Author Archive for Robert Pogson

Class-action Battle in BC

Published by Robert Pogson March 11th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

British Columbia, Canada, is the scene of a battle shaping up against M$ for anti-competitive acts causing harm to purchasers of licences. The class was just certified.

” The statement of claim alleges that Microsoft committed specific anti-competitive acts aimed at a number of competing products. These include:

(a) DRI’s DR DOS operating system;

(b) IBM’s OS/2 operating system;

(c) Go’s PenPoint, an operating system designed to accept handwriting as an input;

(d) Be’s BeOS operating system;

(e) Linux and other open source operating systems;

(f) Lindows.com, Inc.’s LindowsOS operating system, now known as Linspire;

(g) Micrografx’s Mirrors developer tool;

(h) Borland’s C++ programming language;

(i) Netscape’s Navigator web browser;

(j) Sun’s Java programming language;

(k) RealNetwork’s audio and video streaming software;

(l) Burst’s video streaming technology;

(m) Intel’s NSP software to enhance graphics and video performance of PCs with Intel computer chips;

(n) Samba open source software that allows Linux and UNIX machines to act as files, print and authentication servers for Windows clients;

(o) Lotus’ Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet software;

(p) WordPerfect (later Corel’s) WordPerfect word processing software;

(q) Sun’s StarOffice office application;

(r) Corel’s WordPerfect Office application;

(s) Lotus’ SmartsSuite application.”

I love it. I tried to get the Competition Bureau to act years ago but they declined in deference to the US DOJ. Why surrender sovereignty? Every nation should prosecute M$ into the Stone Age.

- Robert Pogson

Software Patents: Read Jonathan Schwartz’s Blog

Published by Robert Pogson March 10th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Bill skipped the small talk, and went straight to the point, “Microsoft owns the office productivity market, and our patents read all over OpenOffice.”

see Jonathan Schwartz’s Blog

It’s all about using software patents to fight software patents. It is probably why Ballmer is all talk and no cattle. M$ has more to lose than anybody if they start a war over software patents. M$ can pick off little guys with no software patent portfolio but not big guys like SUN. Let us hope SCOTUS sprays water all over that powder-keg. Software patents have to go to keep the bullies in check.

- Robert Pogson

Things are not Rosy for “7″

Published by Robert Pogson March 9th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

M$ has boasted that “7″ is so good they will not release the first service pack for two years. Well, reality has crept in to mind-set. SP1 will be released in Q4 2010 if the rumour-mill is right as usual.

Reality is not welcome to the salesmen at M$. They don’t want the public to hear any negatives about Vista-recycled. Now they have to worry that fewer will migrate from XP to “7″ or that migrations will be delayed. Poor babies. The longer XP hangs around, the more will migrate to GNU/Linux because it is an actual improvement and it’s faster. The patch rate of that other OS is the only thing fast about that other OS. Having to install a lot of patches on top of a retail licensed OS is not what they want a lot of consumers seeing, but it is happening.

- Robert Pogson

Shutting Down That Other OS

Published by Robert Pogson March 9th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I have been working at this place for three months and have made a lot of improvements:

  • set up a router
  • set up several servers
  • made clean images of XP updated from SP1 with FAT to current with NTFS for several types of PC
  • increased network speed from 10 to 100 mbits/s
  • added gigabit/s links for servers
  • added Sophos firewall/malware protection

Still it is not working. Clean machines that I installed in these three months are coming back to me. Even my own machine that I use to connect to a GNU/Linux terminal server slowed down. That was the last straw. I cannot afford the time to keep fixing XP. Last night I had an opportunity to shut down that other OS on another PC.

A teacher who is doing a fine job managing some rowdy junior high school students has lately been working late on his PC. He told me recently that it had lost its connection to the Internet. I looked at it and indeed, it no longer knew about the Atheros chip. There was no sign of malware so I expect it was some automatic update clobbered the DLINK installation. There were .DLLs missing, too. I told him I would install GNU/Linux and it would hold its configuration. He said, “OK”. The guy is only recently a PC user so I doubt he understood the implications but his needs were simple. He said he had no files to back up.

Because his PC had a flash card reader that was rare, I swapped a PC from the pool with XP. I did a base install of Debian Lenny using the netinst CD. Because he had only 256 MB RAM, I did not want anything extra. The machine would not boot past the USB keyboard so I fetched a PS/2 keyboard for the installation. Responding to prompts, I created a user for him and none for the students. I gave him a stiff password. I set up the proxy for APT pointing it at our proxy server which caches packages. The installation was routine. At the first boot the wireless card was recognized but not configured. I did the installation on 100baseT cable. I added minimal software with
apt-get install xfce4 xpdf xserver-xorg-i810 xdm iceweasel vlc abiword kwifimanager

I added the lines
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
essid default
mode Managed

to /etc/network/interfaces and commented out the eth0 entries. Wireless then worked and we had about 5 mbits/s or more. The location in my lab was not good for reception.

The X server would not start when I moved it to the classroom. The mouse was not seen by the BIOS being USB and the box being old. I added
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" to /etc/X11/xorg.conf after seeing that there was a /dev/input/mice file. X then started and I logged in as root to download and install Google-Chrome browser and Flashplayer from Adobe.com. I had to create /opt/google/chrome/plugins/ to hold libflashplayer.so link. Everything worked. “It sure is fast!”, he said, observing over my shoulder. It certainly was. We used vlc and Google-Chrome to browse some radio stations. Peter, Paul and Mary singing “The Hammer Song” brought tears to our eyes.

I added his HP Laerjet 4 printer from 1991 with a PCL5 driver and it was good. We found the copy very dirty and the drum was visibly dirty so we put in a new cartridge. The second page was clean. I dropped in later in the evening and he was having fun. No problems. I can add a few apps as a result of his experiences and have a good image to roll out to the rest of the XP machines as needed.

- Robert Pogson

Adobe and GNU/Linux

Published by Robert Pogson March 8th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

There is news that Photoshop (or at least a tiny subset) is available for Android.. Could this be the start of a move to support PS on GNU/Linux? Maybe not. The functionality added is less than ImageMagick. OTOH maybe Adobe is seeing that where there is growth, there should be PS.

- Robert Pogson

Trust

Published by Robert Pogson March 7th, 2010 in technology. 0 Comments

Trust is a word M$ does not understand. Steve Ballmer has stated that he is going all in to provide cloud services and to integrate them into that other OS. No one trusts M$. Venturing into the cloud requires trust. The only sector that is close to trusting M$ is business and they trust M$ like a rattlesnake. You are doomed if you trust a rattlesnake not to strike. It’s what they do. They will strike eventually if you stay within range. Best to leave them alone.

Business trusts M$ so much they passed on Vista and they are not rushing to “7″. When is business going to get into bed with M$ in the cloud? Maybe “8″ or “9″, after many have migrated to more open systems? Not likely. Gartner predicts that business will escape via thin clients in the next few years. They’re leaving you, Steve. It’s a couple of years before GNU/Linux is popular on the desktop and thin clients are already mature technology. Neither needs that other OS, or M$.

Sure, some will stick with that other OS when they venture into the cloud but it will not be because they trust M$.

- Robert Pogson

A Walk on the Winter Road

Published by Robert Pogson March 7th, 2010 in Teaching. 0 Comments

Winter roads are different here. Not only do we have to contend with ice and snow, we have a lot of water and mud that matters. There are no all-weather roads here. Improvised roads are constructed each winter on ice and portages. It is worth the effort because of the relatively high cost of air freight compared with trucking. At the same time, ordinary folk get an opportunity to drive into Winnipeg for shopping, visiting and fun.

The heavy trucks require several feet of ice to support their weight. To thicken the ice, snowcover is cleared in a wide strip, about 200 feet across. On the portages sometimes driving is restricted to lower temperatures so that quagmires are frozen. Most of this week, the road will be officially closed because of warm temperatures. The next week it closes for good. “Official closure” has important legal consequences. If you total you rig while closed, you have no insurance. I knew a guy who wrecked a new pick-up when it rolled on a portage.He travelled one day after official closure and had no insurance.

I thought I would go for a walk on the ice in the cool of the morning to take these pictures. I saw only a few vehicles on the road and the ice was in excellent shape, no signs of break-up although it has had some puddles. There is a picture of a rig that brought in sewer pipes. There is a picture showing the cracks in the ices. Some appear to be quite superficial. Others go down a foot or more. When the ice is thinning there will be a longitudinal crack under the path of the big trucks. They have to drive slowly to avoid making waves.Sewer Pipe Winter Roadbull-dozed approach winter roadcracks in the ice of the winter roadIntersection in the Winter Road

Cottage by the Lake Near the Winter Road

Cottage by the Lake Near the Winter Road

- Robert Pogson

Some Judges Promote Litigation as a Model of Business

Published by Robert Pogson March 6th, 2010 in technology. 0 Comments

This is a long story. I will try to give a condensed version justice, unlike what some judges involved in the case have done.

  • 1995 - Novell sells its UNIX business to The Santa Cruz Operation, SCO. SCO cannot afford the price so takes only the business operation and passes royalties/licence fees back to Novell. They sign an Asset Purchase Agreement that explicitly excludes copyright. Later, they amend the agreement to include agreement to transfer copyrights needed to conduct the business.
  • 2001 - SCO operates the business until 2001 without transferring the copyrights. They change their name to Tarantella and sell the UNIX business to Caldera Systems who then change their name to The SCO Group.
  • 2002 - SCOG hires Darl McBride to be CEO. Until that time Caldera/SCOG had been a GNU/Linux company with bright prospects. They lost a lot of money but just missed the dot.com bubble with an IPO. RedHat caught the wave and became very liquid. McBride looked for another source of revenue and, seeing that GNU/Linux and UNIX operating systems had some files in common, tried to transfer the copyrights in order to sue users of the GNU/Linux operating system. Novell refused because GNU/Linux was in their business and SCOG’s UNIX business did not need the copyrights as proven by six years of operation.
  • 2003 - SCOG sues IBM and AutoZone for use of GNU/Linux, claiming they owned the copyrights. Novell intervened to overrule SCOG as it had a right to according to the 1995 APA. SCOG sued Novell for Slander of Titile. RedHat sued SCOG in self-defense.
  • 2003-2007 - Giving SCOG all kinds of slack, the Federal Court in Utah allowed many millions of documents and versions of software back to the ancient days of UNIX/AIX at IBM. It boils down to who owns the copyrights. SCOG provided no evidence that it did. Judge Kimball was “astonished”. SCOG v AutoZone and RH v SCOG fizzled because they hinged on the results of the other two cases. In 2007, Judge Kimball finally put the brakes on SCOG by ruling that SCOG did not get the copyrights, by summary judgement, the plain law of contracts applied to the case and ordered SCOG to pay royalties to Novell. SCOG then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy even though they were not bankrupt, technically. This automatically stayed all litigation including a referral of the matter to arbitration in Switzerland under the UnitedLinux agreement to which Novell and SCOG were parties agreeing not to sue each other over IP.
  • 2007-present - Once again the courts, this time bankruptcy court in Delaware, gave SCOG all kinds of slack. Without even having to show that protection was needed or desirable, the court stayed all litigation. Judge Gross even extended the time in which SCOG had exclusive control of the reorganization. No reorganization happened. In 2009, Judge Gross appointed another judge, Cahn, to be trustee in Chapter 11 with a particular role to evaluate the litigation as well to manage the financial affairs. SCOG appealed and got the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal to order the trial to resume without some of the summary judgements being effective. They wanted the jury to decide whether copyrights transferred even though the copyright law states their must be an explicit transfer and there was not, Judge Cahn has virtually folded up the legitimate business to pay the lawyers ahead of creditors and to borrow millions from insiders to keep the farce going. Yesterday, Judge Gross signed the order permitting this. Judge Kimball has recused himself and the new judge in SCOG v Novell has again given all kinds of slack ruling that some of the summary judgements notwithstanding SCOG gets another chance to prove matters to a jury that were previously decided by a judge, even some matters that SCOG had not appealed.

The loan agreement from Yarrow and a few others includes provisions that if the debtor, SCOG, defaults, the group of insiders gets all the assets and walk away, subverting justice entirely. Why would two judges agree to let insiders in a bankruptcy have preference over creditors? That might be reasonable if the litigation has any chance of success but it has not. The copyright legislation is very clear. There must be an explicit transfer of copyright. Even if SCOG owned the copyrights, IBM has proven that they did not violate them, being the original authours of the code they contributed to Linux. So the outcome of this if let stand is that the insiders get to terrorize businesses that use GNU/Linux for years more until the dust settles. Even the death of SCOG will not stop this. Only the US Supreme Court can, in a year or two. Novell has appealed the Tenth Circuit result. There is a 200 page copy of a document purporting to be their request for certiorari on the web. We should have confirmation soon. The deadline for application has passed. I am hopeful that the SCOTUS will see the undermining of copyright law as sufficiently urgent to put this matter to rest ASAP.

You can read all the latest gory details including documents at GROKLAW which has grown in prominence as it follows these cases from the beginning.

If a few judges had demanded SCOG produce some evidence before starting on this campaign of litigation, how different would be the world of GNU/Linux today. Many businesses would have adopted it years earlier. Most now see that SCOG has no hat, cattle or even a dog in these cases. Why cannot the judges in Utah see that?

Update: I have put in the link to the PDF of the purported petition. The Question is:

QUESTION PRESENTED
Section 204(a) of Title 17 of the United States Code provides: “A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner’s duly authorized agent.”

The question presented is:
Whether Section 204(a) requires a writing that specifies which copyrights were conveyed, or whether, as the court of appeals held, requires only that the written instrument could be construed to convey some copyrights, leaving the factfinder to determine which,if any, copyrights were conveyed.

Lets hope the Supremes grant the petition and give prompt hearing and ruling.

- Robert Pogson

Best Argument Ever for Thin Clients

Published by Robert Pogson March 6th, 2010 in Linux in Education and technology. 2 Comments

“Think of a technical writer at a laptop computer in a coffee house. This laptop may contain all the resources available to complete the project—a word processor, page-layout program, diagramming tools for graphical insets and illustrations, and conversion tools for XML and PDF—all in the self-contained universe of that laptop, which may cost US$2,000 and have similar capabilities to a desktop machine. The software could cost as much as the system itself, resulting in a US$4,000 total investment.
In contrast, that same writer in the same coffee house may work on a thin client—a much smaller, resource-constrained system that literally costs one-tenth as much as the expensive laptop. Thanks to the software and storage available in the cloud, this thin client may have no moving parts, a very simple processor, and just enough resources to run a modern Web browser and a fast network connection, but the writer has as many—possibly even more—resources at hand than the local user, as well as the safety of knowing that his or her work will survive even if the battery dies or the laptop itself is stolen.”

That is a quotation from “Cloud computing with Linux thin clients -
Users and the environment benefit from Linux-based cloud computing systems”.

That is a powerful image that IBM shares with developers and customers the ordinary user can understand. It does beg the question of the cost of licensing on the cloud, but licences in bulk are cheaper and if FLOSS is used, negligible. In education the small size of a thin client lashed to the back of an LCD monitor is an added bonus. It is so expensive to try to obtain the raw power of a good server on each and every client. It is so efficient to share that power over the network.

- Robert Pogson

What is Happening in Malaysia?!

Published by Robert Pogson March 5th, 2010 in Linux in Education and technology. 0 Comments

I was kicking around on the web and found the trends are good for GNU/Linux in Malaysia, particularly in Prai Poking further, I find a site which advertises the price of the OS separate from the PC!. At the low end, Vista Ultimate costs 50% of the price of the box.At the high end it’s about 10%. The result may be that folks appreciate the price of GNU/Linux in Malaysia more that where I am. Even Dell sells some identical hardware side by side with Ubuntu and that other OS.

This is not a sudden development. The government of Malaysia developed a Master Plan to spark development and it is working. Desktop use of GNU/Linux has risen from 15 to 37 % from 2004 to 2006. Recent data shows the trend is still growing.

Wow! Isn’t that a model for adoption? Lead, follow, or get out of the way. I like it.

- Robert Pogson

The Death of That Other OS

Published by Robert Pogson March 5th, 2010 in Linux in Education and technology. 0 Comments

The death of a behemoth can be quick or it can be slow. It seems we will see the slow version. That other OS for the moment is XP on about 60% of PCs. M$ will cut off support for XP SP2 in July. Some fraction of those PCs are still decent machines but for one reason or another will not move to SP3. Others will come to see XP as deprecated and examine choices. We know business is seriously looking at MacOS and GNU/Linux. Consumers and OEMs will be looking at choices too. The OEMs are in a pickle. If they switch suddenly to GNU/Linux they risk profitability in the tight hardware market. If they don’t OEMs that are efficient enough to ship GNU/Linux and profit will erode share/volume. M$ has OEMs over a barrel. OEMs depend on M$ for their margin.

The writing is on the wall. More OEMs are producing low-end stuff that is good enough for most of the world and consumers are having more choices. Those who shop on the web are free to buy inexpensive PCs running GNU/Linux. That market will grow rapidly. Businesses and governments will be able to buy naked PCs and supply their distro of choice. Since they have to re-image and all that anyway, they can save money by buying naked PCs. Better, they can buy thin clients.

- Robert Pogson

Multicore Madness

Published by Robert Pogson March 5th, 2010 in Linux in Education and technology. 0 Comments

Both AMD and Intel are increasing the cores per CPU this year. This will be particularly useful in high performance computing (HPC) and servers but is kind of silly for most desktop users. For the consumer this will be one way to increase the unit price when the technology should allow adequate processing power to fall in cost. Consumers should beware and stick to the multicore technology for servers and multimedia stations but use lower-end devices in their terminals/netbooks/smartphones. The advantages of Moore’s Law are lost if one keeps ramping up the cores for all applications.

Here are some cost per MIPS calculations:


Processor Clock (MHz) Power (W) Price Price per MIPS Watts per MIPS
AMD64 X2 5200 2700 65 $60.00 $0.01 0.012
AMD64 X4 955 3200 125 180 0.03 0.020
AMD64 X8 6136 2400 80 850 0.18 0.017
AMD64 X12 6176 2300 105 1600 0.35 0.023

See? The sweet spot for CPU performance per dollar and watts per MIPS is near the low end. That is the place for client PCs. Use the hot stuff only where it is needed by the end-user, not the marketing department of Wintel who are desperately trying to keep up the average selling price of PCs. Be a wise shopper. If you don’t use that other OS and you use thin clients, you will have the best performing system at the lowest cost.

- Robert Pogson

GNU/Linux on Servers

Published by Robert Pogson March 4th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I notice that in Netcraft’s latest report, sorted by OS, it is easy to see 21 of the top 36 hosters run GNU/Linux and only 6 run that other OS. That says a lot about the cost and reliability of the OS.

In my own small corner of the world, of about 40 PCs in regular use, about one-third run GNU/Linux and the rest XP. Since I started re-imaging, three of the XP imaged machine started doing the running-slow trick. The last straw for me was my own machine that I use mostly as a thin client but also to connect to a handy colour printer. I installed Debian GNU/Linux in about 15 minutes using a caching proxy server to speed things up. Downloads averaged 6 MB/s compared to our usual 100 KB/s from the WWW. The result feels so solid. I click and it responds instantly. CUPS will handle the colour printer for me as I work on the terminal server.

- Robert Pogson

Ubuntu Rebrands Itself

Published by Robert Pogson March 4th, 2010 in technology. 0 Comments

The community of Ubuntu has reflected on its roots and its future and developed new logos and themes. It looks pretty good but the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. There is a discussion of the changes and the vision of Ubuntu on their Wiki. I know that it pays to advertise and that the visual impression affects people in subtle ways. I expect this is an improvement over the “muddy brown” theme but the real test is delivery on the promise of free software, on-time delivery and quality. Ubuntu is known for working towards a friendly user-interface and with Mark Shuttleworth concentrating more on that, perhaps this is just the beginning of more changes. Good luck to them.

I intend to stick with Debian for the forseeable future as I care little for show. I need reliable software in production and I am not convinced that the world can deliver new release on ubuntu’s schedule. Look how Debian struggles to bring bug-counts down to acceptable levels. How is releasing on a particular date going to work? Surely this means releasing with more bugs unfixed, not something I relish.

I don’t know where we are in the rate of change of software in FLOSS but I expect it is near an inflection point where it will soon slow a little. It’s hard to say because as the popularity of FLOSS grows so does interest in contributing to it. Maybe we need another layer in the chain of acceptance into distros, say, software that has been release-quality for a year or so. Then it will arrive in distros in more stable form and releases of distros should have acceptable bug-counts. Only then will releasing on a schedule work. Last time around, Debian added nearly 50% to its number of packages. When is enough, enough? I can build really great systems with a tiny fraction of the packages.

- Robert Pogson

Helplessness

Published by Robert Pogson March 2nd, 2010 in Linux in Education and technology. 0 Comments

There is news that a security hole in IE known since 2007 allows takeover of a PC running that other OS just by pushing the “F1″ key in response to a pop-up. It’s time to re-image all my PCs without IE. In fact, it’s time to re-image all my PCs with Debian GNU/Linux. I will propose it to the boss next time I see him. Perhaps this could be an item on the agenda at the next staff meeting. Some teachers have resources that can only be accessed from that other OS but most just use the web. They don’t require IE or XP to do their jobs.

The “F1″ key is used as a “Help” function in many applications. Users may be conditioned to pushing it whenever they need help. The pop-ups will come. Why did it take three years for this to come to mind? Could it have anything to do with M$ wanting to kill off XP? They claim “7″ is not affected…

see The Register.

It’s not a lot of work to make one little change to the images to fix this but it’s only temporary. The next big thing will come along. I am tired of working for M$. Time to write the memo.

Proposed Changes to Information Technology
Robert Pogson
2010-3-2

This week, there is news of yet another serious breach of security by Internet Explorer, “the blue e”, on XP. This one has been known since 2007 and yet M$ is only getting around to doing something about it three years later. An innocent user is presented with a pop-up suggesting they push “F1″ for more information about a problem. Then the malicious software gets to do whatever it wants with your PC. We need our PCs to work for us, not M$ or criminals on the Internet.

This is the latest in a long list of vulnerabilities in IE on XP. We need to stop using IE which was designed to have all these vulnerabilities as features as far back as 1995 when M$ wanted to exclude NetScape from the market for browsers because its javascript threatened M$’s monopoly. A browser is complex software and has no place tied into the operating system as IE is. I can delete IE icons from the disc images I use to refurbish PCs but this is a lot of work. It takes me 20 minutes or so for each of four kinds of PCs and then 20 minutes for each PC in the building. The list of vulnerabilities for GNU/Linux is half as long and most of the vulnerabilities are in applications and not the operating system. Bugs in open source software such as GNU/Linux are often fixed in days while M$ may take years. GNU/Linux is a UNIX-type operating system inherently secure even with multiple simultaneous users. XP was designed before 2001 with only one user in mind so the other user, the malware gets to do what it wants.

A much better solution is to eliminate the XP operating system completey. With Debian GNU/Linux, I can control each PC from my desk and update its software any time of the day that it is running. I type one command and any number of PCs can be updated. This should be possible with XP but M$ tries to keep out other systems than its own so it is not easy to change them. I can install GNU/Linux on our PCs as easily as I can put in one temporary “fix” for XP. XP is old technology designed before 2001 whereas GNU/Linux is current and uptodate with all forms of malicious software. Updates take seconds. I can download the updates to a server in the school and command PCs to install them over the LAN easily. Debian GNU/Linux is Free Software. It costs nothing to use, examine, modify and distribute. That other OS prevents us from doing many things like simply copying the image to the hard drive. I have also to let it have a verification code and let it phone home. There is no such requirement in GNU/Linux. Our PCs will work for us and not M$.

Links:

* Debian GNU/Linux - http://www.debian.org
* Latest vulnerability in IE - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/01/ie_code_execution_bug/
* Long list of vulnerabilities in XP - http://www.securiteam.com/products/W/Windows_XP.html
* Short list of vulnerabilities in GNU/Linux (many related to applications, not the operating system) - http://www.securiteam.com/products/L/Linux.html

This memo can be found with clickable links on our LAN at
http://192.168.0.127/upload/memo.html

- Robert Pogson

Pain for Wintel

Published by Robert Pogson March 1st, 2010 in technology. 0 Comments

When you manipulate the world into using your stuff and you use non-standards to do it, you have to eat your own dog-food. Intel is choking on it. as they move to “7″.

This is a fine example of why we should use Free Software and stick to open standards. All the IE6isms built into the web and LANs lock us forever into obsolete technology. Those of us who migrated to GNU/Linux years ago are laughing. We can upgrade with scarcely a concern for widespread incompatibilities.

Intel expect to save millions eventually by doing the migration but they hardly care because they make billions from the partnership. Those of us who are not monopolies should examine our choices more critically. I can upgrade my whole system merely by setting the BIOS on our PCs to boot PXE from our terminal server. That’s an upgrade from 2001 XP to 2010 GNU/Linux in an hour and everything except a couple of cheap printers will work. I won’t save millions because our IT budget is so small but I will save lots of worries about malware, re-re-reboots, slowing down and so on.

Intel should consider what they would save by migrating to GNU/Linux. They would still have to tweak their web apps but this well could be the last time it is due to M$ jerking them around. IT is just better without monopolies telling us what to do.

- Robert Pogson

Adventure with New Technology

Published by Robert Pogson February 28th, 2010 in Linux in Education, Teaching and technology. 0 Comments

Well, having time to sort through the piles of junk around here, I found another gem, a brand-new PC. Never been run. It still had a factory-installed sticker over the power connector.

I checked it out:

  • Intel Celeron D 2.8 gHz Smithfield? 1MB Cache, dual core, 64bit
  • only 512 MB DDR2 RAM
  • 80 gB SATA drive
  • DVD
  • strange desktop compact case Lenovo type 8994 doesn’t let heat rise…
  • gigabit/s NIC on-board

I won’t even mention the software. It’s 32bit and obsolete. I did not even get as far as “I decline.” Now I have choices:

  • AMD64 Debian GNU/Linux
  • “Accept” that other OS
  • use it as a server
  • use it as a desktop

I am tempted to use it as a terminal server but it lacks RAM. It would be awesome for the English teacher’s cluster. I could add 4gB DDR2 for about $100. That might be a good investment.

We are short of storage on the LAN. This thing could hold two 500gB drives I plan to acquire.

We don’t particularly need any more GNU/Linux desktops at the moment any more than we need more XP machines. 20 PCs are on the way and we expect to acquire 10 more monitors to get some sidelined machines working.

As a server the thing is limited to two drives easily and with a bit of work, perhaps four, two SATA and two PATA. As a desktop, the thing puts out a lot of heat. What were they thinking? As a server 64bitness wins big on throughput. As a terminal server 64bit could make better use of 4 gB RAM.

I think 64bitness wins the discussion. XP should go. I don’t need one more XP machine to manage. For now, 512 MB means terminal service is out. Probably a GUI is out. I will make a file/backup/clonezilla server out of it. This CPU is overkill for that but the students and I could use it for building kernels or other applications just to say we did it. It could compile and serve fairly well. RAM is on the wishlist.

- Robert Pogson

Adventure with Old Hardware

Published by Robert Pogson February 27th, 2010 in Linux in Education and technology. 4 Comments

The English teacher had a couple of old machines kicking around. They were taking up space and she wanted them replaced with something kids could use for writing.

  • 486
  • last used 5 years ago
  • 500 MB hard drive
  • 8 MB RAM

Due to a collision with a power pole, I had a bit of time on my hands or these would go direct to the junk bin. I thought there might be some hope of installing software to make them terminals. Neither would boot, so I am not close to finding out what was on the drive. One was DOA. The other would get to the BIOS and warned that the CMOS backup battery was low. I opened it up and could see no battery. It turned out to be a 3.6 V 60 mA-H NiCd battery. I ran it a bit to see if the warning would go away. It did.

Found no OS on the hard drive. Now to find a bootable floppy.

Oops. A car collided with a power pole nearby. The repairmen cut the power in the middle of this, adding to the adventure. Fortunately no one was killed. A stout brace deflected the blow, saving driver and pole. School was shut down as a precaution against kids getting involved and the power was cut off in the evening …

Tomsrtbt should give me connectivity.

pogson@xeon:~$ tar xzf tomsrtbt-2.0.103.tar.gz
pogson@xeon:~$ cd tomsrtbt-2.0.103
pogson@xeon:~/tomsrtbt-2.0.103$ ls
buildit.s  fdflush   install.s     settings.s    tomsrtbt.raw
clone.s    fdformat  license.html  tomsrtbt.FAQ  unpack.s

pogson@xeon:~/tomsrtbt-2.0.103$ less tomsrtbt.FAQ
pogson@xeon:~/tomsrtbt-2.0.103$ less install.s
pogson@xeon:~/tomsrtbt-2.0.103$ su
Password:
xeon:/home/pogson/tomsrtbt-2.0.103# ./install.s

Don't forget to READ the FAQ.

Insert a blank writable 3.5" floppy diskette then strike ENTER.

About to fdformat /dev/fd0u1722
Double-sided, 82 tracks, 21 sec/track. Total capacity 1722 kB.
Formatting ... done
Verifying ... Read: : I/O error
Problem reading cylinder 0, expected 21504, read -1
 FAILED fdformat error Enter to continue...

xeon:/home/pogson/tomsrtbt-2.0.103# ./install.s

Don't forget to READ the FAQ.

Insert a blank writable 3.5" floppy diskette then strike ENTER.

About to fdformat /dev/fd0u1722
Double-sided, 82 tracks, 21 sec/track. Total capacity 1722 kB.
Formatting ... done
Verifying ... done
About to dd floppy image
3444+0 records in
3444+0 records out
1763328 bytes (1.8 MB) copied, 163.686 s, 10.8 kB/s
About to verify floppy image
Succeeded!

Well, it took two tries to find a floppy good enough, but the old box can now be connected using only the floppy drive and the NIC.

I mounted the hard drive and found Lose ‘95. It lost.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024k
fdisk /dev/hda
mkswap /dev/hda1
mke2fs -j /dev/hda2

I then went to Rom-o-matic.net and downloaded a floppy image which would run almost any NIC (even these ISA things) and run a script to boot two files from my server:

#!gpxe
  kernel http://192.168.0.29/DSL/linux24 initrd=minirt24.gz rw root=hda2 vga=788
  initrd http://192.168.0.29/DSL/initrd.bz2
  boot

Unfortunately the NIC could not be seen. I added a NIC and it could not be seen. Going back to Tomsrtbt, I found it could see the hard drive and the CD but not the PCI bus nor the ISA bus. I tried DSL boot floppy but it could not see the CD. I then used Tomsrtbt to copy the contents of the DSL CD to /dev/hda2 and tried the DSL floppy again.

dsl install fromhd=/dev/hda2

Now it is grinding away with a blue screen showing an “X” in the centre which I can move around with the old serial mouse. We shall see whether DSL sees the NICs or whether this will be networked via floppy…

Eureka! DSL runs. So far I have the worst display I have ever seen and the hard drive is still chugging after 15 minutes. The resolution is so bad I cannot read the menu items easily. I clicked on “X setup” and a window opened eventually but nothing is visible. Finally, I killed X and configured it manually using xsetup.sh to 800×600 and 16 bits. startx then gave a very nice display.

Then, Dillo kept trying to be helpful but I had to kill it. There are instructions on how to suppress this nonsense but the slowness of the system makes it difficult to do anything. All this time the CPU was pegged at 80%. I suspect the system monitor function was using most of that. I edited .xinitrc in /home/dsl to prevent running the greeting thing.

While it is amazing that DSL fits, it runs too slowly to use the GUI and I cannot get the network interfaces to work, so I will junk these three boxes. Unless I can get 100 megabits/s and connect to the terminal server it will not be useful. I might save the NICs in case I ever see another ISA slot and screws and fans and such. After 15 years, it is time to scrap these boxes. 486DX2 used to be fun… About the only way to work around this problem would be to find a driver and compile it but I doubt it is worth the trouble.

This little adventure has been interesting. It reminds me how far the hardware has come. I will now be able to chuck this stuff with a clean conscience that nothing is wasted. Very few of the parts are reusable. It has also filled a down day with some hands-on work, one of my favourite things.

UPDATE: I finally got it to work. The problem floppy drive was replaced with a unit from another machine and so was the NIC. Apparently the NIC was faulty. The system now works as a terminal at 10 megabits/s and 800×600 quite nicely. I can type 40 words per minute and it keeps up. Redrawing a screen is painful, a couple of seconds, but that only has to be done when opening a window or scrolling around. For the few pages of essay that students write, it is usable. The last obstacle is the mouse. It is a serial mouse with a “wand” and a tiny ball at the tip. It just is not easy to use on a horizontal surface. Perhaps I can find parts for one of the serial mice missing balls. I will be able to use a better monitor with this gadget, too.

Was it worth the time? No. But I had fun, and that’s what’s important when you are any age at all. I am six (decades) old.

Specs: 486 PC from 1994, 16 MB RAM, RedHat 4.2 running X -query terminalserver to give adequate service in 2010. It certainly is no worse than Lose ‘95 and much more secure.

- Robert Pogson

M$ Loses XP downgrade lawsuit

Published by Robert Pogson February 26th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Well, the headline at ComputerWorld has it the other way around but you do not win when your customers sue you. The fact that the customer paid more to avoid your product than it normally cost to buy your defective product is not earning points in mind-share. The customer could not prove that M$ profited by the shenanigans but we know the partnership between M$ and the OEMs who push M$’s products profits every time the customer shells out more.

Customers, wake up! If you don’t like M$, stop buying their products. If the OEM forces you to buy M$, buy from another OEM and use FLOSS. Use GNU/Linux.

- Robert Pogson

OMB USA Wants Your Input

Published by Robert Pogson February 24th, 2010 in technology. 0 Comments

Office of Management and Budget is asking for input on the costs and risks of intellectual property infringement.

I offered my opinion that illegal copying helped M$ obtain a monopoly by blocking competing operating systems from the market along with information about top-grossing motion pictures and suffering writers. You should too.

Check it out at OMB.

I suggested that creating copyright and patent protection was enough for intellectual property. Should they do anything more for M$? Look what it has cost so far:

  • sure, billions flowed into the USA, but
  • more billions were needed to fight malware which roamed freely in the monoculture of the desktop PC and patch and re-re-reboot…

So, the USA should avoid unintended consequences and let the market decide.

Update: Shortly after writing this article, a post on The Inquirer reveals that a lobbying group for intellectual property advocates that Brazil, India and Indonesia be placed under scrutiny for recommending FLOSS. FLOSS btw is based on copyright and does assist capitalists making money, just not in the lazy man’s way of watching it roll in. IBM has made a ton of money promoting FLOSS.

Pathetic losers like these if followed will lead to the return of the Dark Ages for USA industry.

- Robert Pogson

Extortion

Published by Robert Pogson February 23rd, 2010 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Well, technically, it’s not extortion if you threaten to sue someone and then demand payment to prevent suit, but it should be when the grounds for suit are baseless. Software patents are vapourware and should dissipate if the SCOTUS ever rules on them.

We read today that Amazon and M$ have signed a cross-licensing deal and Amazon has paid money to M$ for use of stuff in Kindle etc., including GNU/Linux.

  • NDA
  • no specifics on the patents in question

Typical. If you want to spread FUD, this will do. We also have no word on how many businesses have told M$ where to go. So far they have only sued TomTom. United we stand. Divided we fall. That’s the game. If the world does not stand up to bullies they become more aggressive and dangerous. Seeking to diversify their cash cow, the patent portfolio will be milked repeatedly. I notice this does not rate an SEC filing so it is not huge but its FUD value may be much higher.

The worst possible outcome is the extension of the M$ tax to GNU/Linux. That will not happen. Software patents are on their way out. Copyright FUD did not work for SCOG, M$’s stooge. Patent FUD will not work for M$. Even if they somehow play the game out for years as SCOG has done, patents expire in much shorter time than copyrights. The best M$ can hope to do it use this FUD to retain control of the US market where software patents are tolerated. Most of the rest of the world gives them no play.

- Robert Pogson

Reply

Published by Robert Pogson February 22nd, 2010 in Linux in Education and technology. 0 Comments

This is a post I made in reply to some twit on another forum. It might be noticed more here…

Let see. In 1Q of PC sales, “7″ had a shot at 75 million PCs. According to W3Schools, “7″ share rose from 4% to 11%, 7% of about 1300 million PCs = 91 million including some converts. I am sure M$ is very happy.

However, total share for M$ dropped from 89% in September 2009 to 88% in January 2010. MacOS and GNU/Linux had their shares increase. Oops. I guess “7″ is not so wonderful that folks will scrap perfectly good computers just because XP is broken again. XP has 60% share. That’s up for grabs. 15% of the drop due to XP disappearing went to other operating systems, so we could see a 15% share shift away from M$ in the next couple of years.

Where I work there are 40 XP machines with 256 MB RAM. They are not worth upgrading so they will go to GNU/Linux or become thin clients. They work much better that way. When they die they will be replaced with new thin clients for about $100 each. The cost of a new server would be about $25 per machine, so we will get better performance for a cost of only $125 in current $. In a year or two, the cost could be even less.

Looking at current prices:

GNU/Linux Terminal Server

Item Price
AMD64 Motherboard $100
AMD64 X4 CPU $200
solid case $100
PSU $100
CDRW $25
4TB SATA $400
4GB RAM $125
Total $1050

The more people see GNU/Linux and MacOS in operation, the less they will be convinced they must stay with M$. 2009 saw the netbook. 2010 will be the year of ARM on a bunch of things. 2011-2012 could be the end of the desktop monopoly of Wintel.

- Robert Pogson

Distrowatch.com Stats

Published by Robert Pogson February 21st, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Okay. No one is quite sure what x hits per day for a distro means on DistroWatch.com but that won’t stop me from expressing an opinion…

I added up the current hits per day for the top 310 distros in the “more statistics”, 12 months section. The total? 34248 distro hits per day.

If a newbie reads about 5 distros before choosing one, that could mean that 7000 newbies switched to GNU/Linux each day for the last year. That’s 2.5 million converts in a year. These are mostly geeks, of course. Ordinary folk just take their software pre-installed. Assuming there are 20 ordinary folk adopting GNU/Linux per geek, that is 50 million converts. Of course geeks might lead a few to GNU/Linux or they might help them buy a PC pre-loaded with GNU/Linux.

The world is becoming a better place, one convert at a time.

Sadly, I noticed Debian has dropped a notch behind Mandriva,OpenSuse, Mint , Fedora, and Ubuntu. I guess some of us are too busy using the software to make converts. I will have to take up some slack. I will give lessons in installing Debian and .deb packages this semester and I have a stack of blank CDs I can burn. I could get 20 converts easily, not to mention the inevitable spread of GNU/Linux on the LAN here.

- Robert Pogson

ARM at 28 nm This Year

Published by Robert Pogson February 21st, 2010 in technology. 0 Comments

2010 is officialy the year of ARM. They have a deal with Global Foundries to produce at 28 nm by the 2H 2010, in plenty of time for Christmas…

This is not just about mobile, folks. Sure, they can bring about increased performance and insane battery life, but these processors will do justice in thin clients, all-in-one PCs, smartphones, netbooks and compact PCs whose time has come. We no longer need full towers or part towers or mini-towers. These things will be small enough to fit in a mouse or a similar size package that can hold RAM, lots of RAM. Nothing prevents the stick of RAM from holding the CPU, doing away with a CPU socket in small systems. Nothing prevents the RAM, CPU, video etc all going into the display or keyboard.

ATX could be deprecated… except for non-racked servers and specialized video production set-ups.

Did I mention these things are small? At 28 nm the cores will be half the size of their 40 nm devices which are very competitive with Atom. Running GNU/Linux instead of that other OS, these new ARM CPUs will kick Atom with that other OS out of the park.

- Robert Pogson

Making Money and FLOSS

Published by Robert Pogson February 21st, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

“Rivermuse co founder and open-source veteran Dave Rosenberg believes that while open-source companies can grow, it’s more realistic to see them make no more than $100m in annual revenue and feels that the magical $1bn mark is a stretch goal. The reason? The nature of open source - the fact that code is already out there and you must persuade customers to pay you to support something that their own techies are comfortable with and capable of doing.”

That’s from TFA, “Open source - the once and future dream” , on TheRegister.

Such attitudes miss the point of FLOSS entirely. People need computers to find, create, change, store and present information and anything people need they can create even the operating systems and applications of their IT systems. No longer, if it was ever true, do any corporations have a monopoly on that need and that ability. Businesses can make an arbitrary amount of money around FLOSS because there is an infinite amount of FLOSS to be generated not just the present tiny drop. No IT department, programmer, or geek can possibly do it all. It takes cooperation among huge numbers of people, many of them for-hire by businesses. Many large businesses will find that they need to create FLOSS to do their own work and they will distribute the result. Others will specialize at some level of other to help other businesses and individuals to use FLOSS. No one model is the solution. All models are part of the solution.

The opinion from TFA skips over IBM which makes billions annually from FLOSS. Sure IBM sells mainframes and servers but they also help many businesses create, manage, change IT systems that run on FLOSS. They have 15000 business customers… They create FLOSS. They distribute FLOSS. They configure FLOSS. They manage FLOSS. They do whatever the customer wants. The opinion also neglects that FLOSS businesses are growing at amazing rates. It does not matter that they are small. They will be larger as time goes by and there will be many more of them. Individual businesses will see it is in their interest to create, manage, configure, and to distribute FLOSS, so this is still only the beginning. FLOSS has a lot of room to grow.

- Robert Pogson

Don’t You Just Hate Some Analysts?

Published by Robert Pogson February 20th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I read a decent article about adoption of thin clients in education and in the middle of it all, I read, “At best, the upfront capital cost [of thin clients] is 5 percent cheaper, and at worst, it’s a wash,” Sloan says.” Of course this follows a report that a school spent $15000 for a thin clients solution equivalent to $25000 worth of thick clients. I guess analysts have to make a living, but you would think they would reflect reality. The only way thin clients are going to break even with thick clients in capital costs is if you use that other OS and HP clients and servers. If you use $100 thin clients and good used or purpose-built equipment, you are laughing. At least Slone recognizes that thin pays in the long run through lower maintenance.

Look at some software costs:

TOS GNU/Linux
Server Licence $1000 $0
Client Licence $40 $0

A server for AD/file/print with 2 gB RAM can handle 20 users with GNU/Linux, so the “extra” cost of using GNU/Linux terminal services is -$1800 . Seems like a good deal to me. Sizing the server reasonably scales out a long way. I budget about $25 per user on the server as I save more than $100 on the client hardware because of smaller case, CPU, memory, power-supply and no drives. I can run gigabit/s on CAT-5 if needed so the cost of network upgrading is minimal on any system wired in the last ten years. Take that, Sloan.

The analysts can say what they want. We can figure it out.

“Worldwide thin-client sales grew from 2.9 million in 2008 to 3.4 million in 2009, a 17 percent increase.”
Source: IDC

Although only 1% of PCs shipped are thin clients, a lot of thick clients are being re-purposed and new thin clients last a long time because of no moving parts. 17% growth in a down economy must mean something, eh?

- Robert Pogson

Acceptance of Thin Clients

Published by Robert Pogson February 20th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Over the years I have found the acceptance of GNU/Linux thin clients good because of the increased access (more seats) and increased performance (responsiveness of servers v thick clients). Still, there are many who have not seen this and question the acceptance of thin clients for education or business. I found an article reporting on the results of three tests of acceptance of thin clients in three different scenarios in an academic environment. The third trial, which I consider definitive, inserted thin clients in amongst PCs and provided identical logins and desktops from M$’s terminal services. Thus, the users were blind to the use of a thin client. The machines looked like PCs for the most part and booted PXE etc. and used RDP. The result was 92% acceptance and only the performance with USB was noticeably slower with the thin clients. USB2.0 v 100 megabits/s may, indeed, be noticeable but there are many environments where USB is not an issue at all. USB 2 & 3 are faster than even gigabit/s networking. This would mostly be a consideration for large documents and files rather than smaller, more commonly encountered documents.

Compare that acceptance with the increased performance from a well-endowed GNU/Linux terminal server and there are many good reasons to use thin clients in education. The study noted that users preferred the boot-up of the thin clients because it was faster. Other advantages possible are the ability to leave a session and come back to it later even from another station. This is wonderful for students who have to move around on schedule and may find themselves closer to a different machine when next they are free to use a computer.

For the most part, I have replaced old thick PCs with new servers and thin clients. There is no clinging to the old ways from that perspective. It is just unreasonable to assume any non-profit organization has the ability to replace old PCs with the state-of-the-art new PC periodically to stay up to speed while they can upgrade a few servers for much lower cost. My cost of server per user is about $25 these days, not the $100-$500 cost of some PCs. For that I get the advantage of huge RAID, RAM, multiple cores and gigabit/s networking. I will give up sluggish USB to get those more frequently needed resources. If there are some users for whom faster USB is important they can use thick clients. It should be a minority in most schools.

- Robert Pogson

NEC

Published by Robert Pogson February 20th, 2010 in Linux in Education and technology. 0 Comments

I spent some time studying the information about virtualized desktop PCs on NEC’s site. They describe the configurations and advantages and disadvantages very clearly. It is worth visiting if
you are curious about how they do it.

I was puzzled by several things:

  • NECs graphics suggests the “initial cost” of a virtual PC setup is less than the cost of doing the same thing with thin clients and that the regular business PC had a lower initial cost than even a thin client
  • NECs graphics suggests the power consumption of a virtual PC setup is less than the power consumption using thin clients

I am assuming that ordinary thin clients connected to a terminal server are the basis of this comparison. As the server for the virtual PCs has to have more resources per PC than a terminal server, I do not understand how this can be. Each virtual PC has RAM for the guest OS in a virtual machine which amounts to 256MB or more these days. That memory multiplied by hundreds or thousands of units amounts to something. Similarly, one needs more servers to run the same number of seats this way with a given amount of RAM so I cannot see how the power consumption can be less unless that depends on maintaining a high load factor dynamically. Being able to slide the session to another server “live” is an advantage and could cause power savings.

As an example, suppose we have a server with 64 gB RAM and we allocate 1 gB per virtual PC. We can then run 64 users and their virtual PCs on the one server. As a terminal server, we could allocate 1gB to the OS and use 128 MB per user for their data and put 504 users on one server for the same power consumption and initial server cost. That’s how it might work with a ‘NIX OS with shared memory. If one does not have the ability to share resources like libraries and executables, they are stuck. That is what they are doing, using XP Pro. We might not stick 504 users on that server, but we certainly could run far more than 64 average point-click-gawk users on it.

It could be the licensing costs for that other OS defeat the advantages of thin clients for that other OS. A hefty licence for the server, a CAL for each seat and a licence for the OS on the terminal means you are paying three times for the same thing.

Here is a prime example of the burden M$ puts on IT. If you use M$’s software, you get no benefit from the new technology. (Thin client is not new but 64gB on a server is something affordable these days.) I see this all the time in schools. Add up all the RAM on the thick clients and you can run far more users than if it were on a GNU/Linux terminal server instead. The last place I worked had 1 gB per XP machine. That is 24 gB in the lab. I could easily have run the lab on 2gB on the server. RAM is not that expensive but every server has its limits and a server with double the slots is much more expensive.

NEC, sadly, tries to discourage potential customers from using GNU/Linux instead of welcoming them to twice the benefit from using GNU/Linux and thin clients instead of that other OS.

Perhaps for some customers this seems like a good deal but while it may reduce some operating costs v thick clients and a file server/authentication server it is not even close to being cost-competitive with a ‘NIX OS on thin clients.

- Robert Pogson

HP is Sadly Late to the Game

Published by Robert Pogson February 20th, 2010 in Linux in Education and technology. 0 Comments

This fall, HP announced a “new” product to deliver 10-seats-per-PC thin client systems for classrooms. They boast a price of $331 per seat (monitor not included, of course).

Three years ago, I built a thin client system for a school:

  • 3 terminal servers - 4gB 4SATA 60 gB drives - $1200 each = $3600
  • 1 file/web/authentication server 2gB 4 SATA 500 gB drives $1500
  • 96 thin clients $134 each = $12864
  • 13 multiseat X PCs for six clients $400 = $5200
  • 153 keyboards and mice $10 (HP!) =$1530
  • 153 LCD monitors $140 = $21420

Total cost = $46114 /$301.39 per seat

I dare say the performance was and still is better than you will get from HP and we do not need to fight malware either. We used four SATA drives in RAID 1 so four files could be read simultaneously when busy.

So, HP, get off the Wintel treadmill so you can give better value to your customers. With Moore’s Law, the system I built would be about $250 per seat these days. We would save a lot on servers and a little on thin clients and monitors. We saved a lot on licences not paid to M$, too. We used Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Today, I would use Debian GNU/Linux.

- Robert Pogson

Matt Asay Sees the Light

Published by Robert Pogson February 19th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

Matt Asay writes that he now uses GNU/Linux on a desktop PC.. It’s about time. What kept him? Macs.

Oh well, better late than never. The year of GNU/Linux on the desktop has come and gone, he agrees, and we will go forward to much greater accomplishments.

Some of the comments to TFA are humourous. There are some who still feel Linux drivers are a problem. I have installed GNU/Linux on hundreds of PCs over the years and find drivers less of a problem with GNU/Linux than that other OS. In the past few weeks I have had XP machines reject HP Laserjet4 and USB mice, at least temporarily. I have not had that problem in years for GNU/Linux. I also run a single image for all of our PCs with GNU/Linux but I need a separate one for each type with that other OS or it takes forever and a lot of re-re-reboots to get an image to work. My users have no need for BASH, either unless I am teaching them the details of GNU/Linux. Few except the computer geeks doing Computer Science need that.

This story is an example of why I was uneasy with the naming of Matt Asay by Canonical. Why would one devoted to FLOSS find MacOS better in any way? Perhaps he was preferring non-x86 hardware previously… Nevertheless this is a step forward. Let us hope there are many more. I hope Matt’s new fondness for GNU/Linux extends to ARM and thin/virtual clients as well as x86.

- Robert Pogson
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My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.

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