2
I’m not getting a Zune because I use linux (a true pointless rant)
Today I was talking to Trevor and something dawned on me… I’m not buying a new Microsoft Zune because I use linux(Ubuntu). Years ago I bought one of the first generation 30gb Zune’s and it has served me well, until 2 years ago when I fully switched over to Linux. I tried to make it work with linux, I really did! I loaded up a VM with my old XP Pro installation and hooked up my media library to it (via shared folders), and this worked for a little while, but as time progressed something started to happen. The months rolled on an soon I realized that I wasn’t booting into this virtual machine I had built to sync my library…podcasts…vodcasts…all the changing media that I used to listen to was being left behind(well atleast as far as the Zune was concerned). Now I wasn’t any less up to date with the information that was contained in the media that I wasn’t syncing with the Zune, I just wasn’t using the Zune. Now I’m not sure if it was the extra step of firing up another operating system or if it was the hassle of trying to get USB to pass through to the VM, but I discovered something…..
25
On Android’s Market Share
Ever since Android was announced by Google a while back, Linux geeks everywhere have been hoping it would take a chunk out of the iPhone market. Though Android hasn’t really taken off as expected, hopes have been renewed recently with projections that the mobile OS would outpace the iPhone in the next year or two, especially with an armada of new phones intending to run it out of the box.
Personally, I doubt that Android will really dent the iPhone market. That’s not to say I don’t think it won’t be popular, I just think it will cut into a different mobile OS: Windows Mobile. Android and the iPhone do not really compete in the same arenas. The iPhone is a high-performance device with some core (limited) functionality. Android, however, is more of an all-purpose OS, as demonstrated by the diversity of hardware it can run on. To date, the all-purpose mobile OS has been Windows Mobile. In fact, it’s so all-purpose that the mobile checkout devices used by sales reps in Apple Stores run Windows Mobile.
As Android takes off, I’m guessing that Windows Mobile’s days are numbered. I haven’t heard anything about it in some time, and media share sometimes counts for more than market share. After all, if you looked around, would you guess that only 1 in 10 people use a Mac?
28
Windows 7 RC – Update
After a couple weeks of using the RC I’ve gone back to Vista. That’s right, Vista at this point in time is better. I would rather be running the Beta of 7 than the RC. Don’t get me wrong it looks promising but it’s just not functional. Well it is if you don’t plan on using any new devices or plugging you keyboard or mouse into a different USB port. The RC has problems recognizing new devices or devices that were not plugged in when the OS was installed. For example, I tried plugging a USB Flash drive in so I could get some drivers for another computer so I could finish setting it up. I put the flash drive in and waited and waited and waited…. Nothing, Windows just sat there trying to install the device. I then tried it on another RC machine same thing. Needless to say I was annoyed and put the project on hold for a while. I continued doing other work for about 45 minutes when I was alerted by Windows that my device was ready to use. Forty-Five minutes!!!
27
Microkernel
I’ve been reading the MINIX textbook, which is on occasion somewhat amusing. The main focus is on microkernel OS design, the idea being that a tiny kernel is easier to maintain than a large kernel. As an example, the authors mention that MINIX 3 has about 4,000 lines of code in its kernel, which is much easier to eliminate bugs from than the millions of lines in a monolithic kernel, which makes sense.
You might think a couple of million lines of code would be impossible to maintain, and I expect you’re right. How about a couple hundred million? Microkernels really seem like the right direction to go if this is the direction monolithic kernels are going. What do you think?
26
Podcast Episode #6 – Way behind Schedule
Well we are extremely behind in recording these. I hope to get caught up at some point.
Here’s some of what we talked about…
- Topics
- Win 7 RC – is it worth getting hyped up for, windows mobile sweetness – gAlarm
- Agile/processes – New toys (Macbook Pro, Nokia BH-503), boxee
- OS X Java Vulnerability
- IT Conversations (Stackoverflow)
20
Installing and Configuring ircd-hybrid on Ubuntu 9.04
So, the other day I was trying to setup an irc server for department communications and was having a lot of trouble getting it to accept connections from outside of localhost. I’m using ircd-hybrid on Ubuntu 9.04 and I messed with this for hours. I went through the ircd.conf and I kept changing the “host” parameter and different things but I finally figured out how to get the server to accept outside connections.
26
Ubuntu 8.10 upgrade to 9.04 (Grub and ATI Issues)
Well I took the plunge this weekend and upgraded my ubuntu 8.10 laptop and ubuntu 8.04 desktop to ubuntu 9.04 and I ran into two big problems. First, my grub menu.lst wasn’t updated correctly and second my ATI video drivers weren’t working after the upgrade. I’ll paint a little picture of my situation just so that things all make sense. I’ve did not upgrade from 8.04 to 8.10 on my desktop due to VPN PPTP issues that 8.10 was having and I really needed the VPN capability but that’s all that was stopping me at the time. I did not need the VPN functionality on my laptop so I went ahead and upgraded that machine.
