Distance to the Linux desktop

I want to preface this rant (and it’s going to be a rant) with some background. I do this not trumpet my own experience , but to point out that I’m not ranting because I’m not capable. I’ve been playing with (and programming) computers for about 25 years. I ran my first Unix-based computer 17 years ago, started using Linux 12 years ago, and worked as a professional system administrator on Unix systems for over a decade. For everyday of the last 12 years I’ve had a personal unix server running in my home. Which is to say that I’ve got skillz. I fear no command line, and I can fsck with the best.

The failure of Linux is that there is no practical way for an average person to use Linux as their desktop. If a user encounters a problem, there is no source they can reliably turn for support. My particular rant addresses one such instance, but there are more, many more.
Over the last year I abandoned Windows on all my machines, eventually landing on Ubuntu for both my spare laptop and the prototype MythHDTV setup. Overall getting both systems up and running was relatively painless — except for wireless access. The house uses an 802.11g wireless access point running WPA encryption; nothing too exotic (ok, we don’t broadcast our SSID, but I’m flexible on that). But my attempts to bring these two systems onto the wireless network met with failure at every turn. The laptop has an Atheros 5212 chipset, supported by the madwifi open-source, as well as, BSD wireless drivers. In neither case could I get the system to associate with the base-station (iwconfig, iwpriv, wpa_supplicant not withstanding). On the MythHDTV (built from my Shuttle) the built-in adapter doesn’t support WPA (with or without wpa_supplicant), and the two external usb adapters I tried wouldn’t connect with the basestation using open source drivers or ndiswrapper.

After 2 months of wasted effort I’ve finally capitulated. The little laptop is now running FreeBSD 6.2, which was more tedious to setup for Gnome, but had wireless working in minutes. And I’m about to order a wireless bridge for the MythTV box, since I can’t reliably find a wireless adapter that works under Linux.

I know that part of the problem lies with the vendors, cost cutting measures mean that they’re using runtime loaded firmware in the devices (which is going to be a problem for more and more types of devices) and Linux (or Mac) support isn’t high on their lists. But there is a large portion of the blame that can be placed on the Linux community. I spent hours scouring the net looking for information to help diagnose/fix the wireless configuration on the systems to no avail. There is no single source (or even a reliable set of sources) of diagnostic support. When there is a clue how to proceed it’s poorly documented, and often incorrect or incomplete. But more glaringly the Linux community seems to have lost sight of the practicality of using computers. It’s not just good enough to mimic the features of a commercial OS, the experience of using the system has to accessible to the average person.

Why isn’t there a web-based diagnostic center for Linux users? A tool that walks users step-by-step through diagnosing and fixing problems with their system. A single, interactive, knowledge-based solution for supporting real users with real problems using Linux. No stale links to external sites, no referring to out-of-date how-to’s and broken message boards. Until such a tool (or it’s functional equivalent) exists, Linux on every desktop is a long way away.

Week 3: It all goes down the tubes

After starting off with 2 great weeks on the 101 things list, week 3 was a disaster.

I should start off by pointing out that:

  1. I’m sick (flu-like symptoms, and I spent most of the week running mild fever)
  2. I had a colleague in town, so I had to go to the office everyday
  3. I’m sick and I hate being sick
  4. I spent a lot of time eating junk to make me feel better about being sick
  5. Did I mention that I’m sick
  6. My foot is now in pain from what I can only guess is metabolic arthritis (better known as gout)
  7. I’m sick (and tired of being sick)

I’ve known since high school that I’m prone to gout, but attacks are pretty infrequent (although it’s been more frequent since I started grad school). I think this is the third or forth attack in 6 years. If I watch my diet it seems to be OK, but I think the combination of being sick, dehydration caused by being sick, and crappy diet (also caused by illness) has led to a flare up. I’m currently lying in bed, foot propped up, trying to down as much water as possible.
But enough whining; here’s the update. Nothing from list was actually completed this week. I made some marginal progress on a couple of items, but slid on others. First the bad news… I missed breakfast everyday last week and didn’t manage to do any walking, so I have to reset the counters on #42 and #48.

In the not that bad column, the illness conspired to keep my binge eating from totally derailing my weight-loss goals (#47), so I ended the week where I started at 248 lbs.

As far as progress, a big pot of basil chicken chili (recipe forthcoming after some tweaking) managed to keep me on track with the cooking by providing lots of leftovers. I rounded out my weeks cooking duties with a bunch of tquick and simple meals to squeak by with just 4 meals cooked. But hey, it’s counts. Three weeks of cooking down, approximately 22 to go.

The good part about being in bed is that it’s pretty easy to watch movies. I saw Tom Yum Goong (the Protector in the US) on DVD, but have decided not to count it on the foreign language movie list since large sections are in English. A bit of a film noir streak took 3 more movies of Ebert’s 102 (#66).

remaining: 95 items, 90 movies, 49 lbs. in the next 980 days.

Week #2

Time (actually very late) for another update on the 101 things list.

I sent my Rolleiflex camera in for service (#55), it works out that the taking lens has a small chip in it (grrr…), but apparently it’s pretty minor, and I went ahead and approved the repairs to the mechanicals (shutter and transport overhaul as weil as a new hi-lux focusing screen). Total bill $456, and an 11 week turn-around… Well I don’t use that camera often anyway.

Most of this week’s activities centered around small-scale financial housekeeping. I’ve already posted about the portfolio diversification (#88).

I finally bothered getting rid of long-distance service to the house (#80). Attempts to cancel through AT&T (our actual long-distance provider), led to hours on hold and finally being told that I had to contact my local provider to cancel my LD service (huh?). So back on hold to get Verizon (which wasn’t too bad), and continually turning down enhanced Verizon services (long distance, regional toll, DSL, DirectTV, etc), and we’re no longer paying for long-distance service on our landline (which pretty much exists for a DSL endpoint and 911 service).

CraigsList came through with a quick sale for my old G4 Powerbook (#91). My sale ad (for about $100 less than the going price) produced a bunch of prospective buyers, and this time I only had to deal with 2 no-shows to find an actual honest to god party interested in actually buying the laptop. He bought the laptop, but only one of the 1GB memory chips, so I still have an extra GB laying around.

I only managed to watch 2 movies from the 102 list this week, but got out to the theater and saw Curse of the Golden Flower, which means I’ve covered 1 movie in a foreign language.

Walked on 3 days this week for a total of 2 hours, and continued eating breakfast (6 days this week) and cooking meals (5 days). Overall things are going pretty well. The only real setback came over the weekend. One of my fellow graduate students finally finished up his Ph.D after a significant amount of time. The resulting parties (going away and oddly enough his 34th birthday), meant that I spent lots of time in bars and restaurants, and the scale showed it. I tipped the scales at 248 lbs, up 3 lbs from last week, and not a good sign.
remaining: 95 items, 93 movies, 49 lbs. in the next 987 days.

Global warming…

I can’t believe that some boneheads in a school district placed absurd restrictions on showing ‘An Inconvenient Truth‘ just because global warming is a theory. For christ’s sake it’s 63 degrees in the middle of January and I only live about 100 miles south of Valley Forge (you remember the place where the Revolutionary Army was almost defeated by the frigid winter), we had better start looking for solutions instead of humoring paid shills for the oil companies in their attempts to continue our absurd energy policies.

On a related note, when will school board members (and journalists) be forced to pass a 6th grade science class so they know the difference between a scientific hypothesis, scientific theory, and a scientific law? The article includes this statement from the school board president Ed Barney:

Asked whether an alternative explanation for evolution should be presented by teachers, Barney said it would be appropriate to tell students that other beliefs exist. “It’s only a theory,” he said.

Moron.

Diversification

After many (profitable) years of having a completely tech-driven portfolio, I finally chickened out and diversified my holdings. It’s still tech heavy, and I’m continuing to emphasize growth stocks, but there should be somewhat less risk overall. Here’s a bit of eye-candy on my current allocations.

by Industry

Stock Allocation by Industry

by Region of the World

Stock Allocation by Region

There’s still some tinkering to do, but there are some trading limitations I have to work around to finalize the portfolio for the next year or two. I should probably also look for more diversification opportunities, but — gosh darn it — things have been humming along for the last 4 years, and I’m not really in the mood to mess with success too much.

On the other hand, if anyone has any good stock advice, I’m perfectly willing to accept investment tips 😉

Skiing (at last)

With the past couple of days being cooler than the recent (globally warmed) trend, I managed to head out to Deep Creek Lake for a little skiing at Wisp. Temperatures stayed mostiy in the high 30’s to low 40’s and snow conditions were pretty good considering the high temperatures over the last month. Wisp managed to open about 40-45% of the trails (mostly on the front face).

I’m clearly not skiing at the level I managed to attain on the last couple of days at Killington last year, and I’m afraid if I don’t manage to get out more often this winter, I’ll erase the recovered skills I gained after my 5 years hiatus.

(sigh) I should have put more skiing on the 101 things list

Beginning of the New Year

Just a quick update after one week of the New Year, and 1001 days. With 7 days down, I’ve managed to knock-off a couple of minor items from the 101, mostly just buying small stuff around the house. A quck trip to Ikea and the local big-box home stores yielded a $50 faux-persian rug for the living room (#81), as well as five plants for my room (#83). I also took the liberty of starting an herb garden, it’s not on the list, but I figured it was a good thing to knock out while messing with plants in general.

In terms of some of the longer term goals, I managed to knock off 7 movies from the 102 (let’s face it this one is going to be cake), and I’ve managed breakfast everyday (although one was a frozen dinner, which I’m not counting). I also managed to make dinner 4 times, and ate leftovers once, so 5 homecooked meals. (I should ammend #41 to, “4 home-cooked meals a week”, since I’m counting left-overs). My current weight is 245 lbs., down 5 from a couple of weeks ago, and about 20 lbs. lighter than my max in the fall of 2005.

I had tried to get the dentist thing out of the way, and went to an appointment with a nearby office. Let’s just say I’ve never felt like I was being railroaded so hard outside of a used car lot. Needless to say I’m not going back, and I’m still looking for a good dentist. Hopefully I can knock out that item in the next week or two.

So the current stats are:

99 items, 95 movies, 46 lbs. in the next 994 days.

Stay tuned, it’s going to get interesting soon… (I hope).

101 things in 1001 days

My list of 101 things in 1001 days. Officially started 1/1/07, and due 9/28/09. It’s currently in random loosely organized order, and I’m not positive about all of the items. It was harder than I imagined to come up with this whole list, and I’m not sure I can pull off all this stuff in just 1001 days. I might revise some of the lame or vague items. I’ll definately go through and reorganize the list sometime in the near future.

  1. Volunteer at a shelter for at least one holiday
  2. Give blood
  3. Teach someone a skill
  4. Obtain Bareboat Cruising Certification
  5. Skydive
  6. Ride in a hot air ballon
  7. Ski out west
  8. Go camping 3 times
  9. Try a new sport
  10. Go fishing
  11. Go swimming
  12. Fly a kite
  13. Learn to juggle clubs
  14. Get a punching bag
  15. Learn to surf
  16. Learn to ride a horse
  17. Learn to play the guitar
  18. Learn to Foxtrot
  19. Learn to shoot a gun
  20. Learn to weld
  21. Learn digital electronics
  22. Build a eeprom/pic Programmer
  23. Write my dissertation / earn my Ph.d
  24. Write and publish 3 papers
  25. Write my CV
  26. Learn a new programming language
  27. Write and distribute a piece of software
  28. Clean out my inbox (again) (1/5/07)
  29. Write a story
  30. Implement GTD for at least 3 months
  31. See a mountain stage of the Tour de France
  32. Visit Germany
  33. Visit Austria
  34. Visit Peru
  35. Visit the new Googleplex
  36. Wander in new city
  37. Visit 3 State Parks
  38. Get in touch with 3 old friends
  39. Visit Jen and her family
  40. Visit Niv and meet her baby
  41. Cook at least 4 meals a week for 6 months
  42. Eat breakfast at least 4 days a week for 6 months
  43. Drink wine at least twice a month for 6 months
  44. Attend Sarge at least 3 days a week for 6 months
  45. Lower my blood pressure (need measureable goals here)
  46. Lower my cholesterol by 20%
  47. Weigh less than 200 lbs.
  48. Walk at least 3 days a week for 6 months
  49. Hike part of the Appalachain Trail
  50. Bike on the Eastern Shore
  51. Pedal 5000 miles (indoors or out)
  52. Ride a Century
  53. Complete a 20K run
  54. Bench 140 lbs.
  55. Send the Rollei for servicing (1/10/07)
  56. Send the Leica for servicing
  57. Print and hang 7 of my photos
  58. Take 500 photos
  59. Sell at least one photo
  60. Go to a Terrapin Photo Club Meeting
  61. 101 new photoblog entries
  62. 101 new blog entries
  63. Re-do the blog theme
  64. Read at least 25 novels
  65. Clear the backlog of books next to my bed
  66. See Ebert’s ‘102 Movies You Must See’
  67. See 3 documentary films
  68. See 3 films in different foreign languages
  69. See a play/show on campus
  70. See Cirque de Soleil: Love
  71. Try 3 new restaurants in DC
  72. Go on 10 dates
  73. Visit 3 new museums
  74. Update the house server
  75. Buy a real bedframe
  76. Hang drapes in the living room
  77. Finish the bathroom re-model
  78. Repair the fence
  79. Wire the house for cable/ethernet
  80. Cancel long distance service to the house
  81. Buy some plants for my room (1/7/07)
  82. Set up a 20+ gallon aquarium
  83. Get a colorful rug for the living room (1/7/07)
  84. Do some kind of housemate event/activity
  85. Store/get rid of all the random debris next to the stairs in my room
  86. Build a new desk
  87. Get rid of the old fridge
  88. Diversify my portfolio (at least 6 industries represented) (1/12/07)
  89. Create a budget and stick to it for one month
  90. Get FoodFit to stop billing me
  91. Sell my old Powerbook G4 (1/10/07)
  92. Sell the 1993 Corrado
  93. Sell/donate the extra cameras
  94. Get a motorcycle
  95. Find a new dentist and get a check-up
  96. Finish restoring the Twilight Zone pinball machine
  97. Post a description of my Schwinn Voyageur
  98. Build a new MythTV box
  99. Build a wooden ship model
  100. Finish one Infocom game
  101. Beat my computer at Go