Robert A. Uhl

Fifty unlikely Linux users

Noöne runs Linux, right? Well, not quite: here’s a list of fifty Linux users you might not expect. From our own government, to foreign states, to aircraft, to some of your favourite websites, Linux is everywhere. Why not give Ubuntu a spin today? Read more →

Fifty unlikely Linux users

No-one runs Linux, right? Well, not quite: here’s a list of fifty Linux users you might not expect. From our own government, to foreign states, to aircraft, to some of your favourite websites, Linux is everywhere. Why not give Ubuntu a spin today? Read more →

Lightweight portable security

I just discovered Lightweight Portable Security, a Linux distribution released by the US Air Force. The idea is that it’s a system which boots from a CD or flash drive and works entirely in volatile memory — thus any malware is unable to survive a reboot. They even have an LPS-Remote Access which is the only way to access government systems without government-furnished equipment. That’s pretty cool! It’s a nifty idea, particularly for folks who have to travel and use unknown hardware a lot. Read more →

Lightweight portable security

I just discovered Lightweight Portable Security, a Linux distribution released by the US Air Force. The idea is that it’s a system which boots from a CD or flash drive and works entirely in volatile memory — thus any malware is unable to survive a reboot. They even have an LPS-Remote Access which is the only way to access government systems without government-furnished equipment. That’s pretty cool! It’s a nifty idea, particularly for folks who have to travel and use unknown hardware a lot. Read more →

How to install Linux Mint on an encrypted system

How to install Linux Mint on an encrypted volume One of the few things I miss about Fedora when using Ubuntu and related GNU/Linux distributions is the ease of setting up fairly complex disk partitioning schemes. I’m a big believer in disk mirroring (to protect against hard drive failure) and in encryption (to protect against data loss due to hardware theft), and Ubuntu requires use of an alternate, text-based installer while Linux Mint doesn’t even do that much. Read more →

How to install Linux Mint on an encrypted volume

One of the few things I miss about Fedora when using Ubuntu and related GNU/Linux distributions is the ease of setting up fairly complex disk partitioning schemes. I’m a big believer in disk mirroring (to protect against hard drive failure) and in encryption (to protect against data loss due to hardware theft), and Ubuntu requires use of an alternate, text-based installer while Linux Mint doesn’t even do that much. Fortunately, this is Linux, which means I have all the tools I need to get this to work. Read more →

How to get H.264 working with Totem & Firefox

Apple uses H.264 for a lot of its trailers; unfortunately Fedora doesn’t come with it out of the box. Fortunately it turns out that ffmpeg (available from RPM Fusion) does support it, so all you need to do is run sudo yum install ffmpeg-libs gstreamer-ffmpeg and life is good. Read more →

How to get H.264 working with Totem & Firefox

Apple uses H.264 for a lot of its trailers; unfortunately Fedora doesn’t come with it out of the box. Fortunately it turns out that ffmpeg (available from RPM Fusion) does support it, so all you need to do is run sudo yum install ffmpeg-libs gstreamer-ffmpeg and life is good. Read more →

Fedora 11

Last night I upgraded to Fedora 11. I have to say that I’m impressed! It’s the first Fedora upgrade in a long time which went in quickly and cleanly, without any problems that had me tearing my hair out, which was a problem with past releases (if I — a professional developer, sysadmin and geek — had trouble then you know that normal people did). Overall, Fedora 11 looks more like a ‘polishing’ release than a feature release: for the most part, things look & behave the same, but they do it better, with fewer bugs. Read more →

Fedora 11

Last night I upgraded to Fedora 11. I have to say that I’m impressed! It’s the first Fedora upgrade in a long time which went in quickly and cleanly, without any problems that had me tearing my hair out, which was a problem with past releases (if I — a professional developer, sysadmin and geek — had trouble then you know that normal people did). Overall, Fedora 11 looks more like a ‘polishing’ release than a feature release: for the most part, things look & behave the same, but they do it better, with fewer bugs. Read more →

The problems of driver-downloaded firmware

Jem Matzan has an article regarding driver-downloaded firmware and the issues this causes for free operating systems. The root of the problem is that hardware vendors don’t just deal in hardware: they also write software for their products, and they don’t make this software free — this is a little absurd, since you’d think they’d want their products used as widely as possible. 06 February 2018: updated URL Read more →

The problems of driver-downloaded firmware

Jem Matzan has an article regarding driver-downloaded firmware and the issues this causes for free operating systems. The root of the problem is that hardware vendors don’t just deal in hardware: they also write software for their products, and they don’t make this software free — this is a little absurd, since you’d think they’d want their products used as widely as possible. 06 February 2018: updated URL Read more →