Recently in Linux Category

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

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

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.

I always pull the trigger too soon when declaring success with a new WiFi adapter/software/hardware combination, and I'm hoping that's not the case with the Airlink 101 AWLL3028, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and my aging Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101.

But today I first had trouble connecting with my WEP encryption key (I know I shouldn't be using WEP ... and I will change to WPA2 once I resolve a few issues and get the rest of the house's computers on board ...).

Then when I finally did connect (had to reboot) I had the typical screen-freezes-and-ctrl-alt-backspace-AND-ctrl-alt-delete-have-no-effect-so-I-have-to-do-a-hard-reset.

That's the beauty of blogging where absolutely no one is making any damn money from the entire enterprise: I can just spin out a fake word with 30 or so hyphens and just move on.

OK ... I was reprimanded once for using the kind of language that flows continuously through my favorite podcast, and I considered just chucking the whole blogging-for-the-man thing and doing this on my own time, on my own site and enjoying the tens of dollars yearly I could earn from Google AdSense.

OK, I pretty much do this entirely on my own time as is ...

Anyhow, I'm ready to return to the raw meat of this blog post, which is my trouble with wireless networking.

So I did the hard reset, booted back into Ubuntu and while things seem a bit slow, networking-wise (that could be anything), it's working OK for the moment.

Here's what I'm thinking:

The problem might not be the specific wireless networking adapter; it could be an issue with USB (1.1 in the case of this old hunk of saved-from-the-garbage hardware). Whether Linux-related or not, perhaps the Toshiba just can't handle using the USB inteface that intensely.

I don't recall having any problems with the PCMCIA adapter I use with every damn PCMCIA-equipped computer known to woman and man, namely the Orinoco WaveLAN Silver (all I'm saying is if you don't have one of these, go to eBay and get one; for me's it's the geek-networking equivalent of the Swiss Army knife or Leatherman.

So a "newer" Cardbus adapter (maybe another $10 Airlink?) might work better for this particular laptop.

Another thing: If whatever problem I'm having is related to software, it's possible that performance will improve and crashes will diminish (or end entirely) with newer versions of everything from the Linux kernel (remember, I'm using Ubuntu 8.04, which is pretty much a year and a half old; ancient in Linux terms) to the dreaded NetworkManager in GNOME or anything else in the stack.

But given my recent experience, I'm extremely gunshy and more worried about regressions than either a lack or abundance of "improvements." That's what screwing up Xorg for probably half the PCs out there will do to you, O Xorg developers who decided that working Intel video is for other people, meaning people who don't have Intel video chips embedded in their PCs.

Can you tell I'm bitter? I thought you could.

Of course with the super-fast USB 3 on the horizon for Linux — yep, first for Linux and then for the other 99 percent of the world, I expect we'll be getting more USB-connected hardware and not less, and that includes add-on network adapters, which I suspect will be with us in various forms for quite awhile as PCs' built-in networking (wired and wireless) are superseded by newer devices and protocols.

I'll continue testing the Airlink 101 AWLL3028 USB adapter and even consider entering the modern era and slapping Ubuntu 9.10 on this laptop. I'll try an in-place upgrade from 8.04-8.10-9.04-9.10, and if that doesn't work I can do a reintall with a fresh 9.10. That'll keep me (and my office's ample bandwidth) busy for awhile, I suspect.

I'm always hopeful; "It's only one crash," I say to myself. But one crash usually begets many more. I say usually hoping for the unusual and simultaneously wondering to myself why things have to be this hard (and remembering that these kind of problems reared themselves very well during my time running Windows 98/2000/XP and Mac OS 7.6/9.x/10.x).

Right now with the built-in wired networking, this hardware/software setup is pretty much problem-free (OK ... suspend/resume is a disaster, but I wasn't expecting anything more with hardware of this now-7-year-old vintage).

It's a good time to put my optimism hat atop my head, leave the friendly confines of the Ubuntu LTS behind and leap into the world of the six-month upgrade cycle and hope that improvements drown out regressions.

After all, I can always initiate my own regression and return to 8.04 (or chuck it all for something safe like Slackware 12.2 ...). I called Slackware "safe." Time for more coffee.

If you've been using operating systems that are not Windows (but come to think of it, I've had plenty of networking problems in Windows as well), you know that getting both wired and WiFi network adapters to work in Linux, the BSDs and even Mac OS X is a crapshoot at best and prelude to weeks of often-futile hackery at worst.

The smart thing to do is figure out what works the easiest and best BEFORE you buy anything to add to your computers, especially when it comes to WiFi adapters.

The problem is that manufacturers very often won't even roll out a binary driver for Linux, and never for BSD. The number of hardware makers who provide an open-source driver is even fewer.

That leaves users either that closed-source binary driver (Linux is full of 'em; OpenBSD refuses to include them) or waiting for developers from the community to either write a driver from scratch or adapt one from another open-source project. Contrary to what you might think, developers across the BSDs share a whole lot of code, and the creation of a driver in, say, NetBSD, means that developers from the other projects will be keen to look at that code and adapt it for their flavor of OS.

It also means that older network interfaces tend to be better supported than newer ones. My Orinoco WaveLAN Silver PCMCIA card for 802.11b is famous for working with EVERYTHING. I haven't found a computer that has a PCMCIA slot that it won't work with. I camped out on eBay for weeks trying to get one and was finally successful. It works with my 1996-era Powerbook 1400 running System 7, my 1999-era Mac G4 running Debian Etch (but you can't close the case; and YES, Apple designed a desktop computer that uses an internal PCMCIA card, with only Apple's original Airport card [muy expensivo on eBay and 802.11b only] fitting, or so it seems), my 1999-era Compaq Armada 7770dmt and all my laptops from the first decade of the 2000s: the Gateway Solo 1450 and the two Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 models.

But I'm not hear to sing the praises of the Orinoco WaveLAN.

No, I'm here to report that good things come to those FOSS users who wait.

A couple of years ago, I spent a big $9.95 at Fry's on the Airlink 101 AWLL3028 USB WiFi adapter. Since the AWLL3026 was known for working in Ubuntu Linux out of the box, I figured, "What could be different between 3026 and 3028?"

A lot. They used totally different chipsets, and while the 3026 worked like a charm, the AWLL 3028 didn't work at all in Linux or the BSDs.

Sure there were lengthy forum threads about how to use ndiswrapper to make a Windows driver for the AWLL3028 work in Linux. But I could never make it work. And after a half-dozen unsuccessful attempts, I swore off of ndiswrapper for good.

When I read about the CNet CWD-854 USB WiFi adapter working out of the box in both Linux and OpenBSD, I quickly bought one from Amazon.com for about $23.

It did work — and especially well in OpenBSD 4.4, which I'm no longer running. It also worked automatically in Ubuntu 8.04, which I am running at present.

But I've been getting mysterious crashes after about two to three hours of use, and only when the Cnet adapter is connected.

I remember somebody either e-mailing me or leaving a comment on one of my posts (or was it a forum thread?) to the effect that the Airlink 101 AWLL3028 did indeed work in Ubuntu 8.04 — and automatically, with no ndiswrapper needed.

After that I made a mental note, "Try the Airlink adapter already."

Well, I finally did. I plugged it into the Toshiba laptop and booted into Ubuntu 8.04.

I saw the light; the blue light that means the Airlink 101 AWLL is active (I used to get NOTHING with it connected and Linux running).

It works! I have WiFi flowing into this circa-2002 laptop from my Netgear router.

And I have the prospect of the laptop running for hours and not dying due to a WiFi adapter being connected.

And ... the Airlink 101 AWLL3028 WiFi adapter appears to still be available at $15 or less. I haven't yet researched whether or not the chipset (mine is Realtek 8187b) is the same.

Curiously, the adapter doesn't show up when I run lspci or dmesg, but it does work — and with no intervention on my part (that means automatically. I'm not as "good" with networking in Linux as I am in OpenBSD, mostly because OpenBSD's documentation is so good and networking is a major focus of the project; the man pages actually tell you how to set up a network adapter with the given chipset, and those same man pages go way beyond the usual "here's the command and a bunch of switches, good luck to you ..." I digress; if I could manage to upgrade OpenBSD without causing the install to blow up in my face, I'd probably still be running it.

Back to the topic at hand, the Airlink 101 AWLL3028.

In short, if the chipset stayed the same, at $10 to $15, the Airlink 101 AWLL3028 is an inexpensive way to add wireless networking to a computer running Linux (and more specifically the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS distribution).

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols continues to be one of the most knowledgeable and readable writers on Linux, and he does it again with this post on what the 2.6.31 version of the Linux kernel will bring to desktop users.

Everything from better USB connectivity (USB 3 before any other OS gets it) and more efficient use of memory to faster filesystems a promise of better graphics and next-generation networking — he explains it way better than I ever could.

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes of ZDNet says he's not switching to Linux until those we works with do the same.

While I can respect that, my situation is different:

Nobody's providing me with free computers for my personal use that come complete with the Microsoft Windows operating system and office suite, plus all the other proprietary applications I want or need.

Just as I'm unwilling and unable to pay for said software, I'm also uncomfortable and unwilling to do what everybody else seems very comfortable in doing, namely stealing said software.

And I also don't have the newest hardware on the block. My price point is usually "free" or $15. That's for the whole damn computer.

So I'm using stuff that's at a minimum five years old and usually older. It just runs better on Linux and BSD.

And that's what I run. In a great many cases there are excellent equivalents to the applications one finds in the Windows and Macintosh worlds. Not all the time. There are some huge holes in the free, open-source software world, and I should probably start biting that bullet and running a few Windows apps under WINE in order to overcome what the FOSS world is either unwilling (IPTC support in JPEGs) or unable (pro-level video editing) to provide, not that (especially in the case of video) there isn't work under way to bring up the level of FOSS.

In contrast to Mr. Kingsley-Hughes, I can do the majority of my work in Linux (at present Ubuntu 8.04) and only need my XP box to access a few specialized programs that my employer provides. That and the dammed embedded data in JPEGs, which Photoshop seems to have originated and IrfanView handles so very well. (IrfanView, a free, closed-source photo editor is probably one of my two favorite Windows apps, along with the free, open-source Notepad++ text editor that EVERY Windows user should be using).

But with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice and all the great Unix/Linux apps packed into most Linux repositories, distributions like Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE and Mandriva can offer a rich, compelling environment in which to work and play.

My hope is that by using and promoting free, open-source operating systems, the momentum that I know is going in the direction of more and more of us using them will build that much more quickly.

So why don't you try Linux? It's not perfect, but neither are the alternatives.

I'm not saying I won't go back to using OpenBSD (or even try FreeBSD on the desktop), but I'm sufficiently busy enough and have had a sufficient number of configuration and upgrade instances either take lots of time or go horribly wrong in OpenBSD that I'm continuing to use Linux (these days Ubuntu) on the desktop if, for no other reason, than that upgrading, configuration and adding the software I need is a whole lot easier.

As I've written recently (OK, I probably "tweeted" it), a true BSD distribution, i.e. one that provided a reasonable installer, timely binary updates and a wide choice of desktop environments easily installed is what I think is needed to take BSD (either Open- Free- or Net- ... or DragonFly ...) to the proverbial "next level," meaning use on the desktop by less-than-qualified geeky types (and maybe even "civilians") like myself.

Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular is just so good at taking care of the less technically minded while still providing a powerful, extendable operating system that can be used at just about every level and for every purpose. That's why I'm using it today.

That's what I'm going to try to do. I have a Macintosh G4/466 box that has been running Debian Etch for quite some time. I don't have it connected to a network at the moment, and I'd like to update it to Lenny without having to move it to a network connection.

So I'm going to use a DVD. I'm downloading the Debian Lenny DVD image for PowerPC, and I'm going to try to add that disc to the sources.list and do the initial upgrade that way.

Eventually I'll probably get networking into the box (especially if the kernel includes drivers for at least some of the NICs I have laying around), but just to jump-start it into the world of Debian Lenny, I hope this works.

Opera hasn't shipped an update of its fast (but not open-source) Web browser from its repository for quite some time, but today Opera 10 has been moved from beta to the main release of the browser, and if you're using Opera's repository (as opposed to one maintained by your distro), you might have the same problem I did in Debian or Ubuntu (in my case the 8.04 LTS version):

When trying to update the system, I get a GPG error, and apt (or Aptitude or Synaptic) won't update the list of packages from Opera's repository.

Opera has a helpful page on how to add its repository, or Canonical's for Ubuntu users, to your /etc/apt/sources.list file if you use a Debian-derived distribution such as Ubuntu, or Debian itself. I use both and have been through this twice recently.

Canonical does offer Opera in its "partner" repository -- not in the regular "non-free" repository. Debian doesn't maintain a similar "partner" repository (how "freedom-loving" would that be?).

So Debian users who wish to use the freedom-hating (but Linux-loving) Opera Web browser and wish to use a repository to install and update the program (as opposed to downloading a binary and installing it with dpkg) need to use Opera's own repository. This same method also works in Ubuntu. You don't have to use the Canonical "partner" repository. For one reason or another, I thought it might be better to get Opera straight from Opera Software, and that company does have a help page that gets you most of the way toward making it happen.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of critical errors on Opera's help page, so I'll go through both adding Opera's own repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list as well as properly using the command line (and invoking sudo at the right time) to set up the GPG key for that repository so the updates and code can flow properly to your Ubuntu box.

One caveat: If you're NOT using Ubuntu and are on a Debian box that allows you to su to root, you can avoid the use of sudo at one critical point in the GPG process.

However, I'm a big sudo fan, and I always install it in Debian and use it all the time, preferring never to su to root if I don't have to.

Here goes ...

Adding the Opera's own repository for its Web browser and installing it on your Debian or Ubuntu system

Before we begin: This tutorial works if you're using sudo to gain rootly privileges. If you have a Debian system, which allows the use of su instead, you can su to root and forget sudo entirely. But as I say above, I always install sudo in Debian, so this "recipe" works equally well on my Debian and Ubuntu boxes.

Now let's get to it:

First you need to add the proper repository to /etc/apt/sources.list. Open up a terminal window and at the $ prompt, use GEdit (or your favorite GUI or console editor) to add the following line to the bottom of /etc/apt/sources.list:

To open the file:

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

(type your password when prompted)

When you're in /etc/apt/sources.list, go to the bottom of the file and, to use Opera's repository, add this line in either Debian or Ubuntu (Opera maintains this repo for the various Debian branches, but the "lenny" version works great in Ubuntu):

deb http://deb.opera.com/opera lenny non-free

If you are in Ubuntu and wish to use Canonical's repository, add this line instead:

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner

That's for users of Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy). If you're using 8.10 (Intrepid) or 9.04 (Jaunty), use the appropriate adjective instead of "hardy" in your repo line.

Like I said, I tend to use Opera's repository, so I entered the "deb.opera.com" line into my sources.list.

Then save the file and close Gedit (or your favorite editor).

Now let's take care of the GPG keys. In the terminal, do the following lines:

$ gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-key F9A2F76A9D1A0061
$ gpg --fingerprint F9A2F76A9D1A0061
$ gpg --armor --export F9A2F76A9D1A0061 | sudo apt-key add -

See, it's that "hidden" sudo in the third line that Opera forgets on its help page.

(If you're in Debian and have used su to become root, you can forget the final sudo in the third line).

I already had Opera 9 on my box but couldn't update to Opera 10. My problem was a bad GPG key. After this change I was able to use Aptitude (my preferred choice over plain ol' apt) to update my box. You could just as easily use GNOME's Update Manager to swap out Opera 9 for Opera 10.

For me that was these easy lines:

$ sudo aptitude update
$ sudo aptitude upgrade

Or if you've never before installed Opera, either use the Synaptic Package Manager to add it, using the search function to find Opera.

But if you're still at the command line (or as I generally say, "in the console"), you can do it this way:

$ sudo aptitude install opera

Now you should have the Opera 10 Web browser in your menu and ready to run.

I used to need Opera for one of my extremely critical Web-based applications, but the developers of said app recently added Firefox to the list of allowed browsers (previously it was IE-only, which doesn't exactly help me in Linux and the BSDs, but did allow use of Opera). Now that Firefox is allowed, Opera has been "blacklisted" from the app.

But Opera is still a very nice browser. It's extremely fast. In marginal hardware, of which I've got quite a bit, it can make the difference between a usable system and the other kind.

The "easy" way to install Opera in Ubuntu the GUI way

Did you enjoy that? There's an easier way, I've learned from Ubuntu's repository page. Basically you can add the "partner" repository in Synaptic and then search for Opera in that same application and add it the "normal," graphical GNOMEish way. That's probably a better way to go, but since I did it the "hard" way, I figure you should be allowed to do it that way as well. But again, if you want to use Opera's own repository, the method above did work for me.

So if you use Ubuntu and want to shun the command line and do it all through the Synaptic Package Manager, do the following:

Open the Synaptic Package Manager (In the menu, it's System -- Administration -- Synaptic Package Manager)

In Synaptic's menu, go to: Settings -- Repositories

Click the second tab, the one that reads "Third-Party Software"

Check the box next to the line that reads: http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner

Now you should be able to update your sources (click the Reload button in Synaptic) and then search for and add Opera as an application.

OK, that's a bit easier than my command-line, Opera's-own-repository method above, but they both work in Ubuntu.

And if, like me, you run into a GPG key problem, you can just run the three GPG-related lines in the example above and get Opera updates flowing from the Norway-based Opera Software company into your Debian or Ubuntu box.

At some point I'll delve a little deeper into Opera 10 for a review, but at least now I have the app (and the opportunity to do so).

Reader Alan Rochester told me about xkill, the utility that helps you ... kill things on your Linux desktop.

I had gFTP die on me today and gave it a try.

Luckily xkill is part of the default install in Ubuntu (I'm in version 8.04 LTS in case you haven't read my previous many hundred blog posts and tweets on this installation).

To invoke xkill: On the same window as the application you wish to kill, open a terminal window and type xkill at the prompt. Your cursor turns into a "X" that kills whatever you left-click with the mouse.

It works. gFTP died a noble death.

Next for me: Putting xkill in a "launcher" on the upper GNOME panel, to be invoked at will (and without needing to open a terminal).

If you change your mind: If you started xkill and then decide not to use it, just type CTRL-c, which kills xkill.

I'm a big user of the top utility, which provides a whole lot of data on what processes are running and how much memory and CPU they're using. I open up a terminal window and run top more than a few times every day.

I've seen htop before but haven't bothered to install it on any of my boxes in quite awhile.

I don't know what prompted me to do so, but I finally installed htop in Ubuntu 8.04. It's easy to do:

$ sudo aptitude install htop

And to run htop:

$ htop

The great thing about htop is that you can kill a process from the application itself. Just arrow down to the offending process and hit F9 to kill it.

It's a lot easier than opening up a new terminal window and using "kill" the old-fashioned way.

I just had to kill Firefox, which was pegging the CPU for some reason, and htop saved me a few steps.

Htop actually has configuration options, which can be accessed with the F2 key while in the application. I'm not at the point yet where I'm ready to mess with this, but I've known for awhile that the output of top can also be screwed with via command-line switches. Haven't done that, either, but it's nice to know that both top and htop have options.

And I really, really like being able to kill processes from within htop.

Linux gurus keep on saying that if you can't code, one way to make a valuable contribution to an open-source software project is by filing bugs when stuff doesn't work.

But, I and many others ask, how do we learn how to file a bug ... and which package or packages is/are responsible for the bug anyway?

To start with, it turns out that you can report a bug in Ubuntu directly under the Help menu. I'll have to try it.

I've been meaning to do this for ages, and I finally installed Puppy Linux on a bootable USB drive.

I went whole hog and used a 128 MB stick. Yep, that's it. I have a huge 20 MB left for storage. Now that I know this works (at least on my Dell, the only box to which I have access that also allows booting via USB) I'll get a bigger stick and actually have some room to, as they say, maneuver.

Doing the install was easy. I booted Puppy 4.1.2 from a CD I had previously burned (I know Puppy is up to 4.2 ... I'll have to try it). Then I used the menu to install to USB. The only thing I did that wasn't a default was selecting mbr.bin as the boot method. It works.

Things I was pleased about in Puppy 4.1.2, which blazes on a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB of RAM, include Abiword with working spell-check (never did get that together in OpenBSD; they should package it to work right ... but I digress), and the inclusion of apps that make this a great working environment.

I already loaded a couple of IMAP accounts into Seamonkey's mail client, and if I did have the disk space, I could use gFTP to load all my stuff onto the USB stick.

Considering that these sticks are pretty much laying around and can be had for free, this is a great way to put together a cloud-computing environment if you have all of your mail and files in something like Google Docs and Gmail. Who needs to wait for Chrome OS?

As I'm trying to figure out exactly why and how Linux uses memory and swap, I came across this very helpful three-part series from Idea Exchange:

• All About Linux Swap Part 1: Introduction
• All About Linux Swap Part 2: Management
• All About Linux Swap Part 3: Analysis

PulseAudio was updated in Ubuntu today to correct a security vulnerability that goes by the "common vulnerabilities and exposures" number CVE-2009-1894.

I finally did find a description of what's going on.

The fix presumably has been going out for various Linux distributions, including Gentoo.