Time for this Outlaw to ride off into the sunset

Like most people, I am a huge fan of podcasts. Most of what I have on my portable player is all podcasts. In total I subscribe to about 20 podcasts ranging from Science, Religion and Technology. One of the podcasts that I am subscribed to, Linux Outlaws, has been removed from my podcatcher for good.

I debated this for a while and kept it in the catcher until I totally decided it was time to go ahead and remove it for good. On the last show that I listened to, I just could take it any more. I stopped listening about 15 minutes into the show. The constant screaming from one of the host of the show was getting to be too much. The constant rant of "You're stupid for thinking this way!" was all I could handle. Couple that with his constant interruptions of his co-host, it was time to part ways.

The reason I listen to a podcast is to get a good un-biased opinion on a certain subject. Be it science, religion or technology. I do not listen to a show to hear a man with a German accent scream at me about how Novell and Windows and everyone that disagrees with him is stupid and inferior.

I will continue to listen to show such as The Command Line and Tux Radar to get my technology fix. I can't say that I won't go back to listen to Fab and Dan at a later date but for right now, this Outlaw is riding into the sunset with one less podcast.

The Linux War Cry

After recently reading an article at linux.com as well as the comments, I thought of something. Why is it, that every "die hard" linux user wants to bring down Microsoft? Sure, you can make the argument that they are a monopoly, that Windows is a playground for every script kiddy out there. But why would the Linux community want to bring down the software giant? It almost seems that there is a vendetta out against Bill and the boys.

I bring up the question as to why not try to bring down Steve Jobs and Apple? Why not? Why limit it to just Microsoft? Is it because OS X uses the somewhat water downed version of the Linux kernel? Is it because Safari is based on Konqueror? Is it because of pretty gummy eye candy of OS X?

Look at it this way. With a Windows computer you are not limited to using Windows. You can easily change out the OS to your choice whether it be a flavor of Linux or BSD. Your choice. You want a new video card? No problem. Just open the box and put it in. Want a second hard drive maybe? Well...you get the picture.

Now, let's look at something like, oh say...the iBook. Want a new video card? Send it to Apple. Want a bigger hard drive? Send it to Apple. Heck, try to open the iBook yourself and see how far you get. The iBook is sealed shut! Yes, you can hack into it and open it, but how far are you going to get with help if you all of a sudden have a problem with your $1200 laptop?

So if you want to "take down Microsoft" don't stop there. Just take down Apple while you're at it.

Linux has no style...

I was recently looking around on kde-look at some of the latest themes. Once again I was hammered with "Vista" style this and "Mac" style that. Great...so you made your Linux computer look like Vista.

So I was thinking to myself. What about the "Linux" style? After a few moments longer of looking at the computer monitor, I realized, Linux has no style. It kind of disappointed me. Then I thought for a while longer about it. This could actually be one more benefit of Linux. Linux has style! It has any style that it wants. But!!! What you get is one stable OS that is virus free and has a huge following with great community support as well as being free and Open Source.

Now I just had another thought. Those silly little commercials where "Apple" and "PC" are talking together and there's always something wrong with the "PC". I got a nice parody of that. Picture this if you will :

PC and Apple are standing around talking. PC is being his usual dorky self and Apple is trying to be the cool hippster. Along comes Linux. All of a sudden Linux looks just like PC, then switches and looks just like Apple. Then someone says something witty and the all go off in a huff.

OK, maybe I haven't fine tuned it but after all, it's just a thought.

2 SATA Drives - Kubuntu and Windows XP

A few days ago I purchased another hard drive for my computer. A 160gig SATA drive (my main computer only has SATA connections for the hard drive data). I bought the extra drive so I could install Kubuntu Linux and keep windows on my current hard drive, and just have a dual boot system. Sounds easy enough.

I put in the second hard drive as the primary drive and moved Windows to the secondary drive. Inserted the Kubuntu CD and proceeded to install. The installer came up great and asked which drive I wanted to install Kubuntu to. I chose the new 160gig drive.

After the install (~20 minutes or so) I rebooted the computer. Straight into Kubuntu. Hmmm...I thought. Maybe just a GRUB reconfiguration. After poking around a bit I noticed that Kubuntu had installed to the 80gig drive where my Windows was. BUMMER!! Good thing I made all those backups!

Checking around a bit further, I found that what I could do was:

1. Put the new 160gig disk as Primary
2. Install WindowsXP
3. Put the Kubuntu hard drive back as Primary
4. Edit GRUB to tell it that there was another hard drive there with WindowsXP
   

Now it was time to just install Windows to the new 160gig drive since I had Kubuntu installed and running great. Unplugged the 80gig drive and plugged in the 160gig drive as Primary. The installer came up and said "No Disk Found". BUMMER!!! Now what?

Checking around, I found that, in order to install a fresh copy of Windows XP, using a SATA drive, you have to install it as a SCSI / RAID. Why? Dunno. In order to do this, you need to put the drivers on a floppy disk. I don't have a floppy drive on my main computer. Now what to do?

OK. I have an older computer running Windows 2K that does have a floppy drive. Hook the Win2K computer to the router and download the drivers and copy them to a floppy disk. Then I can put the floppy drive into my main computer to load the drivers during install of WindowsXP.

Great! It works! Windows is installing...now for the fun part. Does Kubuntu boot? Will Windows boot?

The computer restarted and I had just go ahead and boot to Kubuntu. Fired up a command prompt and started editing two files.

The first file was /boot/grub/menu.lst This file is a list for grub to tell it what is loaded and where. I added the following section

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

What this does is tell Grub that Windows is there. It is located actually at hd1. However, Windows is picky. It likes to be first, but fortunately, it's not that smart. We have to trick it into thinking it is actually the first OS to boot. That is what the map(hd0) (hd1) does.

Now for the real fun part. Can I restart the computer, boot into Windows and then restart and boot into Kubuntu with no problems.

Success!!!! It works!!!