spitting out ideas

I always thought that in the present times of generational confusion and economic limitations it's good to see what you can do with what you already have. The caveat is that we want something new and not a remake, retro or sequel. So I am proposing a few ideas.

1. Instead of chanting foreign oil independence with the motive of maintaining present oil use levels, preach conservation, industries, materials, processes and machines that use less oil. By using less we have more. How much oil does an electric car or hybrid use compared to a regular gas car used by a typical driver. We have diesel/electric trains but no diesel/electric trucks. Now multiply all that times all the cars and trucks on the road. It's basically the marketing folks who think we can't or won't change.

2. To give you geeks something to do, how about a wing processing unit. Instead of buying a whole new computer and ditching or recycling the old one, a wing processing unit could plug into existing computers to add processing power. Dyne:bolic Linux has the ability to move processing load to faster networked computers. The wing processing unit only needs a cpu, memory, ethernet, maybe a CD player and would appear as a tiny server. I could keep my present desktop a lot longer and just upgrade/replace/add a wing processing unit. Less waste all around and cheaper to build.

3. Beam me up Scotti! A new wireless phone attachment, not the Borg-like ear piece but a lapel badge/shoulder pin. I could stay at my computer in the other room and not chase after the handset when it rings. Also being a comm link I could tell my wife I got it with out yelling through out the house. Would be great at an office too.

4. On the desktop the browser could be the front end to the operating system and access the whole computer. It could be customized like a web page, use icons, links, whatever, yet be the internet browser and file manager like KDE's Konqueror only better.

The Linux class explored DSL and Puppy Linux and we did it through Virtualbox on a Vista machine. Although Linux is exciting in any form to me, Virtualbox does present limitations that require tweaking so it's not in the way. Vista did as it was supposed to do, present us with the blue screen of death when the system crashed. Virtual machines can be touchy at times. DSL or Damn Small Linux is only 50mg on a CD and can be easily put on a jump drive. You would be impressed at the applications included in this really portable Linux. Puppy is Puppy, fresh, agile and quite complete. I just got a version of Puppy called Grafpup, just right for the graphics minded, like yours truly. By the experience of the class DSL and Puppy ran just fine from the live-CD or installed on a hard drive. Oh, I didn't mention ReactOS which is supposed to be an open source version of MS Windows. It was interesting to see and even though it's in the early stages of development some promising stuff is there. It probably would have run better out side of Virtualbox also.

On a personal note, I am trying to find time to get my artistic act together. The many public libraries have a zillion books on Photoshop, Illustrator and other Microsoft platform software. The latest Linux and graphics applications are documented and explored on the web, the libraries have near nothing. Shame on them. You have to realize that Linux was born on the web and lives on the web to this day. But at the library I did find many books about the history of computer graphics and computer art. Yes, there was computer art before Mac, MS, Photoshop and all that. I laugh at young people for what they don't know that was started just before "their time". No, the chisel and stone was before my time too.

DSL and Puppy Linux, tiny Titans

I think I am over my fascination with Puppy Linux, but it did open my eyes to new possibilities. I found that as wonderful as it is to have a big full Linux distribution, very often it is just a lot of stuff you don't use very often. The small footprint Linuxes go a long way to meeting the needs of everyday use and are portable to boot. Puppy Linux has a couple of strikes against it in my book. First, you start up as a root user. This means you have access to all your system files and so does everyone else. Not a problem if you are the only one who uses your computer, but still not the safest setup. Then I can't seem to get it to run in VirtualBox. I could just run it from the installed partition, but I don't want to have to reboot every time I want to use it. Or I could just run it off the CD which also requires rebooting. Puppy also does not seem to shutdown cleanly. After using Puppy, I reboot into Kubuntu and the screen says it must do some sort of disk check because the Puppy did not shutdown cleanly or unmount the drive correctly. My computer does a time consuming disk check. So I am re-thinking my relationship to Puppy and will find a situation that works well. In any case, Puppy is a fine rescue disk with cool tools. I mentioned DSL a couple of times. Damn Small Linux is another of those tiny Linuxes. It like Puppy will fit on a jump drive or can be burned on a CD, even on one of those business card CDs. But what I liked about DSL was that I got it to work in VirtualBox. It is not as snappy as running off the CD or the hard drive but it works. DSL has a variety of tools, utilities and applications. I am using the DSL-N version which is larger than the original DSL. It has some larger applications. DSL follows some Unix conventions. You can boot as root and add users just like in normal Linuxes. This is good for security. I'm not sure but I think DSL was the first Linux I ever tried. I found it in a book a long time ago. I could be mistaken. Seems to me there was a DSL of German vintage years ago. I will have to check into that someday. Anyway, there is a battle of wits going on between the Puppy crowd and the DSL crowd. Besides all the name calling and jabs, there is the feeling that there is a Linux configuration out there that fits every type of user. So if you want to set up a computer to access the internet, email, type a letter, play a CD and not much else, it can be done for very little or no cost on hardware you know wouldn't run MS Windows (any flavor), yet be up to date. If your grandma can maneuver a mouse, it's a point and click world. Go green and recycle/resurrect that old spare PC into an appliance somebody can use.

Here is an update........
I looked it up on a public library site. The first Linux I saw was called LST, Linux 2.0 and the book was Power Linux by Stefan Probst in the year 1997. So I have been struck with Linux for 10 years. We will have to see what was happening in computing 10 years ago to fully appreciate what is going on today. I must say that Linux has really grown up from an operating system of hackers to one that anyone can use. Don't let so called computer knowledgeable people dissuade you, this is your second opinion, MS Windows products are not all that easy to use either, just more familiar. Linux on the desktop is as good as Linux on the server and as good as any Microsoft product on the market. You have ridden the black horse all your life, now you can ride the white one with brown spots.

Things get very interesting in Linux country

I been looking at Puppy Linux. And have come to the conclusion that it is a great tool/toy. As a tool it can be a rescue disc to give you access to all your drives including MS Windows partitions. It has utilities and can be reconstructed, reformulated with the software you want and made into a designer liveCD. If you wanted just some portable office apps, you can do that also. And as a toy you can play with Linux to your hearts content to see what Linux is all about. I myself have loaded and unloaded the various window managers and am having fun trying out different Linux stuff. Some are even using Puppy Linux as their main distro. When I think about what I mainly use my computer for, I don't need a lot. Just internet access, my email, office and picture tools and I am happy. Puppy can do that with ease. It is like a sweet little foreign sports car. Small, snappy and it gets me there with a rush of excitement........... What about that big pimped out SUV of a Linux I also use? Kubuntu has its' limitations of course and its designers have tried to put into it all best choices to satisfy a large swath of users. Like I said before trying to make a flexible product fit a large and picky a group as users are is no small feat. With all its bigness, Kubuntu is very manageable. I can do all my computing with confidence and without pirating software I can't afford to buy. If you can get past the illusion of needing MS products, I highly recommend open source software. A lot of business types have little choice, but home users can actually have a different and cheaper choice. Some would compare MS stuff and Linux stuff only to complain about subjective things, looks, quality, polish, etc. But in reality they don't want to change from what they are used to. I have felt no discomfort in switching to Linux. It is growing and changing, getting better with each new version. I have been using Linux for a several years. It is sooooooo much easier to use Linux today than it was even a few years ago. Many people say they want Linux to be like the MS Windows they know and love, but what is the point in that? Besides, the Linux folk tried to do just that very thing and Microsoft jumped all over them with their legal army. The point is that there is more than the MS way to operate a computer. Programmers the world over have known this from the beginning, now you know it also. I know that I can not convince everyone and that being "free" does not change a lot of minds. But if you venture to try Linux out and have a good experience with Linux, you will be changed. Now, is Linux that different from MS Windows? From a users perspective, no. Windows, mouse clicks, it is all the same. You might not recognize the arrangement of some things but then you are not tied to the MS way of doing things either. So give Linux a try, if you are so inclined. I hope you have a good experience.

Here's some screenshots of my Puppy Linux desktop.
This is one of the default desktops, uses a window manager called Joe's Window Manager or JWM for short. Kind of Win95ish. You have icons plus the popup menus.

This is the default XFCE desktop, very sort of Mac like. Quite, clean, the popup menus are such that desktop icons are redundant.

This is where I am at today. XFCE desktop is very clean. I am looking into dressing it up with themes and such. I upgraded Puppy Linux from 2.17.1 to 3.00 which just came out yesterday. While not as flashy as some desktops, Xfce is easy to deal with and has a solid feel. Puppy is amazingly functional for its small size. Version 3.00 is supposed to be Slackware compatible. Slackware is the granddaddy of Linuxes. The really neat thing about Puppy is that you can use it as a universal rescue disk. You can have access to all your drives and media. Other Linuxes are a little restrictive on that aspect. While some distros go out of their way to be MS Windows like, or overly user friendly (we call it dummimg down), Puppy Linux has a good mix so that you are not robbed of learning something about Linux. It seems the computer industry will never shake the idea of dumb terminals hooked up to some really big computer. Some companies would like nothing better than to rent you a terminal and computer time. Like so many people today use subscription TV. Linux is about owning your equipment and the software you put on it while giving you access to the world. And with the Puppy Linux disc or jump drive, you can take it with you.

From Linux delight to a Linux eppiphany

I was digging into another Linux distro when I noticed I had downloaded and burned one I haven't tried yet. So, I popped the CD in and fired it up. It was Puppy Linux 2.17.1. I laughed, I cried, I was truly amazed. This Puppy is only 92.8MB and competes with the big boys. Here I was trying to squeeze Mandriva (700MB) onto my 8Gig spare hard drive, which shrunk up really fast by the way. So, I blew off DreamLinux, (sorry folks) and installed Puppy. I didn't have to since Puppy runs completely in ram and allows you to save settings and other docs to file on your hard drive or flash drive or multisession CD/DVD. The question came up, how many people can you fit into a VW?
You could really put the whole system on a flash drive or burn it onto one of those tiny business card CD's. What's the story with Puppy? Usually a Linux distro is based upon another distro and "reformulated" into a new distro, you know, .deb, .rpm or .tar.gz. But Puppy is a Linux written from scratch, by Barry Kauler, to be very lean.
I know I have always complained about software bloat, in spite of all the stuff you get with it, but this is the extreme opposite. It has its own file format .pup and yes there are popular Linux programs, some reformulated to be smaller, that are available. It is great to play with as I have tried several window managers and uninstalled them with no ill effects. You probably could use Gnome or KDE but that defeats the purpose of lean and mean. You could as some have use it for your main Linux. It is that good!! Yeah, it's all a matter of taste, choice, etc. I am truly impressed with the practical usefulness put into such a small package. It is portable and you can use it to do real work. I heard about it on a Ubuntu fourm of all things. Being one who likes to explore, I am very interested in Puppy Linux and will keep it around for a while. On one of the main Puppy web sites there are user's screenshots, pretty attractive, quite creative. If you buy into the small Linux concept, you will be assimulated, you will be playing with Puppy all the time. Puppy has Metisse!, it's not even main stream yet. Puppy has Open Office2. After all, Linux is a Linux is a Linux, but it's so small!! No, It is not the smallest, but I am hearing such good stuff about Puppy Linux I just had to try it. I will have to show you some pictures when I finish tweaking/playing with my Puppy.