At one point, Linus had implemented device files in /dev, and wanted to dial up the university computer and debug his terminal emulation code again. So he starts his terminal emulator program and tells it to use /dev/hda. That should have been /dev/ttyS1. Oops. Now his master boot record started with "ATDT" and the university modem pool phone number. I think he implemented permission checking the following day.

Linux Anecdotes

technorati tags:linux, history

 
I just bought an e-book from amazon because it said it was Adobe Reader.. I didn't choose Microsoft Reader because I have a Linux machine (the book was also available on Microsoft's eReader format). Now only after spending the money do I realize that your application can open these files on every platform BUT Linux. Well if I can't print it, and I can only read it on the desktop at home (where I have a Mac), it completely defeats the purpose of buying an e-book for me.

If this is the level of support you offer your customers, I will not be buying DRM protected books again. I'm an avid buyer of freely available PDFs - The pragmatic programmers provide an excellent selection of programming books on PDFs, as do many other fine technical book publishers.

Even without agreeing with the methods of DRM, I can understand them. But if you are going to go through the trouble of implementing DRM, you would think your company would WANT people to use it, and hence implement it in the same platforms you implement your product. As it stands right now, it's PDF 1, DRM ETD -10000 (since I can't even begin to download it).

What is bad enough to be laughable is the text on the FAQ mentioning that there is not enough market. Somehow I don't believe this for a very simple reason. If Adobe was really interested in knowing whether there is market or not, they would implement the ETD download as a stub that would notify your servers of the attempt (and provide the user with a message about the feature not being implemented in the Linux version). That would be more straightforward and allow your company to determine the actualy market for the product.

But your failure to implement or even mention the feature in the Linux version of the reader is telling enough for me.
 

technorati tags: adobe, drm, linux, consumer

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• Ceiva picture frame hacking
• Linux Mini-Howto
• A message that seems relevant right now (although it is late at night, I may not think this way tomorrow)

I'll keep checking this out tomorrow.

Update: It turns out my unit looks a lot more like the 3 series. I wonder if this is because this is a floor model.

Wow, bluedonkey is a great resource. Apparently the ethernet adapter is like this one, and this is the info on how to get the CPU cross compiling going.

Update Jan 12 2006: It looks like I will be needing one of these

I am currently (April 2005) having to rely only on USB storage while the computers I have (or will have ) access to change and change (long story).

This is a quick log of my experiences using Knoppix, a linux distribution that runs straight off the CD.

My Linux Background

I have been using linux on and off as my main desktop since 1998, and as my preferred server OS since 1996. I am an old computer Junkie and never say no to a piece of hardware, so I have every OS running at my house (MacOSX-Solaris-Linux-Windows). And I needed a way to keep a desktop around for any computer I happen to have handy (long story).

I had heard of knoppix and decided to give it a try.

Getting started

I started by using Windows to download and burn a knoppix CD. I burned a couple just in case.

The first thing you need to get used to (if you are used to Linux) is that there is only root and then a single user (knoppix). This is after all a CD-only distribution and you will likely be at the console.

Running it the first time on a Dell Latitude D600 worked fine except for the wireless. A "Wavelan configuration" (wlcardconfig) utility can be used to set up the wireless networking, but I couldn't get it set up. The ethernet worked however so I moved the laptop over to where there was a cable and worked from there. Since the primary reason for my using Knoppix in the first place is to "get stuff done" I decided this wasn't a big problem and didn't pursue it further (later, the wireless card on my Fujitsu S6110 worked fine).

Making knoppix remember you

Next I decided that, since this will be the way I compute when I don't have a computer available, I would go ahead and set up a persistent home. I went through setting up home on my IPod. However the IPod has a weird partition structure that is not auto-configured by Knoppix properly (hda1 is "empty" and hda2 is what contains the FAT32, its size being managed by IPod itself depending on how many songs you have on the device). I was really dissapointed with that - I would have loved to have created a 4Gb "home" and have all kinds of room for my development tools.

Again, there is probably a solution for this, but my goal here is to be able to be up and running in 2-3 minutes with "my desktop", so I need expediency.

So I went ahead and sprung $39 for a cheap Cruzer Micro. That worked like a charm (I suspect due to the fact that it only has the one partition). I guess now I can also hear music while using my linux.

This deserves some mention - the way you set this up is by creating a "knoppix.img" file on an available USB/firewire device, which knoppix can use as a virtual drive. This is done easily by one of the menus in the default KDE menu for knoppix. In the "Knoppix" menu (a little fat penguin), select "Configure", then "Create a persistent knoppix home directory". Then pick the size, make a note of how knoppix tends to recognize it (typically /dev/sda1 for a USB device on a non-scsi machine), then on the LILO: prompt line type "knoppix home=/dev/sda1/knoppix.img". Now you have booted to a desktop that is identical, only it won't be forgotten on boot if you do the same, because "/home/knoppix" is mounted on the image file.

There is a lot that can be done through LILO with knoppix, so they publish a fully commented "cheatsheet" Wiki entry. You can also find the codes on the CDROM itself, in the file /cdrom/KNOPPIX/knoppix-cheatcodes.txt (albeit with a lot less commentary).

Overall, I think it is a great way to do some basic computing. The KDE in it is excellent. It has sftp:// URL support. The distribution has ssh clients and server just as you would expect, and it even includes the JDK 1.4.2 and utilities that are often not there by default on distros like Red Hat such as Zip/Unzip.

I would not recommend it for development unless you get the giant 2Gb cruzer drive.

I plan on taking a trip abroad, and I will be traveling with the Knoppix CD (a couple of copies, just in case) and the the Cruzer on my keychain.

Note: I haven't tried it yet, but for traveling, it may be even better to use Damn Small Linux and put it on one of those 50Mb business cards - that way it will actually fit in your wallet and you can really take it anywhere..