3 "Thank You" And Voting Results

This is time now to announce results of the voting which took place between 3 and 17th of March 2011.
The question was

Would you like to get a copy of this blog to browse off-line?

And the results of voting are shown below.

I want to say "Thank you" to:

1. Everyone who voted. You are active users, not just passive readers.
2. For those you can read blog on-line or wants to read it off-line. You are interested in what I am doing for you.
3. For the person who does not like my blog. At least, you can honestly tell that.

As you can see, more people prefer to have constant on-line access to my blog than to have off-line backup version.
Anyway... For those who voted for off-line file, you can contact me (via e-mail or comments to this post) and I will cater file specifically for you. With my pleasure!
If you do not need whole site, but only need to get specific post(s) in PDF version, I can recommend Free online URL to PDF Converter. I tried different converters available in the Internet, and this one worked like a charm. Others had some issues.

New poll is now on. The question is "What is the most interesting part of this blog?

Please vote. Results will be announced in a months, on the 17th of April 2011.

Please also follow me on Twitter or Facebook. You'll get all the announcements from this blog plus many more interesting links directly to your profile!

4 disappointments from OpenSuSE 11.4

OpenSuSE is Open Source project run by networking giant Novell. It has it "bigger" brother which is distributed on non-free basis, but OpenSuSE remains free and open source software.
I have quite nice feelings about OpenSuSE in general, because it was one of the first Linuxes I have tried and wrote about in my blog. And it was second from the list of non-pocket Linuxes, after Mandriva. That time, back in October 2010, I managed to kill Green Gecko when running it from Live USB. Because of this long acquitaince between me and Green Gecko, news about next version of it were long awaited by me.
And here it comes!
Open SuSE 11.4 was released on the 10th of March 2011!
Should I try it? Sure!
This time I again chose GNOME  version of OpenSuSE. Disk image (iso) is downloaded. There is short manual on the web site how to make bootable Live USB from iso. I followed the guide and did dd_rescue. So, USB drive is ready. Reboot! Choose to boot from USB... Let's go!

DarkDuck in Quadro Boot

I tried few dozens of different Linux distributives already and wrote my notes about them in this blog. You can see them listed on the right column of the page in Labels section. And recently several people asked me same question. So...

• How many Linuxes I do actually have installed on my computer? 

Here is my answer.

My Compaq C300 laptop is quadro-boot. 

Yes, like this Quadro Boot which you see on your right.

• Which systems do I have?

1. Windows XP. It came pre-installed on this laptop. And I reinstalled it from backup CDs when original 40Gb HDD failed and I had to replace it with new 500Gb one. I boot it from time to time, because of some specific applications which I use rarely and don't want to install in any of my Linuxes.
2. Ubuntu. This is first "serious" Linux on my laptop. I had frugal "install" of SLAX before, but then it was replaced. It was originally 10.04 LTS version, which I later upgraded to 10.10.
3. Kubuntu. This is second "serious" Linux. It was installed immediately after Ubuntu. In fact, my GRUB2 is managed from Kubuntu. Same as Ubuntu: original 10.04 was upgraded to 10.10.
4. Debian Squeeze. This OS was installed from second attempt when first failed. Previously I kept Puppy 5.1.1 on that partition, but decided to move it away for the sake of Debian testing. 

• How long will Debian OS live here? 

I don't know yet. I have plans to test new release of OS which was just released (guess which one?) If they have working Live version (and I think they have), then Debian will stay for some time. Otherwise it will be replaced with something new.

Although, I have no plans to replace Ubuntu or Kubuntu with something else at this point of time.

• Why do I have Ubuntu and Kubuntu installed side-by-side when I can have GNOME and KDE on one system and select Desktop Environment during boot?

My answer is that I want "vanilla" OS. Both GNOME and KDE have lots of their own functionality and DE-dependent applications. Having both of them in one system will mess up my understanding what is KDE and what is GNOME.

• Which of those 3 Linuxes do I prefer more?

Kubuntu. Because of KDE.

• Why KDE?

I don't know... Once I sat down and decided to put all the pros and contras of KDE and GNOME in one list. Result was quite strange... Let me think about them a little, and stay tuned... I will announce it soon

In the meantime, if you want to get any Linux distro, which I have on installed on my laptop, you can Buy Linux CDs from the dedicated web page. There are actually much more than 3 distros I have listed above.

And how many systems do you have installed? What is your preference for them? Share it!

DarkDuck Makes Another Visit

If you remember, approximately one month ago I made a visit to one respectable blog where I left a post.
Time is ticking, and I got bored in my own blog, deciding to make another visit. This time my guest post is at Techrepublic.com blog (part of CBS Interactive) and is titled Why free software really isn't (and shouldn't be) free.

Welcome to read!

Did Alexandre Dumas Use Linux?

Porteus system is relatively new system on the Linux sky.
It came to light when developer of SLAX, Tomas M. gave up the project. Even before that, there was a fork called "SLAX remix". Now it is named Porteus.
The name sends us to two facts.

• Portability. Porteus, as well as SLAX, is intended to be portable system. The one you carry with yourself in your pocket and can use wherever you get access to computer.
• Alexandre Dumas. If you read The Three Musketeers, or even if you have nor done this yet, you must know name of the character Porthos. He is very powerful and friendly, even though not always quick.

Does the name of this Linux follow the Dumas idea? How good was Dumas in his predictions? Let's see...
Distributive of Porteus Linux is very light. It weights under 300 MB. You can either burn it to CD, or extract files from .iso image and copy them to your USB drive. Like in SLAX, there are 2 files in the distributive which can make your USB bootable: one for Windows users and one for Linux. I found a small issue there, because Linux-oriented file (.sh) is not marked as executable, and I could not make it executable. Neither chmod nor Midnight Commander options helped. Anyway, I have Windows XP for some reasons, so .bat file was used. Finally I got bootable USB drive with Porteus system in it.
Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

Poll Is On

Today I add new feature to my blog: a poll.


Let's start with very simple question. Would you like to get a copy of my blog as a single archived file? This will enable you to read the blog (as it stood at snapshop time) anywhere and anytime.

Please make your voice heard! Voting is absolutely FREE!

Poll will close on the 17th of March 2011. But if you wish to get your FREE copy of this blog right now, please ask me.


If you have any ideas for future polls, please either leave them in comments or send me via e-mail (can be found in About Me page).

Magical Pinguyn Tux

Do you think I made a typo in the post title? No, I have not.

Have you ever heard name Pinguy? Have you heard name Pinguy OS? If you answered "no" to both questions, you're not alone. I also did not hear much about this OS until recent.

When browsing the web, I read several reviews of Pinguy OS. They all seemed to be very nice. If this is nice, why should not I have a look? Surely I have to try it myself!

Pinguy is relatively new operation system. That's why you might not know about it before. First version was released in November 2010. Latest version available for download is 10.10.1 and was released in February 2011.

Does version number resemble you anything? Yes, Pinguy is actually not the stand-alone unique OS. It is based on the Ubuntu code, and latest Ubuntu version 10.10 is basis for Pinguy 10.10.1. There are many more distros which use this approach: Mint is most famous.

If you remember, Ubuntu is distributed as a CD. Everything you need is in your hands well-packed on one CD only. Pinguy is slightly bigger in size. To be precise, almost twice bigger. Disk image weights about 1.3 GB. That's why I had to burn it to DVD

DVD-ROM of my usual guinea pig Compaq C300 laptop does not read DVD any more. That's why I have to test on Toshiba laptop.

So, DVD image is downloaded and burnt. Disk is in the drive. Reboot. Choose to boot from DVD. Let's go!