dave.ofmassdestruction.com

My history with operating systems is fairly simple. When home computers
were new I started out with an Epson computer(!!) that had its own
operating system which was quirky by today’s standards but was quite
nice in its simplicity. I then moved to an intel-driven DOS machine and
had a love-hate relationship with it. I moved to UNIX/Linux in work and
home life sometime later and obviously concentrated fairly heavily on
that until OS X came along.

I got my first Apple mainly to accommodate my photography obsession
because (even still) using a linux machine with photos absolutely
blows. I enjoy OS X but I also enjoy linux/gnome. However, I have
noticed in the last few years that I have slowly moved away from
OS-dependence. Call it what you will – the Cloud, SAAS, whatev. All I
know is that it is incredibly convenient to be able to sit at any
computer and do all the things I would normally do at my home
computer. In fact, about the only apps I use that aren’t cloud-centric
are emacs and my photo-software. Even still, with emacs I mostly use
org-mode for my work and I keep all my org files online. As long as I
have emacs on a machine, I can do my work. But in a pinch, I could use
another editor on those files since they are simply text-files.

That still leaves photos. The only non-standard,
not-practical-in-the-cloud thing I do. I’ve seen the attempts at photo
editors online, I know that one can use online tools to store and
categorize their photos – but none of those services come close to how I
can do it at home with old-fashioned, closed-source, non-standard,
key-on-the-back-of-the package software. Maybe this means there is an
opportunity in the market or maybe it means that camera manufacturers
are behind-the-times… or maybe it means I am particular with my
photos – I’m not really sure.

I’m not sure what this means for Operating Systems – at least, OSes that
aren’t powering “the Cloud” – but it does feel like a trend that would
lend itself to devices that start quickly and get me online. I see this
progress in the direction the iPad has taken us. Whatever your opinion
is on the particular of that one device – the idea that I can have
a small, “instant-on” device that can get me online is incredibly
appealing. I think the future of such devices in grand.

So a friend writes me and says – “Hey Dave – is that you in that one photo…”

And the answer is yes. Zabbo put up a load of photos from the Ottawa Linux Symposium of 2000. Wow – what an amazingly fun time that was. One of those perfect storms of super smart folks, really good friends, shared interests, and many many parties. It has to be about my most favorite few days from the Red Hat era – that and the first GUADEC in Paris.

So yeah – here is me, me, me and them, and oh there I am.

Wow – I’m vain… look at the set instead – such good folks.

Oh.. and zab – 7 years is just long enough for nostalgia to trump embarrassment.

Over the last few months, the applications I use on a daily basis are migrating even further online than I suspected that they would. Its really quite impressive the ideas people are coming up with for tools, entertainment, information, etc. This is lending more and more credence to my old Red Hat co-workers ideas about an online desktop. If you don’t know what that means, take a moment to go through the tour of what they have so far. Unfortunately for me, I am currently an Ubuntu user and don’t have time to build the desktop and all its dependencies but perhaps I will find a moment to load Fedora 8 on another machine and give it a look.

Yesterday and today I’ve been playing with iwantsandy.com which is an inventive “personal assistant” the CTO of O’Reilly has cooked up. Its had some bumps with traffic but the functionality is pretty great. I can see me using an online desktop and getting a little mugshot pop-up of reminders from Sandy, just as easily as I can see myself using Google Docs and Google Notebook on the same desktop. I have held a somewhat skeptical eye to mugshot so far, but the online desktop is a great idea. It also can lend itself well to mugshot and perhaps make it more useful to me in the long run.

I’ll be watching with anticipation!

We decided to install a gas stove after our old stove died and as such we’ve had service people in and out of the house (long story that needs not be told here). At one point this last week, my lovely wife was home when one of the servicemen was here. She was sitting at the table using her computer (Ubuntu on an old, but very good Fujitsu) and the guy asked her what she was using. “Linux” was her reply. The serviceman said he didn’t use Linux “for personal reasons”. But he did use a UNIX.

So I’ve been thinking about that… “personal reasons”? It occurs to me that generally if a linux company or group does something a user doesn’t like they tend to go to another distribution. Likewise, if they decided to go to a BSD I don’t think they hold the whole linux community responsible for the issue.

Personally, I don’t like the Novell deal with Microsoft but I can’t possibly apply their actions to Red Hat, Canonical, or most especially Debian. And if it drove me to BSD I think that would have more to do with the differences between the GPL and LGPL versus the BSD licenses. Wouldn’t it?

These days I go with whatever makes the most sense. For example, that aforementioned Fujistu has Ubuntu on it because when it was first installed Ubuntu provided the easiest install due to including the mad wifi drivers. Decision made. After that, its all about the same as long as GNOME and Firefox are there.

Actually, I am sure that serviceman (a loser for other reasons) is sitting at home on his new Vista machine watching his second life avatar use a DEC Alpha or something. In other words, I’m not worrying about it, it just made me think.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while but for some reason never hit the “publish” button.

At work we support the fine folks at System76. Why? Well, we use Ubuntu and its easier to get some hardware in which you know it will work than trying to coax it to. Personally I use the Darter Ultra which is their ultra-portable model. First impressions tell me that this thing could be far more “ultra” in its “portable”. I also have an HP NC2400 on my desk and that redefines the category coming in at 2lbs – nice. The Darter is bigger and heavier than I expected but its still very manageable (I’ll try to remember to revisit that after my trip to Rwanda).

Out of the box the Darter looked good, felt a little cheap but not too cheap, and there was a rattle…. hmmm. Flipping it over and looking through one of the vents I saw that the rattle was a memory card flopping around inside…. not good. I fixed that, would everyone be comfortable doing so? I am not sure if that is the fault of the manufacturer (they are built in Taiwan or somewhere similar, contracted out from System76) or the folks at System76 as I don’t know where they apply the chosen specs the customer wants. Nonetheless, I fired it up after reinstalling the memory and all worked well.

Until, I put a disc in the DVD drive. The drive ate it. Literally. An email to System76 got a very prompt reply apologizing and informing me of the new drive being sent. Cool. It arrived a week or so later, works great.

The other problems I’m having are GNOME/BIOS/Other:

First, the battery applet in GNOME was telling me lies. You’re plugged in (no I wasnt), Your battery is dead (no its not). I have seen reference on the System76 forums that this is a BIOS problem and they are working on it. I have to say that while I have received a great amount of support, questions, and suggestions from one particular guy at System76, I have never been told that personally. Who knows. Its not a deal breaker.

Second, the network applet is screwy – and this might just be a GNOME problem. Nonetheless, I cannot simply select a wireless network and join it. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. Sometimes I have to select manual configuration and set it up as it would have set it up automatically and it works. I don’t know why. Also, once I’ve gone wireless, I can never go back wired with the network applet until I’ve logged out. I have to use another tool (ifup) to go wired. Annoying. Again, I think this might be a GNOME – or perhaps an Ubuntu problem.

Finally, when headphones are plugged in, the speakers still output sound. D’oh! I’ve read on the forums again that this is about to be fixed in an update.

OK – so whats the tally? 5 problems. Some serious, some not. Still, not the most pleasant experience with a laptop that I’ve had – but also not the worst (Dell still shatters the record there). The wireless problems I can kinda live with and I see windows users having equal or worse trouble (I’ve not seen OS X users having trouble though). The battery thing is annoying and I can’t tell how much charge I have left, but its no big deal. The speakers are funny and the network is lame.

I will reiterate that the support guy has been super nice and responsive – but I think he is very overworked. System76 seems to be a very small company and that’s great to support but they could use a little bit better manufacturer.

I am going to give this laptop a grade of B- at least for now. If those last few problems are resolved that could rise, though it will never rank at the top.

• A+: Apple Powerbook ti
• A: IBM Thinkpad 330(I think that was the number).
• B+: Apple Macbook, IBM Thinkpad 600
• B-: System76 Darter Ultra
• F: Dell (forgot the devil spawns model number)

I really can’t believe GNOME turns 10 years old today. That feels a bit surreal.

I have some very fond memories of the pre-1.0 days of GNOME, most coming from working in the RHAD Labs. A couple GNOME moments that stand out for me are:

First, the very late night when a <cough> “working” version of GNOME was hacked up to show Bob Young the next morning so he wouldn’t change his mind and make us ship KDE with the next Red Hat release(it still had a less-than-stellar license then). Owen even scripted a workflow for that faux-version of GNOME. He might have single-handedly saved GNOME :)

Second, I think back with amusement to the GNOME 1.0 press conference at the first Linux World Expo in San Jose, CA. RMS almost took over the whole show and had the journalists chasing all sorts of non-GNOME crap. Others, mostly Miguel, steered the whole thing back but even afterwards those journalists were wandering around the show floor asking people about this whole “call it GNU/Linux” rant RMS was on instead of thinking about GNOME. Sigh.

But mostly my memories are about the people who worked and still work on GNOME. What an amazingly decent bunch of folks. I am proud to have had some small part.

Happy Birthday GNOME!