Practical Technology

for practical people.

February 10, 2011
by sjvn01
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Canonical releases Component Catalog for Ubuntu & Linux

“But will it work with Linux?” That’s a question that many end-users has asked over the years about PC components and peripherals. Lately, the answer is usually yes. Thanks to vendors like Dell and the efforts of the Linux Driver Project, very few devices and components won’t work at all with Linux. At the same time, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) have faced the same problem at a lower level. Now, Canonical, Ubuntu Linux’s parent company, has announced that it’s opening up its complete database of certified components for Ubuntu and Linux.

That’s good news. It means Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) working on Ubuntu or Linux notebooks and PCs can much more quickly design systems that they can be sure will work with Linux and Ubuntu in particular.

The catalog presents ODMs and OEMs with a selection of over 1,300 certified components from 161 manufacturers. The database laid out both by vendor, and by type of component. With the former you can quickly see, for example, what ATI, NIVIDIA, and Broadcom have to offer, and with the latter you can find out who’s offering Linux-certified Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE), USB and touch interfaces. You can also search the catalog for specific equipment.

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February 9, 2011
by sjvn01
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WebOS could be a Contender

I liked what I’ve seen of HP’s Linux-based webOS. Still I did think, given Apple and Android’s leading in cutting edge smartphones and tablets, that webOS had much of a shot. Maybe I was wrong. I’m not the only doubter who after HP’s latest webOS presentation now thinks that HP’s webOS devices may yet find a place in the fast red-hot smartphone and tablet markets.

The devices, including the tiny HP Veer smartphone; the Pre 3 with its HD video recording and powered by a 1.4GHz Qualcomm CPU, and the 9.7-inch TouchPad with its Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-CPU APQ8060 1.2-GHz processor and 16 to 32GBs of RAM all sounded and looked great at HP’s great webOS device unveiling party.

What I found most interesting though was that HP is planning on taking webOS 3.0 to laptops and desktops as well. What’s this!? HP wants to get into the Linux-based desktop operating system business!? As my buddy from the Washington Post, Rob Pegoraro put it, “‘We’re going to bring webOS to PCs’” almost two hours into a keynote raises the bar on burying the lede.”

I wonder what Microsoft thinks about one of their more faithful partners going into direct competition with them on the desktop?

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February 7, 2011
by sjvn01
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Debian Linux was important: Will it continue to be?

When I asked the rhetorical question, “Is Debian Linux still relevant?” I knew I’d cause a ruckus. But, I also felt the question needed to be asked: For Debian’s own good.

Seriously.

Not everyone, to no surprise, agrees with me. My buddy Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier wrote, “Debian has never been a user-friendly distribution, or one that was really targeted at a mainstream audience. Debian 6.0 continues a long tradition of shipping a brand-new stable release that is already outdated, with little to appeal to new users.”

Really? That’s not how I see it. Debian has always tried to stay true to its Social Contract, but it community of developers have also strived to make it a popular distribution as well. To quote from Debian 6.0’s news release, “Debian once again stays true to its goal of being the universal operating system. It sounds to me like they want both old and new users.

It’s getting those new users that’s one of my main concerns.

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February 7, 2011
by sjvn01
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A VPN to call your own

With Firesheep potentially looking over your Web-browsing shoulder and password management becoming essential, wouldn’t be nice if you could easily keep all your Internet traffic really secure? As it happens, there’s long been a way to keep your online wandering secret: Virtual Private Networks (VPN).

If you’re lucky, your company, school, or some other organization provides you with a VPN service. Most of the time you may have used this just to work on office matters from the road or home. You can, and should, also use it anytime you’re on the Internet. Far more so than many Wi-Fi security measures, application proxies, or the Web-based security measures such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or TLS/SSL over HTTP (HTTPS), a VPN can keep your information safe all the way from your laptop to servers and back again.

Even if your company doesn’t provide a VPN though you can also use VPN firmware on your home router, such as DD-WRT, or on a computer working as a VPN server with a program like OpenVPN. All these require at least some technical expertise to set up. But, what if you’re all thumbs when it comes to technology? Well you still have an answer: a VPN provider.

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February 6, 2011
by sjvn01
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The new Debian Linux: Irrelevant?

Once upon a time, a new Debian Linux release was a big deal in Linux circles. It still is, but its child, Ubuntu Linux, is the Linux distribution that gets all the headlines. There’s a reason for that. Over the years, Debian has become more and more a Linux just for Linux fanatics while the rest of the Linux family has become more end-user friendly.

As I look over the features in the latest Debian, I can see why Debian, while still popular as a building block for other Linux distributions, is no longer as important as it once was. For example, the default Debian distributions won’t include any proprietary firmware binary files. While that will be popular with die-hard free software fans, users who just want to use their Wi-Fi hardware and to get the most from their graphics cards won’t be happy.

If, as is likely if you’re using a laptop or a PC with high-end graphics and you find you’re running into hardware problems, the Debian installation program should alert you the problem. That’s fine as far as it goes, but the installation routine won’t automatically download the missing firmware from the Web. Instead, you’ll need to pause the installation while you fetch the missing in action firmware from either the Debian non-free firmware ftp site or the vendor’s site.

OK, that’s doable if you’re a power user. If you’re not, it’s a confusing pain-in-the-rump.

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February 4, 2011
by sjvn01
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What makes IBM’s Watson run?

It’s looking pretty good for Watson, IBM’s Linux-powered computer cluster, as IBM engineers get it ready for its mid-February showdown with Jeopardy’s all-time champs, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. In a practice round, Watson already won a practice round and Bodog, the online gambling company and odds-maker has made Watson the favorite at 5/6. Even if Watson doesn’t win, the mere fact that it can compete at this level is amazing.

How can Watson do it? Here’s what I’ve learned about Watson’s hardware and software in the last few days.

According to David Davidian, an IBM Senior System Architect, “Watson is a massively parallel system based on the IBM POWER7 750 in a standard rack mounted configuration.” It can run AIX, IBM’s house-brand Unix; IBM I; and Linux. To compete on Jeopardy Watson is running Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

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