All posts by leftyfb

ANYTHING BUT THE BUTTONS! redux

linux, technology, ubuntu, , , ,

I was going to write up a post complaining about the new version of Ubuntu moving the close, maximize and minimize buttons from the right-hand corner to the left along with instructions for changing it back but Daviey has already done that for me.

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again; They can set whatever they want as default. Just give the average end user an EASY and intuitive way to change it to their liking.

gconf-editor is not average user friendly and this type of this is most certainly something the average user is going to want to change back. No matter how much the design team wants everyone to “just get used to it”. I’m getting real tired of designers telling me how I should use my computer.

Other than this major problem, I think the new theme and colors look great. I never disliked the orange and brown theme, but a lot of people did. This should make the OS more appealing to a larger audience.

Boston LinuxFest

linux, technology, ubuntu

Yeah, got your attention didn’t I? Unfortunately, The banner I threw together in a few minutes and the event doesn’t actually exist. But this has been a dream of mine for many years. It was basically the reason why I joined the Ubuntu community to begin with. I love installfests, conferences, and events where we bring together many organizations to promote a single idea. I have read many blogs about different LinuxFests like Ohio Linuxfest, LinuxFest Northwest, Texas Linux Fest and SouthEast LinuxFest. Everyone who has been to these have said they’ve been a lot of fun and informative.

Now for Boston. We have so may companies and organizations in and around Boston that could make this happen. The Ubuntu Massachusetts Local Community Group has already had some pretty decent Installfests and release parties. These have turned out pretty successful with the very limited amount of marketing and advertising. The Boston Linux and Unix Users group has periodic installfests and events. There has also been mention of college linux user groups scattered all over the state.

We need to bring all these resources together to make one of the best LinuxFests around. If anyone from Massachusetts (or surrounding states) would like to help out or knows of resources to bring this together, please let me know(lots of contact info for me on the right-hand side of my blog). I certainly don’t have the required time or resources to put this all together by myself, but I would like to put into it everything I can provide.

Will the Serial Console Ever Die?

linux, technology, ubuntu, , , ,

Will the serial port as a console connection ever be displaced — especially for devices such as switches, routers, SAN boxes, etc.? In one sense it’s a simple connection. But it is the only current port that, in order to use, you need to know about wiring / baud rates / parity, etc. It has non-standard pinouts. And it is becoming too slow to upload firmware to dead devices, as the firmware updates get larger. Also, the serial port is rapidly disappearing from new laptops — which is where you often really need it, in data centers. Centronics, PS/2, and current loop are mostly defunct. Is there any sign on the horizon of a USB console connection?”

source: slashdot.org

This has been a question of my own for a while. There are lots of switches, routers, PDU’s and even servers where we use serial for direct connection. For the servers we use IPMI for remote console. This helps when the OS has died for some reason or we need to change BIOS settings. It’s certainly a nice and alreasy existing feature to have. But as the article states, the setup is more manual as far as configuring port speed and such as well as being really slow for todays standards.

I don’t know. I’m torn between a tried and true technology and moving forward with improved speed and standard connections. What do you guys think?

MontaVista boasts 1-second Linux boot

linux, technology

MontaVista’s Linux demo goes from a cold boot into a sample, “fully operational” vehicle dashboard application in a single second, the company said. It will be showing off the speedy boot performance at the Virtual Freescale Technology Forum this week.

The demo in question is an embedded OS built around specific hardware, so it does forgo drivers and processes required with your typical production version of Linux. Nevertheless, it’s a performance worth some bragging rights.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/14/montavista_boasts_1sec_linux_boot/