I decided to take the plunge and installed Mandrake 9.2 onto my Linux server. The good news is that for the most part, everything went fine. There were absolutely no problems during the install. Once again, Mandrake proves that installing Linux can be a very painless experience.However, the problems came after the install. The first problem was with the almost 250megs of updates that needed to be installed. Yes, you read that right, 250megs. Plus, you have to install a new kernel as well. This can only mean one thing, in my opinion, Mandrake 9.2 was rushed out the door before it was fully tested.
The first thing that I noticed was the spartan menus and lack of some programs. I still haven’t found FreeCell. Now, I had read that 9.2 installed the bare minimum of programs, so I made sure to individually select programs that I like during the install. Even still, there were several programs that I had to manually add after everything was up and running.
The biggest problem that I have had with this version is getting Samba up and running. It took me forever to get it so that my windows computers could log on to my Linux Samba shares. In addition, I still haven’t been able to mount my windows share so that I can read to it. However, to give Mandrake some credit, I am not sure if this is because of my own ignorance with Samba, or an indication of a lack of tools. (Somebody has got to create a useable simple GUI interface for Samba.)
The bottom line on this release, skip it. Or at least wait until they have all the bugs ironed out. Currently, there is a huge problem if you have a LG CD-ROM drive (Mandrake will kill it) and a list of problems that is several screens long. If you are happy with how your 9.1 computer is running, then give this release a lot of thought before you install it.
NewsForge has put out an article on one very cool piece of software — K3b. I just used it for the first time this evening to burn a CD on my Linux server. This was, up to now, something that I had been unable to do. One of the last things that I had not accomplished using Linux, but was so incredibly simple on Windows. This is no more the case. Burning CD’s with Linux and KDE is now a walk in the park.
If you are looking for burning software for Linux that is easy and straight forward to use and can handle all of the everyday burning tasks — data cd’s, audio cd’s, ISO images, etc — then you really need to try this program out.http://www.newsforge.com/software/03/10/20/1340254.shtml?tid=82
“AquaFold, Inc today announced the latest version of Aqua Data Studio, its universal database tool for building, managing and maintaining enterprise relational databases. Aqua Data Studio includes support for all major database platforms such as Oracle 8i/9i, IBM DB2, Informix Dynamic Server, Sybase Adaptive Server, Sybase Anywhere, Microsoft SQL Server and the open source databases MySQL and PostgreSQL. Developed with the Java programming language, Aqua Data Studio supports all major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, Solaris and the Linux operating system. “http://www.aquafold.com/index.html
The Friday just before the Canadian Thanksgiving I decided to take a walk up Yonge street from Dundas Street to Bloor Street. During this walk I left my notebook turned on in my back running NetStumbler to see how many wireless networks I could detect. Needless to say, I was amazed at the results.
I must add that this little experiment also included a portion of Yonge street from Steeles Avenue down to York Mills avenue (done in a car), along with Avenue Road from York Mills down to Lawrence and Bathurst from Lawrence to where I live.
The Results of this little experiment were amazing. In total, there were 243 wireless networks that my Linksys card was able to detect and out of those 243, more than half were unprotected. This means that there were about 120 wireless networks up for grabs in just that little part of Toronto.
In fact, I went into a Macdonald’s just above College street to get a shake and check the computer I was able to detect several active connections from within the restaurant. I don’t remember if they were secured or not, but chances are that if there was more then one of them that at least one was available.
My question is this: what does this say about the state of wireless networking and wireless security in the city of Toronto and in any city in general? Personally, I think wireless technology, although an amazing thing and a great leap forward for computer, needs to be made more complicated to try and deter those who do not know what they are doing from setting up there own home/business wireless networks. The technology is too accessible, too easy, and too insecure all at the same time. That is not a good mix.
Well, while I was away playing hooky a whole bunch of apps were released. So, in case any of you have been living under a rock for the last few week like I have, here is a run down of all the programs to play with:
And I know there was a few more that I have forgotten about, so I remember I will add them to the list.
These last two weeks have just been caos. Literally. Two power outages that knocked my home computers offline, the thanksgiving holiday, and school assignments have all mixed together to make for two very busy weeks. So, I apologize for the lack of updates on the site, I will try to do better in the future.
StopDesign.com has an interesting article about designers and Adobe compaining about Internet Explorer’s handling of CSS.http://www.stopdesign.com/log/2003/10/09/firestarter.html