Fresh Ubuntu

Hi, this is Tim and I am happy to be able to help out with Harlem’s great podcast.

I live and work in Portland Oregon and for the last few weeks I kept hearing about this place called Free Geek. It sounded like some kind of Linux computer store, so this last Friday I went to investigate. Free Geek at www.freegeek.org and located at 1731 SE 10th Ave Portland, OR 97214.

The Free Geeks takes the Ubuntu philosophy and run with it. They are a non-profit organization geared to take used computers and other technology and reuse or recycle them. They see two major problems with the manufacturing cycle of modern technology. First, the life expectancy of a computer today is very short, and this contributes to a large amount of waste. Free Geek seeks to revitalize and reuse old computers by installing Ubuntu, or responsibly recycle computer parts they can’t reuse. Second, the constant obsolescence promotes a digital divide between those who can afford new computers and those who can’t.

Free Geek’s solution is to refurbish computer bound for the landfill and get them to lower income people. People can buy these refurbish Ubuntu machines but they can also volunteer and get a computer in exchange for their efforts.
If you live in the Portland area swing by and have a look the tours are Tuesday through Saturday starting at noon and 6pm lasting 30-minutes or so.

Some notes on the podcast
Harlem and I are talking about doing a field podcast from Free Geek and would like to know if any listeners have questions they would like us to ask or would like to meet us there? Are there any other places like this in other areas of the country?

Tim

Harlem was excited to get his press pass for Monday’s Ubuntu Live Key Note.

Here are some photos from the Key Note.

Chris Kenyon

Doug Fisher

Mark Shuttleworth listening then talking

Harlem Blogging

Mark, Maddog, and Harlem

Chris Kenyon talks about the “striking opportunity” that are facing Ubuntu. He talks about how Ubuntu won the “best pc oob experience” from PC World. He mentions many of the extaordinary accomplishments that Ubuntu has received. But interestingly enough one thing he did mention was that Canonical was a “for Profit Company”. It will be interesting how this pans out. But, basically it is providing services after installation. The premise is if you install Ubuntu, you can get support anywhere around the world. Canonical will offer Support in four areas: Software, Training, Hardware, and Partnerships (?).

Well, my “technical executive” made it to the Ubuntu Live conference and we are currently just settling in before the speakers start. The morning session will highlight three speakers. Chris Kenyon, Marten Mickos, Doug Fisher will be speaking on various topics on the advancement of technologies of open source and the opportunities for Ubuntu. It should be interesting. Thanks to Dawn Applegate for the courtesy she provided us. We hope someday we will be able to return the favor.

I had heard through the grapevine that Mark Shuttleworth announced the next LTS release of Ubuntu will be available spring of 2008. If any of you remember the last LTS Dapper Drake, which coincidently was my first distro. From there I was hooked and forever tied to the open source community. More to come….

Hi all! You might be wondering what has happened to the podcast and the site. True, I have been away quite a while and I must say that I am truly sorry for that. I have not forgotten all my listeners, rest assured, I am making a few changes to this site and likely to the podcast. I think the podcast has outgrown itself and it is time to restructure, revamp, reinvent, et cetera. But, honestly, I do not know where to begin. What can I say, it’s the ADD in me, hehe:) Nevertheless, I think it needs a change so look forward to that in the near future.

As for now, I am trying my darndest (that’s with an “r”) to get my narrow (thank God) behind up to the Ubuntu Live conference. Only one thing is stopping me, and that is the registration fee. So, I can safely say that I will not be formally attending the big shindig, however, I might be seen around the exhibition area. I will make a t-shirt that can be easily spotted and if you see me around I might have my equipment and you could potentially say hi to my listeners. I am not sure what days I will be there but if you check back on this blog I will let you know.

Lately, I have been somewhat disappointed in the performance of Feisty:( It screen freezes up on me several times a session and it is beginning to aggravate me. I have seen threads in the forum about screen rewrites and whatnot, but it all looks too complicated. Besides, the last time I tried to edit my xorg.conf file I blew my system up and had to do a complete reinstall. Can you all say “once bitten, twice shy”? I am willing to live with this as it is only a few months until the next release and the version upgrade may fix it. I would like to add in that neither Dapper or Edgy had these problems and it has been suggested that going back to a prior version would be a suitable fix, especially with Dapper. But, I believe in going forward not back so I will have to live with this unless a kind reader can give me a solution. Specfically it happens mostly while I am in firefox (don’t get me started on Firefox, it has issues of its own) only because I am usually in firefox when it happens. The freezing phenomenon has happened while in other programs also. So it is most likely system wide. Usually the screen just freezes while the mouse is completely functional. Also, I am trying to get my scanner hooked up to Ubuntu and I came across this:

How to Configure Your SCSI or USB Scanner

I haven’t given this a try yet but as soon as I do I will post the results of the process. I can tell you that my scanner does work for being an old one. It is an HP 3400C, and I managed to attach it to my XP system, but the driver wouldn’t engage the scanner. It worked once in Ubuntu but once I rebooted it ceased to work. Fortunately, I don’t use my scanner much so it is not a pressing issue, but I still would like to see it working.

I may be seeing some of the ugly side of Ubuntu, but I haven’t given up hope. In fact I am more hopeful now than ever as with each new release more bells and whistles are added and hardware compatibilty (for current hardaware, that is) is becoming less of an issue thanks to better understanding of hardware manufacturers. The community is vibrant and knowledgeable and most importantly sensitive to the plight of the less technically inclined such as myself. So, a suitable remedy for each of my challenges should come soon. Well, I hope to meet many listeners at the conference. Til next time.