I'm back!

A lot has happened since I've posted last, but the important thing is that I'm ready to get cracking again. In previous posts I'd mentioned wanting to try bare-bones versions of other distros on Lazarus, so you should see information about that pretty soon.

One major change is that Lazarus now has his own peripherals, so no more messing with the KVM switch. Actually, I've had the keyboard and mouse (both PS/2) that came with Lazarus the whole time but lacked the room for them. This is no longer an issue. When setting it up, I was reminded that on these computers it actually matters which PS/2 port you plug the cables into (hence the color coding, I suppose). I accidentally plugged the mouse into the keyboard port and vice versa, and the system wouldn't recognize either one when booting up until I fixed it!

Also, I'm looking at hardware upgrades. Sure, I could buy a ready-made box for a reasonable price, but that's no fun, is it? Right now my biggest limitation is the CPU. One could argue that the RAM is a greater limitation, but I could upgrade that easily. However, the CPU is about as fast as the current motherboard supports. All sources indicate that 533 MHz is the fastest processing you can have on this motherboard, and I'm already at 500. So we're probably talking a new case, motherboard, and CPU in the near future. Maybe that will also fix Lazarus's weird habit of spontaneously powering on.

I've been a very bad girl.

I know, I know, I haven't posted in ages. And this one isn't going to be terribly substantial, but there will be some information.

First off, the answer to the question, "How do you set up desktop icons if you're using Fluxbox?" The short answer: you don't. The longer answer: there are third-party apps out there such as Idesk that can give you that functionality. The creators of Fluxbox are all about this "slit" thing, but frankly, I still haven't figured it out. I haven't had much luck with Idesk either, but I also haven't put a great amount of time and effort into it.

I can definitely see why Linux isn't more popular. Most people don't want to put that much effort into their computers. Now, one could argue that such effort is rewarded with better system performance, security and other benefits, and they might be right. But the vast majority of computer users want a computer that at least does most of what it's wanted to do out of the box (for the record, I'm glad that Linux is around for geeky tinkerers like myself).

One might think that these issues don't exist on more high-speed distros, but the fact is that they do. I tried Ubuntu on a partition of my laptop, and I had nothing but trouble getting the Bluetooth and wifi to work (for the record, I had a much easier time getting them to work in Mandriva). I know that these are controversial issues in the open source community because of the proprietary nature of those technologies, but the fact is that they are widely used enough that any OS that aspires to be competitive needs to support them. So if your principles prohibit you from working with those technologies, don't whine about why your OS isn't more popular. It's lonely at the top of the mountain. ;-)

Sorry for the lack of updates

The room where Lazarus is located has been occupied by his former owners (my in-laws, for those of you just joining us) for the last several days, and I've been very busy with my new job, which explicitly frowns on blogging from work. Hence no updates in a while. The room will be vacated Saturday morning, and I should be able to post a proper update this weekend. Catch you later!

Semi-Homemade Linux, Part 1

So I've successfully installed a couple of preconfigured Linux distros on Lazarus. Good to know, but not exactly a huge technical accomplishment. While I'm not ready for building everything from source code just yet, I think I'm ready to do some customization. They say that Linux is like Legos, so I'm going to see what I can do when I'm not just following set instructions.

To do this, I've done a bare-bones Debian install (I also plan to try this with Slackware and maybe Gentoo). For anyone wishing to try this at home, this means DO NOT install the "Desktop Environment" when selecting components. It installs the GNOME desktop by default, which is also the default desktop in Ubuntu and Fedora. The more high-speed Linux distros usually use GNOME or another desktop called KDE. For a comparison between the two, click here. Any comparison is irrelevant for Lazarus, however, as he lacks the resources to run either one.

However, I am not doomed to eternal command-line interface usage. I'll just have to call on my good friend apt-get to give me a boost. Fluxbox is a popular desktop choice for those who lack the resources for GNOME or KDE, and it's the one I intend to use. Our friends over at Damn Small Linux use Fluxbox.

Unfortunately, you can't just install fluxbox by itself and be ready to go. You have to install X Window System (also called X11 or just X). Fortunately, this only entails one other command. Start with:
apt-get install x-window-system-core

followed by:
apt-get install fluxbox

To start your graphical interface, type "startx", which should bring it right up. There won't be any icons, but you can get to any of your apps (or a Terminal screen) by right-clicking the desktop.

Next time: icons and stuff. (Note: edit was just to correct a typo.)

Adventures with Puppy

For more information about Puppy Linux, click here.

My first attempt at installation failed because I didn't wipe everything before starting. Since Puppy and DSL use different versions of the Linux kernel, that was a dumb decision on my part. Lo and behold, upon rebooting, I got a kernel panic. For those of you who only speak Windows, a kernel panic is similar to the Blue Screen Of Death.

Upon rebooting with the CD, it went straight into the "live" version, in other words, running Puppy completely in RAM. For a machine with Lazarus's limitations, this made everything slow. Molasses running uphill in January slow. A text-based installer would have been nice, especially for a distro that claims to be pretty minimalist.

I used GParted (a GUI-based partitioning tool) to redo the partitions on my hard drive, and it worked fine. I thought the "install" icon on the desktop was to install to the hard drive, but it wasn't. It's actually their package retrieval tool. That's a confusing way to label it, I think. You have to go to "Menu", "Setup," and then "Puppy Universal Installer" to install to the hard drive. Another unique aspect of the desktop is that you only click icons once instead of double-clicking to activate them.

Once I got started on the installer, it mostly walked me through it, although there was some confusion on one particular part. Browsing the forums tells me I'm not the only person to be confused about this, so I'll probably post something about it there. As I was finishing up the install, Mr. Williams walked by and said, "Ooh, I like that desktop a lot better [than DSL]." He's right; Puppy has a surprisingly attractive desktop for a distro its size.

The Ethernet didn't work out of the box, but it was an easy setup via the "connect" function, which is Puppy's equivalent of Windows' Internet Connection Wizard. SeaMonkey is the default browser, but you can get other browsers if you want via the package retriever. Puppy also has its own system monitor, but unlike DSL, this one is down in the tray.

I like Puppy OK, but I'm not sure Lazarus has the resources to pull it off. Even SeaMonkey runs a tad slow, and the monitor shows memory use over the halfway mark much of the time. Puppy's website tells of someone who installed it on a machine with 32 MB of RAM, but I'd be curious to know exactly what they were able to do with it.

Next time: how much Debian can I get away with on Lazarus?

Intermezzo: Rant About Linux Sites

Before I install any piece of software on my computer, there are 3 basic things I want to know about it:

1. What does it do? If there are several options on the market, what does it do that it's competitors don't?

2. Will it run on my machine?

3. How do I install this freakin' thing?

Regarding the first question, most distro sites do a pretty good job. Usually, the information about what makes a particular distro unique is on the front page, exactly where it should be.

Question #2 is the big stumbling block for most distros. Specifically, I'm talking about system requirements. This stuff needs to be accessible from some very prominent place, like the front page or the FAQ, not buried in a wiki somewhere. Most "About Our Distro" pages tell how a distro was first developed in 2002 by Joe Schmo in his employer's cubicle/a university lab/his mother's basement, etc. I guess that's good information, but I don't think the average user cares. If I really get comfy with a distro, I might want to know that stuff, but under no circumstances should it be more prominent than the system requirements. The system requirements don't necessarily have to be exact. They can say something like, "OurLinux can run on as little as 64 MB of RAM, but 128 MB RAM is preferred," and so on. When I can find this information at all, it's usually kind of buried.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to remind the user how to find what kind of hardware they have, because I can almost guarantee that the vast majority of users out there don't know. When we first acquired Lazarus, I asked Mr. Williams, "What are the specs on it?" He gave me a blank look and replied, "Uh, 64?" And this was after he'd been using the machine for 6 years. I'm not calling Mr. Williams stupid or anything (he's certainly not), but I think it's a good illustration of how most typical users don't exactly have their specs committed to memory.

Question #3 isn't as problematic. I can put together to burn the .iso to CD, boot from said CD and follow the rest, but it wouldn't hurt to have that spelled out. Also, sometimes there are commands required, although most distros that require these are pretty good about mentioning them up front.

So, if anyone wonders why more people don't try Linux, I really think the issues discussed above are a big part of it. I'm not even going to get into the WiFi support issue, as that is outside the scope of my project. If I ever decide to blog about my Linux experience on my laptop, I'll discuss it there.

More Thoughts on DSL

I'm not sure if I can count this as a useful skill, but I've gotten really good at typing "sudo cfdisk /dev/hda". For those who don't recognize that string, I'll break it down for you:

sudo: the command to become "superuser", which is required for just about any system-altering function. If you're going to be executing several commands at the root level, you should probably do this separately by typing "sudo -s", which will make you superuser until you are ready to leave this mode by typing "exit".

cfdisk: a command-line tool for working with disk partitions. Those of you who remember the good ol' days of DOS will note the similarity to "fdisk". Those of you who don't know what disk partitions are should familiarize yourselves with them before attempting to install any version of Linux. Fortunately, this is an easy concept to learn. You can start here.

/dev/hda: "dev" is simply an abbreviation of "device". Any drivers for peripheral devices (disk drive, keyboard, mouse, etc.) will be in a /dev directory of some kind. You may have guessed that "hda" refers to a hard drive, and you would be absolutely right. If I had multiple hard drives, they would be listed as "hda", "hdb", etc. In other words, "hda" is Linux-speak for "C:\" on an equivalent Windows system.

This is a useful command to know when you've hosed your system. I expected to hose my system multiple times, so I gained a lot of experience with booting off the CD and starting over. If you plan to use DSL, you can go to their website to see what to do after typing this command. This step will vary depending on what your plans for DSL are.

I did get the MyDSL package retriever working and was able to retrieve some decent apps with it. However, it was good for me to play with the "crude" apps I mentioned in my previous post. I even used vim to edit some configuration files. In the words of David Carradine, "I'm all about old-school." It's nice to know that if something were to happen and the command-line interface was all I had, I'd at least be able to perform basic functions.

To summarize, DSL may not be terribly slick, but it definitely gets the job done. Mr. Williams wasn't too fond of the desktop, which is understandable. The average user (which Mr. Williams pretty much is) wants a slick interface and a system that doesn't require much tweaking. However, I think it was good for me to learn about the different tools common to most versions of Linux.

Next distro to step up: Puppy. I've heard a lot of good things about it, so I'm curious to see how it works on a system like Lazarus. I'll keep you posted!