Linux: January 2013

Monday, 7 January 2013

Solution to all your problems

.. in your computer. Is most likely, if you have stability issues, and problems with your os in general, to install Linux.

This os is so stable, you won't ever have to reboot again if you don't shut your computer down.

There are fixes for bugs issued almost before you see them every time.

I have written tones of guides for installing Linux so please have a look around here:
http://nosnahoi.blogspot.com/2013/01/starting-to-use-linux.html

Sunday, 6 January 2013

Download Linux

Hello!

You have searched for Download Linux.
I am recommending Linux Mint for you!

www.linuxmint.com

You can go to downloads and download an iso to burn on a cd/dvd there.

If you don't have a cd/dvd maybe you have a bootable usb memory.

Then you should go here instead, with that application you can create a bootable usb memory:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

If you just want to run linux inside windows, have a look here:
http://nosnahoi.blogspot.com/2013/01/windows-on-linux.html

Linux in Windows

If you want to use windows on linux, you need to use a virtualizer.
A free open source one is called VirtualBox and can be downloaded here:
https://www.virtualbox.org/

When you have that, you need an operating system iso file, and some time to make a virtual linux machine. It is quite straight forward, and you will end up with a system that you can use within half an hour or so if you take an easy distribution like Linux Mint. Just head over to downloads and choose whichever version you prefer. I like the cinnamon one.

Good luck!

Linux server os

The first choice server os for the beginner I would recommend is the Linux Ubuntu LTS version for testing, and the server version for later when/if you want to optimize your server. You can find it on www.ubuntu.com under downloads.
If you are a little more advanced, I would choose Fedora Linux . Fedora is the development distribution that is built by an open source project sponsored by Red Hat. This software is from the beginning built to do what you want to do if you are looking for a server os. Any problem you will want to solve is easily fixed and you can change things yourself in the operating system because it is very easy to understand how Fedora Linux works, compared to Ubuntu Linux which is more automated. But with some cost in complexity, so Ubuntu Linux may be faster if you are not doing something "very advanced", then I would absolutely suggest Fedora Linux.

Someone not so experienced or well knowing might recommend you Linux Mint. This is not suited for server applications. Most likely you will end up with a lot of problems because of obsolete software here and there.

Linux Shop

If you are looking for Linux, things to buy, remember that everything is free.
What you would be paying for is someone to ship a cd/dvd to you if you can not download it yourself because your internet connection is not fast enough.

If you however are looking for a complete package with a computer, with an operating setup on it, contact me and we can take it from there.

Whatever you are looking for, I can most likely provide it.

Happy Linuxing!

Linux Hardware

The Linux hardware for a desktop computer that works best is from my experience an INTEL-CPU, with if you need great graphics, a NVIDIA card.
The NVIDIA card in turn requires a closed source driver, that is a common problem solved easily.
There are also drivers for ATI graphics cards that work pretty well these days, but they have a history of not being quite as good as NVIDIA.

Using a laptop with linux may not be the same story. Especially it is the wireless controllers that may need an extra driver that is vendor specific, it is not open source, the same case as with the NVIDIA or ATI driver.
In some rare cases with for example older toshiba laptops, the bios may not be programmed in a standardized way, which leads to that they work with windows, but they are sub optimized, so that they do not really conform to BIOS standards.

Over all it is possible to get the wireless controllers to work, you just need to install it manually in some cases. Several Linux Distributions have included tools that show you what available vendor (non open source) software is available for your hardware, these includes Ubuntu and Linux Mint. One of those that don't do this automatically is Fedora, why this may be a better choice when you are a little more experienced with linux, or if you maybe want to learn more about it.

I have written tons of stuff about installing fedora so please have a look here, there are also some notes about linux mint. Try linux, you will be impressed i'm sure!

Ubuntu 12.10 New features

One of Ubuntus new features is a button that has a Facebook icon on it. I see the point. But what I really don't get is how this is different to starting a browser that accesses facebook? I like icons, but still, a bit silly.

Ubuntu's Online search

They have also got some search news. Pressing the upper left button "dash" enables you historically to search through your computer quickly. Now it also searches online. So that sound like an improvement for real. Cloud style!

They have also got some kind of preview function while doing the search, I might have to try it out, because I dont really see how it works, other than for videos and music.
Ubuntu's Online search

Anyway for a more complete overview just go to http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/whats-new

Linux kernel 3.8 highlights

CPU-hotplugging. The Linux kernel will support hot-swapping all cpus. As of now, you can replace all cpus but the first one. So it will be possible to replace all cpus without a reboot. This neat!
The old 386 platform support will be removed. Probably not missed by many, but still, I thought Linux would run forever everywhere, which it may actually do for a while still, but it will be more difficult.
Support for the Haswell integrated graphics from Intel. I'm glad intel helps with working on the kernel.
The Noveau driver takes a few steps forward with better powermode handling for NVIDIA cards.
KVM virtualization support for ARM to use the Kernel-based Virtual Machine with ARM Cortex-A15 cores. This will help development of modern ARM-devices surely.
Improved ACPI power management, to make battery times in laptops better. This has been a drawback for some time now.

These are just a small part of the features that are likely to be included in the 3.8 version.

Ubuntu new users, difference between versions.

I have seen this happend a few times by new users. They are recommended ubuntu. But hey, when they install it, it just bugs out. Nothing works. LINUX SUX they might say.

But... they have not choosen the LTS version. There is always one "developer" version with new features introduced etc. Why this is not called a beta is something I don't understand.

But if you are a new user and you are having this problem, go for the LTS version instead. It may give you a much better experience!

Fedora 18 release delayed

So the release is delayed again. Maybe this is a marketing trick. Keeping people in suspense maybe is keeping interest up.
I think fedora 18 will be good. Just hope I can use it cinnamon, because I really don't like gnome 3 at all. I constantly have to move the mouse up to the left corner to do anything, there is never any other movement basically. The top right corner is not used for anything. I don't think its good for the muscles in the hand. It feels wrong.

One of the features that they include is the MATE desktop. It is based on the old GNOME 2 desktop. That in my opinion is a really good functional desktop. But Cinnamon just has the edge right now. Too bad they did not include it. I have read somewhere though that it has been packaged for Fedora by other sites so that maybe is not a problem. Go google and you will find it!.

I hope my guides work well

Linux Distributions

Linux Generally, the kernel.

Android and Linux Phones

This should interest you

Android is a Linux based operating system designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices.

Here is what I have on the subject:
Meego
Audio video surveillance

what is Linux

Linux is a kernel, that was made to be Unix-like. What differs from Unix is that all the software included is open source and free for anyone to modify and build their own kernels.
This leads to that there are so called distributions, for example Fedora and Linux Mint. They are complete operating systems using the linux-kernel and additionally a lot of software that makes sence to have on a computer. For example window handling using Xserver. And to that some Window Managers like Gnome or KDE, perhanps Cinnamon which is my latest favourite, a fork of Gnome I believe.

If you are looking for information about starting to use linux and wonder what you should choose, look here.

If you want to run a server with linux go here.

If you wonder about hardware in linux, this might help you.

If you want reasons to start to use linux, please have a look here:

How To - Linux

Linux

Here I have gathered a lot of posts relating to things about starting to use linux. I hope you can find what you are looking for to start using linux, or at least give it a go.

Linux Mint - Making it home usable

Linux Mint would be the easiest choice. You can typically just use unetbootin to make a usb-memory bootable and install/test-drive it from there. Or you can burn it to a dvd if that does not work. Afterdownloading the iso of course. Then you do not really have to do anything unless you require to run some windows application.

Fedora 18 - How to

Fedora linux I think is the right choice if you really want free software and the choice yourself to install any properitary software. You will also since it is only made up by free and open source software have software that is newer, also because Fedora is kind of the "leading" distribution in terms of introducing new features while still keeping it stable. I like fedora best.

VirtualBox related posts

VirtualBox is an application that is free that makes it possible to run operating systems virtualized, so that you can test for example linux mint or fedora before installing it to your harddrive.

Sound and Video
General sound and video issues that are mostly easily solved.

Browsing
Browsing in Fedora requires some fine-tuning before it can be as enjoyable as Windows.

Here is a description of how to install Flash in ubuntu, compare this to the Fedora way to further see what the differences between them are:
Install flash in ubuntu 11.04

You will probably want to use linux to something. If you want to develop android applications, have a look here for a tip:
Android development in Fedora

Saturday, 5 January 2013

Sound over hdmi in linux mint kde

Sound and Video, Linux

This is just impossible to get running with the gui-tools. I can get the sound to go out to the tv via hdmi if I use the sound device 3 channel 7 or something like that. But where I configure the sound devices, this one does not even exist.

This is a huge problem with linux. There is always something screwing up the sound. There has always been these bugs.

For example using tv-cards will often give you problems with the sound, the sound is muted somehow, in both the hardware and the microphone often. So it is difficult to find the problem.

Maybe I should try cinnamon/gnome3/fedora instead...

Friday, 4 January 2013

Why linux?

Linux
My reasons are:

That it keeps away viruses
It is easy to run applications like web servers without affecting performance for testing purposes.
It is very very stable.
You don't have to reboot to install updates.
There are forums for support if you are unsure about how to fix something. you also have access to the whole system and if you really would want to you can rebuild drivers from source code. I have done this for an old laptop before because the standard kernel module did not fully support the bios interface for my computer (that was not following standards).
Everything is free!
This also means that everything is free in your software repository, so with one command you can install a whole bunch of software quickly.
Automatic de-fragmentation of the file-system. In windows the file-system in time gets fragmentated which means that files are split up in several different locations. If you are on a standard magnetic harddrive this becomes a real issue after some time, depending on how you use the harddrive.
Very well structured operating system, you can understand as much of it as you like. It is possible to change everything. But be careful, you may, and most probably will break something if you try to be root all the time like an administrator in windows.
If you learn Linux, you learn skills that are transferable to for example UNIX systems. You will be familiar with a whole lot more computer systems when you learn Linux.
Old hardware-support. Linux does not stop being compatible with old hardware like windows sometimes is.
There are continuous updates for everything. Because of the software structure, it is, as long as every application in your distribution is a free open source version, most often possible to update as soon as the software has been packaged and tested.

Among many!

Linux doesn't like change anymore?

I took this data from www.distrowatch.com. It probably represents new users choices quite accurate.
For the last 12 months it is just rock solid stable somehow. This last month it seems that the linux interest has cooled down a bit (graph is backwards timewise).

Linux

The I in Team

Not really a picture I would agree in if someone showed it to me in a real team context, but probably a strong help if the team does not do what is required. Just for fun!

Thursday, 3 January 2013

Bittorrent client Fedora 18

Open Activities, type in Software and start it.
Search for Transmission and install "A lightweight GTK+ Bittorrent client".
Voilá!

Fedora 18 - Making it home usable to

Operating systems on phones

Linux

So finally, Linux has showed it's quality. Android and Linux together now has almost 2/3 of the total market share.

Perhaps linux is best used on new types of hardware, when you need a new operating system for an application in a hardware that has not really been used for very long. The open development probably catches a lot more bugs than closed ones, so it probably works very good when it is ported for other purposes.

It is nice to see how free software can make an entrance like this. It is not far from that you some day can choose your operating system when buying your phone. Maybe you can even buy many phones without any software at all in a few years, and install it yourself. If not, someone should really try to come up with an idea that makes phones equipped with open source software that is free and functional.

Android - Googles Linux based operating system.

iOS - Apples operating system.

Symbian - Previously Nokias, now Accenture develops it.

Linux - Means samsung Bada and Meego/Tizen. Even though Android could also be counted in here.

Windows - The microsoft operating system.

Exit the Skype application.
On Vista or Windows 7: Click Start, type run (or run in your language) and press Enter.
On XP: Click Start and then Run...
Type %appdata%\skype and click OK.
Delete everything in that folder and empty the Recycle bin.
Log in to skype again, say no thank you when it tries to connect to Facebook.

)This removes the facebook contacts from skype, and the password from the application. There is no other way to do this that I know about.