Arch Linux

I set up Arch Linux to be the OS for my home server. I used the installation guide from www.archlinux.org. Arch was great because I learned a lot about Linux just from setting it up. You feel like an expert until you try to repeat the process without the guide. Here is a list of things my home server does.

1. mount raid 5 array
2. run 3dm2 to monitor the RAID array
3. ssh server
4. NFS server
5. Samba server
6. DHCP server using dnsmasq
7. getmail
8. dovecot
9. Apache
10. PHP
11. Dokuwiki
12. Squirrelmail

Outstanding Issues

1. fan speed control
2. netatalk
3. power management (stop spinning hard drives)
4. webmin

had to install rsync

#pacman -Sy rsync

to update the system

#pacman -Syu

Microsoft vs. Novell (just for you Trav)

There is an ongoing lawsuit between Novell and Microsoft in which Novell has accused Microsoft of using its monopoly position in operating systems to gain an advantage in office productivity software. Novell alleges that Microsoft withheld or delayed publishing interface information to Windows 95 that would allow the seamless integration of the office suite offered by Novell. As a result the Novell office suite appeared unfinished and clunky compared to MS Office. This ultimately killed the Novell office suite that had at one point held a 50% market share.

The actual complaint against Microsoft can be found here
http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/NovMScomplaint.pdf

This story by Groklaw rightly points out that the tactics alleged in this case are similar to the tactics used to fight and discredit the ODF format.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090523231352189

This article describes the process used by Microsoft to pack supposedly unbiased standards committees. The Microsoft memo outlines a deliberate coordinated process to pack committees such as the one used to develop the MS OOXML standard they tried to compete against ODF.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071023002351958

To be perfectly clear there is nothing wrong with trying to make your product more popular or better. There is nothing wrong with hardball tactics as long as they are ethical and legal. The issue at hand here is that many of the tactics used by Microsoft to achieve these legitimate goals are neither ethical nor legal.

If you Google for a while you will see a lot of documents supporting this. If you just search this blog for the keyword "Microsoft" you will find a fair number of linked articles too.

Microsoft Fails in Implementing ODF

Microsoft has a broken implementation of the Open Document Format (ODF) in Office 2007 that will leave many users thinking that ODF is an inferior format to MS Office formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt).

http://www.odfalliance.org/blog/index.php/site/microsofts_odf_support_falls_short/

This could be incompetence or it could be malicious, but it is not the first time Microsoft has used these kinds of tactics to fight competition. In fact these are the kinds of practices that have earned Microsoft several anti-trust judgements against them.

Because they are the biggest player in office productivity software, most people use MS Office software and formats. Those people will likely judge the quality of the ODF format based on their experience with it in MS Office. They are not likely to install OpenOffice just to find out if the format or MS Office is to blame for poor performance. Therefore they will simply discount ODF as unfinished and amateur.

This is strikingly similar to what MS did with Java where they created their own Java developer tools which would not work well with the original version of Java from Sun. See the section titled "Microsoft’s Attempts To Extinguish Java" in this report from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems.

http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf

Apple is Worse than Microsoft

Read this one carefully.

http://www.eff.org/cases/odioworks-v-apple

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) has a provision that makes it illegal to circumvent Digital Rights Management (DRM). This is intended to prevent people from removing copyright protection from music and movies since there is no way to technically perform that feat. Even when used as intended this is a flawed provision, but Apple has stretched the interpretation of this law to the edge of believability. Apple claims that since they have software to prevent you from doing things they don't want you doing with hardware that YOU PAID FOR, that anything you do to circumvent their efforts is in violation of the DMCA.

Internet Explorer Critically Flawed, Switch to Firefox

Microsoft classifies IE8 upgrade as a critical update and forces IE8 to be default browser. Apparently IE7 is critically flawed and you should not be using it. Switch to Firefox (www.firefox.com). They are not perfect, but they are honest about their flaws and very quick to fix them.

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/01/002237&from=rss

Microsoft Bad, Switch to Linux, Part 2

Groklaw is a website that discusses legal issues open source software. This posting caught my attention. It is about a paper from European Committee for Interoperable Systems that provides brief history of the anti-competitive practices of Microsoft.

It introduces the concept of middleware, which explains why there is a browser war even though no one ever pays for a browser.

It also gives a great description of Microsoft's systematic method of using its monopoly on the desktop operating system to attack competitors.

This is the Groklaw article...

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090421111327711

This is the European Committee for Interoperable Systems paper...

http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf

Ubuntu 9.04 NBR on eee pc 1000

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 netbook remix on my eeepc 1000. I had been using an unofficial Ubuntu derivative prior to that which worked well but lacked a little polish in some areas. This is the first official Ubunutu NBR release and it works great.



The process of downloading the USB stick image and writing it to disk was the most time consuming. The instructions at www.ubuntu.com worked without a hitch. The actual install took the standard 20 minutes for Ubuntu, then I was ready to go.

The only changes I made to the standard install were to install nfs-common to talk to my nfs file server and setting temp and log files to write to RAM since I have a solid state drive and don't want the contstant writes to wear it out. These are the lines I added to /etc/fstab...

#mount the raid array on the nfs server
192.168.15.6:/home/documents /home/brett/server nfs defaults 0 0

#mount temporary data to tmpfs to reduce disk writes
#(https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EeePC/Using)
tmpfs /var/log tmpfs defaults 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0

I should have used aptonCD to transfer the installed software from my old install. Since I didn't, I had to manually install the applications I like. Not a major task with a package manager, but it could have been avoided.

Personal Network Security

This is my recommended listening list for home network security and public network security (hotels or wifi hotspots)

The bottom line is that at home you should:

1.  Use a NAT router to connect to the internet.  Make sure all your ports are blocked (default on almost all routers).  Use Shields Up at www.grc.com if not sure.

2.  Use WPA or WPA2 for wireless encryption.  WEP is easily crackable.

3.  Be aware that any non SSL traffic at public hot spots can be easily intercepted.

 

If you prefer to read, transcripts are available at:

http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm

 

If you like podcasts, you can subscribe at:

http://leoville.tv/podcasts/sn.xml

 

HOME NETWORK SECURITY

Episode 3, NAT Routers  http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-003.mp3

 

Episode 11, Bad WiFi Security http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-011.mp3

 

Episode 13, Unbreakable WiFi Security  http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-013.mp3

 

PUBLIC NETWORK SECURITY

Episode 10, Open Wireless Access Points http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-010.mp3

 

Episode 27, How Local Area Networks Work  http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-027.mp3

 

Episode 29, Ethernet Insecurity  http://media.grc.com/sn/sn-029.mp3

 

 

Microsoft Bad, Switch to Linux

Patents in the US were created with the intention of fostering innovation. The idea was that inventors would be guaranteed a short period of exclusivity in exchange for publishing their invention for all to see. This was an idea that the founders of the US put in the constitution to encourage immigration to their new country.

In Article I, Section 8 it says...

The Congress shall have power to ... promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries

In today's world of patents, especially software patents, the model is more predatory. Claim as many patents as you can about anything you can, not to protect your business but rather to be able to sue someone else when they implement your idea or an idea that is similar to yours.

Most businesses and lawyers naturally focus on the bit about securing exclusive rights. I think it is time to start focusing on the bit about promoting the progress of science and useful arts. A utility patent provides for 20 years of exclusivity. In the world of software, that is a lifetime.

Companies like Microsoft have enormous budgets for research and development that they use to come up with ideas, patent them and then lock them in a box. When someone else comes up with a similar idea, Microsoft threatens to sue them. Most of the time these other companies don't want to face the legal bills that a company as big as Microsoft can easily absorb so they settle with Microsoft. Usually that settlement involves a Patent Licensing Agreement where the company pays for the right to use Microsoft's patent. This is cheaper than the court costs that the company would incur by fighting the lawsuit. As a result, the validity of many of Microsoft's patents has not been tested in court, meaning that Microsoft is extorting money from these companies using patents that may or may not be legitimate.

Two recent stories illustrate this process. Most recently "Microsoft has filed a suit against TomTom, 'alleging that the in-car navigation company's devices violate eight of its patents — including three that relate to TomTom's implementation of the Linux kernel." MS does not make in car navigation devices nor do any of it's products use the Linux kernel, nor do they intend to do either one.

Another case pitted MS against printer manufacturer Brother. Brother settled out of court with MS. Microsoft does not make printers, they do not make printer drivers and I don't believe they have any intention of starting to make either one. This kind of behavior does not promote the progress and science and useful arts, it stifles that progress.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/leader/0,1000002982,39612309,00.htm

So what can you do about it? The answer is quite simple, stop using Microsoft products. Your computer at home most likely does not run any software that cannot be replaced by an open source alternative. In fact there are several Linux distributions that will have everything you need right out of the box.

Microsoft Windows ==> Ubuntu Linux, Mandriva Linux, openSUSE Linux
Microsoft Office ==> OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, Gnumeric
Internet Explorer ==> Firefox, Chrome, Opera
MS Money ==> GNUcash, Moneydance, Grisbi
Photoshop ==> GIMP
Outlook ==> Thunderbird, Evolution

Many other programs have Linux versions. I have not run into any task I couldn't do in Linux except enterprise software packages like Pro-E or AutoCAD.

Subscribing using RSS

RSS is a great way to simplify your life, especially if you use the internet to get your news from more that one site. RSS delivers new content from your favorite websites to the inbox of your reader. That inbox can be web based (Google Reader) if you are into cloud computing or it can be a piece of software running on your home computer (Thunderbird). If you don't know RSS take a minute to wrap your head around it and your life will never be the same again.

GOOGLE READER

To follow these directions you will need an existing Google account. If you don't have a Google account and don't want to create one, you don't have to. That is the beauty of RSS. You can use one of many other feed readers. I would recommend the feed reader in Thunderbird (see below) or another I have used called RSS Bandit (windows only).

Click on the Posts button with the RSS icon ().



Click on the Add to Google icon. (note the list of other popular feed readers)

You will get a screen that looks like this. Click the button that says Add to Google Reader



Congratulations, you are now "subscribed" to a "feed" from my blog. Now whenever I add something new it will show up in your reader.



If you look on other websites for the icon or for a section called RSS feeds you may discover that there are a lot of websites you can subscribe to.

There is another kind of syndication called Atom. Most readers can handle either Atom or RSS and subscribing works the same way for either one. From an RSS consumer point of view, as long as your reader understands both systems, you don't have to worry about it.

THUNDERBIRD

For Thunderbird you have to create an RSS account. Click File|New|Account and you will get this screen.



Click Next and your account will show up in the folder panel on the left



Click Manage Subscriptions and then Add and enter the URL of the subscription. In most cases you can get the URL by right clicking on the RSS link and copying the URL of the link. In Firefox this is called Copy Link Location.



Then the articles from the feed you have added will show up like this.

stuff that doesn't work

I ran all of the configuration scriipts (I am regretting that now)
none of the four special keys work
Fn+F2 (radios off) doesn't work
Fn+F7 (screen off) doesn't work
Fn_F9 (system monitor) doesn't work
Fn+F10 (mute) only mutes momentarily (while I hold the button)

final eeepc OS

I finally settled on the eeebuntu 2.0 OS. I tried ubuntu-eee (8.04), tried to download eeedora, briefly considered Debian, eeeos and an eee version of PC Linux OS and hacking standard Ubuntu, but settled on eeebuntu because it worked and is currently supported.

I am using the netbook remix version and am very pleased with it.

Since I now have a mobile computer, I restructured a bit the way I use my email. Up until now I have used IMAP off my home server using cron and getmail to download from my POP account. I added a POP account to Thunderbird and set cron to download at midnight. If I am away from home I can get my email directly from POP and then transfer to IMAP when I get home.

At first I could not get Skype to work because the webcam was turned off in the BIOS. I fixed that and then had to adjust the volume.

I had very quiet sound. Unless I put my ear to the keyboard I couldn't hear anything. I right clicked on the speaker and selected preferences. Then left click on the speaker icon so the volume slider displays. Now click on PCM, LineOut and Capture and watch the volume slider. For me, LineOut was at half volume because I was controlling PCM, whatever that is. I turned up LineOut and selected that as the one to control and now I can hear. Thanks for the leads.

Now Skype works great but the built in microphone has poor sound quality so I am using an external mic.

I still do not have the 4 special buttons working, but that is not a show stopper for me.

ubuntu-eee

Today I installed ubuntu-eee on my eeepc 1000. The installation was
typical for an ubuntu installation and everything worked out of the
box. ubuntu-eee is based on 8.04 and uses the netbook remix user interface.

After I rebooted into ubuntu-eee, it found my wireless network and
connected right away. I was able to connect up to my HP printer
Photosmart C6180. Able to install GNUCash. The hours left and percent
left indicate that the total battery life will be 4-5 hours, so about
the same as with xandros. It takes about 1 minute to boot, including
time to type login and password. Another 15 seconds to log onto my
wireless. That is about 20 seconds slower than xandros by xandros took
forever to get a network logon. Shutdown time is about 20 seconds.

Xandros is now permanently off my machine and I am happy to have
ubuntu. I think xandros was trying to be somewhat like windows using
drive letters and such, but they locked it down so tight it was only
good for being replaced.

I am going to try the eeebuntu next, which is based on 8.10. It is
available in the NBR and standard desktop. It might be a few weeks
before I do that because I am going on vacation and have to use the
computer as a productivity tool instead of a puzzle.

EEEPC Linux Distributions

http://www.linux.com/feature/131070
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:eeedora
http://users.zenwalk.org/user-accounts/alisou/zeneee-1.0/
http://pclinuxoshwdb.com/eeepc/tiki-index.php
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?search_id=1743416936&t=25896
http://www.puppylinux.com/
http://www.linux.com/feature/131070
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EeePC
http://www.eeebuntu.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=133
http://www.ubuntu-eee.com/
http://www.eeebuntu.org/
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ubuntu:eeexubuntu:home
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/mandiva_2008_on_eee_pc

eee pc 1000 Linux

I got my eee pc today finally. First impressions are ho-hum. The
screen size is good and the keyboard size is good. i have pretty big
hands (more than 9" handspan) so for most people the keyboard would be
almost spacious I think. The right shift button is a problem though. I
had read about the up arrow where the shift should be problem but
thought it would be easy to adjust. I am adjusting I guess, but slowly.

Software availability is also limited. One of the things that makes
Linux so attractive to me is the vast range of software available. The
Xandros Linux distribution that comes with the eee pc has virtually no
software and no vast repositories the way Ubuntu or other distros have.
It makes me wonder why Asus chose Xandros. I am sure there are some
hacks to get full repositories, but there is not an out of the box
solution. If I was not already a Linux user, I think I would return
this computer. As it is I see it as another hobby, and not a daily
computer. Unfortunately I already promised my old desktop to my kids,
so i will either make the most of it or start using my server for daily
computing.

I wonder if Asus is feeding their hardware hacks upstream for inclusion
in future kernels?

The biggest ommision I saw for a Linux distro was the lack of a terminal
window. Luckily I ran across the cntrl+alt+t shortcut to open a
terminal window.

Apparently the distro is single user only. Not a big deal for me, but
why do commercial users like to break all the great features in free
software?

I have been looking around for a way to install gnucash. I will try and
add the xandros 4 repository to get gnucash. Alternatively I will try
to compile from source.

apache2 and php on xubuntu

11/19/08

Install Apache and PHP
$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install apache2
$ nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

replace /var/www/ with /home/documents/website/ in two locations

$ apt-get install php5 php-pear

tomorrow...
Squirrelmail
Dokuwiki
webmin
power management (stop spinning hard drives)
fan speed control
netatalk
http://www.lm-sensors.org/browser/lm-sensors/trunk/QUICKSTART

3DM2 Raid Utility FAIL on Xubuntu

11/16/08

3DM2 Raid Utility on Xubuntu

This did not work. I tried both the 32 bit and 64 bit version. The 32
bit version didn't like my hardware and the 64 bit version didn't like
my OS. I tried to install ia32libs but that is really for a 64 bit OS
on a 64 bit machine trying to run a 32 bit program, so that package was
logically not suitable for me. This is a big deal as I have already had
one hard drive failure that 3DM2 told me about right away.

I guess I will keep going to learn more for the upcoming Debian install.

tomorrow...
Apache
PHP
Squirrelmail
Dokuwiki
power management (stop spinning hard drives)
fan speed control
netatalk
http://www.lm-sensors.org/browser/lm-sensors/trunk/QUICKSTART

dnsmasq on xubuntu

11/15/08
install dnsmasq
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install dnsmasq

DNS and DHCP are configured using the following files
/etc/hosts
/etc/dnsmasq.conf
/etc/resolv.conf
/etc/hostname

Edit /etc/hosts.

$ sudo cp /etc/hosts /etc/hosts_backup
$ sudo nano /etc/hosts

Add a line for each networked component or computer.
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 server
192.168.15.1 router
192.168.15.2 brett
192.168.15.3 tivo
192.168.15.4 wap
192.168.15.5 printer
192.168.15.6 server
#192.168.15.7 apple
#192.168.15.8 apple
192.168.15.9 entertainment
192.168.15.10 ddwrt
192.168.15.11 maxtor1
192.168.15.12 maxtor2
192.168.15.13 video

Edit /etc/dnsmasq.conf.

$ sudo cp /etc/dnsmasq.conf /etc/dnsmasq.conf_backup
$ sudo nano /etc/dnsmasq.conf

Uncomment and edit the following lines

expand-hosts
domain=mydomain.lan
dhcp-range=192.168.1.100,192.168.1.150,168h
dhcp-option=3,192.168.1.1

expand-hosts will automatically add .mydomain.lan to hostnames in /etc/hosts

dhcp-host=breeett,192.168.15.14

will always assign IP address 192.168.15.14 to the computer named breeett

/etc/resolve.conf on the dns/dhcp server should only contain the
external name servers. On my machine these are:
nameserver 66.75.160.63
nameserver 66.75.160.64

/etc/hostname should contain the hostname and domain. On my machine this is:
server.mydomain.lan

to verify the hostname is what you think it is, type
$ hostname
this will return the hostname without the domain. On my machine this is:
server

On the command line restart dnsmasq
$ sudo /etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart

tomorrow...
3dm2
Apache
PHP
Squirrelmail
Dokuwiki
power management (stop spinning hard drives)
fan speed control
netatalk

Samba on Xubuntu

11/13/08
Installed Samba
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install samba
edit /etc/samba/smb.conf
$ sudo cp /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf_backup
$ sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

if you are on a closed network (behind a nat router with no open ports) then
authentication = user
and comment out all the encryption stuff
add shares at the end

[share]
comment = share
read only = no
path = /home/share

tomorrow...
dnsmasq

Installing services in Xubuntu

11/12/08
Installed ssh
$ sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Installed nfs
$ sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server
edit /etc/exports
$ sudo nano /etc/exports
see man exports for details
/home/documents 192.168.15.0/24(rw,async)

Install Dovecot
$ sudo apt-get install dovecot-imapd
$ sudo cp /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf_backup
$ sudo nano /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf

protocols = imap #imaps
disable_plaintext_auth = no
mail_location = maildir:/home/user/Maildir

tomorrow...
Samba
Apache
PHP
Squirrelmail
Dokuwiki
dnsmasq