Happy birthday Linux!

Well I've missed the date by a few days, but the Linux kernel (the most basic part of an operating system, that interfaces with the physical hardware) is now twenty-five years old, making it only a little over two years younger than me.

Amusingly, in the post announcing his new project, Linus Torvalds called his new operating system kernel merely a hobby, not intended to be a professional endeavor. Fast-forward to today, and the open-source nature of the Linux kernel has led to it being used in a host of operating systems from basic consumer-oriented distributions to highly-customized distributions running on the most powerful supercomputers on the planet. Linux-based operating systems dominate installations in pretty much every category except desktop computers.

Writing about Linux here reminded me of how I've been using Windows 8 at work lately, and while I generally prefer to say nothing if I can't say something nice, I feel like venting some of the frustration I've been feeling. I'd never actually used Windows 8 before, merely heard about its shortcomings from other, but I've now experienced it first hand. In no particular order, here are some of the irritants I've experienced in the past few weeks:

• Random freezes for no discernible reason while doing mundane things. Nothing quite like opening up a new instance of your browser after just starting the computer, opening a new tab, and having it freeze on you. Similar freezes have happened a few times in the past few weeks. I think it's probably happened about that many times in the last year on my computer. I got Chrome to repeatably lockup on a simple Source Forge page that (ironically) Internet Explorer opened with no problems.
• Things not scrolling when you hover over them with the mouse. It's a little thing, but once you're used to it it really breaks your flow to have to click on different windows in order to scroll them. Especially when it's something like opening up a file-browser window and the focus is on the search field rather than on the file window proper.
• Not having the secondary cut'n'paste clipboard from highlighting text that Linux has. I didn't realize just how much I relied on it for casual cut'n'pasting until I had to go back to Ctrl-c, Ctrl-v for everything.
• The Start Screen that replaces the Start Menu in Windows 8, and its atrocious design of flat, bright, primary-color rectangles. I'm not even sure how to open specific programs now, and I never know when something is going to switch to opening full-screen in Metro mode. And why are Computer Settings and Control Panel two separate programs??
• A “Save as…” menu that always defaults to a fixed set of best-guess folders, none of which are ones that I ever want to use, and which necessitates an extra click just to get to a general-purpose file-browser. Was simply opening to “My Documents” by default too difficult or something?

Anyway, you get the idea. I'm really glad I decided to jump ship when I did, from Windows 7. Despite growing up using Windows exclusively, I'm not happy with how Windows 8 turned out, and having grown to love Linux in the meantime I can't really ever see myself going back to Windows. Linux is by no means perfect, but it's less hassle and frustration for me in general. It's like the old joke that says the best operating system is the one that aggravates you least and stays out of your way the most.

Anyway, these were just a few disparate thoughts about operating systems I had recently—a hui hou!

PSA: “Shellshock”

PSA: If you use any form of *nix as your operating system – some form of Unix, Linux, or Mac OS X – and you have the Bash shell installed, you may want to see about updating it. This is because of a newly-disclosed critical vulnerability in it (dubbed by some “Shellshock”) that could potentially allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code with a specially formed attack. (If you're on Windows you're probably ok, unless [possibly] you're using something like cygwin, in which case you're probably tech-savvy enough to look up how to fix it.)

It's quite easy to check if your version of Bash is vulnerable: open up a terminal window and run:

> env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"

Should Bash be vulnerable, it'll return:

> env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"
> vulnerable
> this is a test

If it's not vulnerable, you should just get back “this is a test” and possibly a warning about Bash ignoring an attempted function definition. If it does return vulnerable, you'll want to see about updating your version of it as soon as possible (most [all?] of the major Linux vendors have released patches, and Apple is expected to do so soon). Basically, instead of a harmless “echo vulnerable” (which just prints the word “vulnerable” to the terminal), an attacker could potentially put a much more harmful command in there, which in the right circumstances could do a lot of damage.

One noteworthy feature of this bug is that it's apparently been around for something like twenty years (Bash is fairly old as software goes), so it's expected to be found in as incredible number of devices, including a large number of the servers that host the World Wide Web.

It's still early yet to see what will come out of this, but it's likely to be a serious security issue for quite some time due to the difficulty of getting everything patched.

(I was feeling creative tonight, though I may have been a bit too literal.)

Edit (9/27/14): I wasn't entirely happy with that version so I went back and played around with it some more and made a few more versions (and learned some useful lessons about Inkscape in the process). Here's the version I currently like the most:

Farewell, Windows XP

Yesterday, if you weren't aware, marks the day Microsoft announced two years ago when it stops providing support for Windows XP. It's no exaggeration to say that Windows XP is the most popular operating system in history, as shown by the fact that almost 30% of computers accessing the Internet last month were running it twelve years after it came out in late 2001. (Not to mention the countless other unconnected computers that are running it. Most ATMs, for example, are still running XP.)

In some ways Microsoft has been the victim of their own success with XP, as shown by the fact that such a significant number of people haven't moved on yet and bought more up-to-date versions of Windows yet. There's another more charitable reason to want people to upgrade; Windows XP was designed long before many of the advanced and dangerous malware threats of today were even conceived of, and while Microsoft has dutifully patched it all these years there comes a point when it's in everyone's best interests to move on. It's a simpler operating system for a simpler time.

Now that Microsoft has pushed its last patch for XP (at least for those who aren't paying exorbitant amounts for an extended service plan such as the British government), any vulnerabilities found in the future will remain un-patched and, well, vulnerable. If any of you out there are reading this on XP, I'd definitely suggest thinking about getting off it quickly. There are a number of good alternative operating systems out there that are much more secure and up-to-date. From personal experience I can say that Windows 7 is much like XP, and if you happen to feel like shaking things up there are any number of free Linux versions to choose from that will work just as well (such as some that I wrote about a few weeks ago).

I'll definitely hold fond memories of Windows XP because that was the operating system of my first computer, but unlike the 30% of the population still running it I moved on years ago (a little over four years ago, to be precise, when I bought my current laptop with Windows 7). Rather than attempting to grasp something that is by nature ephemeral, I look at changing operating systems as an opportunity to change, grow, and try and try something new. At some point in the future I'll need to move on from Windows 7, and you know what? I'm rather looking forward to it.

Computer Musings

Last week I realized that I've had my laptop for a little over four years. Apart from a few mechanical hiccups in its first year (thankfully covered under warranty) it's been going strong the entire time. I had some certain things in mind when I bought it, namely, “you get what you pay for” and “don't skimp on quality” which led me to get a powerful (if slightly more expensive) computer that would be relatively future-proof and wouldn't be obsolete in two years.

Four years later, I can say that my strategy appears to have paid off. My computer is still running strong, still quite able to run some of the more demanding games and other programs I've thrown at it, and barring accident I expect it will be running well for several years yet.

Of course, that hasn't stopped me from looking ahead to when I will eventually need a new computer. And with that comes the choice of what operating system to use. A few years ago I wouldn't have hesitated to choose Windows, because that's what I grew up with. I remember using Windows 98 for a little while as a kid, then Windows XP for a couple of years. After some experience with Windows Vista I knew I didn't want that, and bought my laptop with Windows 7, which I've been quite happy with since.

However...many of the reports I've heard of Windows 8 fill me with trepidation. I have yet to actually use it, but I've heard enough to at least give me pause before blindly upgrading. Of course, Windows 9 may be out by the time I'm actually ready to buy a new computer, and there's a bit of common wisdom that says that Windows version run on a good-bad-good-bad schedule, so perhaps Windows 9 will be fine like Windows 7 was.

Even if that's the case (and that's an unknown “if” at this point), I've found myself leaning more and more towards using Linux on my next computer. I now spend more time at my computer at work (which runs a flavor of Linux) than I do my personal computer, and I'm becoming more and more accustomed to it. I wrote about my experience running Ubuntu (a flavor of Linux) as a dual-boot on my computer almost four years ago now. At the time it was a novelty to me, and while I don't come out and say it in the post, I couldn't really see myself ever using it principally over Windows.

A few years and a lot of experience later, and I know a lot more about Linux than I did then. For instance, Ubuntu is simply one flavor (or kind) of Linux; there are many different flavors out there catering to many different kinds of people. Many of the underlying (and most important) features are the same across them, though. I've run across some flavors of Linux that look quite nice, and which I could definitely see myself choosing as my next main operating system (I sometimes find myself wishing for certain conveniences of Linux while using Windows.). In some ways Linux is actually easier to use than Windows (while simultaneously offering more power to power users), but it's just different enough to feel uncomfortable while making the switch.

One thing that has given me pause in my consideration of Linux has to do with games. It has long been true that nearly all computer games are targeted at Windows because it has the largest market share. Sometimes an occasional game will get ported to Mac as well, but that's not exactly common. And Linux? Forget about it. It's only been within the last few years that a small but hopefully significant number of game developers are starting to release games for all three platforms. There are doubtless many reasons for this (including one of the currently-more-popular game-engines making it very easy to make releases for multiple platforms), but whatever the reason it's an encouraging trend, and it will be interesting to see what the game landscape looks like another twenty-four months down the line. I've taken to actively trying to support games that run on Linux, and preferring to buy ones that do in order to future-proof my game library (pretty much any game of any note that runs on Linux also runs on Windows and Mac at the moment, so it's an all-around good way to hedge my bets).

It's an interesting time to be living in, to be sure. People have been predicting the rise of Linux as a serious contender with Windows and Mac for market share for years now, but with the way things are going with Windows recently, who know? It just might finally happen. Or not, and people will continue to predict it. We'll see! Exciting times, to be sure. A hui hou!

Daniel's Software Musings (Part 2)

Today in the second part of my software-review series I have another couple of programs for you to peruse and (hopefully) enjoy.


Creativity

Audacity

Audacity is an excellent sound editing program. That sounds trite, but there really isn't that much more I can say about it. It does sound editing, and it does it well. I don't do a lot of sound editing compared to, say, photo editing, but on the occasions I have I've found Audacity to be quite capable of what I needed it to do. One minor caveat: although Audacity can read MP3 files just fine, it cannot save your work as one without downloading a separate plugin (this has to do with software patents preventing the bundling of the pertinent code with Audacity, although the use of the plugin itself is completely legal). Thankfully the installation process is fairly simple, and there are full instructions for how to do it in the FAQ. And there's a good chance you will want to do it, given the ubiquity of MP3 files nowadays....

Productivity

TeXworks (\(\LaTeX\))

I know I've gushed before about how \(\LaTeX\) makes your documents look beautiful, but I just couldn't resist the chance to do it again. For those who don't know, \(\LaTeX\) (pronounced lay-tech, with a Greek chi (\(\chi\)) sound at the end if you want to be particular) is a sort of easier-to-use version of \(\TeX\). \(\TeX\) is a typesetting language invented by the brilliant computer scientist Donald Knuth himself, and TeXworks is a program that interprets documents written in \(\LaTeX\) format and outputs them as PDF documents. Like many of the programs I'll be listing, it requires an investment of time in order to use well, but the results are worth it. To be clear, TeXworks is but one of many \(\LaTeX\) editors out there, but it's a good one, and more importantly, it's free, unlike a lot of them. (To explain, \(\LaTeX\) is like HTML; it's a mark-up language that must be interpreted. TeXworks is to \(\LaTeX\) what your browser is to HTML.) There really is no better way to describe \(\LaTeX\) than that it takes what you type and makes it beautiful, leaving you free to concentrate on the substance rather than the style of what you're writing (unlike these posts, where I have to do a lot of manual HTML and CSS tweaking to get those fancy header effects). And it's not only math-heavy papers that benefit from it (although they do, tremendously). It's possible to display pretty much any symbol ever devised or invented by man using \(\LaTeX\). The intimidatingly-large document that lists every symbol supported includes everything from specialized phonetic symbols to musical notation to Egyptian hieroglyphics to pigpen-code fonts to chess notation to ancient alchemical symbols to Feynman diagram notation to the entirety of the still-undeciphered Minoan script Linear, A and B. And just in case that wasn't enough for you, there's a large section at the end detailing exactly how to go about defining and using your own symbols. And I haven't even mentioned one of the most amazing thing about \(\LaTeX\) that should appeal to everyone who's ever had to write a bibliography: \(\LaTeX\) can write it for you. You just put the information for your papers into a database (and many papers found online come with that information handily pre-generated), and \(\LaTeX\) can create a complete database out of it in many different standard formats using just two commands. It's that simple. If you foresee any large amounts of writing in your future, do yourself a favor and learn how \(\LaTeX\) can make life simpler (and more beautiful) for you.

Miscellaneous

WizMouse

Have you ever found yourself with two windows open, perhaps comparing or copying things between them, when all of a sudden you need to scroll the window that you aren't currently working in? I don't know about you, but that happens to me a lot (especially while using TeXworks), and I find the constant need to click over to the inactive window, scroll, then click back and re-locate my place in the first window again a pain. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just scroll the inactive window without having to click on it first? If you answered yes, well, then, rejoice! because WizMouse allows you to do just that. Honestly, this program does what Windows should be doing natively. You'll notice I specifically said Windows there, because both Macintosh and Linux do this already, and it's a real black mark for Microsoft that they haven't yet caught up to the 21st century. It's not difficult, as shown by the tiny size of the file necessary to do it. Some of you know me as a staunch anti-Apple person, but I will willingly concede that in this area Apple is way ahead of the makers of my favorite operating system. Anyway, the point is, this program fixes it. Get it. Unless you're not running Windows, of course.

And that's it for another episode! I don't know how, but I sit down to write one of these after supper and next thing I know it's the wee hours of the morning, so I hope you appreciate it. A hui hou!

Spring installing.

As you've probably noticed, I made some changes to the template for my blog today. Blogger just came out with some new templates with more customization options. I'm quite pleased with the new look, especially the way the header turned out.

I spent most of the rest of the day trying to install various programs on my Ubuntu desktop, and learning Sage. Installing on Linux systems comes in a wide array of difficulties from 'one-click simple' to 'mind-bogglingly complex'. It took me several hours to install two programs, and required me to learn and use several new commands.

But, there is a definite sense of accomplishment that comes with having figured out something that complicated which you don't get when installing a program on Windows.

I've actually accomplished quite a few things on my list (and off it) over the last few days, and I'm feeling pretty good about it, although I can hardly believe spring break is almost over. I really need at least another week to get everything done that I wanted to get done.

Shadow and flame.

Today I installed Ubuntu on my computer as a dual boot. Ubuntu is a particular flavor of Linux, currently one of the most popular (and also the most user-friendly, or so I've heard).

While part of me is exulting that I have taken a step towards being able to call myself a true computer geek, another part of me is a bit shamefaced because I didn't do a traditional dual-boot routine, where you partition your hard drive, back everything up, and hope nothing goes wrong while the second operating system installs. I used a hitherto-unknown-to-me program called Wubi which makes installing Ubuntu as simple as installing any other program on Windows. You simply download it, run it, follow the prompts, and it sets itself up. You can even uninstall it directly from within Windows, if you decide you don't like. It sounded so easy, in fact, that I was more than a little incredulous when I first heard about it, but after reading reviews from a couple of tech sites I decided to go ahead and try it out.

There were several reasons I decided to install a Linux operating system on my computer. Actually...now that I think about it, they're all pretty much the same reason: certain programs run on Linux, and not Windows. One of those programs is IRAF, and though I already have Fedora (which is another version of Linux) installed as a Virtual Machine in Windows 7, it is way harder to install IRAF on Fedora than it is on Ubuntu. However, it was overshadowed by another program, Sage, that was the main motivation behind my decision. 

Sage didn't make it onto my to-do list a few days ago because I wasn't aware of what it was then, merely its name. Since then, however, it has become of great importance to me to get it installed. Sage is sort of like...how to describe it? It's "a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab", according to the website. The mentioned programs are all what are known as Computer Algebra Systems, or CAS's. A CAS is your best friend when trying to do most kinds of higher math, because they can do all kinds of amazing mathematical maneuvers. The most amazing part (as reflected in their names) is that they can actually do algebra, a highly symbolic undertaking.

Anyway, these programs are used by researchers all over the world, but they all have something in common: they ain't cheap. Not by most standards, and certainly not by the standards of a poor college student. So you can see why I was so excited to find a free one ("free" as in no cost, and, since it's open source, "free" as in freedom). Also, their use is allowed, and even encouraged, by one of my professors for the homework and tests he assigns (which gives you an inkling of the difficulty level of said homework and tests...).

The really cool thing about Sage is that it's not just one program, it's a collection of a whole bunch of open source and free mathematics programs from all over, all tied together with the computer language Python, a language that I have some limited experience with (so this does fall on my to-do list, in a round-a-bout way!). In fact, when I finally got Sage up and running this evening, I was able to go ahead and write a 'for' loop on my own before getting to that part in the manual, because it uses basic Python for the interface.

So far, Ubuntu has been pretty good. It's definitely a little different from Windows, but not too bad -- I can see why some people would prefer it. Who knows, I may even come to do so myself some day. At the same time, using it today, I felt a strange sense of discombobulation from seeing my now-familiar computer with a different look and feel. It was almost like being away from home, in strange territory. But I think that will pass in time. I'm writing this post in Ubuntu right now, as a matter of fact.

Some of you might be wondering what I like most about Ubuntu so far. Is it the fact that it, like Sage, is open source and free, a common operating system for people who enjoy freedom? That it is stable and new-user friendly? That almost any program that runs on Windows runs on Linux, plus many that don't?

No...(though those are all valid reasons, to be sure)

It's the fact that I found an app that lets you paint fire on the screen with your mouse!

Yes, I just wrote my name in fire. On my desktop.

Yes...those of you who know what a pyromaniac I am will understand. I could hardly stop playing it with for the first few hours after I discovered it. With the touch of a button and a flick of the wrist, you can send surprisingly realistic simulated fire searing across the desktop, then dispel it just as easily. Underlying programs are not affected and go about their business, so if you feel like it, you could write a document while your screen is ringed in flame (and yes, I have tried that).

Anway...it's getting late, and I need to catch up on my sleep from a late night last night. I didn't get around to installing IRAF on Ubuntu today, so that will be a project for tomorrow. A hui hou!

Insanity, n: Doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

You've probably heard that before. But what do you call it when you do the same thing and actually get a different result? I've always wondered about that. Especially when it happens to me. Take today, for instance.

As some of you may know, I'm working with one of my professors, Dr. Takamiya, on a research project she's doing right now about star formation rates in galaxies. We've been trying to install a flavor of Linux called Fedora on a Virtual Machine on my computer with no luck for the last two weeks (a Virtual Box simply means that you can run one operating system within another one. I'm still running Windows 7, but I can open up a window and run Fedora 12 in it). We're doing this because IRAF (Image Reduction and Analysis Facility), the premier astronomy data reduction package, doesn't run on Windows.  We maneuvered our way around several obstacles such as enabling hardware acceleration on my processor by flashing the BIOS and figuring out which of the many versions of Fedora was the correct one to download and install, until we got to the part where the instructions couldn't be simpler: "double-click the 'Install to Desktop' button and follow the prompts". Only double-clicking the button had no effect. After two hours spent double-clicking the button and searching for solutions to the problem on Tuesday, we were ready to look into alternate ways of installing it that would be a bit more involved.

I was pursuing one of those ways this morning, when I idly opened up the virtual machine hosting Fedora and double-clicked the button. And what should happen, but lo and behold, it worked! The only difference between this time and last time I tried to install it is that this time my computer was physically in a different location, sitting on my desk instead of in Dr. Takamiya's office. I have no clue why it worked this time, but the important thing is that it does (setting a bad precedent for future sanity) meaning I can start moving forward again from where we've been stuck these last two weeks. So all's well that ends well, I guess.