Linux

As a computer refurbisher I am always pleased when people are open to switching to Linux. Long story short I was doing some work for a client that I'd switched to Linux when I ran the following command in his home directory:

sudo rm -rf /home/username/.gnome2

I was scanning Twitter this morning when I found an interesting attempt to get Linux users to register with a web site. Most people know about the Linux Counter project which has counted Linux Users and Linux machines for several years. The 1 Million Tux project is an attempt to count 1 million Linux users in 100 days. So far the project is way behind that deadline, collecting about 35 registrations/day.

One of the reasons I love Linux is because it's extremely customizable. The screenshot above looks a lot like MacOS X, but is in fact Linux (the Gnome footprint for the start button gives that away).

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, has released some details about a lighter weight Ubuntu he and his company are working on for the future.

There are lots of positive comments about the changes, but I wonder how much of it is innovative? A lot of this technology already exists in Ubuntu. It seems to me that most of the innovation is just an attempt to bloat Ubuntu with social network systems.

Canonical is revising some of the Ubuntu interface for netbooks, this is my take on it, it's just the bottom panel switched to the side with a few social networking icons.

For the past several years I've used the Gnome desktop environment on Linux. Unlike Windows, Linux has several desktop environments that can be switched between quite easily using any login manager. In the distant past I have used WindowMaker, Enlightenment, IceWM, and KDE. Of all these desktop environments I was perhaps most actively involved with WindowMaker and IceWM.

Working in a computer refurbishing environment I get a lot of opportunity to test equipment. One of the nice surprises came a few weeks ago when someone bought a Micro Innovations IC435C web cam from a local bargain store and brought it into our shop. The client wanted us to install the drivers for the camera in their Windows machine. We did the installation and also popped it into our Ubuntu Linux machine.

Ubuntu normally doesn't have any web camera applications installed so I installed Cheese:

sudo apt-get install cheese


One of the books I've been most impressed with on the Linux front is Evi Nemeth, et al's Linux Administration Handbook. I have the second edition of this wonderful book. In the past I've used it as a reference, but I recently started to read it cover to cover in the hope that I'll eventually learn a lot more about Linux internals. What follows are my notes from the first chapter:

Technologies I should learn as a system administrator:
∘ vi/vim
∘ perl
∘ python
∘ shell programming
∘ expect
• Suggested Reading:
∘ Programming Perl by Larry Wall, et al.

In the "it's about time" category, Make Tech Easier reports that the latest version of iFuse now allows you to synchronize your iPod touch and iPhone with Linux using Rhythmbox.

There is a lot of news this week, but one of the more interesting news items is that Novell and the Linux Professional Institute have partnered together on their certifications. This means that if you currently have a LPIC-1 certification you'll be qualified for the Novell Certified Linux Administrator certification without taking the exam, at least according to this report on Internetnews.com. I'm not sure if the reverse is true.