Clicking Around The World And Climate Change.

The East Antarctica ice sheet is melting faster.

Modern-day Neanderthal Tory still denies climate change and existence of Europe!

Want bigger lips or cosmetic enhancements? This story should make you rethink. Liquidised fat.

Xbox players and the real James Bond.

Deep-sea beauties.

Large Hadron Collider might work, soon.

Tamils still kept in camps.

Visions of Darwin. Nice frog.

Fish and acid oceans.

Sync That.

Chrome doing wonderful multi-platform things with bookmarks.

Wine dev hits 1.1.33.

Better Ubuntu, Mint 8.

ARM and the cheapest ever laptop!

Another form of cloning.

7 megawatts of power, sort of.

Super Computers, mostly powered by Linux.

Watch out what you say, or you’ll be quoted.

Downgrade GDM.

Not so reliable MACs.

Over or under 50? Feeling your age? Try some freebies.

Chrome OS, an early review.

Betas To Come?

Firefox 3.6 is coming shortly, beta 2 just released.

Kindle and PCs. Not a good start.

Glenn Beck and the First Amendment, which he likes when it suits him.

Skype might have some serious competition, from Google.

DistroWatch Weekly makes interesting reading.

Nice, short guide to dealing with M$ malware.

Flawed fox ?

Bing’s security problems.

PCs for us oldies.

Microsoft hates those chippers, might turn out to be a PR disaster, eventually.

Murdoch’s mistake, I think he hasn’t quite understood the web or modern technology, as he thinks he can charge for content from his papers, more likely is that most people will stop sourcing their material from News International titles.

Twitter the wisdom of the ages?

Rather funny.

Who’d own an Iphone?

Home Secretary’s misplaced photo-op with McKinnon’s mum.

Intel Reader, good idea, stupid price.

More on Iphone’s own goals at Facebook.

Kindle DX rejected.

Devils in the detail? The Vatican uses Linux!

Epiphany moves to Webkit.

James Bond’s Phone MK II.

Around The World In A Few Clicks.

France told to back off.

I like the idea of a blogging donkey.

In Germany, a Russian racist is jailed for the appalling killing of Marwa al-Sherbini.

Swine flu politics in the Ukraine.

Refugees flee Saudi-Yemeni conflict, the UN expresses concern.

China’s Free Trade Agreement with Costa Rica is on the horizon?

Neo-Nazis detained in Italy.

A world of barriers, biggest in the world.

Over 135,000 Tamils stuck in camps, still.

Vaccination used as bait in the Congo.

Racists attack synagogue in Florida.

Great Wall damaged.

Bits and Failures.

10 failures in computing.

Intel’s strangle-hold on the chip business.

49 goodies.

Tighten up your Java, not the coffee.

Smart phones and the people that use them.

Moblin looking good.

How Google uses Linux.

Roll your own Ubuntu.

More on the Skype and Ebay saga.

A Koala fan.

Firefox fixed again.

Not A Review.

In keeping with a diverse mix of topics I thought I would return to not reviewing Linux distributions, in my own incomplete and unscientific fashion, here’s something on Absolute Linux 13.0.3.

Absolute is Slackware based, using a similar install but lacks an indicator on progress and time. After installation the desktop is nice and tidy, there’s no Wine in Absolute’s repo, but it is a simple process to get the Slackware one from WineHQ and install. It uses Gslapt for package management and LILO as Boot manager.

There’s a nice range of programs and a lot of thought has been given to the user experience, changing fonts, etc is very easy, other distributions could learn from Absolute.

At rest it used about 90MB of memory and was fairly responsive on an old Dell 400 Mhz laptop. I couldn’t find how to autologon and music CD’s didn’t play automatically (granted I didn’t RFM), other than that it wasn’t too bad, a commendable 7.5/10.

If Absolute learnt to use grub instead of LILO I might even think of occasionally using it. A good option for a netbook.

Don’t Speak Ill Of Ubuntu.

Just as Windows 7 needed some competition Ubuntu stumbles, the media and forums are full of horror stories on the new Karmic Koala.

My experience wasn’t so bad, but the changes to X were always going to be the Achilles heel, and whilst I agree with tight release schedules I think that a longer Beta period with concerted feedback is required.

Canonical should aim to recruit a massive external Beta test team, and using a very varied hardware mix try to trap these minor annoyances before the public releases. Having a small team just dealing with X issues would probably speed things along too.

Update 1: Konstipated Koala – worth a read.

Update 2: More on X problems with Ubuntu 9.10.

Update 3: Mandriva 2010 is out, could be a nice alternative? It is not obviously fully released yet (officially), but if you look at the Paris FTP servers with the 2009 edition, then go to the top level directory you will see a 2010.0, that’s it.

Vista, Windows 7 and Gparted.

I had the misfortune to be forced to use a Vista installed laptop recently. It was a very nice piece of kit, a bit outdated by today’s ever changing standards, but as a 1.86Ghz Celeron it was fine for the work I used it for.

The only problem was Vista.

What a dog, I had previously removed/toned down most of the junk and eye candy to make it more like XP than the bloated beast it was, but even then it still ran like a slow 486.

I know the machine is fast enough as I have Linux installed, but I had to get a funny piece of hardware set-up and doing it under Vista seemed a smart idea at the time. How wrong.

After browsing the various “How to tune Vista” forums and guides, I realised that I had done most of that before, and it still ran like a dog.

Now I don’t have any clever solutions as to how to boost Vista, but I managed to improve matters by 5-15%, or at least I would hope so, for the time taken.

Firstly, I install Vista SP1, downloaded direct from M$ site, after 2-3 hours it finished, just.

Next, a cheat used Tune Up 2008 , taken from a magazine DVD, and saw what that did.

Not bad but still sluggish. Still reading the guides I wondered about the Vista services, and this is NOT recommended, but Vista Services Optimizer worked.

A problem with this Vista laptop was not only the Service Packs taking forever and a day (I could have installed and upgraded 10 Linux systems and still have had time for a long lunch break) but the partitioning.

It was a mess, a massive C drive in NTFS format, a few others that I must have created ages back, with a paltry 14 Gb for Linux, only 3.5 used. Compare that with 26 Gb for Vista, and it still stunk. Not only that but the division of the partitions was annoying, too much *before* the extended partition and not enough after it.

Long story short, I shrank two NTFS partitions and then shifted the space into the extended partition, recovering about 33 Gb, enough for 4-5 Linux distros! I just defragged everything under Vista using an old copy of JKdefrag, booted up Gparted 4.6.1, checked the disks, back to Vista I re-scheduled a disk check on C: as Gparted complained a bit, after a bit of fiddling around I now have plenty of space for other things.

All a bit boring for the non-technical, but it shows that you can do things previously considered, difficult to impossible: shift an extended partition around, with a lot of data and not lose anything in the process, thankfully it was open sourced software that did the deed, I wouldn’t feel confident doing that with M$ junk and it would have costed, whereas Linux and Gparted are free.

Word to the wise, watch out for the drive assignment after the partition changes.

As for Windows 7, my advice is ignore the hype, wait for 6-9 months for the bug fixes to appear, instead download any one of the many great distros at distrowatch, and save a packet in the process.

Hacks and Bits.

Even big Newspapers get hacked.

The Guardian and identity crime!

A rather canny idea, use GPUs as bits in a Supercomputer.

Questions of Debian, I had a not undissimilar problem with Sidux ages back.

A forseeable side-effect of sacking IT workers, your computers systems will have more problems!

McKinnon.

Fake Google Chrome OS.

Like a better Opera?

Ubuntu a newer version.

Chrome’s slow take up.

Nook And More

Barnes and Nobles, the US book chain, are releasing their own ebook reader, the Nook.

It looks OK, similar to the Kindle but lacks text to speech.

NASA is testing a replacement for the space shuttles.

New joints before you are 100?

Easier Youtube access with minitube.

The 50 Best (and Worst) Moments in Windows History.

Microsoft’s still looking for the backup tapes! Sidekick users not impressed.

OLPC finally has customers in Latin America.

The EU has put 100,000 documents on-line, wow! Shame their search engine is so weak.

Be underwhelmed by the new features in Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala”.

Intel’s arms will be flailing with this announcement.

Confused about processors. AMD or Intel, speeds, cores and which is faster? Try this.

Size and Linux.

As requested more Linux, a review of sorts, rather subjective and unscientific, pay no attention!

There is a strong tendency amongst developers of Linux distros to emulate Microsoft.

No, not in a nasty way, rather to include everything and the kitchen sink, just in case.

The end result is that a fast operating system is burden with bloatware and unnecessary frills, KDE4 is a prime example.

But I am not going to moan about KDE4, if people like it, fine, I don’t and prefer less inflated software, so trying to find a really small usable Linux-based operating system for a small and slow machine is hard. Not impossible, but harder that it ought to be.

Antix Linux is fine for most things, but I wanted something smaller, compact and workable even on the smallest of old PCs. That way, when you put it on a half way decent machine then it should positively zip along, like a greased whippet. Well, that’s the idea.

So in an unscientific way I picked Puppy, TinyCore and SliTaz as possible choices.

Firstly, Puppy. It gets good reviews and it is about 100 Mb to download, boots up well enough, finds the NIC and allows usage straight from the LiveCD. But you can’t (as with other LiveCD) installs packages until it has been dumped on a hard drive. That’s where the problem begins. Whilst Puppy works well as a LiveCD the installation routine seems like an afterthought, written on the way back from the pub. It is very chatty and less than straightforward. Installation to the hard drive does work in version 4.3.1 but seemed a bit buggy on the X setup, looping, shutting down and going thru the same script again and again. It can work, I know cos I got it working ages back on an older version, but it seems happier on as a LiveCD or USB stick setup. Why the developer couldn’t have followed others when putting together the installer I’ll never know. All in all strikes me as a bit eccentric. But if it works for you, OK. 5/10.

TinyCore is, I believe, from one of the ex-authors of Damn Small Linux. It is very small about 10Mb, and then later on you add the packages. I confess I had wanted a chance to trial this out, but the install is weird. Not too complex, but I couldn’t see an easy way of “re-use an existing partition” for a full hard drive install, still the LiveCD boots up well enough and you could run from there without touching the hard drive, from what I’ve read. I must concentrate and re-do this one, sometime, it has great potential. An optimistic 7/10.

Finally, Slitaz, which took the field by storm a few years back. Sadly it seems to have stopped pushing itself, but is still just around. A 30 Mb download, burn to CD and reboot. Slitaz comes over as the more conventional of these three distros. Install is simple, follow a menu, and 10 minutes later it is on your hard drive, using GRUB. It made the old wreck of a PC that I tested it on usable, a Dell laptop, 400Mhz Pentium 2, 256Mb of memory and an old 5 Gb disk. Slitaz comes in two version, a stable release and a cooker. Software installation on Slitaz is using its own package management, but it is functional and not hard. All in all it feels like a normal distro, but a smaller one, with all the necessary bits and pieces in place. Very commendable. 7.5/10, as Slitaz seems to be in hibernation for the moment, I hope it doesn’t fade out as so many promising ones do.

Tinkering With Distros.

Foolish me, a week or so ago I thought I would have a quick play with some Linux distros and see if any could beat Antix for functionality, speed and ease of use.

After installing four of them, I came back to Antix, more prepared to over look its few failings.

So to remind myself for the future, here’s my incomplete, partial and rather limited summary of what I found.

First up Salix, which is at version 13 so you’d expect a polished product and it is, if limited. Salix seems to be Slackware plus XFce 4.6.1 and that’s it. No customized Salix admin apps, so if you like all that XFce provides all well and good, but if not you’ll probably play around on the command line to sort things out.

Pro: Slackware and latest XFce. Better package management.

Cons: Textual install limited to LILO. New Xorg doesn’t always make sense of screen setup. Need to manually fix static IP setup. Overall an unscientific and subjective 5/10. No LiveCD installer.

Zenwalk 6.2, has a lot of history, improving incrementally. I used version 4 onwards on some slow machines. Again Slackware and XFce, not bad but package management is lacking. Offers EXT4 file system but issues when you are installing with other older Linuxes.

Pro/Cons similar to Salix, X setup slightly better,but more importantly the lack of grub and the idea that it might have to co-exist with other distros on the same machine doesn’t seem to have occurred to the developer, is a bit annoying.

Not bad but no compelling reason to keep. 6/10

Xubuntu 9.10 beta 1. I had hoped that this version would revise my poor opinion of recent Ubuntu releases, but sadly it didn’t. Installation didn’t seem to offer a “re-use this partition” option, so had to blank out the chosen one manually. Wanted to use new EXT4 file system, no obvious option to revert to EXT3. Resorted to manually setting up static IP, seems a bit sluggish, fair but not compelling. This newer Xorg setup is a regressive step. On the plus side, faster boot, co-exists well and the latest XFce is nice. 7/10.

Finally to Mint 7, the older version based on Ubuntu 9.04, and there the similarity ends. Installation was fast, still best to zap the desired partition first. Shame they don’t offer a “re-use existing partition” option as MEPIS does. Downsides: Openoffice, not Abiword, Xorg setup seems flaky and not too smart with dual screens. Plus side, networking was easy to setup and plenty of thought has been given to Mint’s customizing tools. Not bad at all. Overall a bit bloated with Ubuntu stuff but offset by good design and consideration for the user. 8/10.

I’d recommend that Ubuntu get Mint to do the Xubuntu version next time, their’s is a nicer way and less rushed.

Pricey Kindle And Bits.

Kindle has been released in the UK and Europe, under the “International” label from the US, and it is pricey.

NASA and crashing a rocket into the Moon stirred up a lot of irrational rantings.

UK Supreme Court turns down McKinnon hearing.

Windows 7 does not boot faster Or maybe it does? You decide I am running Linux and that *is* fast.

Faster Firefox 3.6 ? FF 3.6’s new features, I’d prefer more bugs fixing.

Not much competition in the video chip arena, as Nvidia bows out, shame cos AMD/ATI cards need better Linux drivers.

Hot Acers.

Apple’s comatose Iphones, a fix.

Best technology blogs of the year.

Don’t let Microsoft touch anything.

Technical Odds And Sods.

80 tons down the drain? Almost.

Demon slip up? ISPs should know better.

Living on Mars, a step closer.

Polar ice is melting faster.

Intel ports Linux Netbook OS to the desktop.

Competition: Chrome OS and Moblin vs. Window 7. Moblin 2.1 looks good.

Sick of IE? Turn it into Chrome with a plugin.

Worst ever gadgets ?

Wine is steaming along to 1.1.30 dev, if only Debian distros would pull their fingers out and update more frequently.

Aussie Electric avoids a melt down with quick wits.

Spiders come to the aid of the web.

Test your browser using SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark, on an oldish machine, Iceweasel 3.5.2 (Debian’s version of Firefox) polled 2102.2ms +/- 0.4. Whereas chrome (still alpha(ish)) managed 936.2ms +/- 5.2%. The figures under XP, but same machine, were about 10-15% slower.

Amazon paid a heavy price for being Big Brother.

Seven uses for VLC.

Technical Bits And No More Office.

Technology rears its ugly head again and here’s a sampling of some technical bits.

IBM drops MS office.

Nice LED bulbs, if you’ve won the lottery or are Fred the Shred.

Now there’s a surprise, not, an ex-Minister climbing on the nuclear gravy train.

1000 channels of crap on TV, but at least they are in 3D?

Opera 10, and why one user thinks it is wonderful.

Windows 7 and Vista flaws.

CAD for Linux.

Facebook’s on a diet, much better.

Want to learn Swedish for free? Wikiversity has more.

Faster Wi Fi agreed.

Let’s hope those wonderful cantenna will continue to work and allow Wi Fi over miles, not yards. If you are lazy, they sell them too.

More kernel improvements.

Mint on XFce is out, I haven’t tested it and probably won’t for a long while, but when I played with Mint about 6 months ago I liked it, a little top heavy for my tastes but functional.

A review of Mandriva 64 Linux which again is fairly functional, could lose some weight but not bad.

Any fans of Tomorrow’s World left ? Here’s the first edition and the BBC archive has a lot more.

Stable Chrome? XP for the moment, its not too bad under Linux and speedy too.

ARM are going to take on Intel and some cheaper/smarter netbooks might result.