I was writing a comment the other day on GNU/Linux apps and competition against proprietary software. In my signature I have added: "Fight Microsoft. Donate to Wine". But later I realized that, even when it's necessary, it's not the answer for Linux adoption.

Supporting proprietary Windows applications so they can run in Linux is a temporary approach. The real goal is replacing those applications with Free/Libre Open Source Software. We know that proprietary software will always appear, but WINE won't solve things by itself.

Why? Let's suppose WINE reaches version 1.0 and all Windows programs can run in Linux. There will be still a problem: It's not the NATIVE, TRUE way to run programs in Linux. Software developers won't see any incentive to develop Linux versions of their programs. "Why? They can run through WINE".

So the only permanent solution to being tied to a proprietary (or as Stallman calls 'em, "privative") application is to make an equivalent FREE application. And optionally, make it cross-platform so it can compete with the proprietary one. Just like Firefox.

Let's use another example. Ever heard of Krita? It's a painting / image editing application, much friendlier than the GIMP, and with multiple color spaces support (like CMYK and 16 bits color depth). Now this app has the potential to compete with Photoshop, but it's still in early development (i.e. no unsharp mask filter). Oh well, at least it's a start.

Eventually, I think Krita will reach the "competition" status, just like Mozilla did vs. IE. Then it'll be one less reason to stick with Windows.

So what do we need to help Linux reach the people out there? APPLICATIONS! We need to support developers and encourage them to develop clones for existing apps, or at least copy the existing features in them. And how to encourage them? $imple. Give out donations, do bug reports, feature requests and all that.

Sigh, we need a Mecenas to give out money to Open Source developers and start new projects.

I was trying out the latest install of EPSXE for GNU/Linux. My goal was to prove myself (and the world) that gamers don't need Windows.

And then I realized the freedom that emulators give, and how this fits also in the Free Software philosophy.

According to Richard Stallman, there are 4 freedoms that software must give to someone:

* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

In emulators and games, we're talking about Freedom 0: The freedom to run a program (in this case a game) for any purpose. Whether you want it or not, every console system you have is a little DRM machine, defective by design, just waiting to break so you can stop enjoying your favorite games.

Now think about that little copy-protection included in your PlayStation2 DVD's, so you can't back them up. Oh no, you need a modchip to be able to play them. And what happens when people sell you that modchip? According to the DMCA, you're breaking the law.

Breaking the law just to be able to back up your games and play them? So, what's the alternative? The alternative is spending some extra money to buy another original DVD because your old one broke. Who's going to pay you that money? And let's not talk about consoles. What happens when your favorite console breaks and stops working (*cough cough* red rings of death in XBOX 360 *cough cough*)?

All the games you purchased are useless. You can't play your favorite game in another system (like the PSP) because it's not compatible. Even if it's the same title. Why have to purchase two different licenses-of-use for different consoles, if it's the same game?

And so we realize that the console sellers, just like the RIAA and MPAA, have become intermediaries. The console they sold to you no longer works, in other words, the license to use a game that you didn't buy from Sony, depends on the durability of the product Sony sold to you.

But I don't want anything to do with Sony, I already paid Konami for their game!
But Sony doesn't give a damn. The software is RESTRICTED to run on THEIR PLATFORM. Stupid exclusivity agreements.

Emulators to the rescue! If you have purchased a copy of say... Castlevania Symphony of the Night for the Playstation 1, you shouldn't have any problem playing it on another system, even if your PSX broke, right?

You just have to install a PSX emulator on your Windows or GNU/Linux machine, set up the plugins, the BIOS (ah yes, more copyrighted stuff - let's hope it's not illegal to use the BIOS in an emulator, provided you still own the console you used), and voila.

See? It wasn't that hard. But here's the catch... the catch is that console manufacturers don't want you to realize that you CAN play your favorite console games on a general-purpose Personal Computer. Otherwise, their market would break down.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, consoles are DESIGNED to become OBSOLETE. Just think about ALL the games you have purchased since you were young. Think of all the money you gave away to Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft... all the games that you had to resell cheap because they devaluated. Who's gonna give you back all that money? You can't play those games now, can you?

Ah, but if you have an emulator, you can play your SNES, Dreamcast, etc. games on your PC.

So why is the industry so fed up about emulators? You're only exercising your right, am I correct?

Now there's another issue with Consoles. Due to the excessive copy-protection they have imposed on their hardware, hobbyist programmers can't enter the market by publishing their own games. No, they have to sign an agreement with the console companies so they can authorize and press their DVD's.

What does that do to creativity? In the end, only a few, the rich and powerful, are the ones who decide what content (read: games) you can put on "your" box.

The game publisher associations have become another RIAA.

How to end this madness? Simple - by promoting an open platform for games. Until then, we'll have to stick with Mednafen and Epsxe, and enjoy the luxury of backing up your favorite games and playing them on your friend's computers when you're visiting. Simply because you already paid for them.

Don't you think?

Good evening, all of you who want to change the world. Did you know that you can change the world?

Have you ever wondered why people complain about the world's problems but nobody seems to do anything about it? Well, I've been thinking about that. A lot.

The first step is WANTING to change things. It's not enough to complain. You need to TAKE A DECISION and ACT UPON IT. So far, I've taken the following decisions, perhaps you can add to my list:

• Be as green as possible by using energy-saving light bulbs, disconnecting cellphone chargers when i don't need them, disconnecting the TV's instead of putting them to standby, and separate the garbage at home, when possible
• Boycott the RIAA and MPAA by not purchasing a single movie or music record from them.
• Boycott the Scientology cult by not watching any Tom Cruise or John Travolta movie (what, you didn't know he's a scientologist, too?)
• Promote a SPAMless internet by not sending chain letters ("OMG ponies! send this to your friends!")
• Promote a healthier life by not consuming junk food (McDonalds, I'm staring at you)
• Boycott Microsoft by switching to Linux
• Prevent my PC from becoming a SPAM zombie by either:
  • Scanning my PC regularly
  • Using Linux 100% of the time
  • Or at least run Windows inside a virtualbox to prevent getting infected by a virus
• Promote the presidential candidate that I believe will stop the war nonsense (in my case, I believe it's Ron Paul - it doesn't matter what I believe, but what YOU believe. Have you promoted your candidate, or are just sitting around, not voting and just being another sheep?)
• Donate money to honorable causes (like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, or your favorite opensource project (hint: Donating to the WINE project is a very good cause ;-) ), or charitative associations

See, there are so many things that you can do to change the world... and these are BASIC ONES. More advanced ones could include helping and giving tech support to people wanting to try out Linux (instead of sending them to RTFM), teach math for free to someone who needs it, praying at least a few minutes a-day, if you believe in God, visiting your lonely grandma once in a while...

Why am I so upset about mankind? Because I've realized that ONE- even one person can make a difference... what would be of computers without Linus, the GPL and Stallman? What would be of the web without Firefox? (And this goes back to the founder of Netscape)? What would be of black people (or color, if you prefer) without Martin Luther King?

Think about it. It takes one person to screw up the whole world at least in one area: George Bush. Need I say more? Well, it works both ways. One person can fix the world in at least one area. And that person COULD BE YOU. Maybe not in politics, but perhaps in ecology, or something more "down to earth".

See, sometimes we run away and hide from our problems and drown them in alcohol, drugs, porn, just food, whatever... but we have to remember that we could help other people solving their problems. And by not doing ANYTHING, we're letting the bad guys get away with it!

So, do you want the world to change, yes or no?

Well, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Finally, I'd like to share a good news: Wine 0.9.49 just got out. Perhaps you are good at programming and might give the guys a hand. YOU can help destroy the Microsoft monopoly! OK, so you're not good at programming, how about this: Donate 5 dollars to the Wine project. Don't tell me you can't do that... if you live in the US, either you or one of your parents got a credit card. You can dedicate a weekend to send a money order.

So, instead of feeling miserable about yourself and why you're too weak to change things, you can get up, and change them.

What do you think?

Or if you don't want to do anything about it, you could at least distribute this text, unmodified among your friends - but NOT in chain e-mails, please! - to wake up their consciousness. Right?

So, stop complaining about the world's problems and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! NOW!

Hackles is a very nice webcomic for geeks. The comic seems to be stopped already (i.e. no more strips), but it's worth very nice laughs. My favorite strip: The penguins return home - tension is in the air.

[Here's a 2nd try, as the first attempt evidently went to bit heaven.]

Saturnday night I went out with other Santa Cruz Astronomy Club members to the Bonny Doon airfield. I live about 15 miles from the site and was a bit put off when upon unpacking found the power cord had left its storage compartment on my portable power pack. I'd been there before, leaving it home, but this time it appears well and truly lost. (Sunday I picked up a new cord at Radio Shack and used a tie-strip to secure it to the eq. mount.)

So muscling the LXD-75 10 inch SNT around was the order of the night. Not terrible, but it meant no tracking, which is the feature I depend upon most. Around midnight Orion cleared the trees and I swung the tube over to examine the Orion Nebula (M42), in Orion's sword. It's one of my favourite sights and this evening would be one of the best for viewing.

Early on I could easily make out the four brightest stars in Trapesium and continued to check up as Orion progressed higher. About 1:00 AM I was easily able to make out five stars, by 1:30 AM I was able to clearly see six, which is the full known compliment of blue stars in that stellar nursery. Cue massive geek astronomical excitement!

After a bit I swung the scope over to Fornax and Eridanus to scan for galaxies, which were in abundance. About 2:00 AM I was still wide awake, thanks to my 1L Sigg full of green tea, but knew I'd need to head home eventually or be the worse for it while unpacking and transporting all this wonderful dead weight back into the house. After returning home I was still pretty awake and enthusiastic enough to plan my viewing for the next week while downing some soup.

Sunday proved to be a difficult adjustment, even with the extra hour to sleep in.

It's even become a recurrent joke. Every year is 5 years away from the year of Desktop Linux. Despites the fact that Linux is getting better and better every day, still very few people switch. Why?

There were excuses, or valid reasons for not adopting Linux. Some of them have been slowly addressed.

Driver Support? Check.
User friendliness? Check.
Lack of applications? Check.
Compatibility? Uh oh...

Perhaps it would be good if we analyzed why Vista isn't becoming a success. Windows XP is just "good enough", and people don't want to spend another hundred dollars to upgrade.

"But Linux is free", you may say. Well, I have a surprise for you: It isn't.
*GASP* Blasphemy!

Actually, it's applications support. Do you see Flash Professional for Linux? Do you see Photoshop CS for Linux? Do you see Adobe Premiere Pro or Sony Vega for Linux?

"Oh, but you can use Wine". Well, not all professional applications work on Wine. "Well, there's Crossover". Yeah, but is it free?

Touché.

What about gamers? There's Cedega, which allows you to play your DirectX games on Linux.... for a price.

See... people already spent money on Windows. They have already spent money on the games. And the apps. So why the heck do they have to spend EVEN MORE MONEY on buying a compatibility suit *JUST* so they can switch to a (fingers quoting here) "Free" operating system? Don't make me laugh.

Sure, The companies behind Cedega and Crossover have done wonders to aid the Linux community. But the software remains proprietary.
*GASP* Blasphemy!

Yeah yeah, it may be GPL licensed or whatever, but the companies are already discouraging compiling it on your own. In other words, to keep the money flowing, they're hindering the Linux community from a wonderful weapon which is Windows compatibility for professional applications... AND games.

If my uncle Joe won't switch to Linux because he likes using Photoshop and video editing programs (professional ones, I mean), and I can't assure him that they will work on Linux (most probably they won't), how will he Switch (Specially if his whole business depends on using those apps)? And if his son has to buy some compatibility software to run his Windows-only game, how will he switch?

So here's my proposal: Google or another powerful company, like IBM or Novell, should PURCHASE these companies, and release the code to the community. Or at least pay them a good bunch of dollars to release their code every 4 or 5 months, and to keep developing the stuff.

Wham! Instantly, the next distributions of Linux will allow us to run our favorite Windows applications without complaining.

But it hasn't happened. And there aren't good Free alternatives for Flash Professional or Adobe premiere (there are, but I said good). And until some company decides to start paying a hundred volunteers to build these FLOSS alternatives, there will be a vast majority of people who won't switch.

I am an example. I didn't want to switch to Linux unless there was a good alternative to MSN messenger. In the end, I switched, but I lost my ability to store and send custom emoticons (at least until Pidgin 2.2.3 which comes out in 2 weeks). But just as there's MSN messenger, there's this online game, or my favorite office application, or my favorite ActiveX control for Internet explorer which is needed to visit this or that website (or to make our company software work), etc. etc. etc.

Users need to be guaranteed that their favorite apps will run on Linux. And we can't do that without Cedega or Crossover. And, unfortunately, the companies' futures depend on NOT releasing their code.

So, what to say about TransGaming Technologies, or CodeWeavers? Are they beneficial to the community? Or have they become parasites? And why do the images of the symbiotes in the Spider Man comic, suddenly come to my mind?

(And speaking about comics, here's a good one - i know, it's inaccurate, but you get the point)

Since I had installed PCLinuxOS, I've been doing great improvements in customizing my desktop. And I don't just mean changing the background. I'm talking about usability.

Here are some of the improvements I've made to my Linux machine - in no particular order:

Usability improvement #1: QuickLauncher applet.
This allows me to start my favorite applications with the touch of a button. I still wonder why it wasn't enabled by default. (Or was it and I accidentally deleted? I think so, because I remember that tiny lifesaver icon before).

Usability improvement #2: Multiple Desktops.
It may appear as nothing important, but saving a click is really relieving for your ached fingertips if you got RSI. Did you know that if you move the mousewheel over the desktops switcher, the desktops change? Also, you can make a certain application occupy ALL desktops. I have winamp er Audacious (having the original winamp skin still fools me :P ) and the Buddy list on all desktops.

Also you can use one desktop for slashdotting and tech stuff, another for buddies (so you can have all buddy conversations visible) and another for installations etc. I also modified the desktops applet to use 6 instead of 4 desktops (but maintained the number of desktops to 4). This way the icons use less horizontal space.

Usability improvement #3: Changing the behavior of desktop icons from double-click to single-click. Anything to save my precious fingertips from excruciating pain (Ow, I shouldn't have played that much with my PS2)

Usability improvement #4: Windows-key-behavior for Shortcuts.
This made me use ctrl-alt-del and my favorite windows shortcuts in Linux. For example, If I press Win+R, a "run" dialog appears.

Usability improvement #5: Windows keys compatibility. KDE allows you to use the numpad keys as in windows, but some shortcuts need to be added manually, like ctrl-alt-keypaddel to bring up the task switcher. The only annoyance is a bug in GTK which makes ctrl-numpadright behave like ctrl-left, but that'll be fixed in the next upgrade which I'm anxiously awaiting.

Usability improvement #6: Windows commands emulated
Using my 1337 h4x0r 5k1llz (lol), I created custom shell scripts that emulate windows commands. For example, explorer replicates konqueror & (the & is important, because it sets it as a background process). I don't recommend replicating the basic DOS commands like copy and ren (because that's a bad habit), but "explorer" and "notepad" scripts (which opens kwrite) help me do things faster.

Usability improvement #7:Bells and whistles.
Winamp Skins for Audacious, changing the desktop background, setting semi-transparent taskbar,changing the annoying start button for a nicer one (this required some commandline hacking), those things make my Linux experience more enjoyable and less boring - choosing a tropical and sunny desktop background makes me feel calm and more joyful. And that's also a usability improvement.

What's next...
I'm planning to download Irfanview and add it with Wine(tm) as a quicklaunchable icon. It's a must-have for me.

Conclusion
With these usability improvements, I've made my Linux to be MUCH BETTER than Windows. And with software like Compiz Fusion (not available for my distro... yet), I've come to believe that Linux has NOTHING to be envious about Vista.

Rob Weir did Slashdot a great favor by exposing the cracks in the OpenDocument Foundation. The Foundation's statement to abandon ODF sounded like a tragedy for the ODF Format, but in the end it turned out to be just FUD - why? Because the Foundation just happens to be completely isolated from the ODF community. From Rob's blog:

The "OpenDocument Foundation" sounds so official. Although it has no official role in the ODF standard, this name opens doors. The ODF Alliance , the ODF Fellowship, the OASIS ODF TC, ODF Adoption TC (and many other groups without "ODF" in their name) have done far more to promote and improve ODF, yet the OpenDocument Foundation, Inc. seems to score the panel invites. Not bad for two guys without a garage.

In other words, this means that no matter what Gary Edwards or anyone from the "OpenDocument Foundation" says, ODF will NOT be abandoned by either the industry or the community. ODF is NOT in danger. Just relax, take a deep breath, it was just a bad Halloween scare.

I got my first blog entry on the PCLinuxOS2007 blog, located at http://pclinuxos2007.blogspot.com/.
This guy inspired me to keep writing.

Anyway, what's this blog about? Well it's a PCLinuxOS2007 user, and he gives reviews, testimonials and hints for optimizing this particular distro.

Feel free to give him a visit when you like.

I'm getting a little frustrated (OK, I'll be sincere - freaking annoyed) by KDE. If anyone can give me pointers to fix my problem (and no, switching to GNOME won't help), I'd really appreciate it.

One of my favorite features in Windows 9x to XP is the taskbar. Specially the one-click shortcuts. They're the greatest productivity boost I've seen in Windows. Even if they don't fit all, you press the little arrow in there and choose from a menu. In my install, the icons were only 22 (or less) pixels wide, so they didn't use up any space. I could even resize the shortcuts area.

But the interesting thing is this: When I resize the taskbar to make it taller, the shortcut icons (and actually all the icons in the taskbar, including the systray) arrange themselves in rows. This is space efficient, and it doesn't clutter my precious tasks area.

Now... what happens if I modify the panel in KDE and make it larger? The icons don't arrange in rows. They GROW instead. Ugh!! Come on! Who was the genius who programmed them to do that? Instead of using less space, they use MORE.

I know, I can put them all in a menu, but that loses the one-click functionality. Due to repetitive strain injury, I can't afford to click too much on the mouse, it hurts every time I click!

Really, I miss the Windows taskbar. And don't come and tell me it's an old Windoze habit that needs to go away, because it's not. It's productivity.

Please... help! :(

Update: tqft kindly invited me to explore and investigate. Now I realized there's an applet (I never knew there was something called "applets" in KDE) called "QuickLauncher" that does just what I was looking for. I can sigh with relief now! :) My taskbar has been optimized.

Imagine this. Your hard drive consists of various partitions. And you need to resize your C: partition because it can't hold on more data.

Can you do it in windows and make sure everything's OK? You need special (and expensive) programs. The easiest way is to backup your data, wipe everything and reinstall from scratch.

But with Linux, you can do it for free and in a couple of hours - and without having to worry about updating a whole gig of service packs and upgrades.

So, what did I have to do? Well, I had to move some partitions around to expand my /usr partition from 7gigs to 30gigs.

but after /usr, there was the /var partition. And after /var, there was /home. And after /home there was a huge 250GB empty partition.

So what did I do? I created a partition by deleting the 250GB one, and creating a 50MB one.

Then rebooted... whoops, Linux wouldn't boot. I had made the mistake of mounting the new (unformatted) partition to the name of an existing partition. The kernel got confused about this, and forced me to do a recheck - No problem, instead, I booted from the CD, formatted the just created partition, and rebooted from the HD again. It booted again.

Then, using the "cp -a" command, I moved everything from /home to /home2 (by using cp -a /home/* /home2).
But before rebooting, i edited /etc/fstab, and renamed the partition /home2 to /home. I renamed /home to somethingelse. Then rebooted, wiped the somethingelse partition and repeated the process with /var and /usr.

(I wonder if I really had to reboot - perhaps there was some command to unload all the partitions and reload them again, but I just got lazy and didn't find out). /usr was more tricky, because that was the partition I had to resize. Rebooted from the LiveCD again, and resized the partition. In case something went wrong, I could restore the backup that I had made by typing "cp -a /usr/* /home/usr" beforehand. I would only type "cp -a /home/usr/* /usr" and ta-da.

So, using the Admnistration Center, I enlarged the /usr partition, and rebooted.

Did everything work fine? Yes, it did! A nice thing of Linux is that you can access the file system from a Live CD and play as you like with the partitions. Now, try doing the same thing I did, but in Windows.

And of course, in case of a brute-force reinstall, your /home directory is still safe. And it'll still be home. Have you ever tried to move the "Program Files" directory from C: to D: ? First, you have to edit the registry, then do a search and replace, reboot, etc. But if you have to install from scratch, Windows will INSIST to put program files in C:. And let's not even talk about My Documents.

I'm in no way a Linux hacker / expert, but as I begin to know Linux more, I realize the inherent faults that Windows has. Before I switched, I considered ReactOS my #1 choice instead of Windows. But now I'm starting to have my doubts. I no longer appreciate the file system or kernel that Microsoft has imposed on its users. Linux is more universal than Windows. Even if Microsoft has 99% of the Market Share.

And how can prove it? Well, you can't boot Windows from a USB drive, can you? :)

It seems that Firefox doesn't like KDE very much. Now, most Linux users prefer editing files under the command line for fixing this bug. But I come from Windows, so here's how *I* solved it:

Open a new tab on firefox, and type in the url: about:config
rightclick on any of the items, and choose "New - String". When asked "Enter the preference name", type: "network.protocol-handler.app.file". When asked for the value, just type "/usr/bin/konqueror".

Quit Firefox and reopen. Opening folders and files now work!

It was a "hidden" option. On the KDE Control Center (the gears icon on your taskbar), open the "Regional and Accessibility" item, and then "Keyboard layout".

Under the Xkb Options tab, check the "Enable xkb options". Then click on the "Numpad" option. The "numpad keys works as in Microsoft Windows". Click Apply, and OK. Ta-da! :)

Finally I found a great Winamp clone for Linux. It's called Audacious. So far it works out of the box, and you can use winamp skins for it (but some commandline wizardry is required - you need to use root permisions to write in the /usr/share/audacious/skins directory. Then make a directory for the skin, and unzip the winamp skin you downloaded onto that directory).

Right now I'm using the Winamp 5 skin with audacious. And guess what - it's IDENTICAL TO WINAMP! No white borders around it nor anything. If this wasn't Linux, I would SWEAR it's winamp (Even the titlebar says "WINAMP", lol)

I had tried XMMS without success before, and it kept crashing (i mean closing) on me no matter what Linux flavor it run on. But Audacious is just what I was looking for. Simple. Easy. Fast.

Linux is starting to feel like home now. (Now if only found out how to get rid of this shift+numpad arrows = number behavior with the keyboard...)

Finally I understood why I couldn't dualboot Windows using grub. It seems that I screwed up my windows partition while repartitioning :-/ I really don't know if it was Ubuntu's fault, or PCLinuxOS's fault, or my own fault. I just know that i couldn't boot.

The strange thing is that the files were still there. So it must have been something to do with the boot sector. Or maybe I had a windows rootkit lurking around. Who knows.

So I reinstalled Windows in "repair mode", and rebooted.

Read error. Press ctrl-alt-del to reboot. :(

I could have reinstalled windows from scratch, or run fixmbr and fixboot from the recovery console in the Windows CD, but I didn't want to waste two more hours installing an operating system I completely hated. And then call the Product Activation and all that?

That does it, Microsoft! NO MORE SOUP FOR YOU!

I backed up my important data and entirely wiped my windows partitions. I repartitioned as I wanted, and reinstalled PCLinuxOS from scratch with separate partitions for /usr, /var, and /home.

After installing, grub loaded without the slightest complaint.

I ran synaptic and marked all upgrades. It took the OS 2 hours to download and install while I took a nap.

Then I installed some games, azureus for BT, and other stuff.

Finally. I'm free from Windows now! No more headaches! :D