UEFI Secure booting is good for Linux

Microsoft will block non Windows on the ARM platform. Big deal. It is if installing Linux on any other Laptop is easy. Sure you can install Linux on most Laptops today. But does it really work? Do you get the same battery time with Linux as with Windows? Nope. Do your multimedia Keys work? In 90% of the cases only partially. Does your computer suspend or hibernates as in Windows? in about 50% of the cases the answer is no. Does your Graphics Card works the same as under Windows ? NOPE.

So, the situation is like this: OEM A makes a deal with M$ and writes proper drivers to the hardware and SomeUser Joe gets a hardware which works perfect with Windows 7. Later, SomeUser Joe, installs SomeCrack for SomeCoolSoftware which contains a Trojan which he can't get rid of. After some frustration, he decides to quit with this M$ thingi and give Ubuntu a try, because he heard it's cool. He than tries Ubuntu and discovers some things don't work. Here our little story splits.

First possibility, the Linux Sucks possibility. SomeUser Joe, is frustrated, his computer will freeze every time he resumes it from suspend. Or the graphics card is slow, or the Fan always works loudly. Linux Sucks. Period. SomeUser Joe, bites it, and installs Windows 7. His next computer will be Apple.

Second possibility, the Linux has a cool community, SomeUser Joe, heard about it and wants to join. So, he files another bug, which might be taken seriously, or not, in Ubuntu's bugzilla. This bug might find it's way upstream to the Kernel developers and they might solve it, but the patch will only be in the next release of Ubuntu maybe in 6 months from now. Damn speculations. But Linux works at most. So, in 3 years from now SomeUser Joe, might look for a new Laptop, without the Windows Tax, and will save a scrap of 50 bucks, which he will spend 100 times more money in working hours value digging through forums and IRC channels trying to get he's M$ free Laptop to work.

Third Possibility, SomeUser Joe buy his next Laptop with Linux pre-installed. Hell yes! UEFI is a great thing. I wish all M$ devices would never run Linux. It will force Linux fan boys to see that by saving $50 to $100 dollars buying a Laptop from OEM's which sell Windows, they sleep with the Devil. UEFI is a great opportunity to Linux and FOSS, because we have a great OS in our hands and now we have also Free Hardware like the BeagleBoard, PandaBoard, RaspberryPi and even the GTA04.

There are some small companies the sell Linux laptops which have the latest trends in hardware. If there are just 1 Million Linux users and just one third of them will buy a new device this year, that is about 300,000 laptops sold with Linux. I think this is a huge jump in sales for a small company like ZaReason or System76. They would be then more then able to go out on a broad campaign putting Linux on the main stream student Laptop.

So, please, stop whining about UEFI. Just don't buy laptop from OEM like Dell or Lenovo or Acer or Asus. There are ENOUGH alternatives for Preinstalled Linux Laptops. Here is a short list:

• System76
• Zareason
• Rockiger
• ohava 
• AlwaysInnonvating

If you happen to know of others, please let me know through a comment!

(P.S. Dell don't count! Dell's Ubuntu offering mock Linux users, offering a free OS with lousy hardware which costs more than the Windows installed laptops with cost cheaper for better hardware. Just because of this mockery, I will never recommend any customer of mine or buy myself any product of Dell).

The more I read on GNOME 3 I get more mad

The idea I need to learn X Programming Language (e.g. JavaScript) in order to customize my desktop is IMHO simply IDIOTIC! Although I love learning programming languages, and I am a programmer, I DON'T WANT to program my desktop. My desktop is not a problem I need to solve. It should just work.

Have you ever seen a customized Gnome Shell? You can do quite a lot, and practically anything if you know javascript.

The quote is from the Debian forums.

If I wanted to program my Desktop, I'd probably learn Lua and use something crazy like AWESOME WM (But in the mean while I'm fine with DWM and GNOME 2.30).

Short news about the GNOME 2 fork

Well, I've been following the Development of Mate DE quite closely  via github and it seems like the project is gaining momentum. It gained the support of Linux Mint Dev's and now it has it's own website, so I'd like to give here the link to the GNOME 2 Desktop alternative, in hope more peope will contribute and join.le will contribute and join.
Since there is now a Debian repository for MATE DE, I intend to test it hands on, and not just observe from the side.

More GCONF Fun: Setting display backlight

In my Clevo notebook all the Fn keys work, except the Brightness keys. So,
after search quite long, I have found that the only solution that really works for me
is "xbacklight".
So, here is how to map the "Special Key " and alt together with F8 and F9 to reduce or
increase screen brightness.
First, install xbacklight:

aptitude install xbacklight

Decide where you want the custom script to reside (see bellow) and export the following bash variable:

export PATHWHEREYOUWANTYOURSCRIPT=/usr/local/bin/increasebacklight.sh

Then create custom keybindings:

#setting to decrease
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/keybindings/custom1/action -t string "xbacklight -dec 14"
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/keybindings/custom1/binding -t string "F8"
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/keybindings/custom1/name -t string "Reduce Backlight"

#setting to increase backlight
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/keybindings/custom2/action -t string "$PATHWHEREYOUWANTYOURSCRIPT"
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/keybindings/custom2/binding -t string "F9"
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/keybindings/custom2/name -t string "Increase Backlight"

And finally, setup the the script which increases the screen brightness:

#note: if you chose like me /usr/local/bin/increasebacklight.sh
#run the following as root.
#you can also have it in ~/bin/increasebacklight.sh, just make
#sure ~/bin/ is in your PATH

cat >> $PATHWHEREYOUWANTYOURSCRIPT <<EOF
#!/bin/bash

# a simple script to avoid the fact 
# that it is impossile to increase 0 precent
# by add more precent ...

LEVEL=`xbacklight -get`

if [ $LEVEL == "0.000000" ]; then
    xbacklight -set 15
else
    xbacklight -inc 15
fi
EOF

chmod +x $PATHWHEREYOUWANTYOURSCRIPT

That is all.

P.S.
Yariv,
If you are reading this, thanks for introducing me to xbacklight.

Another crack in the Windows hagmony

For about 4 years now there is a possibility to get a Netbook with Linux. Now, there are many of them coming with Android and Meego. Asus has been shipping Linux for quite some times. Unfortunately, always as a second citizen in it's laptops. The better models always come with Windows. IMHO, it's stupid, because WIN7 just kills the system - i.e. WIN7 Boots slower than WINXP although the hardware today is MUCH faster. But back to what I wanted to write about. Today this really caught my eyes browsing some laptops:

 

A Windows agnostic "WIN" button. I've seen that already in laptops which come with Ubuntu pre-installed, but first time I see it with a main line manufacturer! Such a shame that the same model which comes in white does have the Win button. The laptop by the way is ASUS Eee PC X101-BLK022G which comes pre-installed with Intel's Meego Linux distribution.

Quicktip: Setting keyboard layout in GNOME via CLI

Since I tend to break my installation quite often while testing new stuff, I'm always looking for more agile way of re-setting my system quicky. Of course backups could do the job, but I find a clean install much cleaner and safer for my purposes.
So, here is a tip how to set keyboard layouts from the command line using GNOME - very useful if  you speak more than one language:

gconftool-2  -R /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd
gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd/layouts -t list \
--list-type=string [us,de]
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd/options -t list \
 --list-type=string ["grp	grp:alt_shift_toggle,terminate	terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"]

Do notice: there are TABS in the empty spaces up there. GNOME's xml was intolerant for my attempts to replace them with spaces, and really only worked with the braces.

GNOME Fork revisited

Since I posted in my blog about GNOME 2 fork, I have seen numerous hits. In 4 months since than,
this single post had more than 3 times hit compared to my second most popular post about TMUX copy mode.
Yesterday, I bumped into a young fork of GNOME 2, called matte. Named after the Argentinian herb infusion. Let's hope this project will not have a bitter end like the drink, and rather long sweet life. The odd choices of developers are sometimes annoying. While it might seems narrow minded of me, I do expect a project that aims to be the size of GNOME2, to write a document or two in English. He, but what do I know there are actually more Spanish speaking people. I should learn Spanish instead of blogging...
I will try Mate sometimes probably.But in the mean while, thanks to GNOME developers I have been looking into alternatives and found my own peace within DWM, and now I am building my Desktop from Scratch.