The Open Source Advocate

I wrote this blog after reading about a similar experience by Gabriel Gunderson . Man, you took the words right out of my mouth! I hadn'’t tried another Linux distribution in 2 years, so I decided to give Suse 10.1 a try (Suse was my first love, many years ago) The first thing I do after installing a new OS is check for security updates. I noticed that there is a small updater icon in the system tray. Clicking on this, it says, "There are no software updates available"”. I think, "“Hmmm. I guess everything is updated and patched for security vulnerabilities."” But looking a little further, it appears that by default Suse doesn'’t look online for updates, it only searches the install CD. Talk about a false sense of security! Here are some more of my "Suse Rants". (Scott - Perhaps you can respond to our critiques on your blog?) What are the differences between "YAST", "“Control Center"”, and "Applications > System ...

I often hear that the biggest problem with Linux is the lack of game support. It is true that most games you buy off the shelf will not work well in Linux (if at all). However, it is inaccurate to say that there aren't many games available for Linux. If you don't believe me, then look for yourself in the Ubuntu Games List . Some of these games are great, and some are not so great. If you look around, you will find quality games in every category that you can download and play for free. If you encounter a problem with the game, or if you have a suggestion to make the game better, be sure to let the game developer know. The more the community gives back, the better the open source project will become. That is the beauty of open source.

After writing this reply to Doran's post , I felt it would be worth posting on my blog. Doran, I decided that it was worth creating an account on your system to respond to this blog. (If you want more comments, I would recommend implementing a CAPTCHA system) I want to start by reminding everyone one that we are all on the same side. We are all victims of SPAM, and we are interested in taking measures to prevent SPAM from wasting our resources (time, bandwidth, processing). There are many effective ways to prevent our users from getting SPAM messages. Doran mentioned several good ones, and I will include MailScanner (which implements multiple anti-SPAM, anti-virus, and anti-phishing detections). While these methods prevent the wasting of our users' time, it does nothing to reduce the quantity of SPAM that we receive and are forced to process. Currently, Greylisting is an effective way to reduce SPAM and wasted resources. However, I would not underestimate the spammers an...

There was a recent post on the Ubuntu Forums about how much time and effort is wasted by developers who create a fork of an existing project, instead of contributing directly to the original project. Here is my reply (with some extra content): I agree that the large number of Linux applications serving the same purpose can be confusing sometimes, especially to new users. That is why Ubuntu comes with only the "best of breed" applications pre-installed, so new users will not have to guess which application to use. (Of course, you can easily install your own favorite applications.) Before Ubuntu, Linux distros would come with several applications installed that performed the same function. I found this frustrating! I also agree that it is beneficial for developers to pool their resources by working together on the same project. At the same time, it is beneficial for them to be able to create new applications that meet their needs. This gives users the option to choose...

Mark Shuttleworth, the billionaire behind Ubuntu, has recently provided some information on the future direction of Ubuntu. This mail charts the territory post-Dapper for those of us who like to dream a little. First things first. The codename of Dapper+1 will be: The Edgy Eft And here's why. Edgy is all about cutting edge, perhaps bleeding edge,brand new code and infrastructure. It will be the right time to bring in some seriously interesting but definitely edgy new technologies which lay the groundwork for the next wave of Ubuntu development. An Eft is a youthful newt, going through its first exploration of the rocky territory just outside the stream. And that's exactly what we hope the development team will do with Ubuntu during the Edgy cycle - explore slightly unfamiliar and uncharted territory that is perhaps a little out of the mainstream. So dream a little about Xen for virtualisation, Xgl/AIGLX and other wonderful wobbly window bits, the goodness of Network Manager, a ...

This is an example of what happens when someone uses a Peer-to-Peer ( P2P ) application over a T-1 line . Notice the normal traffic patterns on the left, and the P2P traffic on the right. (That is where it is bouncing along at 100% bandwidth usage). You can see that this user was uploading just as fast as he downloaded. By the end of the day, this user's connection was disabled and traffic returned to normal. If you want to easily create graphs like this for your network, I highly recommend taking a look at Cacti. Once Cacti is installed, the device monitoring and graphs can all be setup via the beautiful web-interface.

Being fairly new to the Beehive State, I was pleased to see so many people here are involved in open source. The newest face of this movement is the Utah Open Source Planet. The Planet is an aggregation of blogs from people who support open source. In fact, my blog is one of the many that are posted there. The Planet is a great way to share ideas and meet other people with similar interests. Many posters have included a " hackergotchi " head-shot and GPS coordinates, which makes it easier to associate the online persona with a real person. I am starting to feel part of this thriving community, and I look forward to opportunities to meet these people in the real world. While I am talking about it, I want to ask a question that may help me understand the local community better. At the last OALUG meeting, we were talking about the most popular distro of each Utah LUG. Here the best we came up with: OALUG = Ubuntu FSLC = Debian PLUG = Gentoo SLLUG = ??? UVLUG = ??? Did ...