Month: October 2009

Berkeley High School student Kory Malmrose  will be hosting a triage fest tomorrow, Saturday Oct 31 and Sunday, Nov 1, at the Zareason shop in North Berkeley.  If anyone is bored tomorrow and would like to come assemble machines for Linux labs for schools in Mexico, this will be guaranteed to be a good time.  Plus free pizza!!

As an added bonus, this project will be held at the Zareason shop in Berkeley, the site where many of us have purchased pre-installed Linux machines.  Come on over and see the west coast’s best Linux-only retailed in action!

Here is Kory’s announcement:

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I need help frankensteining 30 desktops so I can send them to Mexico for a Technology Transfer Program led by Stormy Peters of the GNOME Foundation. Christian Einfeldt was nice enough to give us the hardware and last weekend we moved them from SF to my family’s computer shop in Berkeley. The project is for my Eagle Scout. I was going to have a group of friends help that helped my brother with his Eagle Project, but something came up at the last minute and now I have only one helper on Saturday and possibly two on Sunday (all from the Berkeley LUG). Are there any other LUG volunteers in the Bay area who can help me out?

The first session is at 10 am on Saturday (and other on Sunday) at our shop at 1647 Hopkins St, Berkeley, 94707. The BART is close & we can pick you up from there if that makes it easier. We’re also getting some great Gioia pizza and some good stuff from Hopkins Bakery for lunch. Stay however long you like and if you can’t come at 10, we have other times that will work too. Let me know if you can help.

Thanks for helping out at the last minute. I really appreciate it.

OS Choices Indeed (for most!)

I myself am currently engaging in a pseudo-scientific self-study on optimizing some very low-end PCs with Linux.

Hardware that I obtained f or negligible cost

Pentium I MMX 200MHz
64MB 60ns EDO RAM
1 x 1GB hd, 1 x 2GB hdd
The pre-existing MS-Windows 98(FE) is still required for a minimal number of applications….. boo/hiss 🙁

Pentium I MMX 200MHz
160MB 60ns EDO RAM
1 x 8GB hd
The pre-existing MS-Windows ME is still required for a minimal number of applications….. boo/hiss 🙁

Pentium III 500MHz Celeron
256MB PC100 SDRAM
1 x 10GB hd
Pre-existing MS-Windows 2000 wiped clean off after BIOS updated — yay 🙂

Pentium III 600MHz-E (Energy-saving)
256MB PC100 SDRAM
1 x 10GB hd
Pre-existing MS-Windows 2000 wiped clean off after BIOS updated — yay 🙂
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Routine questions I did ask and still ask myself on these:
– Do these low-end PCs power on, boot up and otherwise function at operable base-levels (motherboard, BIOS, CMOS, RAM… etc.) ???
– Are BIOS revisions as up-to-date as possible for these old PC’s ??
– What purpose can these low-end PC’s be BEST used for (e.g., “starter” office productivity workstations, simple multimedia workstations, router/firewall appliances, … etc.) ???

No DVD or USB-booting, no wireless setup, no CD-burning capabilities
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My own groundrules RE: distros used

NO K/Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” Linux, NO Fedora 11 Linux, NO OpenSUSE 11.x Linux, NO Mandriva 2009.x Linux

YES low-weight floppy and CD-R installable Linux distros having minimalistic X-Windows

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Distros used

Basic Linux 3.50 ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/baslinux/index.html
Damn Small Linux (DSL) http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall
– DSL 3.4.12 Syslinux
– DSL 4.4.10 Syslinux
Slackware Linux 13.0 http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slackware
Absolute Linux 13.0.3 http://www.absolutelinux.org/
Zenwalk Linux 6.2 Standard http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=zenwalk (c’mon for goodness sakes, this is Berkeley!)
Debian GNU/Linux “lenny”/stable 5.0.3 XFCE+LXDE http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=debian
Debian GNU/Linux “squeeze”/testing 5.0.2 XFCE+LXDE  http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20090730
Knoppix EN[glish] 5.1.1CD http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=03956
Eventually(maybe!), Puppy Linux 4.3.x, MEPIS 8.x.x, and/or Xubuntu/Lubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” installation CDs

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Used solely as testing LiveCD’s, and for distro-downloading/CD-burning on another PC :
Knoppix ENglish 6.0.1CD http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=05299
Lubuntu 9.10 Lyxis Beta 23 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu and http://download.lxde.org/lubuntu-9.10/
TinyCore Linux 2.4.1 http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=tinycore

—
Used as low-spec routers/firewalls
FREESCO http://www.freesco.info/index.php
floppyfw http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/
Devil-Linux http://www.devil-linux.org/home/index.php
—

I’ve done all the ISO/img downloads and burning, and am more  than halfway finished performing Linux installs on all four low-end PCs.

I absolutely (not the above distro;-)  STILL NEED TO perform extensive diagnoses and troubleshooting with these older PC both BEFORE and DURING their Linux installations.

Results of this pseudo-scientific study soon to follow — maybe within about two months ??

-Aaron / GoOSBears

When people first think of getting audiobooks online, they probably think of Audible.  But, Audible has one really big problem: DRM (Digital Rights Management).  I.e. every book you buy from Audible is encrypted so that you can only listen to it using a very limited number of applications and media devices.  There is no application for Linux to play Audible audiobooks, and Android devices don’t support playing Audible files (yet anyway) either.  Quite frankly, when you purchase a book from Audible, you are not buying it, you are only renting it.  Even if you have a player that is compatible now, in 5 years when you get the urge to listen again, it is likely that your new device or computer will no longer be able decrypt the file.  If you are lucky, Audible may pull an Apple and offer to remove the DRM from the file for additional cash out of your pocket; so you can finally own the book you thought you already bought.  However, there is no guarantee of even that…

Do not despair, though, there are some really great options for DRM free audiobooks that work great on Linux and Android.  I will discuss two: one being a store like Audible (but without the restrictions) and another a project that creates public domain audiobooks of Novels no longer in copyright.

The first is EMusic.  EMusic started as a DRM free, low priced music store that quickly gained popularity in the indie music scene.  Two years ago they started selling DRM free audiobooks in ordinary MP3 format.  Their library is now huge, containing thousands of audiobooks from many publishers.  It is not quite as complete as Audible, but is complete enough that you would hardly tell the difference.  Dan Brown’s latest book “Lost Symbol” hit the library in a matter of days for example.  EMusic’s library is big enough that I have a download queue of nearly 50 books and a collection of equal size already.  One book basically costs you $9.99  (which is incredibly cheap compared to the price of the discs at a bookstore.  Slightly cheaper prices are available if you commit to buying more books over a year period.

If EMusic’s $9.99 cost per book has you turning your couch upside down looking for spare change, LibriVox might be right up your alley.  LibriVox is an open project to create public domain audiobooks from novels whose copyright has expired.  Basically, people around the world, have volunteered to record themselves reading books aloud for the benefit of others.  While, on average, the “acting” quality is not quite the same level as the professionally read audiobooks on EMusic, they are generally quite well produced.   If you have an Android phone, there is a free App in the market called “Ambling Book Player” that lets you download Librivox audiobooks to your device directly (and of course to listen to them).  This is a great way to the listen to classic novels for a price you can’t beat.

So, if DRM has you down, help send Audible a message by supporting EMusic for a huge collection of DRM free professionally read audiobooks and Librivox for great public domain audiobooks.