MSI CR650 Review with Linux

Update: I've given up on the proprietary ATI drivers. Read on to find out how to remove the ATI proprietary drivers.

In my previous post, I installed the Ubuntu-powered ZorinOS 6 on my friends notebook. That notebook is the MSI CR650. I've been able to kick it's tires for a while now and I'm sort of impressed.

Let's get one thing straight. This is no screamer. It is an AMD Fusion E-240 CPU powered notebook. It runs at 1.6Ghz and incorporates the AMD Radeon HD6310 GPU which gives it better than average performance than what you would normally expect for a notebook within it's price range. At 2GB of RAM, it is a bit cramped for Windows but great for Linux desktops.
If the specifications look odd, don't worry. Apparently, different regions get different specifications but since the difference is only in the bundled OS (or not), CPU and memory config, MSI didn't bother changing the model number. Minor things, you know. It's the chassis that matters. And if you are buying this variant of the the CR650, you are better off with a Linux distro.
Since ZorinOS 6 is essentially Ubuntu, you can equate my comments to any other Ubuntu variant like Mint or Ubuntu itself.
Most everything runs out-of-the-box. Just keep to the mantra of Install, Update and Reboot before doing anything else and you should be fine. I panicked when the wireless didn't seem to work at first and tried to fix it before the first big update. Wrong. Just let it go, do the Update and Reboot. And then judge.
My advice to anybody buying a notebook, go and buy it yourself at a shop. Pick it up and feel it's weight. The CR650 is a bit on the heavy side. I blame that mostly on the larger-than-most 15.6" screen. Running at max resoution of 1388 x 768, the screen is a beauty, a heavy beauty. The batteries do contribute but not normally more than other notebooks.
The full keyboard took some getting used to. I've used a similarly large HP with a full keyboard before but the CR650's keyboard posed some challenges. Mainly it's keys are not full size, just slightly smaller. Worse, the right shift key was cut in half to make way for the direction keys, which meant I pressed the up arrow key a lot. While the numeric keypad would be useful for someone who needs to enter numbers by the truck-load, I would rather had a full keyboard. Plus, the location of the PgUp and PGDn keys need getting some used to. Special Fn keys all work with the exception of the Eco key which is supposed to change the power usage profile. I don't know whether it works because there is no feedback. Dmesg is silent. Even if it works, I couldn't see any difference. There is a slight lag when pressing the volume keys but not much. The top row special keys next to the power key are all user configurable so you can assign them.
There were some Linux-specific issues faced.

Modify a PDF

I received a comment after my recent post on how to combine PDFs. The result was that I was reminded of another PDF tool called pdftk. It's a command line tool that does a lot of things on a PDF files. You can extract pages, burst the entire PDF into individual PDFs and yes, merge multiple PDFs into a single PDF. So, if I wanted to do the merge the same documents with pdftk, the command would be

pdftk source1.pdf source2.pdf source3.pdf cat output merged.pdf

PDFtk can also encrypt or decrypt a PDF. That means putting or removing password protection.
It can even insert a watermark or a stamp. The difference being is that while a watermark is an image underneath the document text, a stamp is an image or lettering on top of the document. An example for this is  a stamp marked "NULL AND VOID" on a document. But that it not the strangest thing it can do.

Xperia Mini Pro Review

LG P500 / Optimus One

I lost my LG P-500 / Optimus One a few weeks back. Which is a bummer as I am between jobs and can't afford the phone I want. But I still needed a phone to do work.
I reasoned that rather than let my contract go to waste, I would be better off buying a cheap Android phone. I narrowed it down to either the Samsung Y or the Xperia Mini. Both were similarly priced but I really wanted a bigger screen. I settled on the Xperia Mini Pro. Although the screen isn't bigger, the slide-out keyboard meant that half of the screen won't be taken up by the on-screen keyboard. Since I spend a significant amount typing, this is a big plus. The price was not too much more than the Xperia Mini and the difference wouldn't have gotten me a Samsung phone with a bigger screen anyway.
I checked out the reviews. They were either positive or positive with a few caveats. But beggars can't be choosers so I got the phone.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro

After using the phone for some time, I do agree with most reviews that the 5 MP camera is not good. The pictures it takes are too blocky for a camera with that resolution. I had a Blackberry Bold with a 3.5MP camera which gave better pictures. It reminded me of the early, cheap 12MP camera which were made to appease megapixel chasers. Pictures taken were either too dark or had elements that were too visible. Using third-party camera apps helps with the overall picture but won't improve the quality. Lowering the image resolution doesn't help. Sad to say, even the LG's camera was slightly better. It's good enough for that quick snap or family moments but it won't be replacing a dedicated camera anytime soon.
The good news is that's the bad news. Everything else about this phone is great. It is an example of a design idea well executed.

Choosing an Android Smartphone: My Favorite 5 Android Apps

Like I said before, half of the battle of owning an Android is choosing the right hardware.
The other half is finding useful apps that double or quadruple it's value. Here are my favorite 3 Android Apps. These are apps that I use every day or those that provided me a function that made me wonder how I managed before it came across them. I've excluded any Google apps (e.g. GMail, Maps) and Messaging Apps (Yahoo Mail, Y Messenger) because I consider those as basic apps that should be in any phone, smartphone or not. Also Battery Savers and Task Killers would really depend on the hardware you bought.

Springpad - I write for a few different blogs that cover different subject matters. Which means I am basically constantly writing. And when I am not writing, I am thinking about what to write. Blogger goes some way by accepting posts via mail. That gives me the opportunity to capture an idea in a short mail and send it to Blogger where it will be filed as a draft post. But the pace has picked up (life happens) to the point where I don't even have time to formulate thoughts before drafting it out on e-mail. Ideas have to be captured, even in it's raw, almost incomprehensible form before they get lost. That's where Springpad came and saved the day.
I first came across SpringPad while using Chrome. It offered a web-based service to what seemed to be a document management system. You could create containers where you could upload files, provide a brief summary and tag them. Or you could create notes and attach files and URLs to them.
But it went beyond that. You could create notes and lists. Or you could create a container which contains items for a list. Or you could use custom templates to capture information about movies, TV shows, receipies. The second best part for me was the ability to just capture a voice memo. I have tried to use the standard voice recorder but my problem was I had to go back, find the recording among all other voice recordings, listen to them again and re-file it. With Springpad, I would choose the container / category before I begun recording. Which allowed me to add notes to my recording later but focred me to pre-file the recodring . Now I am capturing my thoughts on voice and listening to how stupid the idea was or chainging it before posting it.

BeyondPod - is a podcast catcher. I listen and watch to a few podcasts. Mainly from the TWiT network. This is as straight-forward as it comes. It provides a few categories where you can group together podcasts of the same topic but really it's up to you. You can either ask it to search for a podcast in the category you'd like to listen to or give it an RSS feed where it'll pull it down. You can set up a schedule for each feed as to when to poll and download the latest podcast episode. I wish I could tell you about the SmartList capability but I don't really use it because it does what it does so well for me now I don't have to use it. It also is able to handle mixed media. I listen to TechNewsToday and watch ThisWeekInTech (TWiT). It plays the audio podcast internally and hands off the video podcast to the default viewer. Beautifully simple.
I don't go out and explore new podcasts and BeyondPod doesn't go out and try to suggest new podcasts so if you are into that, something else would be better. If there is a gripe, is that the play button is a tad small and placed above the delete button when the phone is in landscape mode. Other than than that, this is a great podcast app.

BookApps - I love books and buy them all the time. I don't get to read them immediately but I do buy books that interest me or that are on sale that time. That poses a problem at the bookstore because I agonize  as to which books do I already own and don't. After buying a few books twice, I found this app and it did what I wanted, get a hold of my library at home. It couldn't be any easier. Scan a book's barcode using the built-in reader and it'll pull down the information about the book (the author, publisher and even a cover image) from the Internet and add it to it's database. You can browse by title, author or publisher. It's like a mini library system in my phone. If the data is not available on the Internet, you can enter it yourself. You can even snap the cover of the book and add it in.
So when I am at the bookstore and am not sure if a book is on my to-read pile, I just pull out this app and look up the book. Some bookstores have taken to place a sticker over the ISBN barcode and replace it with their own. Probably because of Amazon. Which makes it harder but since you can do text searches, I quickly find out whether I have the book and decide whether to buy it.

More to follow..

Choosing an Android Smartphone: The hardware

Continued from here.
Half of the battle of owning an Android is choosing the right hardware. Tablet or phone? How much memory? How big is the screen? How long does the battery lasts? What accessories should I buy? As more and more options become available, the choice just becomes more difficult.
The key thing is to match the hardware with the way you want to use it. Imagine you are selling a tablet or phone.Then, advise someone who is trying to buy one. Here are some simple match-ups.

• How long am I away from a power plug? = How long does the battery need to hold up. This is simple. If you are more away from the office or from your desk, the more likely you need a battery that lasts longer. 
• Work or Pleasure? Or more work or more pleasure? = what do I need to connect it to and does the hardware support that. This is more complicated. Look at the way you are doing things now. Imagine the way you want it to be. Now douse that with a bit of reality by remembering a victory or success and how you worked to achieve that or what led you to that. What tools did you use? What did you need to make that success? Now can the phone or tablet be a part of that or replace tools that you used? Did you need a connection to a projector or TV? How much typing was involved? At any point, did you plugged in a thumb drive from someone else? Those are those things then the phone or tablet should support.
• Did you wish you had access to the Internet when you didn't? = Do you need a mobile data connection? If you find yourself more often that not thinking "I could've looked that up on the Internet" and "I wish I can connect with you to give you that information", you probably need mobile Internet. But consider also other options like portable hotspots or using your current smartphone's Internet access, especially if you are still on a Blackberry. Factor in your current mobile plan or the one available to you.
• How big is big? = What size the tablet or phone. Buy as big as you need. And match the battery for it.
• Buy a casing = buy a case. The device was sold without one because they knew someone would sell it to you separately. Then think of it in terms of fashion: how do you want to look holding it.
• Should I wait for the next software release? = You shouldn't wait. But buy a recently released model, if possible. That way if a newer OS is available, it will support it. 

Whether it is a tablet or phone, it should do the thing you want to do now. If it doesn't, why are you buying one?

Choosing an Android smartphone

This is in response to a comment at the end of a previous post asking what smartphone to buy.
There is no point of me saying such-and-such model is good because these things change all the time. Like anything else, it that depends on what you want to use it for. Gaming, Social Media (Facebook-ing), just checking mail or an attempt to replace your PC.
Three elements make up a smartphone.

• The phone
• The apps
• The service or carrier

The physical attributes of the phone is a very personal preference. Some like a big screen, others want a keyboard. Some are looking for HDMI output, others want a phone small enough for their purse or fanny pack. Nothing beats going to the shops and holding one in your hand. Choice is what Andriod users have in abundance.
The apps that can run are important especially if you can't live without Macromedia Flash and Firefox. Some don't care. What you do need to know are the quirks about the particular Andriod version. Version 2.1 can't run apps stored on the SD card (argh! Palm Pilot flashback!), Version 2.2 is what I use but you may demand the latest and greatest, Gingerbread (V2.3). Any limitation to the apps is tied to the particular phone. Like Flash is looking for phones with an ARM7 processor (or so I am told). Don't settle for 2.1 unless you intend to root the phone and install custom ROMs. In that case, find the cheapest and good luck. Try not to skimp on memory because there is this quirk that even though you have tons of free space and apps on the the SD card, the apps installed do eat up phone memory too, even if it is on the SD card.
Another aspect is what apps are available specifically for a phone. I love that my phone has both a tethering (able to connect PC to phone and use it as a modem) and portable hotspot options. Apparently not every phone has and not all carriers allow this. Some apps a dependent on the phone features itself, like an enhanced music player. So as you are looking, notice the unique features each phone has.
Finally, you may or may not care about service and what phones are available for what service. Remember it is a phone so coverage is important. For Malaysia, rule of thumb is Digi is the cheapest but with the worst network. Don't be surprised if you're just out of the city area and left with GPRS. In town, Digi is great. Celcom has the largest network but they charge an arm and a leg for unlimited data. Don't know about Maxis, though.From their website, they are about the same as Celcom. Think about where you live and what is the coverage like. But if you are connecting mainly via Wifi you may not care as much.

Webmin: The Unsung Hero

Webmin is probably one of the best kept secrets of sysadmins around. Everybody uses it but rarely talks about it. Less still admit using it. Why? Because it makes the difficult config jobs point-and-click easy. It makes what seems to take countless command line commands into a few clicks of the mouse. That is probably why it's an open secret. It does take away some of the mystique of being a sysadmin. Managers, if they knew, would demand faster turnarounds. But it still needs you to know what you are doing.
Basically webmin is a web-based config front-end for your system. I recommend it all around. Even if you run your own personal Linux desktop, I recommend you installing it. Even if you are Mr. Security Conscious, install it and configure it so that you can only access if from localhost. Because it provides something more valuable beyond that what it does superficially. I'll get to that in a minute.
Webmin is a collection of server-side scripts, separated into modules, to run local commands to configure your system. It throws up webpages that recasts the various command line options for commands that configure one component of your system. Each module corresponds to a particular component of service. Some offer interactive tools, like access to a java-based file manager. It covers everything from booting up, boot services to server services like Samba and DNS.
It hides the nitty gritty and allows you to focus on the decisions both technical and managerial. I have used webmin for a long time, I think over a decade. I've seen it' growing pains. It's epic battles of configuration controls with SuSe (one of the reasons I stopped using SuSe regularly) was an example of how much respect developers should place upon users. Suse, at boot time, kept over-writing standard configuration files (which webmin modifies) with values from it's own config file. It chose to favor it's own config files over that which the user has chosen. It was the first step towards a registry-like model and users voted otherwise.
Some things still don't work great, like Samba. But other than that, are rock solid. It hides the nitty gritty so well, that I used it briefly to manager a Sun Server. I was thrust the responsibility when someone foolishly bought a Sun server because "It was what the vendor uses". The big deal was that it was to run a database (for which there was a linux version available). To Linux users, Sun is different and the same. It has different device naming conventions, slightly different service startup mechanism, to name a few . But it is the same because it is Unix.. So, I installed webmin for Solaris and was able to manage it even though I almost never went to the command line. Manage users, assign resources. Webmin did all I needed.
But the truly valuable service Webmin gives sysadmins is the time to plan and think. When pressed for a deadline or users breathing down your neck to fix a service, webmin offers an overall view of the command options and simplifies it to clicks, freeing you to come out with solutions and make decisions. Rather than focus on and getting tripped by command line options, you can focus on what is possible and choose what is best, knowing that Webmin won't let you send the wrong command options because of typos. Less time to worry on that, results in more time to think. And contrary to what some people think, thinking is a good thing.

Moving on.

I tried logging into my workstation today and GNOME refused to start up properly. It said the program in charge of storing (and restoring) my settings was not starting up properly. It also complained it couldn't find out my workstation FQDN (fully qualified domain name (e.g. www.google.com)) and warned me that certain things were going to go wrong.

I think I have an idea of what was caused it. I tried changing the hostname of the PC recently. I do most of my administration using Webmin. I changed it in past on RedHat machines and they turned out OK. But this was Mandrake. In their efforts to make it easy on the user, they took away some liberties, or so I thought. Things had to be done using their tools or in a certain way for the workstatin to remain consistent. So when I changed the name of workstation via Webmin, it changed it most places. But not all. One of those places was now telling Gnome my old hostname which of course, did not match the current hostname. My guess these were client/server things, that the hostname was being used by the client to find the server.

Or maybe not. There is a big sin when using a distribution, it' called Distribution Mixing or Repository Mixing. A distribution is such because the people behind them made some decisions that affected a lot of Linux components, most of them core components. These were basically options that could be set when the components were compiled. Since these affected a whole lot of files, each addtional component or program were compiled against these core Linux components. And it builds and builds and builds that way until you have a distribution.

The way a distribution can add and remove pre-compiled programs to a PC is by using a package method. For example RPM is a pacakge method. And so it deb for the Debian distribution. A collection of these pre-compiled programs is stored and shared and called a respository.

Often, the way a program is pacakged is shared between distributions. For example, both RedHat and Mandrake use RPM. Mixing repositories is essentially using a program from another repository together with another distribution. An example of this would be using a RedHat RPM pacakge file to install a program on a Mandrake distribution.

Most of the time the differences are minimal but some are really critical. I have RedCarpet on my PC and I have it to download automatically the latest update. RedCarpet, being part of Ximian, maintains a repository for GNOME and it's components and programs. I was foolish enough to use that. My guess is that RedCarpet updated my GNOME with files from the Ximian repository. Those files worked all this while but maybe some recent changes caused my system to break. Even when I switched to KDE, Evolution still won't run.

The point it, I was not in the mood to hunt this down. I had faced it once in the past and I think I am going to take the MSWindow's All-fit-fix-it solution - reinstall. The workstation was running Mandrake 9.1 and I was running version 10 on the laptop without a major hitch. What a better reason to upgrade.

Which made me think about issues around workstation migration. How would this be done on a larger scale? What tool would I use? How much planning would it require?

My strategy was to simply dump everything in /home on another hard disk, reformat the disk, install Mandrake 10 and copy everything back. Of course there were several missing pieces. I'd have to take stock of what services running on the machine that affected others and plan for those services to be running on the new machine. This involves having a copy of /etc too. If I installed the services without using a package manager, I'd have to ensure I have a copy of the source or whatever was used to install these services. Installing Mandrake 10 also means a big fat update just after installation.

Well, reinstalling once every two years isn't so bad. Upgrade don't get me started on that.

The power to be sure

I fixed an new DSL connection and for the life of me, I could not get the server to work. I wanted to host my own DNS server and had set up a firewall with a DMZ and everything. The connection gave me 5 IP addresses which I could use. I could browse, which meant the connection was up but I can't access the DNS server from other machines on the Internet.

After ensuring all the routing and firewall rules did not interfere with what I wanted to do, it finally dawned to me that I needed to see the actual packet themselves. I needed to see the network.

The best program for this by far is ethereal. I had an old hub lying around so used that to create a primitive network tap between the DSL modem and the firewall. The hub would retransmit all the communication between the firewall and the DSL modem. Ethereal was running on another PC connected to the hub and would capture and decipher this for me. Ethereal is wonderful at filtering. I found out that although I could browse the web and see the packets from the firewall to the DSL modem, whenever I tried to access the DNS server from another Internet connection, there would be no traffic for that server or that protocol. Essentially, I was like behind another firewall. Traceroute-ing lead me to just one hop before it should hit the server, the DSL router at the ISP. Definitely something is not right.

What amazed me most is the ability to use tools like Ethereal at almost no cost. A few years ago meant I have to do a lot of guessing or cough up a lot of money for a network analyzer.

Now, I can choke my ISP (for an answer) much faster.