VM Installs

I was reminded Thurday night how much slower my old little (as in tech specs) Averatec laptop is than my new little (as in overall size) Asus EeePC netbook. It took about two hours for the VM install of the Ubuntu desktop on the Averatec (working from the ISO file on the hard drive). Friday morning (working from the ISO file on a flash drive), in 35 minutes I was logging in to my VM Ubuntu desktop and accessing a terminal window.

There is, of course, a great difference in hard drive space between the two laptops (40Gb vs. 160Gb), as well as RAM (1Gb vs. 2Gb), though little in processor speed (1.53GHz Mobile AMD Athlon vs. 1.6GHz Intel Atom). So, I have to wonder how much “thrashing” was going on the night of the Averatec install.

My next query was, with the installation of Ubuntu as a VM taking even 35 minutes -- that’s a lot of "evening" time to someone who works full-time and spends nearly 2 hours commuting each day -- can one leave the VM running? And if so, for how long? The answer is that is installations can be suspended or powered off, waiting to be rebooted as required. In just a few minutes, the Ubuntu desktop or server is ready to go.

Tutorials

A variety of tutorials was provided for the "Command Line" unit this week, including print and audio/video. Having audio and PowerPoint like presentation video is a nice change from long readings and class chatrooms of my previous on-line courses. It was more like being in a classroom/lecture environment, which I do miss from face-to-face classes as an undergraduate.

I am fortunate that I learn almost as well with print materials as I do with audio/visual materials. Still, having both types available for tutorials is beneficial. Employing multiple resources reinforces the content, but also provides various means to understanding.

In particular, I appreciated the DOS to Unix summary page link provided in the unit assignment text.

Live CD

My effort to boot Ubuntu using a Live CD was halted by an error. So I posted on the class activity board for the unit:

Color me disappointed.... it was all going so well... and fairly familiar from the 'old' days with DOS... Here's what came up on the GNOME interface when I tried to boot the LiveCD:

b43-phy0 ERROR: Firmware file "b43/ucode5.tm" not found or load failed

You must go to http://linuxwireless.org/en/user/Drivers/b43#devicefirmware and download the correct firmware (version 4)

So.... I'm heading there to look around, but probably won't do anything until I check back in here.

That location was "not yet created" page, but there were links on to information about the b43 (which has to do with Broadcom wireless firmware). Unfortunately, even though the content on the FAQ page was rather technical, it was obvious that their instructions would have to take place from within Ubuntu.

Google (and Ubuntu forums) to the rescue! The first hit from searching Google with "b43/ucode5.fw" provided a link to a Ubuntu thread and from that first post, I visited the recommended site, Broadcom Wireless Firmware . The file and simple (too simple???) instructions are there, but again, this is something to be added into the files, and doesn't help when running a LiveCD.

Just about the time I was finding all this information, the instructor confirmed the association of the error with the wireless system, and suggested I try to disable the WiFi in the BIOS. Ufortunately (again), there is no option in the BIOS to disable the Wifi (that I could find; and my manuals for the laptop are who-knows-where). His other suggestion was to just do a VM install... which is what I did.

Ubuntu for Eee PC

I feel right at home at the Ubuntu User Forums' "Absolute Beginner Talk" for that is certainly what I am!

As there were so many threads, I chose to use the filtering options at the bottom of the page to limit the threads to those with Ubuntu as the prefix, sorted in descending order by the number of replies, and the time period to the past month. This still provided over 200 pages of threads. To say the Absolute Beginner Talk forum is prolific would obviously be a understatement.

Following comments in our DigIn class discussion posts and also on the Ubuntu forums about laptops, I made another search for "Eee PC" -- the type of netbook I am currently using -- and even then found a several hundred threads. Choosing one, titled "Issues with Asus Eee," I learned that running Ubuntu within Windows using Wubi would be slow and prone to some problems. [Wubi is not a virtual machine like we will be running, but "creates a stand-alone installation" (Wikipedia)].

In the fourth response, a forum moderator suggested that the original poster use an SD install, and also advised that there were Eee specific versions available (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Netbooks). Another poster pointed to a utility which would allow Ubuntu to be installed to external and flash drives (http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/). The remaining dozen or so posts in the thread are supportive and indicate high user satisfaction when the appropriate version is in use. I plan to read up on the options for future use, and to revisit this list if problems surface with my Eee.

What I really found helpful at this portion of the forums were the "sticky" threads, which provide a multitude of links to resources to help a beginner learn and understand more about Ubuntu. For example, 14 of the 20 posts in the "New to Ubuntu? Start here..." thread contained links to helpful information -- most contributed by a forum staffer -- while others are long texts of informative information for beginnners. There are links to material specifically to help Windows users, too; documents which are part of the Ubuntu community documentation:

Official guide to switching from Windows to Ubuntu 8.04LTS

Switching from windowss

and another labeled, "Ubunto for non-geeks" -- which is actually a book/PDF to purchase (there is a sample chapter available to download). However, there is a free beginner's guide offered as a PDF in the first sticky thread of the forum.

I have been using Windows for so long, I am sure I will be making good use of these resources.

Back in Command

Oh, boy!

 Tonight my head is spinning -- not just from a pollen-induced headache, but with unfamiliar and semi-familiar concepts and terminology. Today was the first day of my first course in the University of Arizona School of Information Resources and Library Science Digital Information Management Graduate Certification Program, Introduction to Applied Technology (nevermind that it is second in numerical order; this is the first course).

 I think I was fine until I decided to read chapter one of Linux Administration Handbook (Nemeth, Snyder, & Hein, 2006; 2000). Linux, UNIX, and GNU (among others) are familiar words, yes, but I've been using Microsoft products since 1996, at least. So knowing the words was about the extent of it.

 Still, even with Microsoft, and before Windows, there was DOS -- which I loved. There's nothing like a command line to put one in, well, command!

 Today, the OSes; tomorrow, VMs & distros!