and organization, Distrowatch tops them all. I don't know how Ladislav Bodner does it. He tracks many hundred Linux and BSD distributions, plus the applications that go into them. I hope he's making a mint, because otherwise there's little to no justice in the world.

Anyhow, the latest edition of Distrowatch Weekly is bigger than usual -- there's a lot going on in the Linux and BSD world.

I plan to blog individually about a half-dozen or more of Ladislav's news items, but in the interest of remembering what they were, here's what caught my eye:

Darkstar Linux is an easy-to-use variation on Slackware

PCLinuxOS releases a "MiniMe" live CD with minimalist KDE desktop

PCLinuxOS announces $150 computer with PCLinuxOS installed

A new distro, Damn Small BSD, promises a 50 MB live CD based on FreeBSD. Few other projects have me as excited as this one, especially now that so many other BSD distros are going DVD only.

There's way more news than this. Keeping up with Distrowatch is one way to stay on top of it. (And don't forget LXer, where links to everything open-source are updated many times a day.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 5:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Law & Life: Silicon Valley, by Mark Radcliffe of the huge law firm DLA Piper, looks like a great way to keep up with the legal issues surrounding free, open-source software. I plan to return often.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 7:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Steven Rosenberg at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)