Nora the most popular Linux Baby

My Daughter Nora, has become a very popular baby in the open source/Linux community. I recently added her photo to linuxjouranl's flickr pool. Thus she ended up on linuxleak.com And bianconeri4ever submitted her photo to digg. She has now appeared on Planet Fedora, via Tux Planet. She seems to be appearing more and more places as we speak. I couldnt be more of a proud linux daddy. Thank you to everyone involved.

Distro to Distro

So I haven't written in awhile. But I have been on a distro hunt. After a recent disagreement in the #ubuntu and #ubuntu-ops channels, Ive decided that Ubuntu is not the distro for me. (Ubuntu I still love you for what you are, but you are not the stable desktop Im looking for.)

That said I have recently tried just about everything. Tried Mandriva, didn't like it. Tried debian, opensuse, opensolaris and fedora in VMs. All of which werent exactly a pleasing exp in a vm. So I tried fedora. I installed fedora 9 on a differnt work machine. This machine had the Intel Vx-t virtual machine helper intergreated on the VPRO processor.

VM performance on this machine, excelent. Fedora exp over all...Not so great. If anyone has used Fedora in the past, they know of rpm.livna.org. This is a repository that estentially gives you everything you expect from a modern OS (mp3 support for example). But inconviently the build server for livna is having issues, thus packages you would want, like nvidia drivers, fail to download and install. (Recently found out about yum install akmod-nvidia, thanks to this blog.) But since that machine is a work machine I'm not worried about those issues. After struggling with Virtualbox and virtual host networking I eventually did switch to the Fedora desktop as my main machine (had write my own script to get host networking to work). That said, sound does not work and mp3 support still does not work either. But, with that said... I tried fedora 9 at home, mp3 support and sound works. (Tried KDE4, and its borked after trying to install a widget, I have the worst luck with KDE4)

In the end, I am happy with fedora but its not perfect. What man made OS is?

I have been really likeing Chrome on a slightly different subject. With all the talk about the 'browser replaceing the os' things are exciting. But lets be realistic, that isnt going to happen. I am however glad to see yet another step towards operating task enviornments. (Comment, if you want to discuss the thought farther).

Anyway, BYE!!

LHC First Beam

First Beam
Im not going to explain what this is but if your geeky enough check out the stream here

Also very humorous xkcd

Hardy Heron-gvfs

This has put a complete stop to my day.

Today I ran across the problems with gvfs (Gnome Virtual File System-Not to be confused with gnomevfs).

About a month ago I connected to a 'large' website via FTP on my Ubuntu box. I made the connection through Nautilus... I did not check remember the password. Today, I was backing up my home directory, when I notice the backup grabbing a directory /.gvfs/user@xftpsite.com/web/thewebsite. Well thats odd no? I opened up that directory, saw what looked like a local download of said website. Then assuming it was a local copy, I started to delete the directory. WRONG IDEA! I quickly stopped the delete task, started to sweat, and realized I almost deleted the whole website that resided on that ftp site. Big whoop right? My own stupidity...well..wrong. Not only did I not know I was still connect to this ftp site, I never saved the password. This happend because gvfs 'mounts' virtual filesystems in the home directory...something in my opinion that should never hapen. Besides that, gvfs should have clossed the connection to the ftp site after closeing nautilus. It did not, I finally managed to close the connection with the commands ps aux | grep gvfsd-ftp -- found the process id and kill -9. This finally disconnected to the FTP connection. THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN ON A LTS DIRTIBUTION. It was a bad idea to switch from gnomevfs to gvfs. I have to say, I am contemplating switching to a more traditional linux os.

Wimax

People need to understand the beauty of this proposal. Clearwire to provide a nationwide Wimax network, all backed by Sprint, Google, Intel, Comcast and others. 6mbps down 3mbps up, forget your evdo, 3g and 4g networks. Why? because all of those choices will lock you in to a propeitary set of devices. 'New Clearwire' will allow for any certified wimax technology to connect. I.E. any of the up and coming Intel based laptops with wimax radios. OPENNESS, Wimax is the technology that is important. Stop blabering about the waste of money 3g Iphone.

Ote designer?

http://benchase.com/sustainable_design

That is the most wonderful innovative design I have seen. With free software and the ability to switch HDD from modular machine to machine. My operating task environment would reside on a modular brick that requires no tools. How wonderful.

VM

Vmware Server didn't work out to well on Ubuntu. Installed Virtualbox 1.6 instead. Have XP virtual machine running all my necessary apps. Setting up a host interface was a bit of a nightmare. In the end the manual on Virtualbox.org had the correct way to do it. Fourms and blogs did not help at all, in fact they confused the situation. But innotek/Sun's directions did not mention that you needed to use the Intel 10/1000 MT virtual network card instead of the default. So setup a vbox fake interface and bind it and eth0 to br0. Install the intel drivers with NAT'ed the default way, and you golden. Sorry no pictures yet.

On another note, Asus's XG is probably on the way, and Steam's Cloud is soon to be. Great way to minimalize the need for a single machine, nice tools for OTE

Windows 7 Demo

Bill and Steve Demo-ed Windows 7 tonight. No video though, annoying.
Switched to Linux at work yesterday. Converted my Windows install to a virtual machine with Vmware's Converter. Thanks to Microsoft EULA you can't P2v a OEM licensed install of Windows XP. So I converted a Volume Licensed version. Will install needed software from there. I will be much more productive and happy. Will post screenies and comments etc.

Microhoo/Facesoft

With Microsoft supposed re-interest in Yahoo, and speculated buy out of Facebook. The question remains would you jump ship and dump Facebook/Yahoo services? I probably would.

Digg Down?

Is did down due to Debian based SSL key vulnerabilities?

Splashtop

I have made mention of this before, (Splashtop) But Asus has announced that all their new motherboards will have this. (To bad wife's new Asus machine was purchased before this)

This is definitely a major step towards my ideas of OTE. It would truly be amazing, if could flip back to the linux OS after the main OS was booted with out having to restart

Will definitely be interested in hacking this.

Adobe thank you

Adobe thank you for supporting linux from the get with flash 10.

I say this not because I am happy for linux, but because flash in my opinion is the only video format worth using in todays 'net world.

Whats the one video format you never have to struggle to use in all platforms? Flash.

I now will not even bother watching video unless it is flash. In linux you have trouble with Windows codecs, in Windows quicktime is always a hassle. Who wants to take the time to download a video and play in it a proprietary video player when I could just play the video in my browser?

Now that flash will be supported on all three platforms, I can always assume my OTE will be able to play my favorite videos.

Shoddy HP Laptop design

Pretty sad for a close to 2000 dollar laptop.
This laptop and several other models (8710p, 8510p and nx9420) close its design have horrible heat and video issues. HP I am disappointed, not that I expected much.

New Format and Direction

Its been months since I have posted, I know. I have done a lot in reference to open source/Linux communities. I have been shouting from the highest mountains "DOWN WITH VISTA"

I feel that my attitude in that respect has reached its limits. I feel the need for a new forum and a new debate. The rant begins.

I use two Windows XP machines at work. Both of the machines I use combinations of Firefox/Safari/Flock/Opera Web browsers. My primary goals of internet use: Gmail, Google Reader, Picasa Web albums, Facebook and twitter. To meet these goals, I do not require any given OS. Thus the argument of Linux vs. Windows, FOSS vs. proprietary software, is irrelevant in terms of my everyday use.

Easy of use vs. stability, both FOSS and Windows based systems have their ups and downs. Windows has more software available and tends to have better hardware support (XP). Linux on the other hand obviously has a good reputation in terms of stability. I can customize linux to my hearts content, plus one for linux. But the reality of the dream, microsoft killing, 1337 haxor OS is well, a dream. I can't even watch most video formats in linux. (Before you say what about 3rd party repositories etc. Forget it, it takes to much time and in my exp. still fails) TIME troubleshooting vs. Flawless use, that is the age old problem. I don't want to fix issue in linux(Ubuntu) as much as I don't want to fix issues on a Vista machine.

Attempt to get back on track..

Your persistent data/system setup is not necessary. Everything I care about on my machines is in the 'tubes' (Google services, Steam account for games) or on an external hard drive thus the computer I am using does not matter!

Am I getting clearer?

Anything I need I can put on a external device or in the 'tubes'. Changes to my hardware only need to configured for the current desired task. I don't need a 2000 dollar machine to browse the web, just as much as I do need a 2000 dollar machine to game.

What I want: A machine I can quickly switch environments pertaining to my needs/task.
I.E a 'bare metal' 'OS' or 'Operating Task Environment' (OTE-a term I just coined, check the patent office)

What I want to discuss:

What is an OTE?
How are they made?
What do they run on?
Are they virtual? Would it be capable of gaming?
Is this already availible?
Is this possible due to GPL vs. Windows EULA?
What kind of overhead is necessary?
Would this be based off of a single machine or some sort of cluster?
Is OTE to 'far-out' to discuss?