Podcasts! Linux Outlaws

Linux Outlaws is a podcast about  Linux. It generally covers all sorts of Linux and other FLOSS related releases and news. Also at times provides a uniquely European and No-Agenda style political views. I have found this to be the best general Linux news podcast out there as they tend to discuss all the important issues. Dan & Fab have a slightly different style of podcasting having more in common with the No-Agenda show (review to follow) then it does to the more traditional TWiT podcasts. This means if you don’t like silly bumpers and Fab having way to much fun the time sound board sometimes then some shows might wear on you a bit. I tend to enjoy those parts though and if you don’t all I can say is I am disappointed in you. If you don’t get the joke just watch or listen to an episode or two and you will figure it out… probably. In the end if you want an entertaining podcast with Linux news well this should be the one.

Link: Sixgun Productions

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While installing Gentoo I ended up with Kubuntu

So today I thought would be a good day to switch my desktop back to Linux. As normal when i try out Linux again I tried Gentoo. Last time I tried I managed to get a booting kernel on the first try and everything worked. Well this time it couldn’t been further from the truth. I didn’t start with high hopes. I spent some time this morning reading some of the Gentoo blogs and to say the least the amount of fighting the Gentoo developers are doing right now is pretty scary. Little did I know that the developers relationships were in better condition then there installation documentation.

While trying to install the 64bit version of Gentoo I managed to find numerous places in the Gentoo handbook where there were either files mentioned that no longer seemed to exist as well is a complete lack of updates (they had no mention of ext4 but still mentioned reiser as though its something people really use still). In the end I managed to get my setup configured or at least I thought though with the instructions I felt as though I messed up smoe of the networking. That didn’t matter though as on boot it got to USB loading and just stopped. Well normally I would recompile the kernel and try again but tonight I figured the few hours I had already spend were enough.

Well I pulled out my Kubuntu 11.04 disk and amazingly it worked… for the most part. I managed to crash the partition manager by attempting to click the format checkbox for the swap partition but that was about all. In the end I got a fresh install of Kubuntu now. Going to have some fun tomorrow playing with Go now that I don’t have to work in VM’s to do the work.

Linux hits 1% but will it stay?

I actually find this entertaining cause I was at Net Applications site the other day and told a friend “Hey Linux could hit 1% this month”. Wonderfully that has come true. But don’t get all excited about that just yet. If you have been paying attention to the news you would not Ubuntu 9.04 just released a week or so ago. Well you might ask what does this mean? Well something very important for web hit numbers. When a new version of Ubuntu comes out tons of people try it. It tends to get press and so everyone wants to see if this Ubuntu thing might be right for them. Of course not all these people will stick with the OS so the question becomes. Ubuntu is 1.02% now but will it be able to not lose more then .02% from those who remove Ubuntu? Personally I think we might be more like 1-2 months from the actual 1% mark but at the same time I actually think we have been past the 2% mark for awhile. Net Applications doesn’t get to measure important things like computers without Internet which is large part of the world still and some of these people do have old machines running Ubuntu. So what does this all mean? Nothing really except that from the main stream market that shows up on Net Applications charts Linux is growing a bit still at the expense of OSX and Windows. Nothing new here.

Links:

• OSNews

Another look at Windows being on ARM

OSNews brought up once again the idea of Microsoft making a version of Windows for the ARM architecture. In the past I have pointed out that if Microsoft doesn’t that they will eventually fall behind in the netbook market. This is caused by the fact that ARM netbooks are looking like they will not only be smaller then the atom netbooks but also may even allow for even more battery life while at the same time providing better video playback by having a graphics chip with some power to it (the 945 from intel is ancient now by todays standards). Of course OSNews points out one thing that so far many overlook. Unlike Linux which has been on ARM for awhile and so it has apps ported to ARM when you look at Windows they have NO ARM apps besides the stuff made for Windwos Mobile. Of course in theory using .net they could get a few apps but how many major apps that you use in your everyday life are .net based? I can bet its a small number. Of course I don’t think Microsoft really expects the users that buy netbooks to buy Office. I think that Microsoft is making the web based Office 14 exactly for netbooks as a way to prevent the huge amount of space office would take up and also the fact that most people still use a disc to install Office (no small feat when you have no DVD drive). In the end I think I agree with OSNews. Microsoft will probably not make an ARM version of Windows it’s just not in it or its partners interests to maintain two platforms. The real question here is will this kill ARM netbooks?

Links:

•  OSNews

Linux is only getting faster

Many people are talking about the “huge” improvements in speed that Microsoft is seeing with Windows 7. Few though look at what Linux is doing to get going faster. OSNews posted an interesting article going over briefly what is going on. I find it impressive that many working on the GCC project are still finding even more ways to tweak the compiler to make it faster. At the same time we are seeing huge improvements in filesystems with updates to ext3 and 4 the one thing I was kinda disappointed with was no mention of btrfs. The one other area that it misses is the graphics gains we will likely see in a year or so from X when DRI2 is finished. When you look at it the Open Source movement isn’t sitting back at all and even though a lot of Open Source software already runs fast that doesn’t mean they wont stop looking at making it go faster.

Links:

• OSNews

Ubuntu 9.04 Released

Ubuntu 9.04 was released today. This is the standard 6 month update with the normal slew of updates for the kernel, GCC, Gnome and many other applications. The major new addition in 9.04 is the addition of a new notification system. Unlike the old notification system that has been in Gnome for years Ubuntu has made a more clean looking notification system which is probably Ubuntu’s best change with this release. Of course the new login screen will be seen by many as a joke it doesn’t look as professional as the old Ubuntu login screen but hopefully that wont cause people to reconsider the OS. Overall its a great release and if you want to try Linux for the first time try Ubuntu.

Links:

• Ubuntu

Btrfs the other upcoming FS

Awhile back I provided some links for information on ext4 the new update to ext3. Of course ext4 is in no the end to new formats. Oracle has been working on Btrfs (Butter FS) for a bit now and its in the latest Linux kernel as unstable. Now many people have still never heard of Btrfs but it is a very interesting file system that is able to do pretty much everything ZFS does and more. I am personally really excited for Btrfs as it is promising to be faster and more resilient then ext4. For more information about Btrfs and some interesting benchmarks follow the link provided.

Links:

• Linux Magazine

Oracle to buy Sun Microsystems

In a huge surprise announcement Oracle today has announced it will buy Sun Microsystems for around $7.4 billion. I guess Sun made a good decision backing down from IBMs lower second offer. What does this mean though for Sun? According to Oracle this is going to mean great things for both companies. Does Oracle realize they are buying a dying company? So the question really is what will live on at Oracle? Solaris and Java seem to be the two biggest parts of Sun that Oracle is excited to get. Oracle claims that Solaris is one of the most often used platforms for its databases and uses Java in many of its products. Having these products in house means they finally get the control they have most likely always wanted. Oracle is also talking about how they can now create a “fully integrated system”. This most likely will help Oracle as a company. The question is what will happen to Sun’s other products? From the sounds of a integrated system I have a feeling we may end up seeing a revitalization of the SPARC architecture. This could help out the slowly dying product and would be good to see as SPARC is actually really well made it just hasn’t had the force behind it that it needs. The biggest question though is what will happen to MySQL? Oracle is known as THE database company. It sells numerous databases and they are not known to be cheap so where will MySQL fit in? From this MySQL’s fate seems to be rather open. The other big product that people are wondering about is OpenOffice. What will happen to the slowly dying bloated Office Suite? Once again nobody really knows. Of course there will be many going “wait Oracle and Open Source?” but that should not be odd. Oracle has had a lot of involvement in Linux and Open Source as its databases have run on it for a long time. The most interesting thing is that it bought a Unix company even with its huge support for Linux. Maybe they will finally make ZFS completely free. Of course who knows as Oracle has been working on Btrfs for awhile now. There is one question though that we know is answered. At least this will finally end the random Red Hat-Oracle rumors that seem to have been randomly popping up this year.

Links:

• Oracle Press Release
• eWeek
• Linux Journal
• OSNews

Easy way to make your own GNU/Linux distro

PCPlus posted a very interesting article not to long ago about how to create your own GNU/Linux distro. It uses Fedora’s revisor tool. I remember reading about this tool a year or so ago and at the time there was really nothing else out that was as easy to use. I never actually tried it but from the looks of it revisor is very easy to use. I point this out because for awhile the have been tutorials out there for how to reversion Ubuntu for your own use but it has never been this easy with a wizard for the whole way through. I may play with revisor at some point in the future but I have never been able to use Fedora for very long it always seems to have some bothersome bug that shows up not long after I start using it.

Links:

• PCPlus

Canonical responds to Microsoft’s netbook FUD

Ok for those who don’t know what FUD means it’s Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. It is a tactic Microsoft has been using for years and probably should get them in trouble for slander but some how lying about a competitors product seems to just be Microsoft’s way again. I had thought they had gotten better about this and stopped using it but I guess I was wrong.

Ok now that that is out of the way on to the real show. Canonical has responded to Microsoft’s article on netbooks that I had done a nice rebuttal to. Well interestingly Canonical made a lot of the same points as me and even got some nice numbers for the driver issue and finally proving there is more drivers under Linux (seriously does this really matter Microsoft?). Overall I think this article does a good job of rehashing what Microsoft said that is wrong and is very well written and with more examples.

Links:

• Canonical Blog