What makes Ubuntu Studio more relateable than other Linux desktop distributions is that Ubuntu Studio allows for direct, realtime process prioritized access to drivers and peripherals. If low latency is your priority, you should download the Ubuntu Studio 10.10 Maverick Meercat DVD and install it. I decided to mirror both distributions of Ubuntu Studio 10.10. If you are running an intel based typical machine, then you should probably download Ubuntu Studio for 32 bit architecture. Else, if you’re running 64 bit architecture (AMD), then download the AMD64 DVD ISO. Be sure to tell your BIOS to boot from your DVD ROM and be aware that the typical installation method will wipe out anything on your boot drive.

Here’s a screenshot of my semi-opaque black terminal over the default Ubuntu Studio desktop graphic:

Ubuntu Studio can be installed on laptops and it can also be deployed as virtual desktop infrastructure using Eucalyptus to distribute and aggregate compute resources for scale. Let me know if you would like to know more.

You can also install it on a Mac. I’m running on a MacBook Pro 3,1. For more info visit:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro

This is Personal Computing with Asher Bond… Where Asher Bond takes computing personally.

Unbelieveably, Netflix is not yet able to provide streaming support… or even unlocked ACCESS for Ubuntu (the most relateable, extensible, and personal computing platform available) due to their arrangements with content providers. How does it work? I’m not sure exactly, but I’m guessing that the Netflix web servers look inside the http headers sent by the customer’s web browser. Compliant, honest web browsers tell the truth about what operating system they run on… but operating systems shouldn’t really matter in a web world, should they? I wonder if there is a good reason why Netflix blocked Ubuntu.

Ahaaaah… Here’s the problem… Linux can’t officially run Silverlight until moonlight is released and Silverlight is required by Netflix. I always wondered what Silverlight did.

About a year ago (roughly Nov 2009) JR Conlin @ Netflix wrote:

…Unfortunately, while there’s no restriction on what platform you can run our API on, there are various restrictions placed upon us by the content providers which limit what platforms we’re able to stream content to… (source: Netflix API Forum)

Don’t believe me? Here’s a screenshot sent in by Evie Ubuntis.

Ubuntu is a free operating system that is freely updated and freely maintained. People can download it, install it, and run it (and other applications inside of it) free of charge… Seems strange that Netflix’ content providers want to pull the plug on Ubuntu. Good luck content providers. Ubuntu, out of the box, is the cat that will continue getting out of the bag. If curiosity kills the cat, it will be happy that cats have nine lives.

I had a support inquiry that lead to this… me writing an imaginary scenario based on my strange imagination:

A Person Computing:

Your new Ubuntu software is worthless and it’s a pain in the )(*@#$&*@# …. I can’t even load Knotfix. No one uses this *&$)(@#$@&#. No wonder no one’s ever heard of it.

A Linux Person Computing:

The web browser detects your operating system and refuses to continue. How does it know? Send me a screenshot of the error.

Time goes by…

A Linux Person Computing:

You have got to be kidding me, you mean they blocked it??? Did Knotfix’s own partner network push Knotfix to block Ubuntu? It can’t be. I must be absurdly missing something. Let me look it up in a Gogul search Mogul. Yeah, according to the Gogul authorities, Ubuntu Persons Computing don’t seem too happy about Knotfix only working with Wondowses and UstabeFreeBSD UX Elite Ultra Wildcat Latest Edition Pro.

A Person Computing:

I hate this Ubuntu stuff… send me back in time when we had Wondowses and everything just worked the same every time… I don’t need you! I can get my fixit-boyfriend who works at the local best-bought geek farm to help me if I use Wondowses. He usually helps me through my auto-updates that I don’t do. Why do you tech guys have to keep updating the efffffing software!?!? If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Anyway Willis the best-bought Wondowses retailer says Ubuntu has interoperability issues. Ubuntu is stupid! No wonder you geeks have so many issues. You back end people are so uninteroperable.

A Linux Person Computing:

If 100% of the fastest computers in the world run Linux, then why should I have to sell it? Don’t you want better, newer, more interoperable, more extensible, more customizable software? Don’t I have something for everyone? Especially if it’s free?

Person Computing:

If it’s so great, then why haven’t I heard of it. I watch TV all the time. If you have something for everyone, then what the efffff does that mean to a non-technical slave-driver like me? Willis the best-bought Wondowses retailer says that Ubuntu has driver problems. Is that because Ubuntu isn’t smart enough to work with my elusive hardware?

A Linux Person Computing:

You don’t want me to go into why you’ve never heard of it. As a side note, the cloud is a pretty volatile computing platform at the moment. Ubuntu works great to power piles and piles of nebulocity that I use to provide infrastructure, platform, and other software services. Ubuntu can virtualize virtually any OS environment. Linux is good enough for the pros and the amateurs, too bad it’s not good enough for you.

Person Computing:

STFU.

A Linux Person Computing:

Of course, let me go back into to my secure shell where I have a better chance at getting some work done.

Person Computing:

Since, obviously you don’t know much about computers, I think I’m going to reinstall Windowses over this Ubuntu mess. I’ll call you for help when I need someone to help me with the re-installation and malware removals.

In a previous post, I described an experimental method of mounting S3 as a virtual file system within a cloud instance. I’m still in the process of doing spring cleaning… although fall is basically here… but anyway cleanliness is generally overrated until it comes to the idea of getting web files organized properly in the cloud. So before I take a shower this morning I think I’ll finish moving some static content into content distribution networked storage bit buckets.

#!/bin/bash
# Asher Bond 2010
# http://www.asherbond.com/blog/2010/09/23/sizeup-sh-for-cleaning-house-i-mean-cloud/
# sizeup.sh [dir]
# sizes up the present working directory or some other directory
# by summarizing the directories inside. I use this script to
# make sure my cloud compute instances are storing files properly
# in walrus and s3 filesystems or google storage instead of cluttering
# the compute instance's internal file systems

if [ "$#" -gt 0 ] ; then
        cd $1;
fi

find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -exec du -hs {} \;

A Content Distribution Network is often more efficient than one point of delivery such as a single or centralized web server / VPS.

Please note this is risky business down here…
Here’s how a thrill seeker could try to move a whole bunch of stuff into a cdn real fast:

sizeup.sh
# oh wow what’s up here? that one is like fulla mp3s and videos
s3-mount.sh cdn.somedomain.com /mnt/cdn.somedomain.com
mv /var/some-directory/some-big-podcast-2010* /mnt/cdn.somedomain.com
echo “hey web master dude I just moved all ur files into the cdn, so update ur links.” | wall
# oh no I’m still the web master…
tar -cvf backup-in-case-my-links-dont-get-updated.tar /var/some-web-site
gzip *.tar
umount fuse
s3-mount.sh backups.somedomain.com /mnt/backups.somedomain.com
mv backup-in-case-my-links-dont-get-updated.tar.gz /mnt/backups.somedomain.com
cd /var/some-web-site
find . -type f -exec perl -p -i -e ‘s/some-old-links/some-new-cdn-links/g’ {} \;
# whoa i hope that worked… LOL!

In the future, computers will be more and more portable and the networks that connect computers together will be much faster. Data will be centralized for the purposes of logical integrity. This requires that networks be made fast, reliable, and distributed. Computing in the cloud could not come at a better time than now. Our now? IPV6 is our now and everybody’s now in everyone’s world, connected by our smart phones, laptops, desktops, and servers. E-commerce is going international and fully mobile. Hardware vendors are building systems smaller and faster than ever before. Open source software distribution models are transforming the commercial software model into a collective library… an understanding of technology at the programmatic level. People are freed and empowered to relate to each other by these advances. The commercial system now has a reduced load average and can focus on other processes, like buying, selling, and advertising online using mobile phones. Collective global positioning and mobile innovations have brought knowledge to freedom on foot. Supercomputing is here and we are distributing it to the world, empowering humans to spread ideas like nectar. Modularity, flexibility, convergence, and resilience are emerging in today’s software. What do you expect? – Asher Bond

I got this error when trying to configure php 5.2.6:

configure: error: xml2-config not found. Please check your libxml2 installation.

I’m using Debian and it showed that I had libxml2 installed (and it was the latest version).

It turns out that the latest stable version of libxml2 doesn’t include a file named xml2-config. I suppose I could have linked that file to the config file that the stable version of libxml2 uses, but the easy fix is to just install the newer development version of libxml2 using the following command:

apt-get install libxml2-dev

That’s all I needed!

I got switched to a Xen VPS (debian linux) recently and discovered that some applications couldn’t write to /dev/null. It turns out that /dev/null was actually only readable and writable by root. I logged in as root and changed the permissions so that /dev/null was readable and writable by all.

chmod 666 /dev/null

This solved the problem.

I was still having trouble with some shell accounts, though, because no users could access screen (virtual terminals). The error message was that no PTYs were available. I solved this problem by giving these users access to the /dev/ptmx directory. This directory was initially only readable, writable, and executable by root, but I made it so that anyone in the admin group could read write and execute this directory.

chown root:adm /dev/ptmx

chmod 770 /dev/ptmx

If you want any user to be able to use screen, you will have to do this:

chmod 777 /dev/ptmx