Spice up Windows – replace it with Linux – Introduction

I decided to write a series of essays about moving from Windows system to a Linux one. There are plenty resources online that can help with this transition. I just thought to make an easy one and with explaining each step of doing so.

First of all, the main issue with the series: it is not intended for the following audience:

• Gamers
• Video/Audio professionals using specialized tools
• Photo professionals using Photoshop
• Professional artists using specialized tools for their work.

I believe that these posts will be helpful to the following minorities of users:

• Internet users (mainly browsers users, IM/Chat users, email users, internet video/internet radio users, p2p users)
• Writers (including bloggers)
• Office/Production workers without specially customized Microsoft Office applications.
• Music, video and movies consumers

I will explain each step in the process and provide information about it.

Good luck you all!

-A.

Update: here are these articles:

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3
4. Part 4
5. Part 5

Technorati : Gentoo, Linux, Ubuntu, gentoo, technology, windows

Choosing a platform for work.

After meeting a friend yesterday and talking a bit about technology with him, and after reading a review today, I had an idea.

I recently understood that most of my “computer”-related work is either already done or can be moved to be totally online. Such a thing would lead me to one of the following (or combination of them):

1. I’m totally online. I never loose my data because I have it online all the time. The only moment when its not there is that split of a second I loose my wireless connection and my data not uploaded yet. I can do my work (or entertainment) anywhere, anytime.
2. I’m totally “dead” without internet connection. My powerful computer has no use for me. I can’t access anything. I can’t do anything. I’m so addicted to being online, that I have problems figuring out what are computers for. Although my movies and music are local and with me, I have no wish to “consume” them – after all, I can’t access my email (don’t tell me its unrelated! It is. I am not addicted).

Then I’ve thought about it even more.

We have an internet connection nowadays everywhere. I walk around my neighborhood and I catch easily 10 open WiFi spots. Many can check their email with 3G mobile phones, or even use them to connect to the “real” Internet. Many of those phones are good enough for Internet by themselves. WiMax us promised to come in couple of years give or take. So we have connectivity problem solved. That, probably, also solves me the “problem” with an Internet addiction usage. This means, I can work virtually everywhere anytime.

Now, what bothers me at this point, is the computer itself. I mainly use browser and email. I use simple editor for documents/blog writing. I use simple photo management application. I use somewhat more advanced pictures editing application. I use multimedia players.

These all are hardly resource intensive tasks. But my computer starts to crawl when I open more than 2 apps at a time. Besides, when I’m thinking about installing applications and maintaining the computer, I wonder: why should I invest so much time in it?

So, I know what I want. I want a TV-like usability computer – something that just works. I want a “work” appliance. I want an appliance which is lite, small, convenient, has a long battery life, and fast and responsive. I want to know what it does and how it does it. I want to be able to customize it. I want my computing everywhere with me.

Just like an OLPC with a larger screen and battery life.

-A.

Technorati : Gentoo, Linux, OLPC, Ubuntu, apple, technology, windows

Responsive computing required!

Hey all. Thanks for spelling me out the obvious by commenting on my previous post – using swap out of memory is useless.

But I still want my computer to be faster and swap less. I know that today’s userspace apps suck and use much unnecessary computer resources, but all I want for my computer is to be responsive!

I remember in DOS days, with much slower computers I didn’t have to wait for it. Computers perform tasks much faster that people, so I want to use this tool and I want it to be usable. I don’t want to wait for it to do something it “thinks” it needs to. I want it to respond in half of a second to any of my actions.

Is that too much to ask for?
Is it possible to be easily done? Without the suggestion to buy more hardware? If so, how?

-A.

Technorati : Linux, Ubuntu, technology, windows

Speeding up computer; dropping swap.

As I’ve written in few posts before, I use IBM Thinkpad T42 for my day to day work. The “forced” operating systems installed is Windows XP Service Pack 2. Unfortunately, the laptop has only 512M of memory, and this often leads to a large “swapping” exercises. We used to “swapping” almost since first hard drives appeared (IBM Winchester was my first one), and we all know how and when it happens.

But this is exactly the problem I’m having – all I do is read email, browse the web, and create documents; sometimes I happen to watch a short movie (or YouTube clip) or listen to music – hardly the most intensive stuff in computing. But it really bugs me to wait for any application to load. Sometimes an applications such as Firefox or Outlook take upto half a minute just to start! And that’s on almost idle system where one or two lite (such as PuTTY or IM) applications are running. This is very irritating, and bugs me more as a current state of things in all systems and in all applications rather than waiting itself.

I’m sure that this behavior while better in other operating systems, is similar in all of them.

So this got me thinking. Today’s memory is cheap. Today’s system are fully capable of handling 4GB of memory. What if I were creating “virtual” volume in memory and mount swap space in it? After all, I use swap for swapping only when system is up. I don’t need it when system is off.

So, I’d equip my system with 4GB memory, giving 2GB of it to the OS, and using the other 2GB as swap space. The intention being eliminating hard drive access as much as possible. Would that work? Would this speed up my system?

Tell me what you think.

-A.

Technorati : Gentoo, Linux, Ubuntu, technology, windows

Standard Linux – is it possible?

I’ve read a post by Dana Blankenhorn, who “has been a business journalist for nearly 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985”.

Here’s a trackback to a story.

He’s talking about running a “standard” Linux distribution. Not choosing one, but rather, using one.

I like his way of thinking actually. If mostly used distribution is Ubuntu, doesn’t that makes it “standard”? Wouldn’t it be easier for all to create and distribute products that would work with this vendor? Wouldn’t it be great to optimize ourselves to work with/on it the best way possible?

Well, yes and no.

Yes because all Linux distributions (and Ubuntu in particular) are built alike. All of them include the kernel (it is a kernel what makes Linux after all), basic software, X server system (with great graphics support), management tools and software, which is generally the same on all of them. So, when an application or product is “ready” for Ubuntu, is will not be daunting or hard task to make it work with almost any other Linux distribution.

And no because it seems to me we already been in this scenario. Just imagine: a real alternative to Microsoft’s and Apple’s OSes, and a good one. It is so good, that many vendors start creating a products for it and based on it. Hardware vendors provide drivers and optimize their hardware. Accessories are made. Software is getting better. Ain’t it great? The world, where at least one distribution becomes as good as commercial operating systems?

But that is exactly the world we’re trying to change. We don’t want the “lock-in” on a single vendor. I don’t want to be forced to use something I don’t choose by myself. We already have such vendor in our midst. Wanna guess who that is?

Isn’t that the reason we do what we do with free software in the first place?

I’m all for innovation. I’m in favor of competition. I am in favor of trying to achieve high goals.

But I can’t stand a choice forced on me. Even with best intentions in mind.

Technorati : Linux, Ubuntu, technology

Tagging everywhere

Hi all

After I wrote about ‘tagging revised‘, I just came down to earth a little bit. To using “normal” tags.

I wrote in that post about tagging used in different applications. A special one, one which is close to my heart, is an email tagging. At the time of writing of that post, I noted that there’s a one desktop application which tags email, and there’s of course, Gmail.

But none of them works in corporate and enterprise environments at this moment. Not because they are not good. Both application are very good on their own, and provide very good user experience. But I don’t see them replace Outlook fast on the corporate desktop. And here’s why (albeit questionable):

There’s currently one king of enterprise messaging. It is a MS Exchange Server. While the reality is being slowly rebalanced with other software, there are features that only Exchange server can provide, and those features are very important in a business world. Please don’t start argument with me about how “the other” or “alternatives” are better. I know what are they better at, but still, all of the alternatives try to provide the very same list of features, just make it “better”, “easier”, “safer”, etc.
Now, the best client for MS Exchange server is Outlook, and there’s no point in arguing about it. I’m working with Outlook for a long time, and I came to conclusion, that it is one of the best collaboration applications out there. Why do you think Evolution looks the same? Because feature-wise, it is the same, and it aims after Outlook.

Well, fine, we can’t change Outlook to something else fast enough. I get it. And here lies my problem: I believe I desperately need tags in email. I need tags in Outlook.

Hence, I’ve been trapped in this situation: on one hand I do use Outlook (we do have an Exchange server in our organization), and I want to use the tagging feature that Outlook doesn’t support. Categories in Outlook are not the same, they won’t allow me features I require and that I can get from tags.

As a result of this problem, I made a search around for an add-on to for Outlook which could help and introduce me tags to Outlook. Recently I have found one: it is an application with connects to Outlook, called SideFinder.

This application would allow me to use tags the way I want. It would allow me to put my email in multiple folders. It would allow me fast finding of my items. It would allow me much easier work with my information.

There’s no product available for direct download, but one can sign to beta program. I’m already signed, and will get it soon enough. And then I will be able to see whether I’ve found the application I need.

Great day to you all.

Computer for gradma and world domination

This entry was inspired by latest entry in LinuxToday, but refers to such topic as “Computers for gramma” or “Linux on a desktop” in general.

These topics have history now, and they’ve been “refurbished” at least once per few weeks. The major points of those are twofold (althouth highly interconnected). Those points are being:

1. Whether my {favorite non-technical member of the family} can easily use computer?
2. Is Linux ready for desktop?

Please allow me to explain, why those 2 are interconnected.

Well, the first one is well understood. In last 15 or so years, computers transformed from geaky toy to a “in any home” appliance. We do many of day to day tasks with it: We send and read our mail. We read, see and listen to a news. We listen to a music/radio. We watch movies (and sometimes TV). We record music, speech and TV. We play. We talk.

So, if my grandma can operate a TV/VCR, why can’t she operate a computer system? Of course she can. In the matter of simplicity, I’ll ask anyone who is familiar with computers, to perform the following tasks:

• Check/Send an email
• Read/check news on favorite website
• Listen to a music
• Watch a movie/DVD (all legal, don’t worry)
• Write a simple document (such as you shop list)

I’d believe that anyone who’s been using a computer for at least a month, would be able to perform all these tasks.

Now consider the following: the “Alex computer system” that I asked to perform those tasks on has nothing but pretty picture on the desktop, with the following icons:

• Mail
• Internet
• Documents
• Music/Movies

Wouldn’t you agree, that using only common sense performing the aforementioned tasks would not be too hard? Say, Mail would present some pretty interface to email (or Gmail, Yahoo or anything else – all our email interfaces are alike and pretty self explanatory), Internet would fire up Firefox (or any other browser; and all our browser interfaces are alike and self explanatory), Music/Movies would start something like “media center” application (like Windows Media Center/Tivo/MythTv/Telly, or any other similar application) which is pretty straight forward to use and self explanatory, and Documents will start simple document editor, either local or browser-based (they do have similar interfaces anyway, except MS Office 2007, of course).

Now, I still believe, that no age-related neither intellectual issues have been discussed here yet. It is all very intuitive and common sense.

Just like the TV.

So, at this point, considering all I discussed before, could you answer the following question, please, :

Do you know which operating system “Alex computer system” runs? And more important, does it matter?

This is what I’ve been trying to explain. I sustain, that there’s sincerely and absolutely no importance in which operating system powers the all-powerful “Alex computer system“. This, as great result, leads me to the following:

For any such general-purpose computing, Linux-based OS (all you zealots, I know the difference between GNU/Linux and Linux, but I don’t want to go into politics for a moment) is completely ready for massive desktop usage, as long as it can be installed and maintained in a way that makes sense to a general public.

Please, note the “common sense” part. I don’t think that working with “Start” (or “applications” or whatever) menu is very intuitive (although I have to agree that “Applications” is much better than “Start”). To watch TV, one has to press an “on” and that’s it. To play a movie on a VCR one presses “play”. That’s common sense. That’s intuitive.

So here’s my initial suggestion to all those aspiring to “prove” to everyone that Linux is ready. Create an application with the following features:

1. Create a very beautiful GUI with pre-defined tasks, such as those mentioned above.
2. Make sure it works as stable and as predictable as TV.
3. Make sure that interface is consistent thorough the applications.
4. Try it on your not so technical {member of your family} to see whether it is intuitive enough.

Until now, we’ve been preparing to world domination. Now the final part:

When they are asleep, swap the OS to Linux. Enjoy the fruits of your labour.

Heh, that would be fun and easy. Wouldn’t it?

Technorati : technology

QA in Gentoo, and Microsoft vs. Linux

Diego,

I’m totally agree with you on the matter. I was actually talking with Patrick about QA awhile ago, and if you hold the same stance as he does on the matter – that is great. I think one should take apart the 2 definitions about application quality: the one is being made with high quality, and the second is being working stable as specified.

The first one is regarded in software as “code style policies” and such, which means the rules and choices made when creating products (such as variables/function names, code styles, etc). It is sometimes even implemented by using automated tools for creating skeletons in code, and running automatic parsers to check the usage.

On the other hand, Quality Assurance means testing created products for bugs, features and stability, and generally speaking has nothing to do with coding policies – as long as product is stable and performs as expected.

So for Gentoo, I would believe that the main things that QA team should always check, are the following:

1. Package can be built.
2. The result can be ran/executed/used.

If 1. doesn’t pass in at least some 50%, package cannot be unmasked or even added to the tree.

When 1. is OK, and 2. is almost OK (say, it runs but some problems exist), package can be marked ~.

I only believe there are 2 cases when package can be marked stable:
1. The 1. above has near 100% positive result for all the deps.
2. The 2. from the above is considered positive, when tested by multiple users for given period of time (say at least a week) and no problems are being reported.

Thats the way I think QA issues should be handled in Gentoo.

Regarding your resignation – although I’m sure it is a lost for the official Gentoo, I hope you still stick around and help to people in need. I also believe that everyone is free community is entitled to personal wishes, and if you want to resign – its your right to do so, I don’t understand why people bother you to explain yourself (like you own them or something.)

Now, to the Microsoft vs. Linux issue.

As Daniel de Oliveira already mentioned, Microsoft has created a new site, (currently down by the way), where they explain their potential partners and salesforce, how to win the sales case against Linux offerings.

I personally think it is important, because it is not blatant “Get The Facts” campain. It is a very business-case oriented, detailed and organized guide to winning businesses.

You do such guides only when you consider your opponent very serious contender, and that requires you to concentrate on important stuff. It also means, that Linux (I mean OS here, not just kernel), is considered by Microsoft very serious, and its not “only for ….. people anymore” (fill the blanks on your own; may I suggest “supergeeks”?).

So, I’d say that Ubuntu bug #1 set by Mark Shuttleworth, is being slowly but surely resolved.

Wouldn’t you ?!

Patents on …..gas pedals and software; posting from Google Docs

OK, this is the first time I try to publish directly from Google Docs.

This is interesting, because it seems that most of my online work is being moved to Google. Which is both good and scares me a little.

Good is being that me, as a sorta advanced user, moving to Google means that they have pretty good products. Search, mail (and especially spam filtering), Blogger (beta), RSS reader, analytics and now docs are all Google products which I now seem to use more. I do think they are good products for the type of usage I use them for, and they are good in more generic sense.

But what scares me in all this, is the thing that all my actions on the net, or at least many of them, go through one same central place, which is being Google, which in reality gives them all the info about my habits online, and also a lot of information about me as person. That, in fact, scares the hell out of me – if Google becomes evil one day, they could hurt many people as me. And what if they require a payment for all these? I don’t believe this will happen, but it might.

Now, to the matters. I’ve found interesting article, about some obscure patent, given for ….”gas pedals, the kind that make trucks go when drivers step on them…”.
Apparently, the outcome of the trial may serve as a precedent for other patent issues, so many companies, including Microsoft and Johnson&Johnson, tried to override the courts’ decision.

But, what’s to gas pedals and software licenses?

Quote: “Alliteration aside, we’ll defer that question to somebody with a law degree or at least a working knowledge of patent law. But, it’ll be worth following how the Supreme Court treats this case given that Microsoft is playing both sides of the fence here — dangling the patent sword above the head of Linux while at the same time politely asking the Supreme Court to make it harder for patent squatters to hit tech companies.”

Link to full article is here .

Feedback is appreciated.

Novell vs. Microsoft, Gnome 1.x removal, cokehabit and stuff, 14-21 Nov 2006

Well, the day for weekly stuff.

There are few things are going on. Some of them Gentoo, some are not, so lets get started:

1. I would start with Novell-Microsoft deal. Albeit not news anymore, this one caused a lot of stirring in FOSS community. If you have missed the deal, then in a nutshell: Novell will pay ~40M $ to Microsoft, and Microsoft will pay something to Novell. What is it for we do not know, but it will allow Novell to claim idemnification for its clients from MS, and also MS already started telling that Novell pays for Microsofts’ intellectual property used in Novell Linux products.

While intriguing where will this thing go, I really don’t think its a good idea for any linux distro to pay for “intellectual property” which is possibly used in Linux based OS. And I agree on this with Red Hat’s people, saying to Steve Ballmer, “show us the violating code, and it will be removed”.
That’s why, by the way, Jonathan Schwartz said all those things about OS importance. He just reacted to this deal….

2. Gnome 1.x removal caused more hateful fan-mails than even xmms procedure. Which is strange, especially because of xmms removal issue. I noticed plans to remove Gnome 1.x and friends couple of weeks before, and all that despite the fact that I occasionally visit forums. I mean, that somehow information did came to me, so I don’t understand how people pissed by xmms removal do not pay attention to what is happening, and then complain again about Gnome. Thats childish and unfair, BUT I do understand their behavior.
   Besides giving notification, or in addition, some other kind of warning/notification system may need to be developed to announce such things. But people should also cool their spirits and try and understand both sides – understand developers why do they decide to retire packages (trust me, its not to screw you for fun), and understand users that do not enjoy dealing with removal problems.
3. Finally!! User representatives meeting had place last weekend, and it was very cool to catch up will all of them missing in action (yes, there was some timeout as it seemed). Loki99 suggested to have a long meeting in 3-days span, which came out really great. Some of the things that were discussed were CMS system for gentoo-userreps.org (which is not very operational at the moment), and also my ideas about userdays and video docs.
   I really like hanging around those guys, they are very cool. And I have an opportunity to learn a lot there.
4. cokehabit was demoted as userrep. I can’t (and won’t) get into the details why did it happened, enough emotions get around this one as it is. I hope that userrep project will still do great and that users and developers will benefit from it.

Thats all for now, more will be here as it comes 🙂

Feedback is always appreciated