BSD Migration Rolling Ahead

I wrote about my new blog last week but I’ve been too busy to make posts there or here to keep up with the changes as I migrate from Linux to BSD full-scale. I seem to be settling on NetBSD but I still may end up using OpenBSD. NetBSD offers ports for all the hardware I have (so does OpenBSD). I’m also familiar with NetBSD’s packaging system called pkgsrc, which I’ve used with both Slackware and OpenBSD. My servers already run OpenBSD.

I’ve installed NetBSD on my Pentium Pro and on a spare hard drive. Next up is my primary computer, which currently runs Damn Small Linux. I moved the aforementioned transient hard drive with a base install (plus some stuff I compiled yesterday) over to my main computer last night to make sure everything works. And it does. Very well.

I should be able to get back to it this afternoon to back up my data and start getting it all set up.

FSF = Pots Calling Kettles Black

The FSF’s environmental press release:

The statement highlights the disposable-computer mentality embodied in the excessive hardware requirements of Microsoft Windows Vista. Often new hardware is necessary to support new software features, but the coalition says in this case, Vista’s requirements are to enable the operating system to more effectively restrict the user at the request of media companies seeking to prevent copying of music and video files.

That’s pretty rich. Check out the hardware requirements to run most Linux distros sometime, you nutjobs. Many popular Linux distros now include Beryl in their default installs. The hardware requirements are very similar to what’s needed to run Vista.

Suse and Open Suse would require me to make upgrades to my hardware (if not dispose of what I have since it would be almost cheaper to buy a new system than to add RAM, video cards, and other recommended hardware I don’t use). Dittos for Ubuntu’s recommended minimums. These are distros where the most Windows refugees will feel comfortable — they probably won’t be inclined to do base installs of Debian or Slackware, let alone any of the source-based distros.

FSF should have meetings with distribution development teams and get them to practice what FSF preaches. And that’s exactly what it is: preaching. Preaching that reeks of sanctimony and a phony piety.

New Blog

I’ve added another blog to separate my Linux and BSD entries since it looks like the latter will play an increasingly larger role in my life.

CLI and Console Audio

I seldom carry an external mouse with me when I use my laptop and I don’t use my touchpad. Never have, never will. It’s one of the most ridiculously engineered products ever. I primarily use GNU screen in the console to run applications simulatenously and then just page through terminals. I rarely start X on laptop, and I use ratpoison when I do.

One of my bad habits is listening to music while I work, even when my battery is running low. I was experimenting with several multimedia applications to see what uses the least RAM and the least CPU cycles.

I have several sound applications on the laptop. DSL comes with mpg321 and ogg123, which are CLI tools for mp3 and ogg files (as well as streaming audio). I also use mp3blaster, a console application that provides a curses interface to manage tune selections and sound levels, etc. And I have a python front-end for mpg321 and ogg123 called cplay.

I decided to do a quick and dirty test on these three to see what my best choice is. I already know my own preference. I was hoping for validation. I was wrong.

First up was raw mpg321 run from symlink. Here’s the relevant text I copied (another reason I love screen):

—————————————————
CPU[|||| 8.6%] Tasks: 19 total, 2 running
Mem[||||||||||||||||||||||17/122MB]…

1146 dsl 14 0 1480 1480 1276 S 7.9 1.2 0:03.06 mpg123…
—————————————————

I was surprised that my CPU was running up to 11% while using mpg321. Since cplay is a front end, I knew it would perform similarly (if not “worse” since it uses python). So I quit mpg321 and fired up the same playlist with mp3blaster. Here’s what I saw:

—————————————————
CPU[|| 1.0%] Tasks: 22 total, 2 running
Mem[||||||||||||||||||||||18/122MB]…

1147 dsl 9 0 3508 3504 1552 S 0.0 2.8 0:00.06 mp3blaster…
1148 dsl 9 0 3508 3504 1552 S 0.0 2.8 0:00.00 mp3blaster…
1149 dsl 16 0 3508 3504 1552 R 0.4 2.8 0:00.34 mp3blaster…
1150 dsl 10 0 3508 3504 1552 S 0.1 2.8 0:00.02 mp3blaster…
—————————————————

It was much lighter on CPU cycles and used up more RAM.

I was expecting the curses-based app to use more CPU cycles than the CLI tool. I was wrong, but now I know which app will buy me a few more minutes on my battery charge. Good job, mp3blaster.

Tafiti - Silverlight Search Engine

I tried posting this the other day but firefox crashed and took deepest sender with it.

I thought the hype for Silverlight was overblown. I finally installed it so I could try out Microsoft’s new tafiti search site.

I’m almost sold. First my impressions of Silverlight: it’s pretty jazzy. That comes at a price, of course. I’m on machine with less than a gig of RAM so I’m curious how much better it would perform with “modern” amounts of memory. I also have firefox configured so it’s not very graphics friendly. I might have to try it again after resetting my about:config.

Second, impressions of tafiti, which is Live Search on Silverlight. I decided to see if my blog entries would show up so I searched lucky13linux. Voila, there I am. Then I noticed a note about the shelf. This is where you can drag things out, label them, and do whatever you need. The faq explains what it’s for.

• Putting things on the shelf - Search results can be dragged from the results pane to the shelf.
• Labeling a stack – hover over a particular shelf and click to type a label on the text box which appears.
• Seeing the contents of a stack – click on a particular stack (outside the label area) to see all the contents displayed in the Stack View.
• Delete individual items – hover over an item and click the red Remove button which will appear.
• Send a stack to someone else via email – click on the link at the top of the Stack view.
• Post a stack to your Windows Live Space - click on the link at the top of the Stack view.
• Clear a single stack on the shelf – click on the white X that appears when you hover over a particular stack.

Pretty cool.

So I did a few more searches. The trade off between this and Google is speed. Google is faster because it’s not bloated down with snazzy graphics and swirly icons.

It’s impressive, though. Impressive enough I would consider using it if my hardware could better handle it. But I’m holding out and not a candidate for Vista or any of the modern Linux distros designed with the latest graphics cards in mind.

I’ll try to scale my screenshot later. I don’t have GIMP installed on this account and I don’t care to put a 250k image up and slow my site from loading.

Addendum following crash: I removed Silverlight from my system.

Linus, Sun, ZFS, and the GPL

I linked to the following quote in my previous entry about GNUStep’s chief weenie Gregory Casamento’s apoplexy over Linus Torvalds and Linux. Does it REALLY sound like Linus is so bad and so mean? I don’t think so.

I’ll highlight the key points so even Casamento can find it.

Linus on GPLv3 and ZFS:

And yes, I’m cynical, and yes, I hope I’m wrong. And if I’m wrong, I’ll very happily retract anything cynical I said about Sun. They _have_ done great things, and maybe I’m just too pessimistic about all the history I’ve seen of Sun with open source. The _good_ news is that Jonathan Schwartz actually does seem to have made a difference, and I hope to God he is really as serious about open-sourcing things as he says he is. And don’t get me wrong: I think a truly open-source GPLv3 Solaris would be a really really _good_ thing, even if it does end up being a one-way street as far as code is concerned!

The more I read that and compare it to what Casamento wrote, the less bright and more irrational Casamento appears.

GNUStep Maintainer Whines About Linux and Linus

Here’s a big bunch of boo hoo from Greg Casamento, maintainer of GNUStep. He starts off by saying:

I must admit to getting really fed up with the Linux community lately. They seem to believe that their hero, Linus Torvalds, can do nothing wrong.

I don’t know where this comes from. Perhaps Mr Casamento has missed out on the scheduler debate that caused Con Kolivas to head for the hills and put down the direction of personal computers. Now, if Casamento had written this about Kolivas and his supporters, I would be able to agree. But to say that Linus gets a free pass from everyone is total bullshit. Linus is still taking shit over that.

He continues:

For anyone who can’t think for themselves, yes, his opinion really counts. I, personally, like to form my own opinions of things. While Linux has been seized upon by people as a great operating system. The only good thing about it is that it’s free. Linux is a monolithic kernel architecture which, as many operating systems experts will tell you, has number of problems.

Again, I wonder if Mr Casamento has ever bothered reading the discussions in which Torvalds participates. It’s not like there’s a lack of opinions among kernel developers. Or users. There’s often very wide open debate about issues pertaining to the direction of Linux development.

I don’t know how much Casamento knows about kernels, either. Kernel designs encompass many compromises. Monolithic kernels can have as many problems as microkernels and vice versa. Microkernels have their own peculiarities. In the grand scheme of things, look at the different operating systems and take note that every major operating system — Windows, Linux, the BSDs, Solaris, etc. — is based on a monolithic kernel. Also note that the existing microkernel operating systems — BeOS, Haiku, and Minix — are marginal in their acceptance if they’re even actively developed (Be went out of business years ago). So again I say, total bullshit, Mr Casamento.

EDIT: I earlier included Mac in the list of monolithic kernels. I know Apple uses a hybrid kernel, not a pure microkernel.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that he’s some kind of visionary, when he’s not. The man never says anything positive about anyone else’s work.

I don’t know if these two sentences are intended to be together, but the former has nothing to do with the latter. Visionaries seldom see the merit of others’ work, they’re driven by the pursuit of their own visions. And Linus’ own vision was always very clear. Say what you want about his people skills, Mr Casamento, but I don’t think yours are much better. And Linus is smarter than you.

As far as projects and leadership go: Linux is his, GNUStep is yours. How many organizations and individuals use Linux? How many organizations and individuals use GNUStep?

I find it really tiring to listen to him rail on everything under the sun… speaking of Sun. Linus railed against them for not giving anything to the community….

“Railed” is interesting given the baseless assertions you leveled above. In this case, Linus is right: Sun wants it both ways. They want to be able to use drivers from Linux without making dtrace and zfs available to anyone else.

let’s examine that assertion for a minute: Sun has: 1) Given it’s OS out under a Free Software license

Under CDDL. It’s not as free as GPLv2. And even though Sun participated in GPLv3’s drafting, they’ve yet to release OpenSolaris under it. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. And be sure to specify exactly which OS they released. They didn’t open all of Solaris under a free license. Did they?

2) Given it’s Processor out under the GPL

Linus, IIRC, has been very supportive of this.

3) Released Open Office under the GPL

Again, I think Linus’ interest is in what Sun intends to do with ZFS and dtrace.

4) Is in the process of releasing Java under the GPL.

Yes. Finally. When will they release OpenSolaris, ZFS, and dtrace under GPL? Or relicense the latter two in such a manner that they’re GPL-compatible?

Casamento continues:

He regularly criticizes RMS.

And rightly so. RMS is an absolutist, a puritan, impractical, dogmatic. Linus is very pragmatic.

I don’t agree with everything RMS says, but some of the things that Linus dings him on are completely assinine.

Such as? Such as this, Mr Casamento:

The GPLv2 was created before certain technologies existed. The GPLv3 was made to address the problems these new technologies present… and keeps with the spirit of the GPLv2. Linus is too blind to see this.

Linus’ position (and mine — read my posts categorized under FSF sucks) is that GPLv3 exceeds what’s necessary to protect his and other programmers’ interests. GPLv3 tries to fix what’s not broken. It goes beyond software to encompass data (there were data before GPL) and hardware (also pre-dates GPL). Linus said those are areas that don’t affect his kernel or his license and won’t change his mind.

I don’t know what Casamento thinks Linus doesn’t understand, but I would say from everything I’ve read that Linus understands the differences and the underlying reasons for the changes in GPL pretty well — if he doesn’t, I’m sure he has people around him to help advise him (not to mention all the FSF types flooding him with e-mails about changing licenses). Linus said he’s not interested in Stallman’s war on DRM. Linus also said that TiVo has played fair and contributed back to Linux development as they were obligated under GPLv2. If he’s happy with GPLv2 — and it’s worked out quite well for him — why should be feel compelled to change?

I’m sure I’ll be dismissed as one of the sycophants Casamento ranted about. That’s fair. I’ve been called a lot worse by people who actually had a clue what they were talking about. You clearly don’t, Mr Casamento.

PS: I just tried to post a comment on Mr Casamento’s blog to summarize and share these thoughts but I would have to get a blogger account.

Monday Morning Wrap Up

Skype outage caused by download update:

A two-day outage that left millions of Skype users unable to use the popular Internet phone service was caused by an abnormally high number of restarts after people had downloaded a Windows security update, the company said Monday.

iRobot sues Robot FX over alleged patent infringement:

It looks like Robot FX has run into a bigger obstacle than it’s bargained for, with the company now facing not one but two lawsuits from iRobot over alleged patent infringement.

Ballmer, Chambers and Charlie Rose:

Today’s joint CEO conference clearly was meant to allay concerns on numerous fronts, whether it be customers, partners or shareholders. Make no mistake: These companies are on a collision course in the enterprise, and no amount of Ballmer-Chambers huggy, kissy talk is going to change that.

Weekend Roundup

Phishers Can Misuse Google Gadgets, Researcher Says:

Google told him that what he sees as a flaw is simply part of the site’s expected behavior.

Sourcefire acquires ClamAV open-source anti-malware project:

The company did not rule out a potential leap into the desktop security market.

Major Skype outage in progress:

Plenty of theories have been floated as to what caused the problem, but Skype itself says that it was an algorithm error with their own service. So this has nothing to do with Windows or Microsoft, nothing to do with a hack or compromise.

Scrapin’ Google in no sec - in Ruby:

scRUBYt! is a simple to learn and use, yet powerful web scraping toolkit written in Ruby.

10 (+1) ways your network is like your front door:

Secrecy about security doesn’t make anyone a smaller target.

What it means to be “targeted”:

Just one question: The arrest was made under the Brooklyn Bridge? What’s up with that? This could be a great story. Maybe even a screenplay?

Jonathan Schwartz’s Weblog: Momentous Day for Solaris:

To me, this is a tectonic shift in the marketplace - bringing together erstwhile competitors to serve a marketplace IBM and Sun agree is bigger than the both of us. By working together, we can serve customers wanting to run Solaris on IBM hardware, and deliver a unique set of solutions (including IBM’s middleware, the majority of which is certified on Solaris, too). This isn’t about displacing partners or revenue streams, it’s about growing both - and as the first Tier 1 x86 system vendor to sign on as a comprehensive Solaris OEM, IBM is clearly in the pole position to capture that growth.

Microsoft Extending XP Professional End of Life

News that Microsoft is extending the end of life of XP Professional by creating a service pack that only exists to extend the pool of available activation keys…

 New Zealand PC World Magazine > Windows XP: The OS that won’t die?

Last month, the company’s chief financial officer said that he tweaked the fiscal year 2008 forecast to account for XP’s longevity. Rather than count on an 85/15 split in sales between Vista and XP, said Chris Liddell, Microsoft now expects a 78/22 split, an increase of nearly 50% in anticipated XP sales.