Archive for December, 2009

GNU/Linux Migration in Munich is in Good Shape

There is an end-of-2009 article by Floschi that shows the migration has overcome all the obstacles and made good progress:

  • 2500 GNU/Linux clients spread over all 12 departments
  • 20000 ODF templates produced and ODF is the standard format for documents
  • FLOSS apps everywhere in use daily

It looks like most of the remaining work is grinding through installing GNU/Linux clients. Since everyone is now familiar with FLOSS apps, that should be fairly routine. It looks like 2010 will be a great year in Munich. The difficulty of the migration shows how great is the hold on IT due to monopoly. It shows that there is no time better than the present to escape monopoly.

The long-term benefits to Munich from this migration are obvious:

  • low licence fees forever
  • local control of everything
  • freedom to innovate
  • stable formats for documents
  • open standards for documents
  • low cost of maintenance because of thin clients and central management
  • less trouble with malware/security

It is clear they made the right choice. They are on time and under budget despite the best efforts of monopoly to lock them in. The effort they made will be repaid manyfold by a much more reliable and robust IT system. Congratulations are in order.

- Robert Pogson

Turkey

I tend not to follow recipes except to get an idea for some process of cooking. I have cooked a lot of turkey and follow a pattern, not a recipe. In my family, the man of the house usually cooks the turkey. Unfortunately, my son has not taken the vow. I am forced to offer my pattern to the world to pass it on to the next generation.

One can buy small or large turkey. I usually work with about 7 kg/15.5 pounds. These can be roasted stuffed or unstuffed. I think unstuffed is for whimps. Enough said. The stuffing soaks up the juices of the bird and is wonderful.

Ingredients:

  • heart, gizzard and neck of the turkey
  • various veggies like celery, onion, carrot, mushroom, bell peppers
  • various fruits like raisins, apple, zipper-skin orange
  • canola oil or butter
  • bread crumbs, croutons, toast or rice
  • spices: poultry seasoning, Mrs. Dash, black pepper, sage, garlic, etc.
  • an egg

I do not measure any of these. The objective is to fill the cavities of the bird and I have no measure of that, so why bother? Besides, measurement is for science and technology. This is cooking food, supplying primitive needs.

Process:

Saute stuff. Start with stuff that takes longer to cook: gizzard, heart, neck and tougher veggies. Add the more delicate veggies like mushrooms after a few minutes. Finally add the most delicate stuff, the orange sections and chips of apple. About the time the tougher stuff is well cooked, add the spices and stir for a few minutes. To cool the stuffing for stuffing, add the bread crumbs and egg and stir. Immediately insert into the cavities of the bird. If you have too much stuffing, remember to stuff the neck/crop area and push a bit. Tuck the neck in to plug the opening and tuck the legs over. Most of this is diced with a very sharp chef’s knife.

Roast at 325F for 20 minutes per pound, about five hours. I use a roasting pan and cover with a lid but aluminium foil also works in an open pan. Foil should be a bit loose around the bird. The bird should be thawed and lay on its back. Some uncover for the last 30 minutes. I do not bother. The bird is done when it smells very good and the legs will pull away easily.

Dip or pour out the drippings and combine with a bit of flour to make gravy. Boil/simmer for a few minutes with a small handful of flour.

Carve the bird while still quite hot but it may disintegrate if very hot. Cooling for 15 minutes or so may be helpful. I place white and dark meat on a platter with some order so those with preferences can find what they seek. After carving the breast, the breastbone may be lifted away to expose the stuffing which is scooped out into a bowl.

Repeat this process a few times a year and your life will be better. There are those who would not think of preparing or eating this repast without a dish of cranberry sauce or jelly, and others believe deeply that it must be followed with hot pumpkin pie smothered in cold maple-walnut ice-cream. Still others believe potatoes, peas and the like should be served along with the turkey. I think it is optional. The turkey is the thing that makes a family gathering complete.

No such meal is complete without leftovers. I love to dice white meat into soups or slice it into sandwiches. I put excess away in smaller freezer bags for special occasions between feasts. The bones, carcase and drippings are made into soup. Boiling allows the meat to leave the bones and the larger pieces can be diced. The stuffing is never left over… Enjoy. Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

- Robert Pogson

Christmas Shopping

I shopped mostly for groceries this Christmas as my Northern Store in the bush has few good deals: bananas and pizza were OK. I did check out some prices in retail IT, though:

  • Office 2007 (you know, the one with “the ribbon” gimmick) $750 for “ultimate” whatever
  • “7″ Home Premium $128

Isn’t it amazing that businesses will offer for sale such stuff? They are selling software at a higher price than my whole system cost and they are not including nearly as much stuff. One DVD. I get 3 DVDs with Debian GNU/Linux and it is stuff that I actually use. The same outfit will sell a PC box for $350 to which you can add monitor, keyboard and mouse for a total price about half what they are selling software from M$. What is a wise shopper going to do? I would buy two. Get one and give one if I were going to spend that kind of money.

For those who actually need a PC with guts, you can buy this stuff:

  • AMD64 X2 CPU AM3  – $75
  • motherboard AM3 with graphics – $100
  • RAM 8gB DDR3 – $300
  • Storage 500gB X 4 – $300
  • Beautiful case – $100
  • Debian GNU/Linux – $0
  • Keyboard and mouse – $25
  • Monitor – $125
  • Total – $1025

There it is, a complete system for about what the software costs with that other OS. FLOSS is one of life’s little bargains.

- Robert Pogson

Denial

All over the web are warnings that netbooks are doomed.

Uploading and editing still or moving pictures and handling audio all require far more power than the basic netbook offers

Ha! Another “essential app” for which few have any use. What is the difference whether one uses a 1 gHz processor or a 3 gHz processor? Three times longer. This is not a killer. This is a dandelion. 90% of what we do is text and still images. Netbooks can play audio just fine. The bottleneck to the Internet is a bigger problem. Lots of people wish they had something faster than dial-up. There is and will continue to be a market for netbooks, particularly in the emerging markets where a netbook makes a great first machine. In established markets, a netbook is likely to be a second machine or a thin client where a powerful CPU is not needed because we have powerful CPUs on our desktops and servers.

No. This is about wishful thinking by the monopolists who need high retail prices to hide the price of their part of the PC, CPUs and licences for software. If prices for netbooks rise, fewer will be sold. Fortunately entrepreneurs all over the world continue to make less expensive netbooks. ARM will dominate netbooks in 2010. You can trade a lot of day-long battery-life for some hair-drying CPUs anytime. The world needs long batter-life more than it needs more powerful netbooks. People love the light weight of these wonderful machines. People love their low cost. About 5% of new production units are netbooks and that will grow with the continued move to mobility. The small things without keyboards have a role but a netbook is so much easier to use they will always fill the gap between gadget and PC.

- Robert Pogson

Wireless? No Problem.

I configured a PC with GNU/Linux for the Science Lab here. Unfortunately, we found the cable outlet in the wall was dead or sick at least. It would connect/disconnect periodically. That made it easy to trace the faulty line all the way back to the rack but we still could not find the fault. We changed patch cables at both ends with no luck.

Until we get that fixed, I thought I would try wireless. I plugged in a D-Link DWL-G520 PCI card and it was immediately recognized by the ath5k driver. I installed wireless-tools and kwifimanager from Debian Lenny and we were on the air. I was pleasantly surprised. The naysayers had me half-convinced that wireless was still a problem. I have a stack of those cards on the shelf and I did not order them. My predecessor did for that other OS. Thank you, Atheros.

- Robert Pogson

SystemRescueCD Rocks

I have been using SystemRescueCD a lot lately:

  • resetting NT passwords
  • transferring disc images using ssh
  • testing RAM and hard drives
  • investigating drivers
  • investigating hardware

It’s just too useful… Tonight some visitors brought in a new PC with Vista. It was a compact machine with 2 gB RAM and AMD64 5000. It should have been a rocket but it was dog slow. They had an issue with getting Norton registered which turned out to be an incomplete download. I took the opportunity to show them GNU/Linux. They used it to fetch their e-mail without using any software running on that other OS. It was a novel concept… Then we used SystemRescueCD to run the GUI on their machine. It was obviously faster than Vista. They loved it. The only hardware not handled immediately was a winmodem. They are planning to move to satellite Internet access so that should not be a problem We found a driver but SystemRescueCD could not build it for want of headers. That could be fixed.

I took the opportunity to show off some GNU/Linux tricks my students will enjoy in the second semester. We should have the new server in production by then. It only needs a router configuration.

The evening was topped off by the Boss coming by to chat and get a demo. Everything worked but the thin clients would not connect again. The logs showed I had not set up /etc/hosts to recognize the new clients and X was worried about that… Fixed. The lab will be in production tomorrow when I have some spreadsheet work to do.

- Robert Pogson

Recipes. Recipes. Recipes.

Besides PCs, servers, GNU/Linux, thin clients etc. I do have a vice or two… One is cooking and eating what I cook. Unlike some, I don’t want a recipe to get in my way so I work in the fashion of the “Urban Peasant” and measure little and observe a lot. However, sometimes I want to throw something at someone who asks me for a recipe for what they have just eaten at my table or I want to see how others do things or how to use some ingredient. Books are heavy. Give me data any day.

The Internet is full of old recipes from the MealMaster days (DOS…). There are more than 100K at TheHoseys.com, for instance. There is also a neat programme called “AnyMeal” that comes with Debian GNU/Linux to slurp these up and to create a MySQL database of them.

apt-cache search anymeal -f
Package: anymeal
Priority: optional
Section: kde
Installed-Size: 1488
Maintainer: Sandro Tosi <matrixhasu@gmail.com>
Architecture: i386
Version: 0.30-7
Depends: kdelibs4c2a (>= 4:3.5.9), libc6 (>= 2.7-1), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1-21), libmagic1, libmysqlclient15off (>= 5.0.27-1), libqt3-mt (>= 3:3.3.8b), librecode0 (>= 3.6), libstdc++6 (>= 4.2.1-4), libxalan110, libxerces-c28, docbook-xsl
Filename: pool/main/a/anymeal/anymeal_0.30-7_i386.deb
Size: 468940
Description: A cookbook database for storing recipes
AnyMeal is a Linux recipe database software developed using MySQL and
XML. It can manage a cookbook with more than 100,000 recipes, thereby
allowing to search, display, edit, import and export them. AnyMeal is
designed to be lean and flexible.
Homepage: http://www.wedesoft.demon.co.uk/anymeal-api/
Tag: implemented-in::c++, qa::old-rc-bugs, qa::orphaned, role::program, uitoolkit::qt, use::storing

Working in schools, I feel databases belong on servers and should be accessed by web browsers, so I created an interface to the AnyMeal database in PHP so a simple LAMP server can do the job. Here’s what it looks like:
search_pagesearch_resultresults

OK, It’s not pretty. It’s the result that counts… I release this to you under the GPL v3 or Later licence, so you can use, examine, modify, distribute under the same terms, etc. So, you can change it if you want.

Here are the source files. I stripped out all the comments for execution.

searchr.php:

<?php

echo "<html>";
echo "<head><title>Recipe Search by R. Pogson</title></head><body bgcolor=aqua>";
echo "<H1>Robert's Recipe Search</H1>";
echo "<p>Search a database of 150000 recipes for free!\n";
echo "<p>Fill out this form with words and phrases for the title of the recipe and a single word for an ingredient. Use % instead of spaces between words<p>\n";
echo "<form action=\"recipe_search.php\" method=\"post\">";
echo "    Title:  <input type=\"text\" name=\"query\" ><br >";
echo "    Ingredient:  <input type=\"text\" name=\"query2\"><br>";
echo "    Limit on Hits: <input type=\"text\" name=\"limit\" value=\"50\"><br>";

echo "<p><input type=\"submit\" name=\"submit\" value=\"Submit me!\" ></form></body></html>";
?>

recipe_list.php
<?php
$DatabaseName = "anymeal";
$recipe = htmlspecialchars($_GET['ID']);

echo "<html><head><title>Listing of Recipe</title></head><body bgcolor=aqua>";
echo "ID=".$recipe;
$connection = @mysql_connect("localhost",'squidt5','blue57') or die("<B>Could not connect to
MySQL: </B>".mysql_error());
mysql_select_db($DatabaseName);
$sql = 'SELECT RECIPE.ID,RECIPE.TITLE FROM RECIPE WHERE RECIPE.ID ='.$recipe;

$result = @mysql_query($sql, $connection) or die("<B>(a)Problem reading from
database: </B>".mysql_error());

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
$data=$row['TITLE'];

print "<H1>".$data . "</h1><p>\n";
}
print "<h2>INGREDIENTS</h2><p>\n";
print "\n";
$sql="select NAME,format(AMOUNTNOMINATOR/AMOUNTDENOMINATOR,2) as qty,UNIT,PREP from INGREDIENT,EDIBLE where INGREDIENT.EDIBLEID=EDIBLE.ID AND RECIPEID=".$recipe;
$result = @mysql_query($sql, $connection) or die("<B>(b)Problem reading from
database: </B>".mysql_error());
print "<table border=1><tr><th>Ingredient</th><th>Quantity</th><th>Units</th><th>prep</th></tr>\n";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
$data="<td>" . $row['NAME']."</td><td>  ".$row['qty']." </td><td> ".$row['UNIT']." </td><td> ".$row['PREP'] . "</td>";

print "<tr>" . $data . "</tr>\n";
}
print "</table>\n";
$sql="select INSTRUCTIONS from INSTRUCTIONS where  RECIPEID=".$recipe;
$result = @mysql_query($sql, $connection) or die("<B>(c)Problem reading from
database: </B>".mysql_error());
print "<p>\n";
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
$data=$row['INSTRUCTIONS'];

print $data . "</body></html>\n";
}

?>

recipe_search.php
<?php
$DatabaseName = "anymeal";

print "<html><head><title>Recipe Search by R.Pogson</title></head><body bgcolor=aqua>\n";

$connection = @mysql_connect("localhost",'squidt5','blue57') or die("<B>Could not connect to
MySQL: </B>".mysql_error());
$query=$HTTP_POST_VARS['query'];
#echo "Test query=".$query;
$query2=$HTTP_POST_VARS['query2'];
$limit=$HTTP_POST_VARS['limit'];
mysql_select_db($DatabaseName);
$inputvar=substr(htmlentities($query),0,32);
$query=preg_replace('/[^\w\.\-\& ]/', '', $inputvar);
$inputvar=substr(htmlentities($query2),0,32);
$query2=preg_replace('/[^\w\.\-\& ]/', '', $inputvar);
#echo $query;
#echo $query2;
#echo $limit;
if ($query > "")
 {if ($query2 > "")
   {$sql = 'SELECT distinct `RECIPE`.`ID`, `RECIPE`.`TITLE`'.' FROM RECIPE,EDIBLE,INGREDIENT ' . ' WHERE (`RECIPE`.`TITLE` like \'%' . $query . '%\' AND INGREDIENT.RECIPEID=RECIPE.ID AND EDIBLE.ID=INGREDIENT.EDIBLEID AND EDIBLE.NAME like \'%'.$query2.'%\')' . ' ORDER BY `RECIPE`.`TITLE` ASC';
   }
     else
   {$sql = 'SELECT distinct `RECIPE`.`ID`, `RECIPE`.`TITLE`'.' FROM RECIPE ' . ' WHERE (`RECIPE`.`TITLE` like \'%' . $query . '%\' )' . ' ORDER BY `RECIPE`.`TITLE` ASC';}

 }
else

 {if ($query2 > "")
   {$sql = 'SELECT distinct `RECIPE`.`ID`, `RECIPE`.`TITLE`'.' FROM RECIPE,EDIBLE,INGREDIENT ' . ' WHERE ( INGREDIENT.RECIPEID=RECIPE.ID AND EDIBLE.ID=INGREDIENT.EDIBLEID AND EDIBLE.NAME like \'%'.$query2.'%\')' . ' ORDER BY `RECIPE`.`TITLE` ASC';
   }
  else
   {echo "Nothing to Find. Go Back";$done=true;}

 }

if ( $done)

{}

else 

{
$sql=$sql." limit 0,".$limit;

$result = @mysql_query($sql, $connection) or die("<B>Problem reading from
database: </B>".mysql_error());

$many=false;
$rownum=0;
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{

$rownum=$rownum+1;
$data=$row['ID'] . '  ' . $row['TITLE'];
if ($many) {} else {print "<table><tr><th></th><th><H2>Results</h2></th></tr></table>\n";};
print "<p><tr><td>".$rownum."</td><td> <a href=\"recipe_list.php?";
print "ID=" . $row['ID'] . "\">";
print $data . "</a></td></tr>\n";
$many = true;

}
}
if ($many) {echo "</table>";} else {echo "Nothing Found";};
print "</body></html>";
?>
- Robert Pogson

Pogson’s Predictions for 2010

I think it is clear that 2009 was the year of GNU/Linux on the desktop:

  • Most OEM’s supply units
  • Doing very well on netbooks
  • That will continue with ARM
  • Many plans are being made to migrate from XP to something and in many cases it is GNU/Linux
  • Even the most stodgy are giving GNU/Linux a look
  • No one can claim it is not ready
  • Virtualization continues the trend with thin clients and more
  • Cloud computing works with GNU/Linux

That’s water under the bridge. What can we look for in 2010? Here are my predicitions:

  1. ARM will cause large price moves for netbooks and other manner of PCs. There is nothing to stop this as price is a major pleaser for consumers. If established OEMs boycott ARM they will lose to dozens of smaller operators. With such narrow margins in hardware, no one can afford to lose anything to anybody. Acer has overtaken Dell. Will Dell be willing to stay at Second Fiddle? Acer is not afraid of the low-end market.
  2. Oracle+Sun will complete. What has this to do with the desktop? Servers and thin clients make the best desktops for most (but not all) tasks. Sun makes great servers and will continue to do that. SUN VirtualBox will work for many of the fancy virtual desktop scenarios now looking good. Thin clients will run this show and any OS will do. UNIX-like OS with shared memory for host+guest are optimal in performance. GNU/Linux on the terminal is a natural because there is no per-seat charge. Business at the large end see this now. The middle will see it in 2010. The competition will try to do the same.
  3. The Linux KVM will mature making sure GNU/Linux fits in all the virtualization tricks in 2010.
  4. AMD will awaken and realize it must innovate to take share from Intel. They did that when they went to 64bits. That was the right move towards share in servers and high-end desktops and HPC. They must innovate and get back into the 32bit game for thin-clients and small PCs. For the same reasons that 64bit makes sense, they should consider 24bit for the small format machines. They don’t need a gigabit of RAM to do the job sometimes. Maybe 24bit is extreme but less than 32 is not. This is a stretch as AMD shows no interest in small in 2009. They need to cut power/bits/die size to compete at the low end in 2010. Smaller dies are quicker to design. They could be in production by June of decent competition for Atom/Arm. In 2010, the low end will rule: netbooks, smart-whatevers, notebooks, thin clients all will want less-is-more hardware costing less and using less power. At 22nm, AMD could take serious share and grow a market in which Intel only dabbles. Intel has to protect the Wintel monopoly in which it has invested. AMD has nothing to lose from Wintel.
  5. VIA has had a hard hit this year as Atom pushed them out of netbooks with more power. VIA has to innovate by getting to higher resolution dies to increase productivity while cutting power and increasing speed a bit. They are a little too slow for netbooks at 400 MHz and too expensive for thin clients for $100 just for the motherboard. I predict they will find ways to cut prices while increasing volume in 2010. VIA can compete on price if GNU/Linux rides on top. Expect more partnerships with VIA working to distibute GNU/Linux on their kit.
  6. Intel will have to go to higher resolution to compete against AMD etc. on the low-end. Nothing prevents them from producing ARM chips for the low-end. They, like everyone else will need to use GNU/Linux to get the performance buyers want from low-end devices. They are predicting 32nm. In 2010 they will predict 22 nm and soon. ARM is very competitive now at 65nm.
  7. 2010 will be the year of the thin client. IBM, RedHat, Novell, HP, Dell and many others are positioned to supply thin clients in volume in 2010. Rate of increase in production has been high for years but now they are too useful to ignore. Large business will deploy many millions in 2010 just to get off the Wintel hardware treadmill. If they feel pressure to move from XP to new hardware, it makes sense to use thin clients. Then the OS on the thin client does not matter and GNU/Linux will be a cheaper solution.Thin client production will pass Mac production in 2010.
  8. SSD will be competitive on price performance with magneitic discs in 2010. They are superior in performance but still too expensive in 2009.
  9. There will be an anti-trust law suit filed against M$ in 2010 over GNU/Linux. Enough businesses selling GNU/Linux are losing enough money because M$ is campaigning against GNU/Linux that this is feasible. For example, when M$ provides training materials for retailers’ staff putting down GNU/Linux and denying a market for OEMs selling GNU/Linux, this is grounds for an anti-trust case. Same goes for prohibiting  benchmarking, selling same hardware with GNU/Linux and M$’s stuff, and revealing the cost of the OS.
  10. Several large US governments will convert to GNU/Linux thin clients in 2010. It just makes sense. The USA has supported M$ further than there is any duty or economic interest. Arguments of protecting US jobs ring hollow in the face of cointinually rising costs for malware, downtime, patching, etc. Taxpayers should have a say, too. They are tired of tax dollars flowing down the licensing funnel to M$. Munich may never pay another volume licence to M$. Why should NYC or LA?
  11. M$ will not show a rebound in the client division as long as it throws money at netbooks to keep out GNU/Linux. Ballmer will give up that battle with no long-term benefit to the company in 2010.
  12. The SCOTUS will throw out software patents in 2010 in support of the US constitution which provided copyright for published works and patents for inventions. Software is a published work, not an invention. It is a logical stream of instructions producible by anyone skilled in the art given the desired end-result.
- Robert Pogson

The Full-Moon_Effect

“Industry over-hype is preventing CIOs from achieving the benefits of desktop virtualisation and halting the move towards a fully virtualised desktop infrastructure. ” says Fujitsu.

Strange things happen under a full moon. People see things fly. People believe what others say somehow determines their future. How can over-hyping of desktop virtualization prevent a CIO from being on top of things and choosing a good solution for many of the problems that plague desktop IT?

  • maintenance
  • power consumption
  • malware
  • noise
  • space

Put it this way. Does any of the 60% of CIOs who think virtualized desktops are over-hyped have any rational basis for thinking that? I have been using thin clients for years and for the vast majority of uses of PCs I cannot think of anything a thick client can do better, cheaper and more easily than a thin client. Do you?

We have devilishly powerful CPUs now. Do we need them at every workstation, idling? No. They are an excellent solution for the server. Use them there. We have tons of cheap RAM now. Do we need it at every workstation? No. Use it on the server where it can run processes or cache files. We have 1000base-T cabling, NICs and switches at very low prices. They can bring it all together. We do not need everything in one box on a desk.

I wonder how these guys got to be CIOs. Maybe they married the boss’ daughter or were not fired for buying Wintel… What is overhyped is the benefit for IT of doing things the way Wintel wants things done to maximize profits for a few.

- Robert Pogson



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My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.

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