Real Linux Geek

Massachusetts Makes Smart Move Official

2005-11-06T03:38:00.000-05:00

This article illustrates why it's better for government to use Open Source Software and open standards such as OpenOffice.org which uses the OpenDocument (OASIS) word processor format. This opinion article sums it up right at the beginning:

Switch to OpenDocument format will make state documents more accessible to the public because anyone can have the software to read the format.

Shouldn't that of itself be enough? Anybody can download the OpenOffice.org suite for free and because it's an open format, it'll be easy later to change software. That's better than having your data held captive. I particularly like this part of the article:

And let say it one more time: OpenDocument is an "open" format. Anyone, including Microsoft, can write to it.

Of course, Microsoft doesn't want to. The Redmond, Wash., giant makes its billions from locking users into its way of doing things. OpenDocument frees users. If everyone started using OpenOffice for their office documents they could decide, for instance, that StarOffice 8 for, say, $50 is a better deal than Microsoft Office at $500.

Btw, OpenOffice.org runs on more OSes than Microsoft Office too! It's available for Windows 9x/Me/XP/NT/2000, Linux, Macintosh, FreeBSD and Solaris. You can use the same office suite in all of them.

Linux - Basic Course

2005-10-25T13:09:00.000-04:00

I'll be teaching this course again in January at Fleming College:

Linux - Basic

Course Number: COMP194

Discover the Windows alternative that companies like IBM, Dell, HP, Novell and Sun are excited about. With more and more applications for the home user, Linux is quickly becoming a more mainstream operating system, requiring more individuals to upgrade their skills in the operation and maintenance of Linux. Recommended for those with some experience with computers, this course explores various versions of Linux, its installation and operation, office-type software, online interactivity, benefits and drawbacks.

This course is targeted at beginners to Linux though it's assumed you can get yourself around Windows OK. I frequently make reference to Windows as a bridge for understanding how Linux works. We're going to be using SUSE Linux mostly in the course but we will take some time to look at other versions of Linux and how they compare. The principles learned will apply to all the major Linux distributions. I'd be grateful if you pass around the word! Thanks.

Hacking OpenSUSE

2005-10-10T00:44:00.000-04:00

Update: The link above was down at the writing of this update. Here's a mirror.

Found the how-to linked above on ScotsNewsletter Forums. Moderator Bruno let us know about it. By the way, if you ever need Linux support, there probably isn't a better bunch of people on the net!

If you download SUSE OSS 10.0 Edition (it's not really called OpenSUSE, that's the name of the project, not the release), you'll find that it's missing the ability to run Java applets, Flash animations, play MP3s, Windows Media, Quicktime or Realplayer videos, read PDF files or watch DVDs. This article will tell you how to add the programs necessary to do this.

I tested all the steps in this article except playing DVDs (don't have a DVD-ROM drive yet) and it works with the following caveats. If you want to use Java in Konqueror, you'll have to do the following:

In Konqueror, go to Settings --> Configure Konqueror. Choose Java & Javascript on the side and in the box beside Path to Java executable or 'java', change whatever is there to java. Click the check box beside under Global Settings that says Enable Java globally and then click OK to store these settings. Note you can add specific domains or sites to the Java list below if you prefer not to enable it at all sites.

I also found that I had to leave the install CDs enabled in YaST --> Software --> Installation Sources or I had problems with dependencies it couldn't fix. Enjoy!

Linux File & Directory Permissions Mistakes

2005-10-01T09:01:00.000-04:00

One common mistake Linux administrators make is having file and directory permissions that are far too liberal and allow access beyond that which is needed for proper system operations.

It's a quick little read on an very important issue area of Linux security.

PCLOS Lost me

2005-09-29T05:13:00.000-04:00

One of the best computer help forums that I frequent (I'm Linuxdude32 there) has a popular Linux help area. One of the popular distributions (distros) talked about there is PC Linux OS, affectionatedly referred to as PCLOS. I finally got a chance to try it out and came away from the experience mildly annoyed.

PCLOS is a Live CD Linux distro that you can download for free. By Live CD, I mean that it runs entirely from the CD-R (or CD-RW) that you burn it to and then boot directly from. That gives you a chance to try it out before you commit to installing it to the hard drive. Or you can just continue running it like that. My experience was with the Preview .91 release.

PC Linux OS is a beautiful distro with friendly, if a little cartoonish, startup screens and seems to be targetted at beginners. Like SimplyMEPIS, PCLOS comes with video codecs for playing Windows Media, Quicktime and MP3 files. All Linux distros are capable of this but most have had these codecs removed because of legal reasons (and financial reasons since they'd have to arrange licensing if they wanted to avoid lawsuits). So the upside to PCLOS is that it's media ready. Other Linux distros like Mandriva, SUSE and Fedora require you to go and download these codecs seperately.

PCLOS is based on Mandriva code so it has excellent configuration tools similar to, though not as extensive or detailed as those of SUSE. Or at least that's what I thought.

Here's my situation. I have a home network that connects to a Linksys router which then connects to an Alcatel DSL modem. The router handles all the DSL stuff and gives an IP address to any computer that needs one at boot. However, I prefer to use a static IP because I use certain programs that need certain ports opened (like Azureus, a Bittorrent client).

PCLOS, as would most distros looked for a server to get a dynamic IP address and got one. No problem, I'll just use the PCLOS Control Center to go in and change it to a static IP. I had to do the same thing with SUSE and it was a snap.

Of the network tools available, the modify existing setting seemed most appropriate but didn't allow me to add DNS info (which you need to do when using a static IP). So I exited that tool and tried to enter another. The Control Center crashed. No biggie, Mandriva used to this years ago, too.

I clicked the link on the menu to enter it again. Hourglass spun but nothing started. Went into processes, nothing resembling a control center program was there so tried again. Same thing. So I restarted the graphical interface entirely. Still didn't work. Ultimately I had to reboot for it to run again. Anybody who knows Linux knows there's no reason why this should be necessary.

I figured maybe it was an issue with running as a Live CD and maybe once I installed it an got the bugfixes downloaded things would be fine. The installer is fairly easy to use and PCLOS installs very fast (about 25 minutes on my machine). Though there was an option for removing the Guest user during the install, it didn't work.

After the install, I went into network configuration, and went into another network option this time. When I tried to go to another area of the menu to remove the guest user I received a message that something had died unexpectedly and Control Center vanished again. Restarting X as before, didn't help. This time I was able to login as root (something that is discouraged) to remove the user so I wouldn't have to reboot. Then I got the ten million updates available. I'm only slightly exaggerating; there were about 250+ packages, not patches, complete new packages. I still had weird issues with the Control Center after all that, though.

Despite my problems, I think that it's still worth people trying out PCLOS because you only need to download one CD and because its a live CD. I just don't think it's the panacea that some think it is.

Now if you don't need to change your networking setup, you'll possibly be fine (and beginners probably won't do this). However, I have grave misgivings about using this as a regular distro and perhaps that's why it's called a preview. Unfortunately, there's no "stable" version available. Hopefully, soon.

D.I.Y. Linux

2005-09-10T09:00:00.000-04:00

Even the Windows-worn PC Magazine is writing articles about Linux now. This one shows how to install Fedora, a popular Linux distribution. It's for beginners, anyone who has used Linux for any amount of time probably won't find it worth the read.

Novell Announces Availability of SUSE Linux 10.0

2005-09-09T07:25:00.000-04:00

What's interesting about this version is how it's being tested (it's in RC1 right now):

SUSE Linux 10.0 is created by the openSUSE project, a recently launched community initiative sponsored by Novell that promotes the use of Linux everywhere. A first for Novell, SUSE Linux 10.0 will include code changes and bug fixes initiated with developer input from across the worldwide Linux community.

In the past, SUSE has been criticized for two things, (1) no way the Linux community (outside SUSE developers) could participate in its development, and (2) YaST wasn't Open Source. When Novell bought the SUSE company they GPL'ed YaST and now they've made community involvement possible through OpenSUSE. It's the Novell equivalent of the Fedora Project.

OpenSUSE Linux 10.0 beta 2

2005-08-21T00:11:00.000-04:00

Can't beat 'em might as well join 'em. Checking out the community version of SUSE called OpenSUSE. This is their second beta of version 10. The installer looks mostly the same except that they give you a choice of desktops (they did before too, but it wasn't obvious how to set this up). I picked KDE being most familar with it.

I was never given the opportunity to test my video configuration during the install which is a change from past releases. This is my second install. The previous install I chose to install the official nvidia drivers and X never came up and I couldn't reconfigure the settings as the text versions of yast and sax didn't work. So was forced to reinstall. Works fine this time.

I'm glad to see they've added a BitTorrent client called KTorrent. One of my previous frustrations was finding a bittorrent client that was easy to install. At least it'll be easier for somebody else. KTorrent is plain looking but works.

YaST has smaller icons and I'm pretty sure that "Virtual Machine Installation (XEN)" icon is new. In the "Miscellaneous" option, there's also a new icon choice entitled "Post a Support Query" for collecting information about your system. This appears to be for official support so would probably only apply if you bought a retail box of SUSE.

TaskJuggler is a new program to be included in a default install. Apparently it's a project management program.

So far I don't see anything that deserves a 9.x to 10.0 upgrade. However, their milestone schedule indicates two more betas before the first release candidate (RC1) so maybe there's things in the pipe yet.

Update: Just wanted to add that OpenLinux 10.0 beta 2 contains KDE 3.4.2b, a maintenance release of KDE. SUSE 9.3 Professional has 3.4.0b. To see the changes view this the 3.4 to 3.4.1 changelog and the 3.4.1 to 3.4.2 changelog.

1 Unix-based server = 4 Windows servers

2005-08-17T15:22:00.000-04:00

Microsoft always chooses the best for its web ventures and that, according to ex-Microsoft employees is Unix (Solaris, FreeBSD, etc.):

For the most part, according to our ex-Microsoftie, the company's money-making Web properties are all based around Unix, with Hotmail 99 being 99 percent FreeBSD, MSN using some Apache on Solaris, bCentral ad servers on 100 percent FreeBSD, and WebTV pretty much entirely Solaris.

And in cases where Microsoft does use its own software for servers?

... Microsoft had to quadruple the number of servers when it moved to its own operating systems.

All this says a lot about Linux. Although Linux isn't based on actual Unix code, it has been designed to be a virtual clone of Unix. And there are lots of Linux servers - about 35-40% of the Internet servers are Linux-based.

Install Linux to a USB thumbdrive

2005-08-07T04:02:00.000-04:00

Damn Small Linux is a tiny Linux distribution that fits under 50 MB suitable for running from a business-card-size CD.

What's even cooler is that you can now easily install it onto a one of those USB drives (aka thumbdrives, pen drives, key chain drives) and boot from it. The clickable title gives you the link to the steps to installing it.

Your BIOS does need to support booting directly from a USB drive so older machines like Pentium IIIs under 1.0 GHz might not work ( or might need a BIOS upgrade). DSL includes a word processor, an email program, an MP3 player, an instant messenger, a cd burner, etc.

I used the SanDisk Cruzer Mini 256 MB drive and it worked great. I did have to upgrade the BIOS on my machine (700 Mhz Celeron) which is an Intel board so it was easy to find. The BIOS even sees the drive as a SanDisk.

Thanks to Bruno for this tip! Check Bruno's website for lots of other great tips.

Novell to launch OpenSuSE at LinuxWorld

2005-08-03T00:15:00.000-04:00

Novell is opening SuSE Linux to community-based development, sources say, with a model similar to Red Hat's recent move with Fedora. Novell will be launching a community-based Linux distribution, OpenSuSE, at next week's LinuxWorld in San Francisco, according to sources close to the company.

I'm sure a lot of Linux geeks will be happy to hear this news but as a SUSE Linux user since version 7.3 a few years back, I'm concerned.

One of the reasons I like SUSE is because it's not cutting-edge but as a result is also more stable. It's frankly one of the best distros going. Red Hat did the same thing when they started the Fedora Project and it took several incarnations and years before Fedora became anywhere near stable. And in Red Hat's case, they discontinued the retail version.

I'm all for SUSE making a community-driven version as long as they don't give up on the retail version. For the time being, it doesn't look like they intend to:

The expected distribution model isn't quite the same as Red Hat's, though; unlike Red Hat, which only makes Fedora available as a download and doesn't offer support for it, Novell will also sell SuSE Linux in a boxed retail version with manuals and paid technical support, sources said.

Red Hat gave up on the retail product before launching Fedora I'm sure in no small part due the amount of money they make on the enterprise version. It makes total sense for Novell to do this, not sure it makes as much sense for the users who could end up with a less solid product.

Scribus tutorials

2005-07-15T08:12:00.000-04:00

KDE.NEWS mentions in this post that Linux magazine has archived a three-part series on using Scribus, a desktop publishing program. The articles are available in PDF format only.

Direct links:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Scribus recently released version 1.2.2.1 and a preview release of the upcoming 1.3.0.

Update: Posted the incorrect link to Linux magazine (or rather, the wrong one). Fixed now.

Ubuntu 5.04 Review

2005-07-11T22:10:00.000-04:00

Informative look at the Debian-based Linux distro Ubuntu.

Ubuntu uses the GNOME desktop. For those that prefer the KDE desktop, there is Kubuntu.

One of reasons I like SUSE is that it a tray applet lets you know when security updates or bug fixes are available. According to the author,

Ubuntu has a nice applet that shows up in the GNOME Panel when new updates are ready to be installed.

Mandrake has this feature, too, but only for purchased versions of Mandrake and so does Fedora.

Open Source group offers Linux development servers on CD to schools

2005-07-02T13:15:00.000-04:00

Any spare networked computer can be used as a development box with just the insert of a CD and reboot. No installation is necessary, so no hassles with over-worked school IT staff. Man, I wish they had this kind of thing when I was in school!

SUSE 9.3 Pro FTP & CDs download

2005-06-30T21:27:00.000-04:00

SUSE has always made the boot.iso file available for burning a CD to do an net install of their latest version and a live evaluation CD version about 1 month after it was available for order and at retail. A while back after the release of 9.3, they made 2 DVDs available, one which runs entirely from the DVD (live version) and the other which is used for installing the SUSE to the hard drive.

This week they made available the CD you can use to do the net install. And, they've also made the entire 5 CD set available for downloading!

If you want to save time, you might still want to downlaod the boot.iso file (it's in the /9.3/boot/ folder of the mirror you choose. It's only 60 MB and is used for doing the graphical install of SUSE entirely from the Internet. It's not difficult to do and saves you having to download 5 CDs full of packages you might never use. Be sure to look at the README file before starting.

The popular wisdom regarding download sites is to pick one geographically close to you. Popular wisdom isn't always right. If you can't get a fast one try ones in Central Europe or less populous countries. I'm in Canada and have had good luck with Austrian mirrors, for example.

Debian - It Doesn't Suck Anymore

2005-06-26T14:25:00.000-04:00

I know the title will have Debian fans frothing at the mouth but I truly mean it in a complimentary way. I've installed Debian in the past but getting all my hardware to work easily and getting a desktop environment setup, again, easily, was a pain in the ass. I've watched a Debian GNU/Linux expert install Debian only to have the mouse not detected. The mouse was a PS/2 mouse! Hardware detection seemed to be non-existent. Debian seemed to know nothing about your system and had to ask you everything.

But that was the past.

The new stable release of Debian (Sarge) has a much better installer. It's still text-based but it detected my wireless USB keyboard and mouse and setting up a KDE desktop was as easy as choosing a Desktop option and it was all installed for me. I had to choose the right video card driver, though. And the install did take about 1.5 hours (about double as long as the typical Linux distribution). It even offered to replace my boot loader with one that amazingly detected SUSE Linux and Windows XP Pro and offered entries for them. I didn't trust it though and tried to set it up in the MBR of its own drive (which failed). It's not perfect, but it's definitely a step in the right direction and the desktop install gave me a lot more applications than the average distro. And of course, being so new, it has the latest of everything.

I chose the Net Install ISO (about 110 MB) which I downloaded as a torrent using Azureus. Then the installer automatically gave me the option of adding desktop, web server, file server, development packages, etc. I just chose the desktop option and I appear to have both GNOME and KDE. In any case, if you had trouble with Debian in the past, it's worth another look. Download the ISO and try it out sometime.

Fleming Linux - Basic course

2005-06-25T12:40:00.000-04:00

Finished teaching this Linux course Wednesday night. It was a great experience and everybody did pretty well. Fleming is offering it again in January of 2006 so come on out if you're interested.

Book review: Beginning SUSE Linux

2005-06-24T05:55:00.000-04:00

Apress sent me a copy to review. This is an introductory softcover book about how to use SUSE Linux. It includes SUSE 9.1 Professional version on DVD.

It's jam-packed with information that is suitable for the Linux newbie. However, it also offers info I haven't seen in introductory Linux books before about using OpenOffice.org, backing up personal data (command-line and graphically), optimizing your system, using Rekall and security. Sure, these topics are covered in a few texts like O'Reilly but not usually with so many screencaps and step-by-step exercises.

As with most introductory textbooks that try to cover a little of everything, nothing is covered in depth, but I've seen more depth here than most beginning books and more to the point, it's great to see a book for my favorite distro! This book will take the beginner through from installing SUSE Linux to using it as their everyday desktop. Enough is covered about using the shell that it won't be terrifying to newbies but will still give them a solid grounding in the console.

The book is easy to get into and a delight to read. If you've always wondered about SUSE (or just Linux), there is simply no better book that I've seen for becoming an intermediate user.

My only complaint is that the book includes a DVD instead of one or several CDs. I may be wrong here, but I really don't think DVD-ROM drives are so common in systems that everybody can be expected to have one. And seeing as how this is a book that's actually specific to a distro, having the distro on CDs would be handy. Thankfully, you can download a one-CD version of 9.1 Personal from the SUSE website and then use a mirror as a source instead of the CD so you can get professional packages too. To give them credit, the book does mention this for the DVD-challenged amongst us.

More information as well as a sample chapter is available here.

Tux Magazine

2005-06-23T04:23:00.000-04:00

Produced by SSC (the same people behind Linux Journal), Tux is a magazine designed for new Linux users. The magazine is available in PDF format as a download or within your browser. I haven't tried it in xpdf and it generates an error message on loading in Acrobat Reader 5.02 so best to get the latest version of Acrobat Reader. No reason to scroll. Go full screen and click through it!

Btw, you do need to subscribe with an email address in order to view it but it's free. If you're worried about getting spammed, check out Mailinator or Sneakemail.

OpenOffice.org Writer vs. Microsoft Word

2005-06-23T04:10:00.000-04:00

This seems to be a thorough review of OpenOffice.org Version 2 Writer as compared to Word 2003. The author writes:

Both are adequate for most users' purposes, so I focused on functions that power users are likely to want:

Styles
Templates
Outlining
Bulleted and numbered lists
Tables
Headers and footers
Indexes and tables of content
Cross-references
Conditional text
Master documents
Drawing tools
Unique features

SUSE Linux 9.3 Slideshow at OSDir.com

2005-06-07T00:51:00.000-04:00

SUSE is my preferred Linux distribution and has been for several years. I've found it most polished than many other distros including Mandriva. The new version looks really spiffy judging by some of these screenshots at OSDir.