The Open Source Advocate

This past week I installed Ubuntu 6.10 on a second hard drive for my father. It is a 250 GB drive, and he wanted to give 30 GB to Ubuntu. I got to the "Resize Partion" step and dragged the slider so that it said "New partition size: 30 GB". I installed Ubuntu and when the system came up I found out that "New Partition" was not talking about the new Ubuntu partition. Instead, it resized the original partition to 30GB, and Ubuntu was now using 220 GB! This confusing behavior led me to update this bug . What do I do now that I my hard drive partitions are not setup like I wanted them to be? Of course, any serious hacker would perform the complex operation of resizing the partitions manually. I, however, prefer to solve things the "easy" way so that I can spend my time on more productive activities. So what is the "easy" to fix this? The answer is... the GParted LiveCD . The GParted LiveCD is an amazing tool that greatly simplifies ...

I have always been interested in backups. (In fact, I created an open source project called SaraB : Schedule And Rotate Automatic Backups.) Anyone who has valuable data should be implementing a proper backup process. For a good primer on the fundamentals of backup, I recommend visiting " The Tao of Backup ". Most recently, I have been trying to decide how to best implement the concept of " Separation ". This requires that I store my data in multiple geographic locations to prevent a local disaster from destroying all copies of my data. Like most people, my collection of photos, videos, and documents has been growing quickly as technology become more prevalent and uses higher resolutions. The value of my data becomes greater with every passing holiday, birthday, wedding, and vacation. Here are some options that I have come up with to backup my data to a remote site. Manual Solutions: 1. Periodically burn DVDs and carry them to another location Pros: Simple Che...

I have been working overtime this Christmas season to help my father and brother improve their experience in Ubuntu 6.10. One of the deficiencies we have encountered is the limited ability to watch news videos from a web-browser (such as Firefox 2.0). I have installed Flash Player 9 Beta 2, and the Good-Bad-Ugly plugins for GStreamer. Here is what happens when we try to watch news videos on these large news sites. ABC News Sound: NO Video: NO BBC News Sound: YES Video: NO CBS News Sound: NO Video: NO CNBC Sound: NO Video: NO CNN Sound: YES Video: NO FOX News Sound: YES Video: NO MSNBC Sound: YES Video: YES Don't you find it ironic that the only major news website that I could get to play videos is owned by Microsoft? Is there anything I can do to get these other websites to play videos properly?

Update : As this deal is now expired, I am removing my phone number. You can always sing my replacement number: 555-867-5309! I apologize that this post is going to show up on the Planets. If anyone knows how to edit posts without it going to the top of the planet, please share. I have verified that the "Post time and date" are not being updated, so I don't know why this happens. I wanted to share this awesome deal with everyone who wants to save money on a phone service. This could be used to reduce monthly charges for people who have a Qwest phone line, or to provide a cheap emergency phone line for people who only have cell-phones. SunRocket has traditionally been one of the cheapest VOIP services around, with an unlimited plan for less than $17/month. Now they have an unbeatable deal, but you need to act fast if you want to take advantage of it. They are offering a free year of service when you buy one year, which brings the monthly fee to $8/month. The dea...

Recently my organization has been looking into purchasing DNS / DHCP / IPAM hardware appliances. This category includes products from InfoBlox , BlueCat , MetaInfo , and INS . It turns out that all of these appliances are running a version of Linux, and they are using open source applications. In fact, some of the vendors proudly admit that they "start with ISC's Bind and DHCP" and then make improvements to them. When I heard these facts, I immediately asked them if they released the source-code to their appliances. They explained that there is no legal requirement for them to do so. Lucky for them, ISC uses the BSD license. But they also are shipping Linux, so shouldn't they have to redistribute the source for that? Tivo publishes the source code to the GPL code that they modify. Perhaps the Linux-appliance vendors are not modifying any GPL code. I must assume that they are not legally required to distribute the source, based on the fact that I am not a lawy...

I have posted before about how cool Nedi is, but now you can see it for yourself. The Nedi Movie If you are involved in network management, I am sure you will see the value in this open source project. We use it everyday, and it is hard to imagine life without it.

This is a list of my favorite games on Linux. They may not be your favorite games, but that is why it is called " Tristan's Favorite Linux Games". If you are one of those people who think there are no good games for Linux, be prepared to be surprised. These games are all free of cost, and they will be labeled if they are not open source. Most of these games also run natively on Windows, so try to get your friends to switch to Linux after playing these games on Windows! This page will become a permanent part of my blog, and I intend to update it when I learn of new favorite games. Turn-based Strategy (like "Civilization" or "Heroes of Might and Magic") Battle for Wesnoth UFO: Alien Invasion Music R hythm Action Game (like Guitar Hero ) Frets on Fire Real Time Strategy (like " Warcraft " or " Starcraft ") Glest Real Time Strategy Shooter Tremulous SAVAGE: The Battle for Newerth - (Not open source) Scrolling Space Shooter A...

I recently had the opportunity to help a co-worker setup Ubuntu 6.10 on his desktop. I was thrilled to see his surprise when he saw how nice the desktop looked. He told me that the Ubuntu desktop looks much better than the last time he had tried Linux. My joy was short-lived when we started to look for a way to extend his desktop across a second monitor. I had never used dual-monitors before, but I assumed that Ubuntu would provide a tool since it does such a nice job in other areas. Unfortunately, there is no GUI tool to configure dual-monitor support in Ubuntu 6.10! Here is how to manually configure dual-monitors in Ubuntu. Note: You are going to need this... Meanwhile, Fedora Core has included a nice graphical tool to configure dual-monitor support. I don't know exactly when this feature was added, but it was in Fedora Core 4 which came out in June of 2005. Let's learn from our friends at Fedora, and provide a GUI to configure dual-monitor setups. Ubuntu, are you g...

Mozy.com provides a hosted backup service which allows users to save a copy of their data on a remote site. It is ran by a Utah company called Berkeley Data Systems. To get started using Mozy, you first install their client on your Windows operating system. They do not have a Linux client, but a Macintosh client is said to be in development. Next, the Mozy client helps you select which data you would like to backup and then proceeds to encrypt it and send a copy of your data to the Mozy servers. Mozy currently offers 2 GB of free storage to all users. If you find that you need more storage, you can purchase a monthly subscription for a reasonable free. This is sometimes called a " freemium " business model, and it is an excellent way for users to evaluate a product. However, I believe that there is an even better business model for Mozy. I want to make the case for a open source strategy for Mozy, with the intent of increasing demand for Mozy services when compared to...

I wanted to share my response to some comments on my last post . First, thanks for your responses. Justin: "Free Software is not about technology or even about making the world a better place. It's about Freedom." Are you sure about that? What is the real reason we support open source? In my opinion it *IS* for the purpose of making the world a better place. If first-world countries spend resources to develop high-quality open source software, then all of humanity will benefit from that investment. Open source software is not always better quality than proprietary software, but I do believe it is always ethically superior. Lonnie: "I agree with what Justin Findlay said..." I also want to ask you what is the "big-picture" reason for supporting open source software? Please share your opinion. I agree with your description of the average user, and it is something that we need to keep in mind when making decisions about software. "Then she will com...

I appreciate the comments made by Lonnie and Anonymous. Let me address your concerns. First, I want to point out that 99.99% of the software available in Ubuntu (including the application repositories) will still be open source. However, the 0.01% of non-free software has a very visible impact on the user experience. If the average user can't listen to music, watch a movie, or play a 3-D game, then they will not get a chance to use the other 99.99% of free software that is included with Ubuntu. That is why Mark Shuttleworth said that shipping proprietary drivers is the best way to allow users to experience the rest of the free software stack. Lonnie - Yes, the people that will be attracted by this tactic will be the average computer user. They are looking for software that simply works well for them. If they can get that without having to pay for it, then they will use Ubuntu. These users will appreciate the great open source operating system they get for free, and would be willi...

I believe that Debian and Ubuntu are an example of mutual symbiosis . In other words, their relationship is advantageous to both entities. (Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert on this subject. I am just an observer) How does Ubuntu benefit from Debian? - Based on one of the best Linux distributions - Inherits over 15,000 packages (applications) from Debian - Great community and dedication to free software How does Debian benefit from Ubuntu? - Packages that are created/improved for Ubuntu can easily be made for Debian - Ubuntu provides patches for all of the packages that it modifies from Debian - Ubuntu has the best community around , providing support and goodwill - Ubuntu is growing extremely fast, and may become the Linux desktop leader - Canonical employs dozens of open source developers Mark Shuttleworth made an awesome presentation at a DebConf where he talked about the relationship between Debian and Ubuntu. Here is a video of that presentation . Towards the end...

Ubuntu is well known for its wonderful ease-of-use, especially for new Linux users. With every release, Ubuntu has been breaking ground by making Linux "just work" for millions of people. This tradition is set to continue with the next release (7.04), code-named Feisty Fawn. I recently posted about the need for Linux to strive for ease-of-use first , and then to become fully open source after that. The Chicken (user-friendly Linux) needs to come before the Egg (completely open source Linux). It appears that there are more and more people agreeing with that idea. For example, Eugenie Loli-Queru wrote an article entitled " A Call to Distros: Give Users What They Want ". In this article, she explains that Linux needs to be easier to use. She suggests that Linux distros should include important non-free software by default so that users do not have to "tweak" their systems just to watch a movie, listen to a song, or play a 3-D game. Well, Eugenia, your call ha...

I wrote the following comment in response to Matt Asay's recent post about Red Hat. Matt, "Red Hat has 30-40 of its best engineers working on the Xen project, helping to drive its innovation" "Oracle has approximately zero developers on Xen." I think from Oracle's point-of-view, they also have 30-40 of Red Hat's best engineers working on the Xen project, in addition to anyone else who contributes to Xen. Oracle's actions remind me of the nursery story, " The Little Red Hen ". The Little Red Hat said, "Who will help me improve this open source operating system?" "Not I", said the Oracle pig. "Then I will," said the Little Red Hat. And she did. The Little Red Hat said, "Who will help me improve these open source applications?" "Not I", said the Oracle pig. "Then I will," said the Little Red Hat. And she did. The Little Red Hat says, "Who will help me sell support for these produ...

I believe that contributing to open source software is the most efficient kind of charity and philanthropy. (I'll leave it to someone else to convince the IRS to give me a tax write-off for the hours I spend on improving open source.) To illustrate this, let us consider a hypothetical $25 million dollar donation made by both Bill Gates and Mark Shuttleworth . Bill Gates could use his $25 million dollar donation to donate free licenses of Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate ($400/each) and Microsoft Office Professional ($500/each) . At those prices, he could give away about 30,000 copies of that software. Many people would be able to use the software, but due to license restrictions, only 30,000 people could use the software at the same time. It is nice that Bill Gates decided to help these 30,000 people, but lets look at another way that this money could be spent. Mark Shuttleworth uses his $25 million dollar donation to build upon an existing open source operating system ( Debian...

The Register has posted an interview with Mark Shuttleworth , the founder of Ubuntu. Mark explains his opinion on the Oracle/Redhat news: "I think it's great that Oracle has entered the Linux market, but the specific tactic they have chosen is going to be very impractical," Shuttleworth said, in an interview with The Register at Google's headquarters. "It is really hard to maintain a fork of a binary platform. "Larry Ellison was basically saying that Oracle will keep Red Hat Linux the same but then also make it better. The end result of that will be death by a thousands paper cuts. There will be lots and lots of little incompatibilities. "So, practically, in two or three years, I expect them either to buy Red Hat and just say, 'Fine. This is our platform.' Or fork it and say, 'Here is Oracle Linux. We built it, and forget that compatibility thing.' Or to use something like Ubuntu where they don't have to rip the trademarks out a...

ZDnet recently published a great interview with Mark Shuttleworth about the business model of his company, Canonical. Shuttleworth deliberately is taking a different approach from those rivals, though: The free, downloadable version of Ubuntu is the same as the supported, certified version. In this article, Mark explains that creating a user-friendly Linux desktop is how his company will get a foot in the door of customers who will buy support for Ubuntu servers. This is not a new idea, if you compare it to how Windows is bundled for "free" on millions of PCs. Look how successful this strategy was for Microsoft; I believe it will also help Canonical to be successful. Once you have your product in front of so many eyes, you have already developed a large mind-share from potential customers. Another benefit of having a large desktop market-share is that it will encourage developers to create applications for the operating system, similar to what happened with Windows. Mark al...

Well, mine anyway. :) It turns out that Ubuntu has already implemented a feature that I wanted to suggest! It all started as I was admiring my newly upgraded Ubuntu 6.10 system. After a while, I decided that I wanted to install some new applications. In Ubuntu, the simplest way to do this is to click on "Applications -> Add/Remove". This will open up the "Add/Remove Application" dialog. To my amazement, a new column labeled "Popularity" had been added for each application. In this screenshot, I clicked on the "Sound & Video" label, and then clicked on the "Popularity" column to sort the applications in descending order of popularity. Each application is rated from 1 to 5 stars. The data for these ratings comes from a package called " popularity-contest ": "When you install this package, it sets up a cron job that will anonymously submit statistics about your most used packages periodically to the developer...

I have noticed several people debating about whether they should support Linux applications that are not open source. Some of these people believe that the best way to promote open source adoption is to only use open source applications and to reject everything else. The problem with this method is that the market share of desktop Linux users is so small that they have very little influence on the direction of the software industry. They can hold their breath until they turn blue, but it is not going to change anything. Using the most recent statistic I could find, only 2.8% of desktops were running Linux in 2003. I am sure that the Linux desktop market is growing fast, and that the percentage is now much higher than 2.8%. Even so, it is obvious that Linux desktops are a small minority of the desktop market. The fact that most software companies do not even release a version of their software for Linux proves this fact. Most software is created only for Microsoft Windows, and ...

I recently visited the western Ukrainian city of Lviv . We traveled to Ukraine with my grandfather, who was born in that beautiful country. If you are not familiar with the history of Ukraine, then I recommend reading the Wikipedia entry on Ukraine . While there, I attended a concert that celebrated Ukrainian art, history, culture and traditions. This concert included Ukrainian poetry, story-telling, music, singing and dancing. The concert ended up being a 4-hour event, with no intermission. Despite it's length, I found it very interesting as I tried my best to translate tiny pieces of the spoken language. Everything was spoken or sang in Ukrainian, so English words were few and far between. I remember hearing one man mention the city of "Chicago". I was later told that he was sharing the story of his life. He was born in Chicago to Ukrainian parents, but came to Ukraine to join the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and fight for Ukraine's independence against the Germans an...

Allow me to use some metaphors to explain how open source software is different than commercial software. Mabolosoft is a company that sells seedless fruit. They have orchards full of fruit trees that they have genetically-altered to be sterile, so that no seeds will be included with the fruit. Consumers want fruit, so they buy it from Mabolosoft. This fruit is seedless, so when people need more fruit they must go back to Mabolosoft. Sometimes the Mabolosoft fruit can be affected by bugs, so Mabolosoft sells an anti-bug spray that can additionally be purchased to protect your fruit. Lastly, when the fruit gets old and starts to rot, it can no longer be eaten. Once again, the consumer must purchase the newest harvest of fruit from Mabolosoft. Now, there also exists an loosely structured coop of fruit farmers who call themselves Open Seeds. This organization gives away their extra fruit, after having already fed themselves with the harvest. This fruit is quite different than the fruit so...

Ok. So you are using open source software, and you find it very useful. Perhaps you are starting to experience desires to give back to the community that provided you with this great software. If that is true, then I commend you on your giving spirit. Here are five steps that you can follow to give back to the open source community. I have listed them in order of increasing commitment. 1. Use open source It is not just the URL of this blog , it is what I recommend to everyone. Use it at home, and use it at work. Use it on your desktops, laptops, servers, hand-held devices, cell-phones, consumer devices, space ships, etc. 2. Share the love Get other people excited about open source. Show them what it is all about, how they can benefit from it, and why it makes the world a better place. Show them how to get FREE Ubuntu disks shipped to them. We should encourage our governments to take advantage of the benefits of open source. Use your vote to support open source initiatives and pr...

A few months ago, I installed Ubuntu 6.06 on my brother's computer. He likes using Linux, and he has been able to do almost everything he wants to do on it. His latest request was to help him find some fun Linux games that were free. Not wanting to let him down, I searched around and found quite a few games to install for him. Below is a list of high-quality games that I would recommend to others. If you have other games you would like to share, please post them in a comment. I also suggest looking at these sites for more information about gaming on Ubuntu: Ubuntu Games (in Spanish) includes pictures of the best Ubuntu games Jdodson's list of Ubuntu games posted on the Ubuntu Forums Ubuntu Gamers Arena Ubuntu Game List Before running any graphics-intensive games, you will probably need to install a better driver for your specific type of graphic card (ATI or Nvidia). America's Army - ( Ubuntu install ) True Combat Elite - Requires Enemy Terrritory - ( Ubuntu ins...

I posted this in response to Matt Asay's recent blog about Ubuntu . Matt, Thanks for discussing the Forbes article on Ubuntu. In your last paragraph you talk about Ubuntu needing longer release cycles (and that it is moving in that direction). I agree that longer release cycles are necessary for enterprise adoption, and I am excited to see that Ubuntu is once again pioneering the way for Linux distributions in this area. I blogged about the new release schedule in April. The main idea is that Ubuntu will continue to create a new release every 6 months or so. The great addition to this plan is that they will declare an enterprise-ready "Long Term Support (LTS)" version every 1.5 to 2 years (or 3 to 4 interim releases). This allows the individual user to try out the newest release of Ubuntu every six months, while enterprises don't have to worry about upgrading until the next LTS version is thoroughly tested and released. Ubuntu is all about great useability, a vibrant...

I have been impressed with Ubuntu ever since the very first release of Ubuntu 4.10 (Warty Warthog). I was impressed that Ubuntu could fit on a single CD, which was achieved by limiting the included software to the best application for each functional task. I was giddy with excitement to learn about the enormous (and ever growing) application repository that allows me to install over 15,000 applications with just a few clicks. Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy: Knot2) - This page describes the changes that are being made in this alpha release of the next version of Ubuntu. There will be a page like this for each alpha and beta release, so it is a great way to follow the developments and improvements being made to Ubuntu. There are many other ways to keep updated on the current developments of Ubuntu. The easiest ways to keep informed are to visit these sites: Ubuntu Weekly News - Here is the current issue Ubuntu Fridge - Official information hub for the Ubuntu community Ubuntu Planet - An ag...

Today at Linux World, VMware announced the winners of the Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge. I entered this competition with a useful virtual appliance called " NeDiVA " (Network Discovery Appliance). NeDiVA will automatically discover your Cisco network devices and gather a plethora of useful information about your network. Sadly, I did not win a prize, nor did I receive an honorable mention. As a consolation prize, my ego is comforted by the fact that NeDiVA was downloaded more than 600 times. Thank you, bittorrent. This announcement was not all bad news, since I discovered some very interesting virtual appliances. The following list of winners can also been found on the VMware website. First Prize ($100,000) HowNetWorks , a high-level network analyzer. (Mikko Hiltunen, Erno Kuusela, Joachim Viide, Mika Seppänen, Jani Kenttälä; University of Oulu, Finland) The HowNetWorks virtual appliance is a network analyzer that works at a higher level than ...

Taking pictures of lightning is not as hard as you might think. Tonight there was a nice electrical storm in Ogden, and I managed to take these pictures: Here is what I do to take photos of lightning. To start with you need a digital camera, but you don't need a high-end camera. I recommend a tripod, but you can get away with setting the camera on any stable object. You need a lightning storm (duh) and it is probably best if it is not raining while you are shooting pictures. Set your camera on a stable surface (preferably a tripod) Manually focus your camera at infinity (set it so that distant objects are in-focus) Point the camera at the horizon, or wherever you see a lot of lightning Put your camera in "Shutter" mode and set the shutter speed to 1/3 of a second Use the continuous shooting mode on your camera to capture the shots My Fuji cameras have a continuous shooting mode called "Last Four". This mode will allow you to continuously take pictures, but ...

If you follow the Utah Open Source Planet , you will notice a lot of food related posts. I do not have the credentials to join this area of discussion, but I am going to put in my two cents anyway. As a bachelor, I perfected a culinary technique of creating delicious meals using only three ingredients. I often wonder how I would fare on Iron Chef . After Chairman Taga announces the secret ingredient, I would only have to come up with two more ingredients! This technique makes shopping simple, preparation is easy, and there aren't many dishes to clean afterwards. Some chefs may choose to implement paper plates and plasticware for the ultimate reduction in dish cleaning. The following recipes are guaranteed to taste great, and therefore they are suggested for people who need to gain weight and/or increase their cholesterol levels. Sausage Spaghetti 1 lb ground sausage 1 jar of spaghetti sauce Some spaghetti noodles 1. Boil the spaghetti noodles in a large pot until the noodles a...

You are probably wondering how a Cisco network could ever be built at a low cost. You are right to wonder, because Cisco equipment is quite expensive when compared to other vendors. I would argue that the cost of Cisco equipment is justified by the quality of their products and support, however, that is not the purpose of this post. In this post I will demonstrate a multilayer campus network design that provides high-availability at the lowest possible cost, with the added benefit of a simple design that is easier to implement than traditional high-availability designs. This design has many similarities to Cisco's Solution Reference Network Design which is nicely described in two white-papers: Designing a Campus Network for High Availability Campus Network Multilayer Architecture and Design Guidelines The primary differences between the Cisco design and this one are found in the distribution layer. Take a look at the diagram below, which was created using an open source program cal...