Tag Archives: Technology

Which Linux Do I Turn To In My Hour of Need?

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RIP Ubuntu. Ubuntu was great. For years, I kept trying to get my own Linux box up and running, initially so I could relive the halcyon days of UNIX and later so I could avoid Windows. But every time I tried to get Linux working some key thing would not be configurable or would not work. Well, I’m sure it was configurable and could work but configuring it and making it work was beyond me. Those were also the days when what little support was available on the Internet was limited mostly to the sort of geeks who prefer to give answers that are harder to parse than one’s original problem. In other words, studied unhelpfulness was all that was available to the novice. Then, one day, two or three forms of Linux that were supposed to be installable and usable by the average computer-savvy person came on the scene at once, including Suse Linux, some thing called Lindows or Winlux or something, and Ubuntu. I tried the first two because they seemed to have more support, and I got results, but the results still sucked. Meanwhile, I has a computer working on downloading an install disk for this strange African thing, Ubuntu, which seemed to have a problem with their server being really slow. But, because it was South African, and at the time I was living about one fifth the time in South Africa, I thought that was cool so I stuck with it.

Eventually, I had a usable install disk for Ubuntu, I installed it, it worked. I installed it on a laptop as a dual boot system with Windows, and on a spare desktop. Within a few months, I installed it on my main desktop instead of Windows, and a few months after that, I realized that I had never booted up the Windows system on the dual boot laptop, so I reconfigured that computer to be Linux only. And that was it.

Ubuntu was based on a version of Linux called Debian. There are many Linux families out there, but the two biggies are Debian and Red Hat/Fedora. The former is very non-commercial and very free-as-in-software free Open Sourcey, while the latter is all that but also has a significant business model. People like to pay for their operating systems, so Red Hat/Fedora gave large companies and institutions the opportunity to pay for what was really free, and in so doing, they would get (paid for) support and training.

In a way, Debian is what makes Linux go around, and Fedora Linux is what makes the world (of the internet, etc.) go around. Sort of.

Debian and Fedora are two different systems in a number of fundamental ways. All Linux families use the same kernels, the underlying deep part of the system. But this kernel is associated with a bunch of other stuff that makes for a complete system. This includes the way in which software is installed, upgraded, or removed, and some other stuff. Each family has it’s own (very similar) version of the original UNIX file system, and so on. Back when I was first messing around, I did get to play with Fedora and its system a bit, and I quickly came to like Debian’s system better than Red Hat/Fedora, especially because of the software management system (apt/synaptic) which I thought worked much better than the Fedora system (yum).

As I said, Ubuntu was based on Debian, but from the very start, Ubuntu included some differences from the standard. For example, the exact configuration of the underlying file system was different. The original Debian file system was there so that software would know what to do, but everything in that file system (or almost everything) was a pointer to the Ubuntu file system. This actually made messing around under the hood difficult until, eventually, a strong Ubuntu-only community developed. You would see people refer to Ubuntu as opposed to Linux, which is a noob mistake and wrong, but over time, in fact, Ubuntu, even though it was based on Debian, became fundamentally different from both Debian and Red Hat/Fedora to the extent that it really had to be thought of as a different family of Linux.

And that was fine as long as Ubuntu was doing what most other Linux systems did, meaning, remain configurable, don’t change the work flow or how things operate too dramatically, don’t make up new ways of doing things just to make everyone upgrade to a new product, don’t try to be Windows, don’t try to be a Mac, and always follow the UNIX Philosophy, more or less. Over the last several months, though, Ubuntu has in my view, and the view of many, jumped the shark. It may well be that future new desktop users will appreciate Ubuntu as a system, and that’s great. If Ubuntu continues to bring more people into the fold, then I support the idea. I just don’t want it on my computers any more.

I have a desktop that I’ve not upgraded in way too many releases because I’ve not liked the new versions of Ubuntu. I have a laptop that I upgraded to the most current version of Ubuntu, then undid a lot of the features, and I’m using the desktop Xfce instead of Unity, the desktop that Ubuntu installs by default. And, I want to put Linux on a G5 Power PC.

So, this is the part where I ask for suggestions. I have a feeling that there will be more suggestions on Google+ when I post this there, so please be warned: I’ll transfer actual suggestions from G+ over to the original blog post comments sections, at least in the beginning of this discussion, unless a commenter tells me not to.

The following table shows what I want to do. Notice the question marks. There is an advantage to having the same system on all three machines, but that is not a requirement. The desktop has two monitors, and assume I want to run a 64 bit system on it, and the laptop is a bit slow. The primary uses for all the computers are simple: Web browser and running emacs for text writing, and a handful of homemade utilities for managing graphics and files, and a bit of statistical processing with R-cran now and then.

So, what do I fill into this table?

Hardware Base System (Ubuntu, Fedora, Etc)? Desktop
Older intel dual core HP workstation ? ?
Dell laptop ? ?
Mac G4 PowerPC ? ?

I’m intentionally avoiding a lot of details. I’ll get a new graphics card for the desktop if I need it, and other adjustments can be made. Also, this workstation may well get replaced with a different computer that makes less noise than a Boeing 747 taking off during a hurricane. The point is, desktop with dual monitors running a 64 bit system.

What do you think?

Some Linux/Ubuntu related books:
Ubuntu Unleashed 2016 Edition: Covering 15.10 and 16.04 (11th Edition)
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop: Applications and Administration
The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction

What Apple, Microsoft and the Rest of Them Don’t Get

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Apple, Microsoft, Dell, IBM, Google, all of them … the companies that make the hardware and software we use … are, it would seem, ignorant, probably willfully so, of an important thing. We use their hardware and software in our work. Many individuals are like miniature institutions or corporations. Our HR department, our payroll department, our accounting department, our R&D department, our car pool, and everything consists of a handful of machines (a car, a desktop, a mobile device, a printer) and a single person to staff them all (you, me, whatever). We do quite a bit to implement hardware and software combinations that do the things we need. We have an address book, a way to use a phone, a file storage system, we install and maintain software to produce documents, keep track of numbers do other stuff. And we use the readily available standard hardware and software to do this, thinking all along that this is a good idea.

Now, I’m going to give you two scenarios, one imagined one real, to underscore why this is a huge problem. These two scenarios have very different meanings, and I’ll let you work that out. Continue reading What Apple, Microsoft and the Rest of Them Don’t Get →

Anyone for a game of pong?

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When I look at the Atari Arcade, I get a bunch of gobbledygook but if I click on individual links to individual games, I get an interesting experiment in HTML 5.0 demonstrating old fashioned character-based-graphic style games. Here are the links, but I suggest right-clicking and opening in a new window or tab so you can more cleanly shut them down if you get stuck. In other words, attempting to use the most advanced web-based programming language/markup tool to emulate ancient games is kind of like Dr. Who crossing his own time line and all sorts of bad things can happen.

The Atari Arcade

<ul>
  • Pong
    • <li><a href="http://www.atari.com/arcade#!/arcade/asteroids/">Asteroids</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.atari.com/arcade#!/arcade/missilecommand/">Missile Command</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.atari.com/arcade#!/arcade/superbreakout/">Super Breakout</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.atari.com/arcade#!/arcade/lunarlander/play">Lunar Lander </a></li>

    When I was in Middle School, I wrote my own TTY aware Lunar Lander program that ran on a Univac 1108, and later, a version of Pong that ran on a TRS80. What did you do in Middle School?

    More Technology Blog Posts Here

    Learn To Code

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    My friend Adria Richards on why you should learn to code:

    More details, especially if you are a girl, here.

    Books mentioned in the video:

    <ul>
  • Learn to Program, Second Edition (The Facets of Ruby Series)
    • <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593272944/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593272944&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwgregladenc-20">The Book of Ruby: A Hands-On Guide for the Adventurous</a><img src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwgregladenc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1593272944" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>

<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321584104/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0321584104&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwgregladenc-20">Eloquent Ruby (Addison-Wesley Professional Ruby Series)</a><img src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwgregladenc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0321584104" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li>

<li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119998956/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1119998956&linkCode=as2&tag=wwwgregladenc-20">Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty</a><img src="https://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwgregladenc-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1119998956" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></li></ul>

    Should the kid have an iPad or one of the alternatives?

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    I love the iPad, but it is not really suitable for young kids, because it requires an adult perspective on life to operate it correctly. For example, for a two year old, there is nothing more fun than figuring out how to make all the little icons dance, and once you do that, there is nothing more fun than making them disappear one by one by clicking on the little X’s. The iPad would benefit greatly with a kiosk mode.

    So, as Christmas comes and no matter what your culture or belief system you being to search for presents to give the little ones, you should know that there is a growing list of alternative tablets designed just for the little ones. They seem to all be about 7 inches of screen, have about 1 gig of RAM and various size hard drives, wireless, variable numbers of cameras from zero to one on each side. All of them seem to have bumpers and other self preservation devices. Some have extra durable screens that may perform less well than the iPad. Most have only moderate (but probably good enough) resolution. All or most are or probably will be under $200. They all seem to have wireless.

    The brand new not yet available Tabeo Tablet for Kids will be available only from Toys R Us, possibly only from within the store itself. I suppose that is a way to get people into Toys R Us instead of Target or Walmarts for the other toy shopping. I twill run $150 and will have, supposedly, thousands of apps. It runs Android, but I’m not sure what restrictions exist on its operating system. Expect some, if there are such restrictions on purchasing it.

    The Kurio Kids Tablet with Android 4.0 has a 7 inch screen (not sure how that is measured) and 4 gb of memory. It has a safety bumper, runs Android, and a microphone. There are front and rear facing cameras.

    The Fuhu NABI NABI2-NV7A is another 7 incher, with bumpers, an 8 gig hard drive, but so far seems to have no camera (a future model may). This also runs Android. Among the various choices, this device has relatively high resolution (but this is not an iPad!).

    The Android-running Archos Arnova Child Pad is also 7 inches, does not seem to have a hard drive, and has so far gotten mixed reviews.

    The Android-running 7 inch NABI FUHUNABI-A has less RAM than the other choices, is getting mixed reviews, and seems a bit pricy.

    I’m not going to mention the MEEP because it seems to have a choking hazard warning with it. Unnecessary. Bad.

    Finally, the Lexibook Juniors tblet has gotten some god reviews and having come out months ago, has a lot of time to work out the bugs. It seems to come with a number of accessories such as a stylus and keyboard (I think these are purchased separately) Some details here.

    In some, perhaps all, cases the Android system is modified to make it more kid friendly, but this may result in bumping the Android Market off the system because of Googley Rules that would apply.

    If any one has any experience with any of these, please share!

    Curse the appearing ghost menus

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    Do you know what I’m talking about? They are everywhere. Here are a few places you can find them:

    • In recent WordPress installs, in the comment management section, the menu that gives you “save, edit, spam” etc choices is invisible until you move your cursor near it.
    • In Unity, all the menus are invisible until you approach them, even the entire set of application menus that are not mac-esquely along the top (but invisibly so).
    • Also in Unity, all the other menus, as I recall. (I ditched Unity as soon as I learned how, about two hours after installing it.)
    • Gnome 2-point-whatever (the current version, contaminated by Unity) the damn scroll bar does not appear until you approach it with your cursor, and you better damn well know where it is because otherwise you won’t find it very easily.
    • There are a few such menus in Mac OS X, mainly the top menu bar when you’ve maxed the app…but that is actually when the menu is supposed to disappear, so that’s appropriate.

    There is no way that most of these “I won’t be visible to you unless you know that I exist and where I might be and try to click on me good luck with that” (iwbvtyuyktieawimbatrcomglwt or just “glwt” for short) user interfaces are good. They are just a style. It is a technology that came into being and is now being used and abused and foisted upon us by user interface “designers” (I use that word laughingly) for no other reason than that it exists. It. Is. Stupid.

    How long does it take for these fads to pass? Let’s try to speed it up, folks.

    Dear Internet Don't Do This

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    And you too, computer, now that I think of it. I have a list here of things that are annoying that are similar to each other in that they interfere with my most basic use of the computer. Most of the time I demand very little of a computer. Writing text in a text editor or in the text boxes of web pages, and reading things. That is mostly what I do. It is astonishing that in 2012 when we are about to do this that these simple tasks can be thwarted by poor design and engineering in the software running on what is really pretty advanced hardware.

    1) Reloading web pages. This is best exemplified with our local CBS affiliate, WCCO, news site. Let’s say I open up a web page that has an interesting news story. I read part of the page and then I get distracted by something shiny for, say, 20 seconds, then I go back to finish reading the story and the page reloads. I’m now back to the top of the page. I work my way down the text to find where I left off, and start reading again. Then, I get to the end of the page and I’m about to read the last sentence, and the page reloads. Or, worse, I start up one of the embedded videos on the page. And while the video is still playing, the page reloads. Why does this page keep reloading? How can you make a news site that reloads pages while the reader is reading them almost every time if the story is longish, or, amazingly, if the reader is watching a video? Why?

    I’ve actually emailed WCCO about this. This problem has been going on for at least a year, and I’m sure others have complained as well. Haven’t they? I guess there is no internal mechanism at CBS or WCCO for problems with the user eperience to translate into a redesign of the technology.

    2) Moving text boxes. This is a BIG problem with Google+ but it also happens in Facebook. You have a text box in which you are entering a post, status update, or comment, and while you are typing this in, suddenly the pages shifts. This is like the reloading page mentioned above but with a different technology and effect. The point is, your text box is gone and now you have to find it to write that last one or two words of the brilliant thought you were just about to post which you may have lost track of because of this distraction. This is like if Hemmingway was writing a novel and at random intervals somebody walked into the room and rolled the typewriter platten on him. The people who designed that technology clearly don’t use the technology.

    3) Text Boxes that go on vacation. This is where you are typing text into a text box, like where you put your Facebook status, and suddenly you are typing and nothing is happening. Then, suddenly, all the text you were typing comes flying out. This actually has been known to happen to me in my text editor when it decides to take too much time saving backups and maybe something is wrong with the hard disk system. So, OK, I replaced the hard drive and fixed that, but still.

    4) And another thing. Why is it that bringing up a simple file manager and having it populated with the file data takes so long? Isn’t that the most basic function of my system? Shouldn’t that happen instantaneously?

    Internet and Computer Software Industry, please fix these things.

    Thank you very much, that is all.

    Firefox menu, FreeDOS, bash, Mint, question

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    The big new of the day in the OpenSource world is that FreeDOS’s web site, revised and updated, is out of Beta and fully up and running, here. If you click through you’ll find an update on a number of recent changes and updates to the operating system.

    Just in case you need to know how to figure out what day of the week it is using only bash scripting (including some awk) click here.

    Apparently Windows users have something Linux users don’t. But there’s a fix, so it no longer matters:

    It is done. Almost. As predicted here on this blog but denied by many, it is probably true that with Windows 8, new hardware will be required by Microsoft to refuse to run Linux unless you mess with it a lot. This will make the act of simply installing Linux on that hardware hard enough that a lot of potential newbies will not bother. Also, it may make dual booting difficult (I’m just guessing at that).

    Mint 13 is out.

    Anybody know how to make a G5 boot to an install CD? A way that works?

    Is Road Train a reality?

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    Perhaps.

    The project is a collective effort funded by the European Commission, and led by British company Ricardo which develops engines, transmissions, and vehicles systems among other things. Chief among the consortium’s participants is Swedish auto manufacturer Volvo.
    Utilizing Volvo’s own automobiles, the project works by stringing together a group of cars in order to form a road train. This train (or caravan if you prefer) allows a group of cars to follow one another along any road autonomously. Guided by a lead truck driven by a professional driver, the group of autonomous autos can communicate wirelessly via advanced software, cameras, laser sensors, radar, and GPS-based technology in order to mimic the lead truck’s driving behavior. The drivers turn, the following cars turn. The driver slows down, the following cars slow down. All while maintaining appropriate distance and speed…Other than looking rather impressive, what’s the point? Well, not only is autonomous driving insanely awesome – representing the real-life fulfillment of one of our most beloved science fiction technologies — in this scenario it also happens to be incredibly fuel efficient thanks to the road train’s persistent drag reduction while along its route. Early estimates indicate as much as 20 percent more efficient when it comes to reducing fuel

    Read all about it, and look at the interesting pictures and diagrams, here.

    Here is an animation:

    iPads in the Science Classroom: The Bad, The Ugly, and The Good

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    I know of a couple of cases where high schools are switching to the use of iPads or other tablets, replacing existing computer infrastructure with the handy and very cool computing device. When it comes to technology, I’ve never been particularly impressed with school administrations, and K-12 technology departments tend to be a little under-resourced as well, so it does not surprise me that this decision is being made. It is, of course, the wrong thing to do. Continue reading iPads in the Science Classroom: The Bad, The Ugly, and The Good →

    Programmers suck; Programs suck; Programming languages suck.

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    Some interesting news from the world of computer programming. A company that provides products to improve code studied a bunch of programs and evaluated how badly they were written. Cobol programs had the lowest rate of bad code, while Java the highest. Part of this is because Cobol programs are all old and have been revised and fixed up quite a bit, but it was also suggested that Java programs relatively suck because modern programmers relatively suck. For this reason, maybe Microsoft’s latest Evile Corporate Decision makes sense: The new Microsoft 8 App Store deal allows Microsoft to kill any of the apps you buy if they feel like it. You agree to that when you buy apps there. And all this is rather interesting in light of a recent commentary suggesting that what is needed to keep software development going is the invention of new programming languages because existing languages can’t easily be upgraded beyond a certain point, so it is better to create entirely new ones.

    Browser Wars: Chrome will pass/has passed Firefox, Safari Up among Sb.com users

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    Chrome Passes Firefox, Google May Pull Out Support: I stopped using Firefox around the 20th time it made me do something I shouldn’t have had to do because it sucked as a browser. Firefox used to be my hero, now I regard it as somewhat dangerous, and I only use Google Chrome. My productivity has gone way up.

    (Update: Check out the Linux Journal Readers Choice awards vis-a-vis browsers.)

    Continue reading Browser Wars: Chrome will pass/has passed Firefox, Safari Up among Sb.com users →