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?

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.

Politiken runs an article titled “EU action may cost you your internet connection” (article in Danish, Google Translation) about how European Windows 7 users may not be able to access the internet because of the EU’s intervention against MS’s browser monopoly, forcing them to ship Windows 7 without Internet Explorer pre-installed.

Now, talk about jumping to conclusions — not to mention the wildy exagerated title! I’m willing to bet that MS won’t ship Windows 7 without any means of installing IE8 (e.g. via something like curl or wget — or simly via FTP). I’m pretty sure there’ll be big fat icon in some prominent location saying “Install Internet Explorer”. Besides, it’s not really that hard (for anyone) to open Explorer and type in: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org and navigate to the Firefox EXE and double-click — especially if Mozilla would make a shortcut. (Hint hint!) Alternatively, if MS wants to be really cool, they could offer installation of either of the major browsers when installing Windows 7. I.e. something like: “Thanks for installing Windows 7, which browser(s) would you like to install? IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Google Chrome?” Or they could even go as far as saying “Would you prefer MS defaults or non-MS defaults?” Where MS defaults would be IE, Outlook, Windows Media Player etc., and non-MS would be e.g. Firefox + Thunderbird + VLC, Opera + VLC or something completely different. MS already had something like this in XP SP2, where you could select standard setups (either MS or non-MS), which would then affect settings such as the default browser, mail client, media player and IM client. Pretty un-MS-ish and ironically my all-time favorite feature in Windows.

This is typical of Politiken’s  IT section. They always pretend to be seeing stuff from the end-user’s, while apparently being even more clueless than the average (l)user. Or maybe they have ulterior motives. Maybe they don’t like the EU putting up a fight against the MS monopoly and messing with their precious Windows. Either way it’s “journalism” like this, that makes the least technically inclined users stick to Windows XP, 98 or whatever untill someone or something forces them to upgrade.

It really is true! When something’s too good to be true, it’s not! … Or whatever…

In this case it’s Microsoft’s (deliberately?) half-assed implementation of ODF rendering my previous predictions of doom and destruction more than just a little inaccurate. I guess my praise was a bit premature. I should have known better.

Yup — it’s here, I’m sure. Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 now supports ODF out of the box and has the option of using ODF as the default format. And just to add to that hell-freezes-over feeling, Office 2007 SP2 finally has a “Save as PDF” option. (Slashdot article with further links.)

So in this post-apocalyptic wasteland of a world it is now possible to actually use OpenOffice.org and send your ODF document to a Word user and expect them to be able to open it! While this is somewhat unexpected coming from Microsoft, it’s really a huge benefit to all word processor users of the world and a nice move from the people in Redmond. Of course, they’re not just doing it to be nice — there are certainly financial aspects to it — but still it shows that they are “getting it” even though it’s taken them some time.

Now, let’s sit back and watch how long it takes for Apple to implement native ODF support in Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc. My guess is that it’ll be a while. Actually, I’m getting more and more tired of being held hostage by Apple’s ideas of what I want — and am allowed — to use my computer/OS for, while Microsoft seems to be heading in a more sensible and  Open direction. Of course, first and foremost I’m a Linux-user, but with Windows 7 getting rave reviews and these nice additions in Office 2007 SP2 (not that I do, or ever will, use Microsoft Office or any other office suite for that matter) I might just give Microsoft another chance after ditching Windows back in 2001. Kudos to the Redmond crew for going with what the users want instead of what they want the users to have.