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Ubuntu Networking and Linux Packaging

Brad — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:51:46 +0000

I think my Macbook / Mac OS X has spoiled me as far as interfaces go. I’ve tried about three times now to mess around with Linux in a dual-boot fashion on the desktop, and each time I find something that frustrates me a little bit. At the moment, I’ve gone back to virtualizing Linux within Windows 7 to mess around with some different distributions. I can’t seem to come to rest on one. I thought I had with Ubuntu, but this latest issue with DNS resolution is driving me nuts. At work, it goes along well and then all of the sudden it takes almost a full minute or two for a DNS address to resolve. I’ve gone through bug reports, tried every workaround mentioned and still no joy. I’m a bit worried I’m going to run into the same sort of situation when using another distribution, so I’m hesitant to try to rebuild the work box.

One thing I really, really like about OS X is the software packaging. For most applications, you download either a .DMG (disk image) or a compressed file, open it and drag the app into your Applications (or other) folder, and you’re off and running. Everything is essentially self-contained, which is nice. I remember a discussion about Linux software distribution and packaging, and someone brought up this point. While it would be nice for Linux, could you imagine having a few copies of GTK being distributed with each application? That being said, GTK could always be installed by default, but that would defeat the purpose of self-contained packages, especially if a piece of software depends on one particular version of GTK (or any other library, for that matter). I don’t foresee any one packaging scheme becoming default across the board, as there’s always going to be a group that feels that their way is the right way and they’re going to do it like they want to. To me, this is Linux’s biggest problem as far as getting commercially supported software developed for it. While there are some companies who are distributing software for Linux (I can think of a couple of games), a majority still remains.

Linux Zealotry: Come on, Really?

Brad — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:00:20 +0000

I started taking a look at the Ubuntu Forums again lately, trying to resolve an issue with networking on my Karmic box at work, and I got a reminder of why I don’t go there much anymore. Linux zealots, but not just any type, the “hey, I ditched Windows for Ubuntu and now everything but Linux sucks lol” type. Now, I’m not saying every Ubuntu user, or every new convert is like this, but it would seem that the number of these types of people are growing. I used to subscribe to this sort of mentality, but over the past two years I’ve broadened my horizons, so to speak, and have come to realize it’s not about what OS is best in general, it’s all about what OS is best for YOU. Use what works. I use Windows, Linux and OSX to varying degrees and they all provide different things for my computing experience.

The other issue I see a lot is the hatred of something someone doesn’t really understand or even know that much about. I give you this particular post in a thread asking about running Mac OS X virtualized. The comment:

Who cares if its illegal, now folowing a guide it might work, but i have never had it work for me though i did run my PC as a hackinto** oops hackincrap for 2 days. Mac os X is way too simplified and basically only for idiots, i mean who would pay $2000 for $500 hardware just because it runs mac os?

So apparently all OSX users are idiots. I responded, and outlined things I could do with OSX that Linux could also do, and never got a response. Two days is not nearly enough time to get to know OSX, and I didn’t buy Apple just for OSX. I ran OSX on the Dell laptop my Macbook replaced, and I have to say my Macbook feels more solid and well-built. Everyone likes to target Apple products since they seem to be overpriced, but they do not take into account the total cost of ownership, the durability or usability. I have a generation 1 iPod, that if I found a Firewire cable I bet would start right back up.

It’s okay to be passionate about something, but have all of the facts before calling someone an idiot, saying something doesn’t work, or trashing something. Just use what works for you.

Gone Virtual

Brad — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:39:58 +0000

I’ve come to a decision about Linux / Windows on my desktop and laptop. For the foreseeable future, I intend to run Windows as the host OS, and run Linux as a guest. Before you hardcore Linux guys (yes, I was one of those guys) accuse me of selling out, hear me out on this. Recently I’ve been finding myself spending a lot of time on the Windows side of my desktop. I’ve been doing a lot of gaming, and recently with my photography beginning to pick up I’m finding that the tools I need are on the Windows side. iTunes is another reason. There’s no way to sync my iPhone on Linux, and by sync I mean everything: apps, contacts, music and pictures. Sure, there might be a hack for the music portion, but I need everything.

This doesn’t mean I’m done in the Linux community, or that I don’t like Linux any more. I’m just going to start using the best tools for the job, and of late at home it’s a combination of native Windows, virtual Linux. Who knows, I might end up changing my mind again next week, but time will tell.

Life with Emacs #2: Buffers and Note-taking

Brad — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:04:43 +0000

Emacs might be thought of as a programmer’s editor, but it works just as well as a text editor. But Brad, isn’t it a bit overkill to use Emacs for text editing? I’m a fan of getting as much use as I can out of an editor, and what better way than this? The buffers are one of my favorite things about Emacs. Sure, Vim has buffers, too, but I like the navigation in Emacs better. In my work, I deal with support tickets. So, when I take on a ticket, the first thing I’ll do is this C-x C-f 1111111, where 1111111 represents the ticket number I’m working on. Then from that point, as I gather information, I copy things from one window to another into that buffer to keep it handy. Once in a while, I’ll save the buffer with C-x C-s so I don’t risk losing the notes. This is definitely an easy way to keep my notes separated by ticket, and if I happen to be working on multiple tickets, I can switch buffers with C-x b then the buffer name.

By default, Emacs starts you out in a scratch buffer. I keep this open and use it to copy / paste tidbits of information that I might need later in the day, such as commands or even some time tracking. It truly is a scratch buffer in this case, and it works wonders. That’s it for this week. I was going to share my cheatsheet, but sadly I lost it. I’ll have it for next week. For now, I leave you with a summary of commands I used this week. For each of the commands, please note that C is the Control key, and M is the Meta, or ALT, key.

Emacs Commands Used

C-x C-f filename – Create a new file called filename. Can include paths. Example: C-x C-f /home/fubar/temp.txt
C-x C-s – Save the current buffer
C-x b – Switch to buffer. Presents a default buffer name, but type the name of the buffer you want.

Life with Emacs #1: The Beginning

Brad — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:17:28 +0000

I’ve tried a couple of times to try to write a recurring series here, and this is going to be my latest (hopefully not failed) attempt. I present, Life with Emacs, a walk through Emacs through the eyes of someone still trying to learn all of the important keybindings. Each week, I’ll look at a particular task I’ve been using Emacs for, and along with it hopefully provide some other newbies some insight into what I’m going through.

As far as backgrounds in editors go, I’ve pretty much been a GUI / Vim guy for as long as I can remember. I know enough Vim to get in and out of a file relatively quickly, but for any heavy coding, I’ve leaned on an IDE to help me out. I figured I would try out Emacs for a few reasons. One, there’s plenty of Emacs users at work I can bother with questions. Two, there are a lot of potentially useful modes that might actually be able to help me organize myself at work. Finally, I want to break down and learn the ins and outs of one editor, and I’ve chosen Emacs to focus on. Will I stick with it? Time, and my patience, will tell the tale. I plan to use Emacs in place of other editors that I had been using to create scratch notes as I work on things at work, and also plan to use it to do the occasional scripting / web maintenance that I’m tasked to do.

Next week I’ll present the beginnings of my little Emacs cheatsheet and will dive into the first task I’ll look at, which is note-taking in my work environment.

Wyrd, Remind and Cron – Minimal, Yet Functional

Brad — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:31:14 +0000

I had a problem at work. I get scheduled for things such as installs / upgrades and general support, but couldn’t find a decent reminder app that I liked in either Gnome, KDE or XFCE. That’s where Remind, and the curses-based frontend Wyrd come into play. Remind in and of it self isn’t the greatest when it comes to being a user-friendly application, but slapping Wyrd in front of it makes it a bit more bearable. You still need to know the basic Remind syntax, but it’s not bad. The bonus of this setup is that I can look at it remotely with ease through an SSH session, which is a big deal to me as sometimes I work from home.

Remind syntax is pretty basic, and rather than get into a full-blown tutorial right now, I’ll share a basic reminder entry from my .reminders file:

REM Nov 14 2008 AT 17:00 DURATION 1:00 MSG Timesheet

On November 14 at 5 PM, I need my timesheet done. Duration is one hour, and the message shown is Timesheet. If I look at this through Wyrd, I’ll see 17:00-18:00 blocked out on my calendar. Pretty nifty. So, where does cron fit in to this solution? Well, using cron and GXmessage, I can display a list of upcoming reminders. Here’s the line from my box at work:

30 07  *  *  *  export DISPLAY=:0.0 && remind -q -g ~/.reminders | gxmessage -title "Reminders" -file -

At 07:30am every morning, my machine generates a list of reminders for the day in a dialog box waiting for me when I unlock my machine. Eventually I may just send the reminders to my email, but for now the dialog box gets my attention much easier. The best part about this setup is that it will work under any desktop environment you have, it’s text/curses based and not heavy on resources at all. Other options I had evaluated, and why I didn’t choose them:

Sunbird/Lightning
At one point I was using Lightning and Thunderbird for email, but it got too heavy, and I couldn’t easily read email remotely with Thunderbird. Sunbird is just the standalone calendar app, but again, not easily checked remotely.

Google Calendar
I like to stay on the cautious side and not keep anything work related on servers outside of the realm of my workplace. While it would work OK, I don’t think it would sit well with the higher-ups. This also goes for any to-do type applications online.

Links

Remind
Wyrd

Emacs again.. Wait, what?

Brad — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:31:43 +0000

A while ago, I declared my Emacs experiment over. Well, the power of the dark side compelled me once again, and I’m back to using it. I find it’s quite useful during my workday as I can whip open a new buffer for a different ticket as I work on them, then either kill them or save them off for later. I ditched the planner/org mode for now, but I might revisit it at a later time.

I have a webapp to rewrite, but I’ve been struggling with pulling together some motivation to work on it at home. My mind’s been all over the place the past couple of weeks and I just haven’t been getting my geek on like I used to. I guess part of that might be due to the fact that work has been rating an 8 or higher on the suck-o-meter and I just want to leave work behind when I leave the office (which admittedly I’m having a hard time doing). Once I do start coding, though, Emacs is where I’ll have my code living.

The Final KDE Nail

Brad — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:59:36 +0000

I think I can safely say I’m done with KDE. I tried 4.1 again, and found it to be a bit sluggish on my desktop… my Quad-core, 2GB RAM, nVidia 8600GT desktop. I find that to be unacceptable, really, especially since KDE3 flies. Now, I guess I could go back to KDE3, but really, how much longer are they going to keep up with it? I’ve been using XFCE/Gnome now for a while, and I’m pretty comfortable. In fact, I’m typing this from Gnome 2.24 right now, and it feels about as fast as XFCE does, so I think I’ve found my new desktop environment. Don’t get me wrong, there are still a couple of KDE apps I’ll still use, such as Amarok and K3B, but as far as desktops go, I think I’ll stick with Gnome.

What's in a name?

Brad — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:46:30 +0000

Over the years, I’ve had quite a few online nicknames, and for the life of me, I’m not sure why I haven’t stuck with one. The latest one, geekgamerdad, while it does describe me, doesn’t seem to fit me. Of late, I’ve taken to using ‘thefubar’. I had to add ‘the’ in front of it simply because there are a lot of other ‘fubar’s out there, but it’s a term that’s stuck with me since high school and my BBS days. I still remember people asking me where it came from. Most seem to think it came from that old ‘Tango and Cash’ movie, but actually it’s a term that was thrown around a lot in the fire service. I sometimes miss those days of volunteering with the fire department, but things have changed a
lot since then. I’ve got a wife and child to think about, and the last thing I’d want to happen is to have mommy have to tell our daughter that daddy’s not among us anymore.

This leads me into my next thought. Just how many email accounts do I really, truly need? I’ve got my main one, brad, here at endperform.org; I’ve got geekgamerdad at gmail, I’ve got geek_gamer_dad at yahoo. On the IM side, it’s the same story. So, what am I going to do about it? For starters, I do want to standardize on one username and stick with it. ‘thefubar’ seems to work just fine for me. Of course, if you’re on my IM list somewhere, I won’t change without letting you know what the new username is. I’m just at a point where I want to get everything somewhat aligned, hopefully without having to re-create many accounts.

While I’m on the subject of change, I’m looking to change up my desktop again. I’ve been running with XFCE and AWN for a while, but it’s starting to get stale. At work, I think I may revert back to Ubuntu, just for the sake of sanity and being able to deal with that box a bit better. I may give KDE4 another look, but only at home… I don’t think the work machine has enough graphical horsepower to deal with it. I used to love KDE, but the 4.x series has a way to go to win me back. People are saying 4.2 will be better, so I might wait until then and try.

/home, /home on the range

Brad — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:48:54 +0000

I’ve talked a couple of times before about /home, and how important I feel it is to have it as a separate partition. After this week, I wanted to reiterate my stance on this, and here’s why. A coworker wanted to install a different distribution without needing to wipe out the contents of home. Unfortunately for him, he did not have /home as a separate partition, so he had to opt for backing up somewhere beforehand. A few hours later, he came back asking for a hand in setting up a separate home partition. If you’re someone like me that sometimes likes to change the distribution you’re using, or if you rather do a fresh install of the latest Ubuntu, a separate /home directory is the way to go. You can leave all of your documents and files there, install the fresh OS and be ready to go, no need a backup before you start. Now, that doesn’t mean don’t keep a backup of your data somewhere. You should always have a backup somewhere, and I plan to update my Unison HOWTO soon.

Separate /home is also nice when you’re dealing with a multi-drive system and you don’t have a RAID set up. In my old box, I had a pair of 250GB drives, and they were partitioned as such:

Drive 1
100GB - Windows
150GB - Linux (/, /swap)

Drive 2
250GB - Linux (/home, ext3)

Now in this case, if I were to ever upgrade drive 2, it would just entail creating the /home partition and copying the contents, no reinstall of the entire OS would be needed, which is always nice.