As my collection of media grew, I started to run out of disk space (My mini only has 80GB). First, I added a USB drive to it. Then two. Then, I created a RAID array out of USB drives using an OSX RAID stripe. But, that is dangerous, because if any drive fails, you lose all the data. So I added more USB drives, and created a second stripe, to use for time machine. I currently have USB and Firewire drives connected to my Mini at the moment, due to this escellation.

It has finally gotten to the point where it really makes more sense to just build myself a multi-terrabyte file server, with proper RAID built into it. Further, while I’m at it, I want to add some additional capabilities as well. Ideally, this is something that will live on the network, and give me the following:

• Centrally store all my media files (music, movies, photos) which can be accessed from any computer in my house
• Provide a “time machine” backup location for my macs
• serve centralized home directories for any linux, mac, windows PC’s in my home
• Act as an LDAP authentication server, for single sign on in my home (yes, my home will then be enterprise-ready)
• Possibly serve a wiki and/or calendering/groupware system which my wife and I can use to sync our phones/mail clients/address book/calandar stuff (that would be nice)

Some or all of this may or may not come from the same software package. In fact, going the enterprise route, here is the solution I intend to implement:

Build an innexpensive file server based on the openfiler project. I’ve already put the order through for the components. Without drives, the whole solution, including a 12-bay hot-swap sata rack-mount case (and taxes and shipping), is about $600 for a Phenom 3-core CPU system w/ 4GB RAM. For drives, I can reuse a lot of the disks I already have running over USB (they are SATA inside), although I purchased an additional TB sata drive. Juggling the data while I’m setting up the new server will be tricky, but I should just be able to do it with the capacity I currently have.

Once the fileserver is set up, openfiler can export data as AFS, CIFS, or NFS to my mac Mini. Moreover, access will probably be [significantly] faster over gigabit ethernet than it was running RAID over USB2.

Then, I’ll install vmware on the openfiler server, and set up a virtual machine possibly running a linux distribution (TBD) to support local authentication for AD and LDAP.

With any luck, the system will be up and running by the end of the week. It’s pretty amazing that I can put together what is a business-class file server myself for under $1,000, even including storage.

Ballmer’s latest fiasco is to claim that Open Source projects violate “over 235 patents,” and to then threaten lawsuits for any company using Linux or other open source software. Turns out, Steve was quoting a study produced by the Open Source Risk Management Group. However, the author of the study has claimed that Microsoft has it all wrong — the study’s conclusions were that those were only “potential” infringements, and that not a single one of those patents had ever been held up in court. In addition, not all of those patents were even held by Microsoft!

Further, Microsoft has refused to specify which patents they are even referring to, or specifically where they think the infringement has occurred. Starting to sound familiar? *Cough*, SCO, *cough*, *cough*. It should. Microsoft quietly provided $86 million to support SCO in it’s legal battle against Linux, under which they have not won a single count in 3 years. It seems that Steve Ballmer has decided to come out and play in the open, now that his proxy SCO has nearly completely self-destructed. Oh, and if this sounds like a hypocritical claim on Microsoft’s part, that’s only because they had to pay out $1.53 BILLION last week for violating Lucent patents.

Microsoft’s goal, like SCO’s, is to provide FUD — Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about their competitors. Unfortunately, this tactic tends to work against them. Its surprising that they haven’t learned this lesson from what happened to SCO — since they began their lawsuit tactics, SCO’s market share has dropped exponentially. Like SCO, however, Microsoft is finding itself in a position where its competitors are out pacing it. Apple is growing far quicker than Microsoft, and is able to deliver bother hardware and software products at profit. Linux is advancing quickly, and the press is starting to tout it as a “Vista alternate.” It doesn’t help that Vista has virtually no new features for users, unless you count being more expensive. It appears that Steve Ballmer has lead Microsoft down the path of other companies which can’t deal with change: SCO, RAMBUS, the RIAA, the MPAA. All these companies probably know that customers will not purchase their product just because they threaten to beat them with a stick. But they don’t know what else to do (hint: build *good* products, and you won’t have this problem. Microsoft knew how to do this at some point).

It seems as if ever since Bill Gates left the helm, Microsoft hasn’t been able to steer itself in the right direction. Take a look at Steve Ballmer, the guy he left in charge, and draw your own conclusions why:

• Steve Ballmer — high on himself and screaming like an idiot. Video.
• Steve Ballmer — issuing death threats. Article.
• Steve Ballmer — brainwashes his kids. Article.
• Steve Ballmer — stuttering? Video.
• Steve Ballmer — cheap car salesman. Video.
• Steve Ballmer — out of touch with reality. Video.

I had taken them down when I switched my site to the new server at ServerPronto. After looking through my server logs, though, it looks like lots of people are still trying to hit them since it is my top 404 error page. Enjoy!

An index of man pages is available here.

The next time I visit at their house, I’ll take a look and see what the problem is with Windows, and if they’re actually using Linux or not.

Since being outpaced by HP in total sales, and knocked down from it’s #1 spot in new computer sales, Dell has launched IdeaStorm, a website where users can suggest ways for Dell to make money better cater to its customers. This is actually a great site. You can create suggestions, and then vote on which suggestions you think are the best. With over 50,000 people voting so far, Dell gets a pretty good idea of what people are interested in, and can tune their product line accordingly.

Now here is the most interesting part; 4 out of the the top 5 suggestions are to load Open Source software on shipping Dell computers:

1. Provide a Linux Multiboot option
2. Provide pre-installed Open Office
3. Provide Linux Singleboot for laptops
4. Ship with no OS
5. Install Firefox as the default web browser

While this feedback does show how far Linux and other open source software has come in public awareness in the past few years, it should also come as a wakeup call to computer manufacturer: Try providing software to users that they actually want.

It’s worth noting that the next most-popular feedback Dell received is to stop pre-loading new computers with “crap-ware.” This is something that all current computer manufacturers are guilty of today, and if you’ve bought a new computer in the past few years you know what it means.

I don’t care how hip desktop search is in the media — I’ve never (not even once) had the need for Google Desktop. Nor for any other program that wants to run in my system tray, or add menubars to my web browsers. The only thing these programs do is slow down my [brand new] computer, so it’s slow even before I install anything.

Dell (et all), if I want to install RealPlayer — I will! Besides the fact that it provides no useful function, I do not buy a computer so that you can pre-sell it’s hard disk to software vendors.

In case you’re wondering, I don’t let the dealer put their stickers on my car when I buy one either.

As it turns out, this particular computer happened to be slow and old to start with, although it is definitely fast enough that it should be able to do the basics of web browsing, word processing, and playing mp3′s without any problems. In reality, it would literally take around 15 minutes to completely boot up, and then another 5-10 minutes from when you click on Internet Explorer to when it actually comes up (along with about 3 billion popups). I’m not exaggerating, and I didn’t believe it either until I took a look and timed it.

My first idea was to simply install Linux on their computer, and switch them over. Unfortunately, I ran into some problems with that: Ubuntu didn’t seem to have the right drivers for their PC. I could have worked around this by booting to a prompt instead of X Windows and installing it that way, if it weren’t for another issue. Being as their computer was fairly ancient, it only had 128 MB or RAM. Here’s a tip: running off a Live CD with only 128 MB of RAM is a bad idea! Every thing you do takes it forever, and it wasn’t really practical to spend 6-8 hours just to install Linux.

I had thought the story would end there. However, I recently was able to help them get their hands on a slightly used E-Machine. While not top of the line, this 512mb Celeron was 3-4 times better than what they had before. Before they used it, I set it up as a dual-boot machine.

They have an install of Windows XP Home Edition, with all the free protection money can buy; AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, Microsoft Windows Defender, Firefox is the default browser, and Windows Firewall is activated. This is about as good as you can get with Windows, without spending extra money. And let’s face it: you really shouldn’t have to spend lots of money on “protection” just to be able to use your [already very expensive] computer.

They also have an install of Ubuntu Linux 6.10. I installed Automatix2, which will set it up with everything from DVD players to file sharing. All of Ubuntu’s nifty software is present too, like Firefox and OpenOffice. I also set up Ubuntu to auto-login, and changed the /etc/sudoers file so that it doesn’t ask them for a password for admin stuff. While lowering physical security a bit, this makes the end-user experience similar to what they would expect from Windows XP Home. Basically, the Linux install can do everything that the Windows one can, and about as hassle-free. Readers unfamiliar with linux would also be interested to know that this Linux install is completely free. You can download everything you need from the links in this article.

While I’m a huge fan of Linux myself, I hadn’t thought it was really ready for the average person until recently. Ubuntu Linux 5.04 was the one that changes my mind, and 5.10 is an even better release. Still, I don’t realistically expect them to use it …. at first. Human nature includes a certain resistance to change, and as long as their Windows installation remains usable, I don’t think they’ll do anything differently. However, it is reasonable to assume at this point that whatever it is they are doing that gets their computer infected with spyware will happen again. And when it does, they’ll have the option of either booting into a defunct Windows session, or a functional Linux one.

Now, here is the real meat of this experiment:

1. How long can a Windows machine, configured relatively securely and with full antivirus software last when connected to the Internet (there is no router or firewall, their computer goes right to the cable modem)?
2. Once that happens, and they try out Linux because it won’t be spyware-encumbered, will they be able to use it, or even switch to it as their preferred OS?

This is a fairly good experimental setup. There are plenty of people out there looking for answers to both of these questions (myself included). Can you really survive without paying for an anti-virus or spyware software? If you don’t have a Linksys router, or other firewall type of device to protect you? Can average people use Linux? Would they choose to use it? Is it viable to set it up for people who’s computers constantly get infected?

I’ll be checking in with my friends every now and then. I’ll post follow ups every few weeks to track the experiment.

Although I am a huge Linux fan myself, I hadn’t thought it was really ready for the average person until recently. So, here’s the experiment: install Ubuntu Linux 6.10 on their computer as a dual-boot solution, and see how it goes. My friends are a perfect test case: they know how to use a computer but aren’t programmers or system admins. I think that Linux will work just fine for them, and solve all their spyware and “slow computer” problems.

If you’ve never tried Linux, or haven’t in a while, now is a good time to. I recommend Ubuntu specifically — It’s great for both beginners and experienced Linux users. It has very cool eye-candy (if you computer is new enough), a simple user interface, and a helpful user community. You can find videos of the installation online if you’re worried about what to expect. Also, a big benefit is that you can run Linux withough even installing it, or alternatively, you can install it so that when your computer boots you can choose whether to go into Windows or Linux (which is how I’ll set it up for my friends).

Today, Linux can do just about everything Windows can … the question is whether it can do it simply enough to not cause trouble for the average Windows user. That’s what I’ll find out after this weekend.