Dreaming Of Beetles

Tethered, Net-Install of Xubuntu

I don’t think I can write about anything more esoteric and useless, but maybe this will help one person somewhere.

Xubuntu? What the hell is that? I knew of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, etc. but never heard of Xubuntu. I found it when trying to get an Ubuntu distro on my old G3 iBook. According to DistroWatch, Xubuntu is

a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. Unlike its parent, however, Xubuntu uses the light-weight XFce desktop environment and is optimised for lower-end machines. The distribution includes only GTK+ applications where possible.

Perfect.

I go and grab the PPC iso image and try to burn to disc, but the image is too large to fit on a CD. I realize I’m not the only one with this problem and there is no solution other than installing from an iPod, USB drive, etc. which I don’t have. I then stumbled upon the Minimal CD Installation for Ubuntu and this what I did:

1) Get a host machine connected online as a proxy
The iBook only comes AirPort ready and I have a wireless network and am too lazy to walk downstairs to plug straight into the router. With My MacBook Pro, I set up Internet sharing. Next is an important step that I see many people get wrong. In System Preferences, go to Sharing, click on Internet Sharing and set your machine to share From AirPort To Ethernet. You don’t have to touch anything in the Network pane. Last step is to obviously connect the computers via Ethernet cable (crossover not required).

2) Boot client machine from the Minimal CD
Startup the iBook with the CD in the tray and hold down ‘c’. This will initiate the install sequence. Don’t worry about seeing Ubuntu everywhere, we will get into Xubuntu. There are a few steps to go through here - keyboard layout, timezone, etc - just follow along until you get to the main distro installation page. Select Xubuntu and proceed with the installation. If everything went correctly with the tethering in Step 1, you’re pretty much done.

3) Possible problems
USB errors - “unable to enumerate USB device on port X” errors. These popped up during the initial installation, but after getting Xubuntu running, they went away.
Tethering fails - try changing the host machine network settings to DHCP.

There really isn’t much more to it than that. This was actually an easy project, but required a bunch of wasted time on the original PPC ISO. Hope this helps someone.

Ballmer Is The Root Of All Evil

Update: I know that Google pays its way into Firefox, Safari, etc. but the relationship here is very different than that of MS and OEM.

I hate Steve Ballmer. When I met him, he was a total dick. I went to the CES keynote in 2000 (Bill Gates) and was in the reserved area seated close to him. I got up and went to talk to Masayoshi Son and Ballmer kept sneering and making odd comments. I wonder why he was so interested in our conversation that I was obviously trying to exclude him from.

Anyway, none of that matters. It’s just my personal perception of the man. What does matter is an announcement made during HIS keynote this year:

Bing will be the default search engine on
ALL HP computers shipping from now on.

Does this sound familiar? Is Microsoft not capable of innovating to the top? Do they have to strong arm everyone? There’s also Verizon forcing Bing on their users, crazy.

And the sad thing is, the other 800 lb. gorilla is making the same plays. Google is promoting the Nexus One on the single most trafficked piece of real estate on the web, Google’s front page. Is this right? I wonder how all Motorola and others feel about this. For some reason, this doesn’t feel dirty though. Probably because it doesn’t feel like anyone is being strong armed.

How do you feel about Microsoft’s strategy here? Let me know in the comments.

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The Hunch Reader Census

They recently released a “Blog Census” which you can take a crack at below.

The “Google Phone” Will Be Free

I wonder why these words haven’t come back to haunt Google. There is much speculation on the “Google Phone” pricing, but nobody has brought up this three year old quote:

Schmidt said on Saturday that as mobile phones become more like handheld computers and consumers spend as much as eight to 10 hours a day talking, texting and using the Web on these devices, advertising becomes a viable form of subsidy.

“Your mobile phone should be free,” Schmidt told Reuters. “It just makes sense that subsidies should increase” as advertising rises on mobile phones.

[via Reuters 11/11/2006]

UNAIDS Commission Social Networking Site: AIDSspace.org

Seeing that it’s Worlds AIDS day, I wanted to mention the new social networking site from the UNAIDS Commission - AIDSspace.org. This is a new initiative to increase the level of communication between the siloed agencies and programs around the world working to battle this pandemic.

I also want to mention that I was part of the team working on this site. It was a huge effort requiring 100+ hour work weeks, but in the end it was well worth it. I’m able to look at the site and be proud, and hope that it makes at least a small difference in the world.

The site was “soft” launched last month in Geneva and is now being ramped up for a larger, formal launch. If you are in this field of work, sign up on the site and get in touch with others.