Off-Hook

Lately, I’ve had some disparaging remarks regarding how impersonal my blog is. While I do prefer to blog candidly about computer hardware and software, telecommunications quirks and innovations, and personal rants, I’d also like to occasionally reveal more intimate details about what’s going on in my life for my long-distance friends and in the interest of general historical documentation.

Let me introduce you to my newest friend, “Baby M”

So in response to recent criticism, I WILL, from time to time, publish more personal posts in an effort to “humanize” my blog a bit.Besides– I love seeing pictures of journeys and close friends that evoke pleasant memories. I belong to a dynamic and fun group of friends that STILL manage to stay in touch, regardless of the distance.

Check it out! You can now order free Kubuntu cds through ShipIt!

The latest release, 6.06 (Dapper Drake) is the version shipping. KDE 3.5, Firefox 1.5, Openoffice.org 2.0, and Xorg 7.0

Orders placed now start shipping in June.

Let me take a moment to praise NEC’s DVD burner once again…

I haven’t used all that many burners in my time. Besides my beloved NEC ND-3540A, I’ve burned cds with ASUS, IDE, Sony, and LiteOn burners. None of these hold a candle to my NEC. It is by far the quietest burner I’ve ever used. I honestly have to look down at the drive’s built-in LED or trust the display on the burner software GUI to know it is burning– even at 16x. It has yet to make me a coaster. Most impressive is the fact that Ubuntu Linux, as well as 3 Linux Live CDs based on Slackware, Fedora, and FreeBSD, recognized the drive immediately and correctly identified it, as well as configured its correct burning speeds and compatible media upon detection.

I now wait anxiously for the American retail version of the ND-4571A (early reports suggest the American model will be the ND-4551A, but the ND4570A is now available at Newegg), which adds DVD-RAM to the list of compatible media (at 5x), and incorporates a technology originally introduced in 2002 by Yamaha called “Labelflash,” which is comparable to Lightscribe, a technology available today on many other dvd burners. Tom’s Hardware does an excellent job of comparing the 2 technologies.

From the home page:

Calling people on Skype is totally free. It’s also free to call landlines and mobiles within the US and Canada until the end of the year. International calls are pretty cheap too.

The interface still has a message telling you that “You need to buy Skype Credit to make calls to standard phone numbers,” but you really don’t. Just ignore the message, call any US or Canada number by entering +[country code][ten-digit number] (like +15555551234), and you WILL connect (unless the party you’re calling has restrictions set up to block anonymous calls, etc.).

Download Skype and makes some free calls, already!

Recently, I received another one of those oil emails. You know the one. Something like “The US has enough in reserve… blah blah… The Middle East hates us but we still get most of our oil from there… blah blah… go to these gas stations to boycott the Middle East… blah blah… we pay too much for gas…” Whatever!

It’s ridiculous how little many of us know about how high our gas prices are and where the gas comes from. I, too, have complained about the price of gas, but only because I’m used to paying less (just like any old man who’ll tell you, “I remember when you could buy a coke and see a movie for a dime”). The fact is, we really don’t pay all that much for gas, even now, in comparison to the rest of the world. For example:

If you think US prices are outrageous– Check out this list of prices reported by CNN as of March, 2005. It notes prices as high as $6.27 in Norway to as little as $0.12 in Venezuela.

For a more current picture, check out the EIA’s US to Europe comparison:

In US Dollars per gallon for Retail Premium as of 8 May 2006–

US = $3.12
France = $6.32
Belgium = $6.45
Italy = $6.47
Germany = $6.53
UK = $6.78
Netherlands = $7.07

So really, what’s all the complaining about? Is it where all the oil is coming from?

The EIA (Energy Information Administration) provides official public energy statistics from the US Government. You can check out these reports directly related to oil and gas imports at the EIA. Did you know most of our gas comes from Mexico and Canada?

Last year, according to the EIA, only BP West of the major US suppliers imported a majority of its oil from the Persian Gulf (defined here to include Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates).

According to the same report, some major US companies that didn’t import PG oil include Sunoco, Shell and Sinclair.

Citgo, previously reported on many sites to import no PG oil, actually imported about 1% of its oil from the Persian Gulf last year.

All this means is that trying to boycott Persian Gulf oil is futile, any of the US companies who import oil will consider importing from the Persian Gulf if the price is right. HOWEVER– Of all those in the persian gulf, only Saudi Arabia exports a truly significant amount of the oil imported by US companies. The vast majority for the last few years has been imported from Mexico and Canada. The big 4 exporters to the US include, in order: Mexico, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Mexico and Canada, our biggest suppliers, aren’t even members of OPEC.

So you see, there’s not all that much to complain about except for our own dependence on oil, in general, and the damage we bring upon our environment with it.

The difference, of course, is GUI. Ubuntu comes with Gnome by default, though KDE and a couple others are available for install from default repositories. Kubuntu comes with KDE by default, though Gnome and the others are available for install from default Kubuntu repositories.

You may ask, then, “If KDE is available for install from the default Ubuntu repositories, why even bother with ‘Kubuntu?’”

The reason is simple– Optimization. Ubuntu is optimized to work with the Gnome GUI. Installing and using KDE on Ubuntu yields almost the same result as installing Kubuntu, but with Kubuntu, you get repositories stuffed with even MORE KDE apps specifically optimized for Ubuntu, plus you get the satisfaction of knowing that you are using a default interface. Many users prefer KDE, so in answer to growing demand, Kubuntu is developed as a standalone distro with a customized version of KDE. Stability is what sets Ubuntu apart, so you see the importance of the default GUI.

If you were wondering about Ubuntu’s support of Kubuntu, perhaps this latest picture of Ubuntu’s founder, Mark Shuttleworth, will assuage any concern:

After the last release (Breezy 5.10), It was announced that Kubuntu would be available from shipit like Ubuntu has been since the beginning– IF Kubuntu is available on one installable live dvd. We will know shortly if this is going to happen.

For my part, I have used both Ubuntu with Gnome and Kubuntu, and have found both to be excellent and very user-friendly. I currently use Kubuntu Dapper Drake pre-release on one of my machines at work (for about a year or so now, after using Ubuntu for around 2 years or so) and 64-bit Kubuntu Breezy at home. They are dependable and stable. The 64-bit version on my home pc has worked wonderfully with the exception of Flash in a 64-bit browser, which is easily remedied by installing a standalone 32-bit browser (like Flock) until Macromedia gets a round tuit. I highly recommend this distro for users at any level of Linux experience (in case it wasn’t already obvious).

Yes, they’re at it again…

Check out this latest article in Telephony Online.

Some analysts think Google may be just beginning to encroach on the mobile telephone market (is NO ONE safe?). The announcement to team up with Earthlink in San Francisco to provide wireless services, including voice, over WiFi, is an open and blatant challenge to a wireless market that is already so competitive, only the very strongest have survived the mergers and acquisitions for the last 2 years.

Personally, I think this is GREAT! Google, again, challenges the notion that popular products and services can’t be free. Only time will tell if Google’s WiFi service proves to be powerful enough to unsettle mobile giants like Cingular, Sprint/Nextel and Verizon Wireless. Such a challenge would only effect metro providers like these in the foreseeable future, as WiFi will probably not overlap rural markets owned by the likes of Alltel and US Cellular for a long time yet.

We’re only a week or 2 away from the final release of Dapper Drake 6.06, the 4th stable version of Ubuntu.

Many current (K)Ubuntu users will be wondering what is the easiest path to upgrade from Breezy Badger. I would suggest a method based on that posted at got triggered.

Before upgrading, I HIGHLY recommend making a seperate “home” partition for your install. This keeps private data off by itself and untouched by the upgrade. If anything bad happens like unresolved dependencies that can’t be solved by a dist-upgrade, you can always do a clean install and easily relocate your private files in the seperate home directory. This can be done using the partition tool built into the (K)Ubuntu install (if doing a fresh install). Otherwise, you may have to go through a more detailed partition using QTParted and Partimage (both available on Ubuntu repositories). This is not a foolproof method of upgrade without risk. I can’t stress enough how important it is to either back up your personal data, or move it to a protected partition.

Getting back to the upgrade– This method allows for upgrade based on just the downloaded ISO image (that’s right– you don’t even have to burn it to cd) and upgraded repositories. In order to do this, you’ll have to download the image (I like Kubuntu, so when it’s released, I will find it here). At this point, give the image a permanent home. You can leave it in a download directory if you like, but I would suggest something more permanent sounding in your home directory like /home/user/dapper/kubuntu-6.06-install-i386.iso

Next you’ll need to make a mount directory and mount the ISO like so:

user@kubuntu:$ sudo mkdir /media/dapperiso
user@kubuntu:$ sudo mount -o loop /home/user/dapper/kubuntu-6.06-install-i386.iso /media/dapperiso

There is a way to do this next bit in the apt GUI frontends, Adept and Synaptic, but I find the command line to be easier, quicker, and less susceptible to bugs that may prevent changes from being permanent.

Apt-get relies on a sources list (true of Debian and all it’s branches). That list for Ubuntu and Kubuntu is located at /etc/apt/sources.list I prefer kate or nano for editing.

user@kubuntu:$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

My current file looks thus:

deb cdrom:[Kubuntu 6.04 _Dapper Drake_ - Alpha i386 (20060217.2)]/ dapper main restricted

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-updates main restricted

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the ‘universe’
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu security
## team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper universe multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the ‘backports’
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
# deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-security universe multiverse

All I will have to change is the first line of this file from this:

deb cdrom:[Kubuntu 6.06 _Dapper Drake_ - Release i386 (20060531)]/ dapper main restricted

To this:

deb file:///media/dapperiso dapper main restricted

If you’re on Breezy, you’ll need to change every instance of “breezy” in the file to “dapper”

That should be about it.

Now you can upgrade like so:

user@kubuntu:$ sudo apt-get update
user@kubuntu:$ sudo apt-get upgrade

You will probably get a message after a long upgrade telling you that “some packages could not be upgraded because of unresolved dependency issues.” You can address this by following up with a dist-upgrade like so:

user@kubuntu:$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

You should now be successfully upgraded to the latest version of Kubuntu. I cite again got triggered, whose well-written tutorial is the basis for this updated how-to.