Linux for Christians

Give the gift of Linux!  That’s what I say!

There is a great way to not only spread the love, but help your fellow man and the environment at the same time.  All you need to do is load Linux on your old computer and put it up on http://freelinuxbox.org.

FreeLinuxBox.org is a site that aims to connect individuals who want to give away fully functional computers running open source software to individuals who need a computer, free of cost.  The deal is, you give away your old *running* computer with some Linux on it to someone who needs it, and they pay the shipping or pick it up, whichever you prefer.  Think of it as sort of a cross between a linux craigslist and freegeek.

Pull your old system out of the basement today and load it up with Linux and put it up on FreeLinuxBox.org.  You could be helping someone who really needs it.  You cold be learning on another Linux install.  You could be freeing up some space in your garage, basement or attic.   It’s even better than recycling, it’s being a good steward!

Christian Projects, Linux in Ministry, Open Culture, OpenSource Projects

Typically, I prefer traditional Linux distributions to mini or micro distributions that fit on the business-card-sized CD’s. My two main reasons are how much control you can have over the installation, and basic security concerns. With a normal distribution, you can usually set up the disk partitions however you want. With most mini/micro-distributions, you are often limited to a swap partition and a root partition. To some, that may not be a big deal; for me, though, it’s pretty much a deal-breaker. As far as security is concerned, there are two issues. Occasionally, in order to be more compatible, older software versions are used. They may be patched as best as they can be, but sometimes there are vulnerabilities that can only be truly addressed by using the most recent version. This is probably the lesser concern. The bigger issue is that often, there is only one account allowed with these super-small distros. Naturally, that one account is basically the root account, allowing anyone on the computer full administrative privileges. Part of Linux’s security comes from the ability to have user accounts which can have restrictions as to what can be done under them. All that being said, occasionally, a system may just not work well with a traditional distribution. I have one such computer in my possession right now.

In the few instances where a traditional distribution won’t work or for whatever reason, isn’t appropriate, I have two suggestions: Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux. The first of these, Puppy Linux, is the larger of the two, weighing in at 93 MB. It’s too large for a business card CD, but will fit quite nicely, with room to spare, on a 3″ (80mm) pocket CD. As an added bonus, it will also run from a thumb drive, and can be loaded to a traditional hard-drive, if desired. It has a fairly good repository of applications, and is a good choice if you have limited resources in your system. Upgrading is also fairly simple; just download the latest distro and install on top of the old version. The system will prompt you accordingly. There are, however, some systems it won’t run under. In these rare instances, give DSL a try.

The second option, DSL, will run on practically anything, especially if you download the syslinux version. (The need for the syslinux version is the most common reason you wouldn’t be able to use Puppy Linux.) It’s small enough to fit on a business card CD, and runs quite well from a thumb drive. The repository is adequate, and should provide enough options to make a usable system for the average user. DSL, like Puppy Linux, will install to a traditional hard-drive, and has the added ability to install as a full Debian-based distro. The downside to doing the full-install is that you lose the ability to easily upgrade your system. In essence, you force yourself to “wipe and reload” any time you want to upgrade. With the frugal install, as it is called, upgrading is much simpler.

In general, I would suggest using a traditional distribution if at all possible. If you do have need of a small, resource-friendly distro, though, one of these two would be a good choice.

Uncategorized Distributions, DSL, Puppy

Ever since I found out about it, I’ve wanted to successfully use Linux from Scratch to build a custom Linux system. I have suffered numerous setbacks due to various hardware issues, as well as mistakes made due to my inexperience with Linux in general. Of course the latter is part of why I wanted to actually try my hand at it. I’m a fairly intelligent person, and figured, “What better way to learn about an operating system, than to put it together from the ground up?” I expected that it would not be a cake-walk, and likewise, I expected that I might hit a few road-blocks, but I wasn’t quite expecting the test of my patience & resolve that this has brought forth, nor was I expecting quite the parallel to things going on in my life, both physical and spiritual. It seems that what I am learning about patience and perseverance through putting together LFS, I am having to apply to those various things and situations going on in my life, such as my quiet-time, prayer-life, and finances, just to name a few. I’m not quite ready to go into detail on those things, but it just goes to prove that God can use anything—even putting together a computer system—to teach us if we are willing to learn.

OpenSource Projects Linux from Scratch, Patience, Perseverance

I know this isn’t specifically a Linux issue, but it does stem from how deeply immersed into Linux I have become, and I am interested in what others have to say on the matter. As someone who has switched to being almost exclusively a Linux user, it’s been only recently that I have even bothered looking at my websites through Internet Explorer. Every browser I’ve tried with Linux seems to work OK, but I’ve run into issues recently when using a computer with Windows and IE6, and minor ones in IE7. Part of me wants to ignore this since IE6 is basically dead software, overtaken by IE7 & 8, but then another part of me wants to make sure that any visitor can see all the information clearly. This begs the question, how important is cross-browser compatibility? Obviously my sites will work in Firefox, Konquer, Dillo, Flock, & just about any other browser that will run on Linux*, but is that truly sufficient? My sites display adequately well under the modern versions if Internet Explorer (7 & 8), but should I strive to also include older versions such as IE5.5 & IE6? The final question could more accurately be put as, “Exactly how ‘compatible’ do you have to be in order to be reasonably viewable by most people,” or possibly, “Exactly how narrowly can you target your site before you are being elitist?”

Lets start with the arguments for being as broadly usable as possible. From a personal perspective, I feel that I would most likely want anyone to be able to view my work. From a spiritual perspective, (considering some of my web pages pertain to Christianity, this definitely applies,) anything that could potentially be beneficial to someone, especially if it pertains to their salvation, should be readily accessible. Both of these are seemingly reasonable perspectives and justifications for trying to include as many browsers as possible; however, being that inclusive can be restrictive when it comes to design.

Now let’s look at the other side: I use primarily Firefox, and the site works for me. From a personal perspective, I don’t have to sacrifice any design elements for the sake of compatibility with others, and more likely than not, enough other people use Firefox or a browser that works adequately well, so I don’t need to be too concerned. From a spiritual perspective, even Christ said that He spoke in parables to hide the meaning to all but those “equipped” to hear. Besides all that, trying to accommodate everyone is unrealistic, and more likely than not, impossible, so why bother trying? On the other hand, though, this approach can seem stand-offish and unwelcoming to those not “properly equipped.”

Now that I’ve put forth my dilemma, I would appreciate input, so please, feel free to share.

* Dillo seems to work like a text-browser, but actually shows the images. Most of the other browsers, Flock, Epiphany, Konquer, Opera, seem to get it about 95 – 99% correct, with only minor issues that could be solved with just a little tweaking, but on the whole still display the site in a usable manner, much like IE7 and 8.

Christian Projects Browsers, Compatibility, Web Design

Once again our friend Pastor Ron keeps us abreast of the fine state of Mepis Linux.

“I can’t begin to tell you how pleased I am with this release candidate. Everything of interest to me works flawlessly….”

Please go now and check out his story now.

Linux in Ministry

It’s been a long time since I’ve done any programming, but as most of us are aware, if you run Linux, you will have need of a good editor, whether you do any programming or not. To that end, I have created a list of those I am familiar with. This is far from comprehensive, but hopefully it will be at least somewhat informative & helpful.

• Quanta +: This was primarily intended to be a web page editor, though it can handle any plain-text file. It will do syntax highlighting for a good number of scripts, programming languages, and markup languages. On the downside, it can be cumbersome if all you need to do is a quick edit on an existing config file or shell script. Graphically, it runs on a QT-based interface, and the sidebar is collapsed by default. There are options for the sidebar to show the file directory, document structure, project management, and a couple of others. It also includes a built-in preview option to check how your HTML will display. Since most of my text-based coding is HTML, this one tends to be my favorite.
• Scite: I’m not quite sure how I feel about this one. It’s fairly straightforward, and has some good features, but configuring it can be somewhat messy. A lot of the default options are set by config files that have to be manually edited. Most of the other programs mentioned here, have default option settings than can be adjusted by interface. I know, I know, that’s probably petty, but why go to all that trouble when other equally featured programs don’t require it. (Not to mention, it has that pesky GTK interface.) *NOTE: If you like Gnome/GTK more than KDE/QT, more power to you. I prefer KDE, and as a result, anything that uses GTK ends up looking out of place.
• SCrEEm & Bluefish Editor: I know, I just put two in one, but these are so similar, it was hard to justify putting them separate. They are both dedicated web-site creation & editing tools. True, it will read any plain-text file, but they won’t provide much if any help for anything that isn’t used to help build a web-site. At first glance, Bluefish does seem to have a few more bells and whistles than SCrEEm, but overall, they are very comparable. Since I’m not a fan of Gnome, the GTK-based interface does nothing for me, visually. I rarely use these.
• KEdit: KEdit is KDE’s quintessential MS Notepad equivalent. By that, I mean one file per window (no tabs here), and no markup editing. Everything is truly plain-text. On the bright side, this loads quick, and is free from cumbersome options, features, and details, making it a good choice for quick editing of small shell scripts, config files, and the like. I use this occasionally, but not all that often.
• KWrite: This is KEdit’s big brother. Despite what you might think by the name, it’s not the equivalent of MS WordPad. It still is fairly lightweight and fast, but does offer a few more features such as syntax highlighting for a wide variety of coding. Because of this, I tend to use it more than most of the others.
• Emacs & Xemacs: I know that what I am about to say is practically sacrilege in the Linux community, but here it is anyway. Despite its supposed flexibility and immense power to handle all forms of coding, I have yet to figure Emacs out. Even the more graphical Xemacs leaves me bewildered and befuddled. If you can use it, and enjoy it, more power to you, but for me, it remains unused.
• Nano: Ahh…text-based bliss. this editor is light, fast, and straightforward. No fancy bells and whistles here. In my opinion, if you are going to be working from a command-line, that’s the way to go.
• Vim: More text-based bliss, but to me, not quite as straightforward as Nano. Not a bad choice, but Nano is better. (At least as far as I’m concerned.)

I’m sure you’ve noticed, that aside from 3 programs, most GTK-based applications are absent. That’s because I typically don’t use them. If anyone has any input concerning any of those, or any other plain-text editor that has been left out, please feel free to add a comment.

Uncategorized Bluefish, Editors, Emacs, Nano, Quanta, Scite, SCrEEm, Vim, Xemacs

First, I’m not quite sure that this is technically software, but didn’t know where else to put it. Second, the “pun” in the title was only half intended. I didn’t actually think about it until after I typed it in, but then decided it could stay. Last, and most important, if you haven’t taken a look at BlueLetterBible.org, you should. It may not be quite as rich in features as the Sword programs for Linux or e-Sword for Windows, but this will work on any computer or device with a web browser and internet connection. Also, even though I have KSword set up on my Linux systems and e-Sword on my Windows unit, often I find BlueLetterBible.org to be much faster to access, and therefore, more useful.

The default Bible used is the King James version, though it is possible to select other translations. There aren’t quite as many available as there are with Sword & e-Sword, but there are probably enough to suit most people. There are also various devotionals, commentaries, study aids, etcetera, available. It’s certainly a handy resource if you are on the go, or want to have access to a Bible on a web-enabled device that doesn’t have a way or the room to load up more conventional Bible software.

Christian Software

Regardless of how much we actually know about computers, our ability to fix a problem with a system lies with our ability to properly diagnose it. I recently have been searching for a new distribution because I had misdiagnosed the root cause of all my troubles. Initially, I blamed faulty updates and an installation gone bad for my difficulties—all issues that fell squarely to the distribution, and therefore demanded its replacement. Little did I know that the faulty updates and bad install were actually the result of progressive hard-drive failure.

I began to try and install a new Linux distro, but it locked up during the process while trying to set up the hard-drives. Apparently I am completely clueless. I should have gone straight to hardware diagnosis at this point, but no! Heaven forbid I be that smart. Because of this, I decided that it was time to zero-fill the hard drives and start from a completely fresh system. The main drive cleared just fine, but the secondary drive, (which is where I usually put /home and /tmp,) had issues. Once again, rather than being a smart person and running the hardware check, I rebooted the system with a Linux from Scratch Live CD to partition and format the hard-drives before installing a less-involved distribution. The system went into an infinite error loop once I tried to actually format the first partition on the 2nd disk. Finally, I get the clue. By this time, though, the drive is so gone, that the diagnosis and repair utility freezes up when it tries to access that drive. From this point, I open the case and replace the drive in question. Now that I once again have two working hard-drives in my main unit, I have no problems running my old distribution. I’m still keeping Debian on my backup unit, though.

Ultimately, not every problem you face is going to be hardware. Some are genuinely issues with a particular application or distribution. The important thing to remember is to investigate any possible cause. The answer just might not be what seems obvious.

Uncategorized Hardware, Problems, Software, Solutions

Long ago and far away, back in the old days before Windows 98 SE, I tried Linux. The results were, well, less than rewarding. At that point in time, my general knowledge of operating systems hadn’t gone much beyond a very rudimentary understanding of MS-DOS. When things didn’t work like they were supposed to, or not quite the way I thought they should have, then obviously, (from my viewpoint, at least,) Linux was a worthless waste of time and hard-drive space. I was also thoroughly unaware of how many variations, iterations, etc., of Linux there truly were, even at that point in time. Needless to say, I dumped Linux like so many rotten banana peels, in favor of the more “user-friendly“ Windows 95.

Fast forward to the present. I have now been a Linux user for more than a year—almost two years, in fact; and I find myself in a bit of a dilemma. I have an absolutely rock solid system, but one key feature doesnt’t quite work exactly like it is supposed to, so I find myself wanting to throw the whole thing out, and search for something else. I have tried practically all the supposed fixes for my particular problem, but to no avail. My particular predicament makes me wonder if reasons such as this are at least partly to blame for people being distro jumpers, constantly changing from one distribution to another, hoping to find the ever-elusive “perfect” distro.

In contrast, if something doesn’t work in Windows or Mac OS, the typical response, isn’t to throw out the operating system and go looking for something else, (though some do find Linux that way,) but rather to call tech support, or your “nerdy” neighbor, or invest in new hardware until it works the way you want it to. Truthfully, some of these options aren’t necessarily available or even feasible with Linux, but why such a rash difference in mentality? I can think of two key, and somewhat related, reasons: financial investment and expected success.

Most likely, you paid for your computer and it came with either Windows or Mac OS. You possibly paid for an upgrade to a newer release of said operating system. Neither of these investments are exactly pocket change for most of us. Obviously, if you paid for it, especially at the prices charged for it, you expect it to work, and are likely to do what it takes to make it work. After all, unless there is hardware failure, you can’t exactly take it back. That is the beginning and basis for the expectation of success.

Aside from the financial investment, though, there is a tendency to trust the manufacturer. The manufacturer wouldn’t have chosen the particular OS if it wasn’t compatible with the hardware, right? (The validity of this theory is a discussion in and of itself, and won’t be gotten into here.) Adding to the expectation is the sheer volume of people who use it, and seemingly don’t have any problems. (Again, I’m not about to discuss the validity of this right now. That’s not my point.)

Now, let’s look at Linux as a first-time user. There’s no cost outlay, (well, you have to buy a blank disk to burn the ISO to, but no substantial cost,) there is seeming little if any helpful support, (it’s there if you know where to look, but often it’s quite technical and requires a previous rudimentary knowledge of Linux to understand,) and randomly wading through the various distributions can lead to frustrating results. All of these factors make it more than easy to throw out a perfectly good distribution just because something doesn’t quite work the way we think it ought, or possibly, as in my case, a particular element doesn’t completely function properly. My point, though, is that perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to move from one distro to the next just because we have a seemingly unsolvable or irreconcilable problem or issue.

Making Linux work takes an investment in time rather than money. It also requires remembering that “works differently” doesn’t mean “doesn’t work,” and that Windows and even Mac OS have their own quirks, issues, and problems; they just aren’t the same as those found in Linux. Try sticking with a distribution. Sometimes change is necessary, but not as often as many do.

Uncategorized

This may be a little on the self-serving side, but if everyone will play along, it might be interesting. Perhaps my curiosity is peaked simply because I am currently in the process of searching for a new distribution, (so far, it looks like I will most likely be settling on the latest version of OpenSUSE for my main computer, and Debian’s stable release for my backup system,) but I would like to know exactly what distribution of Linux different people are using, and more importantly, why. Along with this, I would also like to know to what extent people are using Linux. For instance, is your system set up with just Linux, or do you dual-boot with a more traditional OS, (namely either Windows or Mac OS)? Of course, if the answer is, “dual-boot” then the next question would be, “To what extent do you use Linux over your other OS, or does your other OS see more attention?”

I’ll start things off. Obviously, I’ve already mentioned that I am using OpenSUSE & Debian. I actually have 4 computers, 2 with Linux, 1 with Windows, and 1 with FreeDOS. My main computer sees the most action, and it is the one loaded with OpenSUSE. I chose Linux to begin with because I had been using software products of questionable origins, and became morally convicted about it. I had been using PCLinuxOS, (chosen namely for KDE being the default desktop,) but for some reason, after the most recent set of updates, my system became unstable, and upon trying to reinstall it, the best I could get was a flaky system. So far, OpenSUSE seems to be good and stable. I actually chose it because there was an option for KDE as the default desktop. KDE 4.1 is a little more taxing on resources than KDE 3.5 was, but on the whole, I don’t see much difference in performance. I chose Debian to install on my backup system, because it runs well on older hardware, and since it’s a hardly ever used system, I can tolerate Gnome for the small amount of time I’ll be using it. (That poor old system just can’t handle KDE. I ought to try and get Fluxbox or XFCE on it.)

The Windows & FreeDOS units don’t see much action. My wife uses the Windows unit far more than I do. I haven’t gotten her roped in to Linux, yet. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Quicken, I’d probably switch that PC to Linux as well. If I can ever get a financial program on Linux that will connect with my bank, (so far I’ve tried Gnucash & Kmoney with the Aqbanking plug-in to no avail,) I probably will.

All right. I’ve told my tale, now will you tell yours…please?

Added 1/23/09 20:48: I feel a slight update is in order, since I have actually switched both systems to Debian now. OpenSUSE is the first distribution I’ve come across that I haven’t been able to correctly configure my sound card on. No sound is not acceptable, so I’ll be putting Debian on my main system as well. Naturally, I’ll be running KDE once I get everything set up, but OpenSUSE is out.

Uncategorized Distributions, Linux, Operating Systems