Various Updates and Thoughts

A few quick updates…

BSD
I updated my BSD blog this weekend. I learned DragonFlyBSD has and OpenBSD will have bwi, a BSD-native Broadcom wirecutter-like module. So I’m at least going to test it out on my laptop and see how well it works. I’m most likely transitioning back to FreeBSD or OpenBSD (maybe DragonFlyBSD), but I’ll continue to do a few things with Damn Small Linux so I’ll keep a few partitions available for that.

TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT
I downloaded Damn Small Solaris, which infringes on at least two trademarks so I’m striking it out. Why can’t people come up with unique names if they’re going to copy everything else another project is doing? Same apps, roughly same size, and then taking their name as well. I guess some people just lack the ideas and originality to innovate or differentiate at all. Damn Small Linux is trademarked. So is Solaris — maybe someone should’ve noticed Sun’s clear notice about use of their trademarks, which has led to OpenSolaris projects with very unique names like Nexenta and Belenix. Sun has a legal team. I hope John of DSL does, too.

LAPTOP - KDE - VECTORLINUX
Back to my laptop. I’ve been running KDE 3.5.8 on it the past week. I need to compare the configuration used by VectorLinux to what I’m using on my desktop because it’s not using as much RAM as I feared it would (an issue with the laptop since it’s “challenged”). I prefer KDE to Xfce. I’m using less RAM when KDE loads than when Xfce loaded. Even with my choice of apps, I’m using less RAM with KDE.

Needless to say, though, RAM use with KDE is about triple after login what JWM requires. I wish there was a way to get KDE’s (start up) RAM use to about 100-120MB. I would use it all the time.

DEBIAN
One thing I like better about Debian compared to Vector/Slackware is the application packaging. Debian’s repositories aren’t just more prolific, Debian allows a bit more flexibility with respect to meta-packaging. For example, I wanted a specific K application. With slapt-get, I had to take it as part of a larger package with stuff I didn’t want; Debian had it by itself.

REMASTERING
I spent some time working on stripping down and updating things in Knoppix to see how small I could make it. I can get it comfortably under 100MB, but I’m leaving in a few things that wouldn’t come with DSL (no, not KDE!). I may get to work on it again later this week. I have the things I want to work working already. The rest is fluff.

RIM Confirms Blackberry Disruption

NOW FIX IT FASTER THAN THE DISRUPTION LAST APRIL.

Latest Desktop Configuration

I’ve been using Knoppix 5.1 installed as Debian with a few upgrades from Sid (kernel, gcc, etc.) on my desktop for a couple weeks. KDE is very nice — I prefer it over Gnome and Xfce — but I don’t like the tax on system resources even with 256MB RAM. This will soon change when I replace this hard drive with the one I use for Damn Small Linux and the much lower demands of JWM. Not as fancy, but it’s better suited for this computer.

I don’t think KDE is sexy, but I did add a few little personal touches.

$ uptime
11:37:21 up 11 days, 14:26,  1 user,  load average: 0.61, 0.62, 0.84

I think my much delayed hardening guide will be changed to a guide for setting up things on a hard drive install of a live CD — both Knoppix and DSL. Such as which scripts to disable, tweaks I use, and some security settings to consider. There are some things that make a live CD work wonderfully that really aren’t so well suited for standard use. Such as anything that rewrites fstab.