Now that Windows 7 has been launched as a kind of cut down version of Vista rather than an upgrade to it, perhaps it will become the OS of choice for Netbooks? Netbooks require a light operating system that performs well without a lot of hardware power. Typical Netbooks include the two I have used in the past 2 years, namely the 10″ EeePC from ASUS and the 10″ NC10 from Samsung. As a small, light and underpowered computer, the Netbook is designed just for Internet use and not much more – like the functions on a standard cell phone but with a way bigger screen and ‘proper’ keyboard.

Xandros

Xandros on Eepc

My Eepc came pre-installed with a Linux distro based on Xandros. It was incredibly easy to get started – all my Google account information and Firefox extensions took minutes to update. The web cam was fine and the Skype app did more than my Mac OS version at the time. I wanted to be able to add more functionality though and for this I needed to plug in a USB CD drive and explore the disk that came in the box.

This was fine for adding a PDF reader but where were image editors like The Gimp 3.0 etc. that I knew were available and even designed for a linux PC? Well, following we searches I found a bit of Shell/terminal editing was necessary – and I’m no programmer! After lots of faffing – I couldn’t get a bare basics that I wanted. What I should have done was return it to the shop and swap for a Windows XP model but instead I installed my own copy. I used it for about three months but found typing a chore on the tiny keyboard and anything creative had to be done on a ‘big’ computer anyway. So I reinstalled Xandros and sold the unit.

XP

XP on NC10

My next foray into Netbooks was nearly a year later and came down to a large work order of NC10s for a school project. These came preinstalled with XP and also with a 120gb hard drive space. The keyboard on these is far superior to the Eepc of the same size but the big let down is the mousepad – it’s terrible.

XP is exactly the right OS for this size netbook – it behaves as you expect and using Google Chrome browser means you aren’t limited in web screen space either. I had no problems at all with the system and installed extras for the net or disk as needed. So why did I swap the OS again? Well, Windows is so frustrating sometimes; apps can be slow, crash altogether or not even boot up  in a convenient time… and I’m not referring to Vista boot up which takes nearly 5 minutes. Also, the temptation is to ‘tinker’ – its so easy to install stuff and XP can be well boring then I (like others) can’t help tinkering with it. yes, I edited the start menu script but that wasn’t enough I decided to go for Mac OSX.

OSX

OSX on NC10

I do have a copy of the full install disks and don’t recommend using on a non-Apple hardware but this was a little experiment! It took quite a bit of tweaking around to get the disk image to install (just Google it and there are instructions, videos and everything).

The mousepad goes into hyperdrive (totally uncontrollable) and lots of functionality cease to work. No webcam, no wifi (unless you install your own), sound disappears… and yet the beauty of OSX does actually work at this scale!

I know the iPhone is supposed to be OSX but all the apps, the dock and familiarity of the full system make OSX on the Netbook a simple pleasure. I used a USB pen modem to connect whilst out and about and had great “Wow” comments when people saw my mini-mac. C’mon Apple the Macbook Air isn’t that small and portable even if it is slim. But – a big but – it was no longer a Netbook – no longer convenient enough to be able to use anywhere and quickly. So I installed Jolicloud…

Jolicloud

Jolicloud on NC10

This OS is based on a Linux Ubuntu distro that is specifically for and only for use online via WiFi… it is brilliant in it’s simplicity and goes back to the original aim of the Xandros I had used earlier. You can’t even think about putting extra apps on – you really only need the things you can get online and this means free Web 2.0 apps.

It would lend itself brilliantly to a touch sensitive screen and really deserves to be a phone OS as much as ‘Droid… however, same problem – I’m not always connected to the web or wifi as I don’t live or work in a particularly urban area. So although it worked really well on the NC10 – you need full functionality of the netbook whilst connected to the net!

Ubuntu Netbook remix

Ubuntu on NC10

As a free download straight to a USB drive, Canonical couldn’t have made the Netbook Remix version of Ubuntu any easier. A similar simplified interface forms your desktop and full functionality either online or offline too.

There is little in the way of personalisation and yet there is the full array of Ubuntu styled apps. Every feature works just fine including the web came and lid-down ’sleep’ mode. I did have a few problems making and keeping the screen brightness at a suitable daylight setting and this was despite changing power saving settings. The brown on black theme looks quite classy but isn’t suitable for summer outdoors (even in the UK). As an OS, its is just as good as XP and better than the others I tried.

Summary

If the pre-Windows 7 netbooks are on offer this Autumn/Fall, make sure you get XP pre-installed and a sizeable hard drive. As a second option, Ubuntu is great and is less processor hungry than XP and is better for smaller disk space. Most of all, don’t treat your netbook as a replacement for a PC or 13″ laptop – it makes a poor substitute. As a communicator rival to a Smartphone or PDA it is far superior, especially when connected via WiFi. Did anyone mention tethering an iPhone to a netbook? This is far the best option as offers the functionality and ease of use of both mini systems and still fits in a small bag.

I recently tried out Easy Peasy on my Asus Eee PC 901. It promises to be an easy to use system that is well adapted to computers like the Eee PC. Unfortunately, it comes up short of that promise.

I had problems with it right away. I downloaded Easy Peasy 1.5 and used Unetbootin 372 to put it on an SD card. The Easy Peasy site recommends Unetbootin, but the result wasn’t bootin’ anything. All I got was a blinking cursor on an otherwise black screen. Based on what I found in their forums, I used dd to write the Easy Peasy disk image to the card. This makes the card look a lot like a CD to a computer, albeit an 826MB one. That got the Eee PC booting Easy Peasy. It seemed to work well enough, although the touch pad mouse doesn’t move as easily for some reason.

Since it was just a minor issue getting the Easy Peasy image to boot, I decided it was working well enough to install to another SD card. I selected the install option, and after maybe a half hour it was done. The Eee PC rebooted, I told it to use the card, and I got a black screen with a blinking cursor.

That wasn’t enough to stop me because I don’t much care for the Xandros Linux distribution the Eee PC shipped with. I put the SD card into my Gentoo running deskunder computer and proceeded to re-install Grub on the card. That took some trickery. I also had to modify Grub’s menu.lst file and the /etc/fstab file because they referenced the SD card device incorrectly. I had used two cards during the installation. The one with the disk image was /dev/sdc, and the install target was /dev/sdd. Now that the install was over, there would be no disk image, and the root filesystem would be found on /dev/sdc.

I fixed all that up and put the card back in the Eee PC. This time it booted Easy Peasy from the card. After a while, it came up with a text menu like what can be found on Redhat installs a decade old. The age of the interface doesn’t bother me; that it worked a decade ago but not on the much newer Easy Peasy does bother me. It noticed that I had changed menu.lst and presented me with options. Pressing any keys in an attempt to select an option resulted in garbage text being put on the screen, just like from programs that are busy ignoring stdin.

After a while, I decided to use my Eee PC again with the old Xandros. Even with the Easy Peasy SD card removed, I get Grub error 21. Easy Peasy wrecked the Grub configuration on filesystems that I never asked it to mess with. This is a major problem. If you do give Easy Peasy a try and decide to  install it, be prepared for nothing to boot.

Since I still wanted to use the Eee PC, I booted Easy Peasy. I hit a few more keys when the menu came up and got lucky. I really don’t know what I pressed to get past the menu. After the X server came up, I logged in and tried to get the wireless connection to work. It didn’t. It did earlier when I used the Easy Peasy disk image, but it is broken after an install. It seems that it needs to open /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat, but there is no /etc/Wireless.

In the process, I decided to switch to a virtual terminal for some reason. I didn’t really need to, I just did. I was able to login and get a prompt from bash. But when I tried to return to the X server, all I got was a black screen. I could switch back to the terminal, but X wasn’t being useful. I tried the common keystroke to kill the X server without success. After about a half hour of sitting around on terminal, I found the computer brought up a graphical login on its own. I was logged out of my X session, and X was being useful again. Weird and obnoxious.

Overall, I would have to say that Gentoo is a little easier to install on a regular deskunder than Easy Peasy is on an Eee PC. Gentoo’s directions are clear, well written, and work. Easy Peasy has few directions, they often fail, and you’ve got to figure out how to fix it on your own. I wouldn’t recommend it.

Oh, the included Firefox doesn’t go to the previous page when backspace is pressed. I hate that about the Xandros install.

Update:

The wireless problem wasn’t fixed by restoring the missing /etc/Wireless files. After that attempt, I shutdown the system through the graphical interface for the first time. When I later started the system with the intention of seeing if any updates might help, the filesystem was not clean and was mounted read-only preventing the X server from starting. Using the shutdown command from a shell worked fine, but not the pretty GUI.

Don’t touch Easy Peasy unless you are ready to spend time fixing it.

Yeah. It ain’t about them. I know a huge majority of PC users use the Microsoft OS in their systems and use commercial software*. I, for one, replaced my Xandros OS with MS XP cuz I can’t modify Xandros to my flavor that time. At least, I didn’t know how to. As for the apps, I’ll stick to the free ones. There are a lot of ‘em out there. You just have to know where to look.

This is gonna be some sort of glimpse to my rig cuz I’ma be listing stuff I use in it.

This idea just got into my mind after a few things. I was actually really inspired by a few articles I found from the web. There was this article on the most essential software for your MS PC and another on the top open-source software; both came from the same site but I forgot the address. Mostly, I was inspired by Mozilla’s plug-in for Firefox 3.5. It says:

“You’re not using VHS… Why use Internet Explorer?”

Or something like it… So, in the spirit of SpreadFirefox and open-source, I’ma give this one…

This is so gonna have a lot of tags…

Let’s start! (Note: The links after each section are download pages or links.)

Web Browser

If you have an MS OS, by default, there will be an installation of Internet Explorer. IE sounds to me like so yesterday already; even though I know they’ve been updating. In comes Firefox. It isn’t really the first web browser beside IE that I got to know. I was first introduced to Opera. That was 2003, I think. Opera can be a good one. I learned about the tabs feature and immediately stopped using IE. Then, the internet cafe I frequent that time, actually, until now, found Firefox. I wouldn’t know why the owner went looking for alternative web browsers but it was good that I got introduced to a better one.

I can also love Google Chrome. I’ve got the chance to use it and I loved it. Yes, it loads pages faster than Firefox can but I’ve read that Firefox is still more secure so I’ll stick with the Fox. Besides, I can’t have another web browser as I have to save up as much space in my system as I can as I am using an EeePC 701.

| Mozilla Firefox | Google Chrome |

Mail Client

I don’t remember when was the first time I found out about Mozilla Thunderbird but I remember having an installer that I never used. There was no point in having a mail client when you do not have your own system. It’s rather pointless and unsecured. MS have Outlook Express and I never really cared to try it. When I got my rig, I didn’t really immediately get the Bird but lately I added one to my rig.

For most users, web-based mail is good enough but there is always gonna be some of us who will want more functionality. Thunderbird gives you that. Multi-account is one of those features that’s cool; you wouldn’t have the need to check ‘em mail accounts one at a time.

| Mozilla Thunderbird |

Media Player

iTunes! Yes, iTunes ain’t open source but it is available for free – totally free. I didn’t bother searching for some other media players as iTunes works for me. I don’t find Windows Media Player good for me especially that I am stuck with whatever version this one is. I didn’t even bother clicking on it even just for once. Yes, they’ve updated and upgraded the player but I still ain’t lovin’ it. iTunes still looks better and works better for me. Plus, when it’s Apple, they think about style – I love that part. The super-awesome visualization that they installed in iTunes 8 is a bonus.

However, it ain’t gon be able to play every media there is. Even with AVI’s, you’ll need to download additional software. That’s when VideoLAN’s VLC media player comes in. As far as I’ve used it, I haven’t encountered a media file it can’t play. Just like the tag, “VLC: Plays it all!”

| Apple iTunes | VideoLAN VLC |

Office Suite

Before I post a blog, I encode it first in my rig. I used to have MS Office 2003 but then MS Office 2007 files ain’t totally compatible with MS Office 2003 unless you don’t miss the “Save As”. I can’t allow myself to upgrade to 2007 given the display of my rig. MS Office 2007 has a huge toolbar at the top and that won’t work for me.

It’s good that I got to remember the existence of OpenOffice.org. At first I thought I’d have to adjust to the interface of OOo first but apparently, it ain’t that hard. For a former user of MS Office, OOo is not really hard. OOo 3 can recognize MS Office 2007 files so I ain’t gon have a problem with compatibility. I am using OOo for this article.

| OpenOffice.org |

Instant Messenger

I ain’t too certain what exactly MSN as I never really cared about it but I am thinkin’ it’s for instant messaging. Yahoo! Messenger works but it’ll only work for your Y! account and for one account at a time. I know a lot of us have more than one account and it’ll really be handy if we can add all those buddies and talk to buddies from different account at the same time. Multi-account comes in again.

I was introduced to Pidgin when I was in my Xandros. It might not have the Y! Chat rooms but the fact that you can use different accounts from different services at the same time Is awesome.

| Yahoo! Messenger | Pidgin |

Drawing

MS Paint is practically useless for me. No layers, the text box is messed up, limited colors – very limited. Basically, you’ll immediately want to look for an image editor. Adobe Photoshop might come to your mind but I don’t plan to use it.

GIMP is the answer. GIMP may not have as much features as Photoshop but it works well enough for me. Oh, yeah, I get the part that says, MS Paint, the built-in one, is just too far away from GIMP. For those who want something really close to Photoshop, there’s GIMPshop. I never really got to use that one but, as far as I’ve read, GIMPshop is practically an open-source version of Adobe Photoshop.

| GIMP | GIMPshop |

System Tools

Anti-Virus

Well, Windows doesn’t really have a built-in anti-virus but this is like a must-have for all computers. I can only think of one thing for this one: ClamWin. Yes, scanning is slow but it is efficient. It’s like, it searches every nook and cranny of the file it is scanning. As long as I’ve been using it, it’s work well.

| ClamWin |

Defragmentation

For the surface users, as I love to call them, this one ain’t important. As for me who kinda loves to have my fun with my system, it’s pretty important. Besides, I mostly do multi-tasking and defragmentation gives for speed.

Windows has a built-in defragmenter but it ain’t able to do its job well enough. My friend gave me Piriform’s Defraggler when I wasn’t able to use the built-in one due to a virus attack. It’s able to defragment files better and demands a lesser amount of free space to be able to do its job well. However, it used to just ask for 5% but the one I got asks for 10%. Anyway, that ain’t too big. The built-in one asks for 15%.

| Defraggler |

Disk Clean-up

The built-in cleaner will want itself to be used when you’re running out of disk space. More specifically, when you have less than 200Mb of disk space available. For someone like me who uses a lot of stuff and only has a 4G of memory available, this can happen a lot. However, the built-in one doesn’t really know how to look for temporary files and the such. Or so I think.

When I scan using CCleaner, it displays more files available for deletion. The registry cleaner is a bonus.

| CCleaner |

Bonus:

Dock System

Microsoft doesn’t seem to have thought of this but it is actually a good one. Most especially when you are someone like me who wants her desktop clean and wants more customization. Punklab’s Rocketdock does it well. With the community it’s got, I can’t think of a reason not to like this particular dock.

| Rocketdock |
If anyone can tell me how to completely remove IE, Outlook Express, and Windows Media Player from my system, please do so. I will totally appreciate it.
*When I say “commercial”, I mean those software which have no hint of being free. Not even free to download and use.

This was written with no intention of of making it sound like a professional article.

Banners, banners…

I so need a new theme…

Gdzieś tak rok temu kupiłem sobie Eee PC 900 z linuksem na pokładzie. Jako domyślny system Asus wybrał zmodyfikowanego Xandrosa. System działa cakiem nieźle, niestety jest bardzo ograniczony, co powoduje, że wiele osób wymienia go na jakieś inne systemy (np bardzo popularne ostatnio Ubuntu-eee). Jeżeli ktoś jednak postanowił używać domyślnego systemu (póki co właśnie jego używam), to po upgrade można zauważyć, iż pojawia się ikonka Eee download. I chociaż prowadzi do strony z softem, nie do koca wiadomo jak je zainstalować – nawet dokumentacji nie widać. :/ Na forach można zaobserwować masę pytań odnośnie tego, a większość ludzi odpowiada, iż tego po prostu nie da się zainstalować… Cóż, nic bardziej mylnego (przynajmniej w 900-setkach).

Wybieramy sobie wybrany program, klikamy na guziczek Install i w momencie, gdy Firefox zapyta co z tym zrobić, nie wybieramy opcji download, tylko Open with, a następnie wybiramy się do lokacji /opt/xandros/bin i tam wybieramy: AddSoftwareWizard. Dodatkowo warto zaznaczyć opcję skojarzenia tego programu z tym typem plików i cieszyć się szybką instalacją w przyszłości.

TechRepublic has 10 reasons Linux should be your netbook operating system.

Even if you started with Linux, you might want to change to another version, as explained in this post.

Windows dan Linux memiliki berbagai macam versi. Semua versi Windows dikeluarkan oleh Microsoft, sedangkan distribusi Linux dipegang oleh beberapa perusahaan, misalnya Linspire, Red Hat, SuSE, Ubuntu, Xandros, Knoppix, Slackware, Lycoris dan lain-lain. Windows memiliki dua versi utama, Versi lama adalah ‘Win9x’ dan terdiri dari Windows 95, 98, 98SE dan Me. Sedangkan versi barunya terdiri dari kelas NT, yaitu Windows NT3, NT4, 2000, XP dan Vista.

Sementara macam-macam versi Linux dibedakan dari distribusinya, misalnya dari perbedaan software yang disediakan, proses install, Graphical User Interface (GUI), harga, dokumentasi dan teknik.Linux sangatlah mudah untuk dimodifikasi, hal ini tidak bisa dilakukan di Windows.

Linux dan Windows sama-sama didukung leh Graphical User Interface (GUI). GUI pada Windows berubah dari Windows 3.1 ke Windows 95 ke Windows 2000 ke Windows XP. Sedangkan Linux didukung oleh dua GUI, yaitu KDE and Gnome.

Untuk desktop atau computer rumah, Linux bisa diperoleh dengan harga murah atau gratis, sementara Windows mahal. Untuk penggunaan server, Linux jauh lebih murah dibanding Windows. Microsoft hanya membolehkan satu kopi Windows untuk digunakan pada satu computer. Sebaliknya, anda bisa menggunakan satu kopi Linux ke beberapa computer tanpa ada tambahan biaya.

Jadi, sekarang terserah anda untuk memilih, Linux atau Windows. Yang pasti, tergantung kebutuhan anda.

En enero compre una Asus eee pc 701, la vi tan pequeñita que pense que seria una gran idea sobre todo porque esta a un buen precio en ebay. Su unico inconveniente era el sistema operativo que traiga.

Xandros tiene sus pro y sus contra. a su favor puedo decir que era bastante rapido y facil de usar pero en su contra tengo que decir que el software tiene una apariencia como si fuera una computadora para bebes y sus peor cualidad es que hay muchos programas que aun no son compatibles con linux.

Es por esto que me di a la tarea de tratar de instalarle windows xp. Para todos aquellos que tenemos una asus sabran que el primer problema a que nos enfrentamos es que no tenemos un lector de CD-room.

segui estos tutorial (medio largo pero si sigues todas las instrucciones no tendras ningun problema)

http://thezeroxblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/instalacion-y-configuracion-de-windows-xp-en-el-asus-eee-pc-consideraciones-previas/

En este blog por fin consegui un tutorial en español donde se explica como hacer que windows se instale desde un USB flash drive. y tambien nos explican como ganar espacio.

ojo. nos recomiendan usar el programa nlite para quitarle espacio al windows xp, pero yo no lo supe hacer pues despues que terminaba de hacerlo decia que no encontro windows source file asi que lo hice con el cd original.

Despues de la instalacion me quedo 1.5 G libre donde aproveche para instalar winrar, adove reader,openoffice 3.o, y par de drivers de la computadora y ahora me quedan 900 MB. si se que es poco pero todo el que se compro una asus eee pc 701 sabe que con xandros solo les quedaba 1 GB asi que no es gran diferencia, con la ventaja de que tendras mas libertad y aplicaciones compatibles.

si sabes usar linux y te sabes manejar con la consola, talvez lo mejor es que te quedes con xandros y le instales el full desktop, pero si no sabes mucho de eso como yo te recomiendo que le instales el windows.

en cuento a rendimiento no tengo nada de que quejarme se mueve bastante rapido, practicamente a la  misma velocidad que el  xandros anterior.

bueno despues de buscar por todo el internet la manera de ganar espacio encontre un programa llamado xplite que quita todos los archivos que no usamos de windows (esta fue la version alternativa ya que no supe usar nlite) y despues de quitarte par de archivos como outlook, mokie maker, wordpad, ect me quedo 2.2GB de espacio libre. lo nunca antes visto ni siquiera con xandros. y funciona perfectamente bien.

hay una trial de xplite pero tambien aparece crakeado por ahi en el internet…no estoy apoyando la pirateria lol que quede en record.

Experiencias de un ignorante en Linux #2

En el anterior post, comentaba acerca del primer contacto que tuve con Linux de la mano de XandrOS, Xubuntu 7.10 y Puppy Linux. Al final del mismo también comentaba sobre mi próximo objetivo: instalar Ubuntu 9.04. Y es lo que hice.

Como aún no me he animado a quitar definitivamente mi Vista (que me vino con licencia) y de particiones no sé nada… y porque, además, la lógica indicaría que antes habría que realizar un backup, y no tengo tiempo ni ganas (son demasiados gigas), me he decidido por Wubi.

Primero que nada, les digo a los potenciales lectores, que no esperen tecnicismos de mi parte porque… no los tengo. Resulta que Wubi es una aplicación que instala Ubuntu como si fuera una aplicación más del Windows. Es genial porque no modifica en absoluto el sistema. Ingresé al site de Wubi, que tiene soporte oficial de la gente de Ubuntu, y me bajé un programita que me preguntó básicamente que “entorno de escritorio” quería instalar. Y ahí frené. Qué diferencia hay entre Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu y Edubuntu? Para un novato, por no decir un completo “retrasado mental informático”, era realmente demasiado pedir. Tuve que… sí, ponerme a investigar. Los linuxeros se pasan la vida investigando? Yo por lo gral. en Windows, desde pequeño me guié casi por inercia, y nunca generé nada grave en la pc, más allá de incendiarla, hacerla explotar, y hacer volar la instalación eléctrica de… del barrio.

Por lo que saqué en claro de la fuente de conocimiento universal o Wikipedia, Kubuntu y demás buntu, son derivaciones de Ubuntu, pero que utilizan un diferente entorno de escritorio. Ahh, ahora entiendo, pero, que cadorcha es un entorno de escritorio? Tuve que volver a investigar (bah, un simple click en el vinculo de wiki) y me enteré que un entorno de escritorio es un conjunto de programas con una determinada interfaz gráfica. Por ejemplo, Ubuntu usa un entorno llamado Gnome, Kubuntu usa KDE y Xubuntu usa XFCE.

Más allá de saber ahora lo de las versiones, no contaba con nadie que me receomendara alguna, así que fui por la primera opción y seleccioné Ubuntu. Me pidió un nombre de usuario y una contraseña y comenzó a descargar la imagen del sistema operativo. Tardó como una hora. Terminado el asunto me pidió que reiniciara la máquina. Al reiniciar ya tenía un dual-boot (me siento Vinton Cerf que por otra parte es igual al Arquitecto de la Matrix, o no?) listo para usar. Es decir, me aparecía una pantalla que preguntaba si quería ingresar a Vista o a Ubuntu. Le dí a Ubuntu y la primera vez tardó un poco porque terminó de instalar algunas cositas (que yo no tengo la menor idea que son).

Y ya tenía Ubuntu instalado (o acaso cabría decir que pseudo-instalado? los entendidos en el tema comprenderán). Realmente no fue tan complicado. No quemé la máquina ni se transformó en un Transformer asesino (aka Decepticons). Notaron que buena está Megan Fox? Bueno, no nos vayamos de tema.

Qué puedo decir sobre mi primera vez en Ubuntu? Lo primero que hice fue ingresar al Firefox que viene instalado. Anduvo bien, aunque no tenía los plugins de flash para ver videos en YouTube. Ingresé a Pidgin y también anduvo bien. El sistema tiene un buen tiempo de arranque comparado con Vista (aunque yo gracias al CCleaner logré borrar todo lo que está de más en el arranque, reduciendo significativamente el tiempo que utiliza para iniciar). Debo decir en contra que a pesar de lo que dicen por ahi que Linux nunca falla, a mi en un momento se me trabó una ventana que a pesar de que la había minimizado siguió aparenciendo en pantalla, aunque el sistema en gral. nunca dejó de funcionar (menos mal porque para eso me quedo en Windows). De todos modos fué apenas unos segundos y creo que se debe a mi instalación no-tradicional (o poco ortodoxa) del sistema.

Qué cosas me quedaron sin resolver? Los plugins del Firefox, no logré instalarlos. Y algo fundamental, NO TIENE SONIDO!!! Mi placa es una Realtek High Definition Audio. Ingresé al site de Realtek, descargué los drivers para Linux… y ahora qué? En Windows por lo general hubiera hecho un par de clicks y listo, pero acá, realmente no sé que hacer. Leí un readme que venía con los drivers. Tenía unos códigos. Pero cómo pretende que los ingrese si yo de cómo usar la terminal no sé nada?

Intentaré no desanimarme. Tampoco quiero hacer un juicio anticipado. En este post desmienten que instalar aplicaciones en Linux sea difícil, pero que me dicen de los drivers? La verdad es que esta experiencia ha tenido un resultado incierto: por un lado estoy contento po lo logrado, pero por el otro considero un fracaso no haber podido hacer que tenag sonido.

Próximo objetivo: instalar los plugins del Firefox y HACER QUE FUNCIONE EL PUTO SONIDO.

Ojalá malditonerd, que comentó mi anterior entrada, se dé una vuelta y pueda darme una mano mientras yo sigo investigando. Y, obviamente, si algún linuxero llega accidentalmente acá, también está invitado a derramar su sabiduría en los comments

Notei nas estatísticas do blog uma busca repentina por informações sobre o Xandros. Diante disto, gostaria de indicar aqui o que tem sido mais procurado:

Como traduzir o Xandros

Leitor de E-book para Linux

D-book para Linux

Se você procura algo que não encontrou aqui, comente que nós vamos atrás!

I’ve been around the webweb, and I’ve seen a whole butt-tonne of reasons given as to why Linux has persistently failed to gain traction with every-day users. The language is always the same, whether it’s from Linux or Windows advocates. Joe Sixpack, my grandma, power-users, blah blah blah. First of all, this stuff is so god-damned clichéd that it’s now lost all meaning.  You see it an awful lot on places like the Ubuntu forums. Ubuntu is a self-styled OS for noobs. Its slogan is, “Linux for human beings,” which is obviously a smooth way of saying, “Linux for ex-Windows users.” The forums are filled with people complaining about how much Linux isn’t like Windows, how it’s too difficult, how average morons will never be able to figure it out. And then the long-term Linux users retort with anecdotes of babies using it because it’s so god-damned easy. Flame wars ensue.

Joe Sixpack must die, and so should your fucking grandma. These two people are always called in whenever anyone has anything brain-meltingly ignorant to say. Joe Sixpack is a strawman of epic proportions. He’s so stupid, he probably needs reminding that he needs to breathe in order to live. “I don’t have a problem switching my computer on, but until manufacturers make them easier to switch on, computers will never appeal to Joe Sixpack.” Who is this brain-achingly pathetic individual, any way? It’s the fallacy of assuming that every single person in the world is pig-ignorant and to all intents and purposes a mindless drone. It’s elitist bullshit. In real life, nobody is so fucking retarded, not even retards are that fucking dumb.

Any way, the things people come up with which would make Linux more appealing is usually along the lines of

• Make installing really-new software easier!
• Make drivers more commonplace!
• Make it so the average noob never has to use the terminal!
• Make Windows applications run in Wine easier!
• A prompt offering to install media codecs when you play an mp3 for the first time is too difficult for people. They need it out of the box, like Windows!!

Never mind how retarded most of those ideas are, or how true or false they are. The point is all of these people are completely missing the fucking point. Do you know how many Windows licences are due to sales of those pretty boxes you see in computer shops? It’s about five per cent, apparently. The rest of the licences are due to OEM installations and bulk licence sales for businesses. That means the vast majority of people only use Windows because that’s what came with their computer when they bought it. On the other hand, 95% of Linux users actually had to make an effort to use it. I have two computers with Linux installed on both of them, yet both of the things have Windows activation keys taped on the side. Is it any wonder then that there are so few of us Lunix users? Microsoft owes its dominance entirely to pre-installs, and anyone who doubts that is a fucking moron.

So what is the solution to getting more people using Linux? It’s simple. Have it installed on the god-damned machines in the first place. Don’t have them available only as an online option. Don’t install a shitty distro that doesn’t even work properly, either. Actually have Linux machines up and running in the god-damned shop, right next to the Windows machines. Have a sign up telling people, “No. Your god-damned Windows applications won’t work on this. Linux has its own applications you idiot,” to stave off the morons who think it’s a cheap version of Windows.

People will see these machines and then they will buy them. You will get a lot of people returning them because “ZOMG I can’t play Crysis with this!!!eleven” You won’t sell quite so many, because people like to go with what they know. But the fact is, Linux usage will increase enormously overnight. So many of the bullshit problems people complain about with Linux can be solved with pre-installs. I mean, hey, have you ever installed Windows lately? The actual retail edition, and not the optimised disk image that came with the computer you bought, I mean. It ain’t fucking pretty. Shit won’t work without the drivers. MP3s and DVDs don’t work out of the box, either. If the average Joe fucking retard Sixpack can’t figure that shit out on Linux, how the fuck is he going to manage with Windows? Any way, guess what will happen when enough people have bought these machines. Hardware and peripheral manufacturers will be falling over themselves to provide support. Why? Because they’d make a butt-tonne of money, that’s why. And then all of a sudden, Linux computers all of a sudden become a viable option all of a sudden all of a sudden.

A solution, then, for getting more Linux users. Is this happening? No. So is this the year of Linux on the desktop? Hell no.

Fry's bargain du jour was this eMachines full size notebook for $299

Although, it’s common now to find most electronics retail stores stocked with Intel Atom-based netbooks selling below $300 and sometimes below $200, it’s definitely unusual to see a full size notebook like the eMachines eMD625 for a mere $300.

So when Fry’s Electronics advertised it yesterday for $299 (plus tax and CA recycling fee) – a $70 off from its regular price – I rushed to its Sunnyvale, CA store location to pick up the bargain “du jour” to try it out!

The laptop – built by Taiwanese-maker Acer - specifications look quite good for the price:

1. 15.6″ WXGA LCD screen, Wi-Fi, USB, 5-in-1 memory card reader but no webcam
2. AMD Athlon 64 TF-20 1.6GHz (single core), 2GB Ram Memory, ATI Radeon Xpress 1200 Graphics
3. 250GB SATA hard disk
4. DVD player
5. a full-size keyboard plus numerical pad
6. and Windows Vista Home Basic

After taxes and the CA recycling fee, I end up paying $343 for the $299 laptop

Yet more powerful, larger (and heavier!) than the HP mini-note or Acer Aspire One that were placed next to it on Fry’s shelves, the eMachines eMD625 laptop is certainly not a powerhouse despite ATI’s integrated graphics chip: 2 videos running simultaneously (YouTube, ESPN360, Hulu, DVD) are un-watchable. Of course, you could question the need for that too. Although I haven’t tried watching an HD movie on it but my guess is that it won’t work well either.

But some of the overall slow performance could be caused by Windows Vista, which should be a thing of the past as soon as I install Xandros’ Presto on it and Windows 7 (keep fingers crossed).

All in all, the eMachines eMD625 is a decent full-size laptop for the price, good for office, Web and light multimedia (video, imaging, music/iTunes).

Of course, not everybody looking for a thin and light netbook will be happy with this 6 pounds notebook. But I’m sure my Mom wouldn’t mind swapping her old PC with this laptop

I have already restored the operating system on my EeePC 701 (Surf 2G) internal SSD before, but I used the restore DVD with an external DVD drive.  I am away from home for the weekend, and I wanted to try fixing this (since I finally installed Eeedora on a SanDisk ExtremeIII 8GB SD card) with only a USB key.  I do hate Xandros a great deal, but I want to reinstall the standard configuration just in case something goes wrong an a better distro, any distro, fails.  Instead of fumbling around with reformatting a flash key and configuring the restore image with Winblows, I just installed Wubi.

I said something about the raw power of Linux in the terminal.  I spoke too soon when dealing with Xubuntu.  It might lack the shinier wrapper of GNOME (let’s not start bashing KDE, it is late), but command line tools are not its strong suit.  I tried searching for a quick and dirty alternative to the livecd-iso-to-disk script I have grown to love on Fedora.  I was sick of looking for something without a GUI, so I just used usb-creator.  To be honest, I tried.

First, I downloaded the restore DVD image, which took a long time to find.  Ironically enough, you can find it here on SourceForge.  You can also just do this if you have wget, which you should.

wget http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/eeecommunity/L701_EN_1.0.6.6.iso

Keep in mind the name might change once a newer DVD restore image comes out.  Considering how crappy Xandros is, and that the image is over a year old as of the date of this post, I would not expect any bleeding edge updates.  Then, I tried usb-creator.  Boy, how much fun it was.  If anyone else considered this method, they found a cute error that killed their dreams quickly.

Another fun, yet ironic, moment in the *nix universe.

So, I quickly crossed that method of the list.  Then I tried the other GUI alternative I though would work, UNetbootin.  I thought that worked, because it did everything it intended to do.  The problem was that it never removed all the Eeedora live install files and configuration.  So, it did seemingly little good.  This was before I RTFM, another priceless revelation, revealed for the hundredth time.

So, I finally went to the EeePC wiki and read the article on making a restore usb from the DVD image.  Now I saw the whining about the capacity of the flash drive needed was two gigs at minimum, but that does not seem to be what caused the errors later on.  The Gizmo! Overdrive did perfectly well with only 1GB.  The internal SSD on the Surf 2G was not so cooperative.  The instructions left a little bit to the imagination, so I will be explicit (assuming your usb disk is on the /dev/sdb device node):

wget http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/eeecommunity/L701_EN_1.0.6.6.iso # if you did not already

sudo umount /dev/sdb* # unmount all the usb partitions

sudo /sbin/fdisk /dev/sdb # please make sure this is the right node, do not wipe your main disk and bork your computer

Command (m for help): d # delete the partition, may have to do this for each partition on the usb

Command (m for help): n # create a new partition

Command action

e     extended

p     primary partition (1-4)

p

Partition number (1-4): 1

Command (m for help): t

Selected partition 1

Hex code (type L to list codes): 6 # set partition type to FAT16

Command (m for help): a # make the parition bootable

Paritition number (1-4): 1

Command (m for help): w # write all the changes to disk

Command (m for help): q # and finally quit

sudo /sbin/mkfs.vfat -F 16 -n eeepc -v /dev/sdb1 # make a FAT16 partition on the /dev/sdb1 node with the name eeepc

sudo mkdir /media/iso # make a directory for the loopback iso mount

sudo mount -o loop /path/to/iso/L701_EN_1.0.6.6.iso /media/iso # loopback mount the DVD image

cp /media/iso/boot/usb.img.gz ~/ # copy the bootloader for the usb drive

cd ~/; gunzip usb.img.gz # unzip the bootloader

sudo dd if=usb.img of=/dev/sdb # write the bootloader to the usb device, NOT the 1st partition

sudo cp -v P701L.gz 2007.10.07_04.33.bld blockcount.dat user_start.dat /media/EEEPC # ver.tag, mentioned in the docs, is not there; does not seem to matter; booted anyway

sudo umount /dev/sdb*; sudo umount /media/iso # and your done!

So, after all this, the flash booted.  I even gave it the final blessing and told it to reinstall Xandros, despite the strong protests by my inner child.  Fortunately, I received the final errors upon completion:

Trying disk sdb. . .

Trying disk sdc. . .

Found EEEPC image on Gizmo! overdrive [/dev/sdc]. . .

Ready to image Eee PC using build 2008.03.04_22.42.

Enter “yes” to continue, anything else to reboot.

yes

Installing from USB image (Estimated time required 5 minutes).

Expect to write 75305 records of 32k. . .

dd: /dev/sda: No space left on device

Done. . . Creating user partition. . .

Done. . . Formatting user partition. . .

mount: Mounting proc on /mnt/proc failed: Not a directory

mke2fs 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)

Could not stat /dev/sda2 — Permission denied

tune2fs: Permission denied while trying to open /dev/sda2

Couldn’t find valid superblock.

mkfs.vfat 2.11 (12 March 2005)

/dev/sda3: Permission denied

umount: Couldn’t umount /mnt/proc: Invalid argument

Ready. . . Press ENTER to reboot

Requesting system reboot. . .

And the best part, after all this, is the super descriptive error that ensued when the post-install boot completed.

Error 17

Well, it looks like I am waiting to get the DVD when I go home.  God damn the idiot Asus engineers!  I install Wubi in seconds, and they cannot even make a decent install disk with any useful tools to fix their wonderful error messages.  It more or less means, according to these results, that I am screwed.

And thus concludes another rant.  Enjoy your day!

My Eee PC has been gathering dust, so I decided to put Xandros back on it and see what I could do with it.  I never really got into customizing Xandros because I immediately put Ubuntu 8.04 on it when it arrived.  Little did I know, there is a heck of a lot of good stuff you can do with it.

I got the “Full Desktop” mode first.  By default, Xandros uses a custom ASUS “Easy Mode”.  This was easy to fix by following these directions.  Next, I installed the latest stable version of Opera.  The Eee PC comes with an outdated version of Firefox, so I decided to just switch to Opera rather than upgrading (which is not a very easy process).  Installation was simple.  I went to Opera’s download page, downloaded the Debian Etch package, and installed it using dpkg -i.

After I was done doing this, I wanted to play some games.  The Eee PC does come with some great casual games, but I wanted real ones.  Tremulous and Open Arena run well on it and don’t require installation, so I naturally chose them.  I downloaded both (Tremulous can be found here, while you’re going to have to Google for Open Arena), ran chmod +x on the tremulous.x86 file and the openarena.i386 file, and then ran them with ./.

There are many more things I’m planning to do as well.  My next post will most likely be on getting MAME installed.  Finding ways to get things to work on this odd distro is quite fun and has been the focus of my time recently.  If you have any tips on installing applications or modifying the distro leave a comment below.

This became an issue on Xandros, and I could never figure out why.  I believe it had something to do when I tried to install something that would mount .iso’s to my regular CD-ROM drive, and it didn’t work quite right so I removed it and obviously did something to screw things up.  So here are the things that I had to do to get everything working:

Problem: Whenever a CD was inserted, a message box would pop up stating that it “Cannot Mount Volume” and that “the mount point /media/cdrom0/ does not exist.“  Well, looking in /media/, sure enough, the only things inside were cdrom, which was a system link to cdrom0.  But since cdrom0 was non-existent, it could not find a mount point!

Solution: It was a simple fix, thanks to a friend on #ubuntu ( irc.freenode.net ).  All that was necessary were a few commands in terminal to create the actual mount point and to set the access correctly.  Everything else should fall into place.  In the terminal, run these two commands:

sudo mkdir /media/cdrom0
sudo chmod a+rw /media/cdrom0

What this does is it will create the folder /media/cdrom0, and it will then put read write privileges on it.  It was a simple fix, and it now works like a charm!

One of the things I have always liked about the Asus EeePC is the Xandros interface.

The simple icons and easy access to the web and applications, mean that users who aren’t use to Linux can start using the EeePC without worry.

Having recently used the Suse desktop on the HP 2133 it was fine but not as simple to use as Xandros. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have the Xandros interface on devices such as the HP 2133, Samsung Q1, etc…

Saw on Twitter recently a link to Jolicloud which is a new OS for netbooks.

It looks very nice.

Alas it is invite only at the moment, so I have signed up and am chasing down an invite code.

I want to install it on an Asus EeePC and a Samsung Q1. The Q1 is not yet supported, but could be a more useful OS than Vista!

De inicio, me empolguei com o EEEPC, pela portabilidade, etc, mais do que pelo preço, sabendo que sem disco e pouca memória, sem CDROM e eventualmente com vários SDs e Pendrives teriamos um netbook mobile, portável, pratico para todas as ocasioes. O teclado pequeno nao atrapalha se não digitarmos muito, mas um Linux fora do circuito como o XANDROS veio a atrapalhar, pois com ele só se tem retorno, com a versao paga. (LINUX pago para usuários ocasionais? parece piada!). Não queria convertê-lo para Windows, mas poder usar Windows nele, via virtualização, pelo qemu num Pendrive fica muito lento (*1).

Sinceramente, gostaria de mudar o nome deste Blog para NETBOOK ou MINInoteBook com ênfase em MOBO da Positivo. Cuja qualidade é melhor e tem um disco de 120gb além de 1gb de memória (*1: no MOBO, as velocidades são melhores pois HD é mais rapido que SD/Pendrive). Aceita drive de DVD/CD sony externo e estou a procura de dispositivos USB, como GPS, receptor de TV digital (AOC e Leadership custam de 145 a 200 R$, nunca vi tanto spread de preços, com a desculpa da crise), modem (vou especular o da VIVO e o da TIM, quem puder me aconselhar eu agradeço)

Knoppix è la storica (e più famosa) distribuzione nata in forma live ed è basata su Debian. Ma non è stata la primissima: la francese Demo Linux aveva dato inizio a questa era: sfruttare un sistema operativo senza necessariamente installarlo.
Si è sempre appoggiata al desktop manager KDE, tranne che sulla speciale versione Adriane recentemente rilasciata, che andiamo a provare.
Adriane è un sistema audio di parlato che traduce quello che andiamo a fare nel sistema, utile, oltre che hai non vedenti, anche per chi sta imparando ad usare il computer.
Come desktop manager, è stato invece utilizzato LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment), un prodotto che consuma poche risorse e quindi molto veloce.

Dal sito http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/ scarichiamo la corposa (649MB) versione (in inglese) tramite torrent (http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/torrents/KNOPPIX_V6.0-ADRIANE_V1.1CD-2009-01-27-EN.torrent) e con Unetbootin creiamo l’immagine di boot per pen.

Al boot ci compaiono queste opzioni, ma solo la Default funziona (Unetbootin non è stato in grado di far funzionare anche le altre):

* Default
* adriane
* knoppix
* surf
* fb1024×768
* fb800×600
* failsafe

Dopo 10 secondi di avvio, ci compare un messaggio che ci chiede di dare una dimensione per il file dove salvare le nostre impostazioni. Se non inseriamo nulla, dopo un pò, riprende il caricamento (in stile Knoppix, ovvero in modalità grafica (con 2 Tux in alto) e i messaggi di output colorati nella parte sottostante).
Altri 15 secodi e si apre il desktop Adriane in puro testo: sembra di trovarsi in uno di quei programmi DOS a scelta multipla!
Le scelte sono infatti:

* 0 Press ENTER for help, arrow down for next menu.
* 1 WWW
* 2 E-Mail
* 3 SMS
* 4 Multimedia
* 5 Contacts
* 6 Notebook
* 7 Text Scanner
* 8 File Manager
* 10 Graphical Programs
* 11 Setup
* 12 Shutdown

Una voce sintetizzata ci leggerà qualsiasi cosa scritta sullo schermo nel punto in cui ci posizioniamo.

Ma veniamo alle scelte:

* WWW ci aprirà una sessione di Elinks, in modalità testuale possiamo perciò navigare in rete.
* E-Mail ci aprirà una sessione di Mutt (sempre testuale)
* SMS ci permette di svrivere SMS (appoggiandoci all’editor Nano)
* Multimedia prevede due voci: visualizzare audio/video da CD o DVD, oppure da un file
* Conctact ci permesse (sempre in testuale) di aggiungere dei contatti
* Notebook ci permette d inserire delle note di testo
* Text Scanner: scansione di testi (fallita in mancanza dello scanner)
* File Manager: apre una sessione di Midnight Commander (dopo aver scelto il disco da leggere)
* Shell: apre una shell
* Nel setup (penultimo comando), si può settare alcuni parametri di sistema quali, internet, stampanti, scanner, audio/video ecc.
* Nei programmi grafici ci sono: soffice (Open Office), firefox e startlxde (Full x session)

Proviamoli subito:
Aprendo Openoffice, inizia a caricarsi la grafica (appare anche l’attivazione di Compiz Fusion) e poco dopo, appare la schermata a pieno schermo di openoffice. Qui possiamo lavorare solo sui documenti office, non esiste altro a livello di desktop caricato.
La voce continua a esporci quello con cui interagiamo/scriviamo anche in questa modalità grafica. Notevole.
Se attiviamo Firefox, riparte come prima a caricarsi la grafica e poco dopo Iceweasel (Firefox per Debian) si è aperto e possiamo navigare.
Ora proviamo invece l’opzione più interessante: la grafica nell’ambiente minimale LXDE.

Il suo caricamento dura pochi secondi e il desktop minimale ci appare subito, presentando un aspetto classico, con barra inferiore, tasto start per i programmi e varie icone di collegamenti a programmi.

Il sistema grafico Compiz Fusion funziona benissimo e i suoi effetti grafici 3D vanno che è un piacere. Sebbene minimale, il desktop è funzionale come un classico sistema, perciò lo si padroneggia subito.

Sul fronte dei programmi installati abbiamo:

* Gnome MPlayer (player multimediale)
* GIMP (programma grafico)
* Image Viewer (visualizzatore immagini)
* xpdf /(lettore pdf)
* Pidgin (chat)
* Icedove (mail/news)
* Iceweasel (browser)
* Java 1.6
* OpenOfice
* Xarchiver
* PCMan file manager

quindi tutto quello che ci serve per internet, office e fotoritocco.

Uscendo dall’ambiente grafico, si ritorna ai menu di Adriane in modalità DOS.

Questa Knoppix è indubbiamente diversa dalle solite a cui eravamo abituati e si adatta bene al portatilino, visto l’utilizzo della leggero LXDE o della possibilità di lavorare in modalità testo.
In particolare, sul sistema LXDE ci torneremo dato che esiste una distribuzione ufficiale apposita per testare l’ambiente, per cui vale la pena di provare anche questa versione..
Random Posts

* FluxFlux-eee 2008-9
* Acquisto del netbook 901
* PcLinuxOS 2008
* Disimballaggio materiale
* Rimozione di Aufs
* Il gioco 3D Tremulous su Xandros
* Installare OpenOffice 3.0 in Xandros
* Linux Mint 6 con Fluxbox
* Puppy Linux 4.1.2
* Remote Desktop Connection con KDE

Last year, when my wife was somewhat annoyed with me tinkering around with our computer rendering her unable to access her email, she saw the ASUS eeepc during some TV coverage of cebit. She had to have it.

I decided, at the time, that if my wife wants to have a technical gadget, it was my duty to support that, esp. as it was a Linux box. Furthermore, her birthday in November would give the display time enough to grow a bit from the original, tiny one. So, I waited and eventually bought a 900A at a very good price some time in October last year.

I configured the beast and with the exception of my wife having to switch to thunderbird from evolution, she felt comfortable from day one. It even encouraged here to play around more and try things out, where previously she would have constantly been afraid to break something. The only minor issue was with the keyboard, where the space-key was not mounted evenly and was very hard to operate. This we didn’t regard as a big problem until two months ago, when we sent it to ASUS to have the issue fixed. The whole repair procedure was very convenient and professional. The only very minor thing was that when the online tracking tool said the machine was fixed, we got no further update as to whether it was shipped already, or when it would. So, for a few days, we were a bit lost. Overall, though, I’d give the service a big thumbs-up.

When the netbook returned, I noticed the disk had been reset and the software updated. I don’t know why replacing the keyboard requires deleting user data, but I had been warned and backed everything up. That was no big deal. What was a bit annoying was the fact that the touchpad behaved differently. On every other mouse movement you would accidentally e. g. activate a link on a web page, or activate an item in a sub-menu when actually you wanted to dismiss the menu. I twiddled around with the settings for a bit and managed to get it work in a way that at least did not render the touchpad completely useless, but it was still kinda annoying with unwanted clicks every now and then. Then the netbook stopped to join our home WLAN network. You would need to explicitly join on every reboot and then the notification area icon would not refresh the status (even if ifconfig would show the DHCP address). Finally, pressing the power button no longer brought up the shutdown/suspend dialog and when shutting down through the power icon in the notification area, the system would not power off completely. You would always have to wait for disk activity to stop and then have to press and hold the power button (prolly smth. around ACPI broken). Very, very odd … and very annoying.

So I started to review my options, was even looking at other distributions, esp. at ubuntu-based ones, where I was hoping a larger, technical community would help working out such issues better. Before going there, I wanted to see if a factory reset might be enough to get things back to normal. I backed up the whole user directory to my DNS323 NAS device. Then, just to play it safe, I followed the steps here to get a way to boot into single-user mode. Then I rebooted, entered the grub menu by holding F9 after powering on, and selected “Restore factory settings”. I followed the wizard, rebooted again, joined the WLAN network, rebooted once more … and everything was back to where we were when we initially got the box: WLAN joined automatically, shutdown dialog displayed on press of power button, touchpad working as before.

The conclusion then was that some updated messed up the system. Now, while I understand automatic updates for security fixes and new features, I hate it, when they break a running system. If that’s what I wanted, I’d never have switched from Windows to Linux. So, what I did was manually install just a few application updates that I though would not do any harm (firefox, acrobat reader, and such), then I disabled automatic updates.

Disable Automatic Updates

As my wife uses German localization, “Software-Verwaltung” would be “Software Management” on the preferences/settings tab, “Aktualisierungen” is “Updates” and the two checked boxes would be something along the lines of “Confirm installation of updates” and “Show Icon on demand”. Everything else is deselected.

Since the update service had already downloaded the list of available updates and I don’t have a way of saying “I don’t want this update, EVER”, on every reboot the notification area would alert me and ask me whether I want to install the available updates. I know my wife had basically installed every single update just to get rid of that pop-up. As I didn’t want that, again, I needed to turn that off, too. Here’s how I did it:
rm -rf /var/cache/UpdateService/
cp /opt/xandros/share/UpdateService/Updates.xml /opt/xandros/share/UpdateService/Updates.xml.orig


Then edit /opt/xandros/share/UpdateService/Updates.xml to look like this:
<data remote-timestamp="Fri, 22 May 2009 06:56:07 GMT" timestamp="2009-05-23 21:14:15 UTC" >
</data>

Now, everything’s back to normal, and my wife is a happy camper again. (And if she is, I am … or at least, if she isn’t, it’s hard for me to be )

Presto an old Windows PC a second lease on life!

[Update] We successfully ran Presto on Windows 7. And while we couldn’t print on our IP-based Dell and HP network printers with Windows 7 (no drivers yet perhaps), Presto had no problem!

If there’s a piece of software that really is worth its price, it’s Presto.

For $20, the Xandros utility will boot your Windows XP or Vista machine in seconds instead of minutes.

Don’t believe me? Well, check out the videos below comparing the loading and shutting down times for the same dual-core Athlon 64 PC used for the test.

Installing Presto on a Windows machine takes only a few seconds (here’s a link to the screencast of the installation).

On the next reboot, an option appears giving the option to start Windows or Presto, which is actually an optimized version of Linux that loads very very fast.

How fast?

About 30 seconds from start to loading the Firefox Web browser. In comparison, it took over 3 minutes from the Windows login prompt – which took about 30 seconds to appear – to loading Internet Explorer and getting the first Web page up.

Same thing with shutting down the PC: 3 seconds with Presto, over 40 seconds for Windows!

As reported when it was announced last March at the Demo conference, Presto is perfect if all you want is access to the Internet (browse, email), chat on Skype, load a few documents to view and perhaps edit, watch a video, listen to music.

Which, when I think of it, is most of what I do.

Presto is also useful to give that old PC a second lease on life!

To be fair, I thought I’ll include the video for Windows XP booting up:

And shutting down:

Bueno Inicialmente Soy Usuario Añejo De Windows, Despues De Artarme De Los Problemas De Seguridad De Windows Opte Por Cambiarme A Linux El Cual Me Lleno Completamente Muy Versatil, Pero Lamentablemente Tuve Que Vender La Computadora… Y Me Compre Una Netbook Que A Mi Parecer Son Buenas Si Los Usos Que Le Das No Son Muchos Y Basicos…Pero Un Dia Vi Una Imac De Un Amigo Me Llamó Mucho La Atencion, Su Elegancia ,Arquitectura, Sistema Operativo Y Lo Mejor Es Basado En Unix Padre De Linux Y Muchas Distribuciones Actuales, Y Me Encanto Asi Que Me Comprare Una .

Inicialmente Me Llamó La Atención, Pero A Mi Poca Solvencia Economica La Descarte Por Un Momento, Pero Llega Un Dia, Otro Compañero Tiene Una Macbook El Se Dedica Hacer Paginas Web Y Animación En Flash La Cual Me Llamó La Atención Y Decidí A Comprarme Una MAC, Me Dispuse A Buscar Los Modelos Y Caracteristicas Particulares De Cada Una De Ellas, Las Cuales Estan Muy Bien Equipadas Pero La Limitante Es El Precio, No Se Como Lo Vean Ustedes Pero Aca En México Es Algo Cara Esta Marca, Me Desanimó Mucho, Hasta Que Encontre Una Opción Muy Barata, Sencilla Y Portable, Asi Fue Como Encontre La MAC MINI, Es Un CPU Minimalista De Buenas Caracteristicas En Cuanto a Procesador, Tarjeta Grafica Y RAM Hablamos, Y Su Precio Pss No Muy Barato $10,000. Pesos Mexicanos, Las Caracteristicas De Esta Lindura Son:

• Procesadores Intel Core 2 Duo, corriendo a 2.0GHz (P7350) como estándar.
• 1 GB (una de 1 GB) de memoria RAM en el modelo básico, o 2GB (dos 1GB) de 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM en dos SO-DIMM, ampliable a 4 GB.
• Un 120GB a 5400-rpm SATA de disco duro.
• NVidia GeForce 9400M un procesador gráfico con 256 MB o 128 MB compartidos con la memoria principal. (1 GB de RAM instalados y ofrece 128 MB de VRAM o más 2 GB de RAM instalada da 256MB de VRAM.)
• La unidad Combo fue eliminado de la base modelo y se sustituirá por una doble capa de 8 × SuperDrive de serie. La unidad SuperDrive ahora utiliza una conexión SATA.
• El puerto FireWire 400 se sustituye con un puerto FireWire 800.
• Un quinto puerto USB añadido.
• El puerto DVI fue sustituido con un puerto mini-DVI.
• Un mini-DVI a DVI-D adaptador incluido. Una mini-DVI a VGA está disponible.
• Un Mini DisplayPort se añadió además de puerto mini-DVI. Esto permite ahora el Mac mini a trabajar con el nuevo 24 “Apple Cinema Display LED directamente y el 30″ Cinema Display HD utilizando una mini DisplayPort a DVI de doble enlace adaptador.
• Las dos mini-mini-DVI y DisplayPort conexiones se pueden utilizar simultáneamente por duplicado o ampliar.
• Mando a distancia Apple Remote incluido, pero ya no sigue estando disponible.
• Actualización de firmware para permitir que el apoyo remoto inalámbrico de instalación de Mac OS X.

Las Cuales Me Gustarón, Esta Mac La Compraré En Estos Dias Espero Y Darles Un Review De Como Esta Esta MAC, Y Por Que No?…El Unboxing Para Que Vean Mi Cara De Alegre xD.Saludos

]]> http://linuxfud.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/top-10-linux-fud-patterns-part-9/ Mon, 04 May 2009 13:00:08 +0000 Brandon http://linuxfud.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/top-10-linux-fud-patterns-part-9/

Linux FUD Pattern #9: Microsoft will sue you if you use Linux

Warning! Using Linux will expose you to legal action by Microsoft! At least that’s what some would like for you to believe. Many months of news articles have focused on this issue, which is why it is on my Top 10 List of Linux FUD Patterns. Users beware!

I’ll See You In Court!

Nothing instills fear like a lawsuit, and nothing prevents Microsoft from filing one against Linux contributors, distributors and users. The fact is, in the United States, you can file a civil suit against anyone for just about anything. Of course, court cases must have some basis in reality or they will never see a day court and there is also the risk of the plaintiff being counter-sued for bringing a frivolous lawsuit.

Patent Infringement

The legal threat posed by Microsoft is not so open-ended. Barring specific actions such as breach of contract, the legal issue that worries (potential) Linux users the most is patent infringement. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill negligence case either, this is a Federal offense.

Patent law is codified in Title 35 of the United States Code. §271(a) begins by setting a broad scope of application for infringement: making, using, offering or selling a patented invention without authority. That pretty much covers all contributing programmers, users and both commercial and non-profit distributors.

Of course, there are conditions that nullify the infringement claim. The most obvious and most important is Prior Art, also known as novelty. §100-§105 describe the patentability of inventions and §102 specifies some of the conditions under which a patent is not valid including prior use of an invention by another party. Also, a defendant named in an infringement case may be able to prove that he is actually an “earlier inventor” of a method as described in §273(b), which renders the patent unenforcible against that defendant.

Microsoft vs. Linux

Microsoft has claimed that Linux violates approximately 235 patents. The company has reportedly “chosen” to not sue, and the rationale for this choice has been the topic of much speculation. Microsoft has not revealed the details of the violations, including the identifying numbers of the violated patents.

Lack of merit in the claim is probably the reason most people believe Microsoft has not filed – in other words, Microsoft is bluffing. Perhaps Microsoft knows that the patents are not enforcible for one reason or another, but it also knows fully that it retains power derived from fear so long as it can make threats that sound credible. If the claim does lack merit, that power would diminish rapidly once a case is brought against the first defendant. Either the patents would be found to be unenforcible (e.g. prior art would be proven), or legal action against one defendant would prompt the Linux community as a whole to adapt quickly. Details of the suit would provide the vital information required to ensure that Linux complies with all patents going forward.

Many Linux supporters and advocates disapproved when Novell and XandrOS succumbed to this fear when they signed their now famous “peace treaties” with Microsoft.

Besides using fear as a way to dissuade conversion to Linux or to encourage conversion away from it, another possible strategy might be to besiege Linux. By presenting a constant threat and keeping the Linux Community guessing, Microsoft may be trying to drain the time and other resources of the Linux community. Court cost aside, doing patent research and verifying that no rights were violated takes time and can be expensive. Also, Linux developers may spin their wheels fixing problems that might not actually exist, giving Microsoft more time to improve competitive features on its own OS.

Even if no action is planned, Microsoft cannot allow itself to gain a reputation for not defending its own patents. I have heard in the past that a failure to defend a patent may be considered abandonment or an implied license, but I cannot find any information in the legal literature to support this claim. Some may be confusing patents with trademarks in this regard – failure to use or defend a trademark against infringement may result in the loss of trademark registration. Nonetheless, it would not behoove Microsoft strategically to allow the abuse of legitimate patents.

Don’t Worry, Use Linux

Here are some good reasons why Linux users should not worry too much about being sued.

Cost-Benefit. The decision for a company to file suit is ultimately a business decision, which means that the benefits of any legal action would have to outweigh the costs. Lawsuits are not cheap and the payoff for suing individuals for a few hundred dollars each for lost profits would probably not be worth the trouble. Defendants must be named, which means Microsoft would have to specifically identify Linux users, requiring a lot of paid hours of research.

Damage to brand. Suing those who you wish to be your customers is probably a very bad idea. Not only does it alienate those being sued, but it looks very bad in the eyes of other customers. Ultimately, it might cost Microsoft more in lost profits than what it was able to recover through lawsuits. Apple, IBM and Sun on the other hand, may be very happy with this outcome indeed!

Prior art. As mentioned above, the use of an invention prior to the grant of patent exempts the defendant. Much of Linux is based on other Unix variants and I’m certain the code looks very similar. DOS appeared on the scene in 1980-1981 and Windows became available for the first time around 1985. The first Unix was written in 1969. Don’t forget that Microsoft did release an x86 Unix variant called Xenix in the 1970s and 1980s, but eventually sold the rights to this OS to the ne’er-do-well SCO Group.

Of course, contributors and distributors are much easier targets on all of these points, but if it were just that easy, I’d think we’d have seen some major court action by now.

Cheers!
-Brandon