Gnorb.NET

It’s a shock to me, too.

For years — almost a decade now — I’ve been using Linux almost exclusively at home. I’ve downloaded and installed countless distributions, and have lived with nothing but open sourced and free software, which has served my needs as well as any (Well, I will admit to the guilty pleasure that is the Opera browser. Not open sourced, but man, is it sleek!) And unlike most folks who download and install Linux, I’ve actually paid for open sourced software, paid for the operating systems, paid for support, and donated to the incredible work being done by people bringing all manner of modern functionality to GNU/Linux (including the marketing geniuses who figured out that “Linux” looks and sounds better than “GNU/Linux”) and the free software and open source movements.

The fact of the matter is that free and open sourced software has served me well for 95% of what I normally do. For most people, this would easily be 100%, since 95% of my work is made up of things like browsing the web, getting email, syncing with my MP3 players, viewing DVDs, streaming and recording music, using word processors and spreadsheets, and even doing a little programming. In fact, my productivity on Linux is higher than on Windows because I can tweak the system to work exactly as I want it, and to react to me when I want it to do so. Most people wouldn’t do two-thirds of what I do. They wouldn’t need to, nor would they have the patience to.

But it’s that other 5% that has truly become a hindrance.

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An hour-long documentary on Linux and the Open Source movement. It’s mostly in English, with a few Finish or Swedish bits (they both sound the same to me). Includes interviews with Linus Torvalds, John “Maddog” Hall, Eric S. Raymond, Ari Lemmke, among others. Very interesting if you want to know more about Linux, how Open Source projects are developed, or computers in general, for that matter. You don’t have to be a computer geek or penguinista to enjoy it.

That headline is wrong in so many ways. Still, here’s a bit of the news from The Wall Street Journal:

Microsoft Corp. is entering into an unusual partnership with Novell Inc. that gives a boost to the Linux operating system, a rival to the software giant’s Windows software, according to people familiar with the companies.

Under the pact, which isn’t final, Microsoft will offer sales support of SUSE Linux, a version of the operating system sold by Novell. The two companies have also agreed to develop technologies to make it easier for users to run both Suse Linux and Microsoft’s Windows on their computers. The two companies are expected to announce details of their plan today at a press conference in San Francisco.

I’m wondering whether this would fall into the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” category. After all, with pressure mounting from the new Oracle Unbreakable Linux support, this MS/Novell partnership can’t be seen as anything other than a major business challenge from Red Hat’s perspective. While not totally surprising, it’s hard to believe that Microsoft, whose executives referred to Linux as both a cancer an communist software, is now looking to partner up with a Linux company, even if that company is Novell.

And yes, it still feels strange saying that Novell is a Linux company. Although you gotta hand it to them, the latest SUSE Linux is absolutely beautiful.

Alright, too much car talk, as was recently pointed out by a reader. Time for another edition of Le Linkage to move things in another direction! (Actually it was moving in another direction anyway, and there are another couple of car posts coming up. My sister’s car was just stolen, so I’m helping her find a car. Not that I’ll be discussing that, but I have a few more bits of info I think would be helpful for people looking to buy a used car. Now I’ll shut up and start this episode of Le Linkage.)

Searching for Free Music with Google: Using this page, look for any artist or any song and with the help of a special a Google search query, this site may well just find it for you. Heck, I even found stuff by Sun Yan Zi, which is almost impossible to come by in this side of the world.

Strangest grammatically correct English sentence: Really, if you’re into grammar and the weirdness of the English language then you’ll love this short article on the strangest grammatically correct sentence in English. After reading that, I thought of my own: “Dogs dogs dog dog dogs dogs dog,” which translates to “Dogs other dogs chase, chase dogs other dogs chase.” Can you come up with others?

Drivers! Glorious Windows Drivers!: There’s nothing I hate more about software than having to find drivers. The problem is especially bad if you’re using Windows, since the OS is pretty much useless unless you have the drivers needed for it to work properly with your computer. (In Linux this isn’t much of a problem.) Anyway, if you’re stuck for drivers, this site may just have what you need.

Hope, Despair and Memory: An essay by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel discusses why for him, hope without memory is like memory without hope. “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” This essay is especially powerful given recent world events.

Ubuntu System on a Memory Drive: The coolest thing about CD-based Linux distributions is the fact that you can have your Linux distro just about anywhere. The bad part is that with those distros, you really can’t save anything so you’re pretty much relegated to single session computing. Sure, you can set up printers, have programs load up at lightning speed, and even download stuff off the Web. But if you’re the type to tote your OS around on a CD for use in different places, you’re also probably the type that likes to customize his environment, and that’s where the problem is: one reboot and it’s all over. Well now, if you use Ubuntu, you can save your system settings (and other items) on a memory drive! Just plug this baby in and you have YOUR computer with YOUR stuff back, with just a CD and a memory card. How cool is that?!

Alan Watts MP3’s and Podcasts: If you enjoy eastern philosophy, but don’t have the time to read a bunch of texts, then the downloadable Alan Watts lessons are definitely for you. If you know who Watts is you’ll know the value of these recordings. If you’ve never heard of the guy, click on one of the links and find out a bit about him.

Online Game: Proximity: This game’s pretty simple: Place your pieces in such a way as to make most of the board yours. What gets complicated is the strategy involved in order to make it happen. Very addicting, fun game.

After my long (and generally happy) days with Linspire, I’ve finally decided to make the switch to Ubuntu Linux. What can I say? I’m a sucker for distributions, and having tried it a while back, then hearing how much it’s improved, I decided to take another shot I at it.

Man, am I ever glad I did.

Now, before I get started on my gushing, let’s get something straight: there was nothing wrong with Linspire. The distribution is generally clean, software is dirt-easy to install, and with CRN you get a super friendly UI and discounts on a lot of commercial software. Really, it is one of the best distributions to start with if you’re used to Windows, but want something in the Linux realm that “just works.” I highly recommend it to anyone. In fact, if you’ve never tried it, you can grab the Live Distro (as in “it runs from CD and doesn’t install on your computer”) here. (Note: Bittorrent is required for this download, so either grab yourself a Bittorrent client or Download Opera with Bittorrent support.)

With that said, up to now, I have found Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) to be quite possibly the best distribution I’ve ever used. (I take back anything bad I might have said about it.) It’s super easy to install and generally easy to run. I say “generally easy” because there were a couple of things I had to unlearn, relearn, or actually read parts of the help file in order for me to properly understand how to use it.

Sine I last used it, the distribution has improved ten-fold, with better integration with the Synaptic install package (which allows you to download and install just about any software you want by selecting it from a list), better helper applications, and tons of other great, make-my-life-easier features.

I won’t get into the details, but if you’re interested in trying out the most popular Linux distro out there (and for good reason), you can do the following:

• Download Ubuntu Here, or
• Get a FREE Ubuntu Installation CD, or
• Read up on it at DistroWatch.com, or
• Donate, or
• all of the above.

Now, once you get started (in fact, you can do this as the OS is installing, since you can run the OS, connect to the Internet and do your work — at the same time as it installs), make sure you read the recent Linux.com article titled Ten Tips for New Ubuntu Users, which outlines some of the more important things to learn when using Ubuntu. Most of the info there is usable to anyone, but some of the stuff is a bit advanced, and users who just want to get up and go can safely ignore it. (Adding users to the “sudo” group, for example.)

The distribution still has a ways to go, but it has already come far, and the future for it looks bright.

Finally, remember: Ubuntu is not just a Linux distribution, it’s a philosophy.