Closing Windows and Opening My Eyes Part III - My year with Ubuntu Linux

It’s been over a year since I decided to make my switch to Ubuntu Linux. In the beginning it was tough. Sacrifices had to be made. Driver issues had to be dealt with and navigating through the file system was about as fun as an evening with my folks. But, for every new environment there is an adjustment period. People who switch from Windows to to Apple's OS X have a learning curve. Every change takes some getting used to. I found this to be not much harder than most. In fact, most of my biggest problems came from the fact that I built my system. If i would have purchased a pre-configured, ited machine from System76 or Dell I probably wouldn’t have suffered through most of my biggest issues, which were driver related.

This is a brief timeline of the last year

Week 1 – Slow going, but fun. The novelty was fresh and it was awesome! Basic tasks were obvious enough to me such as Firefox (I prefer Chrome so I installed that instead), LibreOffice, Software Center, etc... System settings were painful to hunt through and some common menu items had different names which just took a little getting used to. Troubleshooting my video driver issues proved near impossible and I can count at least a dozen gray beard hairs that showed up during this time.

Month 1 - Basic tasks and settings began to make more sense. My CLI familiarity had grown. I could decipher a good portion of the man pages as needed and I was starting to remember some common options for commands I was regularly using like find and apt-get. Confidence was high., though I was still using the Widows 7 installation on my laptop for everything work related and even for some typical stuff. I had some issues with full screen Flash videos on Hulu so I would watch on my laptop or my Roku.

Month 3 - My overall basic skills were improving and I was starting to recall the locations names of log files and was getting the hang of commands like "grep", "find", using aptitude, and starting to figure out some basic scripting. I went for my Linux+ certification tests for the first time. Confidence no longer as high...

Month 6 - I got into a good rhythm with trying new software and forgetting about it when it got tough to deal with. I have to confess, I was also going through a bit of a lazy slump, which also accounts for my lack of posts until now.

1 Year –  Every day that goes by there is less of a reason to use Windows at all. Even when I work from home, I use Remmina remote desktop client to connect to my office computer over a VPN, only to use our ticketing system. I have been able to find an alternative for everything else I need and more.  Things like a free lab environment where I can teach myself all the basic principles of computing I would have to pay for and learn on someone else's time.  It's made me better at my job.
More importantly though, an average user get just as much use with the same amount of effort as they put in now. At the three month level I was comfortable doing everything a typical user would do throughout the course of a day with their computer.  It took another 6 months to begin to feel like a low level “Power User” and after a year, I am just about as comfortable as I am in Windows XP or 7. The networking/security side of things is another story., but I am still learning.

Linux is everywhere. 94% of the world's supercomputers use Linux. Google's Android operating system is based on Linux and almost every other tech company out there uses it. Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Salesforce and loads of others run Linux on their servers. It is unmatched for security, stability  and flexibility. The community support is excellent for the major desktop distros like Ubuntu and Mint. I think anyone, with a little bit of time, can use Linux at home. Why don't you give it a try.

Closing Windows and Opening My Eyes: Part II

Last september, I discovered the true beauty and power of the Linux OS through Ubuntu Linux 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot. I have spent the last few months systematically replacing my most used software for Windows with its Linux equivalent. To date, I have spent 99¢ on software and that was only for my TV, but, I’ll explain that shortly. The initial oohs and ahs were short lived. They quickly became replaced with expletives and fits of rage peppered with shouts of jubilation and excitement. Now I am beginning to see the end of the learning curve.

So far, I have created new brochures for my business [insert Fat Frog Networks plug here] with GIMP and Scribus, written and edited a few documents with LibreOffice, and rebuilt my lab environment with VirualBox. I've also built a Plex Media Server on some beefy decommissioned equipment from my job. This has been my favorite project so far.

I installed Ubuntu 11.10 64bit on my new (read:used) PowerEdge 850 in roughly half an hours time. Shortly thereafter I had installed and configured Plex Media Server. I downloaded the app for my GoogleTV for 99¢ and created a free MyPlex account in less than 5 minutes. Overall the initial setup took just over an hour. After I ripped my LoTR Two Towers DVDs and transferred them to my server I was off enjoying the fruits of my labor. Plex is super easy to configure and does an excellent job streaming high quality video without sucking up too much of my bandwidth. I haven’t tested to see how much it uses when I watch a flick, but I didn’t notice any reduced speed at all.

All of the awesome features I get for a little bit of work are not without their frustrations. For instance, I have learned to watch out for drivers. I purchased my system with an ATI Radeon 6700HD graphics card. The generic drivers weren’t a problem. I was able to use a dual extended monitor setup without any hassle. Then I installed the proprietary ATI drivers for my card and it became unusable. After months of searching forums for an answer there finally came an update that appears to have solved the issue. I still get some problems here and there with a service hanging, but I am not deterred.

Now, I’m not going to lie and say I never use my Windows 7 machine anymore. I still use it for things I need to do quickly and haven’t had a chance to test on Ubuntu. Also, I can’t sync my tablet without Samsung Kies, which isn’t supported on Linux. Despite the minor setbacks and temporary frustrations, I’m still absolutely convinced that Linux is a perfectly viable replacement for Windows for the home user.

Google TV: Not Just For Fanboys Anymore

GoogleTV

In December, I reviewed the Roku 2 XS here on FFTB. Since then I have continued to enjoy its excellent selection of original free programming as well as the paid programming available from providers like Netflix, and Hulu Plus. I am still a Google fan despite the recent privacy policy changes so I needed to see what Google TV was all about. I snagged the last 40” Sony TV powered by Google TV at Best Buy and brought it home looking forward to comparing it to my beloved Roku 2. I was expecting all of the things I read about Google TV to be too true and likely having to return it.

At first I thought Google TV was another option for those of us who were tired of paying for commercial after commercial stuffed into lackluster programming. What I got was something entirely different. What I got was an excellent solution for integrating traditional television services, DVR/TiVo, home media devices, and web content including the Chrome web browser all into one tidy and easy to navigate package. This device is clearly not a complete solution for the cord cutters out there, but it is a more powerful and encompassing solution for the mediaphiles out there.

The enhanced live television browsing provided by the native “TV and Movies” application also allows you to look at what is available to watch through pay services like Netflix and Amazon. You can apply filters to what you see available for viewing. This includes, Live TV, web streaming services compatible with the Android OS, and free or paid programming. It even grabs the digital OTA signal through my receiver and sorts the programs into categories for easy navigation. All of these features are even further enhanced by the integrated Google Search feature.

Sony did it right with the full qwerty keyboard on the controller. It maintains very similar functionality to a regular keyboard. This includes holding the Shift key for uppercase letters and Chrome keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+ T to open tabs and Ctrl+W to close them. The controller feels like it was designed to minimize the adjustment period and enhance the experience of the “10-foot UI” of the Android OS. It would be nice to be able to adjust the sensitivity of the tiny touch mouse to more aggressively move about the screen. As it is now, it takes a while to navigate with it across the 40” screen to the point where it is frequently faster to use the directional pad to select TV shows, movies or apps. The new controller for of the Google TV enabled Blu-ray player may be a an improvement on the original with a large touch pad on one side with a few buttons and a full keyboard on the other.

There are some definite drawbacks to the device. The amount of original content is a lacking in a big way, and there aren't as many apps as I would like to see available in the Android Market. Some of the apps I really like are Zillow, Classy Fireplace (which does exactly you think) and Pandora. I'm more than a little disappointed that Spotify isn't available, but I'll live. The absence of Hulu Plus is felt, but I think that If I had paid TV service with DVR or TiVo, I wouldn't miss it in the least.

Overall the GoogleTV is a powerful platform capable of doing much more than is currently available. The integration with OTA/Cable/FiOS TV is an awesome feature for those who haven't cut the cord from traditional TV providers. Apps Like PLEX for Android are great for those of us who have converted our DVD collection or download movies and TV shows.

The iRecycle App by Earth911 Inc. Shows You Where and When to Recycle All of Those Old Electronics You've Been Meaning to Get Rid of

I was looking for a place to drop off all of the outdated and broken bits and bobs laying around my office. I have a staggering collection of broken and outdated computer parts, from laptop and desktop parts to any kind of wire cable or cord imaginable. Salvaging working computer parts was something I always found useful. Every now and again I'd come across a sweet score like a spare video card or extra hard drive or stick of RAM, even a perfectly good DVD burner from a new machine that got zapped when lightning hit a house. Now, it seems, my scavenging ways are beginning to catch up with me.

Since my wife and I are looking buy a home in the next few months and I was tasked with getting rid of any old electronics I didn't need. By the time I sorted through it all, I cleared out about 70% of the crap I had laying around and it felt great. I minimized my office clutter and took an inventory of my working spare parts. The only problem, I have a big plastic storage container with all of this useless junk and I don't know what to do with it. I can't put it out with my recycling, they won't take it that way. Aside from being illegal, trashing it will just send it to a landfill, adding to the growing e-waste problem.

After a brief search, I found the iRecycle app by Earth911 and it's available for Android and iOS. iRecycle is an excellent resource to find locations for recycling any item imaginable. There are 12 main categories covering everything from automotive to construction materials to electronics and even paint. Each category has a considerable and specific list of subcategories. From there you enter your City and State and the search displays recycling centers in your area. This makes it easy to find places that recycle less common items. The interface is comfortably simple and easy to navigate and the GPS integration is great bonus. It is clear the people at Earth911 took great care preparing this app.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus.

This Christmas marked the very first return of a gift for me other than to trade up or down sizes of clothing. I was lucky enough to receive an iPad2 32Gb with wifi from my mom and step-dad, but as I'm not particularly impressed by Apple products, I decided to swap it out.

Playing with the iPad for a few hours throughout the weekend, I really tried to like it. I tried a few e-books, an episode or two of Married with Children on Netflix, but I just couldn't get into it. So I made the decision to swap it out for a smaller Android tablet and use the leftover cash towards a new TV for the living room. I took a trip to Best Buy and put fingerprints on all of the Android tablets they until finally, after a bit of deliberation and some ooh's and ahh's, decided on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus 16gb edition.

I drove home as fast as I could swerve in and out of traffic, laughing maniacally as raced from South Philly to Fishtown. Upon arriving home, I darted up to my Fortress of Nerditude and plugged in this sexy looking piece of machinery for its first charge. After a short amount of time, I heard the chirp which signaled the charge was complete. Finally I was ready to set this thing up. It was only about 2 minutes later, that I experienced my first disappointment. Now, I'm still a Linux newbie and should have probably been on the lookout for this, but... Samsung's sync software Kies(r) was not compatible with my system. No problem. I'll work around it. I should be able to do this via USB, right? After plugging the tablet into my PC running Ubuntu Oneiric, I couldn't view any of the mounted file system. It looks like I'll be doing any sync activities through my Windows machine. No big deal. However, I do take issue with the inability to charge via USB, not even for a slow charge. It would be nice to be able to sync and charge at the same time. Two birds, one stone blah blah blah. Not one make quick judgments, I decided to press on.

I really wanted to investigate the PEEL Smart Remote that interfaced with the built in IR transmitter to control my TV, STB, and DVD player. It seemed like a pretty cool option, but I was a little disappointed to learn that the initial setup requited a set top box and TV service. This essentially rendered the software useless to me, but from the reviews I read about it, it does look pretty useful if you have a FiOS or Digital Cable provider. I searched the Android App Store for a Roku remote and found a satisfactory one, but I barely use it. It's much easier to just grab the remote from the coffee table than it is to switch out of whatever I'm doing and open the remote and then switch back. This speaks somewhat more about the poor multitasking ability of tablet technology as a whole and less about the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus itself.

This thing is awesome for streaming video. Crappy selection aside, Netflix Instant Watch works extremely well. The picture quality is awesome and I haven't had any problems with the audio feed sync or choppy video. I'm a little sad that Hulu Plus doesn't support streaming to this device yet, but I'm patient. The YouTube app is decent enough and the experience is what I expected. I have the Plex App for my media server installed and watching The Goonies last night was awesome. I didn't have to leave my bed to find a DVD, or use my laptop form across the room on the nightstand.

The Amazon Kindle App works like a light weight version of the Kindle Fire. I've read a Star Wars Universe novel, a couple of tech books and downloaded a score of free literary classics. I wish I could port my Popular Mechanics subscription over, but oh well.

I'm impressed with the internal storage capacity even though it is only 16 gb. I have installed about 70 apps and haven't had a problem with running out of room. Among my favorite apps are Spotify, Pulse, RTFM (Linux Man Pages), and Evernote. Evernote is a recent discovery of mine. When I make notes for myself, or have an idea or momentary lapse of stupidity, I usually write it down on the closest piece of paper and then promptly lose it. For the last couple of weeks, I've been forcing myself to use Evernote. I;ve been able to maintain a solid collection of my thoughts and access them from my phone, tablet, PC and laptop. I like this app so much, I'll likely pay for it. When I run out of storage or have a need for some of the premium features like collaborative notes, larger storage or offline note history.

As a higher end “cheap tablet”, The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus has a great user experience. I even like Samsung's TouchWiz Android Skin. The interface is comfortable and easy to use. The graphics are smooth and give me the warm and fuzzy. Aside from the proprietary Cable and lack of Linux support for the Kies Wifi Sync, I'm very satisfied with this purchase. It's lightweight, feels nice in my hand and performs like I would have expected. The battery life is excellent, and I'm impressed with the quality of the streaming video.

As usual. If anyone have any thing to say about this post, please comment!

Closing Windows and Opening My Eyes – Part 1

Closing Windows and Opening My Eyes – Part 1

This is the first of a multi part blog post about my complete transition from Microsoft to the wonderful world of Linux and open source computing.

First, a little background...

For the last sixteen years I have been living in a Microsoft centric world. It started with Windows 3.1 and has spanned every version of the popular OS all the way up to Windows 7 on my Toshiba Satellite A665 Laptop. I became intrigued by Linux a few months back when I had a hard drive failure with that beloved laptop. Unfortunately, or rather, fortunately for me, Toshiba and their sub-par customer support required me to send the laptop in for service and wait 10 business days to get it back. I call shenanigans.

As usual when this kind of thing happens, my last backup was months old. I had since collected a large amount of work documents, hundreds of pictures from a recent road trip and was about a third of the way through ripping my DVD collection. Thinking back, I really should have seen it coming.

I absolutely did not want to be without a computer for 2 weeks and replacing a hard drive is well within my capabilities as an IT guy by trade. I made the decision to just shell out for a new hard drive and do the job myself (besides, I wanted to upgrade the drive since I bought it and this was as good an opportunity as any). I procured a replacement drive and using an old beater with some data recovery software I had laying around, got my data back.

Searching the house for my Windows 7 recovery discs and all of the documentation that came with my

laptop, I remembered that computers don't come with those any more. It was on a recovery partition on the hard disk which was now completely lifeless, so now I had to pay $25 for recovery media to be shipped from Toshiba and I wasn't happy. Fortunately, it would only take 5 days to get here, but this was still too long to be without. After a few expletives and beer or five to calm my frustration, I had an epiphany. UBUNTU!

I currently support a Linux based product at work which consists of the basic kernel and a few custom modules built for scanning of web and email traffic. So, I knew a little bit about the OS and its command line, how hard could this be? I have also in my travels needed to use Linux to retrieve lost computer passwords and files from a corrupt installation of Windows. Other than that, I was clueless to the true nature of this wonderful beast. After I received the recovery media, It took me weeks to reinstall Windows and I only did it because I needed it for work.

October came around and I had some spare cash and was in the market for a new desktop. I needed something that was going to last and had the juice to run a small virtual testing environment. I bought a moderately priced bare-bones PC kit from TigerDirect with a beefy set of specs and a pair of 22” LCD's, all for just under a $900. I didn't even think about buying a copy of Windows 7. As soon as I finished putting it together, I booted up the Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot Live CD and haven't looked back. I spent the first day or two customizing all of the settings and apps for the basic user experience I played around with the native Bit Torrent client, Transmission, and installed the Spotify for Linux Beta (awesome). I also played around with some media players and the like, customized the desktop, and attempted to fix the issue I had installing the drivers for my Rad eon 6770. Over the course of the next month I felt a renewed passion for computing. I wrote a post in November comparing Ubuntu 11.10 to Windows 7 and mistakenly said that it was not an operating system for the average home user just yet and needed to be improved upon further. I would like to take the opportunity to retract that portion of the post. I am now a firm believer that Linux is for everyone, though the learning curve is a little steep.

Since then, I have gone through Linux+ training courtesy of my employer and am gearing up to take the exams next week. I built a PLEX server, played around with RHEL5&6, CentOS, Debian and BackTrack, a flavor of Linux designed around penetration testing and security. I think it's safe to say that I'm hooked.

Coming up in Part 2, I'll take you through delights of having a media server that can stream music and movies to my Roku 2 XS, Android phone, and Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 Plus all without spending a dime.