eRacks Sony Laptop – Part 1 – the OOB Experience

Published on May 27, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

vaioPreamble

It’s been our goal for some time to bring compelling value to Linux Laptops, in a way that truly surpasses whats available from a Windows or Mac laptop, beyond just “Almost as good but cheaper with free software”, which seems to be one of the prevailing current perceptions we need to overcome.

The lovely style and features of Sony laptops and notebooks, have always generated inquiries from our customers about our plans to carry them.  (Also others, like Lenovo, which we already carry).

This series of posts is about our ambitious plans to add value, and truly make your Linux Sony Laptop experience from us far superior to what it would be from a run-of-the-mill vendor.

Read on.

The OOB (Out of Box) Experience

Windows Tax, File Format leverage, and FUD

For years, we’ve sold laptops with Linux only, and with no “Windows Tax”.

Although this has been good, and has been well-received by the market and the Open Source community, Microsoft and other proprietary software vendors, notably Intuit, have been tenacious about leveraging control of their file formats, limiting control over your own data, and using the usual other vendor lock-in techniques to ensure you can’t move away from their products without severe switching costs, “Compatibility issues”, and other FUD (fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) and FUDlike behavior.

“I’m your new bookkeeper.  I assume you have QuickBooks?”

“Hi, joe, this is Fred, your CPA – do you have those latest QuickBooks files of the company’s books, so we can get your taxes done on time?”

And so forth.

True Value

With this in mind, we are introducing some solutions, courtesy of Virtualization (specifically, KVM, the excellent and well-received hypervisor built into the Linux kernel – not the proprietary VMWare, although that could be used, too), which will allow the best of all possible worlds -

  1. Native Linux compatibility and raw speed
  2. Complete windows compatibility and instance, with full control or greater
  3. Isolation from viruses and other malware
  4. Ease of backups, system administration, and forth
  5. Freedom from restrictions controlled by proprietary vendors (Sony, Microsoft).

Coming Up

In this series of posts, we will be going over many things – the installation process, moving partitions around for both OSes, running windows “In Place” with the original licenses, etc, reviewing various linuxes (Linuces?) for their hardware compatibility, Dual Boot vs Virtualized Windows-in-a-window, “Tech Tips” and what we did to get things working, how it works and what it does, in the end – and so forth.

This concludes “Part 1 – the OOB Experience” — Stay tuned, as it were…

j

Open Source Software: A Student’s Dream Come True

Published on April 20, 2009 in How-To, multimedia, Open Source, Reviews and ubuntu. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

If you’re a student like I am, you know how important it is to save money. Some students are too busy with their studies to work at all, and those who can are usually only able to do so part-time. And, like books and tuition, software is a significant source of financial burden to the average student. While it’s true that student licensed versions of software are significantly discounted, popular titles such as Microsoft Office will still cost you somewhere in the ballpark of $130. And of course, that’s only if you don’t intend to use the software for anything other than your academic or personal endeavours. If you utilize the same applications on the job, you’ll find that you’re no longer eligible for student licenses, and suddenly you’ll discover that $130 magically turns into $300.

Fortunately, the current digital climate is rife with free software alternatives, which have the potential to save students (or parents!) hundreds of dollars.

The Operating System

Let’s start with the most fundamental bundle of software, the operating system (hereby abbreviated as OS.) The OS is what sits between the hardware and the user’s applications. Some examples are Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.

For many students, purchasing an OS will be a non-issue, as most computers come with one pre-installed. For those in this category, most of the software mentioned below will run on both Windows and Mac. That being said, there are also a significant number of people who need to include an OS in their financial plans. Perhaps you purchased your computer used and without software. Or, maybe the OS on your machine is old and needs to be upgraded. You could have even assembled your own computer, as many hobbyists do.

It’s true that students can purchase Microsoft Windows at a discount of 30-60% off, but why would you do that when you can get your OS for free? Over the last few years, a veritable cornicopia of easy-to-use free software-based OSes have emerged, the most popular, and in my opinion, the easiest to install and use, being Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/). For the more technically inclined and perpetually curious, there are a slew of other Linux distributions, as well as the *BSD family of OSes — FreeBSD (http://www.freebsd.org/), NetBSD (http://www.netbsd.org/), OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd.org), PC BSD (http://www.pcbsd.org/) and Dragonfly BSD (http://www.dragonflybsd.org) — and Sun’s OpenSolaris (http://www.opensolaris.org/).

In reality, we do still live in a Windows world, so you may find yourself in a position where you have to use a program that only runs on Windows. Luckily, there’s a very mature and very complete open source implementation of the Windows API that’s been actively developed since 1993 called WINE (http://www.winehq.org/) You simply install WINE through the point-and-click interface provided by your OS and install your Windows applications on top of it. Many will run out of the box, and others will run with a minimal amount of tweaking.

Office Productivity

As mentioned earlier, a student copy of Microsoft Office will cost roughly $130, and in some cases, students won’t even qualify for the student license, making the product much more expensive. So then, simply by installing a single free software replacement, you’ve literally saved hundreds. There’s a fantastic open source alternative called OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/), a spin-off from Sun Microsystems, Inc. The download is a little large (over 100MB), but the price tag is worth it (it’s free), and OpenOffice really is a solid application capable of doing anything Office can. It includes components that replace Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access, as well as additional components for drawing and for editing HTML documents.

In addition, you’ll find Scribus (http://www.scribus.net/) for desktop publishing and the creation of professional quality PDFs and Dia (http://live.gnome.org/Dia) for drawing diagrams, roughly like Microsoft Visio.

Multimedia

Of course, no college-ready system is complete without the ability to play movies and music! Fortunately, open source has you covered there as well. With Totem (http://projects.gnome.org/totem/) and Xine (http://www.xine-project.org/), playing your videos on Linux is a snap (Windows and Mac users of course have their own respective built-in players and don’t have to worry about this.) As well, there are applications like Banshee (http://www.banshee-project.org/) that do a great job of managing your music (it also plays videos.)

You’ll also more than likely be managing a great deal of pictures. For editing them, you’ll find the GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/), which is very similiar to Adobe’s Photoshop, and for browsing and managing your pictures there’s F-Spot (http://f-spot.org/).

You’ll only run into a couple of hitches when dealing with multimedia on an open source OS. The first is that you won’t be able to play many Windows Media files. Fortunately, this can remedied by purchasing the Fluendo Windows Media Playback Bundle (http://www.fluendo.com/shop/product/windows-media-playback-bundle/). True, it’s not free, but for $20 it’s a small price to pay compared to all the hundreds of dollars you’ll be saving on everything else, and if you can live without Windows Media, you can save yourself the expense. The second is that technically, according to the controversial Digital Millenium Copyright Act (http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf), you’re in a legal predicament if you install software to decrypt your DVDs. More than likely nobody’s going to care, and the software to do so is readily available and in common widespread use, but if you choose to play your DVDs on an open source OS you should first take the time to thoroughly understand where you stand from a legal perspective. [Ed. note: there are fully licensed DVD players available for Linux, but even so, legal scholars now feel that this area of the DMCA has not yet been fully tested in court, but recent precendents suggest that if it were, in the end, that Fair Use doctrine would win out in the end over the DMCA - Ed.]

A Plethora of Other Goodies

Depending on your field of study, you’ll find many other professional-quality free and open source applications that are outside the scope of this blog that will save you even more money. Just google around. You’ll find all sorts of amazing applications, all of them free.

Conclusion

Fellow students, let loose the shackles of expensive proprietary software and embrace the freedom of open source. Not only will you save hundreds of dollars, you’ll be drawn into a community of users and developers that are passionate about writing and supporting software. Once you get used to using free software alternatives, you’ll wonder how you ever got by without it.

Here at eRacks, we specialize in providing users of all kinds with open source solutions to meet their needs. So contact us today, and ask us how we can help you save money and get even more out of your academic experience!

Home Media Meets Open Source Software

Published on March 24, 2009 in media center and multimedia. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Imagine having the technology to store your music, movies and pictures in a central location and to access them from anywhere in the house. Even better, imagine that you can do this with little cost for hardware and zero cost for software. Not only is it possible, it’s never been easier.

The Network

In order to be able to access your central media repository, you’ll need to connect your computers to a network. With wireless networking, you can cheaply connect your machines almost anywhere in the house without having to run any cable. For the minimal configuration of one server (your media repository) and one client (the system connected to your home theater that lets you actually use the media), one wireless router and two wireless adapters will do. Even better, if the wireless router sits near the server, you can directly connect the two via a cable, saving you the cost of one wireless adapter.

The Hardware

Nowadays, with storage so plentiful and CPUs that are so powerful, it really doesn’t take much money to get good results, which is fortunate for those of us who have been negatively impacted by the downward turn in our nation’s economy. On the server side, a modest Intel Core 2 Duo with anywhere from two to four gigabytes of memory will do, and with one terabyte hard drives falling below $100, you should be able to save even more money. On the client side, with the new Intel Atom CPU, which is powerful, compact, quiet and highly energy efficient, you can build a thin client that sits snuggly atop your entertainment center.

The Software

Media center software has grown increasingly popular, and the open source movement has kept up nicely with easy to install, easy to use applications.

For the operating system on both the client and server side, you have a plethora of Linux distributions to choose from, Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/) being our recommendation. Then, on the server side, you’d simply have to configure your system to share your files over the network. On the client side, applications for managing your media include XBMC (http://xbmc.org/), Elisa (http://elisa.fluendo.com/), Entertainer (http://www.entertainer-project.com/) and MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org/ — note that MythTV is a little more involved with regards to configuration and has components that must run on the server side.)

Conclusion

With hardware becoming cheaper and more powerful, and with the added bonus of using free software, a capable home entertainment system can be had for a minimal investment. And, of course, eRacks specializes in providing its customers with the resources they need, whether it be selling systems pre-configured to your specifications or offering consulting for more difficult projects. Contact eRacks today and find out what we can do for your home!

Fedora and wireless with Prism54

Published on March 13, 2009 in How-To and Laptop cookbooks. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

I will relate a recent battle I had with a laptop that uses the Prism54 wireless chipset and runs Fedora 10. For quite some time, I could not get it to connect to a WPA protected network. With an open network, it would connect just fine. I didn’t bother with WEP. I wanted to find out what was causing it to fail with WPA.

This is an older eRacks CENTRINO laptop (Pentium M 1.6ghz, 1GB RAM and an 80GB hard drive.) This post will also hopefully help anyone else who has a laptop with the Prism54 chipset (mine specifically is a PrismGT mini-pci card.) Note that Prism54 is also available in PCI and USB wireless devices.

At first, I thought it might be a problem with the GNOME NetworkManager.  So, I tried other methods of connecting, such as using the command line (for iwconfig/ifconfig), wicd, Wireless Assistant and WiFi Radar. Some of these seem to work better than others, but again, none would allow me to connect to my WPA protected network at home. Thus, it was time to dig deeper.

After some sifting through forum posts, blogs, and bugzilla, I finally came across something that might help. Apparently, the prism54 drivers have several different modules that are loaded. For some reason, there is a module (prism54), which might be an older version of the complete set, and then there are other separate ones: p54common, p54pci and p54usb. So in my case, it was loading prism54, p54common, and p54pci. According to what I have read, the prism54 module causes conflicts with the newer p54common and p54pci set. The suggestion for now is to add prism54 to the module blacklist, located in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist. You add the following entry at the bottom:

blacklist prism54

Once I did this and restarted networking, I could connect to my WPA-protected network using the default GNOME NetworkManager. All is well again in WiFi land.

Hopefully, this little jaunt with prism54 will be able to help someone else.

Revision Control: It’s Not Just for Source Code!

Published on February 10, 2009 in cvs, Development and revision control. 0 Comments

You may or may not have heard of revision control systems such as Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/), Mercurial (www.selenic.com/mercurial) or Git (git-scm.com/). Usually, these applications are used to keep track of revisions in software projects. Each time you change the source code of a project, you check it into your revision control system so that you can browse back and forth through various versions. Revision control systems have many standard features that are very useful, including the ability to display only the differences between two versions of a project.

Revision control is generally associated with software development, but in actuality, its uses extend far beyond. Anything you work on can be checked into a revision control system. For example, at home, I check the stories I write into Subversion so that I can track the changes I make and go back to a previous version if necessary. Even binary files, such as word documents, images, etc. can be tracked this way. If it’s something that you change regularly and if the changes don’t result in very many differences to the structure of its associated files, there’s no reason you shouldn’t check it in.

Since revision control is still primarily associated with software development, there will inevitably be a significant learning curve. However, googling for graphical front ends to projects like Subversion will bring up some results. While it doesn’t make learning the concepts of revision control any easier, it can ease the burden of day-to-day use, since it can alleviate the user of having to resort to the command line.

eRacks is ready and willing to install revision control software per your instructions when purchasing any new system, and even offers consulting services for those times when you need help installing, configuring or using your software.

Experimenting with a Server at Home

Published on January 19, 2009 in servers, ubuntu and unix. 0 Comments

Setting up a server at home can be a rewarding experience. Not only does it make for an excellent experiment and learning experience, it also allows you access to your home network from anywhere in the world. You may be tempted to think that such a project would be time consuming and expensive, but actually the opposite is true. Today, the software required for running a server is relatively easy to configure. And, with open source software, a cheap computer and the right internet connection, you can be up and running with minimal cost.

The possibilities are endless with a home server. With an HTTP server like Apache (http://www.apache.org/) or Lighttpd (http://www.lighttpd.net/), you can host your own homepage, keep a remotely accessible calendar, share information with family, friends and co-workers or even experiment with your own custom web applications, with complete control over the software that supports them.

With SSH and/or FTP running on your server, you can gain access to files you have saved on your machine. What if you come to work and discover that you left an important Powerpoint presentation at home? No problem. If you have your desktop computer on the same network as your server, you can use Wake-On-Lan to power up your desktop, SSH to copy the file to your server and SSH or FTP to download it. Problem solved!

Today, with modern Linux distributions such as Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/), installing and configuring server applications has never been easier. With default configurations that work mostly out of the box with minimal tweaking, you can have a machine up and running in minutes. In addition, no special hardware is required. If you have a spare computer with a NIC, you have a server.

optdesktop_front_open

The only issue that could be an obstacle is your internet connection. First and foremost, you’ll require a broadband connection such as DSL or cable. In addition, while not required, it’s a good idea to get a static IP address if you can, which is just a unique identifier assigned to your network on the
internet that doesn’t change. DSL Extreme (http://www.dslextreme.com/), for example, offers affordable static IP solutions to residential customers. From there, you would register a domain name and point it to your IP address, or get a free subdomain if you preferred.

If you can’t find a static IP, however, all is not lost. Using a service like DynDNS.org (http://www.dyndns.org/), you can get a free subdomain name that can be automatically updated via your home network every time your dynamic IP address changes.

A home server can be a very useful thing to have, and is a worthwhile project, if for no other reason, because it’s a good learning experience. eRacks can provide the hardware you need to get the job done, and can also offer consulting services for difficult software configurations. If you decide to take the time to setup a server at home, you won’t be disappointed.

eRacks on the Open Source 50

Published on January 19, 2009 in Development and News. 0 Comments

eRacks, your premier open-source vendor has been featured in the VAR guys Open Source 50, a compilation of the top 50 open source vendors with partner programs. Its a great honor for us here at eRacks and we are very pleased with it. We are constantly working to increase our partners, and work with like minded individuals and companies to expand the open source movement across the globe. Its been a long road, and we believe we are seeing just the tip of the iceberg in this global movement and we welcome you to join us in our quest! If you are interested in working with us, or if you have any questions please contact us and we will be happy to answer any questions, or work closely with you on any upcoming projects.

banner_eracks_2

Link here:

http://www.thevarguy.com/the-open-source-50/the-open-source-50-listed-a-to-z/

Why you need a Linux Netbook now

Published on January 6, 2009 in multimedia, New products and Products. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

Here are 10 really useful reasons to justify why you need a new Linux Netbook from eRacks.

Besides, a contributing member of this technological society is required to stay well-connected at all times. And in this economy, cost-effectiveness is imperative.

Top Ten Reasons why you need a Linux Netbook

  1. Lighten your load without compromise. The average laptop weighs 7 lbs. The average netbook weighs 2.5 lbs. How’s your back lately?
  2. Save money. The average laptop costs $1500+ while netbooks range from $300 to 500$.
  3. Take it with you and don’t get lost. Connect and find your destination. Google maps is a lifesaver.
  4. Keep in touch, even when you’re out. Connect with Facebook, Twitter, and Meebo.
  5. Finish your document/spreadsheet/presentation/homework at the cafe – eRacks Netbooks come with OpenOffice and many other useful applications.
  6. Waste time more effectively. Catch up on LolCats and then watch all the cat videos on YouTube. After all, isn’t that the underlying purpose of the Internet?
  7. Keep your job (or find a new job.) Manage your servers remotely anytime.
  8. Watch a film or video clip through your home network or from Hulu, in your favorite chair.
  9. Save a little more money. Find that book cheaper than in the store and order it.
  10. Portable Webcam possibilities are endless. Update your blog in real time.
  11. Bonus reason: eRacks is having a sale on rackmount servers that could likely save you the cost of a Netbook anyway.

Linux – a Premium, Secure and Unrestricted Alternative

Published on December 19, 2008 in Development, News and ubuntu. 0 Comments

At one point or another, you’ve probably asked yourself why you continue to spend hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of dollars on Microsoft products, especially in the downward economy we find ourselves faced with today. It could be that you’re worried about having to learn a new and unfamiliar environment. Or, maybe you feel that there aren’t enough applications available for anything other than Windows to justify switching to something else. Perhaps you’ve already invested a substantial amount of money in software that runs on Windows and don’t want that investment to go to waste.

Whatever the reason may be, there’s never been a better time to migrate away from proprietary software and make the move to Linux, a premium open source solution. Not only are the arguments outlined above irrelevant to the current technological climate, there are many other exciting reasons to consider giving Linux a try.

Linux Does More “Out-of-the-Box,” and It’s all Free!

After installing Microsoft Windows, your first task will always inevitably be to install a lengthy suite of applications before being able to do anything productive, and by the time you’ve finished, you’ll have potentially incurred hundreds of dollars in additional licensing costs. By contrast, any popular modern Linux distribution will come bundled with an office suite, fully-featured mail client, system administration tools and a host of other applications, saving you hours of installation time, all at no added cost. Even if you use a commercial Linux distribution with a price tag to match, the software bundled with it is almost always free and open source, meaning that you pay no extra licensing fees.

Thousands of Additional Applications, all Ready To Install at the Click of Your Mouse

We’ve all gone through the lengthy process of installing our initial set of applications, just to discover that we’ve either forgotten something or that we have additional needs. If you’re a user of Microsoft Windows and proprietary applications, you’ll get to fork out even more money, and be faced with the daunting task of manually downloading executable files and/or swapping CDs back and forth, with every installation method differing significantly from the last.

If you’re a user of Linux, with a few clicks of the mouse, you’ll find thousands of applications, all available from a single repository, ready to automatically download and install. Oh, and have I mentioned that they’re all free?

Running Windows Software on Linux

“I want to use Linux, but there’s one crucial application that’s holding me back.” Those of us who have moved away from Windows know all too well the pain of leaving behind old (or perhaps not so old) software investments. Whether it’s an in-house program for your workplace, an office suite or even a favorite game, you don’t want to lose your ability to run legacy Windows software.

This used to be a very good reason for abandoning open source migration efforts, but fortunately, it’s no longer a serious issue. The WINE project (http://www.winehq.org/), which represents fifteen years of hard work and dedication on the part of open source developers across the globe, has grown to be a very mature, nearly drop-in replacement for the Windows environment, and runs quite a few Windows programs out-of-the-box, including Microsoft Office. In addition, those applications that don’t will often run with minimal tweaking, and for those situations where native Windows libraries are required to make an application work, you have the option of using them in place of or in addition to WINE’s own bundled libraries.

For those rare instances where WINE fails to meet your needs, Linux sports a competitive suite of virtualization solutions (for more information, look up KVM or Xen), which will enable you to run a properly licensed Windows installation on top of your Linux environment at a level of performance comparable to that attained by running Windows natively on hardware.

Security and Your Peace of Mind

Anybody who’s had to manage a Windows machine will know what a hassle it is to have to keep up with anti-virus and anti-spyware updates, and how worrying it can be when we learn about new critical vulnerabilities that could result in a malicious third party gaining control of our software.

By using Linux, you have the dual advantage of working on a minimally targeted platform and of working on a platform that was built on a solid, simple and time-tested security model. Unlike Windows, there is little if any real need for anti-virus software (unless you’re running a mail server that hosts messages which might be read by people using Windows.) In addition, due to the rapid pace of open source software development, if a security vulnerability is discovered, a fix follows quickly. Instead of relying on any single organization to inspect and patch their code — a single point of failure, you have an entire global community with access to the source code, eager to support the software they maintain with a passion for writing good code.

Conclusion

With today’s uncertain economic climate, now is the perfect time to consider migrating to an open source solution. The arguments against it continue to dwindle as open source operating systems such as Linux increasingly prove not only to match Windows for functionality, but surpass it.

We here at eRacks specialize in open source solutions, and are ready to cater to your needs. Whether you’re purchasing servers or desktops running open source software, or you’re looking for help with your open source migration efforts, eRacks provides the services you need to get the job done.

Putting SSH Keys to Work

Published on November 21, 2008 in authentication, security, ssh and unix. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

There may be situations where you’d like to login to a remote machine via SSH and not have to enter a password to do it. Perhaps you have some sort of automated file transfer that makes use of SCP. Or, perhaps you frequently login to the same machine and get tired of having to enter a password each time. Whatever the reason may be, an attractive alternative to using passwords involves making use of cryptographic keys.

To give you a general idea of what’s involved, you’ll first generate a public/private key pair. Your public key is what you would copy to every machine you want to be able to log into. You can think of the public key as the lock on a door to a house. The reason why we call this a public key is that it’s safe to share it with the public, just as the lock on your door is safe to display from the outside. By contrast, your private key can be thought of as the key that fits into the lock. Unlike your public key, you should never copy it to machines that are either untrusted or to machines that you yourself don’t administer — this would be a bit like placing the key to your front door outside your house for strangers to use! Anybody who possesses your private key can access every machine to which you’ve made your public key accessible, so exercise extreme caution and guard your private key with your life.

SSH makes generating your keys very simple. From the command line, you’ll simply enter the following command:

$ssh-keygen

You’ll then be asked a series of questions. Accept all the defaults. If you don’t desire to password protect your key pair (which would require you to enter a password when you use it), hit enter when asked for the password, without typing anything in. At the end of the process, you should discover two new files in ~/.ssh, id_rsa and id_rsa.pub, where ~ stands for your home directory. From here, you’ll copy your public key (id_rsa.pub) to every machine you wish to log into and append its contents to a file called ~/.ssh/authorized_keys, where ~ stands for the home directory of the account you wish to log into.

To test your newly generated key pair, try to connect to one or more of the remote machines you copied your public key to. You’ll find that you’re sent straight to a command prompt, without the need for a password.

Now, there are situations where using keys without passwords can potentially be hazardous, so some significant thought should be given to the circumstances in which your key pair will be used. For example, I will never copy my laptop’s public key to my personal server at home, because if my laptop is ever stolen, the thief (if he knew how to use *NIX) would not only have access to all my local data, but would also have complete SSH access to my network at home, since he would have my laptop’s private key. Thus, I choose to sacrifice convenience for security in that particular situation. As with all things in life, the amount of relative security versus convenience is a trade off, so make sure you choose wisely.

Enjoy!