Walt's Ruminations

Here we are getting into Fall in a couple weeks, and I am still getting into “summer mode”! Time sure does fly when fun is having you (that truly is how summer went for me). I know my “friends” will tell me it is a sign of getting old as time flies.

I’m looking forward to fall as the air conditioner doesn’t have to work as hard, but then, later on it will be providing heat.

This may be in the running as the shortest post as I have writer’s block at the moment!

I want to pass some more reliable links on for clearing the air on the severity of the swine flu outbreak and updates on progress clearing it up.

WHO Disease Outbreak News page is a good place to start. They track many health issues as well. Google News is another place to get information.

Avoid social networking places like Twitter, MySpace, etc, as you will read of everything from space aliens and terrorists creating the end of the world on through to news outlets making it up due to lack of other things to report on.

Readiness? Simple: You should already have some food and water stocked for “whatever” just in case there is a rush fearing the stores will close. I try to keep several days of food and water stocked in case of severe weather or any other emergency at all times.

Prevention? Again simple: Practice what your mother taught you about washing your hands and not standing in front of a messy sneeze! ~Duh!!! Oh, and make your mom happier and make sure you eat properly…

What to do? Go about your daily life… Keep informed, and don’t fall for off-the-wall “word of mouth” news. If you hear something off the wall, check the local media, CNN, BBC, wherever you normally get your news from (but not your next door gossip).

One final note: Beware of scams related to swine flu. There will certainly be all sorts of scams surfacing trying to separate you from your money. Do not fall for masks that collect 100% of germs forever, watch out for snake oil type cures. You know…simply don’t fall for people walking up to you on the street with goods that will keep you perfectly safe.

Last note: Beware of malware sent in emails targeted to get your attention about swine flu “news”. Now is the perfect time for malware writers to send infected videos of “the President” talking about the possible pandemic or other well known people talking about it. “Secret tips” on preventing becoming infected will be making the rounds most likely. If you do receive such an email, dump it. If it comes from a friend, ask them if they actually did send it to you, and even then be cautious as they may not realize that they have a worm installed on their computer from that email yet – and of course, it may sound plausable so nobody suspects anything.

Bottom line: COMMON SENSE should prevail! Get your facts from the media and not the neighborhood gossip or the know-it-all in line behind you at the store.

I guess a milestone of sorts has been reached with Barack Obama becoming president…. I find myself older than the President of the United States!!!! Up until now I have thought of them as older men, now, guess what? I’m the old man!!!!! Not by too much, but still it is different thinking that I am senior in age to the President.

Oh, in case anybody wonders, I am over it!

Or, should I say out of date misinformation? I’ve read a lot of similar sounding pieces of misinformation lately about Linux.

One piece that keeps resurfacing is that you have to use the command line to do anything at all (remember DOS?). Not true!!!!! That tidbit is really outta date. I find starting programs is much easier than in any version of Windows. You don’t have to hunt through menus to find a program you just installed, but told to not put a desktop icon up. If you install a graphics program in Linux, just open the menu, select “Graphics” and your program is right there, and not under some unheard of manufacturer’s name or something. Want it on your desktop after all? Simply grab it and drop it there!!

Linux has poor hardware support. Getting less true every day. the only piece of hardware I cannot get to work is a TWAIN scanner by Hewlett Packard. All my external drives work fine, dialup modems work if I ever want them (and these are the cheapo Winmodems), keyboards and mice work (I have to admit that some special functions that I rarely use in Windows may not be supported), my networked laser printer is supported perfectly. It is funny, Mint found it upon installation and automatically installed the correct driver!!! I went to install the CUPS driver for that printer and found it already ready for use! I guess it is proper to say hats off to Brother for being open source friendly, too!!! I can offload pictures from my Sony cameras just fine with either Ubuntu or Mint; connect the camera, power it up, it is recognized and mounted and I’m ready to copy to the computer…that simple! Your mileage may vary depending on camera maker.

Some cheap Broadcom WiFi cards have to have special drivers installed, but Mint saw my Broadcom 43xx card, and asked permission to install the driver (I used the Ethernet cable for installing it until it installed the WiFi driver), and it found my network, recognized what encryption I was running and asked for the key and I was surfing wirelessly! Mint also connects so much faster than any version of Windows to my saved WiFi profiles.

Programs are hard to install, with a lot of keyboard typing to get to work. No, no and NO!!!! Uh-uh, negatory…. All modern distros (slang for distribution) have programs that handle program installation (90% of it; you will find some applications that aren’t in the repositories (where specifically written programs are stored for each distro) that need manual installation and that is really easy even if you do have to use the command line); all you have to do is find it, download it, and use it!

Linux is for freeloaders. Really now, is that the best you can come up with?? Give it up if it is!!!!! Now, truthfully say that you never use “freeware” in Windows. I thought so… When we speak of “free” in Linux, we are thinking of “freedom“. Freedom from restrictive licensing and other restrictions.

“Open source” means that you can – legally – view the source code, and modify it if you wish, and even then (sitting down?) redistribute it! You cannot sell it or claim all credit for work done up to when you modified it.

Where is the incentive to develop open source? Well, money!!! Not by selling the software (really you never buy software, you buy a license giving you permission to use it within limited guidelines), but by support. Companies without in-house expertise can buy support, just like they do with software from companies like Microsoft; they just don’t have to pay for a license to use the software. If they add computers, servers whatever, they simply install the software and use it – with the full blessing of the developer without having to buy any more licenses.

One of the biggest challenges that may face somebody who has never used any version of Linux is the seemingly endless list of distributions. My favorites for newcomers are Mint, Ubuntu, and SimplyMEPIS. They all are easy to use and do the same thing in the end. Honestly, I suggest you pick the one you think has the prettiest website, desktop, or whatever. Don’t let the choice of desktop environments confuse you; simply choose one and if you want another install it later! The two biggest are GNOME (pronounced like Gee-nome) and KDE (stands for “K” Desktop Environment). I don’t think there is anything that you can do with one that you cannot with the other. Some programs are written to run with one desktop environment or the other, but if you use Synaptic Package Manager, it will automatically download any files you need in order for the program you want to use run in your desktop environment of choice.

If you have a rather old computer laying about, there is Puppy Linux, VectorLinux, and others that are designed for older and slower computers. You may not have the “eye candy” of the bigger distros, but do you want eye candy or a computer that will do what you want and need for it to do? Personally, I think they still have plenty of eye pizzaz!

Need help? Not only do the different distro communities have forums, but my two favorites are Newbies Linux, and USALUG (USA Linux Users Group). Please note that USALUG registration needs manual activation, so you will not be able to post right away if you have questions for them.

Here is an operating system that doesn’t have to spend a lot of time protecting itself and you as it is secure by design. Yes, as it grows in popularity, it will be targeted more, but the kernel it is built on was designed decades ago (while Microsoft’s top leadership was still in school!) with security in mind.

I have some friends that I felt that I browbeat into trying Linux just to get me to shut up dump Windows completely! If not for some special programs that requires Windows, I would be Windows-free myself.

Let’s see… I am writing this 18 full days into 2009 and wondering when I will be ready for 2008!

The water heater project is done and so far so good as to being leak free. The old one is still sitting out on the deck (anybody want a slightly rusted out very leaky hot water heater? LOL).

(Just found a WordPress bug… I can’t center both the picture and caption it seems)

As to my computer hobby; the more I use Vista, the more I want to get rid of it and put Linux on the main computers!!! I installed Sun’s VirtualBox virtual machine the other night and am running SimplyMEPIS and Mint in a virtual machine on Vista. Of course I have a desktop and a laptop running Ubuntu and Mint, but the virtual machine lets me kick the tires of a new distro without having to burn a CD or DVD for a Live CD! You can download an iso (image file) and VirtualBox can boot that just like it is right on your hard drive.

I got a friend started with Mint operating as a guest in VirtualBox on his computer and am anxious for him to say he wants it actually installed directly on his hard drive. This way he gets to kick the tires without having to repartition his hard drive and undoing it all if he doesn’t like it.

I discovered it is a good way to play under the hood with a distro and if I break something, I can revert to a previous snapshot.

A second post will address issues I’ve been reading lately by some mighty clueless people who think they don’t like Linux because their information is waaaaaay out of date!