Planning to Migrate to Linux? BEWARE!!!

As more noise in favor of GNU/Linux is heard, some people might feel tempted to replace their solid, green-red-blue-and-yellow Windows system with an unknown, shady, black-and-white Linux penguin. Some of these users, thinking they are about to enter the Promised Land, fail to fully consider the disastrous consequences that abandoning the firm, old Windows tradition may cause.

In this light, I found appropriate to let these naive migrants know a number of issues to consider before they take the leap to their doom. These issues are based on empirical, but honest observation and may bring upon me the deepest animosity among GNU/Linux fans...even so, I'm determined to continue. The truth will be by my side.

Dear Windows user, before you migrate to Linux, make sure you understand some of the side-effects that may come after you take your experimental Linux pill:


1. Your computer may become dull or stop working:
Windows is a happy, efficient world where computers respond promptly and just work. They work and work even when you don't know. They work as zombies and botnets, sending spam mail (in the best of the cases) for some hacker out there who rightfully earned control over them. Just last year, there was an estimate of twelve million zombies. That is four times the whole population of a small country like mine. Imagine! A whole country made of zombies!!! That is a happy country! Windows is a happy world in which you (if you're a hacker) command and computers react. They react promptly to Trojans, worms and malware of all forms under the sun. If you install Linux and use it as your main OS, your computer may stop reacting to the Trojans, worms and malware that took cyber-criminals a lot of time and effort to design. Of course, if you engage into irresponsible security behavior, your PC may still be responsive to them, but not as it was with Windows. Are you sure you want a dull computer like that? Who wants a computer that fails to respond to malware by default? What? Your computer has never been part of a botnet, you say? Are you sure? Then, why is it that some users complain that their PCs still download updates regardless of their preferences? They are part of the biggest botnet in the world, that's why!

2. You will be totally unprotected:
Yes. It is not a mistake. Installing Linux will drag you away from computer protection. Windows users are protected by a very strong, fortified system of placebos: the solid support from Microsoft (that usually ignores or denies the problems, but after a considerable number of users complain, gives in and releases the patches), the A/V technologies (that are always playing catch-up with the malware), and Windows Security Essentials (that are pretty similar to A/Vs, but create a much better placebo effect because they come right from Microsoft). In contrast, once you install Linux, the only responsible for your protection will be yourself...and the penguin, that by the way, is armored to its teeth (yes! that bird has teeth and uses them to gnaw malware as fish!) Why would you want to take care of your own security as the Robin of a Bat-penguin if the placebo system will let you relax making you think that it is on charge (even if it isn't)?

3. Your world will go upside down:
Beware! Great danger here! After getting acquainted with Linux, you may discover some awful truths that will make your world shatter like broken Windows. For example, you may discover that you were paying for features Open Source gives you for free! Also, you may realize that some hardware manufacturers innocently make Linux installation and support harder...but who cares? That benefits indirectly our old friend! Your printer or scanner don't work? It is your fault for choosing to install an OS that is not proprietary and therefore has no proprietary drivers. You may then realize a horrible truth: companies don't care about customer satisfaction with their product...they just care about their policies. What's to them that you cannot use your hardware? You bought it already, silly person! You may also realize that all the hardware improvements your OS demanded from you were totally unnecessary. Linux could give life to that old computer you had sitting on a corner collecting dust. Imagine if all those old computers that people sent to the trashcan were still working perfectly...yes...much less pollution and a greener world. Forget the thought. All of us will die anyway, so let's keep littering and let our traditional OS tell us we need to replace our computers when we actually don't need to! That is part of life!

4. Your rights will be severed:
Linux is not just Ubuntu. This is a hard concept to grasp and it might blow your mind. Yes, Windows is Windows regardless if it is 3.11, 95, 98, 2000, ME (Wow! This is such a jewel!), XP, Vista (Another little gem!), or Vista/7. They all are Windows, full of the friendly features you cannot miss (BSODs, system crashes, freezes, etc.). What about Linux? Ubuntu? Naaah! Ubuntu is just ONE Linux flavor and all Linux flavors behave quite differently. With Windows, things are simple: if your Windows doesn't work, you have a dead computer. Simple and nice. With Linux, things are so complicated! If Ubuntu doesn't work, then there is Mandriva. If Mandriva doesn't work, then you could try Mint. No? What about Mepis? What did you say? All of them worked fine but but you don't like them? You can fully customize them as you want. No time for that? Then try Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Debian, OpenSuse, Sabayon, Pardus, Arch, Slackware, Red Hat, Puppy, Knoppix, Elive, Unity...and the list goes on! Why does Linux have to make things so complex? Who wants so many options plus the total freedom to choose? Doesn't that crazy penguin know that it is much better to tell users what they need or want and limit the choices to 5 options most (reducing them progressively, too)? That is the RIGHT way of doing things because your right is to be kept on a nice leash (as your computer, crippled by design, is)! Freedom is for free people and in this happy world being free means being sad...and alone. Therefore, Linux brings sadness! Get Linux, get ready for a very sad life!

I could continue mentioning the dangers of the learning process (remember: learning makes sick brains!) that embracing that obnoxious penguin may also bring about, but I'm done for now. I will just sit down and wait for GNU/Linux fans to start tearing me apart rabidly. Hopefully, dear Windows user, you will think twice before falling for Linux.

Some Statistics about My Linux Box

OK...it's been 5 months since I started this blog and almost a year since I migrated to Mepis Linux 8. Thus, I think it's time to review some real numbers related to its performance:

A. Number of attacks by trojans, spyware, or malware: 0.

B. Number of Kernel Panics (the Linux equivalent of Windows BSODs): 1 (But it was not on my main system. It happened when I was trying a bad burn of a Live CD and took it out of the drive while it was loading)

C. Number of system crashes: 0.

D. Number of KDE crashes: 5 (But KDE recovers itself without restarting the system.)

E. Number of computer freezes: 0.

F. Number of programs that crashed: 1 Kplayer. I decided to use Kaffeine for video playing instead.

G. Number of times I've noticed slow system performance: 0. Mepis still runs as fast as the first time I installed it without my need to flush the cache, restarting or whatever.

H. Number of times I've explored, modified, or deleted system files making the system crash: 2. (When tried to install Compiz and when tried to revert some appearance changes after an upgrade.)

I. Number of times I've explored, modified, or deleted system files WITHOUT making the system crash: about 200.

J. Number of times I actually needed to fiddle with the system: 4. (to enable Japanese typing, to revert some appearance changes after an upgrade, to set up my printer, and to enable virtualization).

K. Average time for reinstalling the whole system: 10 mins. (without disc imaging)

L. Average time for configuring the system the way I want it to be: 1 hour 30 mins. (without disc imaging)

M. Number of times I've partitioned my hard drive after installing Linux: 1. (to make my Linux partition bigger)

N. Minimum number of times I've tried other Linux distros: 11.
(Mandriva, Pardus, BrLix, Puppy, Damn Small Linux, Mint, OpenSuse, Elive, AntiX, Mangaka, Chameleon OS)

O. Number of times the other distros I've tried have made my system crash: 0.

So, in conclusion I must say I am very satisfied with my migration. It was much less painful than I expected and much more rewarding, too. Of course, there's still a lot to learn, but I'm going one step at a time.

A New, Happy Mandriva User!

One of my colleagues, a proud owner of a netbook HP Mini, but not so proud of the crippled Windows 7 Starter it came with, had asked me to help her switch to GNU/Linux.

Her netbook, although little as a netbook can be (though not quite like my Toshiba NB-100, which literally looks like a toy) put up a titanic struggle to block me from installing Linux.

After some research and tests, I finally had everything ready to install the friendly penguin on a dual boot as my colleague's primary operating system. Yes, she was totally fed up with Windows--in spite of all the praises Microsoft sings about it--but I told her to keep her Windows 7 as a secondary OS. Why? Because then she will have the opportunity to actually compare Linux and Windows fairly and will make her decisions based on her own experience. That is more valuable than a million words in favor of Linux, I'd say.

Then, I had to settle for which distro to install. I chose Mepis 8.5 because, following my line of thought, it would be easier for her to learn and for me to help her out in case of need. Unfortunately, the HP-Mini wanted to put some more struggle. Mepis was not the best choice for that netbook: even though all the computers in which I've tested or installed Mepis--desktop, notebooks, or netbooks--presented no problems, this one seemed almost Mepis-proof (at least from my limited Mepis knowledge.)

I was getting closer to solve the hardware incompatibilities, but then I decided to try a different approach. I had read that Mandriva did a very good job specifically in those headache-causing HP-Minis, so I asked Mechatotoro to bring along a Mandriva One Spring live CD and let the legacy of Mandrake do its magic where Mepis magic didn't work.

Right, Mandriva did it. What would have taken me some extra time configuring in Mepis, Mandriva got it out of the box. My colleague was also dazzled by Mandriva's KDE effects (I knew she would!) She kept Mandriva, that was a no-brainer.

Today, she told me a friend had seen her new computer and wanted Mandriva, too. ^_~

She also told me that she had used her little Mepis knowledge trying to place a different wallpaper on each desktop, but had not succeeded. I offered some help. I did my best, but even though I actually placed different wallpapers, KDE refused to show them. I knew I was missing one step in the process, but which one? I am not very acquainted with Mandriva.

Then, I remembered Mechatotoro had placed a tutorial for that on his blog. Following it, I discovered the missing link and got the four different wallpapers happily rotating along the desktop cube.

My colleague's satisfaction was beyond words. She had her netbook running exactly as she wanted and with no absurd limitations. Can somebody say the same of Win7 Starter? :P

When Mandrake Linux was first released, the slogan was "A new star is born." So, let me borrow those words and say "a new, happy Mandriva user is born." Congratulations, Mandriva! ^__^

¿Será el fin de OpenOffice.org?

Aparentemente, los desarrolladores de OpenOffice.org decidieron romper los lazos con Oracle (la compañía que compró Sun y adquirió por ende Open Solaris y Open Office). ¿Por qué rompieron con Oracle? Aparentemente, Oracle canceló el proyecto de Open Solaris a pesar de que los desarrolladores de Open Office esperaban que no lo hiciera.

¿Qué pasará ahora con Open Office? ¿Será el triste adiós? ¿Y todas las distros de Linux que usan esta poderosa suite ofimática? ¿Quedaremos condenados a usar el legado de Open Office sin posibilidad de actualizaciones o mejoras?


¡No! Al igual que con Mandriva y Mageia, los desarrolladores de Open Office formaron "The Document Foundation", en la cual planean continuar con el proyecto de Open Office, que ahora se llamará LibreOffice, a menos que Oracle les done el nombre "Open Office.org".

Ya la Document Foundation cuenta con el apoyo de Google, Red Hat, Canonical y The GNOME Foundation.

La versión Beta de LibreOffice para Windows, Linux y Mac se puede descargar aquí.

Experimentos...

Mis experimentos con Mepis y Antix en mi sujeto de pruebas (una computadora realmente vieja) no resultaron tan bien como esperaba; parece que los requisitos mínimos de memoria de ambas distros (256 Mb. de Ram para Mepis y los 128 Mb.de Ram para Antix) fueron demasiado para los escasos 64 Mb.de Ram de esta pieza de colección. Mepis no llegó a mostrarme la pantalla de ingreso y Antix, a pesar de hacerlo, consumió el último Kb. de Ram antes de desplegar el escritorio.

Como temía una eventualidad similar, también me aseguré de que las dos distros fueran acompañadas por Puppy Linux (quien también exige alrededor de 128 Mb. de Ram). Puppy sí logró llegar al final y me mostró el escritorio. Desgraciadamente, el ratón de la computadora neolítica atestó un golpe fatídico a mis progresos: funcionaba a través de un puerto D-Sub...¡Sí, el anterior al Ps/2!

Puppy no supo qué hacer con ese ratón milenario...ni yo qué hacer con un escritorio de Puppy y su puntero inmóvil en su centro. Después de varios intentos inútiles por localizar el modo de movilización mediante el teclado, me vi forzado a cerrar la sesión y terminar mis experimentos.

El dinosaurio ganó la primera batalla, pero no la guerra; hoy aprendí la forma de desplazarme mediante el teclado: se oprime ALT+F1 para activar el menú y se utiliza TAB para seleccionar.

También aprendí que Puppy posee una especie de centro de control del cual se puede escoger entre varias posibilidades para intentar habilitar al lánguido ratón. Ese será mi próximo proyecto.

¿Y si Puppy falla?

Linux siempre presenta alternativas; ya tengo un nuevo aliado para esta batalla por revivir una computadora prehistórica: Damn Small Linux.


Damn Small es una mini-distro basada en Knoppix y pesa tan sólo 50 Mb. Según afirman sus desarrolladores, funciona incluso en equipos con tan sólo 16 Mb.de Ram.

Hoy probé esta mini-distro iniciándola desde mi llave USB y ejecutándola en Windows...funcionó sin problema. Todavía no he logrado adaptarla para que se ejecute desde mi llave USB directamente, pero pronto lo lograré. De todos modos, lo de la llave USB es inútil para mi sujeto de pruebas ¡esa pobre computadora ya había visto la luz del sol cuando apenas se estaba desarrollando el puerto USB en 1994!

¿Podrá Puppy revivir una computadora tan vieja? Si no reconoce del todo al ratón, será el turno de Damn Small entonces.

Meeting AntiX! An Informal Review

Yesterday, I downloaded AntiX, a lightweight Linux distro based on Mepis. I had heard of it before, but had never downloaded it. The reason? As I understood, Antix was intended for old computers, and even though my computer is quite old, it handles Mepis very well, so I had no reason to try it...well, that was what I thought.

I also heard about some features Antix has that made me curious, so I wanted to try them. According to what I had learned on the Web, those features were:

1. Even though it is intended for old computers, AntiX runs as well on new boxes.

2. AntiX is a rolling distro.

3. AntiX is based on Mepis, but it uses Debian testing (Mepis uses Debian stable).

4. AntiX can be configured to support Spanish with no further download (that's a very important point in my country!)

5. Remastering is a reality for AntiX.

6. In spite of its light weight (the full Live CD is less than 600 MB), AntiX handles multimedia quite well.


Well, those features called my attention, so I downloaded this distro. To be more precise, I downloaded AntiX 8.5 "Marek Edelman." Thus, the very first thing I learned from AntiX was a bit of history (I really liked that, by the way!)

The second aspect that called my attention was the visual theme of the desktop. The colors combine with the wallpaper to create an effect of nostalgia intertwined with underlying vitality. It is quite the same feeling one gets after finding an old black & white photograph of a very happy moment, if I could compare it to something. I almost felt as if I had been in front of a resurrected computer from the early 90's just by looking at the desktop. And sure, the OS was in Spanish. ^__^



From my quick glimpse, Antix comes with:
Abiword for text processing
A spreadsheet
Web browsers
A calculator
Synaptic as a package manager
Pidgin for chatting
Several applications for multimedia and graphics
Games
A control center

Partly influenced by my experience with old games running on new machines, I expected AntiX to perform way too fast to be functional (younger generations might not know what I'm talking about). But the distro ran beautifully. The menus, the windows, everything ran flawlessly even though it was from the Live CD.

Then came my first "serious" tests...(I am no technician, so my tests cannot be that "serious," but I'm quite a demanding computer user!)

First test: Web connectivity
No problem. AntiX picked my wired connection out of the box. It comes with IceApe as the Web browser. I thought about challenging AntiX with a difficult Web task. Why not YouTube for a start? No big deal. The page loaded without any glitches and so did the videos I picked.

Second test: Can Antix see my other partitions and have access to them?
In this case, I had a problem. I could mount my Mepis partition, but I could not mount my old XP "storehouse." Apparently, I need to be granted root access for that. I felt a bit disappointed at first, but then I thought "Hey, this is not a big deal! You just have to learn how to grant root access." Actually, it counts for more points in security.

Third test: Some leisure applications
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so I ran the preloaded games. It comes with a DOS emulator. Hehehe! You won me over with this, little distro! I am a fan of retro DOS games!
Besides the emulator, the breakout game is a little jewel! I spent more time "testing" it than I intended to!
I also ran the basic drawing application (the equivalent of MS Paint). The black background made it look so "DOS-like"...but still, it ran perfectly. It even has some features that beat its MS counterpart!

Because of time (I had a lot of work to do), I could not keep testing this new distro, although I definitely intend to continue doing it as soon as I have some more free time. Actually, I also plan to try it on a real dinosaur computer that someone I know has in a cardboard box, forgotten in a corner of a storeroom. I don't know this ancient PC's specs yet, but I am sure it is old! Will AntiX run on it and bring it back to life?

I still need to continue my tests and I still need to learn a great deal about this distro, but meanwhile let me say that AntiX is definitely a keeper! Congratulations to its developer, contributors, and community!

Mepis: Thanks for all the Fish!

I stumbled today upon a curious episode in the history of Mepis Linux, which I called "The Fishy Debate"

It seems that during its early days, SimplyMepis shipped with a preloaded KDE applet in the Kicker. In other words, the "taskbar" included a "gizmo."

The thing was basically a small fishtank in which several cartoonish fish went by swimming...nothing less, nothing more.

Apparently, some users considered the fishtank negative because it sort of made a "bad first impression" of the OS. They mentioned the terms "for teenagers" and "unprofessional."

That reminded me of how professionalism is taking over the computer world, leaving little room for creativity and fun. Heck, Microsoft Office even got rid of the assistant, for example!

Other Mepis users said "what's the big deal with the fish? Don't like them? You can get rid of them in 2 seconds!"

Yet, others stated their full support to the little fish with ideas like:

"Its to keep the Penguins happy, they like fish"

"Also my cat refuses to use the computer without the fish...."


Then, the thread went to something deeper, like distro popularity:


"Remember how much everyone hated the brown earth colours of Ubuntu? And it's moved to position one on Distrowatch. And now note how many people hate the little fishes on Mepis? And it's up to positon five.

If we create a distro with fish, unpleasant brown colours, and one more visual flaw, we could take over the desktop world!"

To which another user responded:

"I like your analogy.. hehehe.. ;D ;D ;D How about changing the "K" in the K-menu to "Start".. that is total domination.. hehehe..."


There was even one user mentioning the deep cultural base for Mepis to come with the fishtank:

We have strong evidence that Herman Melville used Mepis as he typed out Moby Dick, because he started his great novel with a joke for all his computer friends, "Call me Phishmael". (Phishmael was spelled differently in subsequent editions.) And his first rough drafts describe the whale as blue, not white. Pretty conclusive I think!

After reading such a long and weird thread, I could not help but looking for the fishtank. (I guess the Anti-fish party ended up winning in the long run, for Mepis does not come with the fishtank anymore!)

The applet is Kaquarium. I installed it using Synaptic and added it to my Kicker. After seeing it for a couple of seconds, the only thing left for me to say was...

LONG LIVE THE FISHIES!!!