Congratulations!

To Another Convert!

My friend Alex has just had his Dell Inspiron 531,  SetUp! on Ubuntu 12.04. It's on its way back to ya! (UPS)

Coupled with a decent AMD processor, fortunately.... it has the best of Graphics... NVidia is where its at people!

The install went flawlessly... another older PC brought back to life by Ubuntu! Ready for another 5 years at least!

The first $25 gadget I've ever bought that actually works...

... and far beyond my expectations.

Hamilton Beach Breakfast Sandwich Maker

There really isn't much to the device... a couple heating elements with a sliding divider sandwiched between two rings all coated in a nonstick surface... but it actually works! The pre-cooked frozen sausage patties that you can pick up in a resealable bag of 12 are the perfect size, likewise Canadian Bacon as well, Microwave the patty for 30 or so seconds prior to use, along with an English muffin or a biscuit, a slice of cheese and a beaten egg... you have a breakfast sandwich ready in only 5 minutes. 

The one major drawback is that most Bagels are too large for use in this device... if you can find the mini-bagels they work with a minimal amount of trimming. Things like bologna are good to use but again... the size requires a bit of trimming... if they could make it the size of a bagel, then you would have more options for ingredients. If you have issues with the egg sticking to the slide... you need to increase the cooking time a bit, if it is cooked thoroughly it releases with no problems I find that 5 minutes is usually sufficient.

I must give Hamilton Beach a thumbs up on this one! I think I'll buy a second one so I can make two at the same time.

GOG Announces Its Move To Support Linux

GOG is a popular website for purchasing DRM-free games, particularly older games. To date the GOG website has offered games for the Windows and OS X platforms only and has avoided calls  asking them to offer products for Linux users. It seems the growing Linux community has finally broken through to the ears that hear. 

Gog has officially announced its plan on GOG.com news board. It seems that they are starting out with the more popular distributions which would make more sense from a marketing view, LinuxMint and Ubuntu users will be the first to make use of the new support. Although the post does not give an exact time frame that the support will begin it most certainly is “in the works”. Read GOG's full article on their news board.

Trial Run

Poking around on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on a pre release daily build I am pleased to find that there are many of my favourite apps that are integrated much better into the system, and become almost transparent. Pidgin integrates into the message menu with pop-ups notifying of friends and buddies signing on and off. The social networks are better supported and integrate very well through the use of Unity Lenses. Using Twitter and Facebook I can find tweets and posts and even reply and/or retweet directly from the unity lens... no need to log into the website. Although I can understand that to many, the ability to search on-line content from the dash is most useful, I feel it “loads” it up too much and opt out of that feature. The Unity Launchers icons size can now be easily set from the system settings and the UI has a setting to “scale” in relation to the screen resolution... meaning that you can adjust the User Interface for your particular needs without altering the actual monitor resolution... a very nice feature. There have been a number of tweaks added from the input of the community, some minor and not so noticeable, but they all add to the over-all smooth and well thought out design, I am becoming a bit more open to the Unity interface having given the default install of this still yet unpolished release a thorough test drive. I certainly feel that Trusty Tahr will be another outstanding Long Term Support release. I look forward to doing a full and permanent install of the finished product some 3 or so weeks from now. 

StartUbuntu

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Trusty Tahr release half a month away!

This combined with the impending burial of Windows XP on April 8th makes it an opportune time to make a switch.

 

Follow my lead and outreach to friends, family, and the local community to make a choice to follow the freedom of Linux.

LUbuntu Revisited

What Is Lubuntu?

Lubuntu is a flavor of Ubuntu based on the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE), as its default GUI. The goal is to provide a very lightweight distribution, with all the advantages of the Ubuntu world (repositories, support, etc.). Lubuntu is targeted at "normal" PC and laptop users running on low-spec hardware. Such users may not know how to use command line tools, and in most cases they just don't have enough resources for all the bells and whistles of the "full-featured" mainstream distributions.

 

  

With many LXDE components, Lubuntu also uses well-known applications, such as Firefox, Openbox, Pidgin, to name a few. The Lubuntu project wiki contains more information on the project and the applications used available.

System Requirements 

Lubuntu can be installed on a Pentium II or Celeron system with 128 MB of RAM, but such a system would not perform well enough for daily use.
With 256MB - 384MB of RAM, the performance will be better and the system will be more usable, and with 512MB of RAM, you don't need to worry much.
The default "Desktop" installer requires 384-800 MB of RAM (depending on selected options.) If you have problems, please use the "Alternate" installer.
The objective of the Lubuntu project is to create a variant of Ubuntu that is lighter, less resource hungry and more energy-efficient by using lightweight applications and LXDE, The Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment, as its default GUI.
Lubuntu is targeted at PC and laptop users running on low-spec hardware that, in most cases, just don't have enough resources for all the bells and whistles of the "full-featured" mainstream distributions. Members of the team take care of LXDE and other packages that are part of Lubuntu. Lubuntu received official recognition as a formal member of the Ubuntu family, commencing with Lubuntu 11.10.

My Test Hardware

Foxconn Nettop PC integrated dual-core Intel Atom Processor D525 with Intel Hyper-Threading Technology (1.8Ghz), 2GB DDR2 800/667 Ram, Intel Graphics 3150.  By nature the Intel Graphics performs poorly with the newer versions of Ubuntu, especially since the beginning of the use of Unity interface, usually requiring to run in 2D rather than the 3D mode.

That said, Lubuntu plays very well with the entire set-up and is very responsive. The entire system while up and running utilizes a mere fraction of my available 2Gigs. I had no issues with the wireless connection once the system was installed and running, however, during the boot from the install disk and upon selecting Install Lubuntu from the menu, the system notified of available wireless networks but offered no way to connect. Perhaps booting fully into the live system may have been a better way, but I simply plugged into the lan and continued through the normal installation process.

Once rebooted into the fresh install updates went well and installation of my favourite software from the Ubuntu repositories went as smoothly as ever. Over-all... color me impressed... I personally prefer a more robust and eye-catching Ubuntu installation, but for those needing a solid, easy to navigate, light on resources system... Lubuntu may just fit the bill.

Linux is more stable - (as compared to?)

It seems to me that some people just cannot bring themselves to ask the full question here, and often get confused as to what the second half of the question should actually be, although from my viewpoint there can only really be one thought to complete the question.

 

Linux as a server:

 

Linux is by far a much more stable platform than other systems where server systems are concerned. I have seen many questions asked about the cost of RedHat Linux being worth the price of its stability. Well, as a small business owner or private user I would have to say No... but these are not the uses that RHEL was aimed at. RHEL is aimed at large business mainframe servers... not the small DIY'er. For that you are better off with either Fedora, Ubuntu, SMS, or any other number of distro's that offer server editions. As far as which you should choose is totally a matter of preference and all offer pretty much the same abilities. I hear some push toward Fedora, and put Ubuntu under the bus (so to speak), likewise I have had others say that Slackware is far above any of them. I don't believe any of that and would never push one any more than the other... they are all Linux and are all equally capable... it simply works down to which system you are more comfortable or knowledgeable in using. I have a Fedora based (Vortexbox) server that has been up and running for over 6 years... no downtime at all other than times I have experienced total power outage or a need to reboot due to updates. Also to note I have a Ubuntu system that I have had up as a Media Center PC for over 5 years with the same stability as my Fedora server. So for one to make a statement that one is better than the other is simply not true, they are simply implying their own personal preference. For someone looking to serve up movies, pictures and have an “in-house” personal cloud storage I would actually recommend Vortexbox which is based on Fedora. It is simple to set up and has a very straight forward and easy to understand web based GUI. It can run Plex media server to stream media to any network attached device you have, but of course you could set up any other distro to serve them up the exact same way.

Server systems I will push the stability issue against, are the Windows alternatives. There is quite simply no way any Windows server can boast the uptime that any Linux (or Unix-like) server can.

Laptop Plugged In But Not Charging?

Try these steps...

Took me a while, but I found a solution that worked for me.  The issues here: "plugged in, not charging".  Here are the steps I went through to get it working again on Windows 7:


1) Disconnect AC

2) Shutdown

3) Remove battery

4) Connect AC

5) Startup

6) Under the Batteries category, right-click the Microsoft ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery listing, and select Uninstall.  Do this for each instance (Most users will only have 1).

7) Shutdown

8) Disconnect AC

9) Insert battery

10) Connect AC

11) Startup


This will not fix all instances of this problem as some may be an actual hardware failure, for example, it could be the battery has failed completely, or the charging circuit on the motherboard has failed, but for the sake of the few minutes this takes it is well worth the try.

SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.0 128GB

Excellent Flash Drive

As my latest review item I have to give this flash drive two thumbs up!

SanDisk SecureAccess software works well, no issues on Windows 7

Test as follows:

CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 © 2007-2013 hiyohiyo

Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/

*MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 106.260 MB/s

Sequential Write : 116.781 MB/s

Random Read 512KB : 98.320 MB/s

Random Write 512KB : 26.711 MB/s

Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 10.523 MB/s [ 2569.1 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 10.061 MB/s [ 2456.3 IOPS]

Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 8.936 MB/s [ 2181.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 9.843 MB/s [ 2403.1 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [E: 0.0% (0.0/119.2 GB0] (x4)

Date : 2014/02/26 17:52:23

OS : Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x86)

Very nice flash drive which has speed worthy of the USB 3.0 designation. Was able to transfer over 12.5GB of music to the drive in just a little over 1 minute... a 1.5 GB movie in only about 12 seconds.

SanDisk SecureAccess software has no use on my Linux systems so I can recover about 10MB of space by dumping the extra proprietary software (of course I use trucrypt on them anyway).

Actual test numbers are only marginally better on my Ubuntu 12.04 system. Results using disk utility as follows:

Minimum Read Rate: 109.6 MB/s Minimum Write Rate: 119.0 MB/s

Maximum Read Rate: 126.3 MB/s Maximum Write Rate: 144.0 MB/s

Average Read Rate: 122.8 MB/s Average Write Rate: 134.8 MB/s

Average Access Time: 0.5 ms

Very pleased with the over-all performance and design of the drive, much better than the old Cruisers. Sleek design, retractable, lightweight aluminum housing that has a slot for key ring mounting will hold up much better than the plastic counterparts, the aluminum might aide in cooling as well? (although during testing my unit never even showed any noticeable increase in temperature).

Price for this units might scare away some people but as I see it, the performance of this drive can justify a $1 per GB price.