Live Free (A.K.A living in gNewSense)

September 2, 2009 at 3:09 pm | In Cool, Life, Tech | 1 Comment
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A while ago I migrated my main laptop to gNewSense. It’s been a couple of weeks now so thought I should post my thoughts and experiences. The first thing I have noticed is that my machine seems to run faster. Not hugely so, but it definitely has more “perky” feel then Ubuntu Jaunty did. As I mentioned in my previous post moving to all Libre (or “free as in speech”) software has had a few challenges. I currently can watch just about zero flash video. Not a great loss really, and also in line with my flash reduced diet. I’m guessing version-next of gNewsense will be a little better on the flash as it will have a newer gnash installed . However as I personally dislike Flash I’ll just wait till Epiphany has html 5 support.

As gNewSense is currently based on an older version of Ubuntu than what I was using there have been a couple of minor regressions. Rhythmbox is having a old problem with some podcasts that was fixed in the more recent versions. The podcasts work. the file names just end up a little messy. Again not a biggie.

The repositories still need a little cleaning up as there are a couple of packages listed (like Revelation) that can’t be installed because they have dependencies that were removed due to the fact that they were not Libre. I know these little wrinkles will get ironed out but the above example was a little annoying to me as I was using Revelation to store my passwords and part of my process before installing gNewSense was to look in the repository and see that it would have the packages I needed. Again, not a show stopper, just annoying. I have moved my passwords to a fully Libre program and all is fine now.

The only real gotcha I ran into is that I use encfs to store personal files and one of my encfs folders (a more recently created one) had been made with encfs 6 and gNewSense has encfs 5 which was surprisingly (I jest) not forward compatible.. This meant that I needed to jump through several hoops to fix this.

The process looked like… create a new encfs folder (with gNewSense encfs 5). boot into ubuntu live, install encfs, mount both the old and new encfs folders, copy from the old encfs6 to the new encfs5 folder. delete the old encfs folder, boot back into gNewSense. Again more hassle then show stopper but something that I would have been easier to take care of before installing gNewSense.

Aside from the above few annoyances some of which are strictly migration pains and thus very temporary. I am really enjoying gNewSense. It is what I want my Linux to be. I enjoy knowing that nothing in my system promotes the problems one sees with closed source. I am one of the crowd that feels that binary blobs will if not stopped will take on a life of their own. If hardware manufacturers get the message that closed source drivers are acceptable that will be all they will produce. If however we (the community) send a clear message that we will not use closed source drivers and by extension the hardware it drives Manufacturers will produce open source drivers. Manufacturers are driven by the bottom line. they want to sell their hardware.. If given a clear message they will produce what the market demands.

Towards a Free (as in speech) system – (or Flash Reduced diet #3)

July 25, 2009 at 1:14 pm | In Life, Tech, XO | 1 Comment
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It seems that one of the side effects of my Flash reduced diet is a desire to get away from all restricted formats. In looking back I can see that this journey actually began when I got my OLPC XO during last years Give 1 Get 1 program. As I progress on this journey I am stripping away more and more of my reliance on restricted/patent encumbered formats. I am also working hard to rid my systems of any Proprietary binary blobs or software with restrictive or anti-social licenses. I have cleaned up Ubuntu on my main laptop as much as I can and am now looking into replacing Ubuntu with gNewSense. The main stumbling block to doing so is the fact that my main laptop is my Asterisk/Voip centre and I’ll have to do the re-install at a time when there would be no incoming calls.

The thing that has surprised me is how little has broken. As I mentioned in my previous postings on Flash reduction things definitely do break, but nothing that I couldn’t easily live without.

My biggest concern was dropping restricted kernel modules as I feared that some of my hardware may cease to function. As it turns out I have been quite good at buying hardware that is fully supported by open source software. My next concern was that I might have trouble with Various media types but again nothing significant broke I can still watch the CBC news at night just fine. I did loose mplayer, VLC, and Avidemux that I had come to depend on but they have been replaced with other tools that do not have the licensing complications of those applications. I have managed to completely do away with the multiverse repositories on my main laptop.

My next challenge will be to do the same on the XO. This may be challenging as the XO is shipped with proprietary kernel modules for the wireless card. and I suspect the Video will be problematic. My Ultimate goal will be to get gNewSense on my main laptop and then work on porting it to the XO. It may well be worth the effort of porting to the XO even if the wireless doesn’t work as one can always add an external wireless card that is supported by Free software.

Xbox Media Center – Not just for the Xbox.

October 19, 2008 at 12:20 pm | In Cool | Leave a Comment
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This week I am going to do a quick review of “Xbox Media center” (XBMC). Now before you tune out it’s not just for the Xbox. This wonderful open source project works on Linux, Mac, Xbox (of course), “Apple TV” and even Windows. There is also a live version so you can take it with you.

I thus far only have experience with the Windows version, but what I have seen has left me truely impressed. We needed a replacement for the previous media center software that we were using on a windows machine we use for such things. After looking around for a while I discovered XBMC and was delighted with the results.

Thinks I like about XBMC?

It’s fast. We have had problems in the past with media center software being slow or heavy resource hogs or both. XBMC doesn’t suffer from these problems.

To date it has played everything we have thrown at it from .flv files to .mkv XBMC played it all no problems.

It is slick. XBMC is just plain cool. It is the type of interface you want to have running when you invite people over so they can go.. “Hey.. Cool… What is that..”. Part of the slickness of XBMC is the fact that is it skinnable and that the skins don’t just paint over the same old interface to change the look of it, they can actually change the way things function and are presented. You can see screenshots from the current version of XBMC here

It has a built in File manager for managing your media once you have watched it.

It has integration with IMDB and other on-line sites. This allows it to easily retrieves the information and thumbnails (cover art, etc) to present in the media lists.

It can play streaming video from the network. The Windows version came with a script for browsing and viewing the trailers on apple.com

oh yeah.. it can be extended using scripts.

It has a large development and user community and so is a very active open source project. The large user community also means it is easy to get help on-line.

The controls are easy and intuitive, that coupled with the large clear On-Screen Display (OSD) makes using XBMC a dream.

I’m a definite convert to, and advocate of the project. I hope that XBMC get the recognition it deserves. The developers and other contributors have put together a first class piece of software that deserves some time in the spotlight.

Site of the Week #15

October 12, 2008 at 1:59 pm | In site of the week | Leave a Comment
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OK, So I’ve been a little lax on keeping up on my blogging. It’s a “have a life thing”, in-between trying to get the house ready for winter, the garden wound down, revved up on fall/winter obligations, etc. there just hasn’t been a lot of blogging time.

This weeks “Site of the Week” is a very useful one for all those that use and/or advocate for F.L.O.S.S. it’s:

Floss Manuals

This site has a large, and growing list of manuals for FLOSS software and relates items. It has many useful features such as the ability to generate a .PDF of the manual for offline reading. There is also a handy click here to print button.

Another great feature of the site is that, in true open source style, the manuals can be contributed and edited by users of the site. So I expect to see their list of manuals grow quickly as the community grows.

So, go check it out, I’d strongly suggest bookmarking the site so that the next time you need to read up on a piece of FLOSS software you can just pop over and read up.

Enjoy

SnapYap.com – A quick review

September 10, 2008 at 10:45 am | In Cool, Tech | Leave a Comment
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After my post on Tokbox’s growing pains and continuing evolution I was invited to take a look at SnapYap.com and see what I thought.

So, I went, I saw, I liked. With a few minor nigglings that are much more specific to me then to the service.

Thing I liked:

Their privacy policy and Terms of Service are easy to find and sensible.

The interface is clean, attractive, simple and easy to understand. I fully feel I could send anyone to the site and they’d be able to use it right off the bat.

It follows the “do one thing and do it well” line of thought. It’s about sending and receiving video calls/messages nothing more. It’s not trying to be a do video everything site.

It worked

I does not store the log-in state in LSO’s in fact their use of LSO’s is minimal.

Things I think could be improved:

In their registration they ask for date of birth. Being a Privacy/Security minded techie I’d prefer to see this changed to the more general “Age:” or eliminated if possible. They also ask for “Zip code:”, again I’d prefer to see a more general “Location:” type question. However given their sensible Privacy policy I was not too aggrieved by the above.

The Nigglings I mentioned:

When I first went to their site it failed to do anything video related. This was not their fault but instead due to the fact that I have a rather draconian firewall in place and their flash component was trying to make connections using ports outside the usual http/https/etc range. I was quickly able to resolve this but they may wish to include some documentation for other people less firewall/router savvy.

The other tiny (thus nigglie) thing was that their badge/banner used tags and wordpress.com doesn’t deal well with those so I had to modify the code slightly to get the badge on this blog. Again, not a major thing. It would just be nice if they provided and non-script, non-flash, badge that would easily embed into more restrictive hosting sites.

Conclusion:

From my early perusal of the site SnapYap.com seem to be a cool site. I’ll definitely be both keeping an on on where they are going and passing the word about them on to others.

Site of the Week #8

May 3, 2008 at 11:52 am | In site of the week | Leave a Comment
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Bored? Slow day at the office? At the library but don’t feel like studying? Well then this weeks site of the week is for you. It is a wonderful site with a plethora of online flash based games to play. No sign up necessary.

you can find it at:

http://armorgames.com/

Go, play, enjoy

Site of the Week #7

April 26, 2008 at 2:54 pm | In site of the week | Leave a Comment
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This weeks site of the week is a Video conferencing site. It isn’t the most feature rich but it does have strong appeal for other reasons.

The site is:

mebeam.com

MeBeam allows you to video conference with up to 11 of your friends (12 people total) in a extremely easy way. The things about it I like most are the lack of sign up and the total ease of use.

To start a conference all you have to do is to go to mebeam.com and supply a room name. That will create the room and take you to it. To invite you friends just send then the URL of the room from the address bar. It’s that simple. The video quality is good and the voice didn’t get lagged in the tests that I did. (however I didn’t get a chance to try it with a full 12 people)

so give mebeam.com a try.. There’s no sign-up needed. just good video fun.

Site of the Week #3

March 31, 2008 at 10:40 pm | In Cool, Privacy/Security, Tech, site of the week | Leave a Comment
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Sorry about this being a little late.. It was a busy weekend.

This weeks site of the week is:

Virustotal.com

Virustotal is a truly excellent site and free service that lets you submit a file to be scanned by all the major anti-virus scanners. It is fantastic if you get a questionable e-mail attachment or download that you want to check before opening. They allow submission by HTTP, HTTPS, or e-mail.

Having virustotal in your bookmarks is well worth it.

Enjoy

Site of the Week #2

March 22, 2008 at 12:25 pm | In Cool, site of the week | Leave a Comment
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This is my second weekly “Site of the Week” instalment.

This weeks site is:

Jamendo.com

Jamendo is a site that hosts Creative Commons licensed music that is free to download. The interface on the website is very well organized. It is easy to find what you are looking for and to download either one song or a full album. They also very clearly display the information on the Creative Commons license that that song or album is under so you know what the limitations are before you download it.

The songs have their ID3 tags properly set which depending on you library manager can be an important thing.

Jamendo also makes it very straight forward to donate to artist that you choose to, and considering that the artist have decided to put their stuff on-line for free, it’s just good form to donate something to an artist you particularly like.

So go, check it out, enjoy the music, Post music if you are an artist. Join the Jamendo community and discuss music on the various forums. Basically, go and enjoy a great site.

Site of the week #1

March 15, 2008 at 11:46 am | In Cool, Vod/Pod casts, site of the week | Leave a Comment
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With my recent blogging about drop.io, I’ve decided to do a Site of the week feature. Each Saturday I will blog about a site that I find useful, innovative, interesting, relevant or worth watching.

And So, this weeks site of the week is:

Librivox.org

LibriVox is a site where you can get free audio-books. The recordings are both free as in beer, and free as in speech. From the few chapters I have listened to the recordings, though volunteer, are of good quality. you can download whole book for the catalogue or subscribe to one of their many podcasts.

I particularly enjoy their “books” podcast where they podcast a book, a chapter at a time, 3 times a week. If you are like me and addicted to podcasts then this is a god way too keep your supply of new podcasts up.

If you feel you have the necessary time and skill you can also contribute by volunteering to read chapters.

I also must say that the site is very well laid out. It was easy to find what I was looking for even the first time i visited the site. The site is also available in 9 different Languages.

So, go check librivox.org out, get a book or two, and spread the word.

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