Anthony Barker's Weblog on Linux, Technology & the Economy

Virtual Linux projects Colinux, QEMU, XEN & UML

Several new innovative and interesting linux projects are progressing

Colinux is a project where you can run linux right in windows without the help of virtual pc or vmware. Very cool- but it needs work to make it easier to install.

www.colinux.org/

Looking for a project? Take Damn Small Linux (a debian based 50 meg distro) and make an easy to use installation script for Colinux/QEMU. Actually looks like someone has done it for knoppix. But get the networking work work more simply. Hmm - I've got some ideas...

QEMU seems to be very cool. Seems fairly easy to get going. I downloaded a zip and it ran right away. A lot of people are using it to run windows 98 in linux or Linux in windows. Only two caveats - you need to configure a disk before you install and the resolution you will get on older video cards is limited. Like most emulation software you probably need a fairly quick machine. I've got a windows machine that uses Microsoft Virtual PC to run linux - perhaps I'll switch to QEMU.

UserMode Linux
User-Mode Linux (UML) is a safe, secure way of running different Linux versions and Linux processes. ISPs use this to allow multiple people to have root access to a server. UML implements its virtualization within the kernel rather than at the hardware layer. This is very efficient since there is not a layer of virtual hardware between processes and the physical machine.

Good overview from redhat:
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/001nov04/features/usermode/

More efficient than UML is the Vserver project
Essentially, every virtual vserver shares the same kernel as the host system, although they are all full isolated and protected form each other. This means it's no use for testing new kernels (which is on of the main aims of User-Mode linux), but is more efficient for production servers that most of us run.

Xen
Xen is an open source hypervisor for intel hardware. A hypervisor allows multiple operating systems to run side-by-side simultanously, similar to partitioning on a mainframe. It requires a modified version of the operating system kernel (currently Linux 2.4, 2.6 & NetBSD) and thus is extremely fast.
An Overview from Linux Mag

IBM has released its 710 Server which will eventually allow you to dynamically reallocate cpus and network cards between instances of Linux running. Similar to the stuff Vserver and UML offer but at a hardware level (and running on nice 64 bit hardware).

Colinux

Taiwan historically hasn't been a province of China

I've been following the situation in Taiwan for some time - since I lived there in the early 90's. I used to see the pro democracy riots - but didn't understand what they were at the time. This history of Taiwan was one of the better explanations of the situation that I'd seen in a while. I recommend you have a glance:

http://zen.sandiego.edu:8080/Jerome/1105949397/index_html

Basically there is a lot of western hypocrisy. The West supposedly supports democracy - except when other interests (commercial) get in the way.

Taiwan is a democracy – actually a decent one, where opposition parties have a chance and the press is mostly free (unlike HK). Taiwan hasn't been part of China for ages - and even then it was sort of an outpost. As this history demonstrates, this is analogous to saying Canada has always being a part of England.

Meanwhile, Canada doesn't recognize it as a country. The UN doesn't recognize it. Despite it being in the top 10 of world exporters it was until recently banned from the WTO. IMF and World Bank don't recognize it.

Canada doesn't have an embassy there for fear of irritating China. As a small free democracy next which lives next to a giant Canada really should recognize it. Imagine if every country wouldn’t recognize Canada because the US claimed our country as a state of the US?

China has managed to divide and conquor western countries on this topic. And beside the US no countries seem to care.

How to self publish

The economics of publishing have changed according to this interesting blog from LSE

Publish with a full publisher

1) Fight to get one of them to represent you
2) You get a few hundred dollars
3) You get an editor etc
4) You give up all rights

Self publishers include:

Xlibris, Lulu, iUniverse, Authorhouse, Trafford, Booklocker, Publish and be damned

Publish yourself:
1) Basics costs $500 (includes 10 copies)
2) Hire an editor of your choice (underpaid masters degree student): 20 hrs at $25/hr = $500 (up to a few thousand)
3) You get a choice of cover designs and interior layouts. They give you an ISBN and a barcode, register you at a range of online stores and Books in Print, and give you a Web page to promote your book.
4) You retain all the rights.
5) 10% of the cover price if you sell via online store

It seems you break even at 25 copies sold.

Well, Taiwan has always been a part of China.”

For Taiwanese, the most laughable and/or irritating statements are those of foreigners that begin with the words, “Well, Taiwan has always been . . .” One prime example is the current fabrication going around, “Well, Taiwan has always been a part of China.”

Continue for a great recent history of Taiwan

Couple of videos you should see

BBC has some top rate programming much of which isn't available on BBC America - or in North America as a whole.

If you have the chance try to check out The Power of Nightmares", an excellent 3 part series which makes you rethinking the past 40 years.

Another superb piece which was on recently - about Global Dimming.

Search on the web and if you have a decent Internet connection you may be able to download these gems.

Why hasn't linux for small business taken off more?

I had a beer with a couple of friends of mine the other day who run a small Value Added Reseller (VAR).

They were asking why Linux for the small business hasn't taken off faster. "The customers always ask for Microsoft", one of them said. "I guess I'm at fault I haven't pushed it more", said the other. "Everyone needs Exchange so we just set them up with the Small Business server and away we go".

This shows to me the four reasons that linux hasn't taken off more for small businesses.

1) Agressive pricing moves by Microsoft - $600 for 5 CALs for businesses. with SQL server etc. Often business will pirate the rest of their needed licenses or they can buy an additional 20 CALs for $1900.
- Microsoft can only reduce the pain - they can't remove it. They have a huge machine to feed

2) Marketing - Customers haven't heard of linux enough to ask for it and VARs aren't pushing it.
- Vars need more marketing material and value added solutions that are linux based (Accounting/ Workflow etc)

3) Technical know how on the part of the VARs
One of the two guys I had the beer with felt he didn't know enough about linux
- Vars know about linux but they are often scared of it. They need to see a recent distro that is easy to use (Suse etc)

4) Exchange
- Thunderbird calendar needs to improve,
- Evolution needs to be ported to windows
- Chandler needs to go gold

Linux penetration into small business should be something like this:
1) Firewall (reuse an old server), email routing
2) Web server
3) File and print
4) Workflow
5) Get firefox on all the desktops - hide ie
6) Email - Exchange replacement
8) Open office for those users who can use it
9) Move to some linux desktops for users who can investigate linux terminal server

Mepis linux

I've been using mepis linux for a few weeks now. Its been a toss up between ubuntu or mepis or kanotix.

Here is why I am using mepis:

1) I wanted a debian based distro - this makes installing apps easier
2) I am used to kde (ubuntu is gnome based) Gnome has made huge strides in the past 2 years and I am tempted to switch soon.
3) I want a one iso distro.
These days it makes no sense to download 5 ISO files - who knows what you are going to use from them... Installing a base install and then upgrading via the internet makes a lot of sense and is actually faster and less hastle.

The amazing thing about mepis vs other distros is that by leveraging work done on kde and debian one person can put out a distro that rivals larger companies with dozens of developers (red hat, mandrake).

The reason I selected mephis over kanotix or knoppix is that it is more similar to the standard debian distro. It can use almost all the standard debian packages without breaking. kanotix is still my favorite livecd.

My only hesitation about mepis is that it is a one guy show. Support forums are a bit bare compared with ubuntu. Generally you can use the debian forums though.

I don't like that ubuntu doesn't install gcc, kde and some other apps that I consider core. That said I will probably switch over to ubuntu in the future - and perhaps pay for support. Work needs to be done in the core linux desktop apps (word processor etc) and a one person company won't be able to do that. Ubuntu has some of the best linux developers on staff. For a corporate server I would choose Redhat. Redhat above any other company is commited to open source and has developers working on core technologies - gcc, gnome, threading, and file systems.

Microsoft #1 in R&D?

An email I get now and then from a microsoft employee has the following signature :

Quick Fact: In FY04 Microsoft invested $7.9B ~ 25% of revenue in R&D. This makes Microsoft No. 1 in R&D worldwide, in all industries. Benchmarks for consideration: IBM $5.1B ~ 5% of revenue, Sun $1.8B ~ 12% or revenue, Oracle $1.2B ~ 12% of revenue

Here is a quick reason this is bogus. For microsoft calls making its products R&D. This is like Toyota claiming that the majority of its manufacturing process is R&D. Or if all media companies claimed that their production of content (tv & films) is R&D. Pumping out crappy code is not Research and shouldn't classified as such.

Nerdiness

Not sure if I am happy or sad about this:

What's missing from the Linux Desktop?

The linux desktop is progressing very quickly, this gives us the opportunity to frequently review what is missing from it. I've been using Mephis Debian desktop now for a week or so running in a Microsoft Virtual PC session within a corporate windows XP desktop. Using the fastest up and coming OS within the most common OS gives you the chance to compare the two and see what is missing from Linux.

Here are the standard improvements that need to be made. Some distros are better than others at these things:
* improved mobile support - APM, ACPI, PMU, software suspend etc
* improved sound support - only the Soundblaster Live seems to work perfecly (artsd gets hung up on processes)
* improved wifi support (mind you XP isn't that great either)

These improvements are just a matter of time for distros like Ubuntu (and thus debian). Otherwise, the majority of issues that I have had are related to improving mozilla (browser/mail) and open office (gnumeric/abiword) . In particular I'd like to see a high productivity development environment setup. This would allow developers to quickly and easily create productivity apps, which are available offline as well as online - and in windows. 100% compatibility with MS Office will never happen. I'd rather see work done in lobbying governements to use the Oasis document format as a standard.

Money could be made selling a MS plugin to "save as Oasis" and an Oasis to PDF conversion tool.

One idea I have is for a ultravnc type application which when you connect automatically shows your local hard drive. eg you want to use gimp to resize and touch up some jpgs. You connect to a site which opens a vnc connection to the server. With gimp you open the local files, resize them and then close the connection. The files on your hard drive appear to be local to the server you have connected to.

MySql feature update

I tested out MySQL 5.0 alpha - without any major problems (didn't give a full test though).

New key features include:
Views
Triggers
Stored Procedures
cursor support
Subselects (came in MySQL 4.1)

Once 5.x is released mysql will have many/most of the features required for medium sized development projects

A linux WOW!

I don't rip music to ogg or mp3 much. Typically I just play them in a cd player. But a few months ago I got an iriver ogg/mp3 player and wanted to listen to a few classical albums.

Imagine my surprise when in kde no ripping is necessary! You just open it in knoqueror and copy the file to your hard drive, it checks the titles and everything... Wow.

(this img refers to another site:)