Review: Linux Mint

I have long been an advocate of Debian GNU/Linux (hereafter referred to as Linux). It's wonderful for servers, stable, with a predictable development cycle. The Ubuntu distribution builds on this with a lovely desktop and wonderful, easy hardware and software management. Mint builds on this again with a polished distribution that I'm finding quite enjoyable to use. You can find Mint here at: www.linuxmint.com It's a regular 700MB download iso and uses Ubuntu repositories. As usual, you have the options of using the included software manager (which is good) or aptitude or apt (my preference).

The machine I'm using for this is a HP/Compaq Presario C300. It's an older laptop, with a Celeron M processor and I've bumped the RAM up to a gig which gives me plenty to play with, even given that the video card steals some RAM. The C300 also has a lovely wide screen with that glossy look I normally despise but find to be very eyeball friendly at the moment. It only has a 60GB hard disk which is completely adequate for my needs. On to the review of Mint...

Given that this distribution is built on Ubuntu there are many lovely features that are underlying it. All the hardware in the notebook was picked up very swiftly and easily. It all worked out of the box. As a little back story - I was running Ubuntu on this notebook but the wireless wouldn't connect to my hidden wireless network. Frustrated because there seemed no answer to this problem, I found via Google a forum note that Mint worked correctly. The developers have apparently fixed this up. So I installed it and enabled things like the encrypted home directory (just to play with). The performance of the device is not noticeably affected by the decryption/encryption of files in my home directory which is nice. Access to all controls is through the Control Centre and I've had no problems with it at all. Automatically detecting devices works beautifully - Mint found and configured my HP2100 laser printer quickly and very easily. This is the kind of thing I love about the new Linux distributions. Long ago I remember writing the lp files to get printers recognised and working. Not much fun at all - but very stable!

Stability is always an issue for me. Being a computer professional, the last thing I want to do is come home and have to fix my own PCs - what a nightmare that always is. Especially given I have a *very* non-standard network doing all kinds of weird things and the last thing I want to do is try to work out whether it's my PC or my network causing things to be unhappy. Mint is wonderfully stable. I've had it running as my day to day work machine, in and out of suspend and hibernate and it's been terrific. It's worked reliably and quickly even with the in and out of suspend/hibernate. I have had problems with this in the past with other Linux distributions but Mint kicked butt. As a work box that needs to do all kinds of weird things and do them reliably, Mint does the job admirably.

On a superficial level, I like the green theme and the backgrounds etc are all very good. I really don't like the browns of Ubuntu and usually the first thing I do is to change the themes and backgrounds. I know I know - very shallow but... I'm still using the default Mint theme. It's nice and it's easy on the eyes. I'd recommend this distribution for the novice user all the way through to the systems admin type person. I don't know that it would suit the hardcore hacker (not being one) but I'm sure someone of that ilk would get by :-) You also have the option of the LTS 5 year supported version the same as Ubuntu. It's a nice little option to have. Otherwise you get the same release cycle as Ubuntu.

In conclusion Mint is definitely worth a look and it's heritage of stability, great software and hardware configuration, and ease of use make it a terrific distribution.

iPhone App store compared to Nokia Ovi Store

Recently I was given an iPhone for work. Given that I use an e66 Nokia for my personal stuff I thought I'd compare and contrast the two devices' application stores. Ovi vs iTunes. Clearly the base operating systems are significantly different - Symbian S60 3rd Edition (e66) vs iPhone OS (iPhone (naturally)). Clearly given the differences in the OSes, the iPhone seems to lead itself to better application support. This, plus Apple getting in first, have given the iPhone a significantly better application store, variety and apparent implementation of user provided applications. I'm quite sure that Nokia wanted to get on board with this, but given that Apple got there first I'm not sure they'll catch them. The Ovi store is still developing from what I can tell and the phone based interface to it is not terribly impressive. Taking into account the difference in the user interface (non-touch phone vs touch phone), the iPhone is still better. Navigating the Nokia Ovi menu is poor and at times damn confusing. Tap tap installed - iPhone kicks butt.

The breadth and depth of the available apps is a telling point too - Ovi doesn't have the depth nor the breadth of the iTunes store. There are a few points which mitigate this though. For example, the e66 does not require you to jump through a bunch of hoops like converting mp3's to some other format to get it in as a ringtone. So to a certain degree the ringtone downloads isn't quite as important - hence the Ovi store doesn't need the same level of focus - the customer demand is probably not as great. The iTunes store though, has millions clamouring to change the default ringtones to something reasonable. So it stands to reason they'd have to provide a better service. Also given iTunes focus initially on the iPod and music etc the background development for iTunes was already there and done. Nokia is playing catch up all the way and trying to develop this revenue stream. So the question is - will the community support behind the Ovi store be as great over time as what it appears to be for iTunes?

In the interests of full disclosure I really like both of these phones. I really like making and receiving calls on my Nokia and not have to charge it every single day. I really like the awesome utilities on the iPhone and I especially like the onscreen board for sending texts and emails. I'll compare and contrast the phones in another post but at this point, they both have many pluses and minuses.

In conclusion, the iPhone store - iTunes kicks the butt of the Nokia store Ovi.

Review: Office 2010 - First Blush

So, blessed as I am with a Microsoft Technet subscription I downloaded the Office 2010 beta and installed it over the Office 2007 installation I had. There were several things I noticed straight up. The big icon in the top left corner of the software is gone and replaced with a file tab that has all the options previously hidden under the big button. Outlook is substantially changed and I like the changes, with one small exception thus far. The black theme that I liked very much in Office 2007 makes it look sort of busy and isn't quite what I expected. I guess that it will get better in the full release to come (or at least I hope so).

The ribbon being used in Outlook is a welcome change. I didn't like the way it was in Outlook 2007 - after all, why have a new look if it doesn't get spread around all the programs in a suite? I've always liked the functionality of the ribbon, despite the dislike it has engendered in some circles. I dread the teaching of it's usage to my clients, but we'll see how it goes. Overall I think the direction Microsoft has taken Office is a good one. I'm a big proponent of OpenOffice but I find the interface clunky and unpleasant. Microsoft's Office is better in terms of the interface. To be honest, I don't have a lot of time to screw around with desktop software, but I do like the changes to Office and screwing around with it is interesting. The interface changes are smooth and look good.

I'll write an update once I've spent a couple more weeks and keep an eye on things as they develop. All in all, I currently like Office 2010!

Easy Peasy Update - 9.04

As promised I've been fiddling with this for a little while now. While the interface and boot process have been tidied up somewhat I've found several things that I do not like. The touchpad has gone from being perfectly balanced in response and speed to slow and clunky and making me cranky. I've fiddled with the settings but can't get it back to being as smooth and precise as it was with 8.04. Grr. Nevermind - it's OK now. When scrolling in the main screen if there are more options available than space, it scrolls between desktops. This is *not* what I want it to do and it's very frustrating.

I do like the colours and some of the updates are nice. If you've got a eeePC or a similar netbook, then Easy Peasy is a great OS replacement. It's performance leads me to another post - why is Linux so freakin' slow nowadays? It used to kick Windows butt all over the place but I can get comparable performance from a well crafted Windows XP install as an Ubuntu install. Something to ponder in that....

Adventures with eeePC: Enter EasyPeasy

Recently I attempted to enable the Advanced Desktop on my eeePC. I'm not *exactly* sure what I broke, but I broke my little netbook good. Damn. I could get it to boot but had no desktop. No icons, no information nothing. Very, very disappointing. So I thought that perhaps it was an opportunity to have a look at a few other things. Hunting for a new netbook operating system found me looking mostly at Linux offerings, with some websites advocating Windows 7. Eventually I found my way to Easy Peasy (http://www.geteasypeasy.com/) which uses Ubuntu 8.04 as its base and builds upon that with a myriad of customisations and clever manipulations of the system. I love Ubunutu - it's basis in Debian means it's rock solid with tonnes of terrific applications. The installation was a bit nervy - I didn't want to brick my netbook. The website has an excellent walk through and after a few USB memory key issues I finally got things going in the right direction.

The interface is great. Speed is great. I still have a grip about Mozilla Firefox though. It seems to pause (and hold up everything else) every now and then. It disrupts my flow and annoys me. With the recent release of Easy Peasy 1.5 I hope that will be fixed. I'm downloading it now so I'll find out very soon I hope. Generally it was been excellent though. All the devices worked perfectly and although I've had a few problems with a bluetooth mouse I've got, it's been fine otherwise. The particular mouse in question is *very* sensitive to the devices it connects to. The addition of the 8GB SD card has made storage a non issue and I have a 160GB external disk with a heap of stuff on it if I require the extra disk space.

I'm installing the updated version now - it's based on Ubuntu 9.04 so I'll post another note about it when it's completed. Let's hope it goes well!

Review: Sun VirtualBox

Recently I've had to find a virtual machine emulator. Given my limited budget (read: zero) I was hunting around for various different pieces of software. Microsoft have their virtual machine software: Virtual PC which is a polished bit of software. It is, however, not up to par with what I want to do. Because I run a host Windows machine and want to use Linux as a guest operating system, VirtualPC has all sorts of issues with it. I tried it and didn't like it. I stumbled upon VirtualBox (www.virtualbox.org) which appears to be sponsored by Sun. Given Sun's previous support of Open Source, I decided to try it.

The installation is very simple and straightforward - it installs extra network adapters, DHCP servers for the internal NAT'd network and a few other bits and pieces. The guest OS support it offers is excellent. In a *very* short amount of time I had a copy of Debian running from the netboot cd, installed and configured an FTP server and I was very happy. My host operating system was Windows Server 2008, which isn't 100% supported but does the job very nicely anyway. I've run it under Windows XP too and it works very well (especially on my Dell D610 Latitude with a 1.6GHz Centrino processor and 2GB of RAM). I'm going to test OpenSolaris on it and see how it goes under the installation.

Some years ago I ran VMWare Desktop to have many virtual machines for testing and other purposes and I found it to be rock solid. The VMWare gear is very good. I have found, to my considerable pleasure, that VirtualBox is as solid and feature filled as VMWare was. It's free status is even better and I love the fact that it supports Linux so beautifully. I'll be experimenting with various other guest OSs in the next few days and I'll let you know my progress as I play with it.

Review: ASUS eeePC 701SD Linux

I recently picked one of these machines up for $279 bucks at the local computer shop. This is under their buy price so I figure it's a pretty good deal really. I've been interested in the netbook scene for a while and the eeePC was the one that caught my imagination first. Although I have had the Dell L400 it still wasn't a netbook. The specs of the 701 are readily available on the net - for the purposes my work I've upgraded mine in the following way - swapped in a 1GB RAM DIMM and installed an 8GB SD card to double the internal 8GB SSD's storage. I don't really intend on using this PC to watch movies and the like and I've only got a minimal amount of data to store on it so the 16GB of storage is more than adequate.

I love the lightness of this machine - I store it in the top part of my camera bag (a Targus one) and it fits easily without increasing the overall bulk of the bag. I take it pretty much everywhere - the ports available are exceptionally useful - 3 USB 2 ports, Ethernet, wireless Ethernet and SD card port too. Being able to quickly bring up a terminal windows (Ctrl-Alt-T) is really handy for the work I do when I'm network testing. The LCD is nice and bright and readable, the speakers aren't bad either for their size and the keyboard is fairly responsive.

Probably my biggest gripe, no definitely my biggest gripe - and one I can't really complain too much about - is the keyboard size. The width of my hand makes it hard to touch type on and I spend a fair amount of time looking at the keys. I've been spoilt by using a Microsoft Natural Keyboard 7000 at work, and a 4000 at home and these keyboards are lovely. The eeePC - yeah not so lovely but still quite usable. Typing in IRC can be a little bit of a trick - I really have to remember to review what I've typed prior to hitting the return key. That being said, I'm getting used to it and I am getting higher accuracy results with the keyboard. This entry, for example, has been typed on it and I find it no less accurate than the handwriting translation on my HP tablet. Bit of an ache in the fingers after a while though I must say and I would *not* like to be typing on it all day.

Battery life is pretty good - around the 3 hours, which I find to be more than adequate. If I'm doing work on my eeePC for more than 2 hours, I'll get my tablet out and use that instead - it has a much nicer keyboard and is a lot faster.

The RAM upgrade to the eeePC has made a huge difference - the speed of the system is greatly enhanced by having the additional memory available and it is much more acceptable to use. Prior to this upgrade I found that it sometimes lagged in responsiveness.

Updating and installing new software is very easy and there seems to be quite a bit of software available for this device, all installable via single click from the ASUS website. Given it's Linux OS once you drop into a command line and use apt-get it's even easier to install software :-) X forwarding and the like all work and monitoring servers and things is very easy on this device. In short I like it a lot and I'll probably upgrade to an eeePC 1000 or something similar once I'm in a buying frame of mind again.