Michael Dolan Dot Com

Archive for February, 2006

Monday, February 27th, 2006

Gentoo GTK+ LiveCD Installer

I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it, but the 2006.0 GTK+ installer screenshots are up over at OSDir.com. Normally I would call this a perversion of a classic ritual, however, it may help some dip into a better desktop. Once you have Gentoo running (I know that’s a “leap”), it can be the easiest system to manage and maintain. If you’ve had a chance to test the graphical setup yourself, drop me a line.

I just noticed you can even do a Stage1 install from the GUI – insane.

Monday, February 27th, 2006

Linux Everywhere says BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek Online has some decent coverage on the increasingly pervasive, pervasive side of Linux. (no that’s not a typo). The subtitle captures the theme:

It’s quickly — and usually quietly — spreading into more and more services and devices, from e-mail to cars

Monday, February 27th, 2006

Increasing Privacy with Open Source Transparency!

Not sure if you noticed in the news today, but IBM, Novell, and Harvard joined forces to create the Higgins project (think long tail, Web 2.0 -> now Higgins is apparently a Tazmanian mouse with a long tail..)

Anyway, the project will start in stark contrast to Microsoft’s private InfoCard push. Higgins will be open source (and presumably only run on Windows) whereas InfoCard will be open source, run on any platform, and allow for code review, contributions, and customization… hmmm… which do you think will win?

It’s all pretty exciting. You can check out the news over at eWeek or The Boston Globe.

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006

A modern day caper

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11504146/

And I figured with all of today’s technology, heists like this would be impossible. I wonder how long it will take to capture them..

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006

World’s Largest Windows Error Message

How funny – a billboard in Time Square powered by Windows crashed and had the largest Windows error message I’ve seen.

View it here

Monday, February 20th, 2006

MSFT won’t allow unsigned drivers in Vista?

Tucked away in this eWeek article, I just noticed something subtle…

Microsoft could stop non-signed drivers from running on its operating systems, and is doing so with the 64-bit version of Windows Vista.

Windows “signed” drivers go through test from MSFT that last I checked also required the hardware vendor to pay a price to get the certification. I wonder if that has changed now… or will we be looking at a Mac type selection of hardware options for Windows in the future? Sure, signed drivers was a great idea, but with the limitless selection of peripherals and the thought of none of them working with Vista… have to wonder..

I do have to feel sorry for MSFT on this Windows Media player business. (yikes… temperature steady, hell hasn’t frozen yet)..

Every OS out there (including Linux distros) ship with a media player – sure those who read my posts can probably all swap them out with portage/Gentoo with little fuss, but the average user… they are not going to just think up – “Hey I’ll download the free Real Player today instead of Windows Media Player”.

Now they have 8 Vista editions (2 of them for the no-Media player versions) – how dumb is that… I mean why 6 versions in the first place, but 2 are specifically for the EU with no media player.

You’d guess the solution around the anti-trust problems would be to make it easy for users to select which media player they want (assuming they even know the difference) – but I guess that wasn’t an option. You know who pays the price?? The “tech support” person in the family of the user who just bought a media playerless version of Windows and now has no clue how to play an MP3.

Monday, February 20th, 2006

Gnome 2.14 – Looking Really Good

Saw a post on Slashdot previewing some of Gnome 2.14′s features/improvements. I must admit 2.14 looks pretty good. The addition of Cairo looks great – can’t wait to see what else we can do with it. There’s a slew of performance improvements and additions to make the admin life a bit easier once you start rolling out hundreds of thousands of Gnome desktops (ok, we’ll start with a few first). I’m interested in trying out Ekiga – the old Gnome meeting seems to have a new look with some additional SIP underpinnings to make things pretty interesting.

Monday, February 20th, 2006

Marc Andressen Plays the Fool – Reading through FUD, a mini-HOWTO

Ok, Marc Andreessen… smart guy, co-founded Netscape, co-authored Mosiac, made millions, all around “I want to be like Marc” type of figure.

So what’s with him attacking whitebox Linux all the sudden – this make no sense to me. In order to shamelessly plug his new startup, Ning, he’s taken the offensive on “a commercial Linux vendor” making a horrible comparison of Linux and Solaris support costs. Now, add a notoriously over-embellished Sun COO into the equation and you have this mess of atomic FUD.

So, they write about a fictional comparison supposedly about Linux versus Solaris support costs that starts with:

Sun x2100 (model 175; dual-core Opteron): 1A
Whitebox AMD (2x AMD Opteron 248): 2A
Intel dual Xeon: >3A

Sounds like a �€œOnce upon a time in the Northwest, near the town of Redmond�€� story right…

First, this makes no sense – Sun has an Opteron box – why not just compare the same HW?? Ah, I know b/c notice the subtle difference here – Sun�€™s box is the only dual core box they�€™re comparing. Apparently none of the whitebox or other major vendors have figured out what dual core is yet and cannot compare�€�. Unless you look at tigerdirect.com, CDW, Zones, dell.com, hp.com, ibm.com of course�€�

What this does is 1) increases the �€œsocket licensing cost�€�. A socket allows for one processor – a dual core processor in a single socket gets you 2 cores/socket. Sun will undoubtedly win the next compare – because vendors price their support on the �€œnumber of sockets�€�

And, when you add another socket with processor (the power hungry part of a system), you increase the power used (what a concept).

And so�€� with this apples to Chryslers comparison, Marc supposedly determines, that an Intel system and AMD whitebox are magically more expensive than a Sun X2100 without once taking a look at any IBM, HP, or Dell offering – you know a legitimate vendor.

For the sake of getting to OS Support pricing, let�€™s assume we�€™re actually just comparing OS support costs and use Sun�€™s own hardware as the base comparison. So, an X2100 model 175 is our basis – a single socket, dual core OS.

Now, Marc takes another fall with the OS – he compares dual socket support licenses for an enterprise Linux distro (gee, what�€™s the mystery Linux distro????) and compares a 2 socket support license to a single socket, basic support for Solaris�€� hmmm�€�. Let�€™s see that�€™s like insuring 2 cars under Progressive Insurance and 1 car under Geico and saying Progressive is more expensive b/c your 2 car insurance is greater!

So, looking at Sun�€™s own website, basic service plan costs $120/yr per socket. Red Hat starts at $349/yr per socket. Ok, now you may say �€œSo Red Hat�€™s $229 more expensive.. but look at what you�€™re getting. With Solaris 10, you get�€�. Drumroll�€� patches and online documentation (yep, that�€™s not really �€œInstallation support�€� – it�€™s links to documents online) which last I checked you can get all this for free with RHEL (sorry Marc, and sorry to Red Hat and Novell for uncovering this seemingly sacred secret over at Sun). And if you�€™re really not in need of support, check out CentOS – all the packages and updates sans trademarks and support.

With RHEL for your $350 you also get 1 year of installation and basic configuration web support, 30 days of phone support on top of all the updates on online materials. But, like I said, to compare to Sun�€™s $120 support, you can download an install all the updates you want for free on Linux – not with Solaris 10.

So, the way it looks now�€� Solaris 10 costs $120 versus RHEL $0 for all 3 years for basic support.

But wait, Marc said his RHEL support costs $900/yr didn�€™t he – how is that? Well, let�€™s take a look. First, Marc should have used 2 socket pricing for Sun to be at least minimally fair. That would make Sun�€™s support $240/system again for Basic support which is free with Linux. Then, he added $380 for a per-incident charge without adding any cost for Solaris 10 incidents�€� um on basic support you get 0 support incidents Marc and you get no web support. Actually with RH, you�€™re covered for the year with web based support in your $349 if you had looked up the right support option.

Then, Marc has $900 for support – well he�€™s pricing 2 socket systems so he�€™s actually paying $450/socket for the boxen (yes, box plural is boxen now – kidding). For the life of me, I cannot figure out how he got $450/socket/year for Linux support. SLES and RHEL are both $350 for a year�€™s support and neither has an option for $450 or $900 per year. So I�€™m stumped on this one unless Marc started comparing Premium support for Linux versus Solaris 10 basic support – even more ridiculous.

Regardless, given the mess that was made of every other data point in this supposed email, I can rest assured this point is as much of a FUD factor as the others.

So there you have it – either Marc has become a prostitute for Sun’s marketing hype engine or he really just asks 1 overpriced whitebox vendor for their pricing and doesn’t like to shop around. Admittedly I’m biased towards Linux, but hey if people like us weren’t around in 1998 voicing our opinions, who knows if Linux would have ever taken off. Now that vendors with agendas are scared, we have to defend or ignore.

Let the debate begin… or continue depending on your POV.

Friday, February 17th, 2006

Funniest Article this Year – Hurdor and Inteletron

Ashlee Vance just wrote a hilarious article on the Itanium forecasts. Hintel are definitely trying to save face – what’s funny is that they’ve put out notice they will invest $10B in Intanium ecosystem…. yet IDC only predicts TOTAL Itanium SERVER SALES will be $9B in 2009! Ooops… why hasn’t HP joined IBM’s Power.org yet? Heck why hasn’t Intel…. What could those 3 do collaborating together… it would have to be better than $9B…

Tuesday, February 14th, 2006

PalmOS takes an open approach to rebirth

PalmOS was with Linux, not sure, then back and today revealed more of the details of ALP. Looks like PalmSource is well on its way to an open source strategy and unlike Motorola will be opening up its APIs – why don’t cell companies get this? I will NEVER use those dumbed down – crazy apps they write for browser usage. What I would use is an app I write that does something I want on my cell phone – or an innovative user somewhere else who writes an app I like. PalmOS could be the real open platform for handhelds and hopefully cellular users. I fear there’s way too much Windows in this space. Cellular vendors are fooling themselves if they think one vendor will have everything their end users want….

And speaking of Windows and Microsoft, I nearly lost it reading Ashlee Vance’s recap of McNealy’s pitch at the RSA Conference Bill keynoted. The jokes seemed to have flowed from McNealy taking great punches at his new friends up North. I guess Sun only needs its partners until they can pitch a new version of a dead Sun platform again. Regardless, it definitely made me laugh.

Tuesday, February 14th, 2006

Counter the Facts – Help from the OSDL and EMA

The executive summary of a new report from EMA and co-sponsored by the OSDL and Levanta shows some striking real world, admin in the trenches truth to counter some of the hypothetical situations Linux opponents in the Northwest posit as facts. If you read beyond the executive report you will see an anlaysis and detail that should put to rest any fears that managing Linux “costs more”, “requires too many patches” or is “too difficult for Windows admins”.

From the Exec Summary:

Executive Summary

In various older studies, Microsoft and some analysts claimed Linux has a higher Total Cost of � Ownership (TCO) than Windows. They attributed the difference mainly to higher system management costs, and concluded that the higher TCO outweighed the much lower license and acquisition costs for Linux.

However, in a new study of over 200 Linux enterprises, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) found that this perception is no longer accurate. Sophisticated management tools now allow Linux management to be fast, effective, and inexpensive. With far lower acquisition costs, Linux is now a cost-effective alternative to Windows.

EMA analyzed the cost factors cited in previous studies and found the following results:

�€� Provisioning �€“ 75% of administrators using sophisticated tools can provision a system in less than 1 hour; one third can provision a system in less than 30 minutes.

�€� Patch management �€“ most Linux administrators spend less than 5 minutes per server per week on patch management. Sophisticated management tools reduce this effort even further.

�€� Configuration management �€“ supporting multiple versions of a given distribution has no discernible impact on Linux management. In some cases, respondents actually had more versions of Windows than Linux.

�€� Reliability �€“ most respondents reported 99.99% or higher availability for their Linux systems. A significant number (17%) report no downtime at all.

�€� Problem resolution �€“ in over 60% of cases, when problems occur in Linux environments they are diagnosed and repaired in less than 30 minutes, over 8 times faster than industry average.

�€� Management and support �€“ 88% of enterprises with Linux and Windows spend less effort managing Linux; 97% believe it is, at worst, the same for both systems. Respondents with sophisticated management tools all report Linux management is the same or easier than Windows management.

�€� Storage management �€“ enterprises with sophisticated management tools did not find any significant difference in storage management effort or utilization for either Windows or Linux.

�€� Resource costs �€“ most administrators, for either Linux or Windows, earn under $60k. Salaries for combined Linux/Windows administrators are only marginally higher than for Linux-only administrators. Linux skills are readily available.

�€� Consulting and training costs �€“ 79% of enterprises spent nothing on Linux consulting, and 63% spent nothing on training. Only 4% spent over $10K on consulting or training.

In addition, this research found the following in areas not adequately addressed in previous studies:

�€� Acquisition costs �€“ for similar environments, Linux acquisition costs can be almost $60,000 less per server than Windows in software costs alone. Windows also incurs higher hardware costs.

�€� Productivity �€“ Linux tends to be more productive, as Linux administrators tend to manage more servers than Windows administrators, and Linux systems tend to handle greater workloads than Windows systems.

�€� Security Management �€“ 75% of Linux administrators spend less than 10 minutes per server per week managing security. With sophisticated management tools, this goes up to over 85%.

�€� Virus and Spyware Management �€“ 95% of Linux administrators with sophisticated tools spend less than 10 minutes per server per week managing viruses and spyware. Respondents strongly endorsed Linux as inherently less vulnerable. No administrator reported spending more time on Linux than Windows.

Tuesday, February 14th, 2006

WordPress 2.0.1 Update

Went in without any hiccups. Great work by the team making the update seamless.

Sunday, February 12th, 2006

Decision in Google Cache case – fair use

Saw this over at L. Lessig’s blog – there was a decision in the case of Google’s caching of content. The court upheld Google’s caching as a fair use under the DMCA. I missed it and thought it was worth pointing out.
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/google_cache.pdf

InformationWeek article on the decision here.

Friday, February 10th, 2006

Migrating to Linux: A Guide for the Sys Admins

Vendors often talk about migrating from one platform to the other… finally there’s a free Redbook guide for the Solaris admins out there for transitioning administrative processes to Linux. It’s like a Rosetta stone for administrators trying to find their way on a simingly familiar, yet somewhat different Linux OS. It’s slanted toward RHEL and SLES but can’t imagine most of this wouldn’t apply to other distros as well.
From OSNews.com:

“If you are about to take the plunge into converting from Solaris to Linux, or just want to see how easy it is to make the change, then take a look at this well written Solaris-To-Linux Migration technical roadmap. It gives you everything you need to get the job done the right way, the first time, and will eliminate all the quirks and gotch-yas that come with operating system migrations.”

The Redbook is available for free here.

From the abstract:

The goal of this IBM Redbook is to provide a technical reference for IT systems administrators in organizations that are considering a migration from Solaris to Linux-based systems. We present a systems administrator view of the technical differences and methods necessary to complete a successful migration to Linux-based systems, including coverage of how those differences translate to two major Linux distributions: Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

The book is designed primarily to be a reference work for the experienced Solaris 8 or 9 system administrator who will need to begin working with Linux. It should serve as a guide for system administrators that need a concise technical reference for facilitating the transition to Linux.

Wednesday, February 8th, 2006

Xgl – very nice

Novell just released Xgl – check out the cool demo videos. It should show up first in KDE 4
http://www.novell.com/linux/xglrelease/�

Wednesday, February 8th, 2006

Upgrading Gentoo Linux Kernels – Mini HOWTO

If you’re stuck on an older Gentoo kernel, here’s how to “upgrade”:

# emerge gentoo-sources (get the latest sources)
# cd /usr/src (directory with all sources)
# cp linux/.config linux-2.6.15-gentoo-r4/.config (copy current config as basis for new one)

# cd linux-2.6.15-gentoo-r4

# make && make modules_install (assuming no changes… should check config with make menuconfig)

# cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-2.6.15-gentoo-r4 (copy the kernel to /boot)

# cd ..

# rm linux (remove old linux symlink)

# ln -s linux-2.6.15-gentoo-r4 linux (create new symlink)

# nano /boot/grub/grub.conf (open grub bootloader config)

– change kernel line to point to new kernel in /boot

# reboot (that’s all there is)

New issues you may encounter:

1) xorg won’t run –> try re-emerging your nvidia or ati drivers

2) wireless won’t work –> re-emerge ndiswrapper (assuming that’s what you’re using)
3) alps touchpad –> you may need to re-patch your kernel if you’re relying on the alps touchpad

Wednesday, February 8th, 2006

Gentoo Forums – Over 3 MILLION Posts!

Three million posts in the Gentoo Forums
—————————————-

http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20060130-newsletter.xml�

Figure 1.1: Three million posts in the Gentoo Forums

Almost exactly a year after reaching two million posts in January 2005[12]
the Gentoo Forums hit three million posts on Jan 24th. A thread on the
forums[13] not only features the answer to the question “Whose post was
it?”, but also leaves space for wild conspiracy theories about a
mysterious decrease in postcount shortly before the three millionth post
was reached. The Gentoo Forums were noted to be among the largest phpBB
installations on big-boards.com[14].

12. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20050207-newsletter.xml
13. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-421954.html
14. http://rankings.big-boards.com/?filter=phpBB,all

Monday, February 6th, 2006

Distributed Command Execution on Linux – very nice

Something really cool – a tool that lets you execute a command on multiple servers in parallel. This is great if you have a script/command you want to execute on multiple servers. The tool is called tentakel and you can read about it here. It is a program for executing the same command on many hosts in parallel using ssh (and supports other methods too).

Wednesday, February 1st, 2006

OpenAJAX… finally they got it right.

Look at this list of companies working together under eclipse.org to create an open AJAX framework… a bit different from what those NorthWesterners are doing…

� http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/atf/

Those participating – impressive…

• IBM
• Google
• BEA Systems
• Red Hat
• Borland Software
• Novell
• Oracle
• Yahoo
• Zend Technologies (PHP)
• Zimbra (email)
• Openwave Systems (telco)
• Eclipse Foundation
• Mozilla Corporation
• Dojo Foundation

You can read more at Cnet here. I’m impressed – with this many people we should see a beta in a few days right… or will this be another person months = square of the number of programmers…