Richard Stallman will be at NUS next week, 13th and 14th March. He’ll be having a seminar/talk at School of Computing on the 13th, and at University Town on the 14th. He’s the man behind GNU and the Free Software Foundation, and I imagine a lot of students are going to be pretty excited to see this man. I’m not, I already had that moment some 13 years ago, in 1999, when he also come around to NUS and DSO,…
From time to time, when I try to pretend to be a noob user, I find myself having to complain about Linux. The user experience, in my opinion, is just not there yet. Over a decade ago, when I was interviewed about whether Linux was ready for prime time, my answer was that it wasn’t, but but that it was getting there. Every other year or so, when I ask myself again this question, my answer has invariably been the…
It’s been quite a long while since I last built my own PC. My last desktop PC was built some time around 2005. I was reasonably familiar with PC components at that time. Technology has changed so much, and even though I do work in the “IT line”, and I do occasionally spec out server requirements, I’ve for the most part gotten out-of-touch with consumer PC components. Fortunately, there hasn’t been much in the way of technological revolution, so all…
Then, after installing Gentoo Linux yesterday, today I had a go at Ubuntu. This time, instead of a spare PC, I installed it in a virtual machine in my MacBook Pro. I know, this is hardly a fair comparison, but let’s just hear me out, because I’m just totally awed by the setup experience. It was just so easy, even considering my increased expectations of how Linux distributions ought to have become.
I spent a part of today installing Gentoo Linux in a spare PC. If you’ve not heard of it, Gentoo is yet another Linux distribution. It stands out from the rest in that practically everything you install is actually compiled from source code locally. It’s not my first experience with Gentoo… I had a go at it when it was newly launched around 2002. It’s a hacker’s distribution. Not very much fun, and if you asked me, I wouldn’t want…
The Linux kernel admits to being dazed and confused, but tries hard to continue. Unsuccessfully. One of our server died. We looked at the screen, and were amused enough that everyone (who had a decent camera phone) took a picture of the screen. The kernel spat out in its logs: “Dazed and confused, but trying to continue; Do you have a strange power saving mode enabled?” Alright, the server wasn’t really important after all, hence its death was only noticed…
So, the inevitable question came when I had to re-install Linux on my PC. The PC isn’t new, but I got a new hard disk, and my old Fedora 7 was too old that the current latest Fedora 12 wouldn’t detect as a installation it would upgrade from. I don’t mind a fresh installation of Linux. It seems like a good idea to start afresh rather than let years of upgrades accumulate cruft. So, what will it be: Fedora or…
I’m sad to say, Linux still isn’t quite ready for newbies. Although I only had a few simple struggles with my latest Fedora 12 installation, I cannot imagine how a computer newbie is going to handle such challenges. Granted, Linux is probably more suited for the “power user”, many people in Linux-land try to evangelize the idea that Linux can be used by just about anybody. To this end, I think Linux might be going in that general direction, but…
Obviously this is the kind of joke only for IT people, particularly the Linux people. It’s a case of a post sent to the wrong mailing list which quickly developed into a series of hilarious follow-ups. I myself had a good laugh when I sifted through the email I received from the list this morning. Someone posted to the Fedora mailing list about the worsening mileage he was getting on his Toyota Prius. He realized quite immediately his mistake. But…
I recently attended a gathering of people who have some interests in Linux. I was quite surprised by the big turnout. I believe the organizers themselves did not think there would be such a big interest, because they had booked too small a meeting venue. The room was too small, and in my opinion, their efforts to move aside the tables did little to alleviate the congestion. I guess we all underestimated the level of interest in Linux, unless, perhaps…
