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        <title>Penguinistas&#39;s Blogs</title>
        <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs</link>
        <description>Penguinistas&#39;s Blogs</description>
        <image>
            <url>http://www.zoji.com/fEw0hX3TeNoLzPxphEnR45Dcvt16BoB5*</url>
            <title>Penguinistas</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista</link>
        </image>
        <item>
            <title>Linux for the Masses: the Everex gPC TC2502</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/78798</link>
            <dc:creator>Adam Mathias</dc:creator>
            <description>The New York Times  reports  that my dream has come true: a cheap desktop box targeted at average consumers (how else can one interpret availability at WalMart) that comes with Linux.&amp;nbsp; Doesn&amp;#39;t this void the need for those philanthropically developed 100$ machines for the developing world?&amp;nbsp; What is the catch (besides the lack of a monitor)? </description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/technology/personaltech/01computer.html?ex=1351656000&amp;en=4a709a09a49992c8&amp;ei=5124&amp;partner=permalink&amp;exprod=permalink" target="_blank">reports</a> that my dream has come true: a cheap desktop box targeted at average consumers (how else can one interpret availability at WalMart) that comes with Linux.&nbsp; Doesn&#39;t this void the need for those philanthropically developed 100$ machines for the developing world?&nbsp; What is the catch (besides the lack of a monitor)?<br />]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/78798#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/78798</guid>
            <pubDate>Thu, 1 Nov 2007 23:53:00 PDT</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>April&#39;s data - Desktop Linux usage definitely is on the rise</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/77502</link>
            <dc:creator>Jet</dc:creator>
            <description>There is frequently a lot of speculation on desktop linux usage - &amp;quot;this is the year of linux on the desktop&amp;quot; and other such quotes are easy to see in articles dated from 2003 or earlier. But what  really  is happening with linux on the desktop? I tire of seeing articles full of speculation but with little or no data to back up there claims.  First, by &amp;quot;desktop&amp;quot; users, what we are interested in are users who will complain to companies when there web cam, printer, or scanner...</description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[There is frequently a lot of speculation on desktop linux usage - &quot;this is the year of linux on the desktop&quot; and other such quotes are easy to see in articles dated from 2003 or earlier. But what <em>really</em> is happening with linux on the desktop? I tire of seeing articles full of speculation but with little or no data to back up there claims.<br /><br />First, by &quot;desktop&quot; users, what we are interested in are users who will complain to companies when there web cam, printer, or scanner is not supported in linux. Users who will drive a massive increase in linux support from hardware and software suppliers. So what is the best way to track this user?<br /><br />Unfortunately, there <a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=354232" target="_blank">aren&#39;t a lot of good ways to do this</a>, but of them all, the web is the most reliable. Sure, it doesn&#39;t include that linux install you put on grandma&#39;s machine she uses only for word processing. But personal computer users generally browse the web, and it&#39;s better than guessing at downloads of linux distributions (which don&#39;t always relate well with actual users anyhow).<br /><br />In the search for web statistics, we need a comprehensive assortment of web sites if we want to infer averages from them (looking at slashdot vs microsoft.com will certainly give you much different results). Ideally, we would look to the most popular search engine, but Google doesn&#39;t release it&#39;s stats on the OS running the browsers that visit it&#39;s homepage.<br />Instead, we&#39;ll settled for <a href="http://marketshare.hitslink.com/" target="_blank">Net Applications</a>, which gathers it&#39;s statistics from a fairly comprehensive number of sites. <a href="http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=5&amp;qpcustom=Linux" target="_blank">April&#39;s data has just arrived</a>, and as I suspected when I saw a small up-tick last month, the up swing in linux usage is well-above the noise floor. For the months of March and April, growth was an astounding 36% and 40% respectively! <br /><br /><img src="http://localhost/work/Fab/snapshot6.png" border="0" width="400" height="240" /><br /><br />Sure, maybe we shouldn&#39;t get too excited - the percentages are still very low. In the years since Net Applications began gather data on linux OS usage when browsing (beginning October 2004 they added a specific &quot;linux&quot; OS catagory), never once has the percentage ticked to even 0.5%, with the percentage hovering most of the time between 0.3 and 0.4%. Then, in March it shot to 0.57%, but even this, although exciting, could have been a noisy spike. However, the recent jump to 0.8% is unmistakable - usage is definitely on the rise. Is this still a pathetically tiny market share? As we&#39;ve seen with Firefox, 10% is enough to force web sites to write code compatible with more than just IE, and it&#39;s also enough to force hardware manufactures to care a lot more about supporting their devices in linux. And with more and better hardware support, it will only get easier for users to make the switch. At the average <em>percentage </em>growth rate of March and April, it would only take 8 months before linux would have a 10.5% market share! Of course that is highly unlikely to happen, but it is reason to celebrate.<br /><br />]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/77502#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/77502</guid>
            <pubDate>Mon, 30 Apr 2007 23:56:00 PDT</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>i thought this was funny...</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/75484</link>
            <dc:creator>Jet</dc:creator>
            <description>Somebody linked to this on Digg, lol.&amp;nbsp; Indeed I am very much a geek inside...   				  Breaking up with you, your daughter is prettier and easier    				 Dear Loved One:      By now you probably already know that I am having an affair with the  youngest of your daughters. It’s not like I planned this to happen, but  I couldn’t help it, she is younger, sexier, prettier and easier. Yes,  she is easier than you, and this is a moment in my life when I just  want that. I got tired of you playing...</description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[Somebody linked to this on Digg, lol.&nbsp; Indeed I am very much a geek inside...<br>  				<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br>Breaking up with you, your daughter is prettier and easier</span><div class="primary">  				Dear Loved One:<br/>    By now you probably already know that I am having an affair with the  youngest of your daughters. It’s not like I planned this to happen, but  I couldn’t help it, she is younger, sexier, prettier and easier. Yes,  she is easier than you, and this is a moment in my life when I just  want that. I got tired of you playing hard to get. You are just too  complicated, with your inner conflicts and your multiple personality  disorder trying to be everything to everyone. You just can’t please  everybody you know?<br/>    <a title="Debian" href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>: I will always have a <a title="Super Debian" href="http://tabo.aurealsys.com/archives/2004/09/01/pcworld-and-superdebian/">place in my heart</a> for you, but I’m with <a title="Ubuntu Linux" href="http://www.ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu</a> now and we are very happy together. Please stop attacking her. It’s your fault, not hers.<br/>    Love.<br/>    Gustavo Picon<br/><br><br>No offense intended to any Debian lovers though, as Mark Shuttleworth said in his blog "<a href="http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/56">it’s absolutely my intention to see that Ubuntu is a constructive part of the broader Debian landscape</a>" and Debian's success is critical to Ubuntu's...<br><br/>  			</div><br>]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/75484#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/75484</guid>
            <pubDate>Wed, 20 Sep 2006 19:35:00 PDT</pubDate>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>Will Vista compete with this?</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/75444</link>
            <dc:creator>Jet</dc:creator>
            <description>I&#39;d say this is pretty damn sweet.&amp;nbsp; About half way through they really start doing sweet shit... I&#39;m not sure the next version of Ubuntu will have this by default, but I&#39;m guessing it&#39;s going to be very easy to setup (it already is fairly easy). Hmm, embedding isn&#39;t working for my flash player, here&#39;s the link if it isn&#39;t working for you either... Link to youtube .        </description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[I'd say this is pretty damn sweet.&nbsp; About half way through they really start doing sweet shit... I'm not sure the next version of Ubuntu will have this by default, but I'm guessing it's going to be very easy to setup (it already is fairly easy).<br>Hmm, embedding isn't working for my flash player, here's the link if it isn't working for you either...<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz_2vKq5cZk">Link to youtube</a>.<br><div><object height="350" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Cz_2vKq5cZk"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Cz_2vKq5cZk" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="350" width="425"></object></div>]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/75444#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/75444</guid>
            <pubDate>Thu, 14 Sep 2006 19:49:00 PDT</pubDate>
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            <title>2006 Desktop Linux Results</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/75299</link>
            <dc:creator>Jet</dc:creator>
            <description>Here are the results from the    2006 Desktop Linux Market survey    and  the article  about the results.  I always find this kind of thing interesting, mostly just out of curiosity.&amp;nbsp; Ubuntu seems to be dominating today, but I personally hope it continues to grow to somewhere a little above 50%.&amp;nbsp; I&#39;m one of those who believe choice is definitely good, but too much choice is can cause chaos.&amp;nbsp; Although things like the  Linux standard base  might help with this (although LSB seems...</description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[Here are the results from the <a href="http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey.cgi?view=archive&amp;id=0821200617613"><font face="ARIAL" size="2"><b>2006 Desktop Linux Market survey</b></font></a> and <a style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" href="http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT5816278551.html">the article </a>about the results.<br><br>I always find this kind of thing interesting, mostly just out of curiosity.&nbsp; Ubuntu seems to be dominating today, but I personally hope it continues to grow to somewhere a little above 50%.&nbsp; I'm one of those who believe choice is definitely good, but too much choice is can cause chaos.&nbsp; Although things like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Standard_Base">Linux standard base</a> might help with this (although LSB seems to have had some problems, but still the idea and projects like it seem like they could really help), if one distro can maintain 50% or more marketshare, I think 3rd parties would be much more inclined to write drivers/commercial software that would be easy to install and setup.&nbsp; yep, commercial software - while I don't think we should have to pay for core software like the operating system, commercial software is very important for certain applications...<br><br><br>]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/75299#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/75299</guid>
            <pubDate>Thu, 31 Aug 2006 12:41:00 PDT</pubDate>
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            <title>Ubuntu 6.06 previewed</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/74657</link>
            <dc:creator>Jet</dc:creator>
            <description>Yeah, I&#39;m an Ubuntu guy (Kubuntu actually), and here&#39;s an interesting review of their next version, 6.06.&amp;nbsp; It&#39;s gonna be sweeet.&amp;nbsp; I&#39;m running it, it&#39;s getting pretty close to final now and have tons of new features over the 5.10 release.  http://madpenguin.org/cms/html/47/6699.html  </description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[Yeah, I'm an Ubuntu guy (Kubuntu actually), and here's an interesting review of their next version, 6.06.&nbsp; It's gonna be sweeet.&nbsp; I'm running it, it's getting pretty close to final now and have tons of new features over the 5.10 release.<br><a href="http://madpenguin.org/cms/html/47/6699.html">http://madpenguin.org/cms/html/47/6699.html</a><br>]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/74657#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/74657</guid>
            <pubDate>Mon, 17 Apr 2006 14:35:00 PDT</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Helpful Linux How-To</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/74386</link>
            <dc:creator>Kevin</dc:creator>
            <description>A helpful Linux How-To from...Microsoft?    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314458/EN-US/    Ha ha. </description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[A helpful Linux How-To from...Microsoft?<br><br><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><a href="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314458/EN-US/">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314458/EN-US/</a><br></div><br>Ha ha.<br>]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/74386#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/74386</guid>
            <pubDate>Tue, 21 Feb 2006 12:18:00 PST</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>My Decision - KDE vs Gnome</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/74010</link>
            <dc:creator>Jet</dc:creator>
            <description>Linus Torvald came out with his opinion on the battle, and I&#39;ve made
mine.&amp;nbsp; After using Gnome for 4-5 months regularly now, I
completely agree with Linus and found his arguments fit the reason I&#39;ve
left Gnome perfectly, and I&#39;m now using KDE (and loving it).&amp;nbsp; I
wanted to support Gnome, I liked the idea of it&#39;s LGPL license and
such, but in reality, KDE is just so much more powerful, feels just as
smooth or smoother to me, and the options and things are like to
configure are all...</description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[Linus Torvald came out with his opinion on the battle, and I've made
mine.&nbsp; After using Gnome for 4-5 months regularly now, I
completely agree with Linus and found his arguments fit the reason I've
left Gnome perfectly, and I'm now using KDE (and loving it).&nbsp; I
wanted to support Gnome, I liked the idea of it's LGPL license and
such, but in reality, KDE is just so much more powerful, feels just as
smooth or smoother to me, and the options and things are like to
configure are all there.&nbsp; I'll quote Linus here in his two replies
since I believe he puts it so well, a link to the slashdot article is
also provided.&nbsp; He definitely speaks his mind, no holding back!<br>  <br>  <a href="http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/13/1340215&amp;tid=121&amp;tid=131&amp;tid=189&amp;tid=106">Link to /.</a><br>  <pre><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">&gt; Frederic told that the options from the PPD file are intentionally mot</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">&gt; listed in the printing dialog, the usability team of GNOME was against</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">&gt; listing these options. They clutter the dialog and can be more confusing</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">&gt; than useful to the user.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">This "users are idiots, and are confused by functionality" mentality of </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Please, just tell people to use KDE. </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">		Linus</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">&gt; That's definitely not a point of view of the GNOME Project - we're focused</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">&gt; on making Free Software appropriate for users who are smart (we don't talk</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">&gt; about 'dumb users'), but just don't care about computing technology. We're</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">&gt; just like every other Free Software project - fixing stuff requires the work</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">&gt; and attention of people who care about the problem at hand.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">No. I've talked to people, and often your "fixes" are actually removing </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">capabilities that you had, because they were "too confusing to the user".</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">That's _not_ like any other open source project I know about. Gnome seems </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">to be developed by interface nazis, where consistently the excuse for not </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">doign something is not "it's too complicated to do", but "it would confuse </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">users".</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The current example of "intentionally not listed in the printing dialog, </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">the usability team of GNOME was against listing these options." is clearly </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">not the exception, but the rule.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Jeff, if the explanation had been "exposing PPD features is too hard, we </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">need developer manpower", I'd have understood. THAT is what open source </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">projects tend to say. Not "powerful interfaces might confuse users and not </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">look nice".</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">If this was a one-off, I'd buy it. But I've heard it too damn many times. </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">And only ever from Gnome. </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The reason I don't use Gnome: every single other window manager I know of </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">is very powerfully extensible, where you can switch actions to different </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">mouse buttons. Guess which one is not, because it might confuse the poor </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">users? Here's a hint: it's not the small and fast one.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">And when I tell people that, they tend to nod, and have some story of </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">their own why they had a feature they used to use, but it was removed </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">because it might have been confusing.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Same with the file dialog. Apparently it's too "confusing" to let users </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">just type the filename. So gnome forces you to do the icon selection </span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">thing, never mind that it's a million times slower.</span><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">			Linus</span><br></pre>  <br>  ]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/74010#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/74010</guid>
            <pubDate>Wed, 14 Dec 2005 10:18:00 PST</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>question</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/44837</link>
            <dc:creator>Andy</dc:creator>
            <description>This is probably more of something I should email to the group rather
than blogging, but I feel blogging is less intrusive so here goes:      Does anyone here know a way to determine under what kernel a file was compiled?   </description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[This is probably more of something I should email to the group rather
than blogging, but I feel blogging is less intrusive so here goes:<br>  <br>  Does anyone here know a way to determine under what kernel a file was compiled?<br>  ]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/44837#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/44837</guid>
            <pubDate>Wed, 16 Nov 2005 15:11:00 PST</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Not specific to Penguinistas...</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/41276</link>
            <dc:creator>Flora</dc:creator>
            <description> But I think people in here might have some feedback... Has anyone here tried the Dvorak keyboard layout?&amp;nbsp; I hadn&#39;t heard of it until just now and I&#39;m intrigued.... 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard  </description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[But I think people in here might have some feedback... Has anyone here tried the Dvorak keyboard layout?&nbsp; I hadn't heard of it until just now and I'm intrigued....<br/>
<br/>
<A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Keyboard</A><br/>]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/41276#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/41276</guid>
            <pubDate>Mon, 31 Oct 2005 16:27:00 PST</pubDate>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>Adoption of linux...  the Anti-linux conspiracy</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/34431</link>
            <dc:creator>Jet</dc:creator>
            <description>This just got slashdotted, so I&#39;m sure a lot of you have already seen
it.&amp;nbsp; Nonetheless, it&#39;s a decent summary and expreses a lot of what
I feel. 
 http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1134910,00.html&amp;nbsp;   
I&#39;d say it actually starts getting better at part 2. 
 
By the way, my Ubuntu Breezy 5.10 install went perfectly and I found a
cool script - anyone else considering Ubuntu should use Easy Ubuntu
after the install, it sets up everything that...</description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[This just got slashdotted, so I'm sure a lot of you have already seen
it.&nbsp; Nonetheless, it's a decent summary and expreses a lot of what
I feel.<br>
<a href="http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1134910,00.html%20">http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1134910,00.html&nbsp;</a> <br>
I'd say it actually starts getting better at part 2.<br>
<br>
By the way, my Ubuntu Breezy 5.10 install went perfectly and I found a
cool script - anyone else considering Ubuntu should use Easy Ubuntu
after the install, it sets up everything that Ubuntu can't legally put
on the distribution (like Quicktime, Realplayer, MP3 support and all
that proprietary garbage...).<br>
<br>
jet<br>
]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/34431#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/34431</guid>
            <pubDate>Tue, 18 Oct 2005 20:34:00 PDT</pubDate>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>gnome vs kde the never ending dispute...</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2463</link>
            <dc:creator>Jet</dc:creator>
            <description>So first a bit of background from the Wiki entry on Gnome, those already familiar could skip: 
------- 

 The GNOME project was started in August 1997 by  Miguel de Icaza  and  Federico Mena  to provide an alternative to  KDE . 

 KDE is a free software desktop environment that relies on the  Qt   toolkit  — a piece of software written by  Trolltech  that did not use a  free software license .
Members of the GNU project became concerned about the use of such a
toolkit for building a free...</description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[So first a bit of background from the Wiki entry on Gnome, those already familiar could skip:<br>
-------<br>

The GNOME project was started in August 1997 by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Icaza" title="Miguel de Icaza">Miguel de Icaza</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Mena" title="Federico Mena">Federico Mena</a> to provide an alternative to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE" title="KDE">KDE</a>.<br/>

KDE is a free software desktop environment that relies on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_toolkit" title="Qt toolkit">Qt</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget_toolkit" title="Widget toolkit">toolkit</a> — a piece of software written by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolltech" title="Trolltech">Trolltech</a> that did not use a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_license" title="Free software license">free software license</a>.
Members of the GNU project became concerned about the use of such a
toolkit for building a free software desktop and applications and
launched two projects: "Harmony", to create a replacement for the Qt
libraries, and the GNOME project to create a new desktop without Qt and
built entirely on top of free software.<span class="reference"><sup id="ref_harmonyandgnome" class="plainlinksneverexpand"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#endnote_harmonyandgnome" class="external autonumber" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#endnote harmonyandgnome">[2]</a></sup></span><br/>

In November 1998, the QT toolkit was licensed under the open source <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Public_License" title="Q Public License">Q Public License</a> (QPL), but debate continued about compatibility with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License" title="GNU General Public License">GNU General Public License</a> (GPL). In September 2000, Trolltech made the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux" title="GNU/Linux">GNU/Linux</a>
version of the Qt libraries available under the GPL, in addition to the
QPL, thereby removing most of the objections that had fuelled years of
licensing debates.<span class="reference"><sup id="ref_gplcompat" class="plainlinksneverexpand"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#endnote_gplcompat" class="external autonumber" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#endnote gplcompat">[3]</a></sup></span>
The licensing of Qt is still controversial for some people because the
use of the GPL for a library imposes restrictions on the licensing of
code <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linker" title="Linker">linking</a> to it, including the KDE framework and any applications written for it. In particular, in order to develop <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software" title="Proprietary software">proprietary software</a> with KDE and Qt, it is necessary to purchase a commercial license from Trolltech.<br/>


In place of the Qt toolkit, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP_Toolkit" title="GIMP Toolkit">GIMP Toolkit</a> (GTK+) was chosen as the base of the GNOME desktop. GTK+ uses the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_Public_License" title="GNU Lesser Public License">GNU Lesser Public License</a>
(LGPL), a free software license that allows software linking to it,
such as applications written for GNOME, to use almost any license.<span class="reference"><sup id="ref_reverseengineering" class="plainlinksneverexpand"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#endnote_reverseengineering" class="external autonumber" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME#endnote reverseengineering">[4]</a></sup></span>
The GNOME desktop itself is licensed under the LGPL for its libraries,
and the GPL for applications that are part of the GNOME project itself.<br/>

The GNOME desktop is written in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_programming_language" title="C programming language">C programming language</a>. A number of language bindings are available, allowing GNOME applications to be written in a variety of languages, such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Plus_Plus" title="C Plus Plus">C++</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_programming_language" title="Java programming language">Java</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_programming_language" title="Ruby programming language">Ruby</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Sharp" title="C Sharp">C#</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_programming_language" title="Python programming language">Python</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl" title="Perl">Perl</a> and many others.<br>
<br/>
----<br>
So I think that is a pretty good summary of Gnome's history, but my
question to the community, how objectionable is the Trolltech license
today?&nbsp; Regardless of the state of each desktop environment, is it
better to support Gnome since it is truly free and, in part because of
this, will provide a better platform to build on for the future?&nbsp;
I've heard GTK+ is improving rapidly (since this was a weakpoint of
Gnome compared to KDE for development) and that GTK+ 2 is around the
corner with various improvements (although no backward
compatibility).&nbsp; <br>
<br/>
<br>
I'm using Gnome now and will support it and encourage others to use it
almost entirely on the basis that the licensing is better than KDE,
although the fact it is community developed and improving rapidly are
also key factors.&nbsp; Do others agree with this, or do they believe
the licensing of the Qt toolkit is not of that much importance?<br>
<br/>
<br>
]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2463#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2463</guid>
            <pubDate>Fri, 9 Sep 2005 14:50:00 PDT</pubDate>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>ancient laptop adventure</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2458</link>
            <dc:creator>Josiah</dc:creator>
            <description>I should probably mention here my recent adventure installing linux
onto my laptop. I apologize in advance for my short, choppy sentences
and confusing tenses. I normally write in the present tense. If you
can&#39;t stomach profanity, I offer a mild apology. I try to moderate
myself, but I&#39;m not always good at it.  
 
Ancient Fujitsu LifeBook 530T, circa 1996. Nothing other than the
default apps installed except for a demo of some silly game. Norton AV
physically removed but not uninstalled...</description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[I should probably mention here my recent adventure installing linux
onto my laptop. I apologize in advance for my short, choppy sentences
and confusing tenses. I normally write in the present tense. If you
can't stomach profanity, I offer a mild apology. I try to moderate
myself, but I'm not always good at it. <br>
<br>
Ancient Fujitsu LifeBook 530T, circa 1996. Nothing other than the
default apps installed except for a demo of some silly game. Norton AV
physically removed but not uninstalled. Win95 in all its glory. CD Rom
drive , no floppy drive, no USB drive (1996! you gotta be kidding!),
internal modem, no network card. 1.3 Gb hard drive. Not much RAM (I'm
not currently remembering how much). I should mention that such
experiments are not for the faint of heart. Installing onto
sufficiently old hardware, especially laptops, can be a frustrating
experience. It might work, it might turn the computer into a brick.
Fortunately this computer was free (for me, anyway... I think that in
1996, this may have been state of the art).<br>
<br>
The original owners were friends of my grandmother. They wanted to
throw it away. She wanted to see if one of us kids could use it. <br>
<br>
First thing I want to try is a Live CD. Since I'm a musician, I like to
have a dyne:bolic CD around. Pop it in, reboot. Boots to Windows. Check
BIOS settings. Asks for password. Damn thing is locked. Boot Windows
again. Look through the contents of the dyne:bolic CD to see if there
is a way to load linux from DOS (I'd remembered reading something like
this on their website once). Found Loadlin. <br>
<br>
After several reboots and the problems that led to them, I successfully
run loadlin. Kernel panic. Swearing ensues. Decide to examine the guts
of the computer to see where the battery is so that I can reset the
BIOS. I take it apart once, tentatively. I've never done something like
this before. Put it back together after finding no battery. Try loadlin
again, but with the Debian disk. Debian installer needs too much
memory?! Damn ancient laptop! Not enough memory to run the Debian
installer from DOS!<br>
<br>
Try taking the thing apart again. Find new screws to unscrew. Take it
more apart than I need to, fully removing the keyboard, afraid that I
may not be able to get the tabs back together properly. Damned battery
is soldered. Since I don't solder, I leave it, consider other options.<br>
<br>
Boot back to Windows, since this is the only way I can figure out how
to get the damned computer to recognize the CD Rom. There's got to be a
way to not have to boot Windows. I hate having to look at it. Call the
brother, leave an urgent -- but not desperate -- sounding message. Call
another friend who is able to offer sympathy, but can't understand why
on earth I'm wasting my time like this, who advises me to edit the
autoexec.bat and config.sys files. Shit. Google offers little help, and
my 4am brain isn't making matters any better.<br>
<br>
I think at this point, I recognized that there were things I would want
to install that come on Debian disk 2, and began downloading it. <br>
<br>
A day or two passes.<br>
<br>
Eventually, the brother comes over. Probably to drop me off after
climbing at the gym. Looks at it, wonders why the autoexec.bat comments
out the cdrom drive. Now, at least, no more having to load Windows just
to access the CD Rom. <br>
<br>
Memory comes to the rescue. I have a Slackware disk lying around somewhere. I root around my room and find it. <br>
<br>
Using my recently-acquired Loadlin know-how, I easily load the
Slackware installer. Not looking forward to trying to configure x11.
There is an installer kernel for low memory situations. This is a low
memory situation. <br>
<br>
I install a base system with far more than I need. Every few packages
fails. I try installing again. Same problem, but different packages
fail. Try again, with minimal choices, but keeping X11. Fewer packages
fail, none important, but including an X11 app or two... I can
reinstall those. Installation succeeds, reboot. Wait. If it's fucked,
this has been a waste of hours and hours of my life. At least the
damned thing was free.<br>
<br>
Boots. There are very few things more satisfying than the first login
prompt of a recently installed OS. Ok, that's a lie. There are a lot of
much more satisfying things. But this time was more satisfying than any
other. I bask in my own glory for a few moments. <br>
<br>
Run startx. As lucky as I expected to be. It crashes. Complains about
pointer devices, displays, and many other issues. Since this is the
exact thing I didn't feel like doing from the beginning (lazy me), I
modify the Lilo config file to include the Debian CD. Forget to run
/sbin/lilo. Reboot. Slackware loads. Dumbshit. Run /sbin/lilo. Reboot.
Debian installer runs! Not too little memory now!<br>
<br>
Debian installer goes without problems. I obsess a little too long over
how to partition the drive. Base system installs without a hitch. First
reboot, no problem. This is a little eerie. Ok, one problem. Debian,
for some silly reason, changes the console font. Now it's harder to
read. But at least I have a Debian laptop. Install X11 and windowmaker
(what can I say, I like windowmaker), answer debconf's questions about
the hardware. Run startx. I have a working gui!<br>
<br>
At this point, I have three disks of the Debian repository (out of,
what, 14?). A few packages I'd like to install, but am not interested
in wasting another platter for the total of six or twelve packages that
would end up being installed. I'll buy a cheap ethernet or wireless
adaptor that's known to work with linux, install them then. I have some
minor, but odd, questions for the Debian community. Namely: <br>
<br>
Why is the ASClock themes package on disk 3, but ASClock is on disk 4. ASClock themes are useless without ASClock. <br>
<br>
Similarly, Why can I install freeciv-data (on disk 3), but not freeciv (on disk 4)? Same problem. <br>
<br>
I know the actual reasons for this (the popularity-contest package that
lets the debian developers know what's most popular, so what should be
on the earlier disks), but still. Useless is still useless. <br>
<br>
But. The damn thing works. As soon as I can get it hooked up to the
internet, I'll install LilyPond and ASClock. Freeciv if I have space
available. (Hell, if I have time available!)<br>
<br>
<br>
]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2458#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2458</guid>
            <pubDate>Fri, 9 Sep 2005 00:52:00 PDT</pubDate>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>Keeping your linux distros straight</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2373</link>
            <dc:creator>Jet</dc:creator>
            <description>Just for those who don&#39;t already know about it, this is a great website with updates on all the different linux flavors - http://distrowatch.com/ As you can see on the right side, Ubuntu has rapidly vaulted to the #1 place for visits to the distrowatch website, wich is probably a decent measure of &quot;home user&quot; installations of Ubuntu.&amp;nbsp; I am now running Ubuntu and highly recommend it to all.&amp;nbsp; The Unofficial Ubuntu Guide http://ubuntuguide.org/&amp;nbsp; also rocks and the community behind...</description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[Just for those who don't already know about it, this is a great website with updates on all the different linux flavors -<br>http://distrowatch.com/<br>As you can see on the right side, Ubuntu has rapidly vaulted to the #1 place for visits to the distrowatch website, wich is probably a decent measure of "home user" installations of Ubuntu.&nbsp; I am now running Ubuntu and highly recommend it to all.&nbsp; The Unofficial Ubuntu Guide http://ubuntuguide.org/&nbsp; also rocks and the community behind Ubuntu is awesome.&nbsp; Just my 2 cents on my favorite distro.<br>Jet<br>]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2373#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2373</guid>
            <pubDate>Fri, 26 Aug 2005 18:07:00 PDT</pubDate>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>corporate</title>
            <link>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2343</link>
            <dc:creator>Thais</dc:creator>
            <description> After I clicked join this group I was just waiting for corporate security to come get me.... </description>
            <content:encoded><![CDATA[After I clicked join this group I was just waiting for corporate security to come get me....<br/>]]></content:encoded>
            <category>personal rants</category>
            <comments>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2343#comments</comments>
            <guid>http://www.zoji.com/penguinista/blogs/2343</guid>
            <pubDate>Mon, 22 Aug 2005 11:52:00 PDT</pubDate>
        </item>
    </channel>
</rss>

