I have been using Fedora since Fedora 4 and I am very happy with it and its many changes through the years however one distribution I have been watching closely is Ubuntu. With the release of 9.04 it seems Ubuntu has made huge strides to make Ubuntu idiot proof.
Do not be mislead I do not think of Ubuntu as a distribution for idiots, no I think the opposite. Ubuntu has made it a easy way for windows users to make an almost seamless transition to Linux with little down time in terms of Windows counterparts. I did run into a nagging issue with Ubuntu that used to be present with Fedora 7 however for some reason Fedora figured it out and 8-11 it has not existed Ubuntu however has pained me with this issue for several versions.
The issue summed up is this. I have a blue-tooth keyboard and mouse combo, when Ubuntu loads its bluez service it disables my keyboard and mouse due to not being paired (i am guessing) however thanks to Logitech”””’’s lovely proprietary Blue-tooth dongle Linux can not pair devices to it properly so I am left with no keyboard and no mouse forcing me to hook up a corded set.. Fedora some however accounted for users like me and ignores the blue-tooth dongle if it is one of the proprietary one and thus Linux uses the keyboard and mouse as though they were just a plain old wireless set.. Ubuntu will do this upon disabling bluez and to prevent it from reactivating on an update removing it all together. Solution find a way to disable blue-tooth at boot long enough to remove it.
Aside from the above issue Ubuntu has run very smooth for me and I found myself using it for a week and forgetting I was on a Linux machine. This is the jack pot when it comes to the new Linux User however Fedora 11 is not without its advantages either.
Some things I love about Fedora that may not be in Ubuntu for a while if at all are.
1) Presto – Allows for repositories to host delta rpms or drpms which are basicaly only the changes of an installed package meaning say a Open Office update that only changed a few lines would be 400kb instead of 100mb
2) Verbose booting – can be turned on in Ubuntu through a kernel argument at boot but not well known
3) More sane user control panel – Does not require adding users to groups only through the group you can add a user to a group while editing the user
4) It is less restricted out of the box – This is not a good thing for the new user however for people like me who like to mess around with stuff (and often break things) it works
5) Better community forum – Sorry Ubuntu users but to me the Fedora forum is more problem solving centric
6) NO BLUE TOOTH ISSUE!!
Some Ubuntu features I like
1) It just works
2) Stable and fast – Sadly faster then Fedora for some tasks others they are even
3) More developers seem to favor having apt based repos as apposed to yum based
4) Adobe AIR works 100% faster on Ubuntu (powers my new favorite app Seesmic Desktop)
5) Category5.tv – Granted this is not a feature of Ubuntu per say but the host Robbie Ferguson is your average Ubuntu guru. Thus giving this distro an extra point.
If I had to pick one of these distros to use as my main OS it would be a hard choice. I am so used to Fedora and how it works that I just love it but Ubuntu has definate advantages as well such as for 90% of the stuff just working.
I would have to pick Fedora just because i am a creature of habit. It does not hurt that I am also a Fedora Ambassador so I might be a little bias.
Bottom Line here and this is my honest opinion Fedora gets a 8 out of ten because it does what I like and seems very solid Ubuntu gets a 7.5 would get an 8 also if the damn Blue-tooth issue did not exist
I would love to read your comments let me know what u think and please just briefly mention how u found me I.E twitter, google etcetera this will help me to find out which channels my active commenters are coming from
I was browsing the Internet today looking for video or two to make me laugh on youtube and found them while I am only going to share one because the other is inappropriate for younger viewers.
As you can see this video was pretty well done from an editing stand point it has a few quirks still at points but the audio almost syncs 100% making it seem as though the animater just wrote it that way. Any how I thought I would share my find and hope you find it funny. Comment here and let me know what you think.
It is no secret I am a fan of Smallville and why would I not be after all I am a fan of Superman and heck Superheros in general. So when I heard Smallville was being picked up for a 9th season I was excited. My excitement seems to be misplaced as fellow fans view the move from Thursday Nights to Friday nights as a death sentance and one which might mean the end of the popular show.
Tom Welling who plays Clark Kent has been very quiet on his comments regarding the new season in fact little has been heard from him (at least that i have read) since around season 3 or so. Is it possible he told CW this was the last season could the rumors of him signing on for 2 more seasons (9th and 10th) be slightly off? I do not have the answer but I do have a good idea that Tom will do what ever the stuido thinks is best I mean if you can do the same job essentialy dor 10 years and be damn rich by the end of that time why ask for anything else.
Why because I do not think Tom is in it for the money no I think he genuinely likes acting just is not fond of the publicity that comes with it. He might have been better suited for stage acting if this is the case as when you leave from the play seldom are they hounded by the press.
It has been known for almost a week now that Carrie is in fact no longer the co-host at the popular Internet TV show Category5.tv. While fans of the show have mixed feelings as to how this will impact the show as a whole the host Robbie Ferguson reassures users that the show will continue and that this is not in fact a sign that the show is closing,
In fact it is just the opposite! While Carrie brought a certain feel to the show that many users related to, there was before and will continue to be a show in her absence. Robbie is currently looking for a new co-host that might hope to fill the void that was left. While this may sound a little bad for Carrie it isn”t, She got a great job working as a nurse and doing what she was in school to do. This brings her one step closer to her goal of being a RN.
Episode 92 was an Emotional episode all around with Robbie looking many times as though he was about to start letting the emotional baggage spill out he held his composure and finished out the show with a bang. Episode 92 or the “Farewell, Carrie Webb” Episode contained a long segment of clips from the best Carrie moments from Her saying she did not know the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek to her and Robbie’’s hilarious banter that had become so much the comic relief on the show.
Needless to say who ever is bold enough to try and fill her shoes is going to have one heck of a pair to fill. Carrie Webb brought a side of Robbie we would have other wise not seen the caring and funny guy he is not just a Techie. I was a fan of the show before Carrie and probably would have remained so if she had not been present, however her impact on the show was tremendous and one which every single member of the show will remember.
Episode 92 Did not answer viewer questions which was the first in its 92 episodic history, this show instead focused on Carrie and what she meant and means to the show. I hope those reading this will help me by congratulating Carrie on her new Job and Say how much we will miss her.
Carrie Webb: Good Luck may you save many people !
If you would like to keep up with Carrie you can do so via her blog at www.carriewebb.com
If you have never seen Category 5 then check it out at www.category5.tv
Carrie has an email setup for fans to email her that is carrie AT category5 DOT tv
Well I am about to go insane here with the configuration of OpenVPN. A buddy of mine asked me to setup OpenVPN on his Fedora 9 VPS and while the guide Here is great and very helpful it lacks some troubleshooting steps which undoubtedly would help in my situation.
Here is the trouble I am running into. When i install OpenVPN I attempt to run the convenient service openvpn start command that is included with the version of OpenVPN packaged in the repositories. It allways says failure regardless of what ever I attempt to change this I am resoirted to using the openvpn -conf configname.conf method. That unfortunately was just the least of my issues.
The next hurdle was getting the bridging worked out. I managed to get the OpenVPN script to be configured and working up until it tried to use the bridge which was not existent. I then looked around and found a sample bridge script included with the package that I attempted to use to make the bridge however i was not able to get the bridge to work properly instead i would get errors saying that the device tap0 did not exist. After countless hours attempting to fix this i settled for trying to re-configure OpenVPN to run using ip routing.
Apparently there are no good guides for Ip routing all of them are very generic with regards to configuring and running OpenVPN thus not being much help to me at all. What I need is a good guide that not only lists configuration steps but possible issues you can encounter and how to resolve them. If any of you know such a guide please feel free to comment with the URL to this entry.
I took a step down the road towards representing Fedora and Autoten today. Although It was in an unofficial medium and more of a casual mention of the finner points.
A buddy of mine Dave (dnmounse on the fedora forums) made a extremely popular script for installing common programs. I am sure by now most of you have heard or even used his Autoten script. I used this script to touch on some of the finner points of our distrobution.
Here is what happened:
I watch a weekly show online at Category5.tv which talks about technology and the various ways in which you can make it work better for you. Well predominetly they usually talk about Ubuntu as their Distro of choice however when they polled the viewers and saw that covering a different distro could be productive. Robbie Ferguson (the host of the show) and Carrie Web (Co-Host) then began looking through some other distros to see which would be good to try out.
Fedora 10 sparked Robbie”’’s interest and so he then asked for people to give him some information regarding it to make sure he had the fact prior to the show. I mentioned Autoten as being a very cool script which I thought he ought to look at. Well he liked it so much he called it a must have for Fedora 10 and something all people need.
Later after the show in the chat room me and a few other Fedora users were talking about it and we are going to put together a little guide and place it in the forums there so peple using Fedora straight from windows or Ubuntu can easily make the transition.
Bottom line here is that Fedora is taking the world by storm and even catching the eye of some long time Debian based distro users. Does this mean people like Robbie are going to ditch Ubuntu and come over to Fedora? No but it does mean that they will pay closer attention to it and in turn it may be in the media more causing a rise in the amount of users that use it
I have recently applied and been accepted as a member of the Fedora Ambassadors. I am excited about this because it finaly allows me to contribute something back to the distrobution that sold me on Linux.
I am not coder and do not plan to be one so knowing i can make a difference in the Fedora Project by educating others on the finer points of Fedora is dear to me and gives me a sense of belonging.
In case you are not familar with what an Ambassador of the Fedora Project does I will give you a brief summary followed by a link to the Wiki entry on Fedora’s site.
The following is taken word for word off the wiki page linked below.
Fedora Ambassadors Goals
Represent Fedora Project to the wider public
Help spread the word about Fedora, Linux, and Open Source
Be a point of contact for local community members and channel the feedback to Fedora Project
Help recruit project contributors
Think of creative ways for promoting Fedora in your region
While I hope to live up to those goals I think you will agree after reading http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors that they are a huge part of Fedora and spreading the word.
In addition to joining this group I have also added this blog to their aggrogator to have my blog syndicated on fedorapeople.org which will increase the exposure here prompting me to change a few category names to be more professional sounding.
So in short I am not part of Fedora and plan to make it even better. While not directly coding packages I still have a voice in the project and welcome any suggestions.
So I am making my first blog post in a few months. I have been pretty busy and as such not had a lot of time to post blogs. However I am going to try and start blogging more frequently.
Some updates.
I have almost finished reading the next series of books in Terry Brooks Shanarra series. I have one last book of the 4 to go before starting the next group. I will make a separate post soon with my review on the 3 books i have read so far of these 4
Fedora 9 is out and has been for about 6 weeks. Look for a few posts regarding the trials i have with this.
Various other small things have happened such as me playing some new games, cool new sites I have found, and reviewing some new Linux distributions i have tried.
These are just a few things i plan to post about in the near future. Stay tuned and look out for them
At the beginning of December I started reading the trilogy by Terry Brooks titled Sword of Shannara and recently finished all three books. I will have to agree with most people here that my favorite of them all has got to be the Elfstones of Shannara. This book just seems to have the right combination of action and adventure and just the right touch of drama to grab my attention.
What most people are not aware of is that this was probably the hardest book for Terry to write according to the forward in that book. I think that for this reason this book shines more then the others for the simple fact he put more effort into it. Now I am not saying the other two books were bad by any means, on the contrary they were both very enjoyable to read. However the amount of work that went into the second of the trilogy reflects in the book itself.
My second favorite of the trilogy would have to be Wishsong, this book had the most humor I have read in any of the three. The parts where Jair scares the living day lights out of the gnomes with his illusions of snakes and spiders made me laugh. Terry captured the reactions from these characters perfectly. Now this book was more layed back as far as action and adventure goes in my book but it definately showed more of what makes a fantasy book for me, magic.
That leaves the poor book that the trilogy was named after the Sword of Shannara. While I do enjoy this book it seemed very dry to me and not very attention grabbing at parts of the book. There was tons of action and suspense in this book as well as the other two but it just seemed to be all serious with no point of which one can come down from the peak of suspense generated by this book. This is the longest of the trilogy and a key part of it as it sets up the other two books. However it left me with a sense of completion at the end of the book, this is good but unlike the other two books it does not leave much room for imagining a sequel.
All in all I give this trilogy a 8 out of a possible 10 for closeness generated toward the characters and the many action packed scenes in the book as well as the little bit of humor in Wishsong.
I recommend this trilogy to any fantasy novel fan. I look forward to the follow up series of books the Heritage of Shannara and the two smaller books in between the Sword trilogy and Heritage.
If you would like to know more about Terry Brooks or his books you can allways find out more here www.terrybrooks.net If you decide you like him and want to jump over to the forums there be sure to look up member ajamison and let me know you came from my blog I would be happy to discuss Terry or other books with you there.
Well I have installed Fedora 8 on all three of my Linux installs starting of course with the 64bit Laptop. I am happy to report that this went alot smoother then Fedora 7 and needed less configuration and setup then Fedora 7.
Also when I installed the test releases of Fedora 8 I saw very little improvement over the previous version however the final proved to have some small but very useful improvements.
Probably the one biggest thing that it added that had been present in Ubuntu for some time was the ability to install programs through Yum from the install media. Before if you wanted to do this you had manually setup a repository that pointed to your cd/dvd the issue with this was that if you decided to use a CD or DVD that you did not use to install from such as a Re-Spin then you had to change the repo file to point to the new location. The new method from what I can tell updates the media in the repo file automatically which saves alot of time.
Aside from that the out of the box support for some of the most popular devices present on laptops and desktop computers the support for native resolutions with the default graphics driver has improved as well.
Some small security things also have been added to increase over all security. Also improvements to SELinux were added as including a new GUI tool that allows for custom policy creation.
Over all I am very satisfied with this distribution release and I think those of you that were waiting for hardware support to increase in Fedora before using it that you will be happy with Fedora 8 as about 98% of my laptop hardware worked out of the box.
If you decide you like him and want to jump over to the forums there be sure to look up member ajamison and let me know you came from my blog I would be happy to discuss Terry or other books with you there.