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from Windows to Ubuntu

Well, as we mentioned over on the Jazz Team Blog, my Jazz teammates and I just shipped Rational Team Concert 1.0, the first GA product built on the Jazz Platform. More on that later.

Since I?ve been working on what became Rational Team Concert for the last three years, I?ve gotten into quite a groove with regards to the technologies that I use and how I use them. But there were a couple of things I didn?t like and I promised myself that I?d fix them once we shipped and I could spare a few days of being less than 100%.

Chief among these ?things I?d like to change when I have the time? was my use of Windows XP as my operating system. For quite a while I was happy to use WinXP - mainly because I knew how to use it and IBM?s internal set of applications are optimized for Windows XP users. And when I say ?optimized? here I mean in the sense of lack of barriers - available, tested, and with support.

But after the past couple of years as I got more into web development, I started to experience some pain as a WinXP user because it seems like most of the interesting web technologies are optimized for Linux or Mac users, and for Windows users there?s usually a short appendix in the doc that says ?If you are unfortunate enough to use Windows, the following has been said to work??

So the day after we declared bit freeze on Team Concert, I downloaded a Ubuntu ISO CD image, burned that, backed up my data, then formatted my hard drive and installed Linux.

The remainder of this entry I?ll write in Steve O?Grady Q&A format so I don?t have to think in full paragraphs

Q: How did the installation go?
A: It was truly easy. Just insert the CD, restart my Thinkpad, and let the Ubuntu installer do its thing. The last time I tried to install Linux was probably about 5 years ago and I remember it asking me all kinds of questions for which I didn?t know the answer. I don?t even recall Ubuntu asking me any questions, and if they did they must have been trivial because I don?t remember them.

Q: What was your first impression of the user experience?
A: I was really impressed. After installing just rebooted, logged in, and I was in a windowing system which was very easy to understand. The top panel has three simple, logical menus (Applications, Places, System), shortcuts to key programs, then the right side of the top menu has iconographic shortcuts to some important system applications (networking, sound, date time, system control). The bottom panel just lists the open programs and has some other miscellaneous controls related to desktop management (minimize all windows, switch between desktop, etc.)

My biggest takeaway on the window manager user experience is that it seems like they?ve taken care to strip out as much low-value cruft and redundancy as possible, so that you?re left with a small set of orthogonal, useful controls.

Q: Any problems?
A: There were two sets of problems: 1) Finding and learning the Linux equivalent for simple Windows programs like Notepad and Paint. 2) Getting IBM stuff to work that was mainly developed and tested for Windows and/or Internet Explorer web browser. To get over these humps I bought a license for VMWare and spent much of my first week within a Windows XP virtual machine. Luckily VMWare?s networking worked much better than I remember it working, so between VMWare and the Windows XP image with VPN and Lotus Notes, I could get basic things done like work email from home.

Luckily my Jazz colleague Matt Lavin has been using Ubuntu for over a year, so he was able to help me learn how to do some basic but important things like connect my system to the internal Debian package server.

I?m still having problems using Open Office vs. Microsoft Office. When I modified a Powerpoint file in Open Office, it ended up getting mangled back in Powerpoint. I?m not sure who?s fault it was, but it sure was frustrating. I may look into running emulated MS Office on Linux.

Posted on June 30th 2008 by admin

Filed under Ubuntu, Windows | No Comments »

Windows XP + Ubuntu Linux? Yes! It?s Possible

Running existing Windows installation on Ubuntu is piece of cake. What you need is Vmware player and 10 minutes of spare time.The easiest way to install Vmware player on Ubuntu is with Automatix. Automatix is great application that install software you can’t live without with cuple of clicks, including free Vmware player and it’s real time and nerve saver for newbies like me. If you don’t have Automatix, get it here.There are two ways you can get your existing Windows installation to run in Vmware player:

1. Vmware Conventer - It converts you existing physical Windows installation into virtual machine - means; if your Windows installation is 30 GB big, you will need another 30 GB of free space to store it somewhere. Not an option in my case.

2. To setup Vmware player to use physical Windows installation. Don’t worry, you will still be able to boot and use your Windows like you used to do.

Let’s start with the dirty work:

I will save you a lot of trouble with creating necesarry .vmdk and .vmw files. These are files that contain your virtual machine information and are used by Vmware player. Download windows.vmdk and windows.vxm but don’t just fire ‘em up yet. Read on.

Open console. You will use program “parted” to get some of your disk information and modify windows.vmdk file. Parted is already there in Ubuntu by default.
Strat parted with “sudo parted”, (or if you have several disks “sudo parted /dev/hdx” where x the letter of the disk containing Windows installation) and type: “unit s” then “print”. You will get something like this:

Note the underlined number. Now type: “unit cyl” and “print”. You will get this:

Again, note the underlined numbers.

Open windows.vmdk file with text editor and find this part of file:

Underlined values should be replaced with the values given by parted but there is a catch. Note that second RW value from vmdk file is not the same as the one you got from parted “Disk /dev/hda/”. Thats because first partition on disk is master boot record or MBR which points to boot files of operating systems. It’s lenght in this case is 63, and as far as I know, it is pretty standard value.

We will use copy of MBR so actual start point of Windows parititon is parted’s value “Disk /dev/hda” 240121727 minus 63.

240121727 - 63 = 240121664 <- result goes to vmdk file

Now, you do the same for your values and modify vmdk file. Don’t forget about “ddb.geometry.heads” and “ddb.geometry.cylinders”.

Type “quit” in parted and make copy of MBR. Copy-paste this command into console:
“dd if=/dev/hda of=windowsxp.mbr bs=512 count=63?

Ubuntu part of work is done but DON’T run Vmware player yet. Put vmdk and vmx files together with copy of MBR windowsxp.mbr which is already in your home directory.

Now reboot into Windows and set up another hardware profile for Vmware.
Start-> Control Panel-> System, click on Hardware tab and Hardware profiles. You will find Profile 1 (Current), highlight it and click Copy, give it new name, Vmware for instance and move it up.While at Hardware tab in System properties, you can disable driver signing.

One more thing to do. As you may know, work in Vmware machines is easier with Vmware tools. I took Vmware tools installation out of Vmware Server to spare you of downloading 100 MB + file and you can download it here. Unpack archive and put it somewhere on Windows partition.

If you don’t trust me, go to Vmware web site and download whole Vmware Server package for Linux. You will find Vmware tools for Windows inside windows.iso file.

Finally, boot back to Ubuntu, run windows.vmx, choose newly created hardware profile at prompt and install Vmware tools once in Windows.

Oh and, windows.vmx contains some of virtual machine properties like amount of RAM or enabled or disabled peripherals so scroll thru it with text editor and customize it with your own needs.

Posted on June 7th 2008 by admin

Filed under Windows | No Comments »

How To Explain Linux to a Windows User

Theres been a question I have seen on multiple occasions both on the “How do I explain Linux to a Windows user” end as well as the “What is Linux?” question. That got me thinking.. what is the best way to explain Linux to a normal Windows user who has never heard of Linux? Have you ever been using a laptop in a public place, or have someone over at your house, and you’re running Linux and someone asks you why it looks different? Do you take the easy way out and say “it’s Linux, it’s like Windows but different!” or do you actually explain what Linux is? Here are some ideas of getting the message across as easy and straightforward as possible.
Explaining Linux to a Windows user

Here are a few ideas you can put together to help you explain Linux:

* Every computer has an Operating System. Windows is an Operating System. So is Linux.
* Linux was written in the early nineties by a college student name Linus.
* Linux is not owned by any one person.
* Linux is free, unlike Windows. Most people pay the Windows fee when they buy the computer that comes “pre-installed” with Windows.
* It’s fun to use.
* You have complete control of all aspects of the operating system.
* It’s “look and feel” is completely customizable. You can make it look like Windows or you can make it look unique.
* You can’t use all of the same software applications that you use on Windows, but there are alternatives to windows programs.
* If your computers primary use is for playing popular computer games, hold off on installing Linux.
* Linux is secure and practically virus and spyware free.
* It can be a lot faster than Windows with the right setup and configurations.

How do you explain Linux to a Windows user?

Posted on April 5th 2008 by admin

Filed under linux, Windows | No Comments »

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