Subversion client hangs after post-commit
I had been hit by this problem since I setup Subversion on Ubuntu in January. The svnserve was properly invoked on Ubuntu server but whenever any svn client was trying to commit something back to the server, the client would hang for hours before it prompted an error: “Connection reset by peers.”
I searched all the Subversion and Ubuntu forums but could not find any solution to my problem. In the past months, I tried to identify the source of the problem and even tried many solutions suggested by people on these forums but the problem persisted. I had been committing to svn server with post commit email notification turned off and lost quite a number of post commit message. I used to keep track of changes by these email notification.
Yesterdat, I was trying my luck again and I accidentally noticed sendmail and sendmail-mta were called after commit. A look into syslog confirmed that sendmail process was put into sleep by some unknown reason. Failing to identify the cause, I removed sendmail and related packages from my Ubuntu server and installed Exim4. It is claimed to be easier to installed and configured than sendmail. The problem diminished after I got exim4 up and running. Now I am able to receive post commit email notification after every svn commit. Every commit takes a few seconds to complete after this. Problem resolved.
DocBook Publishing - Output to HTML
I learned about DocBook last year and found it a great tool for technical documentation. It is a XML based semantic markup language. The DocBook is originally intended for computer hardware and software documentation but it is great for other documentation purposes.
I have been working on some documentation, new and converting existing from Lyx to DocBook. With DocBook, I am able to publish the contents easily to many formats, namely TEX, text, pdf or HTML. I had been trying to output some of my DocBook documentation to HTML.
This afternoon, I have finally succeeded to publish to HTML. I installed some DocBook packages on Ubuntu. Here are the packages you need to get DocBook going:
- docbook
- docbook-xsl
- docbook-xsl-doc
- docbook-xsl-doc-html
- docbook-xsl-doc-pdf
- docbook-xsl-doc-text
- xsltproc
- and optional xalan and fop
To output your DocBook document to HTML, simply this:
$ xsltproc --output paper.html \
/usr/share/xml/docbook/stylesheet/nwalsh/xhtml/docbook.xsl\
paper.xml
You can turn on chapter and section numbering by setting chapter.autolabel to 1 and section.autolabel to 1. To include the chapter number in every sections, set section.label.includes.component.label to 1.
$ xsltproc --output paper.html \
--stringparam section.autolabel 1 \
--stringparam section.label.includes.component.label 1 \
/usr/share/xml/docbook/stylesheet/nwalsh/xhtml/docbook.xsl \
paper.xml
Can’t build AWS in Ubuntu
About two weeks ago, I installed Ubuntu Hardy Heron in VMware Fusion on my MacBook (running Leopard). After some playing around with Ubuntu on my MacBook, I began to install software components such as the Ada compiler so that I could do testing on my MacBook without switching to the Ubuntu box.
I am working on a web-enabled application developed with AWS (Ada Web Server). This application is developed on Mac OS X. Building and testing on mac OS X has no problem at all. To compile the source on Ubuntu, I need AWS. So, I tried to install AWS packages from Ubuntu but found only broken dependencies. Then I decided to build one myself. The build has failed because the gnat (Ada compiler) from Ubuntu is 4.2. It lacks two Ada packages, a-calfor.ad[sb] (Ada.Calendar.Formatting) and a-catizo.ad[sb] (Ada.Calendar.Time_Zones). AWS depends on these to build.
I posted to comp.lang.ada and AWS list. It looks like I have no choice but to bootstrap gnat-4.3 myself or install from Ubuntu Intrepid or wait for the next Ubuntu release of gnat-4.3.
Virtualization - Installing Ubuntu Linux with VMware on MacBook
I have successfully installed 64-bit Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) Linux on my Mac Book. Out of my expectation, the installation was rather quick and easy compared to installing Solaris 10. I had tried installing Solaris 10 on my Mac Book. Solaris installation was successful but I couldn’t boot into it. I wondered why.
My Mac Book sports an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz with 2GB RAM and 160GB hard drive. I am too skeptical to have 2 physical partitions on my hard drive. Thanks to VMWare Fusion, I can create virtual partition with it. After I have installed VMware Fusion 1.1.1, I created a Ubuntu-64-bit virtual partition and installed Ubuntu from the ISO disk image. With VMware Fusion, I can install directly from the disk image without having to burn a CD or DVD.
Since my Mac Book is codenamed Uranus, I called my Ubuntu on Mac Book, Uranus-Zeta. The idea is from the ζ-ring of Uranus
Like Linux, Mac OS X is a UNIX like operating system. Why do I need Linux? Well, there are a number of reasons. One being you can and another to learn new things. But these are not the reasons to motivate me. Being a software developer developing cross-platform software, I do tests on multiple platforms. Having Linux to run on my MacBook means I can develop and test my software on both Mac OS X and Linux environment without switching to my Linux/Solaris boxes. Another important reason is that I see the needs to support my clients on Linux arise and soon Solaris. Having the ability to run three different operating systems on one machine can be productive and versatile for me.
The other obvious reason is that I have a Core 2 Duo. Meaning I am having two 64-bit CPUs in one processor. It will be a waste of resources if I don’t utilize the computing power I already have. Assigning each CPU to run different operating systems and tasks is called virtualization.
With VMware Fusion, I can run Linux and Solaris side-by-side with Mac OS X without the need to boot into anyone of them at one time. This is a great feature when supporting clients in Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris.
Here are some screen shots (click to enlarge) of Uranus-Zeta:
China’s proven world class competency
During the snow hazard in China this February, the Chinese government had successfully managed the natural disaster and crisis with much professionalism in such a short period of time. According to an unconfirmed source, the Chinese government managed to develop a Disaster Management System in just 5 days. 75 software engineers from the Chinese military worked around the clock for 5 days to bring up a web based Disaster Management System to collect, manage, disseminate, coordinate, and to provide command and control to the military disaster relieve team during the recent snow hazard.
The system was developed using Ada, AWS (Ada Web Server) with a little of PHP and Perl. The system deploys a MySQL database running on Linux. The system is hooked up to air-borne SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) for real-time acquisition of landscaping information in snow hazard affected area to help assessing the damage of rail ways, roads, housing and forest. The Chinese army engineering company was dispatched by the system to areas in need of assistance.
I have yet to receive further details of how the system works and probably will not. Anyway, that shows the Chinese ability and responsiveness in dealing with natural disaster. Hail China!
Tunnel X from Gutsy to Leopard
I have been tunneling X from Linux to Tiger for almost two years without any problems and happy with it. After upgrading to Leopard, a disaster struck me. I was unable to access my Linux applications on my Ubuntu box. I used to do it with Tiger without any problems. When I ssh tunnel X from Gutsy to Leopard, I had keyboard problem. When I pressed some keys on the keyboard, I got numbers and some weird characters like close windows and minimize windows.
The problem lies within Apple’s new X11 in Leopard. The keyboard is not properly mapped after establishing the X tunnel. After searching the web and Ubuntu forum, I found a solution:
% ssh -X username@gutsy
% xmodmap -pke > ~/.keymap
% gnome-panel 1>/dev/null 2>/dev/null & xmodmap ~/.keymap
Just do xmodmap map once will do. After that, ssh into Ubuntu and invoke gnome-panel.
Ubuntu 8.04
The forthcoming Ubuntu 8.04 or codenamed Hardy Heron is in the final alpha stage. It is expect to be released in April. As far as I know, Hardy suffers a small glitch in CJK support. Some fonts will be confused after installation but can be overcome with simple fix. I have yet received any further details on this and I have yet to install a test version of Hardy Heron on my current Ubuntu box.
Lets look forward to this April for the release.
SVN setup
I’ve finally found time to setup svn at my home net after so many months. My svn server was down when my previous Linux box was down with a dead hard disk last year. The setup was quite a brisk. I had everything installed and configured last night. The test for remote access using a url was successful. I could import, checkout and check in. Because it was already late, about 1AM, I felt rather tire and went to bed.
This morning, I hacked some codes to provide a rather informative post commit email notification. All are done except the check in will stall. It takes a long time (and possibly hang!). I have yet to fully test before I begin my development project again.
HOWTO - SCIM and Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon
Ubuntu 7.10, code named “Gutsy Gibbon”, has been released. I just finished upgrading from Feisty Fawn (7.04) to Gutsy Gibbon. The upgrade (downloading, unpacking, removing, installing, configuring and cleaning) took about 6 hours to complete.
The upgrade was smooth and without any problems except it broke my scim. I have exhausted the search on Internet for a fix but was disappointed. So, I tried to experiment with a few methods based on the information I had on the Internet and came up a work around for this problem.
Referring to my Chinese Input HOWTO here, I assume you have installed scim in Feisty Fawn (7.04) and later upgraded to Gutsy Gibbon (7.10).
- Goto System -> Preference -> Sessions. Delete the “Input Method” as created in my previous HOWTO.
- Uninstall and install again scim and all suggested packages.
- Click on menu: System -> Preferences ->Sessions
- Click Startup Program Tab then [New] button.
- Name: Input Methods
- Command: scim -d
- Click [OK] button
- Logout and login again.
- Go to System -> Administration -> Language Support
- Select your language(s) support. In my case, Chinese and Japanese.
- Check the box at the bottom, Input Method, to activate complex characters input. Apply, uncheck it, apply and check again and apply then quit.
- Restart Language Support to make sure the box is checked.
- Logout and restart your system.
- Login and launch any application, e.g. gedit or Terminal. Right click and select “Input Method” and check “SCIM Input Method”.
- Now click on the “Input Method” tray icon on the top left of your screen to choose your desired language support and input method.
Now, you should be able to switch input method in some applications such as Terminal or gedit. It still does not work on every applications such as Open Office. To activate scim for every applications, use the command line (or Terminal):
- Check your locale:
$ locale | grep LANG=The answer would be something like below, which is in my case:
LANG=en_US.UTF-8 - Now, with the following command, insall scim-qtimm and tell your system you want to use scim for your input method in your locale:
$ sudo apt-get install scim-qtimm $ im-switch -z en_US -s scim - Logout and login again and start Open Office. You should now able to select your input method in every applications.
This should also work (with instructions from my previous post here) if you have a fresh installation of Gutsy Gibbon. Please let me know if this works for you.
HOWTO - Chinese input for Ubuntu
This HOWTO guides you to install scim for Chinese Input in Ubuntu with Gnome.
- Install the following packages:
- scim
- scim-chinese
- scim-config-socket
- scim-frontend-socket
- scim-gtk2-immodule
- scim-server-socket
- scim-tables-zh (option)
- xfonts-intl-chinese
- xfonts-intl-chinese-big
- ttf-arphic-gbsn00lp
- ttf-arphic-gkai00mp
- ttf-arphic-bkai00mp
- ttf-arphic-bsmi00lp
- Click on menu: System -> Preferences ->Sessions
- Click Startup Program Tab then [New] button.
- Name: Input Methods
- Command: scim -d
- Click [OK] button
- Logout and login again.
- You will see a new icon on the top right menu bar.
- Right click and select ¨SCIM¨ setup and activate languag/input support you need.
- Left click to choose desired input method.
Why I like Ubuntu?
Since I switched to Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 on Spetember 26, I have been working on Ubuntu with a multitude of tasks including test compiling some Ada source codes of previous project, working on my latest Ada project, blogging, surfing, downloading torrents and many more. I personally find Ubuntu is really an OS for the human.
Unlike many other Linux favor such as Caldera (now SCO), SuSE, RedHat; it has come out of competition neatly. Based on Debian, it has a better packaging of software packages which makes installation and upgrading software components very easily and almost without hassle. The only hassle I see is when downloading some large files during a slow connection or heavy Internet traffic.
The auto-upgrade is the feature I like most in Ubuntu. It works seamlessly and the new software components are well tested before the release. I had had my system corrupted when I was using SuSE and not so long ago on FC5 (Fedora Core). Causing a lot of valuable data and time. What can I say? So far, so good!
The software update is also very frequent. This always keep my system up to date with the latest release of Ubuntu’s software components. Well done!
The other neat feature is the easy activation of SCIM, a Smart Common Input Method for all Unix-like OS for inputing complex character sets like Chinese and Japanese. This gives me another platform of choice when updating my blog and other websites (blogs) with Chinese and Japanese characters. I will write about how to activating SCIM later.
I hope Ubuntu will be the Linux for my secondary working platform.
Ubuntu Feisty Fawn
A few months ago, when fornax’s hard disk was dead, I upgraded it from 40GB to 160GB and installed Debian Etch. Debian Etch has once again boosted my confidence about Linux. The graphical desktop was working up to my expectation. It could support up to 1280 x 1024 resolution! Upgrading Debian is easier compared to other Linux distros like SuSE, RedHat and etc. Actually, I quite like Debian to power fornax as an alternative development platform and also for some general purpose computing and testing purposes. I did not blog about my Debian installation a few months ago. I should blog about Ubuntu installation to record my experience.
Today, after some months, reinstalled fornax again with Ubuntu 7.04, code named Feisty Fawn. The UI is even more superb than Debian. Everything has been nicely done and packaged. To my surprised, I can run KDE applications from Gnome’s menu. This could not be done in Debian and some other Linux. How nice!
As the matter of fact, I did not like Gnome very much because KDE applications would not appear in Gome’s menu. Ubuntu has changed my perceptual experience about Gnome and once again Linux!
I find Ubuntu has more human touch than any other Linux distros. I also find that Ubuntu is very closely competitive with Mac OS X!
Really, I have download Ubuntu’s alternate install CD in June but I had never had a good reason to install Ubuntu over Debian. This morning, I had to install and configure many software, for instance, Subversion, apache and many other software development tools; it gave me a good reason to install Ubuntu. Not because Debian did not have all these software packages (Ubuntu is based on Debian), it was because I had to do most of the tasks which were almost like installing a fresh system.
Ubuntu’s installation is easier than Debian and faster. I had it up and running in less than 20 minutes!
Now, fornax has once again become my Linux development platform as well as SCM (Source Code Management) server. Oh! I run ktorrent for downloading movies as well. It really flies and sucking all the bandwidth. I have to stopped ktorrent whenever I want to work on Internet.
Peculiar behavior of Sed
What is Sed?
Sed is the ultimate stream editor. If that sounds strange, picture a stream flowing through a pipe. Okay, you can’t see a stream if it’s inside a pipe. That’s what I get for attempting a flowing analogy. You want literature, read James Joyce.
Anyhow, sed is a marvelous utility. Unfortunately, most people never learn its real power. The language is very simple, but the documentation is terrible. The Solaris on-line manual pages for sed are five pages long, and two of those pages describe the 34 different errors you can get. A program that spends as much space documenting the errors than it does documenting the language has a serious learning curve.
You can read more about Sed here.
My project uses a thick binding of PostgreSQL/MySQL called APQ. APQ is a project by Warren and I helped to host it at my server. See my post here. The configure and make process are not really stable which I think is due to various version of MySQL and the Linux tools such as sed.
To build APQ, first, two MySQL include files, errmsg.h and mysqld_error.h need to be parsed. These files contain MySQL error codes and they need to be parsed and translated into Ada syntax. This translated Ada code will be inserted into apq_mysql.ads.
However, this parsing and translation process are not working correctly as they supposed to be. When I look into this problem, I found a peculiar abnormality. The parser uses sed. When I built APQ on Mac OS X, FC5 and Solaris (Intel), the result in apq_mysql.ads is not consistent on these different OS.
After I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.4.9, the parser refused to work with some error messages which I think caused by sed. I was mingling with the configure script until this hour. Suddenly, something struck my mind. Why do I need to mingle with configure? The problem is the parsing and it deserves the highest priority. The build configuration does not perform a thorough check of the environment but it still works fine at this point. So, I moved my priority to write a parser in Ada to solve the parsing problem. This light shed on me at this whee hour in the morning and I was really too tire to continue working on the parser.
OpenSUSE
I had been away from SUSE and the Linux community for quite some time ever since I moved my computing/working platform to Mac OS X. I stumbled upon OpenSUSE a moment ago when I visited a David’s new blog.
I had been SUSE’s fan but I started to deviate after it was bought over by Novell. Since then, I found their products lagging. Many packages in SUSE distro were outdated, the online update would break the stability and etc. I moved to Fedora and it was not better than SUSE in the online update. Again, FC5 broke the stability and usability of my system. I had even downloaded FC6 but never installed on my system. Why? Because I am quite happy with Sun’s Solaris 10.
The reasons I moved away from Linux are:
- the maintenance of software packages is tedious and sometimes mind-bogging, fearing the new software packages would break some dependencies or functionalities of the system or some application software.
- the update of kernel is troublesome, so getting some devices to work on a distro is very much dependent to the kernel installed. Updating to a new kernel may break system integrity, sometimes.
- The UI of the graphical desktop is never as good as Mac OS X! and it is also very difficult to keep abreast with the latest releases.
- Software configuration on many distros are different. For example, some distro uses /var/www as the root directory of Apache, some uses /svr/www.
I love the way Mac OS X handles things. They are standardized among many of its own releases. Mac OS X has a clean cut in system administration.
Now I am having the urge to download OpenSUSE for a try. I hope OpenSUSE will resurrect my faith for Linux.
Cease development on SGI’s IRIX
After a 30 minutes discussion with my co-workers, we have unanimously decided to cease all development on SGI’s IRIX. We began developing applications on SGI’s IRIX about 5 years ago because of demands in 3-D graphics visualization. We used Ada to implement our 3-D visualization solutions.
With today’s availability of powerful microprocessor such as AMD and Intel 64-bit processor, SGI’s hardware has become too expensive too invest and maintain. Another reason is the difficulty to find tools such as gnat Ada compiler. The download site usually provides out of date version that makes maintaining the consistency of compiler versions across other platforms difficult.
This decision should have been made long time ago. A lot of time and resources had been wasted in maintaining existing software and development of new applications. Our clients’ decisions to migrate to Opteron and Mac OS X based platforms have also contributed to this decision. We expect zero or next to zero porting problem because we are using portable technologies such as Ada, GTK+, GtkAda and OpenGL. This decision enables our development to focus on both Opteron (Solaris and Linux) and Mac OS X platforms.
Firefox 2
Mozilla has released the long awaited Firefox 2 web browser. Firefox 2 is a major upgrade to its popular and acclaimed free, open source web browser. I just finished downloading and installing Firefox 2 on my Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris 10 x86 machines. I noticed improvement in performance, speed and user interface compared to version 1.x.
Firefox 2 has made web browsing easier and delivered best online experience. On Mac, I use both Safari and Firefox for my browsing. Unfortunately, Safari is not really working together with WordPress. For example, I lose all the editing functions when I write my post. The editing functions panel is not displayed in Safari. In the contrary, Firefox 2 displays the editing functions panel and I am able to access these functions by clicking on the icons. Firefox 2 allows me to easily write my posts.
I have not been using any Microsoft products since I completely ditched Microsoft in 1998. The only product that I had on my Mac was IE, Microsoft’s web browser. In terms of performance, speed and security, IE really sucks. I have deleted IE on my Macs and replaced with Firefox.
Mozilla makes improvements to the user interface, security tools and options for customization, combine to deliver rich, engaging, safer and more productive web browsing experience for all.
One feature I like most in Firefox is its ability to view background image and page info. These are valuable tools for web development. Another feature I use most is displaying my browsing history in the sidebar which allows me to browse my history side-by-side with web pages.
Tabbed browsing has become a de facto standard feature in most modern web browser. Mozilla has changed the user interface of tab and allowed moving tab to any position you like so that you can arrange the pages you are browsing according to your priority. Another plus for Firefox 2 which makes web browsing more productive. Apple’s Safari does not allow moving the tab.
Another good selling point of Firefox 2 over Apple’s Safari is the built-in spell checker in input fields. Firefox 2 will underline misspelling inline and is very useful for blogging. With Firefox’s built-in spell checker, there is absolutely no necessity to install additional plugins for blogging tools such as WordPress.
Although Apple’s Safari is also a nice web browser, it still needs some patch up to be on par with Firefox 2. The only best feature in Safari is its excellent support of international character encoding. Apple has done a great job not only in Safari but in Mac OS X and applications as the whole.
So much on the features that I like most and often use. I will let you to discover Firefox 2 yourselves.
Tunnel X over SSH
The drawback of Remote Desktop Login I posted 2 days ago is its slow speed. It takes a while to display the desktop login screen. Another drawback is it creates another X session at the server if you already have another running.
My laziness and desire to start up applications and finish the job quickly makes me look further into the world of remote access. This leads me to X tunneling over SSH.
With X tunneling over SSH, I am able to run X applications (Linux FC5) on my preferred Mac OS X desktop, Pluto. The screenshot shows that I am running KDE Control Center (Linux FC5 on triton1) on Pluto (Mac OS X).
This is how I do it:
- ForwardX11 needs to be enable. Edit /etc/ssh/ssh_config. Make sure you have ForwardX11Trusted yes is enabled in ssh_config.
- On Mac OS X, start X11. At terminal, type
$ ssh -X username@ip_address - Start any X applications you like.
Remote Desktop Login from Mac
Some friends told me the laziest programmer is the best and most creative programmer. When a person becomes older, he/she will become lazier.
Remote Desktop Login has been out there for some time ago. I did not try it. Remote Desktop Control has been useful for me occasionally. I had a bad experience with RDC when my Linux server crashed in early September. I was RDC from my SPARC/Solaris workstation. I stopped using RDC since then.
One drawback about RDC is that I have to login before I can access the desktop remotely.
Because of my eye condition, I feel lazy to switch between keyboards and mice and running from one room to another. I decided to check out Remote Desktop Login. It took me a while to understand. But after I tried it out, it was pretty easy though.
Here’s how I do it to login to SPARC/Solaris. Launch X11 from Mac OS X then
$ xhost +ip_address
$ Xnest :1 -query ip_address -geometry 1280x1024
According to some documentation, it is required to configure gdm on Linux boxes. I used the following to configure FC 5 (Fedora Core 5) box:
- Edit /etc/gdm/custom.conf
- Add RemoteGreeter=/usr/libexec/gdmlogin to [daemon] segment
- Under [xdmcp] segment, change the line Enable=false to Enable=true
- Restart gdm
With Remote Desktop Login, I don’t have to login before I remotely access the PC. It has also save me some money for investing in a KVM switch. I was thinking about hooking up some of my computers with a KVM switch. It will still be a mess with all the cables despite of its pricy tag. Remote Desktop Login is the best method for me at this moment. It allow me to become lazier because I no longer need to login at computers which I want access. I can login remotely, simple!
Argh! Another disaster day
Sh!T On August 22, my lovely iBook died. I just brought up Pyxis1 and Pyxis2 yesterday after setting up the network for SOHO. This morning the hard disk on Pyxis1 failed! In just less than 2 weeks, I was stricken by two disasters in a row.
I ran Ark to open a tar.gz file for preview via RDC (Remote Desktop Connection) from Pyxis2. Suddenly, Pyxis1 hung. I could not regain control at Pyxis1 and I forced a power down and reboot. The grub prompt showed up. I knew great problem just knocked on my door.
After trying to boot with grub commands:
grub> kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 1
grub> initrd (hd0,0)/initrd
grub> boot
An error said that it could be hard disk failure. I ran badblocks to check the hard disk and it spat out block numbers that were affected. Here go my data in the server.
I have the data backup to my iBook. They are in the iBook hard disk. I will have to protect the hard disk like a precious gemstone now. Otherwise, HUGE trouble will be.
GIMPShop
I turned away from Linux to Mac as my working platform some months ago. I occasionally would use GIMP on my Linux boxes to do some graphics. After switching to Mac as my major working platform, I had missed GIMP a lot. I used PhotoStudio that came with Canon EOS in a CD. I don’t like PhotoStudio because it is very slow and very limited in features and supported only a few graphics formats.
Last night while I was surfing at Apple’s website, I found GIMPShop. I was very excited and quickly downloaded and installed it.
GIMPShop is a free Open Source image editor that is similar to the popular Adobe Photoshop. Specifically GIMPShop is a version of the GIMP that has been edited to be more user-friendly for Photoshop users.GIMPShop was created by Attack of the Show’s Scott Moschella. The menu structure and terminology are adapted to to look and feel more like Photoshop, and other adjustments were made to make the GIMP more usable. In the Windows version, the Deweirdifyer Plugin has been used to place all of the various windows into one nesting window, so it will act more like a single program that multiple little programs.. Also the menu structure and terminology are adapted to to look and feel more like Photoshop.
GIMPShop was orginally developed for Mac OS X, but has been ported to Windows, Linux, and Solaris.
It is like meeting an old friend after a long time. I feel more at home with graphics now (I am not very good at graphics, but I will do some very basics graphics at times). I think it’s time for me to ditch PhotoStudio!
PC is dead!
My Linux power workstation cum server is dead. It’s motherboard problem. The motherboard is Albatron’s KX-18D Pro II socket 462. It sported an AMD Athlon XP 3000+, 1GB RAM, 120GB SATA hard disk, 256MB Video Graphics.
It was one of the fastest PC 2 years ago. Now, it is ancient. It is hard to find a replacement motherboard that supports Athlon XP 3000+.
Perhaps, I should get a dual G5 PowerMac. But it is very expensive.
Linux or Mac OS X?
I received an email from an old friend asking me if Linux is better or Mac OS X. It is a hard question to answer because both are some kind of Unix with many similarity.
Over the years of using Linux and Mac OS X, I have fallen in love with Mac OS X for its ease of use and configuration. I am using it for my email, web browsing, photos, music, software development and almost everything on my Mac. But I am still running Linux boxes at home for servers and software development. Linux is my second preferred OS.
The problem with Linux is the many different distro. Every distro has their own way to implement things although they work the same. There are no standard defined methods of doing things among these distro company.
In 2002, United Linux was announced. It was an attempt to create a common base distro but it ended in 2004.
One significant advantage of Apple is that it works straight out of the box.
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