Computer Perspectives

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Published on Tuesday, 16 May 2000 06:01
Written by David L Norris

Once upon a time I'd argue that the Unix system is better than certain other proprietary systems. Long before that I would've argued the exact opposite... Current iterations of those proprietary systems only serve to reinforce my belief; each new version offering little over the previous than cartoons to insult the user's intelligence and preinstalled spyware to "increase your productivity." They appeal to children in much the same way corny video-arcade games appealed to my generation. Douglas Adams explains the problem in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

 

...of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation products: 'it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all.' In other words - and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's galaxywide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.

 

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Special Characters on Linux and UNIX Systems: The Compose Key

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Published on Friday, 12 May 2006 23:23
Written by David L Norris

Have you ever wanted to spell jalapeño correctly but don't know how? Maybe you'd like to spell dæmon a little differently? What you want is the Compose Key!

The right hand meta key is often set as the Compose key. The meta keys often have a "Windows" logo on PC keyboards. UNIX system keyboards (e.g. Fujitsu Happy Hacking Keyboard) have a diamond symbol on the meta keys. Sun Type 5 keyboards also have a separate Compose key to the right of the right meta key. Compose works with all X11 applications.

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When will Linux be the best?

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Published on Monday, 21 March 2005 09:31
Written by David L Norris

Loaded questions similar to "When will Linux be the best?" and statements like "Linux will be the best when it does X exactly like Y." really irritate me. First, it presumes that exactly one thing can be the best for everything. Second, the author of such a question always points to Windows, MacOS, or another OS the author favors as the current example of best. But that's not really my point at all.

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Modern Desktop Linux & UNIX Systems

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Published on Friday, 21 January 2000 04:37
Written by David L Norris

The graphical user interface most commonly found on Linux and UNIX Systems is the the X Window System. The X Window System is a basic framework upon which a comprehensive desktop environment builds the windows, icons, menus and such that you interact with on your screen. There are several desktop environments in use on current Linux and UNIX Systems. The oldest desktop environment still commonly used by proprietary UNIX Systems is the Common Desktop Environment. The K Desktop Environment is also a popular environment. This article will focus entirely on GNOME, the GNU Network Object Model Environment used by popular Linux and UNIX Systems. GNOME is one of the most user friendly environments available.

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Why is Windows Buggy?

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Published on Wednesday, 03 May 2006 10:21
Written by David L Norris

Have you ever wondered why there are so many security bugs and viruses on Windows? Let me posit for a moment that it's because people who write software for Windows are swimming in a sea of incomprehensibility. Microsoft often apologizes with "Windows is more flexible than UNIX" when they compare the two. Right, it's more flexible. Of course it is. If by some chance you can actually understand how any of it works.

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Fake Windows Antivirus Scams

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Published on Saturday, 19 September 2009 16:35
Written by David L Norris

Fake Windows Antivirus Scams

Seems like any time you search for Facebook these days one of the top results sends you to a fake anti-malware website trying to trick you to install actualmalware. I suspect it looks pretty convincing to those people using Windows PCs. However, I'm running Ubuntu 9.04 on all of my computers rather than Windows. Ubuntu is a full UNIX-like operating system similar to MacOS X but based on Linux instead of Steve Jobs ego. So these things just look ridiculous to me. My computers look absolutely nothing like a Windows desktop.

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Beware DVDs, CDs created on Windows Vista

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Published on Monday, 03 November 2008 21:09
Written by David L Norris

Windows Vista uses a new DVD/CD format that nothing else supports. So, if you are making DVDs or CDs for friends on a Windows Vista machine then your friends probably won't be able to read it unless you've manually changed the disc writer settings to "Mastered" each time you burn a disc.
This is, of course, standard operating procedure for Microsoft: Introduce some new whizbang format (documents, disks, etc) into their latest products in an attempt to force the rest of the world to use their latest software. I don't care how much better someone at Microsoft thinks it is... If the rest of the world can't read the disc its nothing more than a worthless piece of aluminum foil glued to a coaster.
Update:Ubuntu Linux 8.10 can read LiveFS formatted discs.

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Linux & Vista Slow Internet

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Published on Monday, 25 August 2008 16:01
Written by David L Norris

If you are seeing slow Internet speeds under Linux (2.6.17 or newer) or Windows Vista make sure your router supports RFC 1323. If it does not then this is likely your problem. To fix it, upgrade or replace your router. RFC 1323 is a performance enhancement for TCP/IP networking which LInux and Vista support. Unfortunately, it seriously hurts performance if the network hardware doesn´t support it properly (or at all).

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Cluster Suite 5.2 DHCP Problems

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Published on Thursday, 16 April 2009 21:44
Written by David L Norris

Well, I learned another valuable clustering lesson today. Manually assign all of your IP addresses and do not rely on DHCP. I'd still suggest you have the IPs statically assigned on the DHCP server but don't rely on it at all.


Yesterday I rebooted all of the machines in the cluster simultaneously after making some extensive modifications to the iSCSI configuration on them all. (I'm using cluster-ssh to manage them all simultaneously.) All of the machines went down at exactly the same time and came up at exactly the same time. (They are identical hardware with identical software, afterall.)

Today, for whatever reason, when all of the leases expired at roughly the same time they didn't renew quickly enough. I walked out of a meeting this afternoon to all of the cluster nodes reporting "Quorum dissolved" and all services on the cluster were failed.