Dale Keiger who likes to scribble, scribble, scribble in the digital dirt has taken the slack time around the New Year to do some blog navel gazing. Time for reassessment and renewal. Time to pull up the stakes and move the tent to a new location. He’s decided, thereby, to dedicate his blog to the essay. Charting his own course through the deep waters of the blogosphere, he is, and we wish him well.

Long before there was Windows XP. Long before there was Windows 95. There was an operating system that rose up out of the Finnish primordial ooze. A young man named Linus Torvalds had the pluck to want to write his own Unix-like operating system. A toy system it was perhaps at first, but soon it became enterprise-class. Whole genres of software were created on this platform, and this system, called Linux, gave a voice to the proponents of something created in the 1980s called GNU.

The GNU folks and later the Free Software Foundation were advocates for a new type of software. It was software that was not proprietary—that is, locked up by the corporate interests of intellectual property. It was founded on the idea that software wanted to be free. Not necessarily free in cost, but free in terms of the marketplace of ideas. Free to spread around the world. Free to be commented on and enhanced.

The mission that I set for myself some months ago was to find a desktop Linux worthy of replacing Windows XP—to rejoin the world of free software. Make no mistake—Linux is a worthy server operating system. It runs many servers around the world. The distinction here is between server uses and desktop or consumer uses of an operating system. The question on my mind then was whether Linux had grown into something worthy of replacing the typical desktop operating system from Microsoft.

I started my search for a desktop Linux with one of the biggest names in the Linux world: Red Hat, Inc. But as soon as I obtained a Red Hat Linux distribution, Red Hat announced that they were discontinuing their desktop Linux product and would be focusing primarily on the enterprise market. You can still get Red Hat Linux, except that now it is an enterprise product and will cost a fair amount for a free operating system.

In lieu of an enterprise-grade product, there was a movement started to produce a completely open source version of Red Hat that came to be know as Fedora. The Fedora Project was designed to create a Linux that had the advantages of Red Hat, but that was freely available. Some months ago, I downloaded and installed Fedora Core 4, the latest version of their open source operating system.

I was very impressed with Fedora Core 4 at first. One could see how far Linux had come since its start in the early 1990s. The graphical installer was much more sophisticated than the installer you’ll find with Windows XP. It’s a very pleasant way to install an operating system. And some of the technical hitches that used to drive newbies away—such as partitioning the hard drive appropriately—are automated.

For several months, I used Fedora Core 4. It had its good points, and it also had some problems. I’m a visual person, and I really like the way Mac OS X and Windows XP with ClearType look on an LCD screen. The subpixel rendering really makes for the nicest looking text on a computer screen to date. Running Gnome on Fedora Core 4, I had access to subpixel rendering for the type on the screen. But it never looked as good or as sharp as the text on the Mac or Windows.

There were also stability problems. Word processing is a mission critical app for me. The default office suite on Linux nowadays is OpenOffice.org. It’s a great open source office suite from Sun that runs on Linux, Windows and Mac. I’ve written about OpenOffice.org before, and highly recommend it as a replacement for Microsoft Office. On Fedora though, the word processing application called Writer would crash a lot. I had Fedora installed on a laptop and a desktop computer, and Writer would spontaneously crash on either one. Worse yet, Writer tended to crash when I was saving a file so everything I had written up to that point would be lost. It was a frustrating experience.

So I continued on my search. I still wanted a Linux that was worthy of being a replacement for Windows. I realized I needed to try some other Linux distributions and see what other people were doing in the Linux world. Unlike proprietary software like Windows, Linux comes from a variety of vendors, each with their own special take and enhancements to the basic Linux core.

My next stop in this quest was Debian GNU/Linux. Debian was a familiar name to my ears. I remembered hearing about it, when I was first getting into Linux back in 1994. So I admit I was curious. How was Debian today? Debian is a strictly volunteer supported distribution, and doesn’t have any corporate underpinnings. Debian is hardcore open source.

Debian of course is freely available as a download off the Internet. I downloaded the two DVD images, and installed the operating system on my desktop machine. The installer amazed me. It took me back to those days in the early 90s. I don’t think it had changed much since then. The text-based installer seemed primitive and clunky compared to the slick Red Hat installer.

The thing that warned me off of Debian was that when I booted into the system, it took me to a command line. The X Window system was nowhere to be seen. The thought of having to configure X11 from scratch seemed like more than I cared to do at that point. My whole purpose was to find a modern Linux that was easy to use and didn’t require a lot of configuration to get up and running. I quickly went back to my search.

A friend of mine in Minneapolis was using a Linux that I had never tried before: SUSE Linux. Originally from Germany, SUSE Linux is now a product of Novell. SUSE is also going with a community oriented approach like Fedora that they call openSUSE. But I decided I wanted to go with the commercial SUSE, which is available by the way for $53.99 from Amazon.com. I have yet to do that though because I ended up downloading the evaluation version of SUSE Linux from the Internet. It’s a DVD worth of good stuff.

After Debian, I immediately liked the slick graphical installer for SUSE Linux. It handled many of the tasks of installing well. What I especially liked about SUSE Linux is that it immediately recognized my hardware. Some of the hardware drivers on Fedora Core 4 didn’t seem to be there in terms of my hardware, so I ended up using drivers that were close. This was not an ideal situation. I was very pleased then that SUSE Linux had a wide diversity of drivers. Finding and installing drivers for Linux can be a chore if they’re not built-in.

Once I installed SUSE and booted up into Gnome, I was thoroughly pleased. Even though Fedora Core 4 and SUSE Linux 10.0 were both using Gnome as their window manager, the differences were readily apparent. Fedora was stripped down. The menus didn’t have many icons—maybe 1 choice for a particular category, where in SUSE it gave 4 choices. SUSE had a little more complexity I suppose, but it felt much more like a Unix operating system, where Fedora had felt like it had cribbed too heavily from the Windows play book.

SUSE also has a very nice central point for system configuration called YaST that works well and makes the system much more manageable. I was up and running in no time. Funny thing was, it had the same subpixel rendering option that Gnome under Fedora had, but in SUSE Linux the screen looks beautiful. The fonts look wonderful on the screen, and especially reading text in the web browser was much improved.

The primary metric I was looking for was OpenOffice.org Writer stability. I have been much pleased in that area. I’ve been using Writer on SUSE for several weeks and not a single crash. Goodbye, Windows XP. Goodbye, Fedora. Hello, SUSE.

The broader question though is whether it is a worthy desktop Linux. Worthy, that is, of replacing Windows XP as my primary operating system. The good news is: Yes, SUSE Linux is worthy. It has replaced Windows XP as my primary operating system. I am running SUSE Linux on this laptop as I write this in OpenOffice.org Writer. A lot of the consumer-oriented features you’d expect from Windows XP, you’ll also find in SUSE. There are CD rippers and multimedia players. There are lots of Internet applications including Firefox and email and of course instant messaging. It’s a great, great operating system.

And better yet, people are waiting three years for features in the next version of Windows, that are here today in SUSE Linux. It’s nice to have things like desktop search built-in. It’s not only a powerhouse, it’s easy to use too. And a key advantage to Linux is that the applications come with the operating system. Need a word processor? It’s there. Need a database? It’s there. Need a C++ compiler? Need a scripting system? Need top-notch security? Tired of viruses and spyware? Make the move to Linux today.

I have been totally happy with SUSE Linux 10.0. It’s a full-featured, modern, stable, efficient operating system. The evaluation version, which I am currently using, is available for free off the Internet, and it is easily upgraded to the commercial version. But the evaluation version has seemingly everything that you’d need and doesn’t expire. You can use it as a development platform and install GCC and a wide variety of compilers and IDEs. You can use it as a music center and play all your favorite music. It has tools for digital cameras and digital video. SUSE Linux is awesome!

You get all the consumer-level fun stuff, plus the advantage of a secure operating system. A terminal window is only a click away, and you’re delving into the Unix underpinnings of the system. But if you’re not interested in the underlying complexity, like Mac OS X, you can just ignore it. SUSE Linux is easy to install and configure, and best of all it’s a delight to use.

So if you’re fed up with Microsoft and the high prices and empty promises of proprietary software, take a look at SUSE Linux. It’s a splendid operating system, and the first desktop Linux system I’ve used that can be easily considered a Windows replacement.

Good luck and happy computing!

“There has been a lot of conversation over the beginning of the Mai Tai…. I originated the Mai Tai. Many others have claimed credit…. Anybody who says I didn’t create this drink is a dirty stinker.”

—-Victor Bergeron, a.k.a Trader Vic

For those wishing for an easy way to escape the cold and snow this Christmas, I suggest sipping on a refreshing Mai Tai while listening to the Mele Kalikimaka episode of the always enjoyable Vegas Vic’s Tiki Lounge podcast.

The best Mai Tai I have ever sampled is Bob Brodsky’s “Spank My Ass and Call Me Sally” Mai Tai at Pizzeria Uno in Schaumburg, IL. While not a fan of its name, I cannot help but be fanatical about its taste. Several years ago, Bob was kind enough to announce his every move as he made one so that I could capture his recipe. Bob’s Mai Tai has been the omphalos of countless wonderful parties and the envy of many Mai Tai enthusiasts ever since. This holiday season, Bob graciously gave me permission to share this recipe with Manufactured Environments’ readers. I consider it Bob’s Christmas gift to the world. Thanks be to Bob.

Combine with ice and shake. Strain and serve in a tall frosted glass filled with ice.

Warning: This drink is quite deceptively intoxicating and can be a catalyst for behaviour overeager imbibers would gladly forget were it not for photographic evidence.

There is a dense fog lying over the land this morning. We’re here in the midst of another Christmas season. It is warmer today, but it shall be a White Christmas. We’ve had technical matters on our mind (and perhaps will get posted here today), but otherwise we’re soaking up the festivities. We hope you are with family and enjoying a bit of Christmas cheer. Although, according to this fatwa, our Muslim friends should not participate in the religious celebrations of non-Muslims.

So today we look at the fog, we think of bits and bytes, and we hope that peace will come. Good cheer, brothers and sisters.

Christmas is coming, snow coats northeast Iowa, and I am listening to Christmas music. Last year, Jeff Mitchell wrote and recorded two Christmas songs for me. For my annual compilation of Christmas music, he wrote ‘Jingle Your Jingle Bells’. I liked it instantly. It is catchy, features bells, and captures well how I often feel as Christmas approaches. ‘Monkey & the X-mas Blues’ was written shortly afterwards in response to my lamentations about the paucity of Christmas songs that feature monkeys. It is hauntingly beautiful, sad, about a darling little monkey, and has become one of my favorite songs of this season. Thanks Jeff.

mp3s

• Monkey & the X-mas Blues
• Jingle Your Jingle Bells

For more Jeff Mitchell music, visit http://lonesomegallery.com/music/.

Often I’ll be walking down the street, and someone will come up to me and say, “Dan, I’ve been dying to use Ruby on Rails and AJAX! Thing is, I don’t know what the heck they are, but I’ve seen them advertised and damn blast it, they look cool!”

This is very common. My usual response is “Hey! Don’t sweat it. It’s not as difficult, nor as expensive as it sounds. In fact, the barrier of entry is surprisingly low.”

“Yes, Dan,” they say. “This sounds so good and wonderful, I can’t wait to start my new adventure in technology. Oh please, let it be so.”

“You too,” I say, “can develop in Ruby and use AJAX. But you should Start At The Beginning. Read this and all will be well.”

We’ve posted before about latte art, but we saw a great link that we wanted to highlight. It’s the Nederlands Kampioenschap Latte Art 2005. There are some really great designs in there. We prefer the abstract ones, but even the representative ones are cool.

Here’s a great collection of beautiful deep-space photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Click on each thumbnail image and get a description and downloads for your desktop. These are the “best of” photos taken by the Hubble Telescope. Fascinating stuff. The images are at the European Homepage for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Lots of great stuff up there.

To my mind, it’s always interesting to read about scientific developments, from the very small to the very large. At any rate, space is a fascinating topic. I hope you enjoy those photos.

Our pal in Milwaukee, Mike Rohde, has designed a wonderful 2006 wall calendar that is really, really neat. He and his wife worked up a coffee theme, took photos in their kitchen, and put together a very nice looking calendar. Even better yet, he has it for sale on his CafePress store. You can look at the calendar there, peruse the different months, and order one for yourself or as a gift. Very cool. It’s printed on 100lb text weight high gloss paper: a quality item to be sure. So if you’ve been searching for a calendar for the new year, here it is!

Mike’s also got some other coffee themed items in his store, such as an Espresso Powered T-shirt. We like, Mike! We like!

Perhaps you’ve heard of SETI@home, or perhaps not. SETI@home is a project where you load a screensaver on your machine, and it downloads data from the SETI project at UC-Berkeley. Then spare cycles on your computer can be used to crunch the data. It’s what is called a distributed computing project whereby hundreds of thousands of volunteers use their computers to compute scientific data. It’s a great thing, and today I wanted to point out that SETI@home is now part of BOINC, the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing.

Now there are a whole variety of projects you can work on such as Rosetta@home to help researchers develop cures for human diseases or Climateprediction.net to study climate change. All you have to do is download the client software, and submit your email address. It’s a great way to help scientific research, all from the comfort of your home.

The software can run all the time, if you want, and it just uses spare computing cycles. Or you can set it up as a screensaver so that when your computer is completely idle it does it’s processing. Check out the BOINC homepage and see all the different projects that you can assist in their computing.

Tune to KWLC on select Saturdays from 2:30pm—4:00pm (CST) to hear Freeform Faust.

Notes

Special thanks to Mr. Daniel Stout for alerting me of the existence of Santastic: Holiday Boots 4 Your Stockings and making sure I got a copy before today’s show.

You can listen to a stream of Merry Mixmas: Christmas Classics Remixed at merrymixmas.com.

If you don’t have a copy of American Edit, make sure to download it on Dean Gray Tuesday. I don’t know if it is the best mash-up of 2005, but it certainly is very good.

Other recent mash-up albums worth finding include Q-Unit’s Greatest Hits (Queen and 50 Cent) and Panzah Zandahz’s Me and This Army (Radiohead Remixes).

Norse Sports has taken over the KWLC studio, so if the show seems a little rougher the usual, which I know may be hard to determine, that is why. :-)

We here at Manufactured Environments have occasionally linked to content over at UbuWeb, but for those of you that haven’t clicked-through, we just wanted to point out that UbuWeb is great. It’s a repository of a whole variety of avant-garde audio, video, and more. There’s a lot of cool stuff available for download. It’s an ideal in what can be done in a low overhead manner. It’s completely volunteer driven, and their only costs are $50 a month for web hosting. In that regard, the site is completely non-commercial, as one would expect. Anyway, so here’s a shout out to the Ubu folk over at UbuWeb.