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After reading the “Windows Is Free” article earlier, I felt compelled to write my own blog entry. I do agree with the analysis to a point, but there is a major point where I differ. The “Just Work” factor. Now I know, I know, the newer versions of Ubuntu and OpenSuSe and Mandriva do work with most hardware. But most, isn’t enough.
Case #1. A few years ago I tried to install Red Hat 4 onto my box computer. Right off the bat, my wireless connection did not work. My video card had no 3d support. My sound card did not work at all. I couldn’t access any of my MP3s or videos because there was no fat32 support short of a package download, which I couldn’t do because of the aforementioned wireless problem. That install lasted for 5 days while I toiled away trying to solve any of the numerous problems I was having.

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The Free Software (GNU) movement and the Open Source(OSI) development model have slowly been gaining momentum over the past decade. Formerly the realm of Uber Geeks, UNIX and it’s various derivatives (Linux, BSD’s, etc.) are finally being seen by the consumer market as an alternative to the best known proprietary products. One of the biggest barriers that I’ve seen though is the cost model associated with the GNU or OSI environments. This is obviously not to say that GNU or OSI is more expensive than proprietary products, but in the United States, at least, it’s ingrained in our culture that you get what you pay for. Comparing the price of a GNU/Linux distribution v. Microsoft Windows is a good example. Thanks to good timing, shrewd (cut-throat) business practices, and the multi-million dollar marketing blitz, Windows has become the dominant operating system in the market.
For over 20 years, consumers have been drawn to, what they believed, was the only game in town. It’s human nature to have the belief that what we do or use is superior to that of others who do not do the same. So it has been with computers and operating systems. Even back in 1989 when a 486 with 1 Mb of RAM and a 40 Mb hard drive cost over $1500.00 (USD), there was much clamoring of superiority between the Apple and PC users. Anyone in our industry knows that Apple/Mac has been the de facto standard in the graphics and publishing industry while PC’s have held the domain of business, large and small - both are a case of the right tool for the right job. As the tech savvy younger generations come of age, so does the awareness of a world outside of Microsoft.

While the lineage of Microsoft code dates to the early 80’s the lineage of modern GNU and OSI operating systems can be traced to the 60’s. It’s taken 20 years for consumers to begin to realize that money thrown at advertising and public relations isn’t what makes a product better than any other. If I had $10,000.00 a month to pay for a premier advert on Techcrunch, (no disrespect intended Mr. Arrington), I’d get a boatload of traffic and the clickthroughs that go with it. To sustain user loyalty though, I need to have good content, otherwise, I’ll just have to keep throwing money at it to generate more traffic. Now, I’d like to think that the content on this site is at least, respectable, but if it were garbage, enough money for marketing would keep it afloat for quite awhile. When there is no mainstream competition from which to draw comparisons, there is no way to distinguish between what is good and what is garbage.

Microsoft has held a captive audience for years - but now the tide is beginning to turn as more and more people see that the traditional proprietary software model is not the only way to do things, and consequently, that proprietary software is not the only option. Apple has done a great “job(s) of showing consumers that there are alternatives to these “tried and true” products. Their model, while not completely Free Software and Open Source, is a mix of GNU, Open Source, and proprietary - any GNU/Linux user would immediately recognize xfce as the window manager in that the more recent releases of the Mac OS were modeled after. It’s all been done out in the open though so there is no complaining that the gui was stolen. Dell, the worlds second largest seller of PC’s, is offering several GNU/Linux options for both business and personal computers, with plans to expand this line of systems. GNU/Linux and Open Source are beginning to see some mainstream exposure. Wal-Mart also sells GNU/Linux PC’s in some markets. I don’t expect Microsoft to fold in the coming years but I do see a significant decline in their dominance of the software market - much like IBM’s decline in the PC market after decades of being number one.

Google’s recent proposal(pdf) to the FCC that the 700MHz band be open to the choices of consumers and not service providers will finally put these service providers at the mercy of the customer instead of it being the other way around. The Free Software movement and the Open Source development model are poised to transform the PC market in the same way. Get ready for a new day, Redmond!

If you’ve ever typed a command at the Linux shell prompt, you’ve probably already used bash — after all, it’s the default command shell on most modern GNU/Linux distributions.

The bash shell is the primary interface to the Linux operating system — it accepts, interprets and executes your commands, and provides you with the building blocks for shell scripting and automated task execution.

Bash’s unassuming exterior hides some very powerful tools and shortcuts. If you’re a heavy user of the command line, these can save you a fair bit of typing. This document outlines 10 of the most useful tools:

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“In the past, we have explored the reality that, in many forms, the much anticipated ‘Google OS’ has long since already arrived. But recently, there have been strong indicators that Google may be positioning for something more. And today, we will explore what this might look like if it were to actually happen.

“Imagine a world where Google decides to purchase Linspire for their CNR efforts (open source or not), Mozilla Corp. (not the organization) for access to Firefox business offerings, and infuse cash into Ubuntu development…”

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So you want to install Linux on your computer, but you’re reluctant to partition your hard drive, or do anything that might mess up Windows in any way? Enter Wubi, a new Ubuntu installer that allows you to install Linux on Windows just like any other application. Give it a try!

This gap between Linux and Windows filesystem has been improved alot. There are many different ways of seeing your windows partition on Linux. In this article, I’m going to list the 20 different types of useful applications you can use.  Some are simple and easy and some are a bit more complex but with great amount of extra features and such.

1. Linux NTFS - provides Linux kernel drivers, a multiplatform NTFS library, and tools to create, resize, clone, rescue, query, label and fix NTFS volumes, and to undelete, resize, list, and query files for the filesystem used by Windows XP, 2003, 2000, NT4, and Vista. It also provides support for the Logical Disk Manager (LDM) that controls Windows’ Dynamic Disks and is used to create software mirrors, stripes, and RAID.
2. SMB Web Client - a simple PHP script that allows users to access Windows networks from a Web browser (using Samba tools).
3. Xfsamba - an SMB (Windows) network navigator with upload, download, rm, rmdir, mkdir, and tar capabilities. Xfsamba does not need to mount remote Windows shares. Drag and drop is enabled for file uploads/downloads.
4. Smb4k - a SMB and CIFS (Windows) share browser for KDE. It uses the Samba software suite to access the SMB and CIFS shares of the local network neighborhood. Its purpose is to provide a program that’s easy to use and has as many features as possible.
5. SMBNetFS - a user-space filesystem for Linux and FreeBSD that allows you browse a Samba/Microsoft network much like the network neighborhood in Microsoft Windows.
6. Samba TNG - another SMB server for Unix-like operating systems. This software is concentrating on MSRPC interoperatability with Windows NT, 2000, XP, and 2003. It provides PDC support and tools to remotely administer NT servers and workstations. Note that Samba TNG is currently in a beta stage. If you need advanced file/print serving capabilities, you should opt for Samba classic.
7. Davenport - a Java Servlet-based application providing WebDAV access to an entire SMB network. This enables users to connect to Windows and Samba shares via WebDAV clients such as Mac OS X, Windows Web Folders, etc. or any Web browser. Workgroups are browseable, and users are authenticated against a domain.
8. IntegraTUM WebDisk - a Web application which gives you direct access to a file server. It is written using Java Servlets and the jCIFS library. Supported file servers are Samba, MS Windows, NetApp OnTAP, and any other server based on the CIFS protocol.
9. Captive - provides full read/write access to NTFS disk drives in the WINE way by using the original Microsoft Windows ntfs.sys driver. It emulates the required subsystems of the Microsoft Windows kernel by reusing one of the original ntoskrnl.exe, ReactOS parts, or this project’s own reimplementations on a case by case basis. Involvement of the original driver files was chosen to achieve the best and unprecedented filesystem compatibility and safety.
10. Sharity - mounts shares exported by Windows, Samba, and other SMB/CIFS servers in the file system of Unix computers. It implements Resource Browsing, which is similar to the Windows Network Neighborhood (Netbios Workgroups and Active Directory), NTLM, NTLMv2, and Kerberos authentication, Microsoft’s Distributed File System (DFS), and manipulation of Access Control Lists (ACLs).
11. chntpw - a Linux utility to (re)set the password of any user that has a valid (local) account on your WinNT or Win2000 system, by modifying the crypted password in the registry’s SAM file. You do not need to know the old password to set a new one. It works offline (i.e., you have to shutdown your computer and boot off a linux floppy disk). The bootdisk includes stuff to access NTFS partitions and scripts to glue the whole thing together. This utility works with SYSKEY and includes the option to turn it off. A bootdisk image is provided.
12. rfstool - allows you to access ReiserFS partitions from a Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP system. It also allows you to access ReiserFS partitions from Linux. It is a complete rewrite of the ReiserFS functions needed to list directories, copy files, and backup metadata.
13. Scrounge NTFS - a data recovery program for NTFS filesystems. It reads each block of a hard disk and rebuilds the filesystem tree on another partition.
14. Paragon NTFS for Linux - The Paragon NTFS for Linux driver provides read and write access to NTFS volumes for all kinds of files including system files.
15. fatresize - a command line tool for non-destructive resizing of FAT16/FAT32 file systems. It is based on the GNU Parted library. The main target of the project is to be used with the EVMS FAT plugin.
16. FUR filesystem - a filesystem based on FUSE which mounts a Windows CE device (connected with the librapi2 from the synce project) onto a directory of the local filesystem in a transparent and user-friendly way.
17. WinShares - a Linux program that scans the network and mounts all Windows and Samba shares available, allowing the user to browse them. It uses CIFS.
18. Explore2fs - a Windows program that provides read support for Linux ext2 and ext3 filesystems under NT4, Win95, Win98, WinME, Win2000, and WinXP. This is a Windows to Linux connector and it’s worth mentioning in this article.
19. EXT2IFS - an Installable File System for Windows NT4, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. The driver can read both the EXT2 and EXT3 filesystems. A simple installation program makes using the driver easy. This is also a Windows to Linux connector and it’s worth mentioning in this article.
20. NTFS-3G - a read/write NTFS driver. NTFS-3G is available for over 60 Linux distributions, including most major ones.

Lots of great tools to try…so little time.

Perhaps your company is just switching to Linux, to save on costs. Or, maybe you’re starting University, and you have no idea how to get around the Linux Systems they’ve just installed. Or if you’re like me, you’re curious about how Linux works, and you have it installed at home. Either way, if you are interested in working with the terminal, and using common admin commands, this is the right place for you. Below are the top 10 commands for the Absolute Newbie administrators. Remember, if this is the first time you’ve used one of these commands, you can simply type “man” then the name of the program to get help on each of these commands.

#1. hostname

Prints the name of the local host that you are currently working on. Use netconf to change the name of the machine.

#2. whoami

This prints your login name on the screen. This can be extremely useful if you switch between a user and root.

#3. id username
Print user id (uid) and his/her group id (gid), effective id (if different than the real id) and the supplementary groups.

#4. date
Print or change the operating system date and time. E.g., I could change the date and time to 2000-12-31 23:57 using this command:
date 123123572000
To set the hardware (BIOS) clock from the system (Linux) clock, use the command (as root) setclock <- Do not use this for evil.

#5. time
Determine the amount of time that it takes for a process to complete + other info. Don’t confuse it with the date command. E.g. I can find out how long it takes to display a directory content using:
time ls

I used this command all the time in University. It’s really useful for checking to see how efficient your algorithms are.

#6. who
Determine the users logged on the machine.

#7. rwho -a
(=remote who) Determine all users logged on your network. The rwho service must be enabled for this command to run. If it isn’t, run setup as root to enable “rwho”.

#8. finger user_name
System info about a user. Try: finger root

Believe me, as an administrator, you will use this one all of the time.

#9. last
Show listing of users last logged-in on your system.

#10. history | more
Show the last (1000 or so) commands executed from the command line on the current account. The “| more” causes the display to stop after each screenful.

Not only can you press the up button, but you can list the history in this manner. This is extremely useful, if you have to type in complicated commands that require long directory listings.

#11. uptime
Show the amount of time since the last reboot.

#12. ps
(=print status) List the processes currently run by the current user.

This is like the task manager for windows, but more ghetto. Although, you do have more control.

#13. ps axu | more
List all the processes currently running, even those without the controlling terminal, together with the name of the user that owns each process.

#14. top
Keep listing the currently running processes, sorted by cpu usage (top users first). In KDE, you can get GUI-based Ktop from “K”menu under “System”-”Task Manager” (or by executing “ktop” in an X-terminal).

#15. uname -a
(= Unix name with option “all”) Info on your (local) server. I can also use guname (in X-window terminal) to display the info more nicely.

#16. free
Memory info (in kilobytes).

#17. df -h
(=disk free) Print disk info about all the filesystems (in human-readable form)

This command is so useful. I found it really difficult to tell in my linux systems how much memory I had left. This was a life saver.

#18. du / -bh | more
(=disk usage) Print detailed disk usage for each subdirectory starting at the “/” (root) directory (in human legible form).

#19. cat /proc/cpuinfo
Cpu info-it show the content of the file cpuinfo. Note that the files in the /proc directory are not real files-they are hooks to look at information available to the kernel.

#20. cat /proc/interrupts
List the interrupts in use.

#21. cat /proc/version
Linux version and other info.

Very useful if you are updating or recompiling your kernel.

#22. cat /proc/filesystems
Show the types of filesystems currently in use.

#23. cat /etc/printcap
Show the setup of printers.

#24. lsmod
(As root. Use /sbin/lsmod to execute this command when you are a non-root user.) Show the kernel modules currently loaded.

#25. echo $PATH
Show the content of the environment variable “PATH”. This command can be used to show other environment variables as well. Use “set” to see the full environment.

We have seen the future of cell phones, and it’s Linux. These five phones bring the flexibility of Linux to the portable world.

Motorola ROKR E6

This Linux-powered Smartphone boasts a 2.0-megapixel camera w/8x digital zoom, a 2.4-inch QVGA touchscreen display, 8MB built-in memory, an SD/MMC card slot, two “3D Surround” speakers, Bluetooth, and USB connectivity.

Motorola RAZR 2

This followup to the original RAZR builds upon that device and comes in “3.6Mbps HSDPA (V9), EV-DO (V9m), and GSM / EDGE variants (V8).” Other features include a 2.2-inch QVGA display, 2.0-inch external display, external multimedia keys, 2GB of internal memory, 2.0-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and “Crystal Talk” technology.

Qtopia Greenphone

Trolltech’s Qtopia Greenphone is a Linux-based, quad band GSM/EDGE handset that boasts a QVGA touch screen display, 1.3-megapixel camera, 317MHz XScale processor, 128MB ROM, 64MB RAM, Bluetooth, and a miniSD card slot.

OpenMoko FIC Neo1973

OpenMoko’s FIC Neo1973 is the world’s first Linux-powered, open source phone. It features a 2.8-inch (480×640) touchscreen display, Samsung s3c2410 SoC, a Global Locate AGPS chip, 128MB SDRAM, 64MB NAND Flash memory, and a microSD card slot.

E2831

Made by Shanghai-based E28, the Linux-powered E2831 features a 2.2-inch QVGA display, 1.3-megapixel camera, and up to 3-hours of continuous usage.

The E2831 is a GSM Quad-band phone with an integrated 802.11b/g WiFi. It has Integrated VoIP over WLAN support using the SIP protocol on a IMS system and supports active call hand-overs between GSM and WLAN connections