Motho ke motho ka botho

Ordinarily I don’t wander off-topic here, but I was checking out the Flash plugin for Crux under Firefox, and tested it against a video on the BBC News Web site. Obligatory screenshot follows:

Perhaps advertising for a new car isn’t exactly … apropos when we’re talking about possibly 10,000 people dying in a storm? Maybe the BBC should rethink its advertising approach on that point.

Otherwise the Flash plugin works great. On Tombuntu’s suggestion, I might hunt down swfdec next, and see if it will go. I think I’ll try a different video source this time though.

Hello Future Me. Here’s that Crux port for Osmo you were looking for.

# Description: A handy personal organizer which includes calendar, tasks manager and address book modules.
# URL:         http://clay.ll.pl/osmo/
# Depends on:  gtk libxml2

name=osmo
version=0.2.0
release=1
source="http://downloads.sourceforge.net/osmo-pim/$name-$version.tar.gz"

build() {
	cd $name-$version
	./configure --prefix=/usr
 	make DESTDIR=$PKG install || return 1
}

Thanks, Past Me. And thanks, AUR.

I had set up the battered Thinkpad with a Crux installation, and was one-fourth of the way through an Openbox system when I remembered that I had, at one time in the past, wanted to see a full Gnome installation on Crux. I was wondering if it would feel anything like Debian did on the ugly little laptop.

Well, I spent about a half an hour trying to figure out where the Crux ports for Gnome were, and came up empty-handed. It was rather strange — the port search pages show an address and location for all the ports for Gnome, but accessing them either from a browser or from httpup gives nothing but 404s. So, rather than embarrass myself by asking the Crux mailing list where the darn Gnome ports were, I did the next logical thing: I gave up.

And then decided to go for second-best: KDE. Then decided I would be more interested in XFCE, since I had seen some very quick XFCE performance from slim Ubuntu installations. Thus far, it’s been very promising.

(Oh, so that’s what the screen looks like without that giant crack in it. )

It has all the angry speed and razorlike intensity of a Crux installation, plus the greasy-kid-stuff XFCE look … which is good, because to be honest, something needs to tame a Crux machine. Otherwise, installing Crux is like implanting a borderline personality on your computer. It’s just too fast and too temperamental to be trusted. You get the feeling something is going to go horrorcrash-wrong at some point, and it’s taking everybody with it.

But Crux is so much a jump beyond Arch that I find myself addicted all the same. My 1Ghz machine running Arch lags behind the 550Mhz machine running Crux, and is positively blown away by the 750Mhz Celeron with Crux on it. Yes, compiling stuff takes a while … but remember: All three machines are Coppermines, which means they’re compatible once a package is compiled. So I can build a Crux package on the 1Ghz machine, then just add it to the others. No extra wait time required.

So remember that the next time someone says compile-it-yourself distros eat just as much time at the start as they do for slower, less streamlined distros. It’s only true if you compile everything, every time.

I let a neighbor borrow the Pavilion for a little bit, to check e-mails and watch a DVD or two. I won’t miss it: Between the remaining three computers — scratch that: five, including the new Thinkpad and the semi-functional VAIO I still haven’t tended to — I can easily keep myself occupied for a while. The last thing I need is another computer to distract me.

And since it was running a full-blown Hardy installation, it was easy as pie to create a new user account, step down on some of the privileges and let them take it for a day or two. Ubuntu was perfect for that situation. I made sure there was an account just for her, deactivated the automatic user login to GDM, set a password she would remember, and even left the screen effects on, just for amusement. What the heck — it’s the first time she’s seen Linux, so it might as well be an addicting experience.

Anyway, if you’re letting someone borrow a full-blown Linux machine, I recommend a working, fully complete Ubuntu system. It’s the nice thing to do.

(As an added bonus, the Pavilion seems to catch my wireless network — unlike my other neighbor, whose apartment is on the other side of the hall. The walls must be thicker in that direction. I have no other explanation for it. )

nightman on the ‘forums sent me a message about UbuntuStory.com, and I want to make sure I keep a note of it here so I can find it later — it’s beautiful. I won’t give away too much of the fun, but it’s one of the best promotional sites I’ve ever seen, for Ubuntu or otherwise.

When you get a second, take a look at it, and add your story as well. It’s a great repository of testimonials, and immaculately conceived and presented. Gold smilie for nightman, et al.!

(By the way, users of older computers might want to wait until they can get their hands on something quicker to take a look. It’s going to be rather taxing on something slow.)

In between everything else I came up with a Crux port for Recorder, the wonderful little CD and DVD burning program that some fellow Archers have been fawning over these days. And with good reason: It’s fast, it’s light and it doesn’t require a mess of garbage just to burn a CD. It’s perfect.

Here’s a port against the 1.2.7 version, so you can build it in Crux.

# Description: A simple GTK+ disc burner.
# URL: http://code.google.com/p/recorder
# Maintainer: Alex Ciurana
# Depends on: pygtk, cdrkit, dvd+rw-tools

name=recorder
version=1.2.7
release=1
source=(http://recorder.googlecode.com/files/$name-$version.tar.bz2)

build () {
	cd $name-$version
	make DESTDIR=$PKG PREFIX=/usr install
}

I molded that from the Arch PKGBUILD in AUR, so it might not be picture-perfect. I’ll update it if it doesn’t quite work right. (In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t bother actually “maintaining” a Crux repository. I just copy them back out of the blog and change the version number, if it’s needed. You can do the same.)

I’m still on the prowl for a very old laptop to use as a guinea pig for Ubuntu tweaks, and I have a couple of leads on machines that sound fully functional, though they may turn out to be pricey. That would be a shame, but I suppose I should see that as an opportunity to invest in an antique, instead of resurrecting a fallen hero.

Speaking of fallen heroes, I was offered (and accepted) another Thinkpad into the family yesterday. This one was, quite literally, out on the junk heap in a shed for a year, before someone spotted it and gave it to me. This is a Model 2655, which I believe makes it an A21e — 750Mhz Celeron mobile processor, 128Mb of PC100, Intel PRO/100 onboard NIC, ATI Rage Mobility M, CDRW, Japanese keyboard and so forth. Hard drive is a 20Gb IBM-DJSA-220, which I think is similar to the one that just died on me. Best of all, the battery actually holds a charge.

I removed a thick layer of dust and goo and peeled off the Windows ME stickers, and it’s a rousing machine now. With only one defect — the screen was shattered at some point, so I get a very depressing spiderweb effect everywhere.

I’ll have to look into prices on replacement screens, mostly because I think this one might be worth keeping. I like that it has an onboard network card, and a Rage Mobility is almost a real graphics card. (I used to have a Dell CPx that had a Rage in it, and it could do some very simple video acceleration without too much sweat.)

It’s a little faster than what I want for speed testing — after all, the Thinkpad I already own is 200Mhz slower than this one — but we’ll see what happens. I did a minimal Ubuntu installation already (Arch kernel panicked on it, but I think I have a mischievous CD) and it seemed sufficiently functional … and sufficiently slow. And any processor geek will tell you a Celeron behaves slower than a Pentium of the same clock speed, which is probably true.

If I can get a proper screen on it and get a working distribution in place, maybe it will stay on hand. Or maybe it will go to charity. Who knows.

This is version 1.0 of “Howto: Set up Hardy for speed.”

This guide is a collection of tips and tweaks for Ubuntu Linux 8.04. The content comes from tutorials and speed suggestions found on the Ubuntu Forums and elsewhere. The material has been collated and narrated, and arranged with links to external resources or supplemental information.

The guide describes how to set up a faster Ubuntu 8.04 system, with an eye on machines that predate Pentium 4 models or require non-default settings to achieve better performance. Please read the Welcome pages for more information.

This howto is released under the GNU Free Documentation License, v1.2. Please read the included license page for details.

The guide is available in two forms: A Zim notebook and as a relative-linked HTML document.

The size of the guide and the material included does not lend itself to a blog post, although it could easily be incorporated into another Web site or wiki, probably with minimal effort. On a blog however, it would be too easy to make a mistake or miscode something.

Zim also makes it easy to convert the guide to HTML, which makes it a little more accessible to machines that don’t have an Internet connection, or lack graphical environments. It also makes the guide platform-independent, which means you don’t need to use Linux to read it.

The files are compressed as .tar.bz2 files, and are hosted outside of WordPress.com, which doesn’t allow that file extension to be uploaded. These guides are considerably larger than past guides, because of the inclusion of bootcharts and other visual elements.

The current versions can be downloaded by clicking on the links below.

Howto: Set up Hardy for speed, v1.0, Zim
Howto: Set up Hardy for speed, v1.0, HTML

For a command-line accessible link, please follow a link above to a download page.

To install the guide for use with Zim, decompress it into a folder, and add the folder as a notebook in Zim. The guide is introduced on the Welcome page.

To install the guide for use as an HTML document, decompress it, then open the index.html page in your browser.

For questions, corrections, ideas or suggestions for the howto, please feel free to leave a comment here. Translations and additional hosts are always welcome; I’d be more than happy to link to wikis, translations or revisions of the howto.

Enjoy!
K.Mandla

Version history:
v1.0, 4 May 2008
• Initial release

Not so long ago I proved, through my usual exemplary and infallible logic, how open source projects will always be scuttled and splintered without the least bit of effort from Redmond, simply by reminding advocates, users and devotees that they have options. Strangely enough, it seems the OLPC crowd is proving me right this time.

I watch the OLPC mailing lists only casually. The news there is primarily about the deployment of the laptops and technical issues they face, or counterpart projects in developed countries, and how they are faring. It’s esoteric, but I have a lot of experience in development work, so I find it interesting somehow.

Recently though, with the departure of Walter Bender, Nicholas Negroponte’s sudden coziness with Microsoft, and the papal bull from Richard Stallman, everybody has an opinion and the lists are buzzing a little louder.

People want to know why Sugar doesn’t handle Flash videos. People want to see XP as the framework for Sugar. People want to know if they can get one in pink. And thus the bickering ensues. K.Mandla’s law proves true again: Any open and free project faces the risk of derailment simply by reminding its acolytes that they have choice.

What happens next, at this point, is anyone’s guess. Too many generals in the OLPC structure seem without a core principle. Bender says Sugar should work on other machines too. Negroponte just wants to make sure kids in the developing world get their hands on a computer. And Ballmer … well, Ballmer is after world domination. There’s no disputing that.

For my own part, I don’t really care. It would be sad to think that the noble and courageous $100 laptop project could be scuttled by lack of decisive leadership, or flimsy goals, or by the zealots burning down the temple over things like truly free and open source software. And it would be slightly hypocritical for me to tout Sugar or open source software in this scenario — I run my system with Arch Linux, and use the wireless driver, which isn’t fully free (by Stallman’s standards anyway).

It’s a tough call. But this much is clear to me, as a spectator to the entire event:

1. Just about any government, with perhaps the exception of extremely poor nations, can probably dump Windows-driven UMPC laptops on their children for not much more than the OLPC models cost. I have a feeling it could be arranged, with the prices on some eeePCs just as possible examples. And if a government shies away from the XO because it’s not Windows-friendly, let them go.
2. So in that case, the XO really only has the added benefit of being a truly open model, giving underserved children a shot at high technology without the ridiculous strings attached to a Windows-driven product. Having said that, it should probably be a stated goal of the project to swing clear of Redmond. Talking about running Sugar on top of XP, or getting XP working on XO’s is counter to what the project stands for, in my opinion.
3. And having said that, it should be acknowledged that it’s going to be done. Windows is going to hit the OLPC at some point, and nobody’s going to get around that. But trying to draw more people to the project by welcoming Windows to the OLPC is rather like inviting the fox into the henhouse, under the pretense of universal brotherhood. Like it or not, a fox still has motives. Let Windows make its way to the XO. That’s unavoidable. But leave it to the ubergeeks at Redmond to solve.

In a nutshell I think the project should be as free and clear as possible, with a stronger goal and better leadership toward that goal. Should Sugar run on other machines than just the XO? Sure. It’s been done for a long time (I ran it against Dapper a couple of years ago, just for fun). Rewiring Sugar to run as the core OS on my Inspiron might be kind of fun.

But should Sugar run Flash videos? Nah. If you really want to play Flash on your OLPC, do it the geeky way and get an alternative distro running, and throw the Flash plugin on. Pollute your own system if you must, but I would prefer Sugar were kept clean of anything that endangers that core goal I talked about there.

Being free and open is a selling point for the laptops, and something that really should be focused on. Let Microsoft worry about getting XP on it, let the individual user work out how to embed YouTube videos on it. But I would really prefer a child in a village somewhere in South America didn’t get a laptop tainted with licensing requirements or proprietary codecs.

And for goodness sake, stop talking about choices.

This is no joke: Since last Thursday, I’ve done anywhere from 22 to 30 Ubuntu 8.04 fresh installations on three different machines, plus two Gutsy-to-Hardy upgrades (and one Dapper to Hardy upgrade, but I want to try that again). At least five of those 22+ were full Ubuntu desktop systems. Two or three were netboots. The remainder were minimal installations or lightweight graphical desktops built up from command-line installs.

After that flurry of building and rebuilding, installing and blanking, tweaking and poking, I can sum up my biggest problem in three words:

It’s too easy.

No, really. It’s not fair. I started with Breezy two years ago, and I can only imagine the immense amount of work the Hoary and Warty veterans must have suffered through to get things installed and working. Breezy was bad enough, and I won’t be going back to that any time soon.

But Hardy is what Breezy users dreamed of. You want Flash, Java and mp3 support? Click, it’s installed. You want firmware for your wireless card? Click, it’s installed. You want the proprietary driver for an ATI card that gives you solid acceleration on the erstwhile infuriating Radeon XPress 200M, a card that was released (as I understand it) as three different versions all under the same name and distinguishable only through cryptic BIOS settings? Click, it’s installed, and working like a dream.

I know what you’ll say next, and you’re probably right. “Well bully for you. My (insert component name here) doesn’t work and there’s no help on the forums and you guys all SUXXORz and Ubuntu does too and I’m going back to WinXP while I wait for Fedora 13 with USB hair dryer support.”

Okay, it’s true. The machines I used are not very new (they’re the Sotec before it quit, the Inspiron and the Pavilion, if you want to know specs). The “freshest” is already about four years old. There’s nothing that even approaches a dual core in there, and the best video hardware I’ve tested thus far has been that 200M I mentioned already. I don’t ride cutting edge, and that’s by choice.

But I’m not just talking about hardware compatibility. I’m talking about ease of use, preprogrammed user-friendliness (like command-not-found, which is sometimes annoying but for the most part a nice touch), accessibility and automation of routine tasks. So many things that were relegated to the command line two years ago are now accessible from two-click menus. You want an example? In the old days if you wanted to switch servers for repositories, you had to edit sources.list by hand to select a different one. Now? You pick it from a nifty list of options, all nested in a wonderful array categorized by nation.

My hat is off. Ubuntu has come to a point where the things that irritated or annoyed me the most — and that statement does include hardware compatibility — are gone or smoothed over to where I don’t notice them any more. There will always be rough spots, or hardware that doesn’t work quite right. But from where I stand, the fun, beautiful and easy-to-use Linux system I wanted two years ago … arrived last week.