Category Archives: Uncategorized

Running Ubuntu Linux on MacBook

Posted on by

Why would I? Well, I have two 13″ MacBooks (one spare, I think I blogged that story earlier) that are essentially my office. I used to travel lots for work, and at the time (around 2004) neither wireless nor suspend worked reliably (or at all) on laptops running Linux. I really didn’t want to be stuck with Windows, so when Apple came out with the 13″ MacBook I convinced my then employer MySQL AB to allow me to get one. They were the perfect size. It solved the problems, and at the command line it’s still a Unix derivative so all familiar tools like ssh just work as expected.

Mac laptops are slick (noticed how many macbooks you see at conferences!), they just works, so essentially I became a “happy captive” of the OSX environment… for a while. Yes it does work better than Windows, but with Steve Jobs and Apple’s attitude towards open development, making software and even hardware obsolete with upgrades, DRM and other nonsense, in the end it’s just another form of annoyance (or evil, as you will).

But how do you get rid of a complete environment, when there’s lots of convenient apps you use, that have your data semi-captive? Think mail, addresses, calendar, photos, music…

Some time ago I already set up a Linux desktop machine (with Ubuntu), and later we shifted my company Open Query to a new mail server (Zimbra) that has a decent web interface – so Mac Mail was no longer necessary either.

I have an iPod nano (gift from years ago) but I can actually just copy MP3s onto the microSD card of my Android phone and play them through my Bluetooth headset… in some ways more convenient than the iPod, so that’s the music taken care of, really.

For photos I’m looking at Google’s Picasa, as it has apps for OSX and Linux as well and can export photos and metadata from iPhoto; it can also publish albums online which I sometimes do (I’ve used Flickr which is not so convenient as it’s only online, and Facebook is just a nuisance I’ll cover in a separate blog some time soon). Also Picasa merely indexes photos, rather than importing them into its own system under magic names. So it’s useful but doesn’t lock in like iPhoto does.

So with all those things just progressing over time, I still had another problem to solve: I don’t just want to toss out lots of perfectly functional hardware and purchase a new laptop to run Linux on. Running Linux in a virtual machine is not an option, too much speed and RAM gets lost that way. The “obvious” solution would be to run Linux straight on the MacBook hardware, but that path has had many hurdles. I do have it working now on my spare laptop (alongside OSX) and while there are still some minor glitches, I have to say it works pretty darn well. Again, thanks to a lot of dedicated developers!

Making my TV work better with MythBuntu builds

Posted on by

My TV is actually a PC behind the scenes, running the MythTV on Ubuntu Linux. It records the programs I have selected to record, figuring out when they are on from an automatically updated electronic guide.
I hardly ever watch live TV and have no idea when programs are actually broadcast… don’t see ads either as MythTV detects and skips them. I can even add a recording rule remotely while I’m travelling – if I find out about a certain program I’d like to see later. I don’t watch that much these days, but at least with this at TV can be useful again.

The box can also play DVDs, and one problem there is the stupid copy protection that get put on them – mind you, these are DVDs I bought and thus have the right to play in my home. Inevitably the copy protection breaks the DVD standard in some way, requiring playing software to figure out what the blazes is going on this week.
Disney is particularly good at it, although frankly they should be ashamed of themselves for causing so much hassle, and frankly grief to children.

Some months ago I bought some collectors’ DVDs of the Muppet Show (Kermit turned 50yo! ;-) and I watched some with Phoebe. Naturally, she loved it! The DVD menus weren’t working perfectly at the time but enough so that we could watch. Then a software upgrade (which was necessary for other reasons) made it no longer work at all. Suck. Phoebe sad, but not nearly as much as my crankyness against Disney.

Of course, Disney is no match for the open source community, there are so many capable developers out there that will just solve such problems quickly. I’ve added a special respository (software update source) to my Ubuntu setup, so that it now grabs the very latest fixes of MythTV in a particular version. The info is at http://www.mythbuntu.org/auto-builds and setup is a breeze.

The additional advantage is that I can have the same packages on other machines even if they are running a different version of Ubuntu Linux. This is handy because MythTV is a client-server system. You don’t have to watch programs on the machine where they were recorded or received, it can stream them over the local network.

Good stuff. Thank you, Mythbuntu & MythTV developers!

Introducing People’s Forum – Australia

Posted on by

There’s a lot of great debate on Australian political topics, with many gems of insight. But much of it is getting lost, or just available to a very limited audience. Why? Because

  • Twitter is highly transient; you can search, but it becomes harder as you go back further in time. It’s not suitable as an archive, nor as a place for engaged discussion;
  • Facebook comment threads are limited to the page or group-of-friends;
  • Online newspaper articles allow comments, but require a separate signup/login which is tedious. Also it makes for a very scattered discussion, when a topic gets discussed on various sites.

With great help from Peter Lieverdink and James Purser, I have set up People’s Forum – Australia. Using Open Source tools this took mere days. It accepts quick Twitter, Facebook and OpenID logins as well as having the ability to interact further with the big social networks. But it’s not dependent on or restricted to them, and I think that’s very important.

Ages ago I wrote that social networking is a great tool, but cannot optimally be restricted to one site or infrastructure. Hoarding the social graph is silly. The social network can be open and used everywhere, with broad benefits. Interestingly, the technology to do this is now available – and that’s what we’ve used. So the site is also a little experiment to see how this works in practice. Some examples:

  • To reply to a forum topic, you can simply click one of the buttons on the right to login with your Twitter or Facebook account; easy as! Or OpenID, for the more tech-savvy.
  • When posting (starting a new forum topic), the system allows you to also post a link to your own Twitter stream.
  • You can easily invite friends to join the forum.
  • Posts have “Share” (on FB) and “Tweet this” buttons, but that’s very common on other sites already.

We’ll see how this develops further. I reckon there’s no better way to figure out and develop ideas further than to put them live and let them meet the real world. It just requires a suitable opportunity – with the tools readily available, actually putting something out there –quickly– is actually the easy part!

Today is Software Freedom Day 2010, celebrating free/open software through many events around the world. I offer the People’s Forum site as my contribution, a practical showcase.

Diffusing nonsense in the election

Posted on by

I’m actually spending a lot of time on that right now, talking with people around me (in-person) as well as (gasp) on Facebook. Why? Because it’s important and actually makes a difference. I will also be helping at a polling booth on Saturday, and crutineering.

Several decades ago there was a party in The Netherlands with a sneaky fascist agenda. The initial approach was to ignore them. They grew. Then the approach changed: now they were addressed head-on, disassembling every bit of their dangerous nonsense with simple logic and human decency. They disintegrated.

Sometimes I indulge. Someone posted this rant (about the Greens)

GREENS R SHIT SAME AS LABOR!!!! U R ALL BACKWARDS AN OBVIOUSLY DON”T WANT THIS COUNTRY TO GO ANYWHERE!!!

I couldn’t resist, and replied

I want my daughter to get a decent education, free of religious bigotry and fascism.
So far, she’s doing great. At the mere age of five, she can write as well as type, and has already learnt to only use caps on the first letter of the first word of a sentence.
She doesn’t know about the apostrophe and double-quotes yet, but she expertly uses a single exclamation mark where appropriate.

I reckon that comments such as the one quoted are the most compelling reason for having the most excellent education. It so clearly shows the need.

When you vote tomorrow, please remember that your ballot paper only allows you to vote for someone, not against. The person you vote for will use your vote as an endorsement for them, their party and its policies. Choose wisely. It’s valuable.

The Continuing Saga of Dutch Football

Posted on by

People convinced me the final of the Soccer world cup 2010 in South Africa was interesting with the Dutch playing well… so with renewed hope (it’s been a while since I last checked the state of Orange football) I watched a recording, and unfortunately have to disagree.

What I saw was the Dutch playing the same old utterly boring game they have for the last 30 years (basically post-Cruyff). Different players yes, but they’re coached by old Dutch internationals, so it’s basically a clear continuation of the same strategy and attitude. Let’s summarise:

  • forward: going solo until stuck;
  • passing: a) stopping and failing a pass through lack of accuracy or b) passing backwards all the way back to the goalkeeper;
  • irritating misdemeanors, collecting yellow cards;
  • arranging free kicks through strategic falls (I can cope with that occasionally, but this is more main habit).

The commentators call it a waiting strategy (holding out for an opportunity) while the Spanish (and other more interesting teams) play “Total Football” – in connection with this, they keep moving (forward!) and pass accurately in mid flight. This makes for an interesting game.

The Dutch now have a tradition of being good in “not losing”, but that kind of defensive game is not the same as winning (an opportunity may not come if you don’t take initiative; and a single goal can wipe you out, as this final showed once again – I reckon the Spanish entirely deserved the win, considering how they played) and no less important it’s definitely not the recipe for providing the stadium or home audience with an entertaining event.

Comparing with the game of Snooker, in the UK where it’s commonly televised, there’s actually a rule that the game has to remain interesting! If a player stuffs around for too long, the umpire declares a foul and the turn passes to the other player. No kidding. I’d so love something like this to apply to football matches as well!

The irony is that Total Football was invented by (later Dutch coach) Rinus Michels, and Johan Cruyff was one of the greatest experts in this very active and engaging strategy. Where did things go so wrong that other countries currently at least partially do it (like the Spanish) and along  the way deliver something watchable, while the Dutch bore me to tears – that is if the annoyance doesn’t get to me first.

There’s much talent there going to waste, as well as entertainment value. Should Orange have a foreign coach for a bit, perhaps? A Spaniard, Brazilian, Brit? Or can the Dutch themselves just please pull their finger out and start using their skills for delivering active, interesting and probably also more successful games….. one hopes.