Steelaworkn on Fedora

LinuxFest Northwest 2018

2018-03-28T19:47:00.001-07:00

Linux Fest Northwest 2018 (LFNW2018) has wrapped up another weekend (April 28-29 of 2018). Among the many Open Source groups and Linux distributions, Fedora was well represented. We had myself, John, Mike and Nichole at the table this year. We talked with students, instructors, career people and all around Linux aficionados.

Actually, this was my first year organizing the booth as an Ambassador. Previous years I helped Jeff Sandys with set-up, talking with patrons, and tear-down. This year I was on my own. My approach was to have my daughter, Nichole, do live art on Krita. This was to be kind of a hook to draw people in to talk Fedora and Open Source. I went with that plan and had some additional support from a couple of guys very familiar with Fedora and LFNW2018.

Guests

Michael

The week before LFNW2018, I was contacted by Michael Hrivnak of Red Hat. Michael planned on speaking Saturday about Kubernetes. His talk was called "Orchestrating Multi-service Applications on Kubernetes." Michael helped out at the booth when he was free from speaking and catching up on his itinerary of sessions.

Michael also took some pictures for us to show everyone we were actually there:

Used by permission. CC BY Michael Hrivnak (michael)

Also, to show Fedora's capability, Michael did some photo editing on an application called Darktable (readily available for Fedora). Below were our three guests showing the flexibility of the Fedora platform. Michael was in the middle, John to the right, and Nichole to the left.

CC BY Jeff Fitzmaurice (steelaworkn)

John

When Nichole and I arrived on Saturday morning, John Dulaney (who is not a stranger to Fedora or Red Hat) was there to help at the booth. I was grateful for John's help in set-up and the complex side of Linux I personally was not skilled with. John helped me with burning Fedora 28 discs for our patrons throughout the weekend. He also was the Subject Matter Expert (SME pronounced sum-mee) with command-line and coding. It was simply great to have him aboard.

Nichole

As I mentioned above, my daughter, Nichole, did some live, digital art on Fedora 27 and the Krita application (which is also readily available on Fedora). The purpose of this was to show how flexible an end-user Fedora operating system could be. Nichole used a Waccom Intuos tablet and Krita. Fedora had no problem communicating with the tablet. Patrons and seekers were surprised to see such a capable digital art application available on Fedora.

Nichole used a simple Lenovo T-410 laptop with an external monitor:

Summary

Over all, the LFNW2018 weekend was a success. We handed out sized Small T-Shirts to young Fedora Patrons. Both John and Michael were awesome and valuable to the success of our weekend. Nichole was fun to watch. She handled questions very well, being here first time at a Fedora booth. Between the four of us we were able to hold conversations at most any level with Fedora patrons as well as Fedora seekers.

Used by permission. CC BY Michael Hrivnak (michael)

This year, the speakers talked on a variety of subjects common to the daily workings of the average IT person as well as Linux and Open Source end-users. They talked on everything from security to Containers (aka Docker and Kubernetes). There were a variety of booths representing the usual suspects (Ubuntu, OpenSuse, and FreeBSD). Also, Jupiter Broadcasting people made their annual trek to cover the weekend.

CC BY Jeff Fitzmaurice (steelaworkn)

We gave several t-shirts away to youth showing interest in Fedora. And, as always, we had quite a variety of Swag available. Based on the amount of Swag given, we estimate we had 330 visitors to the Fedora booth. All in all, it was a busy weekend. Can't wait for next year.

For further information about Fedora and what we do, visit Fedora. To see some of the LFNW2018 highlights, check out LFNW2018 Youtube Playlist.

Feel free to leave comments below.

Personal Information Management (PIM) in Linux

2018-02-10T10:54:00.001-08:00

Anyone who is in college or in the business world needs Personal Information Management. PIM for short. Actually, everyone who has a smartphone has PIM. On the phone there is email and a calendar. Within the calendar is a to-do list, and an agenda. Back in the 90's and before, everyone used a day planner. There were the little electronic gizmos the fit in the palm of the hand and were mated with a function stylus.

In the Linux world, we too need Personal Information Management. I personally enjoy clicking an icon to see all my mail, my calendar and to-dos in one place. For some reason, I do not enjoy going online to find one calendar. I need all my calendars to show up in one place i.e. my desktop or smart phone.

At work, we are on a Microsoft Exchange network. I use Outlook 2013 for my PIM. It works fairly well, however, because I do not have company phone, I am tied to my laptop for schedule. Outlook is great teamed up with a portable smartphone and Lync (the instant messaging client for the Exhange Network).

Back to a the Linux world, for us there are several software claiming the PIM title. Here I will list the ones that make the claim and I will say a few words about them. I am biased. See if you can figure out the one I prefer:

1. Kontact
Kontact is nice and colorful. It depends on a database system such as Mysql, Mariadb, or ____. It is a creation of the KDE people. It's like Evolution evolved. It has everything needed in PIM. It can also integrate with and Exchange network. I personally monitor 3 emails from it. It communicates well with Google Calendar and Google Tasks. I use Google has my focal point which allows me to schedule and complete tasks from my smart phone. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Kontact syncronises with my Google tasks. Everything I do on my phone is on my workstation when I get home. Yes this is my favorite.
2. Evolution
Evolution and Thunderbird are similar. I could live with both. Instead of being tab oriented, the user switches windows with an icon. It's flat, but very snappy.
3. Thunderbird
Thunderbird is getting closer to the ideal PIM. It has a calendar, email, chat, and a form of agenda. It is tab oriented. A new tab is opened depending on the application desired.
4. Claws
Nuts. This is just another email client and doesn't qualify for the PIM label. It is simple, but no calendar. Just mail.
5. Alpine
This is an email client for the terminal. It is great for admins who spend all day behind in a terminal environment. Not so good for the person on the move in need of a PIM. Alpine is a great tool for a specific work environment. For more infromation check out this Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpine_%28email_client%29.
6. Sylpheed
7. Geary
While being an email client, this does not qualify as a PIM because there is no calendar, agenda, nothin. This is just for the simple life of sending and receiving email.

Feel free to comment and make corrections or updates. The biggest deal breaker for me in all this pursuit of the ideal PIM is web based. I hate webmail clients. I use them at work, but at home, I just want everything in one spot. That is why I used Kontact for my PIM and my Smartphone while I am away.

College and Linux

2015-04-07T17:38:00.002-07:00

I have been taking online classes at a popular University. One of the requirements is to have access to Microsoft Windows and Office. I am in compliance 100% because my end game there is to get me degree. It is interesting to note what it is like setting up a computer with W7.

I had the opportunity to purchase a refurbished Lenovo T410 laptop with a 320g HD. This had W7-Ultimate on it with no office. I played with it for a short time and then installed a new 250 g SSD and then installed Fedora 21. The W7 drive I stuck on an adapter and installed it into the disc drive slot. Now I dual boot Fedora and Windows.

I can usually install and set up Fedora in under 4 hours. The W7 drive took several hours over a period of several days to set up. One of the issues was security updates. W7 has to be primary in the boot sequence. Further more, to get the security updates, Windows Boot Manager must be used instead of Grub. That was easy, I just set the Bios to boot to the W7 drive where the WBM handles the rest.

Not done yet. In order to use anything on the W7 side, I need drivers. And these drivers need to update regularly. And with the updates come reboots. And I can't just shut the system down, I have to shut the system down and wait for the updates before the thing powers off 100%.

An example is my wireless keyboard. In W7 I can't just plug it in. Instead I have to first install the cool keyboard software and then plug it in. And it is cool software. Other cool software that I need is usually 30 day trials and then proprietary which means I have it for 30 days and then have to make the purchase.

And, with the slow-mo HD, W7 boots slow because, the HD is slow, and there are a lot of start-up programs that have to get up and running in sequence before I can get to my productive day.

On days when I just want to run Fedora, I boot into the Fedora side (SSD) and it is up very fast. Wireless kicks on and the day is golden. A week ago, I was working on the car and needed to plug in a special camera called a bore-scope. I had the choice of installing the software on the W7 side or simply plugging it into Fedora. I chose Fedora, used Cheese, and recorded the video for my bore-scope project.

I have seen this with other things as well. I just received a Logitech USB DVD drive. With W7, I will have to install the driver, most likely. With Fedora, I will just plug it in and use it.

This has been a long-winded way of saying, I wish colleges would embrace FOSS instead of pushing expensive stuff on poor college students.

Hey wuts up

2015-03-22T08:49:00.003-07:00

Here we are in March. April is just around the corner. Up here in the Pacific Northwest, there are a lot of things to do. I personally have a bunch of stuff to do. Here is my list:
1) Honda alternator
2) Honda door electrical
3) Honda radio antenae
4) Honda tire rubbing issue
5) Nissan oil change
6) Nissan strut change (all 4)
7) Nissan front axle swap (both
8) Toyota brakes
9) Toyota struts

And that is the short list. I need to do the spring cleaning on the garage, finish my Discrete Math class, fix 4 lawnmowers (the mowing season is upon me) and get myself to LinuxFest NW is at the end of April. But, there's a lot to get done before then.

And you know what? There is an annual Tulip Festival going on and there is ice cream there.

I might have to go to that.

Let's see, I mentioned Linux and did I mention Fedora 22 is coming out soon? There's just a lot to get done before the LinuxFest NW and the release of Fedora 22. It is Spring in the Pacific Northwest.

Mint Saves the Day: Linux vs. Windows

2014-10-06T17:07:00.001-07:00

I haven't written anything for a while. I think I have missed a few Fedora releases since my last post. Currently, I am running Fedora 20 64 bit with KDE. I am not against other distributions and actually I recently used Linux Mint to rescue data on one of my home computers.

The computer was actually my son's box. He was running W7 at the time. His main hard-drive developed a glitch and became unreadable. I took an extra SATA drive and loaded Mint. I was able to rescue his critical data to a back-up drive. He ran Mint for a few weeks until he could purchase a new and larger drive. After he installed W7 on the new drive, I transferred is data to the new drive. And since he is a W7 guy, Mint went back on the shelf awaiting another opportunity to save the day.

I tried to install Fedora to his computer but it didn't take. Mint had no problem installing and reading the old drives. I was actually surprised. And, he was actually able to continue with his video editing on Mint while waiting for his new drive. Mint truly saved the day.

This brings up topic. Why can Linux read drives that Windows rejects? Since I am not a hacker (or a cracker) I have no idea how to answer that. What I do know is if a NTFS partition becomes unreadable, Linux may be able to read and recover the data.

What am I up too?

2013-05-11T10:10:00.002-07:00

What have I been doing lately? Well, a few weeks ago I went to Linux Fest Northwest. This got me thinking on my "plan 'B'" career. So, I got looking for a college where I could study 100% online. And this college would have to be accredited and honored by my current employer. And finally, I am anticipating the release of Fedora 19.

Linux Fest Northwest is an annual event held in Bellingham, Washington at Bellingham Technical College. This is a place where Open Source people converge, once a year, to show their stuff, give tutorials, promote new things and have a great time. Leading Linux Distributions were there as well as groups from many bleeding edge Open Source Projects. Being an "End User" I simply kept my hands in my pockets, maintained a smart and geeky appearance (so I would not be discovered), attended a few lectures and pushed my way through the maze of displays. It was all way over my head but not out of the reach of this white boy because he knows how to jump.

I was challenged to reach for greater heights in my career path and began pursuing a "plan B" career. I have been a laborer all my life and really have a desire to settle down to a low impact job that can provide for my needs. In my research I discovered that an entry level tech job will start at around 40K which is about 10K more than I started in my current job. Depending upon experience and education, a tech job could pay in the upper 5 figures and possibly 6 figures. Again, that all depends on experience and education and ability.

I started searching for a college where I could attend 100% over the internet. I knew about Phoenix University for some time, but it was always way out of my price range. Well, the company I work has a partnership with the afore mentioned institute of higher learning. This means, my company will help thwart a high percentage of my potential education expenses.

In the Open Source arena, when a person stops dreaming, he must be dead. Knowing this, I will continue using Linux and reaching higher every day. Fedora helps me do just that. I can do simple day-to-day tasks with Fedora or I can study programming languages and actually begin to write my own code. Everything I need is built into the Fedora packaging. I rarely have to go outside of the repositories for extra software. But if I do, not too awful difficult to add the extra software to my system.

As far as trends go, Open Source is continuously evolving. I'm glad to at least be able to tinker with it.

Steam on Fedora

2013-02-24T14:55:00.000-08:00

Yes, I have tried Steam on Fedora. Actually, I'm not much of a gamer. Selinux really does not like Steam because Steam likes to install executable junk on the system. So, instead of working through it, I usually just end up removing Steam. I'm sure that eventually, the Steam people will get'er done with the help of the Linux community.

That's all. Originally, Steam was ported to the Ubuntu crowd and some of us created RPMs from the DEB. Well, that was a few months ago. Now there is an RPM for Fedora, but it is still a bit tricky. You have to install a bunch of 32 bit libs first, then you can install Steam. And still, you might have to adjust the Selinux policy to allow Steam to work properly. That's just too much for me since I'm not really a die-hard gamer. I'm pretty much content with Minecraft and the default Fedora-KDE, Fedora-Gnome games.

But, don't let that stop you. Steam really needs the Linux community to install and play on Steam. With you, they will be a success. So, your free service will help them make a lot of money.

Typical Sunday

2013-02-10T09:28:00.001-08:00

My schedule has been really weird. I have been watching some great Bible Teaching streaming from Sunvalley Community Church:

http://new.livestream.com/sunvalleyccgilbert/events/854748

Feel free to join. Streams live all morning starting around 8:30 PST.

Sneek Peek F18

2013-01-13T18:58:00.001-08:00

So, you know how couples go in to see the doctor to get an ultrasound? You know, they want to get a peek of whether the baby will be a boy or a girl? Well, Fedora 18 comes out on Tuesday, less than 48 hours away at the time of this posting. Guess what. I do not even know what is in it.

I am looking forward to doing a full install of the new F18 because of all the junk I have installed on my current system. I messed around with getting an HTTP server up and running and simply have some things that I really don't want on my every day box. I won't go into all those things, but need-less-to-say, it will all be fresh and new this week.

One of the things that I will keep for F18 will be KDE Desktop with the K-Office Suite. I have a bunch of other stuff that I will want to take to F18 as well. I got Steam up and running, Skype works pretty good, Minecraft is awesome, FireFox, Blender, Virtual Box, Lotus Symphony is working nice and I still want to do some stuff with an HTML editor called Blue Griffon. Also, I use Openshot and Netbeans. Anything else I need will be in the Fedora repositories.

Some of these were not working very well because I had the Oracle Java running against the Open JDK. Can't do that as they will both cancel each other out.

Another thing I want to carry over is a program that will convert .deb files over to RPM files. Cool, huh? It is called "alien". And then, I also discovered that once I get the new RPM made and in it's own file, I just CD over to that file and use "#yum install "*.rpm" and it does everything for me. Pretty cool.

So, "alien" is definitely coming to the new system. Oh, "alien" is how I got my Steam Client software working. I converted the .deb file to RPM and then installed it. Worked very well. Too bad Steam doesn't have a good selection of games ported to Linux, but I hear that is changing as I type. I'm not much of a gamer any way, but you might be. If you are, join my blog and send me a message. I'll see if I can help you get your Steam Client up and running.

Not much more to say. I did my back-up and am ready for the new F18 OS. It's been a long time coming. Why did it take so long? Ask Microsoft as most new hardware has now got to be made with Microsoft in mind. All other OS's have to conform to the new requirements. Fedora jump through a lot of hoops to get F18 out and Red Hat through some dough down on the table before it was all over.

Long story short, F18 is due on Tuesday and I'm ready. Hope you are. Have a great week.

Fedora 18 Blues

2012-12-09T23:04:00.001-08:00

Usually, by this time of the year, I have installed the Winter version of Fedora. Since it is not official released, I'm totally bummed. I would have the geeks equivilant of cabin fever if there was not other stuff to do while I wait.

This season, it would be Fedora 18 donned "Spherical Cow". But hey! I did download the beta version to try on Virtual Box. And, so far, I like the installer. And that's about it. Can't really test it because Fedora, as well as other Linux distributions, really enjoys having it's hands on a really real box and not just a virtual one.

So, for the end user, I'm really waiting for the real thing. In the mean time, I found something new. A group of smart computer people got together and made an end-user friendly Fedora spin called Kororra Linux

Kororra is supposed to be a cleaned up, more user friend version of Fedora. It comes in version 16 and 17 and soon 18 for whenever Fedora 18 is officially released. It installs just the same as its parent distro, but is supposed to be more stable and easy to use. It's nearest conceptual contemporary would be Linux Mint. Haven't had a chance to put it through my hoops, maybe because I just like the real thing.

Another thing I've been doing while waiting for F18 is to try Mint 14 Mate. Can't even get it to install on VB. Not sure what's up, it just won't install. Probably would rather have a real machine which I'm not willing to give up yet or go out and purchase.

I also messed around with Centos for the purpose of exploring Apache for a web server. That was fun and I learned a lot. Now I'm looking for a real server to get that one running.

Which leads me to Craigs List. There's a really nice server listed locally and I just might go out and get it. It is the right size, the right speed and the right age for a home web/file/game/email server. Just need a few hundred bucks to get it.

Oh, what else have I been doing? Pretty much just killing time 'til Fedora 18 comes out. Rumor has it that the old fuddyduddies at MS have Red Hat tied up in knots over the new hardware requirements for computers planning on coming preloaded with W8. What a bummer. Isn't there anyone in the U.S. who can make a computer that MS would have to bow down to?? Or better yet, is there anyone who can make hardware that would block MS? I mean really.!! MS requires HW manufacturers to bow to them. Why can't someone simply make harware that would only run everything but MS?

All this coming from a simple end-user. Can't solve the world's problems in this blog. Maybe next time. Oh, just to slap MS around this Christmas why not by some stuff from System 76 . They load Linux on their machines. How good is that? Huh? How good is that?

OwnCloud

2012-11-25T16:42:00.001-08:00

So, instead of doing my Fall Fedora Upgrade this Thanksgiving weekend, I messed around with getting an instance of Owncloud working on Centos 6.3 on Virtual Box. I spent a lot of hours on it an am not yet satisfied.

Owncloud is a very cool idea which has been around for a few years. With the advent of Cloud Computing out in the corporate world, it is nice to see something become available for the End User people. So what does it do?

Owncloud is a cool alternative to the ever popular DropBox. What you do is install it on a computer dedicate has a home file/web server. It installs fairly easy for an advance end user. And for those of use who are not so advanced, there are tons of people who don't mind helping out. All you have to do is Google or Bing or whatever.

My OC is a test version just to see if I could do it and what it would look like. First, I installed the latest Centos. I then added the necessary files. Finally, I installed and configured OC. There are instructions all over the web for this as, I suppose, folks just like the security of having all their precious files and pics on their own server open to only those who the specifically invite.

So, this weekend, I learned that Centos is an awesome choice for a web server, Owncloud is a promising replacement for DropBox, and finally I learned how to make my Web Server available to the outside world by configuring ports and Virtual Box accordingly.

You might just be asking me where's the tutorial. You're not going to get much from me except for this list:

#1 Choose your computer for your web server
#2 Configure your hardware (i.e. multiple Ethernet ports, more ram etc)
#3 Choose your operating system (Centos 6.3 is nice...hint, hint)
#4 Install your OS
#5 Configure your OS
#6 Install OpenCloud
#7 Configure (config files and hardware firewalls etc.)
#8 Have fun.

One thing you might also do is create a "home page" for your web server that links to your OC for those whom you invite. Then the OC could be a secure site...I still have to figure some of this out. Oh, by being secure, that means by invitation only. Don't publish your OC on Facebook or any other place unless you want your system to be cracked within the first day of operation.

Just for fun, you might just try testing it on Virtual Box before you give it more room. One other cool thing about it, you can do your VB test and the migrate it to a larger system almost like what the aliens did to with brains in the movie Skyline.

Follow the hyperlinks to get started:
Owncloud
OC Forum
Centos
VirtualBox

Thanks Giving (End User Style)

2012-11-03T08:56:00.001-07:00

30 Days of Thanks Giving is a little trendy right now and I'm just a little behind. Never prided myself in "keeping up with the Jones", but nevertheless, I'll give it my best shot. I am thankful for a lot of stuff. Since this blog tends to favor more towards Linux, I'll start there.

#1 I am thankful for the people behind Linux
#2 I am thankful for developers who work, in their spare time ( a lot of them) to create and keep current all the cool apps made available for Linux users.
#3 I am thankful for Open Source developers who continue to provide apps that are cross platform so Linux users like me can have freedom to chose.
#4 I'm thankful to be able to us my Fedora Linux to watch church streaming live from Sun Valley Community Church
#5 I'm thankful to start my Mondays with checking my Mine Craft Server and add a few more gigs of ram for the guys who play during the day time.
#6 I'm thankful that I voted yesterday and that I can multi-task on my Fedora Linux while streaming news updates on multiple tabs in Firefox.
#7 Let's see...getting a little behind here...I'm thankful for Virtual Box..
#8 Today I'm thankful for Netbeans....
#9 I'm also thankful for OpenShot Video Editor...
#10 You know a few years ago I was so poor I couldn't afford fun things for my kids. All the other kids were getting video games. So I'm thankful for America's Army...even though it is not technically OS, it is or was free.
#11 I'm thankful for Blender.
#12 I'm thankful for Libreoffice...used to be OpenOffice until Oracle...whatever....
#13 I'm thankful for OpenCloud which would be way cool once I figure it out. Looking forward to creating a home file server that all my home network can access.
#14 Speaking of networks, I am thankful for the developers of the product called dd-wrt . This has been awesome in making my home network more secure, more flexible, and more powerful.
#15 As an End User, I am really thankful for all the KDE Community is doing to provide one of the best GUI experiences one could ever install on a PC.
#16 I am thankful today is Friday and I have the weekend to recuperate. End users love rest and relaxation
#17 I am thankful for Saturday where I can browse tutorials on YouTube while running a slightly tweaked Minecraft Server for my son and his friends.
#18 Today, I am thankful for my 3 kids because without them I would not have had an interest in building and maintaining my home network as well as using Open Source stuff and Linux.
#19 As an End User, I enjoy Hulu and watching T.V. episodes for free on my computer.
#20 This end user is also thankful for New Egg providing me with Eye Candy and a personal wish list enabling me to create the next great computer for myself.
#21 I have to say that I am thankful for Thanksgiving being here tomorrow and for a 4 day weekend with two paid holiday days. Time for family and doing stuff around the house.
#22 Well, today is Thanksgiving and I am thankful for God's provisions throughout the past year as well as the year up and coming. I am thankful for my wife and kids and the roof over my head and a good job and this hot cup of coffee.

All done. Move over turkeys, Santa Claus is coming! (11/23/2012)

What can I do with Linux?

2012-09-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Really? Yes. People do ask that question. First of all, with Linux, I save money and lots of it. Now that that is out of the way, I can now choose which developer to send money to so my favorite applications get the most attention. But, really, what do I do with Fedora 17? I will see if I can make a list for you so you can compare it to the other leading OS's.

I can go on the Internet, watch Flash video, watch DVDs, play CDs, draw, design, model, edit photos, create and edit video, burn music and video, see e-mail, run a web server, run an e-mail server, run a home cloud network, share between Linux and Windows machines,

If I were a programmer I could develop C++, Python, and Java, using a choice of editors. But I am a programer, but if I were, I would be right at home with Linux.

You know what else, if I were a church media tech, I would use OpenLP for overhead presentations.

I am what I call a pretty good "end user". I appreciate all the Fedora developers do to get the product out here. It is packaged with a lot of cool stuff. Now one of the things that get left out of Linux is games. But really not. Fedora has arcade style games. Keep watching the distros because Java gaming is getting more popular. And, games can be designed for Linux because Linux can run Java, Python C++ and probably more than this end user has knowledge of.

But really, I am middle aged and not a real gamer. I do play Mine Craft once in a while, but I'm more into social networking and watching old movies on my computer. And for that, my Fedora does an awesome job. I could draw stuff with a pen tablet using several different, but similar, editing programs like Gimp. But, I'm not that artistic, but if I was, I would still use Fedora as with Gimp, I could save my art in just about any commercial format used today.

And guess what. It only gets better because this Thanksgiving, Fedora 18 comes out. Can't wait...but I will...but if I didn't want to I could install the Alpha and Beta versions. You could to or you could just try a Live CD.

So what can I do with Linux? For me, anything I want to do. Linux is for everyone, just don't forget to thank a developer.

Safer Internet Surfing

2012-08-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

So, you have your Linux up and running and now you can surf the Internet without risking a thing. Right? Linux is bullet proof, right? Well, pretty much, however, whatever we do on the Internet is recorded somewhere. Our digital lives are stored on some big server out there in the digital world. Those digital lives could be recalled when needed and at the time when we least expect. How many of us would fail?

Let's not get into all the details of all that stuff. Let's, instead, get into securing our Internet. The first thing I recommend for the home user is to get a hardware firewall. Many brands are out there. I have a Linksys router with an Open-Source firmware to manage my home firewall needs. There are many other brands. When properly set up, these can prevent digital intrusions to our private home data.

Next, get your browsing under control. I like Firefox for a browser. The reason I like it is because I can modify it to make my browsing more private. The add-ons I use to help with that is Ghostery and Add-Block-Plus (ABP). Ghostery blocks counters and trackers thus controlling cookies and pop-ups. ABP controls adds and pop-ups.

This is great on popular social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Ever get tired of seeing those stupid adds on the right side of Facebook. Get Add-Block-Plus and Ghostery and do away with those stupid adds.

It is also great on Google image searches. Ever do a search for something innocent and end up with an extra tab or window open with something you did not click on? And worse yet, has that ever happened when your wife or kids pop up behind you out of nowhere? Embarrassing and hard to explain right? Out of sight, out of mind they say and Add-Block-Plus eliminates the pop-ups and protects us and our families from seeing something we never intended to see when we set out on an image search.

While I'm on that subject, did you know your Google Search has a "Safe Mode" and can be set at "Strict" or "Moderate" and that you can report bad images? Well, now you know. This menu is located at the upper right hand corner of your screen. Nowadays, using "Strict" mode is the best plan, but not immune from the occasional infiltrator. Report offensive images.

Finally, when we click on an image or do a search for something bad, someone out there is counting our searches and clicks. These accountings are tallied into a market analysis for such searches. Please do not be one of those among many who surf for garbage as these surfings declare a need and the need gets answered with more garbage. It's called supply and demand. Garbage dealers make their money this way. They find out what people want by sticking random images in the middle of innocent ones. And they have experts who get their pages on the first few pages of an innocent search.

Bottom line, be careful. FireFox has the tools to secure your Internet experience. So, let's step outside of the Garbage market base, and pave a way for a new and clean market. Search for specific things and select only what you search for. Internet was originally designed to be a tool and was never intended to be a private entertainment vise. I'm full of clichés and the one I'm going to add here is "Change starts at home". And in the case of the Garbage Internet Market, change does start at home. Happy and safe searching.

Oh, I should also say that FireFox, ABP and Ghostery are all free, however, I'm sure their creators could use the money and support.

Upgrade to Fedora 17

2012-08-12T22:40:00.001-07:00

For those of you who were wondering, I did do my upgrade to Fedora 17 a few days before Father's Day weekend. I used Pre-Upgrade and everything worked great except for the Kernel.

I had to manually upgrade the Kernel from F16 to F17. What I did was remove the Kernel manually and then manual install it. First I did "#yum list *kernel*". And then I looked through the list and found the appropriate ones to remove by using "#yum remove *". A more dangerous way of doing it is "#yum remove kernel*" using that notorious wild-card. Then, while you have the terminal up do "yum install kernel*" with the wild-card. As soon as it is done type "#reboot".

So, as my story goes, I rebooted to the F17 Kernel and all was good. I also got to purchase 8 gigs of ram and a nice monitor from LG. With the added memory, was able to really make us of Oracle's Virtual Box with a MS Windows XP VM. What is really cool about the new RAM ....oh and did I mention I got a much nicer video card...anyhow, the new RAM and graphics allowed me to allocate 128 megs of video and 2 gigs of RAM to the VM. Now, I can watch Netflix via the MS XP VM with zero lag time.

I know, MS is not Open-Source, but I purchase that XP years ago under my old business and just had it laying around collecting dust. So, why not use it?

So, what did I add this season? Fedora 17, 8 gigs of Kingston RAM, a 2 gig Nvidia style graphics card, and nice LG monitor. Looking forward to Fedora 18 and refusing to drink the Kool-Aid of Windows 8.

Linux Desktop Rant

2012-04-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.techcentral.co.za/linux-on-the-desktop-what-went-wrong/30713/

I know, it's bad form to lead the blog with a hot-link to another web site. But you have to know that I'm a little frustrated at part-time Linux users and their constant bashing of how the Linux Desktop is dead or how the Linux Desktop is substandard because it can't be set up on certain machines. Oh, and I'm just a little tired of throwing Ubuntu or Mint up as the only viable Linux OS's that can be used as a desktop and when they fail to set them up on their "experimental" machines, all Linux fails.

Here's the deal. I have been running Linux on my machine for over 2 years now. Since I closed my business, I had no need to pay for an OS and I completely switched to my favorite, Fedora. I am not a gamer, so Fedora works just fine for me. I was a W7 Beta tester. And I did enjoy it. But when the Beta came to an end and was time to buy the full version, I chose not to. I chose to switch over to Fedora 100%. I don't even dual boot. I have no need to. I do everything I need to do from my Fedora box.

Things have to be understood when switching to Linux. The first thing that should be done is read the installation manual of the OS. Every Linux distribution has one. Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora (my favorite), Centos, Scientific, Arch, and the list goes on. Every one of them has some sort of an installation manual. Most of them have user forums. The manual and the forums are a must for new and advanced users because, unlike MS and Apple, Linux does not have a 24 hour customer service hotline. The forums take the place of that. And I think Linux is better in that regard because the forums put us in touch with regular people, just like us, who want Linux to succeed.

So, if for some reason a printer doesn't work, check the manual and the forum. If, for some reason, Flash doesn't work, by all means, check the manual and the forum. Oh, if your dual monitors don't work, hey, somebody's been there and done that. If you can't get KMail or Evolution to work properly, gee whiz, ask the forum. Someone knows. Hey, even Google helps with stuff like that, however, it's always nice to check the forums first.

Most Linux distributions have another thing that leading market OS's do not have. Their developers are available to chat with on what they call IRC or Internet Relay Chat. Fedora has this as well as KDE, Gnome, and most other mainline distributions and Linux developers. Try that with mainstream MS or Apple. Only with Linux can an average person communicate with a big time developer. Again, try that with MS or Apple. Have fun with that. Oh, and the Linux "big time developers" are regular people who have day jobs just like you and me.

Another thing I'm sick of is saying Linux only holds 1%-2% of the Desktop market share. Well, that figure is really stupid and misleading. Every Linux user knows that, too. Why? Because Linux is free and because it is free, it is not marketed the same way MS and Apple OS's are. Let me say this again. Because Linux Distributions (With the exception of Red Hat) are free, they skirt around the market. I would have to guess-ta-mate that Linux Desktops amount to more than 2% of all Desktops in the world. We will never know because, really, no one person who matters is really counting. They are just enjoying the freedoms that come with associating with the Open Source OS community. Oh, I should also mention that corporations that use Linux Servers also use Linux Workstations which are the best option for interfacing with the Linux Servers. So, since Workstations are essentially Desktops (or Laptops), I think the percentage goes up quite a bit. It would be interesting to ask Amazon how many Linux Workstations they have, wouldn't it?

So, when a Linux distribution talks about "marketing", it is really talking about OS evangelising or apologetics. Distributions depend on regular users volunteering to promote and distribute among their peers and communities. They use their own money to "get the word out", burn ISO disks, pay for promotion material, and hold Distribution Parties and Developer Parties. Promotion moneys come from private individuals and corporations and is limited. But by no means is Linux marketed the same way MS or Apple is. The only reason Linux is even in the news today is because of volunteers who share the Open Source dream. And the only reason Linux is even on desktops is because one man shared his dream with regular people like you and me.

So thanks, Linus, for sharing.

Upgrade to F16

2012-02-25T20:18:00.001-08:00

I'm giving it another shot. I'm using "preupgrade" to switch from 15 to 16. It is upgrading right now and is over half way through. Last time I tried this kde was having issues. Hope it works this time.

Fedora Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T15:10:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving. Are you full yet?

Yes, I've upgraded to Fedora 16 64 bit. Have not had issues, with one exception. I did forget to back-up my e-mail files, but no worries. I tend to forget that every time. No big deal. All that is replaceable. I did back up all my special pictures and documents.

Here is a snap-shot of my desktop with the F16 background:

There is a new program that I have not had a chance to use. It is called Imagination. It is basically a Slide Show DVD creator. It is kind of like Windows Movie Maker...sort of. Any way, I have not had a chance to play with it yet. I'll be using it as I make a DVD to send my parents for the holidays.

I had to set up KMail as well as my Calendar. I had all my settings right and could receive mail, but I could not send and the Calendar would not work.

Well, Akonadi has got to be configured before all that stuff works. Akonadi is basically the bridge to the data base stuff that makes it all work. If Akonadi is not set up and running, Kontact, Kmail, and Calendar will not function. Any way, I set that up and immediately scheduled all my Pay-Days so I have something to look forward to every month as well as my Christmas Holiday coming up (and family events like birthdays and so on and so forth).

What else? I set my games up (Minecraft and Java), all my video playback stuff like Flash and such. All in all, F16 is nice. It has a smoother look than F15. I think the fonts are a little more defined. Oh, I am using KDE-Desktop. Some like Gnome, but I choose KDE because that is what I am used to.

Fedora 16 is nice, but I need to change one thing:

I think I'm ready for my Christmas Desktop. This, by the way, is a picture of Christmas time at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missiouri. Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas.

Games on Fedora 15

2011-11-21T11:25:00.001-08:00

No, I have not upgraded yet. Not Thanksgiving yet either. I have a few games I like to play on Fedora. One is Minecraft, and then Glaxium, Kobo Delux, and Powermanga.

Minecraft is one that I payed about $30 for. It is Java based which means it is cross-platform. This means it works on Linux, Windows and Mac. I'm sure if your smart phone has enough ram, Minecraft would work on it too. But anyhow, Minecraft is a simple game in look and feel, but complex enough to keep the geekiest of geeks happy for hours.

To check it out, just do a Google search for Minecraft. Great Christmas present for kids of all ages.

The next one is Glaxium.

This is a space type arcade game. It's a simple game with some cool graphics. You are in a spaceship with weapons to defend yourself and to blast the enemy. Pretty simple game that will keep your interest for hours. This comes in the Fedora 15 repos which means it is free.

Another one is Kobo Delux.

This is a 2D space game with lots of color. The goal of the game is to blast all the alien space stations while they try to blast you. It start from simple and goes to complex. We've had gaming parties and this one was that game that everyone ended up playing throughtout the night. It comes with most Linux distributions and is cross platform. Don't think it is a network game though. It is a lot of fun and challenging. It will bring back the '80's in you.

The last one is goofy. It is Powermanga.

It is an arcade shooting game kinda like Galaga. You shoot through all the drone ships to get to the mother ship. You pick up special power-ups along the way. These power-ups need to be maintained throughout the game. Without them, you have no chance against the mother-ship.

I have never been much of a gamer, but on occasion, I like to do mindless stuff. Fedora comes with a lot of fun games. Cross platform games are really fun because they can be played on every system in the house. Anyway, have fun with that. Oh, all these games I have mentioned are available on other Distributions as well (with the exception of Minecraft which is about $30).

I just like Fedora, you guessed, because it's blue and wears a Red Hat.

Fedora LXDE

2011-09-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

Questions come up once in a while if Fedora can run on older computers. There are 2 spins on the Fedora Project web site. So, I'm going to try to install the LXDE version first, since it is the smaller of the two. The other is XFCE. Right now, I'm down loading both at the same time....and they are done in only 10 minutes. So, I'm almost done burning the ISO to disk, using K3b and it's done after about 3 minutes. I'm loading it in the old system and will finish this blog on the new LXDE system. Cross your fingers..... ...well shoot. Fedora requires 640 megs of ram to install properly. My old box only has 512. Oh well. I wonder what Linux runs well on older machines. I was able to get Debian 5 on there and then upgrade to Debian 6. But it is slow as most new OS's are on old machines. So, this blog is going to develop into a search for a Linux for older machines....update to come soon...

Fedora v.s Debian: Support Please!

2011-09-22T09:26:00.000-07:00

Fedora and Debian seem to be really popular these days. Fedora is the "bleeding edge" of Linux while Debian is the "Stable Mabel" of them all. As you know, I am biased towards Fedora and my published reason is because I like the color blue and I like fedoras in general. But, there are other reasons so lets compare. The biggest reason is the support I get with Fedora. Debian also has support, but how do both camps pan out in the end? Let's see. (Now remember, I am biased towards Fedora, so take all this with a grain of salt and remember, this is just for fun. I am not an official spokesperson for any distribution.)

Just doing a Google Search for Debian brings the number one hit as

Debian -- The Universal Operating System

First off, this web site is hard to read. The first thing I want to do when I come to this site is to zoom in a little with the ctrl-+ buttons so I can read the list of links. But moving on from that, the big things I want is documentation, downloads, and forums. I cannot find a forum on the main web site of Debian.

Forums are a really good way for the Linux community to interact and solve problems at the user level. Debian does have a forum and it is located at:

http://forums.debian.net/

Going backwards up the list, I want downloads. To get Debian, you have to get it from the main web site http://www.debian.org/ or get it from a friend ,like me. The hard thing about getting it from the web site is which one to choose? I know that I like ia64 or i386, but what about the average Joe? And, my past experience has been that not all the downloads work every time, so I end up having to download about 3 times before I get a good one. But that is another story. Oh, and you might think you are getting a Live CD in your download, but that is not always the case. If it doesn't say Live CD then it just may not be.

That brings me to the next thing on the "download" subject. Most end users, like me, want to use a Live CD. This is an image you download and then burn to a disk to be used to sample the OS before installing it. If you want to install it, then you just click the icon on the desktop that says something like "install to hard drive". Locating this "Live CD" is a little hard on the Debian web site. But here I'll give you that link. There you go. Now have fun choosing which one to download. What is bit-torrent any way and once I get the bit-torrent, how can I use that? Hmmmmm

Next, would be documentation. To answer all my questions, I need documentation. So, I go to the main site to look for it. There it is. So I click on the link for more information and there it is. Lots of information to show me what to do. No fancy stuff here. It's all business. Hopefully, all that documentation will tell me what to download and how to get it to disc and then how to install it. And, I know because I have been through this, it does tell you how it all works.

Debian is a very stable distribution once you get it installed, configured, and running. I do like it and actually like the story and philosophy behind it. I do like Toy Story , stability and the flexibility of Debian. However, I still like the color blue and I like the ease of installation I get from Fedora.

Googling fedora, I get:

Fedora Project Homepage

So, real quick, Fedora has a nice web site to get downloads, documentation and link to its forum. Notice, I only linked you to the web site. From there you can go anywhere in the network of Fedora Project web sites. The main page is clear, easy to ready and understand. The documentation explains which download to get for your system. And as you click through the site, you find everything you need. Even the Fedora Forum is linked within the site. Each page is colorful and retains your attention.

So, the bottom line is, getting the information I need to install and maintain Fedora is much simpler than Debian. Fedora has a colorful, attention keeping, web site that points me to all the right places I might want to go. Debian has all the same information, but it is harder to navigate and can be discouraging at times, finding what I want in a short period of time. Both have user forums which are a great help.

Fedora is a Red Hat sponsored Linux Distribution that I enjoy using because of its simplicity, complexity, and color. How's that for a little paradoxical blurb? Hey!! At the very "kernel" of it all, they're both Linux. Have a nice week.

Fedora: Ready to Install?

2011-09-18T05:42:00.000-07:00

Fedora 16 is in Alpha stage right now. If you click on the Fedora logo at the right, you will be taken to the download site of Fedora. You will be able to download F15 in any flavor (desktop preference) you want. You will also be able to give F16-Alpha a run.

So, the first thing you do is download the Live Image (iso) to your computer. Then, take your favorite disk burning application (at the bottom are some links that will help you choose...I've used MagicISO in the past with great results) and create an ISO CD. This will be a bootable disk that allows your computer, upon reboot, go right to Fedora.

Just stick the new ISO disk in the disk drive and reboot your computer. Your computer will boot directly to the disk. Now, on your monitor you will see what Fedora looks like. Fedora will run off the RAM (memory) in your computer and will not harm Windows. Depending on the amount of Memory you have will determine your test experience. I was able to run the Live CD on an Acer Netbook surfing the web, loading Flash, Firefox and pretty much set up the computer for use on a college web site before the 1 gig of memory was used up. If you have more than 1 gig, your trial experience will be more fun and all without harming Windows.

Now, if you are ready to switch to Fedora, just click on the " Install to Hard Disk" icon on the Live CD Desktop. If this is your first time installing Fedora, just use all the default settings for installing. You will be given the option to use either the available space on the drive for Fedora (thus dual booting to Windows) or using the whole drive. For new users, if you are ready to get rid of Windows totally, choose the entire disk selection. ( By "ready" I mean that you have backed up all your precious stuff like pictures, music, documents Outlook files, address book-contacts and even web site bookmark files). Then let Fedora do the work.

One little blurb about backing up your Windows machine is this. Just back up your files. Do not back up the software. Fedora comes with its own software that can read all your files in the new format.

And a little disclaimer. I take no responsibility for your personal loss of data, the destroying of your computer, or any other negative thing that happens when converting from MS to Fedora. That said, and I have to say it, do your research and make sure you back up your files to an external hard drive before starting the switch. The Fedora site (click the logo at the right) is full of information on how to make the switch, what the requirements of your system are and some various installation scenarios like RAID and Network Installation.

When you get it installed hop over to the Fedora Forum and check out the Fedora Set-up Guides to help your first experience go a well as possible. And don't forget to check out the links at the bottom of this page.

Oh, feel free to join this blog. You can also get the RSS Feed from this blog. This blog has reached over 1600 views so far. Thanks for looking.

Fedora Documentation
MagicISO
ISO Comparison Wiki

Fedora and Apps: Kontact

2011-09-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

I've tried to write about the applications I use on a regular basis, but never really followed through with the them consistently. So, I'm going to give it a shot again. For the next few weeks, I'll show you what I use. Today, it is KDE's Kontact.

Kontact is an organizer on steroids.

It is comparable to Microsoft's Outlook.

Of course I can read e-mail,

I can set up a calendar, a to-do list,

view RSS feeds,

create project outlines using Notebooks, jot stuff down on the Calendar via Journal (not shown)
view my desktop Pop-up Notes (not shown), and
even track time on my projects (not shown).

Setting up Kontact is pretty simple. It has a pretty nice set-up menu. And it can handle several e-mail formats. I currently am getting g-mail and Windows Live Mail through this. It can also hand your corporate e-mail if you have all your permissions are in place.

While I have used every one of these applications within Kontac, I mostly use it for e-mail, calendar, RSS feeds, and Notebooks.

One really cool thing about Kontact is that an Internet browser is embedded within the product making viewing video links a matter of clicking a button. Then, a new tab opens with your video playing (of course you need Adobe Flash for this to work properly). It can also be set up to open an external browser of your choice, like Google Chrome and Firefox (to name a few popular ones, but not IE as that is, of course MS).

How does it compare with Outlook? Well, I use Outlook at work on the Intranet. Outlook is a pretty powerful piece of software as it will integrate with I/M software, Word, Excel, Access, and any other MS Office product and access the MS Exchange Server. And Outlook is fancy looking, has a nice calendar, to-do list, and a few other things. Oh, did I say it was fancy? Yes, it is fancy. However, I think Kontact, for the home user, is much more adaptable for home use than the MS contemporary.

Kontact will access the office suite of your choice either from the K-Office selection or the OpenOffice-LibreOffice suites. I have not used it at work on the Intranet so I don't know how it would hand the Exchange Server environment. And Kontact seems to be pretty plain looking. I haven't gotten into changing background colors...but....you know...let's do that right now. I have time......

There we go. In order to do this in Fedora, just go to System Settings-Application Appearance and change the colors to what ever you want. You can also download new themes for a starting point and then tweak them to your own preferences.
This has been fun. Check-in next week for a new KDE application.

Fedora and Mac

2011-09-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

So, we have PC, Mac and Linux. Right? Nope. We have PC's and Mac, and Linux can be on both. Yes, tis true. Both can have the best OS in the world (IMHO). With a PC, just slide the ISO disk in and reboot. Installation is as easy as pushing the icon on the desktop.

For Mac, the following is an example of how to install Fedora on a later Mac. Not sure if this works for PPC, but we'll address that later. Anyways:

"The easiest way is to install "Refit" in your macbook leopard. "Refit" is like a bootloader and it shows a menu which allows any bootable CD or DVD to boot when you hit the option key after system power on. After you get past this menu its a normal Fedora [or Linux] installation, nothing new. There is a disk utility to shrink the volume of the hard disk for mac and thereafter you can use it format and install any OS you want. I am not sure whether you can format the entire hard disk and remove the macintosh OS ."

(This was quoted from the Fedora Forum. It is an example of one of many threads on the forum suggesting the use of Refit)

So, basically, for all us newbees out here in the world of end users, Refit helps the Mac set up a boot manager so the Mac can dual boot the Mac OS and Linux as well as Window's 7 I believe.

That's all I know. If you have used Refit on your own Mac, I would be totally interested in your feedback. Macintosh Computers are awesome machines. Why not be able to load the OS of your choice on them as well.

Bamboo Fun on Fedora

2011-07-18T09:45:00.001-07:00

I couldn't sleep last night so I got up, got some crackers, sat in my chair and what did I see? A Bamboo Fun sitting really, really close to my desk. Knowing that curiosity blooms into some of the greatest discoveries, I picked it up and plugged it in.

My first discovery was that it worked immediately in Fedora 15. I didn't have to add the drivers, as they are all ready installed. I could take the pen and migrate from screen to screen without lifting the pen.

My next discovery was it works with all the KDE paint applications as well as GIMP, Inkscape, and Scribus. GIMP has the most control of the pen and then Inkscape is the runner-up.

O.K. Here is the kicker. I could not get the Fun Tablet to work in F14 or F13. The only difference that I can see in F15 is that I do not have the Nvidia drivers installed. So, if you are having trouble with Bamboo on F15, I would check to see if your video drivers are overlapping. There can be just one. So, if you have two, they will negate each other and will produce zero work and frustrations will mount.

Sleep was overwhelming me so I put the pen down and went back to bed. Amazing things can be discovered during an insomniactic moment. The Wacom Bamboo Fun is just waiting for me over there.