Linux – Free as in Salvation. Eph 2:8-9
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A Peaceful Coexistence: Linux and Windows 7 on the Same Machine

I’ve written about this elsewhere, but thought it was worth repeating. While I do have systems that run exclusively on Linux, my laptop, (and a good number of installations in the real world,) are dual-boot installs. In the past, this has never been that big of an issue. I’ve always just let GRUB handle the task, and all was well. In fact, when I bought the laptop, it came preloaded with Windows Vista. I adjusted the partition size, set up my linux partitions, and did a standard install, allowing GRUB to write itself to the MBR, and all was happy. Then, I upgraded my Windows installation to Windows 7, (namely because I wanted to switch to all 64-bit operating systems).

I don’t know if this is just an issue with the 64-bit version of Windows 7, or if this inherent with all versions of Windows 7, or if only certain “lucky” people experience this, but I know that I am not alone in this problem; thus, the impetus for this article and its predecessor. Upon upgrading to Windows 7 and reinstalling GRUB, Windows 7 decided that something was broken. When it “fixed” the supposed problem, all of my software, including Microsoft Office 2007, had been uninstalled. When I reinstalled any of the software, the so-called problem returned.

My first instinct was to try to install everything from scratch. I wiped the hard-drive. Reinstalled both Windows 7 and Linux, but with GRUB in charge of loading, the problem of Windows not allowing any software to be installed without thinking something was wrong remained. What I finally deduced is that unlike its predecessors, Windows 7 will only be happy if Windows Boot Loader is in the Master Boot Record (MBR). This makes dual-booting with Linux a tricky proposition, but not impossible. Unless you are very familiar with the Windows command line tool, bcdedit, I would recommend EasyBCD from NeoSmart.net to aid in this process.

I will now relate to you the method to effectively get Windows 7 and Linux to dual-boot on your system. These instructions assume that you’ve already set up Windows 7 and set aside unpartitioned space for your Linux distribution.

Step 1: Make sure /boot has its own partition. Typically, I do this anyway, even if I’m not dual-booting a system. My normal setup for a desktop or laptop system that is going to be dual-booting is to use 4 primary partitions set up as follows: NTFS (Windows) on /dev/sda1, /boot on /dev/sda2, swap on /dev/sda3, and root (/) on /dev/sda4.

Step 2: Install Linux normally except for the bootloader. Allow Linux to install using all the regular settings you normally would except when it comes to installing GRUB. Depending on the distribution you are using depends on exactly when and how you will need to make these changes which are in the next step.

Step 3: Install GRUB to the /boot partition. If you have followed my partitioning scheme, you will need to tell GRUB to install to /dev/sda2 instead of the MBR (/dev/sda0). Also, if you have the option to customize the GRUB menu entries at this time, go ahead and remove any references to Windows that have most likely been added. Some versions of Linux won’t let you do that at this point, so if you can’t modify the menu entries, don’t worry about it, and just change where GRUB will be installed. Remember, if you have set up your partitions differently, use the partition that has /boot assigned to it.

Step 4: Modify the Windows Boot Loader. Once Linux is done installing, allow your system to reboot. It should reboot back into Windows 7. Use your tool of choice (bcdedit from the command line, or EasyBCD) to add a menu entry to the Windows Boot Loader and to modify the time out setting so you have time to make a choice when the menu shows. Your menu entry should point to the /boot partition. This is why I recommend using EasyBCD. All you have to do is select the operating system type, give it a name, decide on the amount of time you want for the delay, pick what boot loader you are using (for Linux, default is GRUB), and what partition it’s located on, and EasyBCD takes care of all the complicated back-end stuff that you have to do manually if you use bcdedit.

Once you have completed step 4, you can reboot your system again. You should see your new entry below Windows 7. Go ahead and select your Linux entry and hit the enter key. This should now bring up the GRUB menu. Choose your Linux entry from the GRUB menu and it should happily load. You can now go and modify your GRUB menu if you weren’t able to do so during the installation process, to remove the reference to your Windows installation and possibly eliminate the timer so you don’t have to go through two menus to load Linux; though, some versions of Linux have multiple load options, so the latter option might not be that good of an idea.

If you have successfully completed all four steps, you are now happily dual-booting Windows 7 and Linux. Why go to all that trouble? There are multiple reasons, ranging from the comfort level of the user to application-specific necessity, but for me there were really only two reasons: first, despite the fact that I am a huge fan of Linux, I still like Windows; and second, to prove it can be done.

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End of days

Sometimes it’s good to work in Philadelphia. Today, for instance I got off the train and started walking to work when I was handed a flier from some young woman with a thick accent mumbling something about the Bible. I just grabbed it and put it in my pocket for later review (hey, it’s cold in Philly at 7am).

Upon later review, I found that it was a good thing I kept that flier because it outlines “THE END OF THE WORLD!”

Seriously, this particular flier names the rapture date as May 21, 2011 and the EOW itself at Oct 21, 2011. We all know that Nostradamus and the Mayans want it in 2012, maybe this is an effort to get a jump start on things?

As it turns out, this pamphlet is full of various types of numerology based on Old Testament dates, etc., and brought to me (and you too) by EBible Fellowship.

Here is what worries me……:

The secular world only knows Christianity from what they see. They are inundated with sunday morning money grubbing prosperity preachers, crazies wearing billboards, and nice people like this who hand out information which LOOKS on it’s face as if it may be legitimate (to someone who hasn’t read the book).

What are we to do?

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Manhattan Declaration

National Religious Leaders Release Historic Declaration on Christian Conscience
Washington, D.C., Press Conference Unveils 4,700-Word Statement Signed by Some 150 Orthodox, Catholic & Evangelical Leaders

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 20, 2009—Today a group of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders and scholars released the Manhattan Declaration, which addresses the sanctity of life, traditional marriage and religious liberty. The 4,700-word declaration issues a clarion call to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not—under any circumstance—abandon their Christian consciences. Drafted by Dr. Robert George, Dr. Timothy George and Chuck Colson and signed by more than 150 Orthodox, Catholic and evangelical Christian leaders, the Manhattan Declaration was made public at a noon ET press conference held in the Lisagor Room at the National Press Club.

Among the signers of the Manhattan Declaration at the press conference:

* Joel Belz, Founder, World Magazine
* Chuck Colson, Founder, The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview
* Jim Daly, President and CEO, Focus on the Family
* Marjorie Dannenfelser, President, Susan B. Anthony List
* Fr. Chad Hatfield, Chancellor, CEO and Archpriest, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary
* Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University
* Timothy George, Professor, Beeson Divinity School at Samford University
* Harry Jackson Jr., Bishop, Hope Christian Church
* Fr. Francis Martin, Professor of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Heart Major Seminary
* Fr. Martyn Minns, Missionary Bishop, Convocation of Anglicans of North America
* Rev. Neftali “Charles” Olmeda, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
* Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council
* Fred Potter, Executive Director and CEO, Christian Legal Society
* Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia, Diocese of Philadelphia
* Alan Sears, President, CEO, and General Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund
* Ron Sider, Professor, Palmer Theological Seminary and Director of the seminary’s Sider Center on Ministry & Public Policy
* Fr. Robert Sirico, Founder, Acton Institute
* George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center and Founding President of the James Madison Foundation
* Donald William Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, Diocese of Washington, D.C.

Excerpts from the declaration include:

“We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”

“We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral.”

“…We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriage or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.”

The Manhattan Declaration

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Prayer Request

Please say a prayer for Joel Mclaughlin, one of our authors here, and his family in their time of loss. He recently received news that a family member has left to be with the lord.

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Mailing List

Due to some unfortunate circumstances beyond my control, the mailing list is currently down. I expect it to be functioning again very soon, so please hang in there and thanks for your patience.

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Bye Bye KDE, Hello XFCE

Perhaps I’m just being petty, but I’ve never liked Gnome. Maybe it’s the initial Mac-like layout or maybe it’s that hideous foot that befouls every corner of every widget and application built for it. (In case you hadn’t noticed, I despise the Gnome Desktop foot logo.) Then again, perhaps it’s the fact that Gnome doesn’t have any schemes as visually appealing as the Active Heart or Thin Keramic (or is it Keramic Thin?) from KDE 3.X That being said, I had always noticed that KDE had been a fairly large drain on resources compared to Gnome, but figured that was just the price you paid for visual beauty.

Being the KDE-phile that I am, I just had to install KDE 4 once it became available with my distribution of choice. (PCLinuxOS in case you’re wondering.) Part of my reason for waiting for it to come out on the distro rather than geeking out and installing it from source or trying to force external RPM’s into my system was two-fold. First, I’m lazy and didn’t want to do all that work. I was perfectly happy with the current version of KDE 3.5. Second, and more important, I knew if I waited until it came out on the distro, and even had a few version updates, that it would be stable with my version of Linux. I had tried doing something like that before and screwed up my system to the point of having to wipe and rebuild, not something I was looking forward to.

My first download of KDE 4 was actually version 4.3.1. I expected that it would have a slightly larger impact on system resources, but I didn’t really expect it to be significant. (Keep in mind I was running KDE 3.5 with Compiz Fusion turned on.) I downloaded it on my laptop first and visually, it kept up with the preloaded version of Vista nicely. The only downside I had was that my favorite button schemes were no longer compatible, and in their place were ugly flat Gnome-like buttons. I checked multiple schemes, and all looked like bad GTK or GTK+ themes. (Come on people? Where’s the visual interest of KDE that set it apart from the other desktops?) Oh well, what was done was done. I could live with it, and the rendering was better than KDE 3.5 with Compiz Fusion. I decided it was time for the real test. I downloaded it to my desktop machine. It’s a little older than my laptop, not as much memory, and not quite as fast, and it showed.

At first I didn’t notice any difference in quality of performance, but then I realized that none of the composting effects were occurring. Sure enough, when I opened up the settings, they had all defaulted to off. So I turned them on, and left them at the basic set-up, which is very Vista-like in behavior. I tried to change desktops. You would have thought I asked my machine to calculate Pi to one-million decimal places. Bringing up the system menu took as long as bringing up GIMP usually takes. If I can’t have all the nifty effects, I might as well go back to KDE 3.5 with Compiz Fusion.

As a result of my recent disappointment with the newer version of KDE, namely due to it’s apparent drain on system resources, but also because of the lack of appealing styles, I began to investigate alternate desktops. I narrowed it down to three. Fluxbox, LXDE, and XFCE. While FluxBox might not be a bad choice if it’s your only option that will run on your system, I wouldn’t recommend it. Likewise, while at first glance, LXDE seems to be KDE light made with GTK instead of QT, it also seems to be lacking in some customization features. Despite my initial reaction to XFCE being a Gnome-clone, it has proven to be the most outstanding of the three, and in many ways, superior to Gnome, if for no other reason, I personally find it far easier to find all of the configuration options in XFCE than I do in Gnome, plus, I don’t have to look at that stupid foot.

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ShepherdPup

It’s amazing the things you find when browsing around the internet. I usually am under the impression that I have a good idea what is happening with Christians and Linux but there are days like today where I am completely and pleasantly blindsided.

I just stumbled across ShepherdPup Linux, which claims to be a ” Self Contained Freely Distributable Bible Study System.” It looks great and I am excited to check it out. Their press release follows. Check them out!

It is natural when examining new Bible study software to explore it in terms of ones self. How will I benefit from this? How does this compare for me to that? It is the built in consumer within us that judges feature for feature what will work for us personally. I suppose this tendency is good to a certain respect and to fight this tendency might well be futile. But, amongst my Christian brothers I certainly will fight the notion to another much greater respect.

When I introduce ShepherdPup to most tech aware Christians their very first reaction is predictable. “Have you tried X”? “I’ve just purchased Y”! “Why should I use Z when 90% of computers run Microsoft”? My response most often is totally unforeseen by them and is oppsite to a consumer’s intuition. “This is not just for you, this is for the many others that you will be freely giving this to”.

The simple often overlooked fact is that Christianity is meant to given.

Personal Bible study is one thing; communal study and evangelism quiet another. I can’t give a Microsoft OS away; I can’t give “Y” away; therefore they were not even considered. There is a version of “X” called “Z” and “Z” is very nice but, it takes up a whole lot of room, room that could be used for providing as many Bible resources on one CD as possible. And one intention should be made clear: “ShepherdPup is meant to be self contained” “set apart from the host’s normal OS”; how then is that to happen with X Y or Z?

And while a great many have studied the Bible until they became blue in the face with these products, few are any closer to sharing God’s Word to others than they were the day they started. Few have developed the resources to “Win” a new believer to the Word, the resources to “Disciple” a maturing believer in the Word, the resources to “Send” a prepared believer with the Word armed and ready into this unbelieving world. And to be able to freely hand over these resources? And for them to be able to freely give from that? We are talking about the difference between consumerism and the hand of God here…how shall we compare them?

These are the consumer perceptions ShepherdPup must be able to fight. Your word of mouth is how we intend to fight that fight.

If this is the tool or resource that you chose to give (one of many I hope), then you should familiarize yourself with it; not only it’s parts and pieces, but, also some of its underlying evangelistic possibilities. Think of the friends and family and coworkers that this could be given to and how you could approach them. Think of the groups and congregations that this could be given to and how to approach them. Think of the total strangers and how you could approach them.

Be prepared to share your testimony. Be prepared to share His Word in any form. Be prepared to show it on ShepherdPup if the opportunity arises. Have your notes with you on USB flash. Be ready to make copies on demand. Search out the leading of God amongst the people you are with each day. And follow up with the people to whom you’ve witnessed to.

Please help spread the word…Please help spread the Word!
“http://shepherdpuplinux.us/”

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Are You Registered?

A while back, (shortly after I stared using Linux on a regular basis to be exact,) I registered my system with Counter.Li.Org. I was perfectly happy and willing to throw my hat into the ring and be counted when it came to showing my preference for operating systems. “Take that, Bill & Steve!” rang through my brain. Just recently, I got a new laptop, and what did I do? I repartitioned the hard-drive and made it dual-boot with my personal favorite Linux distro! What did I do shortly after that? I went right back over to Counter.Li.Org and added my laptop information to my registration info. When someone asks me about my computer, I don’t hesitate to expound on how I put it together and how great Linux is. This is all well and good, but what difference does all this fervor truly make?

The name of this site is, Linux for Christians. All too often, especially for me, the fervor seems to focus on the Linux part. While it would be nice if everyone could see the “light” and use Linux, isn’t it more important that they see the Light of Christ? Forget about being a registered Linux user for a moment and refocus on being registered in the Lamb’s Book of Life. It may sound trite and silly, but that is ultimately what is most important. If we are more concerned about winning people to Linux than winning people to Christ, it doesn’t really matter what operating system we’re using, because our priorities have become misaligned.

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Free L4C NT?

Here’s a thought. I go to the Ohio Linux Fest each year for The Linux Link Tech Show, but it occurred to me, why not be there in L4C capacity as well? Wouldn’t it be a nice idea to be able to perhaps hand out L4C New Testaments or some such thing while I am there? I mean, people just LOVE the giveaways. Think this is a good idea? Possible? Can you help? Contact me soon, it’s less than a month away.

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Christians Murdered for their Faith

This sort of thing is really a daily occurrence in some places, particularly those places under Islamic law. The disturbing part is it gets very very little press. Maybe we Christians should start demanding a little better coverage?

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2009/aug/06/national-06-08-2009-01.htm

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