Wanted: A Decent, FOS, Cross Platform, Permission-Less, File-System

This is something I desperately want. Don't get me wrong, I think file system permissions are fantastic (they are one of the many things that make Linux superior to Windows), however one place they can be a true pain is when dealing with removable media. Don't believe me? Format your favorite flash drive to ext4 and enjoy having to change file permissions every time you plug it into a new computer. I use Linux on all my home computers, including my media center. Most of my video files are stored on a external 1.5TB ext4 hardrive, which means whenever I decided to watch movies on my laptop off the drive I have to crack open terminal and run

chown -R jeff /media/Storage/

Which is only a minor inconvenience for someone such as myself. For a new Linux convert (or someone who doesn't want to deal with terminal) this is a huge turn off (maybe even a deal breaker for the operating system).

Oh and then there is the other lovely issue of most Linux file systems not being readable on Windows and OSX. Now, even if you are like myself and only use Linux on all of your personal computers - you are aware that the rest of the world does not work this way. Most times when using a computer that is not your own it will be non-Linux based.

The current solution? Format your drive to FAT32, it is permission-less, cross platform, easily fragments, and almost a decade and a half old. It blows my mind that we are still relying on technology every day that was introduced with Windows 95. In addition to being dated FAT32 is limited to holding files of a maximum of 4gigs in size. Meaning all those Blueray rips and most DVD iso files will not be able to be stored on a partition of this type.

What do you think the reason is that we have not see a decent, FOS, cross platform, permission-less, file-system created to date? It seems like it is something the computing world could truly benefit from having.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Wine vs Native - 3D Performance Benchmarks

In the past I've done Wine on Linux versus native Windows 7 benchmarks for 3D applications. Source engine games are some of my favorite benchmarking applications. Since Valve ported Steam to OSX earlier this year and I recently acquired an OSX PC I figured this would be an opportune time to see how Wine performance measures up to a native client, not only on the same hardware - but on the same operating system.

My benchmarking tools this time around will be Counter Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2, as they both run native on OSX. For Wine software I used the recently released Crossover Games 9.1

Scores:
Counter Strike: Source

• 1680x1050, Wine - 44.16fps
• 800x600, Wine - 48.59fps
• 1680x1050, Native - 54.02fps
• 800x600, Native - 56.22fps

Team Fortress 2

• 1680x1050, Wine - 43.88fps
• 800x600, Wine - 49.58fps
• 1680x1050, Native - 50.56fps
• 800x600, Native - 58.47fps

As you can see - the numbers are fairly close (at least closer than they are with the Windows vs Linux Wine benchmarks). With CSS Wine scored 81% the speed of the native version and in TF2 Wine was 86% the FPS native version. It is fantastic the progress the Wine project has made over the past few years, to the point where it can almost keep up with a native version of modern games - even so I would love to see native ports of these games to my favorite operating system.

~Jeff Hoogland
Please note while these benchmark scores presented are accurate to the best of my abilities, they only represent my personal hardware and software configurations. Your results on your own system(s) may vary (and if they do, please share them!).

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N900 Faster Application Manager - Review

If you have ever installed an application on an N900 using the default application manager you know that while it is functional it is not the fastest of processes - especially if you are installing multiple applications. Enter the FOSS project, which you can currently find in the extras devel repository, Faster Application Manager. As the name implies FAM is a graphical interface for apt-get in Maemo and it lives up to it's name of being quicker. The GUI is simple and functions well, the main screen presents you with all the options you need to add/remove/upgrade software on your Maemo device:

When trying to find applications to install FAM offers several different methods of searching:


As well as by category:


And of course by name as well:


Installing software is just as easy as in the default application manager. One of the largest advantages FAM has of the default manager is that it allows you to mark multiple packages for installation (as opposed to installing each program one at a time). The installation process is fairly straight forward. Select your package(s) to install:


Wait for it to check for dependencies:


Confirm you want to install all of said dependencies:


And wait for everything to install:



FAM will also handle upgrading packages that have a newer version available, simply mark all of the ones you would like to upgrade (just like when installing packages) and hit apply. One thing worth noting though is that when the update notification appears it will open by default in the normal application manager - to upgrade packages via FAM load FAM and select Upgrade Applications from the main FAM menu.


Finally, FAM also provides a graphics interface for enabling/disabling/adding/editing/removing repositories.


All in all FAM is an excellent application and it is much faster the default application manager. In fact the only real draw back to FAM currently is that it does not support installing applications from the Ovi Store as of yet. Also worth mentioning is that unlike the default application manager FAM supports portrait mode when you tip your device into a vertical position.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Tech Support: C Drive on Your Linux Phone may be Corrupted

I know first tier tech support at most all companies simply read from a script when trying to sort out the issue a customer is having. I understand why this is, nine times out of ten one of the few items on their list will resolve the issue. That being said, a couple weeks ago I went out on a limb and purchased Joikuspot for my N900. Joikuspot is an application that is suppose to easily allow you to share your 3G connection via wifi.

Keywords there are suppose to. After I shelled out my hard earned dollars for the application, I downloaded and installed it on my N900. Once it finished I eagerly loaded it up and told it to start sharing my internet connection via wireless. Everything appeared to be working as I connected my Ubuntu laptop to the ADHOC network I had created from my N900. Much to my dismay I discovered no data would transfer over the wifi to my laptop. After confirming that my 3G connection was working I then proceeded to try the connection on four other laptops - all of which also failed to receive any connection through Joikuspot.

Ok - fine. I know software can behave differently on different devices, so I contact their tech support. After going through the normal setting checks and even reinstalling the application I finally got this response:

"You could still try to reset your phone. That has helped some of our customers.

Sometimes it may happen that a program corrupts the C: drive of your phone and then some data can be lost and some applications may not work or work only partially.

On a Symbian Series 60 based phone, two key sequences will allow to restore your phone to a cleaner state:
Normal Reset (*#7780#) : Restores ini files from rom but preserves user data (photos, 3rd party apps etc)
Deep Reset (*#7370#) : This reformats completely the C: drive. All applications and files stored on this drive will be lost and clean default files will be rewritten."

I was slightly at a loss for words. Now even though the N900 can boot a variety operating systems - a functional Symbian is not currently on this ever growing list. It was clear that the person providing the tech support had no idea what an N900 was (or what operating system it ran). Now, I still took the suggestion to heart and reflashed my N900 to factory defaults and still Joikuspot failed to work. Needless to say I am in the process of acquiring a refund for this dud of a product.

I would ask for better tier one tech support personnel, but I know this is never going to happen. My only request is that if they are going to continue to hire morons that they at least be kind enough to provide them with a better script. Anyone else ever received misinformed (or borderline moronic) tech support advice that was clearly from a poorly written script?

~Jeff Hoogland

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HOWTO: Starcraft 2 on Linux with Wine

Okie dokie - so I've mentioned before that I play Starcraft 2 under my Linux install with no issues. Since the game's official release a few days ago I have been getting a good bit of traffic on those two pages - so I figured I would put together a quick HOWTO for getting Starcraft 2 working on your Linux distro of choice. The game runs under Wine 1.2 and/or Crossover Games 9.1 with a small bit of work (the latter is easier to make work).

Since free is good I'll talk about the Wine HOWTO first. First off, download and install Wine 1.2 on your system. Next, run the following commands in terminal:

cd ~/Downloads

wget http://winezeug.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/winetricks

chmod +x winetricks

./winetricks droid fontfix fontsmooth-rgb gdiplus gecko
./winetricks vcrun2008 vcrun2005 allfonts d3dx9 win7

winecfg

In the configuration Window it opens go to the libraries tab and enter mmdevapi in the new override for library box and click add. Now scroll through the existing over rides list for mmdevapi click edit and set it to disabled. Finally click on the audio tab and set it to alsa.

If you still have audio issues after doing this and your distro uses Pulse Audio (Ubuntu does) install Wine 1.2 that has been built with pulse audio support with the following commands in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:c-korn/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

As of Crossover 9.1 Starcraft 2 is listed as "officially support" and as such you will find that it has an entry in the automated games installer. The only issue is that after the game has actually finished installing the StarCraft 2 process hangs around - meaning Crossover never actually knows that the game has finished installing and thusly never creates menu entries for it. Thank fully there is a simple fix for this - after Starcraft 2 has finished installing, open up your system monitor and look for any rogue Starcraft 2 processes and kill them off. After you have done this the CXGames installer will know that it has finished installing and will create the menu entries as it should.

If you have audio issues under Crossover you can open your Starcraft 2 bottle's WineCFG, select the audio tab, and set hardware acceleration from full to emulated.

Also - if you are trying to install from the retail CD (with Wine or Crossover) you might need need to manually mount the disc due to an issue with its split PC/Mac auto mounter. To do this run the following two commands in terminal:

sudo umount /media/SC2*

sudo mount -t udf -o ro,unhide,uid=$(id -u) /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom

Note some drives may use /dev/sr0 (or other mount points) instead if /dev/cdrom. If you are having issues getting it working scroll through the comments for some good tips - if you are still unable to get it working after that, make a comment of your own :)

Also - if you are attempting to get the game running with an ATI card, it was suggested in the comments that making it run under a virtual desktop allows it to run on some systems it otherwise fails to work on.

I tested the above methods on Ubuntu 10.04, Linux Mint Debian, and Chakra - but they should be applicable to any modern Linux distribution. Have any issues feel free to drop a comment below and I will do my best to lend a hand debugging. Happy gaming!

~Jeff Hoogland

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Seven Ubuntu Derivatives worth Checking Out

One of the mottos the Linux community has is "if you don't like it - then fork". While this is interesting idea it has created as many Ubuntu derivatives as the day is long. Don't believe me? Check Distrowatch - as I am posting this four of the eight "new releases" listed on the front page are Ubuntu derivatives. Now personally - I do not think this is a bad thing. Not the same thing works for everyone and when you are new to the world of Linux it is easier to try a different "spin" than it is to learn to configure everything yourself. The only problem with all these spins (and something I've often heard complaints about) is that there is too much choice when selecting what flavor of Ubuntu to install.

I make a point of trying as many different variations of Ubuntu as I can, this way I can be informed when I recommend one version over another to friends and family. The following is a round up of my favorites I have found over my last three years in the world of Linux.

Best Full Featured DVD - Pinguy OS:
This is a spin just recently released and it has become the main OS on my Sager laptop for a number of reasons. Overall Pinguy OS has a very elegant, unified feel to it and careful work has been put into the visual aspects of the operating system with a close attention to detail. The current release is based on Ubuntu 10.04 and Pinguy has says he plans to release a new version with each new Ubuntu release.


Best Full Featured CD - Linux Mint:
Linux Mint is one of the older Ubuntu spins and it is still one of the best. It is where the fantastic menu and update manager Pinguy OS also uses were developed and it set the standard many derivatives have followed of including codecs, flash, and java in their releases (although the latter of these three is not include on the CD version of Mint). Where is Ubuntu has begun changing their default application set, Mint sticks to its roots - still including the Gimp and Pidgin instead of Empathy. The latest release of Mint is version 9 and it is based on Ubuntu 10.04 - Mint follows a release cycle the is typically a month or so behind Ubuntu releases.


Best Windows-Like - Zorin:
Zorin is designed with the intention of making a recent Windows convert feel at home. The default skinning and applets look decently close to Windows 7 and this can easily be changed to look like Windows Xp. Zorin includes flash and media codecs by default and the most recent version is based on 10.04


Best Lightweight - Lubuntu:
Lubuntu leaves a memory footprint right around 100megs on a fully booted system. It uses LXDE and is designed to be quick. The latest release of Lubuntu is based on 10.04 and Lubuntu follows a very close release cycle to Ubuntu. Before anyone leaves a "what about Crunchbag" comment - sorry, I prefer Lubuntu.


Best Netbook Remix - Jolicloud:
Jolicloud is designed to work with as many different netbooks as possible. In fact it is one of the only distros to support the GMA500 out of the box. It is based on 9.04 - but don't worry about this older version number, Jolicloud has some of it's own repositories to provide more up to date packages to it's users.


Best KDE - Netrunner:
I really like a lot of the features KDE has to offer - however many of the applications most KDE distros ship do not feel as "complete" as their Gnome counter parts. So while Netrunner uses KDE it still uses nautilus as it's file manager, Firefox for it's webrowser, and VLC for it's media player. It also includes media codecs, java, and flash. One thing I dislike about Net runner though is that it uses Knetwork manager - which I feel is horrid compared to nm-applet. The latest release of Netrunner is based on 10.04


Best E17 - Moon OS:
Moon OS is an E17 distro that is based on 9.04 It looks elegant, is fast, and is decently stable. The only real draw back to it is the fact that being based off of 9.04 is contains mostly older packages.

If you want an update to date version of Ubuntu with E17 you might want to try compiling from SVN or Bodhi Linux.

These are what I feel are seven of the best Ubuntu derivatives and the area in which I feel they shine. Is there another type of Ubuntu spin you think I missed on my list? Or maybe you feel one of my picks should have been something else - if so let me know by dropping a comment below.

~Jeff Hoogland

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Must Have N900 Utility Applications

I've talked about my favorite N900 applications before, but today I am going to discuss some applications that add some useful functionality to my favorite hand-held device. These are applications I feel almost every N900 owner will use at some point or another if they are made aware they exist.

#1 RootSH - That is right - with the N900 "rooting" your device is as simple as installing a single package from the official Maemo repositories. You should always have full control of your own computer(s).


#2 Catorise - The default "throw everything in big mess" method of sorting icons in the Maemo application menu is horrid. Catorise takes everything you have installed and sorts it into different menus - just like a desktop Linux distribution does.


#3 Browser Switchboard - If you have played with Firefox or Opera on your N900, then odds are you might have decided you like one of these more than MicroB (the default N900 browser). Browser switchboard add an option to your system settings for changing which browser is the default one selected URLs open in.


#4 Tweakr - If you like to tinker with settings - then meet your new best friend. Tweakr allows you to easily edit more than a few things on your device. Personally I really like the "snap to grid" it enables for desktop icons.


#5 Ringtone Per Contact - A basic phone function that Nokia manged to leave out of Maemo by default - even my flip phone from 2001 could do this. With this package you will be able to have this functionality on your N900.


#6 fMMS - While I am on the subject of functionality Nokia left out of Maemo by default - if you haven't already go grab fMMS. This allows you to send and receive picture messages on your N900, it works very well.

Know of any other useful "utility" applications that add some extra (and useful) functionality to the N900? If so - let me know by dropping a comment below.

~Jeff Hoogland

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