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Re: [Wlug] Miro gets a makeover

by nassar＠alum.wpi.edu

PCF is amazingly efficient at turning the little money they have into usable software. If you can, give them a donation. https://www.miroguide.com/donate >>>>> "Rich" == Richard Klein <richspk(a)gmail.com> writes: Rich> I haven't read the article yet, but it looks like Miro 2.0 has Rich> launched. Miro was the topic of last month's meeting. Rich> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/10/miro-gets-a-makeover/ Rich> -- Rich _______________________________________________ Wlug Rich> mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Rich> http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Feb. 14, 2009

Re: [Wlug] tux's new prison

by Keith Wright

> From: Doug Mildram <dmildram(a)gmail.com> > > Tux looks a bit worried in his "new" computer room..... > OK so he's homeless and I merely bought him a bottle and > a limited air supply with the other derelicts in my man-cave... > > ( ! warning, no disturbing images, 3 boring pix at.... ) > > http://dmildram.jalbum.net/Server+DesktopClutter/index.html It's good this came with a warning, or else I would have been very disappointed to find no disturbing pictures of Penguins in Bondage. -- Keith PS: so Google it or ask a Zappa fan.

Feb. 14, 2009

Re: [Wlug] tux's new prison

by Richard Klein

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 6:26 PM, Doug Mildram <dmildram(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Suffering from "temporary" (winter) shrinkage, > Tux looks a bit worried in his "new" computer room..... > OK so he's homeless and I merely bought him a bottle and > a limited air supply with the other derelicts in my man-cave... > > ( ! warning, no disturbing images, 3 boring pix at.... ) > > http://dmildram.jalbum.net/Server+DesktopClutter/index.html Looks like Twisted Pair was playing at Sir Morgan's Cove. :-) -- Rich Sent from: Belmont Massachusetts United States.

Feb. 14, 2009

tux's new prison

by Doug Mildram

Suffering from "temporary" (winter) shrinkage, Tux looks a bit worried in his "new" computer room..... OK so he's homeless and I merely bought him a bottle and a limited air supply with the other derelicts in my man-cave... ( ! warning, no disturbing images, 3 boring pix at.... ) http://dmildram.jalbum.net/Server+DesktopClutter/index.html

Feb. 13, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook

by John Stoffel

>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Leo <mleo963(a)yahoo.com> writes: Mike> not odd, no....but i have nothing else to do with this netbook Mike> so I thought I'd try and tweak the heck out of it! Go for it! I'm tempted to get a netbook at some point... but since work gives me a laptop, it's not a huge rush. Though it's possibly something my wife could use for her work... while keeping her main machine downstairs for photo editing, etc. John

Feb. 13, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook

by Mike Leo

not odd, no....but i have nothing else to do with this netbook so I thought I'd try and tweak the heck out of it! ________________________________ From: John Stoffel <john(a)stoffel.org> To: Worcester Linux Users Group <wlug(a)mail.wlug.org> Sent: Friday, February 13, 2009 9:00:51 AM Subject: Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook Eric> Maybe I'm odd, but boot time is almost completely unimportant to Eric> me.I never reboot my desktop and my laptop goes on suspend 49 Eric> times out of 50. It's impressive that they have boot time that Eric> low now though. I don't think you're odd at all. Like you say, I don't reboot my desktop that oftern, and I reboot my main home file server even less often. My work laptop is WinXP (soon to be Vista... sigh) and while it suspends ok, the hardest part is the wait for the wireless network to come back up. :] But, on the other hand, I can understand wanting to have a quicker bootup time, since turning the system *off* saves more power than suspending, and suspending is still a black art. Every week or so my WinXP box loses it's mind and I have to reboot no matter what. It's not simple. Cheers, John _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Feb. 13, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook

by John Stoffel

Eric> Maybe I'm odd, but boot time is almost completely unimportant to Eric> me.I never reboot my desktop and my laptop goes on suspend 49 Eric> times out of 50. It's impressive that they have boot time that Eric> low now though. I don't think you're odd at all. Like you say, I don't reboot my desktop that oftern, and I reboot my main home file server even less often. My work laptop is WinXP (soon to be Vista... sigh) and while it suspends ok, the hardest part is the wait for the wireless network to come back up. :] But, on the other hand, I can understand wanting to have a quicker bootup time, since turning the system *off* saves more power than suspending, and suspending is still a black art. Every week or so my WinXP box loses it's mind and I have to reboot no matter what. It's not simple. Cheers, John

Feb. 13, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook

by Eric Stein

Maybe I'm odd, but boot time is almost completely unimportant to me.I never reboot my desktop and my laptop goes on suspend 49 times out of 50. It's impressive that they have boot time that low now though. Eric John Stoffel wrote: > Mike> all good info. > > Thanks. > > Mike> bootchart doesn't seem to work at all for me. I apt-get install > Mike> it which is fine but it configures itself to use > Mike> /sbin/bootchartd which doesn't get installed. Kind'a weird. > Mike> Maybe i'm missing something. > > Possibly. I haven't tried it out myself yet. My new box works just > fine and boots quickly, the memory test in BIOS is the longest part. > > Mike> Moblin is not debian based so I know I'd miss my apt, but I'll > Mike> give it a shot at some point I'm sure. > > Yeah, I hate yum myself, it's so slow esp after using apt for a > while. :] But it's tempting. I think they've got a system booting > in under 10 second. > > But as you say, if it's not apt, then I'll probably just stay away... > > John

Feb. 12, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook

by John Stoffel

Mike> all good info. Thanks. Mike> bootchart doesn't seem to work at all for me. I apt-get install Mike> it which is fine but it configures itself to use Mike> /sbin/bootchartd which doesn't get installed. Kind'a weird. Mike> Maybe i'm missing something. Possibly. I haven't tried it out myself yet. My new box works just fine and boots quickly, the memory test in BIOS is the longest part. Mike> Moblin is not debian based so I know I'd miss my apt, but I'll Mike> give it a shot at some point I'm sure. Yeah, I hate yum myself, it's so slow esp after using apt for a while. :] But it's tempting. I think they've got a system booting in under 10 second. But as you say, if it's not apt, then I'll probably just stay away... John Mike> ________________________________ Mike> From: John Stoffel <john(a)stoffel.org> Mike> To: Worcester Linux Users Group <wlug(a)mail.wlug.org> Mike> Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 10:14:21 AM Mike> Subject: Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook >>>>> "Mike" == Mike Leo <mleo963(a)yahoo.com> writes: Mike> Short of compiling my own kernel (which I never can seem to do Mike> right), any other advise on how to speed up a netbook's boot Mike> time? Mike> I suspect that your boot time is spent in udev and module loading Mike> stuff. There's a bunch of work in the linux kernel with a tool called Mike> 'bootchart' which tracks how stuff boots up. Mike> With 8.10, it's trivial to drop in a new kernel. Also, if you compile Mike> in all the modules your need on bootup, and minimize the modules you Mike> have otherwise (say for USB devices, etc) then you should see a speed Mike> up. Mike> Do an 'lsmod' and see which modules you have loaded. Then go and grab Mike> the latest linux kernel (2.6.29-rc4 say...) and compile it using the Mike> *exact* same config from your 8.10 kernel. Mike> Test it out, using the 'mkinitrd' script to rebuild your initrd for Mike> loading. Update grub with the new info and reboot. See if it's Mike> faster. And if it boots properly Mike> If it does, then go back into the config under the new kernel and Mike> start moving more stuff into the kernel image, and putting less stuff Mike> into modules. Rebuild and boot. See how it goes. Mike> Also, I'd go through and see which software packages are installed and Mike> starting up daemons and I'd nuke as many of them as you can. Maybe Mike> ntpd doesn't need to run, or avahi or some other funky stuff. Like Mike> bluez, etc. Mike> It's hard to say what will and won't work, but getting the kernel and Mike> device initialization to be as parallel as possible will help boot Mike> times. Also, check out the 'moblin' project from Intel, they've been Mike> working on making netbooks boot faster too. Mike> John Mike> _______________________________________________ Mike> Wlug mailing list Mike> Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Mike> http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug Mike> _______________________________________________ Mike> Wlug mailing list Mike> Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Mike> http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Feb. 12, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook

by Mike Leo

holy penguins!! my average boot time with various forms of ubuntu on disk or USB thumb drive is about 1 minute. Moblin is 30 seconds!! I'm impressed now.

Feb. 12, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook

by Mike Leo

all good info. bootchart doesn't seem to work at all for me. I apt-get install it which is fine but it configures itself to use /sbin/bootchartd which doesn't get installed. Kind'a weird. Maybe i'm missing something. Moblin is not debian based so I know I'd miss my apt, but I'll give it a shot at some point I'm sure. ________________________________ From: John Stoffel <john(a)stoffel.org> To: Worcester Linux Users Group <wlug(a)mail.wlug.org> Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 10:14:21 AM Subject: Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook >>>>> "Mike" == Mike Leo <mleo963(a)yahoo.com> writes: Mike> Short of compiling my own kernel (which I never can seem to do Mike> right), any other advise on how to speed up a netbook's boot Mike> time? I suspect that your boot time is spent in udev and module loading stuff. There's a bunch of work in the linux kernel with a tool called 'bootchart' which tracks how stuff boots up. With 8.10, it's trivial to drop in a new kernel. Also, if you compile in all the modules your need on bootup, and minimize the modules you have otherwise (say for USB devices, etc) then you should see a speed up. Do an 'lsmod' and see which modules you have loaded. Then go and grab the latest linux kernel (2.6.29-rc4 say...) and compile it using the *exact* same config from your 8.10 kernel. Test it out, using the 'mkinitrd' script to rebuild your initrd for loading. Update grub with the new info and reboot. See if it's faster. And if it boots properly If it does, then go back into the config under the new kernel and start moving more stuff into the kernel image, and putting less stuff into modules. Rebuild and boot. See how it goes. Also, I'd go through and see which software packages are installed and starting up daemons and I'd nuke as many of them as you can. Maybe ntpd doesn't need to run, or avahi or some other funky stuff. Like bluez, etc. It's hard to say what will and won't work, but getting the kernel and device initialization to be as parallel as possible will help boot times. Also, check out the 'moblin' project from Intel, they've been working on making netbooks boot faster too. John _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Feb. 12, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Lenovo S10 Netbook

by John Stoffel

>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Leo <mleo963(a)yahoo.com> writes: Mike> Short of compiling my own kernel (which I never can seem to do Mike> right), any other advise on how to speed up a netbook's boot Mike> time? I suspect that your boot time is spent in udev and module loading stuff. There's a bunch of work in the linux kernel with a tool called 'bootchart' which tracks how stuff boots up. With 8.10, it's trivial to drop in a new kernel. Also, if you compile in all the modules your need on bootup, and minimize the modules you have otherwise (say for USB devices, etc) then you should see a speed up. Do an 'lsmod' and see which modules you have loaded. Then go and grab the latest linux kernel (2.6.29-rc4 say...) and compile it using the *exact* same config from your 8.10 kernel. Test it out, using the 'mkinitrd' script to rebuild your initrd for loading. Update grub with the new info and reboot. See if it's faster. And if it boots properly If it does, then go back into the config under the new kernel and start moving more stuff into the kernel image, and putting less stuff into modules. Rebuild and boot. See how it goes. Also, I'd go through and see which software packages are installed and starting up daemons and I'd nuke as many of them as you can. Maybe ntpd doesn't need to run, or avahi or some other funky stuff. Like bluez, etc. It's hard to say what will and won't work, but getting the kernel and device initialization to be as parallel as possible will help boot times. Also, check out the 'moblin' project from Intel, they've been working on making netbooks boot faster too. John

Feb. 12, 2009

Lenovo S10 Netbook

by Mike Leo

I picked one of these up at Circuit City last week and am looking to speed it up where ever possible. (Reviewed below). It has a normal SATA II drive in it and I know an SSD drive would significantly speed it up, but don't want to spend any more $ on it. http://www.trustedreviews.com/storage/review/2008/05/08/OCZ-64GB-SATA-II-SS… has pretty graphs to compare. I weaseled a RAM upgrade out of my hard ware guy so I have 1.5gigs in it now (max'd). I ran speed tests between booting off the SATA II drive and the same install via USB 2.0 thumb drive and boot times were around 50 seconds for either. I know there are SSD ExpressCards for cheap (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820191057) but I read that the ExpressCards are really just USB 2.0 speeds anyway so I wouldn't see any difference from my thumb drive test. Short of compiling my own kernel (which I never can seem to do right), any other advise on how to speed up a netbook's boot time? I will say once booted, everything runs pretty well, though I'm sure I wouldn't mind more speed then, too! grazie! Mike Review: Stopped in to Circuit City today and (impulsively?) bought a Lenovo IdeaPad S10. I've been looking for something to waste my money on/replace the Dell I bought that I ended up not liking and turning over to my wife, so it wasn't extremely impulsive, just a little impulsive. Anyway, it was 10% of the normal price, which brought it down to $370. Not a great deal at that price since online it is like $350 or so, but the one I got has twice as much RAM and hard drive space as online numbers, plus no shipping. Specs: Intel Atom N270 1.6ghz CPU (Intel has returned to multi-threading) 10.2 inch screen 1GIG RAM 160Gig SATA II Hard drive Wired/Wireless NIC cards 3 Cell Lithium-Ion 2.64lbs No CDROM (not a big deal as I have a Lenovo USB CDROM drive anyway) The size: possibly the perfect size...small, light weight without being tiny. 10.2 inch 1024x600 screen and not an impossibly tiny keyboard (though obviously not full sized). It is about the size of a larger hard cover book. The OS: Comes with Windows XP and it ran very well...applications opened fast, web surfing was responsive and I could open several apps at once without much hit to performance. After 27 different questions about my loyalty to Bill Gates, I decided it was time to upgrade. Concerned that the new hardware may have issues with older versions of Linux, I jumped right into an as-yet-to-be released version of Ubuntu (9.04). Booted right up, answered a couple questions and installed like a champ...saw the disk, the RAM, the wireless card, everything...during the install. Upon reboot into Linux though, nothing...it just wouldn't boot. "No OS found". I thought my partitioning might be screwing me up, so I let the installer pick, but to no avail. I booted off live CD's, but when I mounted and chroot'd into my install, the install didn't even see my /dev/sda. At one point I finally got to a grub > boot, but still wouldn't boot to the OS. I tried a Debian 4.0 install, but that didn't see either the wired or wireless nics. Similar to the Ubuntu, Fedora 10 installed, but would never boot. So I tried a Ubuntu 8.10 install and everything was fine! Installed with my partitions (/boot, /, /home and swap) and all is well in the world. Wired, wireless, SATA, screen resolution....everything works straight from the install. I'm still testing and upgrading but over all this is a great netbook and takes to Ubuntu Linux straight away, and for less than $400 a great addition to my daily commute.

Feb. 12, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Community Training

by Patrick Sawyer

We still kinda do this stuff. Unfortunately my time now gets spent on the job, not allowing much room for this stuff. I still get donations and we still give computers away, just not in the same capacity. I would be happy to go over the lessons I have learned, things that worked, and things we could have done better. Pat Sawyer On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:22 PM, Clint Moyer <cdmoyer(a)charter.net> wrote: > > ---- Michael Long <mlong(a)datalong.com> wrote: > > ============= > > The Free Geek project looks like my idea on steroids. Too bad they are > on the other coast. They are a good resource though. > > > http://www.fgri.org > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

Feb. 12, 2009

Miro gets a makeover

by Richard Klein

I haven't read the article yet, but it looks like Miro 2.0 has launched. Miro was the topic of last month's meeting. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/10/miro-gets-a-makeover/ -- Rich

Feb. 10, 2009

Re: [Wlug] How to (not) Damage a FLASH Storage Device

by Brian J. Conway

On Fri, 6 Feb 2009, John Stoffel wrote: > I'm curious how well ext2/3/4 and btrfs would work on an SSD formated > properly? Also, don't alot of SSDs actually do wear levelling at > their firmware level, to get around alot of these issues? Yes, but it looks like there are also nice performance gains to be had when aligning partitions. A very throrough discussion can be found here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48309 Brian

Feb. 6, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Any ruby hackers?

by John Stoffel

Randy> I am learning Ruby right now. You can also ask your question on Randy> the bostonrb.org mailing list: Randy> http://groups.google.com/group/boston-rubygroup That's a great suggestion. I've been learning Ruby (on Rails) on an off for the past year or so, but this is my first real dive deep into the language and it's expectation. I'm not enjoying it really. :] Guess I'm too hardwired for Perl5. :] Thanks for the suggestions. Basically, I'm trying to extend 'philesight' to be able to recursively descend directories building it's DB of sizes, but with multiple kid or slave processes to spread the work out and have it complete faster. I actually had this working just fine with Ruby Threads, but then I found out that Ruby has a single thread for the interpretter, and jsut emulates real threads. So no performance gain. Now I'm working on forking() off kids to do the work, but the coordination is being painful. Anyone interested in what I've got? John

Feb. 6, 2009

Re: [Wlug] How to (not) Damage a FLASH Storage Device

by John Stoffel

>>>>> "Chuck" == Chuck Anderson <cra(a)WPI.EDU> writes: Chuck> I found this article enlightening: Chuck> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device Interesting. Doesn't talk about environmental effects all, so I'd probably re-title it to say "Poor disk layout format can kill your SSD". Or something like that. I'm curious how well ext2/3/4 and btrfs would work on an SSD formated properly? Also, don't alot of SSDs actually do wear levelling at their firmware level, to get around alot of these issues? Seeing some test results of identical SSDs being formatted in good and bad ways and then written to until dead would be interesting. John

Feb. 6, 2009

Re: [Wlug] How to (not) Damage a FLASH Storage Device

by Richard Klein

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 9:50 PM, Chuck Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> wrote: > I found this article enlightening: > > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device The article is incomplete. I didn't see any mention of leaving your flash device in the passenger footwell of a car with a leaking sunroof for a few days. -- Rich

Feb. 6, 2009

How to (not) Damage a FLASH Storage Device

by Chuck Anderson

I found this article enlightening: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device

Feb. 6, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Any ruby hackers?

by Randy Cole

Hi John, I am learning Ruby right now. You can also ask your question on the bostonrb.org mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/boston-rubygroup John Stoffel wrote: > Guys, > > I'm looking for some help with a Ruby script which uses the 'Drb' and > 'Slave' libraries. Basically, I'm doing a recursive readdir() on a > directory, but with parallel processes (since Ruby Threads aren't > really parallel, sigh...) and I'm running into some problems. > > I'm happy to post the code here, before I start begging for help on > the http://www.ruby-forum.com site. > > Thanks, > John > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

Feb. 6, 2009

Any ruby hackers?

by John Stoffel

Guys, I'm looking for some help with a Ruby script which uses the 'Drb' and 'Slave' libraries. Basically, I'm doing a recursive readdir() on a directory, but with parallel processes (since Ruby Threads aren't really parallel, sigh...) and I'm running into some problems. I'm happy to post the code here, before I start begging for help on the http://www.ruby-forum.com site. Thanks, John

Feb. 5, 2009

Re: [Wlug] reaching college students with linux

by Aljerin Butler,Jr.

I don't know how much this would help in your efforts, but I put up a website to advocate and encourage students and other people alike to use Linux and Free/Open Source software. Please take a look at http://customlinux.tripod.com/. BTW, if you think there are any subjects that should be included or links not included in the subjects given, I would like to hear from you. Thanks, Al Butler --- On Wed, 2/4/09, wlug-request(a)mail.wlug.org <wlug-request(a)mail.wlug.org> wrote: From: wlug-request(a)mail.wlug.org <wlug-request(a)mail.wlug.org> Subject: Wlug Digest, Vol 64, Issue 3 To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, 11:40 PM Send Wlug mailing list submissions to wlug(a)mail.wlug.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to wlug-request(a)mail.wlug.org You can reach the person managing the list at wlug-owner(a)mail.wlug.org When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Wlug digest..." Today's Topics: 1. System 76: computers with Ubuntu pre-installed (Richard Klein) 2. Re: RH Enterprise 5.0 Question (Chuck Anderson) 3. FOSS Gaming Survey (Joseph Guarino) 4. Re: reaching college students with linux (Sean Corbett) 5. Re: RH Enterprise 5.0 Question (William Smith) 6. Re: reaching college students with linux (Gregory Avedissian) 7. Linux at 35,000 feet (Michael Long) 8. Re: Linux at 35,000 feet (John Stoffel) _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

Feb. 5, 2009

Re: [Wlug] Linux at 35,000 feet

by John Stoffel

Man, what a bummer they don't go worcester to charlotte. That would be excellent!

Feb. 5, 2009

Linux at 35,000 feet

by Michael Long

Hi All, I took a trip on DirectAir to Florida this past weekend. I flew out of Worcester on a direct flight to Punta Gorda, Fl. I wish I could say it was for pleasure but that would not be true :( Anyway the airline is a public charter owned by Virgin America and operated by Jet Blue. What does this have to do with Linux? Each seat had a monitor with a gaming remote control. The passengers had the choice of watching TV or movies. They could also listen to many different radio stations or select by artist. I found it refreshing to put on some Jimmy Hendricks and Frank Zappa. The last, or was it first, option available were games. Our friend Tux appeared in two of the games and the rest were available on all modern distributions of Linux. I spent a fair amount of time playing Doom. When you board the plane it feels very modern. There is a pleasant blue glow to the cabin. First and second class is separated by clear Plexiglas so the cabin feels very open. The mandatory speech about safety is done by video and is appropriately smart-alecky. All in all it was a great experience. Look them up if you need to travel on the east coast. Oh yeah, tickets were $99 each way. Happy Travels, Mike

Feb. 5, 2009