Rusty's Blog

Oh, the world is far from perfect, and this really isn’t a significant’ step along that path, but hopefully it simplifies things in the long term.

About a month and a half ago, or two months ago, one of The New York Times advertisers was hacked. Their servers were used to propagate some windows specific virus or another. I don’t know that this is the source of the infection that afflicted my dad’s computer, but I do know that his computer did get infected with a virus of some sort.

I’ve heard some people claim that they can clean up any infected Windows computer. Whether I believe them or not, Is not important. I certainly won’t make that claim, and more specifically I won’t make such a claim of being able to do that over half a continent.

There were three choices. 1 my dad could take his computer to a shop some place and have them clean it up. Best buy would certainly be willing to help him. for a fee. If you think about it, the fee involved almost puts him at a place where he could just as easily give them the computer as a gift, and buy a netbook in place of it. And he is curious about netbooks, more on that later.

The second option was that he could send it to me. I could see what I could do, which probably was not a whole lot, and I could send him back his computer with the possible effect that I just gave him back an infected computer. I’m not a big fan of that.

Or I could introduce him to Ubuntu.

I took advantage of a program that has been essentially a part of Ubuntu from day one, but which is changing this next release, which allowed me to go to a web page and get a copy of Ubuntu shipped to my dad for free. This took a couple of weeks, but he was more than happy to use the local public library a few times, and he waited. If he had shiipped the computer to me, he probably would have waited longer anyway. He booted up the CD, and decided to install Ubuntu on his laptop.

The first time he used the free space on the end of the hard disk. Ubuntu will install in as little as 2 gig of space, but that doesn’t leave any room for doing updates, etc. In any case he had a chance to try Ubuntu for a week, and decided he liked it. From what I’m reading in my e-mail from him Yesterday, it sounds like he went ahead and reformatted the hard drive and is now running Ubuntu only. He has decided to put off buying a netbook for the time being.

Before anyone starts claiming that he’s in little better of a position now than he was before, I’ll note that actually he is in a better position. He’s installed for himself a distribution of Linux. I don’t think he ever installed Windows himself. He didn’t need help from his internet provider to get in the internet once Ubuntu was installed, he did under windows. If things go wrong, he can always re-install from that CD now, compared to having to send a computer to a shop, that is a significant savings for him.

Is it possible to get a computer virus under Ubuntu? Sure. Ubuntu supports Wine, and as a result can run many Windows specific programs. Of course Windows specific Viruses are a sub-class of windows specific programs, and many will run under Wine. However the default install of Ubuntu does not include Wine the last I checked, so that’s not exactly a tremendous vector for him. Likewise the default install does not include Flash, so that vector is tentatively out. About the only thing that’s left is Linux specific viruses. There are a couple on the loose, but they seem to be targeting servers rather than desktops, and the default install of Ubuntu desktop does not include server software (A couple of peer-to-peer apps, but not servers.) So for the time being that’s not a significant worry. We should have time for me to walk him through getting a decent anti-virus installed and running. We’ll see.

And no, my experience with having a hacked WordPress blog doesn’t impact this either. That was primarily specific to versions of wordpress, and did happen on multiple platforms.

About half a year ago my dad picked up a story from some place where the theme was ‘just enough is enough.’ The idea was the same as you might find in a kitchen, in a car, or any of a wide variety of areas, but it is reasonably easy to explaine to many computer users with the idea of the netbook. And that idea is if the computer you use does the things you need it to do, then it is sufficient for your needs, and you don’t need to go beyond it. If all you need to do is stuff you can do using google docs, google, bing, amazon.com and other online resources, then it doesn’t suggest you need a computer that will run the latest games. It suggests that you very well may be able to get along on nothing more than a netbook pc.

I’m personally inclined to think that my dad has taken that to the next level. If that’s all you need to do, and the computer you have will do it, there’s no need to go out and buy another computer, not even a netbook. Getting Ubuntu on his computer gave him the tools to do all that he is looking to do. So it is enough.

No I am not suggesting that this solution is perfect for you specificaly, or anyone else. I learned a long time ago that there are a large number of variables involved in getting the appropriate sollution for each person. And while ‘just enough’ is enough for my dad, I go through a lot more resources each day computer wise than he uses in a month. Ubuntu works for me as well. It might work for you, or it might not.

When or how will I know for sure that Ubuntu works for my dad? When he convinces my sister to switch.

As I noted in a identi.ca posting, the client is open, including the command structure for communicating with the server, so for people interested in a totally free/open solution, they are perfectly welcome to build a server that supports that command set, and provides the functionality desired. That may include encrypted storage, or a plug into Amazon C3, whatever.

To tell the truth, I’m not entirely happy with the idea, not because I’m concerned by the U1 licencing, or server implementation, or anything like that.

I have a colection of computers. This includes a couple of PVR systems hosting 4+ terabytes of storage for videos, music, pictures, etc that I wish to watch at my liesure. I have a server at home with about a terabyte of total storage, a couple of MiniITX based computers with 40-120 gig of storage, a primary workstation with 160 gig of internal storage, a couple of eeepcs each with 8 or 16 gig of sd storage for the home partition and differing amounts of ssd storage, one has a hard drive hanging off of it, the other has one available. I have a couple of PDAs, a G1, and a couple of Tablet formfactor computers, as well as a laptop with 128gig of storage as ssd.

In short I have a variety of systems, with differing storage capabilities, so it’s a given that I do not want to maintain a completely syncronized file system across the computers. Considering the current capabilities of te G1, I certainly don’t want to be storing MPEGs from my PVR onto it. I might be interested in transfering copies of videos to the 6670, but that’s a different matter.

The reality of the matter is that I have three different needs for syncronization. The first is to maintain availability of specific data for projects, presentations, etc. This should be temporary, and transient. Next is longer term availability of specific types of data. Music files, e-books, support tools, ISO Images, authentication credentials where appropriate, etc. Finally I would like to task a syncronization system with providing backup/recovery services. When the HD in a tablet dies, I would like to know that the data that I was working with on that tablet is on the server and can be quickly made available on a replacement tablet or notebook.

Let’s take my media library as an example. I would probably want to create a folder labeled ‘media’ (or ‘Media’) that I can create, or not create on various systems. Where the folder exists, all systems that have it, check with each other from hour to hour, or so, and syncronize changes. Do I suddenly disagree with the moral position of an artist and want to discard all that artists music? I get rid of it on one system, and the other systems discard it as well. Discover that the moral position I disagreed with was a fabrication of some creative writer’s imagination, I can pull back the media from my own archive server, and it gets re-synced to the various computers participating.

I shoot ‘raw’ images when I use my Pentax camera, and JPeG on my other camera’s. The original images all need to be archived somewhere, and since the Gimp doesn’t yet work directly with Raw images, I’m interested in maintaining a personal collection on systems that I work with there that is synced. I need the Raw image on both my archive server, and on the system that I manipulate images on. (If only to be able to re-convert from the original if I botch up an earlier converted image.) Once the images have been converted, and imported into a common image library program, I would like all systems that I am likely to present these images on to be able to sync up that image collection.

Project work. Somewhat similar to the photo manipulation process, whether I am working in writer, impress, writing batch scripts, or source code for executables, I generallly only need the original data on the system that I am working on it with. Sometimes that is more than one system, say an eeepc for writing an outline, and my desktop for doing layout, dry runs, revisions and the like. The revisions, and possibly the layout needs to be synced up with and from the eeepc, but for the most part I don’t need to maintain interim copies of object code between systems. What I’m aiming for is a presentable or usable output that I will then want to put on whatever system I need that output on.

With the exception of archiving the data, and to some degree even including that, I’m very likely not going to want to be using a client-server model for this. The single most obvious example of why I don’t want a client-server relationship for much of this is that as described, I need to buidl both a per folder, and a per file ACL at the server, so that I know which systems are going to get what data, at what granularity. The reality is that I would much rather have an rss type model where each system publishes a list of the files that are on the system, and gets told somehow what systems have authority to get data from it, and  each system that knows about the others, keeps track of what data and folders it needs to keep in sync.

Perhaps the most important reason not to have the authentication happening on a server some place is that if that server becomes compromised, it then becomes trivial for someone to gain access to all of the data for the user.  On the other hand if each system is able to identify for itself which systems are allowed access, and where appropriate which user, the security is significantly improved. Add in requiring ssl, or scp as a transfer mechanism, with updated and current security keys, and you could run all of this over open access points. But use WPA. Please.

The thing is, UbuntuOne does not appear to be looking to provide anywhere near this granularity of data management. It appears to be little more than an improved briefcase from Windows 4 Workgroups. I’m not saying that such a service isn’t important, and doesn’t have it’s uses, just that it’s not quite what I’m looking for as a multi-platform data synchronization solution.

The reality is that UbuntuOne could very well be a viable extension to a broader syncronization solution. As an example, I could use UbuntuOne as a bridge between my home systems and a work system. That way I don’t need to try to figure out what the remote feed information is between systems, and pick files as needed. I also wouldn’t be leaving ports open on my work computer, leading corporate security to suspect that my work system may be compromised in some way.

And as I say, from what I am seeing, that is basicly what the UbuntuOne system appears to me to be, along with a service that Canonical can run, and hopefully bring in more money from users who otherwise are not providing a lot of cash flow into Canonical.

I run Ubuntu wherever I can, and a few places that perhaps I should not. As noted above, I have various versions of Ubuntu on at least 12 different systems. I advocate and recommend Ubuntu in various ways, but I would not say that I’m personally making a huge contribution to Canonical’s war chest of funds. I’m afraid that I have to admit that I don’t think I’m really a significant part of the target market for UbuntuOne, but I may participate just because I can see it being useful to me, and I think it is worthwhile to support Canonical and Ubuntu overall.

Like I said to begin with, there’s nothing preventing you from writing your own server to provide a back end to the UbuntuOne client. It may turn out that your server provides better performance than whatever it is that Canonical is putting together. You may find hosting it on an Amazon cloud server is a workable solution, and if you are sharing the source code with others, perhaps you’ll find improvements and enhancements that you hadn’t thought of getting put into the server. If that happens, who knows, Canonical may start using your server software, unless you restrict the software in some way that Canonical may not be able to. I certainly won’t tell you how to handle that variety of moral and licencing question.

I had a laptop that decided that a shower was not in it’s best interests. Specifically it does not start up properly now. OK, it does not start up now. forget properly.

The situation of the computer’s demise is that I was at a concom meeting, and was doing some work off in a corner while other people were working on a separate project near where I had initially set up. Along the way someone tipped over a pitcher of water, and some splashed onto a laptop I had brought with me.

Now before anyone starts wondering if I chewed out the people who had done the spilling, I didn’t actually see the event, so I honestly don’t know who would be at fault. Additionally I specifically purchased the hardware with the understanding that should it fail, disapear, or otherwise, I would not lose what I would consider a significant investment. The computer itself is less than my renter’s insurance deductable, and I wouldn’t spend that much to get it fixed.

That said, I poped the hard drive out of the computer, as well as one of the 2 1 Gig sodimm modules, and purchased a Lenovo 3000 laptop for $400. Poped the drive and memory into the laptop, and It booted right up. The only thing I had to change was to tell the sound system that it was running on a Lenovo laptop. Everything else ran without a problem.

You say that’s not possible? Windows can’t handle that many simultanious changes to the underlying platform, there’s a new processor, video card, network mac addresses, sound card, etc. and if you change all that at once, Windows complains that you’ve copied the system to a separate computer, and you have to go through getting the system re-licenced, etc.

Yeap, that you would. And For those of you who are comfortable with doing that, great. Have a good time. I’ll go right on using a system that actually works, even when you change every aspect of the underlying hardware. I could have made a ghost copy of the partitions on the hard drive, and install that on a different interface typed hard drive.

That’s the beauty of Linux. In my case Ubuntu, but I understand this works with a few other distributions as well.