Lillesvin Networks

Back in March the web version of the Danish news paper Politiken ran an article on boosting computer performance [danish], where they list several steps for tuning Windows, with the last two steps suggesting that maybe re-installing Windows or installing Linux is the answer.

They list the steps for a Windows performance boost as follows:

• Update drivers
• Update firmware
• Give Windows less to think about (involving messing with the registry, disabling unnecessary graphic effects, removing unused fonts etc.)
• Overwhelmed by icons? (Involving messing around with msconfig.)
• Malware removal
• Defrag the hard drive

Now consider that updating drivers — and especially firmware — requires very specific knowledge of your hardware, while rummaging around in the registry and msconfig requires a good deal of knowledge about how software works and in some cases knowledge about — or ability to guess — how software vendors may choose to name their executables and the paths at which they might put the executables. Malware removal may have become easier over the years, but to a lot of users the terminology and processes involved seem intimidating, which ultimately stops them from doing it properly; or at all. And finally, defragmentation? Are you fucking kidding me?

Now Linux (let’s just take any Debian based distro for these examples.)

• Updating drivers is handled like all other updates, i.e. unless you’ve specifically disabled the automatic check for updates, you’ll be prompted to install fresh drivers pretty much as soon as they’re available. No manual searching required (unless you have some poorly supported hardware that doesn’t have drivers in any of the available repositories).
• Updating firmware can be a bitch, since most firmware updaters are Win only. On the other hand, I’ve never had to update my firmware from Linux on neither my MacBook nor my ThinkPad, so personally I regard this as a non-issue, but your mileage may vary.
• Cleaning up the registry… What registry?
• Managing applications that auto-start? System > Preferences > Startup Applications — easy and not as potentially dangerous as msconfig!
• Disabling unnecessary visual effects? System > Preferences > Appearance > Visual Effects.
• Malware removal. Not really necessary (for the time being), but under all circumstances no harder than on Windows.
• Defragmentation. No!

So to sum up, all you actively need to do to keep a Debian based Linux box speedy is basically to decide which applications and services you want to start up as you log in. That’s it! (If you’re really picky about getting the most out of your battery, you may want to turn off visual effects while running on battery power; or all together.)

Now I’m left wondering why so many people think that running Linux is for geeks only. To me it seems like running a Windows machine (and keeping it running) requires a good deal of knowledge about your computer’s hardware, it is insanely time-consuming and in general a pain in the ass. (I wouldn’t know for sure since I haven’t done it for several years, but I still help plenty of people with their Windows related problems.) No matter what OS people run, they always tend to have a backup geek they can turn to when things get too complicated — that goes for OS X, Windows and Linux, so why not start relying a little more on your personal Linux geek?

Yesterday I installed a beta of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), which is scheduled for release in 9 days, on my MacBook (2,1). I know, it’s only 9 days, but I couldn’t wait — the feature list was too delicious. Actually, I only intended this to be a small “OMG it’s so great!”-post, but it turned out a howto on running Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) on a MacBook 2,1.

Please note that any or all of these minor problems—maybe with the exception of the everlasting iSight issue—may be fixed in the final version.
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At a recent press event Apple presented a lot of “new” stuff, and as usual Steve Jobs gave the presentation. As I was looking through Engadget’s liveblog from the event, I stumbled upon a quote that pretty much sums up why I’m looking into getting a non-Apple computer the next time around.

Steve Jobs: “Home sharing: we‘re going to let you copy songs, TV shows, etc. with up to 5 computers in your house.” (Emphasis mine.)

Well, thanks a lot. Are you really going to let me do that? Gee, Steve! I don’t know what to say. I can play my DVDs on pretty much any device with a DVD drive without being limited to 5. I can even let friends borrow them without being worried that I won’t be able to see them myself when I buy a new DVD player because it would just happen to be the 6th device to play back that particular DVD. And don’t get me started on my vinyl collection.^[1]

I’m not sure I want an OS riddled with antifeatures, where I’m at the mercy of what Steve Jobs and Co. will let me do with my data.

^[1]: Irony would have it that in this recent press event, Apple announced the iTunes LP, which is basically nothing like a vinyl, but more like the many failed attempts at releasing extra material in a data track on a regular CD album. So get ready for craploads of cheesy DVD-like animated menus and metric tonnes of completely useless and indifferent bonus material.

In case it has excaped anyone’s attention, you really ought to check out SUSE Studio if you’re into Linux goodness. Basically it’s a “build your own Linux” website, that even allows you to do test runs before downloading and installing your very own, personalized SUSE based Linux distro.

This allows you to build your own web server with your favourite applications pre-installed and set up, so all you have to do is install it and boot, and you can also use it to make your own desktop distro with your favourite apps installed, configured and ready to go. Pretty nifty, eh?

For further demonstration check out their screencasts.

I accidently stumbled across this nice WordPress theme by Rob Goodlatte, which automatically increases/decreases the font size depending on the size of the browser window in order to maintain a sensible and readable line length. I’m still not entirely through modifying it (the CSS is a bit of a mess and I’ve found several inconsistencies throughout the theme) and I’m not quite sure how well the dynamic font size works with regards to accessibility, but what the hell — it’s easy enough to switch back to the old theme again should this turn out to not work as expected, so let’s just give it a go.

Actually, I stumbled across this theme because I had to do an urgent upgrade of WordPress because of a nasty, nasty flaw recently discovered and described on Full Disclosure. Basically it allows anyone to reset the admin password effectively locking out the standard admin user, so if you’re running WordPress, make sure to update to the latest version at once — and upgrading is not that hard. I upgraded from an ancient version without a single problem (that I know of).