My 2007 Linux Quest Begins

notes by Carl Helmers – March 11-25, 2007

© 2007 Carl Helmers, all rights reserved

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Here is a link to A note about hard copy for introductory comments on some gory details of printing this page...

Here is a link to this document's List of Images for those who want to survey its content via this route...

Along about January, 2007, I started getting interested in Linux again. I began to experiment with Twenty-First century linices as a conspiracy of coincident personal activities all led me in that direction.

First, I want to improve my WWW site technology for my www.helmers.com. I first had my former eponymous company register this domain for me in the 1980's so that I could start using “carl@helmers.com” as my personal e-dress, which I have done ever since. Due to the rush of circumstances in April to July 2006 when I had them transfer ownership of the helmers.com internet domain name (and its web site) to me personally, I had to arrange servers, transfer ownership and set up a WWW site entry portal quickly using computer systems I had at hand. Expediency thus meant that I purchased Microsoft Front Page 2003 to use as my initial Windows XP based web site development and maintenance my tool. After all, the according to friends and various books about it, the Front Page 2003 GUI was purportedly so similar to Word that learning to use it would be a snap... Sure. Give me a break.

During the balance of 2006, I purchased and studied several tutorial books about Front Page 2003. In addition to such hard copy, I spent many hours on line at tutorial WWW sites about Front Page 2003. This update finds me once again dancing around in the dark. This circumstance was good from my perspective as a long time publishing entrepreneur and writer about personal computing. As a result, I briefly too got intimate with one common default technology of what some Linux / Open Source Software acquaintances of mine (ESR, MD, et al) call the “the dark side” of contemporary software markets.

This Front Page 2003 tool just does not fit my personal style, confirmed in another intense week or so of active use to update my WWW site. While this time I have become quite familiar with manipulating the program, Front Page 2003 for me is just too inconvenient to use for changes so I have not done much after an initial flurry of activity. I knew there has to be something better for me with which to implement my site in the future.

The present version of my site has not changed very much once I got the general outlines up in April 2006 with help of my brother Peter, then tweaked further once or twice through the fall of 2006. In fact adding this article on my recent experience with various Linices is the first change of any substance in several months.

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In my present (late March 2007) flurry of changes, I have started using Open Office Writer word processor on my Windows XP machine last downloaded in the summer of 2006. In my present mode of operation, I use this word processor as well for miscellaneous personal tasks: I keep my daily queue files in Open Office Writer, as well as for making hanging file tags.

Most important for this writing, I use Open Office Writer exclusively for WWW destined documents. I keep the documents in “.odt” word processing files until I am ready to post them. Then I output the final copy for the WWW from OO Writer in html form for integration in my www.helmers.com site.

Why? One of the first things I learned about Microsoft Word 2003 and html as I started using its cousin Front Page 2003 for copy destined to go on www.helmers.com is this: Word 2003 does not understand html correctly. A file output in as a .html file set from Word 2003 and then imported into Front Page 2003 often produces buggy html when viewed with a typical browser.

When I take that same Word 2003 produced document, read it into Open Office Writer, then save it as a .html file from Open Office Writer before importing it into a Front Page 2003 web site, the html is now more valid and many of the problems go away. The html output of OO Writer is not perfect, but far better when imported into my FrontPage 2003 site than if the same file is converted to html by Word 2003. So much for the much vaunted mutual compatibility of the “suite” of Microsoft Office tools Word 2003 and Front Page 2003! [ For details of my findings about html produced by Word 2003 versus Open Office Writer, see my comments on at http://www.helmers.com/oo_writer_html_example.htm ]

Searching the WWW for better tools ultimately – with my Linux and Open Source Software orientation – led me to discover that there is a whole host of emacs lisp (e-lisp) macros from various sites that potentially could do nice jobs as development tools for my WWW site if I were to learn to use them.

This is important for me personally: From the late 1980's until the late 1990's I used various versions of Richard Stallman et al's GNU emacs program as my principal software application-writing utility editor program. Because the higher level editing functions of emacs are nothing but e-lisp macros, it follows naturally that e-lisp is the native macro language in which users can write their own extension emacs functions as I did quite successfully for general editing as well as the specific data entry tasks of my music CD information application.

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Thank you, Richard (et al)... Using your emacs program gave me the ultimate reason to learn a variant of Lisp, e-lisp, ahead of my planned future acquisition of personal literacy in the modern open source descendent of Xerox PARC's Smalltalk, “Squeak” [www.squeak.org.]

As a result, before even thinking about using emacs for WWW related work, I already have the emacs and e-lisp way ingrained in my personal experiences even if inactive for a few years. I will only need to refresh prior knowledge rather than learn an entirely new and inflexible hard wired way of

interaction as Front Page 2003 required for WWW development.

So with my WWW googling at the end of 2006 and early in 2007 I came to the conclusion that I should actively start using Linux again since one still gets an emacs as part of many Linux distributions as I did with Slackware in the mid 1990's and SCO Xenix before that.

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Linux Laptops Never Die?

Second, I realized early in 2007 that I was quite prescient in one of my last acts in New Hampshire circa 2005 as a part of moving from New Hampshire to the Rochester area of western New York. In late August 2005 my former company arranged to move out of the building in Peterborough NH where I had leased its first office in 1979. Their new location, was to be in Dublin NH, the next town west of Peterborough. At the time of their move I visited the soon to be former offices to pick up personal effects and useful items that would otherwise end up in the trash.

When I was at my former company's offices at the end of August 2005, their longtime computer tech, Jim Bingham said to me words to the effect of

“Carl, you know since we're moving, I have to get rid of this pile of old laptops of yours...

Rather than send them as junk to computer recycling, do you want to take them with you?”

To a question like what else could the inveterate hacker in me answer than an my immediate reply

“Yes of course, Jim!”

These, after all were my former intimate home, office and travel companions potentially full of memories in their hard disk file trees. I did not at the time know what I might find in when I finally got around to examining the salvaged pile of laptops in detail back home in Western New York.

Thus at the end of August or early in September 2005 I packed a pile of four different Dell laptops from successive earlier generations of such machines into a cardboard box to haul back in my car with me. I also packed more than enough miscellaneous power adapters to find the correct one to run them off AC since their aged NiCad batteries were unlikely to hold a charge for long... The laptops and miscellaneous accessories languished untouched from August 2005 until January 2007 when all settled in, I started getting my Linux bug again as noted in this March 2007 writing.

I finally decided to check the salvaged laptops in my present Linux lab room here at home in January 2007. I knew that within that pile there would be two special portable computers – my first homebrew Linux laptop that I created circa the end of 1997 [see Flash Back – My First Linux Laptop] and the official Dell Linux laptop I had used prior to meeting Jean in 2002 and ultimately moving to the Rochester area after we married.

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After using Wolf-Lap as a Linux machine for a year or two, sometime in late 1999 I found out about of the newly announced Dell Linux laptop. I shortly acquired this model as my second Linux laptop, which I named Hermes, to replace the increasingly unreliable hardware of Wolf-Lap. I used Hermes as my laptop in all contexts from February 2000 until early 2003. Hermes was my main personal computer in Peterborough NH at home and in my company's office, with docking stations and larger screen display tubes at both sites. At home the Dell-Mitsubishi 21” CRT monitor that I now use with Ulysses was my display for Hermes. In my office, the docking station for Hermes was connect to the company LAN and thus the internet. At home I was effectively without internet since through 2003 to 2005 when I was moving from Peterborough NH, the only way to get to the internet from my residence was dialup :-(>... While traveling around the U.S. I took Hermes with me and used it sans any large screen display...

So the second reason for my new Linux interest was finding that both of my former Linux laptops still functioned. I had first integrated a Linux onto this Dell laptop in 1997 which I called Wolf-Lap [see Flash Back – My First Linux Laptop] However, the hardware of the oldest one, that 1997 Dell Latitude LM is now so flaky that it is no longer useful. [see some thermal problem ]

Enter Hermes

In contrast, the newer of my two Linux laptops, which I call Hermes is another story altogether.

This newer laptop is a Dell Latitude CPx with Red Hat 6.1 that I purchased from Dell at the start of February 2000 per its paper invoice which I have on file. Hermes still works like a champ with the exception of a non-responsive letter “i” keyboard key. By plugging in the external full size keyboard that I once used with Hermes' since discarded home docking station, I do not have to worry about that broken key. Hermes is now my logging computer for taking notes while doing experimental Linux installations on Ulysses on the same table desk in my lab.

Hermes has one minor disadvantage however. This is the manner in which I currently get files copied out of Hermes into other systems: I no longer have a working network connection for Hermes. The office network interface was at one time implemented through the docking station if I correctly recall. So I am reduced to use of that old reliable “sneaker net” technique I learned early in my life with computers. In this latest instantiation of the technique, I mount a floppy disk on Hermes', copy files to the floppy, unmount the disk, remove the disk and stick it into a USB external floppy drive plugged into a computer such as the Linux Ulysses or Windows XP Apollo. Then I copy the files from the floppy into the newer computer in question.

This kluge works in either direction for files up to the ~1.4mb capacity of a floppy disk. Size is not a major limitation since the files I usually transfer from the older Hermes to newer machines via the floppy Sneakernet medium are small “.emacs” (or similar) configuration text files. The largest files I am likely to transfer are the well under 50kb log files that I create on Hermes during a Linux installation on another computer. I am not planning to transport software from Hermes other than a few of my personally written well under floppy disk size Perl print formatting programs of the era in which I last used Hermes for development. The transfer technique is even worse for Wolf-Lap: I seem to have lost its plug in floppy disk device. It only has a CDROM reader, so any files I want to transfer had better be important enough to retype :-(>

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Ultimate Linux Factor

A third and perhaps the ultimate contributor to my decision to resume experimenting with Linux is an unfortunate accident that thrust a potential Linux test bed machine into my calculations. Both my wife Jean and I purchased our identical two Dell Inspiron 600M laptop computers in December 2003 just after we married. These machines both were originally delivered with Windows XP as the operating system software. Since then we have carried one or both of these heavy (~6 pound / 2.75 kg) laptops with us to Jean's various scientific meetings in Kyoto Japan in 2004 and Beijing China in 2006 as well as to our annual Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop trips in California. [This is a trip I have made most years since my first AMW in 1976. Since 2004, Jean now participates with me. ]

Jean's Inspiron also served her well during her solo trips to meet with neuro-pharmacology scientific colleagues in many cities around the U.S. from its purchase until the accident. The accident in December 2006 was that Jean's Inspiron somehow managed to slide off the her suitcase onto our bathroom floor while she was packing. The drop induced shock left its LCD display damaged and maybe 60 to 70% viewable as shown in Image 1 which I captured after installing openSUSE10.2.

Image 1 -- Open SUSE 10.2 GUI - on Ulysses' damaged LCD.jpg

(see Provenance of my 2007 Linux Breakthrough wallpaper )

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The display of Jean's former laptop is now only partially visible due to some internal damage seen in Image 1 captured after my ultimate of several March 2007 openSUSE 10.2 installations. Clearly this is now a former laptop since one needs the hardly portable external display in order to use it effectively even if one perches the computer on one's lap. Before long I knew I had a potential machine on which to experiment with Linux. It was soon obvious that except for the damaged laptop display, her now former laptop would make a reasonably capable test engine on which to load various installations of Linux as I was seeking a personal ultimate Linux to use for a while.

For her December 2006 trip, as planned, Jean brought her work files on her 1GB USB flash memory stick – but instead she took my identical undamaged 2003 Inspiron 600m laptop in place of hers. While Jean was gone for a couple of days, I investigated her now display-crippled machine's functions sans fully working integrated LCD display.

Plugging my boat anchor of a 21” Dell (Mitsubishi) UltraScan 21TE CRT display into the damaged Inspiron's video output jack showed that all the usual XP look and feel remained after the normal Windows XP booting process. My experimental Ulysses of course remains hooked up to act as its display for my new Linux distribution installations. This is the monitor that I used from 2000 to 2002 with Hermes when I was physically at home and I placed Hermes was in its docking station.

My conclusion that the former XP Inspiron would make a great Linux test engine has been born out in practice for the most part, with one caveat: the typical linux installation like openSUSE10.2 often requires the built in screen. In many cases during a Linux installation such as openSUSE 10.2, when I could not see a part of an installation screen in the damaged area, I was able to move the area in question to a visible part of the display by grabbing it with the cursor control “mouse” pad. I punted in one or two cases where such cursor movement to an undamaged area proved impossible: By just pressing the <Enter> key or clicking one of the mouse pad keys in every such case – while not knowing exactly what default I was acknowledging – I was at least able to proceed with the installation..

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After making the BIOS boot priority change in Ulysses, I returned to my February 2000 purchased Dell Latitude CPx Linux laptop Hermes. When originally purchased, I had picked the name Hermes since this then new laptop would and did travel a lot during my 2000-2003 era. Hermes was thus my swift, neat Linux companion like the planet Mercury traveling closely bound to its primary (moi) travelling through galactic space. This Dell model is one of the few laptops of its vintage or since that has ever been sold with Linux pre-loaded by its (major) manufacturer. I had stopped using it because my situation had changed, not because of any hardware malfunction or unreliability as had come to plague Wolf-Lap.

Wow! My antique laptop Hermes with 128Mb main memory, 11.6G hard disk running at 500MHz booted right up this year with the Gnome desktop GUI it had always had! Its hardware is puny by today's standards but it still works with its fully functional if smaller 14” diagonal display. In January, 2000 these hardware specs were at the high end of the laptop spectrum. [See The March of Technology]

Even though Hermes' the specs fall far short of a Jean's new 2007 purchased replacement laptop in weight and computer power, Hermes with Red Hat 6.1 is a perfectly working computer fully capable of acting as my text file logging device during future Linux installations.

As noted earlier, I because of one broken keyboard key I use the external keyboard that I formerly used with Hermes' home docking station, complete with its custom function key labels for use with my “.emacs” file to act as a cheat sheet for the bindings of my personally written utility functions (e-lisp macros) to the function keys for use when editing character oriented files.

My old but still stable Linux laptop computer Hermes will sit next to Ulysses while I am doing each new Linux distribution test and subsequent development. I now have a way to try out new Linices while taking notes in a computer text file the way I used to do in the late 1990's when trying various Linux distributions on laptop and desktop hardware. I wrote the Slackware 3.4 notes file for my 1997 Wolf-Lap installation in the same manner with emacs running on another Linux computer that I called Jove [R.I.P.] while I installed Slackware 3.4 Linux in Wolf-Lap.

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I have purchased two new items in March 2007 to fully use Hermes. The first new item is a simple cable: In the last years of the previous century, it was common to have both the mouse and the keyboard of a PC share common physical plug circuits and specs. When I used the docking stations with Hermes before they stopped working, both Hermes' mouse and keyboard plugged into physically and electrically identical sockets of the docking station. Sans a docking station, there is only one plug on the back side of Hermes for the keyboard and mouse – so without a fix, I would thus be forced to use the built in “touch pad” cursor control device instead of the much more effective and generally useful standard mouse. I used the touch pad as for cursor control for a few days while seeking the proper cable...

I first tried the local “big box” computer retailers, but to no avail – their 20-something sales clerks never had seen such a plug :-)> so it was back to the net. Then through Google I eventually found a vendor with the “Y” cable needed to plug into the one keyboard/mouse socket of Hermes, doubling the socket complement to two: one for the keyboard and one for the mouse. I was fully back in business with Hermes as my logging computer with all essential user interaction peripherals operating as they used to. I shall have to do something similar with Ulysses eventually, of course, so that I can eventually ignore its touch screen as well...

Using Hermes to take notes while installing my 2007+++ linices, I would also re-acquaint myself with emacs commands in a real world text entry application, one of my Linux goals.

The second new item that I purchased for Ulysses is an external USB interfaced 250 gigabyte hard disk drive on which I can now store permanent data for Linux use between subsequent Linux distribution tests...

So I set up Hermes up in my Linux laboratory. The position I tried at first is functional but distant: I placed Hermes to the right of our Samsung ML1710 USB interfaced black and white laser printer atop a board and 4x4 printer stand that was Jean's former desktop CRT base. That Samsung printer was formerly used with Jean's HP Pavilion Windows XP desktop machine in our downstairs computer office. Why is this printer now surplus to Jean's desktop?

After a hulking old circa 1999 desktop black and white toner and drum copier of mine recently expired, we had to get a new copier. So we purchased a multifunction Hewlett Packard 7410 color ink jet printer/copier/scannerfax that is now tied to Jean's desktop computer primarily as a printer. Its footprint on the copier table is about 60% of that now discarded toner and drum black and white copier and serves the same purpose as Jean's former Samsung printer as well!

This 2007 device costs us about 1/4 the price I paid for the now discarded black and white toner and drum copier in 1999 and works as a stand-alone color or black and white inkjet scanner-copier as well as Jean's new color ink jet printer!. While we do not intend to use it in this mode, the new multifunction machine has is a fax machine as well.

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A side effect of this office equipment change is that we moved the still working Samsung black and white laser printer up to my Linux Lab as its utility printer. In the Linux laboratory, I set the Samsung laser printer on top of a former wooden CRT stand that I had made long ago. As soon as we moved into the house, before I had my basement shop built for me, I had an electrician come and wire up my 220V table saw so that I could at least cut boards for simple projects like this...before the basement shop was built. Then as a first position for Hermes, I set this laptop next to the printer on the same desktop shelf.

Image 2 -- Hermes first too distant setup position.jpg

After discovering the broken “i” key of Hermes, I need to use the external keyboard with it. So by perching Hermes next to the Samsung laser printer as seen in Image 2, I am able to place the keyboard (and mouse) in front of Hermes to the right of that Samsung laser printer.

On the far side of the keyboard you may notice my emacs “function key” labels sheet that I pasted on this external keyboard for the function keys bound to my “.emacs” file's e-lisp macros.

Hermes' 14” diagonal laptop screen is a little small for use when sitting on top of my printer shelf as seen face on in Image 2 captured across the top of my Linux lab desk. In order to make Hermes' screen still more visible to my aging hackers' eyeballs, I needed to place it even closer to my external keyboard slid toward the edge of the desk. How could I do so?

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I started out in February by opening Hermes fully and then leaning it with both the keyboard and screen vertical against the printer shelf on my desk, between the printer shelf and the external keyboard. This orientation works because I use the external keyboard and external mouse instead of Hermes' built in keyboard and built in cursor control scratchpad. Image 3 shows this somewhat shaky physical setup for Hermes that I used while logging my Fedora installation.

Image 3 -- Hermes second better but unstable setup position.jpg

This position is an inherently unstable invitation to another gravitational shock disaster similar to but of smaller magnitude than that which had befallen Ulysses in its earlier preloaded Windows XP laptop life as Jean's primary on the road computer. Another gotcha: this position in Image 3 however unstable works, but only when not using a floppy disk. In this position, the vertically oriented keyboard and body of the Hermes rests on its floppy drive eject button.

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Making A Stand for Hermes

This clearly called for some custom woodworking to secure Hermes in this position.. So I took some measurements of Hermes, went downstairs to my woodworking shop in the basement and spent a day or so making a stand to hold Hermes with its keyboard body stably at an approximately 15º angle reclined from vertical, with the its hinged screen essentially vertical (0º.):

Image 4- - Final Hermes stand from above.jpg

I made my Hermes stand from cabinet veneer plywood scraps and planed 2x4 pine stock. When completed building it, I (horror of horrors) painted the stand white rather than coating it with a water based clear finish.

I was in a hurry and wanted this stand done quickly so that I could get on with my Linux experimentation. The scrap birch veneer plywood edge laminations and the planed down 2x4 that I used were not particularly aesthetic as random scraps of wood thrown together, so the end purpose of the stand is best served by using a simple and quick painted finish!

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Then I placed Hermes in the stand in front of the printer shelf, where it is now quite firmly held in its nearly vertical keyboard and vertical display position . When in the stand, I can now slide Hermes' vertical screen much closer to my eyeballs. The last detail when initially building and setting up this stand was to find and purchase some screw in glides at my local hardware store to put under the laptop stand. These glides cause the obvious gap under the Hermes stand in Image 5:

Image 5 -- Hermes final setup ins stand.jpg

Of course in this nearly vertical keyboard position, Hermes' touch pad cursor control is difficult if not impossible to use. This is no great loss, since I hate touch pads and much prefer a mouse for cursor control.

Then there is that pesky little problem of the floppy disk release button on the bottom in this operating position. It just cannot be wished away. When using a floppy disk drive, there are two possibilities. First, I can place Hermes in its horizontal “lap orientation” back on the printer shelf while doing floppy operations as in Image 2.

Or I can place Hermes in my new upright viewing and operating position of Image 5. However in order to keep the floppy disk insert/release button from being pressed (and disabling the drive) when I place Hermes in my stand I needed to create a cavity under the button where the former front edge is the new bottom edge of Hermes. To do this after thinking that painting it finished the project, I used a traditional woodworker's ad hoc kluge: I took my smallest wood chisel to make the rather sloppy but quite effective brute force cavity at the bottom of the channel in which Hermes rests, as seen at the left in Image 4 captured from above the stand sans Hermes.

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When in the stand in its vertical orientation the floppy disk drive slot and eject button are hidden underneath Hermes in the stand; what was the front edge of Hermes in the horizontal normal laptop position becomes the bottom edge when Hermes is in the stand! I made the cavity wide enough to clear the floppy disk release button even if Hermes' left right position is off to the left or right by as much as ½” from the position seen in Image 5. If I were a true OCD perfectionist, I would have painted the raw wood of the cavity the same white color as the rest of the stand. But, enough is enough... ☺>

To change the floppy disk media, I still have to physically move Hermes from the stand and place it flat on on the printer shelf behind the stand in the first position I had tried, as shown in Image 2. This media change position for Hermes is emphasized better in Image 6, using a red floppy disk to show media insertion/removal from Hermes' built in drive.

Image 6 -- Inserting or Removing a Floppy Disk in Hermes.jpg

After this diversion to implement a stand for Hermes, I returned to my experiments with Linux distributions. Jean's former laptop Ulysses has shown itself to be quite stable in the course of installing several contemporary Linux distributions so far this year. As noted earlier, the broken display can be a problem while doing an installation. Without an external display connected to the video port and software to drive that port, sometimes an “OK” or “Yes” or “No” or other button is hidden in the missing area of the damaged LCD display screen.

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In such cases, I either have to use cursor control with the Inspiron's touch pad to move the GUI center of attention to an area on the viewable part of the LCD – or hope that the viewable area has an option that is reachable using the arrow keys for selection and the “Enter Key” for activation.

Fortunately, with the first screen and subsequent openSUSE 10.2 screens, I was able to thus kluge my way to an acceptable openSUSE10.2 installation that eventually turned on the external monitor when completed. And I am glad this result came about in spite of the damaged screen, since openSUSE10.2 has proved to be an excellent distribution so far.

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My 2007+ Linux Goals...

Now I am getting excited again. Once it became clear that – as a result of a trial installation load of Ubuntu in late January 2007 – that Ulysses would work as an experimental Linux engine, I set about to try various distributions – and evaluate the distributions with respect to several goals:

• I want to bring my classical and ragtime music library CD database software up to date, a task that I had dropped actively maintaining in the early 1990's. The end result of this project is my own personal “Schwann Catalog” (in a Linux computer or printed) listing every track on every CD in my library, giving info about the composer, the performer, the CD number, etc. and where it is stored in one of my myriad Pioneer 6CD cartridges numbered and filed on my CD library storage shelf. The practical value of this database is that if I want the listen to the Beethoven Septet, I can find the CD then play it(subject to exceptions where the CD is temporarily in a car CD player.)

  In the 1980's when I started this project, I developed an extensive set of e-lisp macros running on my personal Unix machine (at the time, an SCO Xenix 80386.) I also developed a set of custom designed Perl programs to prettyprint my line oriented delimited-field ASCII database design's data after sorting with Linix BASH shell programs that I edited in emacs. In March 2007 as I write this, I still refer to my last 1992 printout of this database, even though I have since purchased many new CD's that I have not yet had the time to enter. :-(>

  Due to the pressures of dreaming up, then getting former company to start then operate yet another high tech advertising supported print magazine (Desktop Engineering) circa 1995 I ended up dropping my CD music database project for lack of time. [Another self-imposed time sink that got in the way of updating my music catalog was weekly piano lessons with Eric Stumacher at the Apple Hill Center For Chamber Music supported by a daily two hours of practice, a wonderful and pleasurable activity from 1999 to 2003 – these days, I practice every day but I have reduced my lessons with Eric to one per year during the annual Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music - Squeak.org “Learning Lab” week at Apple Hill :-)> ]

   

• I want to obtain a “live DVD” version of whatever Linux distribution I settle upon, so that I can boot from the “live DVD” in any of my or Jean's Windows XP boxes/laptops along with a USB memory stick mass store to run Linux instead of XP for a session while having access to my pre-existing files in the XP file system as well as my working Linux file systems via the USB port. [I achieved this goal March 19, 2007 for openSUSE10.2, trying out the LiveDVD version on my XP Apollo and Inspiron laptop.] Continuing on this thread, I want to figure out how to regularly make LiveDVD qua backup copies of Ulysses' current hard disk data to transport my archival files along with Linux to other CD/DVD bootable machines.

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My 2007+ Linux Goals...

<<< continued >>>

• I want to further explore other open source software which may be of use in my own personal software experiments... In particular I want to check out any open source CAD programs to see how they compare to the proprietary AutoSketch product I have been using for years since I am not about to adopt Windows VISTA over Linux just to learn and use a new drafting application.

• I want to explore WWW development with open source software (perhaps emacs, perhaps another application) now that in mid 2006 I finally secured ownership of my personal www.helmers.com web site as my former company changes its name to something other than Helmers Publishing Inc. For emacs as a WWW development tool, I have have found numerous potential e-lisp macro sets to download and explore... Another LUGOR member with whom I spoke at the March 15 meeting suggested a couple of other avenues in the Linux OSS world.

  I have accomplished the present addition to my 2006 initial site using MS Front Page 2003. This latest 2007 update is finally posted in late March 2007. All the more reason to get back into Linux and explore other avenues for my future WWW development.

• I want to finally download the actively developing Squeak.org open source version of Smalltalk and finally do personal experimentation with that OSS language and interaction paradigm which has been such a major influence in the personal computer world. Squeak has always been available on Linux platforms, and – as I found out at the 2006 Squeak meeting – is the Linux-based application GUI for MIT Media Lab Professor Negroponte's “One Laptop Per Child” computer project. The folks from MIT who were at the 2006 Squeak Learning Lab week at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music brought along a prototype of his “One Laptop per Child” computer running Squeak under a Linux distribution. So the project is getting real...

  These $100 (target price) Linux machines may prove quite useful in utility applications such as my music CD library database near the audio equipment: why print the listing if I can just burn it on an interactive live DVD for reference in such a computer when picking background music to hear through our audio system or in our automobiles?

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Linux Distributions That I Have Recently Tried:

Ubuntu 6.10 – January 16-28, 2007

This distribution defaults to a slick X window manager automagically installed to the built in laptop LCD screen with the same output sent as a dual head signal to my 21” Dell (Mitsubishi) UltraScan 21TE CRT monitor connected to Ulysses' external video jack. But no emacs initially. I doubt that there is an emacs with the Ubuntu 6.10 distribution since Ubuntu is installed from a single live CD that I downloaded from the net. Since Ubuntu 6.10 is intended for the proverbial newbie, it is heavy on useful application software like Open Office and is not really intended as a software engineering distribution. In my most definitely non-newbie opinion Ubuntu 6.10 achieves this newbie intent very well.

Fedora Core 6 – January 30-February 1, 2007

Fedora Core 6 is an experimental open source cutting edge distribution from Red Hat, but it like Ubuntu also defaults to a slick X window manager automagically started after the boot. It drives both the damaged laptop LCD of Ulysses and my dual head monitor connected to Ulysses' external video jack. But in my initial trial of Fedora Core 6 installation I found no emacs even though emacs was a part of every Red Hat official release that I have ever tried whether installed it myself or it came pre-installed.

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Slackware Linux 11.0 – February 22 – 26, 2007

A slackware 2-CD set that I purchased in 1995 was my first successful Linux installation, and it had emacs back then as does the latest 11.0 distribution. So I definitely am partial to the Slackware distribution and thus wanted to try the latest version. I simultaneously downloaded and ordered a paid-or set of Slackaware 11.0 disks. By the time I got around to installing the latest Slackware, my overnight-shipped set of purchased Slackware CD's had arrived. My reason for buying the distribution with printed installation manual, as well as downloading these items, is to express my appreciation for what I learned about Linux from Slackware.

An emacs is automagically installed with no further attention needed if selected during the installation unlike with installations of Ubuntu 6.1, Fedora Core 6 or even openSUSE 10.2.

While Slackware 11.0 went through the motions of selecting an X-Window manager during its installation interactions, it did not present me with the option to drive the laptop's “dual head” external video jack with the same display. Thus immediately after the boot, in Slackware's non-newbie command line mode, only the damaged laptop LCD display of Ulysses was active.

When I executed “startx” from a BASH shell, this started the installed X window manager but did not drive video to the my “dual head” external display jack.

There may be an invocation flag for ”startx” that starts “dual head” output. However I not yet know if such exists. [See openSUSE 10-2 Dual Head Mode which suggests this is possible througbh some initialization shell that is set up at installation for another distribution.] In spite of having an integrated and accessible emacs, this lack of ”dual head” drive for my CRT display replacement for the laptop's damaged LCD rules out my use of the latest Slackware 11.0 for now until I solve that problem. But in spite of my apparent 2007 difficulties with Slackware 11.0, this distribution has emacs by default as it did over a decade ago when it was my first ever Linux!

Superficially, while Slackware 10.2 asked me to select an XWindow manager during its installation, installation and a log in, Slackware 10.2 left me at a BASH comand prompt with no nice GUI from Gnome or KDE or anyone else in the Linux worlds.

OK, I can live with that... I have been there before. So I ran “startx” at the shell prompt to see what would happen.

Sure enough, Slackware 10.2 started an X Server and a nice GUI that I had selected during installation came up. But, here's the rub, I was left with nice graphics to the damaged Ulysses display and no dual head output to my larger CRT monitor through the video jack. I must not know everything about how to invoke startx. :-(>

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openSUSE 10.2 – February 28 – to present (March 21, 2007

On February 28, 2007 I downloaded openSUSE10.2-GM-DVD-i386.iso then burned a single DVD using my RecordNow program that came with my 2004 HP-Pavilion XP machine Apollo that is my presemt met connection and eventual target for OpenSUSE 10.2 LiveDVD operation of Linux. I installed openSUSE 10.2 successfully several times on Ulysses with different variations in technique and choices. As I write these notes, I am still using my last openSUSE 10.2 installation as my preferred contemporary Linux distribution...

DETAIL NOTES ABOUT openSUSE10.2

(with some comparisons to previously loaded contemporary Linices that I have tried...)

On March 10, I again examined my March 5 image of the opening screen of this DVD boot. I captured this and other screen shots with my 50mm Macro Lens mounted on my Canon EOS30D digital imaging camera securely attached to my tripod.

When I installed openSUSE from the DVD for the first time, I captured many screen images from the broken LCD screen of Ulysses. In the opening screen is a menu of selectable choices including the default “Installation” choice. Image 7 is a cropped section of one such image. Fortunately, selection can be made with the keyboard arrow keys at this stage if I wanted to do something other than the default Installation choice...

As seen in Image 7, there is no option for simply running SUSE in a Live DVD or Live CD mode. I have since then gone back to the openSUSE web site to find that there is indeed a separate DVD ISO for a “live DVD” version.

Image 7 -- Installation Options - openSUSE-10.2-GM-DVD-i386.iso (2007-03-05).jpg

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Since I conceive of taking a Linux with me on future trips to run on my XP based Dell Inspiron 600M Laptop -- or just to this HP Pavilion Windows XP machine at home, on March 19, 2007 I downloaded via bittorrent the openSUSE10.2 “Live DVD” version iso image file and burned it to blank DVD media. I have since verified that the LiveDVD version boots (albeit slowly) in place of XP to the Gnome desktop on my undamaged XP Inspiron as well as on this HP Pavilion machine. But of course noneof my limited customization of OpenSUSE10.2 to date shows up on the standard iso DVD that I downloaded. Hence my desire to make my own custom LiveDVD copies eventually.

I will be able to store Linux related scratch data on a memory stick or two which I will bring to an XP machine along with my ever changing periodic LiveDVD OpenSUSE10.2 image.

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Puzzles that I still have to work out as I write this:

• How do I access files in the XP hard disk file system from a program running in the openSUSE10.2 live DVD universe. I already know that my USB interfaced external hard disk that I send a daily incremental backup to is quite visible from the file system of the openSUSE10.2 live DVD so this should be a totally solvable problem. Whether the solution is elegant or not remains to be seen!. If nothing else I can look at yesterday's version of a file stored on the backup disk by my XP universe daily backup done with an inexpensive little program called “DirSynch.” :-)>

• Related to the above, I would like to have my own archival data in the spare several gigabytes of a LiveDVD file system. This way, I would have no need to transfer large amounts of never changing data into the LiveDVD universe yet still have it available.

• How do I make my own LiveDVD out of the distribution and files I have running on Ulysses, since the standard LiveDVD for OpenSUSE10.2 no doubt is different from the exact set of programs I want, and I would like to have my own archival data in the spare several gigabytes of a LiveDVD file system... In a sense, each such a LiveDVD image can serve as a working files backup of Ulysses, at least up to the physical capacity of a single DVD.

• How do I initialize a new USB hard drive from Ulysses? By initializing I mean formatting then building a file system tree for the Linux world.

Back to my comments about my ongoing work with and impression of the openSUSE 10.2 distribution and its installation:

Since ultimately installing openSUSE 10.2 in Ulysses for the last time circa March 8, I have been quite impressed with the improvements from my first mid-1990's Linices. I see improvements in the installation process and the better recognition of diverse hardware. In spite of their numerous detail differences from the old style I used long ago when I installed Slackware in Wolf-Lap or when firing up applications from that pre-loaded RedHat 6.1 in Hermes, OpenSUSE10.2 installed in Ulysses still allows me to execute BASH shell commands from terminal emulator windows –or – minutes later starting an application like Open Office or emacs from a Gnome graphic user interface.

One thing I noticed right away during the install: openSUSE10.2, unlike the current Slackware, recognizes that machines have improved with respect to graphic interfaces and the X-Window system.

In that first Slackware installation I did circa 1995, after several months of puzzling and reading about X I managed to get the XFree86 X Window system running with one of the several XWindow manager options of the time. The “dual head” question never occurred to me at the time, since I had only one output to one display screen.

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openSUSE 10.2 Dual Head Mode

In contrast, openSUSE 10.2 is nearly as newbie slick as were Ununtu 6.1 and Fedora Core 6. During its install openSUSE 10.2 recognized that people often want dual head output on the external video jack as well as the built in display of laptops. [See box “ Think of Presentation Uses”] On doing the openSUSE 10.2 installation I discovered to my delight this most important screen for my configuration:

Image 8 -- Graphics Cards screen - Dual Head Option.jpg

For my Inspiron 600m test machine, the Dual Head Mode line in this Graphics Cards menu is the most important one due to the damaged display of my test bed machine. The openSUSE10.2 originators seem to have thought of my case and built in a Dual Head Mode which is activated by default when configuring the graphics of the system.

I also saw evidence of the modern practical need for dual head mode when a couple of ad hoc presenters at the February 15 2007 LUGOR meeting needed to drive the meeting room's projection desplay with output from their laptops... Of course, Fedora Core 6 and Ubuntu 6.1 did not even ask this question. They had a much better practical solution to the single head/dual head configuration issue: always install in in dual-head mode since if no external monitor is connected, who cares if second video channel goes nowhere!

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Then I ran into one of the major differences between the way I used Gnome in my earlier days of Red Hat 6.1 on the Dell Latitude CPx Linux Laptop. While I could get to and sank into the habit of getting to a terminal emulator and run things the old BASH way (or in today's Slackware 11.0 this seems to be its originator's preferred way without a GUI,) this is an elaborate, crude, and it turns out totally unnecessary way to invoke emacs (or any other application) started from Gnome's GUI. The Red Hat 6.1 Gnome GUI of the millenial year 2000 in Hermes is less refined than in the new 2006 version I installed with openSUSE10.2 but is otherwise functionally similar.

Having purchased that RedHat 6.1 from Dell already installed in Hermes, I did not actually install that Red Hat 6.1 with its Gnome default by myself. For whatever reason, I did explore the Gnome GUI desktop of Hermes when I first used it circa 2000+. After actually installing Gnome myself as an optional choice with openSUSE10.2 I must have felt obligated to explore it a bit this time. In some random documentation file reading, I next found that the Gnome GUI desktop that I selected for openSUSE10.2 has a feature that if I right click on the cursor control, I get a list of possible things to do:

Image 9 -- Right Click Gnome Menue - Create Launcher.jpg

Hmmm... There are some interesting options to try. After I got the menu of Image 9, I explored the idea of “Create Launcher” since I wanted to “launch” Open Office (for example, or emacs...

I also later used the “Change Desktop Background” option to put my own special “Linux Breakthrough” closeup as my system wallpaper on OpenSUSE10.2 Ulysses and also on Red Hat 6.1 Hermes – as see Provenance of my 2007 Linux Breakthrough wallpaper.

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Now we're getting serious...

Image 10 -- Create ''Open Office'' Launcher.jpg

It turns out that the text entered in the name field labels an icon on the Gnome desktop, and the text in the “Command:” field is nothing other than a fully qualified reference to the Linux command that launches the program desired (a sort of BASH shell line in the window.).

Within minutes, using the “Browse” button I had created hohum generic application icons labeled “Open Office” and “emacs” to activate the programs in question. The “Browse: button in the Create Launcher window allowed me to check out the /bin and /usr/bin (or any other) directories for the location of the command needed to launch the icon's application. Thus as of this writing, I have created these two “launcher” icons for two of my most frequently referenced applications on the Gnome GUI for openSUSE10.2:

Image 11 -- Img_0525 Generic Icons 5W.jpg

After having discovered this, I can now launch either application with a double click from the main Gnome window that comes up after openSUSE10.2's boot completes and the Gnome desktop GUI presents its display on my big monitor...

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I have not yet addressed issues such as the how the default path is set on entry from such a launcher, how to change the generic icon images to my own personal, more meaningful ones, etc.

The Open Office program that I linked to the generic application icon then gives me a list of recently worked on documents/spread sheets/etc with a drop down “file” list of the various open applications I might wish to enter... Slick.

When I last used Linux, Open Office was much less developed, and the Gnome of the time (still active on my Hermes Latitude CPx with Red Hat 6.1) gave me fewer of the warm look and feel fuzzies that I had become used to (with all its quirks) in MS Windows XP over the years 2002 until now... By the way, I am writing this text on my HP Pavilion Windows XP machine that I call Apollo downstairs using a 2006 Windows XP WWW distribution of Open Office – the Linux lab is a spare bedroom office / technical book library upstairs.

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List of Images

Image 1 -- Open SUSE 10.2 GUI - on Ulysses' damaged LCD.jpg

Image 2 -- Hermes first too distant setup position.jpg

Image 3 -- Hermes second better but unstable setup position.jpg

Image 4 -- Final Hermes stand from above.jpg

Image 5 -- Hermes final setup ins stand.jpg

Image 6 -- Inserting or Removing a Floppy Disk in Hermes.jpg

Image 7 -- Installation Options - openSUSE-10.2-GM-DVD-i386.iso (2007-03-05).jpg

Image 8 -- Graphics Cards screen - Dual Head Option.jpg

Image 9 -- Right Click Gnome