Took a look at the Ubuntu books today, and I didn’t see “Ubuntu Linux for Non-Geeks,” which I think will be pretty good, but I did see a few of the others (here’s what Amazon offers).
The best I did see was “Beginning Ubuntu Linux: From Novice to Professional,” by Keir Thomas. It reads well and has a lot of good information for Ubuntu users, present and future.
I’ve been looking all over for Mini-ITX systems — with smaller motherboards than even mini-ATX — and have been disappointed by the prices. Seems that it costs about $400 to put together a decent system.
The problem is that there are two ways to go — regular “small” 200-watt power supply (with a fan) and either fan-cooled or fanless CPU, or a totally fanless system with lower power consumption and … silence. Not that I notice the fan in my Dell (I’m in a newsroom, you know — it’s not silent here), but the idea of being able to, with good conscience, leave a computer running all the time and not burning off a lot of power, well, it makes a fanless, low-wattage system all the more attractive.
The places I’ve found that offer such miniature systems include Cappuccino PC, iDOTpc and the Damn Small Linux Store.
Now, you might say, “Why not just get a laptop?” That’s a very legitimate question, since a laptop packs the screen, keyboard and mouse into one small package. But there still the fan problem, even the power-consumption problem — and for a desktop system, why not also have a low-power alternative?
OK, I’ll admit — it’s a geek thing. You gotta geek to understand it.
But back to mini-ITX. There certainly are Intel processors in the mini-ITX world, but the space, small as it is, literally and otherwise, is owned by Via Technologies, the company that created it. Since quasi-thin-client and other non-traditional uses, such as home-theater management, are common applications for mini-ITX, and since quiet, fanless construction is encouraged, these boxes, when assembled, are generally not as powerful as regular PCs. Not a lot of 3 GHz chips, meaning.
But many of the mini-ITX systems use processors as slow as 400 MHz … not the greatest, for sure. And once you get the fan for the traditional power supply, and a fan on the CPU, you might as well do a mini-ATX box for half the price.
Getting to my point … you can configure these little boxes with internal hard drives, and CD or DVD drives, or you can go diskless and use Compact Flash or Disk on Module internal storage. That’s what I’m interested in at this point — running Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux from a flash drive on a small, silent, power-sipping system. Even the problems with flash memory longevitiy aren’t that big if regular backups to an external CD drive are performed. I recently bought a 1 GB Compact Flash chip for $17, and replacing that on a yearly basis is not something I’m totally against. And with a system like Puppy, you only write to the drive once per computing session, so the CF or DOM would last a good long time.
Initially I wanted to have at minimum an internal CD-RW drive, and for that the Cappuccino systems excel. But for real-world use, I think a totally driveless, fanless system — and one with a little processing power to make it all run good — is what I want. The best I’ve seen is the Bargain Fanless Mini-ITX BareBones Computer (pictured above and at right, next to a “big” mini-ITX box) from DSL. Case dimensions are 213 x 45 x 200 mllimeters … which to you and me is 8.4 x 1.7 x 7.9 inches.
It runs at 1 GHz, yet is still fanless, with a rubberized heat sink that makes contact with the case for additional cooling. A barebones system, it doesn’t come with RAM, but does use common DDR memory, which is pretty cheap these days, going for about $30 for 512 MB. It has all the usual connectors (parallel, serial, PS2 for keyboard and mouse, 10/100 LAN, plus mic and audio in, and four USB 2.0 ports. The latter is significant because many of the systems I’ve seen, especially those destined to be “thin clients,” meaning diskless workstations connecting and getting applications via a network, have USB 1.1 only.
I’d run it with Compact Flash as opposed to Disk on Module so the CF chip could be pulled and worked on with a card reader connected to a bigger PC.
The best part: The box costs only $245 … add $20 for the CF chip, $30 to $70 for your DDR memory stick, and you have a usable fanless system that’s about the size of a book. Other systems are comparably priced … and it’s worth checking them out … but this can get you out the door — fanless — for $300 flat. Other than thin clients, it’s hard to beat that AND have the 1 GHz processor, which I’m loathe to give up because I want the system to not just be small and efficient, I want it to run well, too. And if I wanted or needed to run a CD or hard drive, they could be hooked up via the USB — and since this is a Via motherboard, it boots from USB, too.
For comparison’s sake, here’s a system from Cappuccino PC, the Light 5000 (LT5) 3LAN Fanless Mini PC, measuring 9.2 x 6.9 x 1.9 inches — and seen at left.. It has a Via processor at 533 MHz, 3 LAN ports (why so many??), 2 USB 1.1 ports, all the other usual inputs, plus interfaces for 40- and 44-pin IDE drives, Disk on Chip and CF capability. The Barebones system is $299. That’s without memory or hard drive. You can’t add a CD drive on board, but you can stuff a 2.5-inch hard disk in there. Also, there is available Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Putting together a system with only one LAN port (yes, you can do that) saves $30, boosting to 512 MB RAM is $50 (you can probably do better on your own), taking out the HD saves $69, and you are out the door for $380. Add $20 for your CF chip, and that’s an even $400. So, let’s take away $20 for the memory and say it’s $380.
So … for $300, you get a faster processor and faster USB than you get for $380 … and that means I’ve got my eye on the DSL system. Still, should I be all hyped on the fanless aspect, or should I just bite it and get a more mainstream system from iDOTpc, such as the iBox Falcon C3 (pictured in various states of undress below) — dimensions are 5.31″(W) x 11.75″(H) x 10.24″(D) — and highly configurable. It does have a more traditional, fan-cooled power supply, with options for motherboards both fan-cooled and fanless. And it can hold both a hard drive and CD or DVD drive — hey’s it’s bigger, all right!
The barebones unit is $272. With 600 MHz fanless motherboard, 512 MB RAM, 512 MB Compact Flash (or add your own 1 GB CF for about the same money), the price is $280. Not bad. I’m not sure if both 1 GHz motherboards are fanless, but one of them adds $43 to the price for a total of $307. Pretty good. It’s never entirely fanless due to the power supply being a traditional PC type, albeit smaller and rated at 200 watts. But you can add the hard and optical drives, and that makes it more like a traditional PC. At least you have the option — and you could run a bigger Linux than Puppy or DSL, like Ubuntu, Fedora, or what have you, and get it installed without opening up the box and jumping through hoops. There are many, many more systems available from these three companies, and others are in the mini-ITX business, too. If you’re OK spending $400-$700, there are a lot more options. But if you want to go fanless and keep it under $500, I have your best deals right here.
Sure open-source applications and open-source operating systems are intertwined, but I think the near future is all about people using open-source apps on non-Linux operating systems, i.e. using free software on their existing Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows platforms.
It’s a natural progression from paying for all software (or, all too commonly, “stealing” those apps) and suffering through the upgrades that follow, paying again and again, yet not having the shock to the system, bodily and computer-wise, of trying to get Linux to work.
I say this partially because my experiences with OS X and Windows XP on newish hardware are overwhelmingly positive. The OSes pretty much never crash, and apps only crash regularly (and recovery is easy). Additionally, the major apps, in Windows anyway, are tuned to load and work quickly. Try loading Word or IE in Windows — it’s almost instant. That’s because, as some say, major components of those programs are preloaded with the OS kernel. Whatever the reason, I like it. I don’t see the same speed in OS X — many apps take too long to load, although they’re plenty fast once they get going. But from a stability and compatibility point, the two “major” PC OSes work very, very well.
But since I don’t want to pay $140-$200 every couple of years for “upgrades,” I’m looking extra closely at Linux.
Still, for the business world, it’s possible to use Linux and save money, but it’s not likely for the majority of businesses, which are pretty much going to order Windows boxes and plop them on desks. That’s where open-source software can really shine. Everybody already uses Firefox, and more and more are using Open Office, even if it is slower than MS Office. It’s a lot freer, as in NOT $400 or so, and that makes a big difference when it comes to equipment budgets.
Already at the Daily News, we use OO, and a lot of us need the functionality of Photoshop (or even the “light” version). But the company is not running out and purchasing either the $700-ish Adobe CS or even the $70-ish Photoshop Elements. Instead, a bunch of us are using The GIMP, the open-source image-editing program that runs on Linux, Windows and OS X and, again, while possibly not quite as good as the full version of Photoshop, is a whole lot cheaper, being free and all.
So when it comes to apps, it’s a slam dunk to pay nothing instead of hundreds of dollars. For operating systems, it’s a tougher non-sell, since the OS generally comes “bundled” with the hardware and is good for the life of the box. I can assure you, this newsroom full of Dell Optiplexes with Windows XP will never see Vista — and that’s a good thing, too, since they don’t (and never will) have enough memory or graphics power to properly run the latest MS operating system.
Of course, open-source apps on closed-source operating systems is closer to wholly open-source computing, and the needle is most definitely moving.
Many improvements have gone into Puppy 2.14, as Desktop Linux reports, and I figured, maybe this is the kernel (and other various and sundry add-ons) that will work with my Airlink 101 AWLH3026 PCI wireless card … without me getting all geeky and opening up a bunch of configuration files and typing in stuff that I really don’t know about … of course, if said typing was LAID OUT FOR ME somewhere, I’d gladly do it.
I fired up Puppy 2.14 on This Old PC and tried to configure the wireless adapter. As in 2.13, the system found the adapter and suggested the ra61 Linux driver. I have yet to get rock-solid confirmation that this is the correct driver for my particular wireless card (even the same model numbers can have different chipsets — I’ll have to pull the card and look for that info). Again, as in 2.13, if I try to search for networks or otherwise connect with the card, nothing happens, and I can’t get into the network settings again until I reboot …
Frustrating, yes. … I’ve read many a post from people who had to do all kinds of things to get their wireless adapters running in Linux. And I am ready to try Ndiswrapper with the Windows driver, but for Linux to really be ready for prime time, all these issues — networking, sound, reading Windows filesystems, USB, PCMCIA compatibility, need to somehow be dealt with in a less-geek-intensive way. That’s what Windows and Mac offer (and mostly deliver) — a whole lot of hardware compatibility out of the box … except when it doesn’t work, of course (principally when computing “outside the box,” which in my case meant using Windows 98 instead of 2000).
I don’t have a lot of time with This Old PC, but I’d sure like to get Puppy working with wireless.
Abiword is one of the great free, open-source, multiplatform programs out there. It looks like Microsoft Word, acts like Microsoft Word, yet is faster than Word — and it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. The only problem — no smart quotes (since to the Linux geek world, smart quotes are the devil’s — e.g. Microsoft’s — plaything). But I’m learning to live without them, and Abiword is so damn fast, at least I’m getting something for my trouble.
Jeremiah Foster of O’Reilly’s Mac blog tells of his brother’s surprise when the Microsoft Word on his new Mac suddenly stopped working. Seems it was a “trial” version. He figured that he already paid for Word (even though he didn’t), and didn’t want to pay any more, so Jeremiah told him about Abiword:
Abiword looks a lot like Word, or rather how you expect Word to look. I have no idea what Word looks like today, with the release of Vista surely the interface has changed in Word but I do not use it. Abiword has all the right buttons in the usual places, it is very easy to get acquainted with its interface. It has all the tools you’d expect, spell checking, various formatting, plus some things you might not expect. One very handy feature is that it reads and writes all kinds of documents. You can use it to write html for example and of course it can read all your Word documents (.doc) and rich text (.rtf) documents. Abiword also has a versioning system. This is particularly useful if you make multiple revisions of your documents or need to get back text you wrote previously. It changes the text of different revisions to make it clear what has changed. It even has a built in tool to report bugs so you can aid in the development of the software.
I already like Abiword better than Open Office (although OO does do smart quotes) because Abi is so much quicker to load, especially on my older hardware. I also like Ted, another slick word processor, which is even quicker to load than Abiword. The only problem: Ted doesn’t save in Word’s .doc format … and it’s Linux/Unix only.
Another word processor I’ve had occasion to use in the last week was KWord, part of the KOffice suite that works with KDE desktops under Linux. KDE is known for being slow, but that doesn’t have to be the case, I’ve learned. MepisLite, the still-developing little brother to the SimplyMepis Linux distribution, is surprisingly responsive for a KDE-bases system — and it’s designed to work on older hardware. KOffice ran great, but the one problem I see so far is, again, no .doc option for saving files — is that so hard, people? Like it or not, and I really do not, Word is the de facto standard for formatted documents, and it’s almost as make-or-break as smart quotes for professional publishing. And if you’re calling your suite KOFFICE and KWORD, shouldn’t they be compatible with the programs from which their names were derived?
I plan to explore MepisLite and SimplyMepis further, so I imagine I’ll spend more time in the KOffice world. For real geeks, including Linux creator Linus Torvalds, KDE is much preferred to GNOME due to the former’s greater configurability … and the geekier the better, right?
If you’re interested in Linux news, Lxer stays right on top of it, linking to relevant news, blogs and other meanderings about the free, open-source operating system all day, every day. It’s the place I go when I want to find out the latest in Linux.
Here’s what Lxer says about itself:
LXer (http://LXer.com/) is a fully independent news and opinion site, established in January 2004, by Linux veteran Dave Whitinger, a well-known personality in the free and open source software community.
LXer is one of the most widely read Linux community news and opinion sites. People turn to LXer for its frequently updated news feed and comments. Over 400,000 unique users from over 165 countries visit LXer each month, and
LXer is syndicated by Google and dozens of other community sites. CIOs, CTOs, government officials, as well as programmers, system administrators and end users make up our very active community.
Our top quality editors create, edit, and present information about GNU/Linux and free/open source software via our frequently-updated newswire.
Here are the people behind Lxer (check out the headgear).
An example of the great stuff that Lxer has led me to, is this entry, 13 Things to Do Immediately After Installing Ubuntu, which leads here, if you want to skip a click. 
It’s a way to take care of all the stuff that Ubuntu doesn’t do for you, the reasons being mostly political and geekical (no closed-source software, no access to NTFS file systems, no proprietary CODECs, no Microsoft fonts, enabling the “multiverse” to get more software, etc.) Do this after installing Ubuntu and you’ll be that much closer to having a system that does all the stuff it should be doing.
And, after that, get the Kubuntu and Xubuntu add-on packages so you can toggle between the three desktop environments while not being limited to one or the other.
Puppy Linux gets a new version — 2.14. It can’t be more than a month since the last Puppy, but since it works so well as a live CD, it’s easy to just download a new 80 MB ISO and burn a new disc. I’m writing this entry on the new Puppy, which I got via the download page.
Here’s what’s new in Puppy 2.14.
Upon first boot, my pup_save file was modified — the boot script told me everything — and at this point I don’t know whether to save the configuration or revert back and stay with 2.13 for now. I’m very averse to upgrading anything when I don’t have to, but in the case of Linux, anything that promises to recognize more of my hardware is something I want — and now.
For a quick Puppy progress report, on the newish Dell 3 GHz, everything works great — sound, Ethernet, printing and video. I’ll have to try this new build on This Old PC to see if I can get wireless with it. As I’ve said before, the first Linux to get everything working on both of these boxes wins.
In the running for best small Linux is Damn Small Linux. The bigger DSL-n rendition does Ethernet on the Dell, but I’ve yet to get wireless on This Old PC working with anything — and the regular DSL won’t even find the Ethernet on the Dell. The closest so far has been Ubuntu — I see routers but get nothing in Firefox. I need some time to test this new … Puppy … and do more DSL work as well.
The first thing I notice in Puppy 2.14 is that it seems faster. As always, Puppy runs totally in RAM, but Abiword and the Seamonkey browser load instantly — not even a 2-second wait.
The G5 CPU is fairly new, super fast … and fading into obsolescence.
The same is true for the G4 (except the “new” and “super fast” parts).
The G3: down on all counts.
Many G4s can comfortably run OS X 10.3.9, and I bet most will run 10.4.6 and the soon-debuting 10.5. But that will likely be the last Apple OS upgrade that will even be compiled for any chip in the PowerPC family, I think.
A G3 can run OS X, if it’s fast enough. But those machines really thrive on OS 9.2.2. Except that there’s no modern Web browser that’ll run on them. Oh, and there’s been no innovation, support or applications coming down the pike for, say … seven years now.
Did you know that you can bring a G3 Mac into the era of current browsers and more free apps with Linux? Well … you can, but it’s not all so rosy.
There are a few Linux distributions that compile for PowerPC (going back to G3 and previous PPC chips, but not all the way back), the most popular being the fast-rising, easy-loading Ubuntu.
I have burned PowerPC CDs for Ubuntu and Xubuntu. On my iBook G4, Ubuntu ran right away, with sound and Ethernet auto-configured to work. I’ve never before gotten sound to work on anything without a little tweaking. Would I dump OS X 10.3.9 for Ubuntu? Probably not, but I’d consider dual-booting for the time being. (Since that machine is used mostly by Ilene, I’m going to leave it as is.)
The relationship between Ubuntu (funded by a weathy South African whose name escapes me) and the PowerPC chip is straining. Since PPC accounts for about 5 percent of Ubuntu users, Ubuntu creator Canonical has recently converted the PowerPC versions of all the ‘Buntus from fully supported product with twice-yearly updates to a “community maintained” port … and a more tenuous status overall.
There is much hair-rending and teeth gnashing in the very busy Ubuntu forums over the distancing from PPC, but the beauty of Linux is that there are hundreds of distributions — and at least a few of them have PowerPC ports and will maintain them. (Yellow Dog and Suse come to mind).
Let me emphasize: If you’re running OS 9 on a G3 or early G4, you might want to give Ubuntu Linux (or its less-powerful cousin Xubuntu) for PowerPC a try.
While the live CD of Ubuntu worked perfectly in the iBook, it didn’t fare so well on a Power Mac G4 tower, which pretty much screams on OS 9. On that machine, Ubuntu booted slowly (slow CD drive, I think), Ethernet wouldn’t work (I did a quick config and got nothing) and upon launch of Open Office, the whole thing crashes. No ‘Buntu live CDs would even load on the iMac G3 500 MHz. Many commenters have said that using the alternative install CD of Xubuntu allows installation to the hard drive, and that method does work.
The upshot: If Ubuntu, or any other distribution, can bring a modern Web browser to G3 Macs, that is huge.
Got here via Digg: Windows Vista vs. Ubuntu Edgy Eft, a side-by-side review by Jack Slingerland.
Some excerpts:
With Windows Vista, Microsoft has taken a giant leap forward with the usability of networking. For once networking(both wireless and wired) works out of the box. Setting up home networks is a breeze with the new interface, and the system doesn’t hang as nearly as often as it did before. One of the nicest features I’ve noticed in Vista’s networking window is the ability to decided who sees what. You can set it up so that you can browse people, but they can’t browse you. Or you can lock yourself down and not be able to browse anyone. While it may not be practical sometimes, it’s nice to have that kind of control.
Ubuntu has some work to do in the networking department. By default, it will detect nearly any network you put it on, but if you need to configure this network at all… good luck. Ideally I’d like to see Ubuntu with a more user friendly network setup. The one thing Ubuntu does do right though is the ability to connect to a plethora of different servers(SSH, FTP, HTTPS, HTTP, etc) with a simple click. I personally use the feature all the time. All in all, I’d say that Vista and Ubuntu are neck and neck with networking, with Vista inching a little forward because of the ease of use.
It’s great being next door to Fry’s, but they don’t have deals like this — in fact, they don’t seem to package much of anything together when it comes to barebones computers, preferring to cede that area of the business to … others.
The deals I’m talking about are on barebones systems at Tiger Direct.
The first includes a motherboard, 3.33 GHz Intel Celeron processor with fan, case and power supply, all for $99 after a $60 rebate. Add a hard drive, memory and a CD drive and you’re done.
If you want more in the box, for $249 after a $102 rebate, there’s a system with case, motherboard, 3 GHz Pentium with fan, power supply, 160 GB hard drive, 512 MB RAM. Add a CD drive and that’s it …
Oh … both don’t include the OS. Or a monitor, keyboard or mouse. These are perfect for people who are replacing an aging system and are OK with keeping the peripherals that came with it … like the CD-R or DVD drive, and all that other crap that plugs into it.
Photo: The $249 system from Tiger Direct.
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