Recently I removed Fedora 10 from my Linux server at home and installed Ubuntu 9.10 Server. I did this partly because I was tired of finding packages that weren’t available on Fedora but were available in Ubuntu. Ironically I ended up trading one mess for another. Under Fedora I was compiling software that simply wasn’t available, but under Ubuntu I need to recompile the provided netatalk package in order to enable support for newer versions of OS X.

Netatalk is the Linux package for providing the native file sharing protocol to Macs and also provides better performance than Samba under most conditions. The missing feature in this case seems like quite the over site considering it makes the software virtually useless on networks with modern Macs as it prevents them from authenticating. Lucky for me, someone else has gone through the work of figuring out what it takes to get things working again.

The information is Debian/Ubuntu centric but you should be able to apply the same fix on other distributions. Here’s the link http://www.kremalicious.com/2008/06/ubuntu-as-mac-file-server-and-time-machine-volume/

I’ve switched hosts for my blog and if you’re seeing this then you’re seeing my site on the new host!

I recently tried to change my home directory on my Macbook to less than stellar results. In the end I couldn’t sign in to my one and only user account. Had I had another account I could have more easily fixed it, but without a second account here is one method you can follow.

Reboot your Mac and before the tone sounds press and hold command+s. This will tell OS X to load in single user mode, dropping you to a root shell. Next, type the following

DirectoryService &

and press enter. This will start a necessary service. Next, type the following

chfn

where username is the username you need to fix. An editor (vi) will load allowing you to change the home directory for that user. Edit the file and save the changes (search google if you’ve never used vi) and reboot the Mac by issuing the ‘reboot’ command. You should now be able to sign in to your once broken account.

For years we the consumer have demanded bigger and faster computers and for years we’ve gotten just that. Every month a new model is released that incrementally bumps up the specs a bit and satisfies that demand. Yesterday 17″ CRT monitors were an upgrade, today a 22″ widescreen LCD is common. Of course, software doesn’t just sit still either. Each new version of software finds some way of using your new hardware to the point where the net affect is virtually zero.

Recently however consumers decided they no longer wanted faster, they no longer wanted bigger. Suddenly they wanted small, portable and cheap. Enter the netbook.

The netbook, which was recently “defined” by Microsoft if you’re willing to accept it, is a small laptop like device with a 10.2″ or smaller screen and single core processor running at 2Ghz or less. Indeed, most netbooks today are powered by a 1.6Ghz Intel Atom processor and few have more than 1GB of ram. Early models usually came with a small SSD, maybe 16GB in size. One thing they all have in common is their size. They’re small. Smaller than a laptop but larger than a smart phone.

Size, ultimately, is why the netbook is destined to fail. The problem with the netbook is precisely because it is smaller than a laptop and yet bigger than a smart phone. It wants you to believe it can provide all of the capabilities of a laptop while being as portable as a smart phone. In reality it provides neither.

In order to be smaller and cheaper than a laptop a number of compromises have to be made. The keyboard is smaller and more difficult to use than a standard size keyboard. The touchpad and associated buttons are of lesser quality. Most netbooks I’ve come into contact with have glaring quality issues like buttons that feel unforgivably cheap or difficult to push. Couple the cramped keyboard with a netbook’s general lack of power and you’ve basically got a really large smart phone without the portability.

So if the netbook is so bad why does it exist at all? The netbook was born out of a desire for a small and inexpensive device that could be used to do basic internet tasks while on the go. At the time smart phones couldn’t provide the internet experience users were really looking for so boom, an even smaller laptop! The problem for the netbook is that the iPhone changed what a smart phone was expected to be capable of. The iPhone raised the bar for what a smart phone could do as internet device. Since then numerous others have made an effort to compete with the iPhone with varying degrees of success.

So what’s the point? The point is that with the improvements in smart phones the netbook now looks like the odd man out. It isn’t truly as portable as a smart phone. The moment you want to do something the latest (good) smart phones can’t do you’ll want to be on a full sized laptop or computer.

Oddly enough, improvements in the smart phone aren’t the only reason the netbook is destined to die. In the end, the consumer will be the reason the netbook slowly goes away. The netbook will follow the same track of any car ever made. Consumers will want the next version to be bigger and better the last until it is no longer what it started out as. Eventually the netbook will simply be like any other cheap laptop and the smart phone will replace it, if it hasn’t already.

I decided to download the Windows 7 Beta and I’ve gotten it installed on my laptop. I don’t have a lot of time into it but so far some of the things I’ve seen are big improvements to the disaster that is Vista. Along the way I’ve also unearthed some very obvious Apple envy, most of which is poorly implemented or thought out at this point.

One of my biggest gripes about Vista was the way you interacted with the networking hardware, specifically joining a wireless network. It seems like such a small thing but on a laptop it is something a person deals with on a nearly daily basis. Under Vista the process was overly complicated, convoluted even. The process required far more clicks than should be necessary to join a wireless network. Windows 7 actually copies OS X and provides a simple button near the click that when clicked, reveals a list of available wireless networks.

Windows 7 also sports a controversial new task bar. The new task bar strongly mimics the Dock from OS X in that it houses both running and non-running applications at the same time. Windows deviates from the OS X formula by intermixing application shortcuts with folder and document short cuts. I really haven’t spent enough time with the new task bar to really decide if I like it or not. I can say however that I like being able to hover over an icon and see all open windows complete with screen shot. This is actually a pretty nice feature.

So really, that about sums up what I really like so far. There are however a few things that don’t seem fully thought out.

One new feature is the ability to see through any open windows so you can see what is on the desktop. This is fine and all but typically a person doesn’t just want to see what is on the desktop, but probably wants to use something from the desktop as well. They also force you to place the shortcut in the lower right, or where ever you have your task bar positioned.

Another odd choice in Windows 7 is the decision to not include some very basic functionality by today’s standards. Windows 7 doesn’t provide, out of the box, any email or instant messaging clients. Even more bizarre is that Windows 7 doesn’t include Windows Movie Maker, but it does include Windows DVD Maker. Email, IM and Windows Movie Maker (among others) are available as part of an “essentials” package. If they’re so essential why not include them. As some might point out, Microsoft has gotten into some anti-trust trouble in the past for including these functions. Despite that, not including such basic functionality in today’s world seems inexcusable. Obviously OEM’s will most likely provide these functions for end users.

Despite my critical take on Windows 7 thus far, I actually like it much better than Vista. As I spend more time with it I’ll get a feel for some of the others things I didn’t like in Vista like Windows Explorer and UAC.

It is bound to happen at some point. You’ve installed the latest kernel or you’re attempting an upgrade and now your system just won’t boot. The screen shows nothing more than GRUB. If your system isn’t able to get past the GRUB prompt and it isn’t because of a hard drive failure then chances are very good that you can rescue your system. This routine will work best if you created a non LVM boot partition or if your rescue cd includes the LVM tools.

This post assumes you are running a RedHat or Fedora based system but the concepts apply to all systems that use grub to boot. It also assumes you have a relatively recent install cd.

To get started, insert your install cd. In my rescue scenario I used a CentOS install cd. When the install has loaded to the initial screen enter ‘linux rescue’ and press enter. The cd will boot like normal and ask about your preferred language and keyboard layout. Continue until you are asked if the rescue routine should find any installed systems. If your root directory exists in LVM you should say no, unless you the rescue cd you using includes LVM tools. It isn’t important to mount root anyway, just your boot partition.

When you are at a prompt, create a boot directory at / and mount your boot partition there. In a typical RedHat/Fedora setup it will be on /dev/[h|s]da1. Next, rename the current device.map files to some other name. We’re now ready to reinstall grub.

Type grub and press enter. You’ll now be in the grub interface. Type ‘root (hd0,0)’ and press enter. Next, type ‘setup (hd0)’ and press enter. Some text will flash by with, hopefully a success message. If you see success you should now be able to reboot into your Linux system.

Lately I’ve been talking a lot of talk about how great the Mac platform is. At work I go back and forth with a coworker on the merits of Linux and OS X. Of course he claims that Linux is all you need and I’m confident that the Mac is where it’s at. The reality is that OS X suffers its own set of issues which I have talked about in the past. No OS is perfect, just a matter of which one best fits your needs.

Anyway, through no fault of my own I managed to royally screw up my iTunes library to the point where some of the files were pointing to random objects in my backup drive. I have no idea how. At the same time my iPod Touch would simply not cooperate. Many files that I normally sync were listed as missing including over half of my largest play list which is still just a small subset of my entire collection.

So anyway, what’s my point right? My point is that I was able to save myself a ton of work simply because I turned on Time Machine.

Everybody says, “make sure you make a backup” but lets be serious, who actually does? This is one of the many reasons I claim OS X to be one of the best operating systems available for “normal” people. No other system that I am aware of provides such a simple, easy to use and surprisingly robust backup AND restore system. It is so easy you might actually forget it is there.

Restoring my iTunes library to normality was as easy as entering the Time Machine interface, going to the previous point in time, clicking the iTunes library files in my Music folder and clicking the restore button. Done deal. I plugged my iPod in and all of my files were copied back to it as if nothing had happened.

Linux now booting on the iPhone/iPod Touch, with video.

If you own an iPod Touch or iPhone and you the web at all make sure you upgrade to the latest firmware. I’ve always assumed it was a lack of CPU in the iPod Touch that caused larger and more complex sites to be so slow. Turns out Safari just needed to get fixed.

If you’ve spent any time at all on this site then you know that VIM is my preferred text editor. Even though I’ve been using it for years I still learn something new about the editor from time to time. Here is something that I just figured out a couple of weeks ago. It turns out VIM provides a simple way to repeat exactly what you last did. By simply pressing the period key, VIM will repeat whatever command -or- text you last entered.

For example, lets say you’re editing an HTML file that has a list of links. Before each link you want to add a generic image. You could do this a few ways; type in the text each time, use a search and replace or copy and paste. Using period is just one more method to add to your toolbox. To use this trick, enter INSERT mode by pressing i. Enter in the text you want to enter before each link (or whatever it is you need to repeat a few times) and when you’re done press ESC. Move to the next line and press the period key. Whatever you typed previously will be inserted to the right of the cursor. You can do this as often as you like but as soon as you delete a letter, line, insert different text or whatever the “period key” shortcut will begin to do that action instead.

Another way to use this is if you’re deleting lines of text over and over. Say you want to delete 10 rows of text at a time until you’ve deleted what ever it is you need to delete. You could press d 10 down arrow and then each time you press the period key you’ll repeat the same action.