Posts filed under 'Linux'
As I’m sure most technogeeks have read in SlashDot, the final version of the new Ubuntu Linux distribution has just been released.
Announcing: Ubuntu 5.04 “The Hoary Hedgehog Release”
The Array (*) is pleased to announce the second release of Ubuntu! If you’ve heard all about Ubuntu and just want to get the Install CD or test the Live CD, you can download it here immediately:
This is one of the first Linux distributions I’ve used (lo, these 11 years and dozen+ distros) that I’m actually completely happy with. It’s just the right mix of usability and power for me, all without getting in the way. It helps to add the new repositories, but after that, every piece of software I want is just minutes away. The few little hitches I’ve had have been easily solved by the Ubuntu Wiki and the Unofficial Ubuntu Starter Guide.
Released simultaneously with this GNOME-based distro is Kunbuntu, a KDE-based distro for those people who prefer that desktop envirionment.
Note that the Ubuntu servers are quite overwhelmed at the moment, so I’d advise picking up the torrents for a very quick download. They can be found at the regular download sites (direct link: i386 install torrent from US mirror).
By the way, “hoary” means “ancient and venerable”.
April 8th, 2005
Warning: Linux geek territory. Enter at your peril.
Now, I’m both a tweaker and an operating system junkie. I use Mac OS X for multimedia production, Linux for web development, and Windows for… for… hmmm… tech support issues. However, I’ve also tinkered in the guts of Solaris, VMS, *BSD, QNX, BeOS and a half-dozen other OSes, just to see what they had to offer. I switch operating systems like people change their clothes.
I made a mistake about a month ago. I had to burn down and build up one of my chief production machines, a Linux SGI box. It had an ancient version of Red Hat on it and it was unsecure and unstable, not to mention extremely dated (Open Source development moves very fast). On my previous laptop I had been using a Frankenstein variant of Debian Linux, originally installed from a Knoppix live CD-ROM, but I was frustrated by being forced to choose between either very unstable software packages or very old ones. After a brief but unfortunately ill-suited dalliance with Fedora (it didn’t like my hardware), I started looking elsewhere for my new distro.
I had heard a lot of good things about SuSE Linux, so I tracked down SuSE Professional 9.2 and installed it on the SGI box. At first, I was quite happy with it. It came with a recent and very pretty version of the KDE desktop environment, along with Java, Flash and plenty of bells and whistles.
But about two weeks ago, the discontent really started. I continually found KDE far too slow and bloated for my day-to-day use. KDE is a pretty heavy-duty system, and it has always struck me as focusing on providing a user interface that matches or outdoes MS Windows feature-by-feature. I didn’t need all that. Heck, I’m happy with just Emacs and a web browser. I tried switching over to GNOME but found out that the SuSE packages were ancient — about a year old. I tried sucking down newer packages from third-party repositories (including apt-get), but many things didn’t work well — for example, anything using the Gstreamer multimedia kit crashed. Garnome was a three-day compile-fest that left me with many other problems, including incompatibilities with existing libraries. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any more. Two days ago, I burnt down SuSE.
Now, I’ve never really been a Debian fan. Most Debian users I’ve met have had all the subtlety of religious zealots trying to convert me at swordpoint. The “live free or die” mentality also tends to get in the way when one is forced to commercial means of making a living. Yes, I do believe in the Braveheartian notion of freedom, but this isn’t very convenient when it conflicts with my “use the best tool for the job” rule: sometimes you need a screwdriver, not a hammer. I don’t like to be told, “Well, you can’t do it that way because the software license isn’t worded correctly, but here’s a simple 48-step way to do it… first, download the new kernel source and modify the Makefile like this….” And don’t even get me started about the user-unfriendliness of the Debian website. All that, plus the very infrequent updates to the base system, led me away from this distribution in the first place.
However, I had been hearing about Ubuntu, the Debian-based distro with “the strange name”, for quite a while now. Convinced that there was something inviting in those waters, I did a little bit of research into it, and arrived at the following conclusions:
- Ubuntu is Debian, but with a very current set of packages, including the recent GNOME 2.10. It can also connect to all third-party repositories for extra and “non-free” packages.
- Because it is Debian, and uses the famed Debian package management system, installing and upgrading software is an absolute breeze.
- Ubuntu is a very philosophical operating system, rather than a religious one. Ubuntu means “humanity to others,” whereas I find Debian Prime to be a “convert or die” sort of experience.
- A very strong effort has been put into usability issues. Not only are most things very intuitive (a lot of credit must go to GNOME Human Interface Guideline adoption), it carefully balances the need for an administrator with the need to be a regular user.
- Ubuntu offers a “live” CD-ROM, where you can boot from the CD and experience how everything works. It detected everything on my system perfectly, and it was extremely nimble when compared to SuSE’s KDE (even though it was running from a CD-ROM!).
- It installs very quickly, and lets one immediately update the system with whatever other packages one wishes.
- The community support is amazing: lots of people helping each other, and plenty of knowledgeable folks creating how-to’s, handbooks, unofficial guides, and wiki pages. And hardly a flame or rude person to be found. Maybe this distro does bring out the humanity in geeks. Heh.
- Get this: Ubuntu will actually send you CD-ROMs by mail, and pay the shipping. I have a stack of 20 x86 and three PPC CD’s on the way to give to friends and volunteer organisations. (Of course, being at least partially funded by a humanitarian billionaire Debian developer — Mark Shuttleworth, also the second space tourist — probably helps in this regard.)
Whereas SuSE took a few days to set up to my liking (and even then, it felt far too sluggish), I installed Ubuntu in less than an hour. It took only a few more hours to download other software packages, choose fonts and themes, slap on Java and Flash, and set up my panels exactly right. In less than four hours, I had a smoothly humming Linux box with everything I wanted, and nothing I didn’t. I’m even getting used to the… uhm… brown-ness of everything: very earthy.
I think I’m going to be happy with this one….
April 2nd, 2005
Well, if this isn’t every Linux geek’s mobile fantasy: NewsForge | PalmSource announces Linux support
We look forward to contributing code to the Linux platform under its existing licenses. We believe that PalmSource’s expertise in building great mobile solutions can help make Linux even more compelling than it is now. The Palm OS layer written for use on Linux will be designed to be portable to any suitable mobile Linux distribution, and we’ll expose Linux APIs under the Palm OS layer. We look forward to partnering and cooperating with Linux companies and developers to contribute to the on-going development and adoption of mobile Linux.
It sounds like they will be building the new PalmOS to work as a layer atop Linux, the same way that the Mac OS X “Aqua” layer is built atop BSD-flavoured UNIX. With Wi-Fi built into the device, you’ll be able to wardrive with a Linux server in your pocket. Slot in Apache, Perl/Python/PHP, MySQL, wikis, Emacs, FTP… ah, the geek in me is just drooling….
More info at The Reg.
(No, I don’t have a Zaurus or a Yopy, but I really wish I did….)
December 8th, 2004
I’m always on the lookout for bridges between English (and in particular, literature) and technology. However, the articles I come across usually concern how technology is applied to the study of literature or creativity. On Groklaw today, I found a well-written piece coming from the opposite direction: literature applied to technology.
For those who haven’t been following technology news, the story thus far in this strange soap opera: Linux is a product created by thousands of volunteers around the world, and is born of the Open Source philosophy of freedom of speech and the spread of knowledge. Last year, a firm named SCO (nee Caldera), a failing provider of Linux, and now a staunch advocate of its own UnixWare OS, claimed to own the intellectual property and copyrights behind the UNIX operating system, upon which Linux is modelled. They accuse IBM of “stealing” their code and contributing it to Linux, which has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years (to the dismay of Microsoft) and is a major focus of IBM, it all but decimating the market share for SCO UnixWare. SCO has threatened to sue Linux users all over the world for using their “property”, and has levied a lawsuit at IBM for several billion dollars (and well as initiating lawsuits against others such as Daimler-Chrysler). SCO stock, initially soaring to over $20 upon announcement of the longshot lawsuit, has been plummetting in recent months to now under $4, and the two major investors (the Royal Bank of Canada and BayStar Inc.) have cut their losses and walked away. The CEO, one Darl McBride, has been mouthing off about the legal issues quite regularly in the press, and is probably the “most hated man in IT” right now, due to the popularity of Linux among techies and advocates of freedom. SCO has been suffering many losses lately, and the courts, media, customers and investors have not been kind to them. The story gets far more complicated than that, and experiences twists and turns every day, but that is the gist of it. Groklaw is the community site set up to carefully watch and dissect the case, often digging up information that slowly puts nails into the SCO coffin.
That being said, here is the wonderful and hilarious send-up of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven”, entitled “The Nazgul, A Derivative Work of the Intellectual Property of Edgar Allan Poe” by the Groklaw enthusiast Alanyst: The Nazgul.
September 21st, 2004
It seems that every techie blogger is sharing his or her list of essential applications, and is inquiring what everybody else is using. Coincidentally, I’ve received four personal emails this week from people who probably don’t even read blogs, and they’ve asked me my personal opinions about what software I recommend. So who am I to buck the trend? Forthwith, my list of current essential software (at least for today):
- Text editing: My first choice is definitely Emacs. Depending on my mood and what system I’m on, you’ll catch me using GNU Emacs or XEmacs. This “kitchen sink” of text editors goes back decades, and its maturity and range of functionality (as well as complexity) shows it. Besides text editing, it handles file management, FTP, news reading, mail, wiki stuff, planner/calendar items, web browsing, code writing, IRC, instant messenging, shell/OS interfacing, coffee making, etc. Not for the faint of heart, but once you’ve learned how to use it, you’ll never actually need another application.
That being said, sometimes Emacs is overkill. I still use vi or vim for super-quick editing (such as config files), or TextEdit (on Mac OS X) if I need a quick drag-n-drop.
- Web browsing: Firefox, without a doubt. A lean, mean and extensible web machine. With a few extensions added (current favourites: Gmail Notifier, Adblock, Web Developer, BugMeNot, Diggler, and Image Zoom), this browser does everything I need it to do, exactly how I want it.
A web developer does need other browsers to check compatibility, have multiple identity sign-ins, etc., so for these purposes I use Safari (OS X), Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Camino (OS X), Epiphany (Linux), Opera, Lynx/Links (Linux) and whatever else is handy.
- Mail: For web-based mail (which I need for mobility), Gmail is the best service I’ve ever seen, bar none. (For the reasons why, see my previous post.) For email clients, I use Evolution (Linux), Mail.app (OS X), Mozilla Suite and Thunderbird, though I’d have to give my nod to Thunderbird for being my favourite of the bunch. I have also used Outlook, Outlook Express and Entourage, mainly to keep on top of the Microsoft world, but none of these have presented me with any bonafide reason to stick with them (although the Entourage Project Manager does have some nice features… too bad it slows my systems to a crawl). SpyMac does provide a really good webmail account, although not nearly as full-functioned as Gmail, and as an added bonus, you can also use the account in Thunderbird or whatever client you wish. Recommended, if you don’t already have such a mail account.
- Instant Messenging: Gaim on Linux and Windows, and Fire on OS X, because they are Open Source (i.e., free) and let me speak to all my friends, no matter if they are using AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Jabber, IRC, and who knows what else. (You try running multiple “traditional” clients at the same time, and watch your system resources get eaten away to nothing.) Both are filled with neat bells and whistles that make tracking your buddies and conversations much less of a chore.
- File transfer: Most of the time, in true geek fashion, I use the command-line ncftp client, which seeminly comes pre-packaged with every Linux distro, and is available via Fink on OS X. The rest of the time, I’ll use whatever is handy, whether it’s a stand-alone client like Transmit, Fugu or CuteFTP, or a built-in transfer system like Dreamweaver’s. Special recommendation: Filezilla for Windows.
- Calendar/Planning: I need multiple systems to sync with my Palm Tungsten E –my primary source of planning and scheduling– without messing up entries, duplicating items, or randomly deleting things. The best combination I’ve found so far uses the Apple Mac OS X iSync/iCal on my G4 and Powerbook, and Evolution on my Linux boxes. The Mozilla Calendar project is very cool, and lets me synchronise various machines, but so far it doesn’t sync with my Palm. Once it does, it will certainly be my planning application of choice.
- Contact management: Palm for my hub, Apple iSync/Address Book on Mac, Evolution on Linux, and Palm Desktop on Windows. (Experimenting with Thunderbird for the latter.)
- Graphics: Ah, there are multiple applications I use, depending on the need and the machine I’m sitting at:
- Adobe Photoshop CS, on Mac OS X and Windows boxes, when I need photographic retouching or bitmap graphics work
- The GIMP, on Linux, for same; also available under Windows and OS X as well, although I often fall back on PS there because I also use…
- Adobe Illustrator CS, for my OS X and Windows illustration and page layout needs
- Inkscape and Dia for my Linux illustration and diagram needs
- Adobe inDesign CS and Scribus for my publishing needs on OS X/Windows and Linux, respectively
- ImageWell: This free little image-handling application just blew me away with its cleverness: behind a simple little interface, it handles two-click drag-n-drop resizing and uploading to remote servers… perfectly attuned to blogs and website development, and a heck of a lot faster than toggling between Photoshop and an FTP program
- Apple iPhoto, for organising, importing, printing and viewing my thousands of digital pictures on my Mac
- Office Suite: OpenOffice.org, for almost everything. I fall within the 90% of people for whom OpenOffice is a perfect (and free) replacement for Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office 2003 (Windows) and Office X 2004 (OS X) definitely have their strengths –especially the latter– but the bloat and cost aren’t really justified for what I do. I occasionally try other applications like AbiWord, Mellel, AppleWorks, WordPerfect Suite and Gnumeric, but OpenOffice provides everything I need (with little I don’t), and so I keep coming back to it. It does help to own a great book like the OpenOffice.org 1.0 Resource Kit, though.
- Text processing: LaTeX. Rather than using a word processor, I much prefer to use LaTex, Emacs and AUCTeX (an Emacs add-on), for almost all my reports, specifications, dossiers and other (non-collaborative) documents. *cough* *geek!* *cough*
- Note-taking: Ah, my eternal quest. I quite like some hiearchical outliners like Tinderbox, and also some “notebook”-style applications like NoteTaker and Microsoft OneNote, but their lack of cross-platform availability makes it difficult to make and transfer notes wherever I am without the fuss of constant importing and exporting. For ages, I’ve been toying with my ideal of the perfect outliner/notetaker, and I think I might write up some specifications for a Java-based network-aware application when I get a breather. In the meantime, I use my Palm and its wireless keyboard as my “notetaking hub.” Syncing with MacNoteTaker (OS X) and gpilot (Linux) on my main computers, I’m able to have quick access to all my notes in standard text format whenever I want, and can synchronise full directories of them. As my father used to say, “Better than a kick in the teeth.”
- Web design: It depends on the site, and how much of it is dynamic or code-driven. I often do initial designs in Dreamweaver MX+ or GoLive CS, and then do further coding in Emacs. Really large sites, however, I stick mainly with Dreamweaver, since I find it the best with site management.
- Web development: (by this, I’m referring to dynamic development) Zope, Python, Perl, PHP, Apache, MySQL and *nix (Linux/OS X/Solaris/etc.) are my tools of choice. Zope is perfect middleware for large-scale sites and heavy prototyping, and has never let me down when I’ve had to do something big and complicated under a tight deadline. It’s Open Source, extended by hundreds of great add-on “products”, easily extendible using Python, connects to MySQL and other databases flawlessly, and is easy to learn (I even used it to teach web programming and databases to beginners).
- Web-based applications: Way too many. The chief ones I’m using today are WordPress for blogging, Gallery for my photo gallery, and twiki for my wiki. I’m also implementing COREBlog and ZWiki, setting them up for educational purposes. Learning more about Moodle is definitely on my to-do list.
- Audio: iTunes for OS X and Windows, and Rhythmbox and xmms for Linux. I have so many albums ripped that a music management system like iTunes is a virtual necessity.
- Video: vlc is a wonderful cross-platform video player that works on all my systems, and has been able to play every single video file I’ve thrown at it so far, no matter what strange combination of codecs and file formats are involved. Also has to the ability to display subtitles (I like foreign films), play DVDs and VCDs, and play files from over the network. MPlayer OS X 2 (OS X) and mplayer are also recommended, and sometimes seem a little smoother than vlc. For video editing (mainly on the Mac), I prefer iMovie for quick jobs, and Final Cut Pro for more intense editing sessions.
- Programming: NetBeans + Java, Emacs + everything else, especially my favourite language, Python.
- Backup: rsync all the way. For true geeks. (I’d also throw UNIX “dd” into this category, which tends to leave mere mortals quaking, and which has been known to appear in my more surreal nightmares.)
Whew. Punters, take note: whenever possible, I use freely-available Open Source software. Not necessarily because I’m a cheapskate (although my wife might choose to differ on this point ), but rather because I believe in the philosophy behind the movement. I also believe in open standards and open formats, because years from now I don’t want to find that I can no longer read my data: this has happened to me one too many times, either because formats change, I haven’t paid for endless upgrades, or because the software company went out of business.
Most commercial applications have very good Open Source alternatives, and I tend to switch over to these applications as soon as possible (e.g., OpenOffice.org vs. Microsoft Office, the GIMP vs. Photoshop, Gnumeric vs. Excel, Gaim vs. MSN Messenger, Firefox vs. Internet Explorer, Evolution vs. Outlook, etc.). Although these applications are generally programmed initially for the Linux platform, most are making their way to Windows and Mac OS X too. If you haven’t tried them, go ahead: you have only a few hours to lose, and quite a lot to gain –including the cost of expensive software licences.
(Well, I wouldn’t recommend applications like Emacs and rsync unless you’re very technically inclined, but then you would probably know how to use these already.)
September 20th, 2004