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The Ubuntu team has released the latest version of the popular Linux operating system one day ahead of schedule. Though I haven’t had a system running Linux for a while now, I’m quite keen to give this one a test run. Ubuntu 9.10 is provided with 18 months of support and the usual gamut of variants from Edubuntu to Mythbuntu is available and running on the new core OS.

The 9.10 release features a slicker desktop design and interface improvements, obviously inspired by the recent UI additions in Windows 7 and Snow Leopard. Empathy is a new instant messaging client that supports a wide variety of protocols, whilst an updated Evolution should be moving closer and closer to providing an Outlook experience that is not provided by Outlook proper.

Enhanced media support, playback and interactive features are provided in the new version of Rhythmbox, a standard application in the Ubuntu distribution. I prefer Amarok and, thanks to the redesigned Software Centre, finding additional or alternative programs is made simple.

F-Spot, the capable photo management application has been updated and provides better import functionality and the ability to perform basic photo manipulation. Not quite iPhoto or Aperture, but absolutely first-rate considering its open source heritage. The standard addition of the latest Firefox browser and OpenOffice releases rounds out Karmic Koala, as does the ability to use the online storage solution, Ubuntu One.

As I’m typing this, the download servers already seem to be under heavy load, so I’ll wait for a local mirror to be updated in the next few days to get my copy.

Backing up data is one of those tedious tasks that simply have to get done. On Linux, I relied on a script containing rsync that was scheduled using cron. On Windows, I like to use robocopy, a very handy command-line utility that is still around (and even updated) in Windows 7. Robocopy functions very much like rsync, and it’s the kind of backup I feel most comfortable with: no dumping of precious files into bit buckets hampered by specific formats. Instead, the source is replicated to the target drive and, if necessary, deletions on either end are carried over (or not) to ensure the source and target stay the same. Even better, once the initial copy has taken place, subsequent synchronizations are incremental and finish up in a jiffy.

On the Mac, Time Machine is certainly worthwhile using and a great backup utility. Unfortunately, Time Machine isn’t all that easy to use with network attached storage, such as my set of Drobos. The Drobo is quite happy to be seen by Time Machine when connected to the Mac via the fast Firewire or slower USB 2.0 ports. Workarounds exist to make a Drobo connected to a DroboShare unit be seen by Time Machine – use of sparse bundle images or BackMyFruitUp. Neither of those options gives me any high degree of comfort, primarily due to the fact that they’re not officially supported. Data corruption isn’t high on my wish list…

Whilst I could easily have utilized the humble command line rsync command under Mac OS X, I  searched for something a bit more user friendly. I settled on ChronoSync. Simply put, ChronoSync does exactly what rsync and robocopy do; it synchronizes files by copying from a source to a target. But that’s really just a tiny part of its arsenal. For USD 40, ChronoSync performs file synchronization, archiving of file versions, creation of bootable backup disks and much more.

Best of all, there is no need to code command line scripts or employ cron for job scheduling: that’s built in and permits a slew of backups to be run at intervals that are suitable.

For the paranoid, there’s even an option to synchronize a file the moment it has been altered. With the aid of a tiny piece of AppleScript, I am notified of the successful completion of my ChronoSync backups via Growl, on to Prowl to the iPhone. Scripting support may be employed for a number of other reasons, such as to shut down a database prior to copying, for example. I generally synchronize entire directory trees without filtering out specific files, though ChronoSync includes support for complex filters for file selection during archival and synchronization operations. In fact, the options provided by ChronoSync are very extensive and should cater for almost any specialized requirement.

Though it may be considered expensive, ChronoSync works without fail and puts my mind at ease. What more would one want from a backup solution?

There’s a time-limited trial version available for download here and so far, I’ve had no issue with ChronoSync running under Snow Leopard.

Though it’s built using a variety of UNIX components based on BSD, there is no native support for everyday Linux file systems in Mac OS X. I found that out the hard way, having torn the 320GB boot drive and a 400GB data drive from katana. Those contained ext3 file systems which I assumed I could simply hook up to the iMac and transfer my data.

Of course, I made another backup to an NTFS volume, but there was some stuff I wanted to get hold of on the hard drives. With Windows 7 installed and katana up and running to service the IT requirements of my better half, I hooked up the two drives in an external enclosure to the MacBook…

It’s not the type of message one is intent on seeing. No longer having easy access to a Linux system, I was unsure what to do. Clicking Initialize… at this point would not be a good idea.

I’ve discussed MacFUSE before, particularly with regard to NTFS support in Leopard. That was my first port of call, being a standard component I install on a new Mac.

It didn’t take too long to find an extension for MacFUSE specifically written to support both ext2 and ext3 file systems. Aptly named fuse-ext2, the only requirement is that MacFUSE has already been installed. The plug-in is simply installed and after a recommended reboot the machine is quite capable of reading the attached ext3 hard disk.

I plugged in the hard drive and was rewarded almost immediately with a mounted file system. For my purpose, fuse-ext2 works perfectly. I have no need to write back to the drive, which is something the developer warns about: the drive is mounted by default in read-only mode.

Though it is possible to change this to be read and write, such an operation is not recommended.

Here’s my advice for any file system woes you may have with Leopard: check out MacFUSE and its associated plug-ins first.

My Mandriva system has a rather annoying habit of not starting all components of the Nautilus file manager up properly. Since the system is up and running 24/7, this is rarely an issue, but unwanted power failures outlasting the UPS‘ ability to keep katana up and running do occur more frequently than anticipated. Once the startup has completed, it is not uncommon to be confronted with a rather bare desktop, missing all items previously placed there.

The solution is rather simple, though care should be taken that only the Nautilus resources are affected. For this to work, launch a terminal session and su - to become the super user. You may use sudo on other systems, if you wish. Then, issue the killall command and specify nautilus, like so: killall nautilus.

killall sends a termination signal to all processes that match the name specified. The end result is pleasing to the eye and makes the desktop usable once again.

All desktop items restored without too much fuss…

Marvell, maker of a wide variety of eletronics components, has announced its Plug Computing initiative and introduced an SDK for its SheevaPlug product. The SheevaPlug is a computer in a plug-sized container and has minimal power requirements to make it cheaper to run 24/7. Not much to look at, the SheevaPlug frees up a lot of desk space and provides a 1.2GHz CPU with 512MB of flash storage and 512MB of RAM.

Network connectivity is provided by an Ethernet socket and peripherals are interfaced using USB. Various Linux operating systems are supported by the device.

With the price of MicroSD cards and flash memory in general being pretty low, I can’t understand why only 512MB is provided onboard – 8GB seems far more sensible for an unobtrusive computing platform, methinks…

To maintain some kind of data interchange capability between Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, I generally keep one external hard drive and one 16GB USB thumb drive around that is formatted FAT32. That saves me from having to figure out other ways of copying data from the MacBook or Mini to Linux, for example. The biggest issue is the file system’s stability and its ability to handle files that exceed the 4GB barrier. One solution is to connect the systems up to a network, but that’s not always convenient and I like to carry my files and backups with me on a mobile drive.

Mac OS X has no issue reading NTFS-formatted hard drives, but will stubbornly refuse to write any data to that file system. MacFUSE is a solution that operates with plug-ins to enable Mac OS X to read, but more importantly write, to a variety of file systems. NTFS included.

MacFUSE is not the only software component required, but is the most important. Specific plug-ins for specific file systems need to be added as these are required.

To get going, download MacFUSE from Google‘s Code repository and install it. A new item will be visible in the System Preferences pane, under the section titled Other.

There is nothing to configure or change for the MacFUSE add-in. Instead, clicking the icon in the System Preferences pane indicates whether or not updates are available and enables their installation. MacFUSE may also be removed from the system.

To enable NTFS write support, one more component needs to be installed. Download the NTFS-3G add-in for MacFUSE. The installation is very simple, but a system restart is required to activate the capability in the operating system. By the way, the NTFS-3G component is available (and often pre-installed) in most popular, modern Linux distributions. Hence, you’d be able to read from and write to NTFS volumes if you’re using such a distro without requiring the installation of additional software.

Once the two components are installed and the system restarted, attaching an external hard drive formatted as NTFS should work as before. Except now, you should be able to drag and drop files to it.

The recently announced Nokia N97 looks promising and will be a definite consideration when my E90 is no longer fashionable or usable. On the Android front, the HTC Dream is on its way, but another contender is waiting in the wings: the Kogan Agora.

It looks like a Blackberry and is a product of Australia, no less! The Kogan Agora is available for pre-order in both a standard and Pro version. The Kogan is manufactured to specification in China, then shipped to Australia for the final production and distribution. The phones are available for pre-order at very reasonable prices and should function on most GSM networks worldwide. There is no need to worry about a contract.

Features include a 2.5″ screen with a resolution of 320×240, a small keyboard, microSD card slot, Bluetooth and 3G support. That’s the AUD 299 standard version. For another AUD 100, the Pro version features a 2MP camera, WiFi connectivity and a built-in GPS. The OS is Android. Full specifications can be found here.

In ZAR terms, that’s an Android smartphone shipped from Australia with all the bells and whistles for around about ZAR 3500. Certainly not to be sniffed at. Once Kogan‘s website is capable of accepting my payment, I’ll be eagerly awaiting the arrival of a Pro in early February…

Update: successfully ordered the Pro.

Roll on in, Android!

It’s been six months since the last release from the Fedora project team which means their latest version is ready for use. In line with the releases provided by other teams, such as Mandriva and Ubuntu, there is little to suprise. This is basically an upgrade to fix issues found in the previous version and to roll out the latest software pool.

Fedora 10 features an updated, guided installation procedure that is clever enough to detect an older version and to upgrade that or to install a fresh copy of the OS. The boot up sequence is now fully graphical and leads into a default blue desktop environment. The latest GNOME 2.24 is the preferred window manager, OpenOffice 3.0 is delivered, as is the latest version of the GIMP and Pidgin for instant messaging. The updated Network Manager seen in Mandriva 2009.0 and Ubuntu 8.10 makes and appearance, of course.

A fair bit of work has gone into making peripherals work more smoothly. Better webcam support is available as is better Bluetooth device management and setup. Netbook users will be pleased to hear that LXDE is available by default – this may be a good time to install Fedora 10 on the Eee…

Even though Fedora is a great distribution, it’s really a playpen for the developers and hence stability is often a bit of an issue. Not in the sense that the packaged version won’t work, but that updates available for download afterward often break the system. I’ve been frustrated by that many times, especially with regard to the nVIDIA display drivers. If you are keen to play around, check it out. If you need a stable desktop environment, I still have to recommend Mandriva.

Local mirrors have not yet been updated with the ISO images, so check back on those a bit later if you are keen to try out Fedora 10.

This is probably the easiest way of creating a bootable Linux USB flash drive I’ve used so far and takes only a couple of minutes to complete. All you’ll need is a small executable for either Windows or Linux and a Linux distribution.

UNetbootin is an open source development that is optimized to install Linux or BSD operating systems to a partition on a conventional USB drive. To get going, you’ll need a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive, the 4MB UNetbootin executable and some or other Linux or BSD ISO image. Two great things about UNetbootin: no installation and a lot of flexibility when it comes to selecting how the Linux image will be created. The application consists of one screen: plug the target USB drive in, make sure you know where the Linux source is and click Ok.

Here, I’m using an ISO image of the i386 Ubuntu 8.10 release. My target is a 4GB USB flash drive on E:. Files are extracted from the ISO and copied appropriately, then the bootloader is installed.

That’s it. There’s no need to reboot unless the same machine that was used to prepare the flash drive is to be rebooted with it’s new payload.

To boot from the USB flash drive, insert it into the target machine and enter the BIOS at boot time. Change the boot device priority or actual boot device to the flash drive and restart.

A portable OS on a keyring, the easy way!

My first try used the 2009.0 Mandriva One ISO. Somehow, that Live CD image doesn’t load the correct modules in the correct sequence. I ended up with this rather frightening error in a terminal:

bio too big device loop0 (2 > 0)
SQUASHFS error:sb_bread failed reading block 0×0
SQUASHFS error: unable to read superblock

There is a workaround for this error, but fortunately another distro was at hand.

For the twentyseventh time, I’ve forgotten the URL for the easiest addition of media to a new Mandriva installation. I place this here for my reference and for yours…

Easy Urpmi is the best way of adding additional media repositories for Mandriva. Simply open the site in your browser and select first the official and then the PLF media repository information. A small file is downloaded that provides the necessary information of the media repository information to rpmdrake. Once that’s been done, installation of additional software packages uis really easy.

I’ve just loaded the 64-bit version of Mandriva 2009.0 on a revitalized katana clone. I like it so far…though that’s probably partly due to the new motherboard, processor and 8GB of RAM!