Linux and Windows

Sometimes one of my Windows-using friends will ask me why I use Linux. They usually don't ask because they want to learn more about Linux, but would rather start a debate about why "their favorite" operating system is better. Personally, I think a "favorite OS" is ridiculous. It's a tool to help you accomplish something. Do you have a favorite drill bit? Or a favorite subway ticket?

However, in the interest of provoking those same aforementioned Windows-using friends, I pass along the following observation:

My Windows XP work laptop has received Windows updates for the past three days, and gave me a "C:\ drive is low on disk space" warning this morning as a result. I wound up having to delete 2 GB of space.

My Ubuntu eeePC received updates after 21 days of forgetting to check, and afterwards I actually wound up having roughly 7% more free disk space afterwards.

Yes, those Ubuntu developers are amazing. :)

ASUS eee PC + Ubuntu eee = WowEEE!

I picked up an ASUS eee PC just under a year ago, and after running the Xandros distribution (albeit with hacks) for most of that time, I decided to explore other options. It took longer than anticipated to accomplish (my eee PC kept seeing my pendrive as a hard drive, so I couldn't pick it from the boot menu as I was expecting), but I finally managed to run/install the Ubuntu eee distro.

I wanted to set down my initial impressions while they were still fresh in my mind.

I was able to make a bootable Live USB key easily. There's a GUI tool that makes it a simple process-- no command line kung-fu required. The desktop interface is an elegant, highly functional compromise between a full desktop and a novice switchboard. The performance of the Live USB key was slow/disconcerting, but don't let that discourage you-- it runs faster after you install it on the internal SSD.

A word to the wise about the actual installation process: when I tried to install Ubuntu eee from within the session of Ubuntu, I got to step 5 and found the keyboard was unresponsive. This was a problem since step 5 required entering account information, like name, user id and password. I had to reboot from the USB key and pick the Install Ubuntu option from the default boot menu. Your mileage may vary.

Almost everything worked "out of the box" with the installation. It picked up the WiFi (Atheros adaptor) and easily handled my home wireless WPA2 encryption. After wrestling with Ubuntu on a G4 PowerPC iBook (with a Broadcom adapter), I was expecting trouble. The only obvious hardware-specific snafu was the webcamera (which had been DISABLED in the BIOS).

As far as software goes, I wound up receiving somewhere in the ballpark of 250 MB of updates. No glitches per se, but it had to do the updates in two stages/reboots in order to resolve some dependencies. The synaptic manager is more flexible and versatile than the software update interface found in the Xandros/eee PC distro.

It was a little bit of a rocky start, but the overall experience has been positive and continues to impress me.

Ubuntu 7.04, G4 iBook, and WPA2

I *think* I've finally managed to get WPA2 working with Ubuntu 7.04 on my old G4 iBook. I'm putting that huge qualifier in there because it seemed almost TOO easy, and I'm waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop.

I believed, like many others, that the issue was the Broadcom chipset in the Airport Extreme wireless built in to the iBook.

It turns out that the (as I understand it) process of converting WPA passwords into hex keys gets screwed up by Network Manager on the PPC architecture. It's a "big endian" versus "little endian" thing . . . basically, some machines store bit values from right to left (i.e. the least significant digit is on the right), while the Macintosh does it from left to right (i.e. the least significant digit is on the left).

In other words, if you let Network Manager do the password to hex key conversion for you, it's "backwards." If you bypass the conversion process entirely, and go straight to the hex key itself-- you should be in!

At least, that seems to be what worked for me.

In terminal, type this:

wpa_passphrase your_ssid your_password

You should get a sixty-four character hex key in the result. Highlight and copy that key in your terminal session, then try to reconnect to your WPA2-protected network with the Network Manager. When prompted for your password, paste the 64-character hex key in place instead. If you have the option of telling Ubuntu to remember your password, I'd recommend taking advantage of it-- because manually generating, copying and pasting that long key is going to get really old pretty quick.

Hope that works for you as nicely as it did for me!

And remember, I'm pro-Linux, NOT a Linux-pro-- so don't expect me to be able to field any and all questions that people might be inclined to leave here in the comments!

Ubuntu

Ubuntu? Maybe they should consider renaming it to Ubiquntu. (as in, "you can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone that's using it.")

I've tried Ubuntu off and on over the past year, downloading the Live CD and test driving it on X86 and PPC. It had a very polished desktop and package of applications, but there were always these minor issues (i.e. unsupported model of wireless, or having to backup my hard drive and repartition in order to turn my laptop into a dual booting Xp/Ubuntu laptop, etc.) that kept me from making any long term use of it.

Well, this weekend, due to a combination of two factors, I've decided to give Ubuntu a longer trial period.

One: Thanks to a wonderful little installer/hack called Wubi, I was able to install Ubuntu as a boot up option without the inconvenience of backing up, repartioning and restoring my Windows hard drive. It basically creates a linux partition inside of a large file (4 or 5 GB) on the Windows partition. Very slick. I don't know why this tool hasn't gotten more buzz than it has, because I think it's pure genius.

Two: Although Ubuntu uses 2.6.x kernel, it still didn't seem to find the Dell TrueMobile 1350/Broadcom chipset WiFi card quite correctly enough to give me wireless functionality. Fortunately, uber-geek David Watson had the same problem last May and was thoughtful enough to post his solution for anyone else who might come along with the same problem in the future. Once I followed those directions, my wireless card sprung to life and started working flawlessly (including, I might add, support for WPA2 on my home access point).

For sheer ease of use out of the box, I think Puppy is still the distribution to beat . . . but Ubuntu offers a heck of a lot without the child's bike/training wheels feeling that I get from Puppy.