JDPFu.com 2025

For desktop, I use Ubuntu Server 10.04 x32 LTS with LXDE loaded – I’m lazy. No GPU accel is enabled.

For limited desktop, I use TinyCore.

For Server I’m mostly running Ubuntu Server x64 8.04 LTS, but have a few Ubuntu 10.04 x64 LTS and Debian and CentOS and lots of specialized distros for specific requirements or due to hardware limitations. Come May, I’ll load up Ubuntu Server 12.04 and begin migrating apps from the 8.04 LTS instances over. That will also switch from Xen to LXC or KVM virtualization.

Lately much has been made about the capabilities of the new $25-$60 computer called the RaspberryPi. It is an impressive little machine with 2 different models, but these machines are limited no matter how you look at them. Understanding those limitations before you purchase one or 3 is a good thing.

Before someone says that my pricing is wrong, it appears that $20 in shipping fees are required to the USA.

What it Has

It is a small form factor ARM CPU-based PC. That means no current version of MS-Windows desktop or server runs on it. I’ve read that it runs either Android or a Linux OS based on Debian. I love Debian.

The ARM CPU is 700Mhz – so it is suitable for most desktop productivity apps like word processing, normal spreadsheets, web surfing and listening to music.

If you want the list of components, Google is your friend. I’m not going to list them all here.

The CPU is not Intel x86 compatible, so programs built for those processors will not work, regardless of the OS. If you have a cross-platform program, it may be ported to the specific ARM CPU and OS that this little device runs, however, Firefox compiled for x86 computers will not work, as an example.

In theory, most java programs should work, assuming they fit into the limited-for-today amount of 512MB.

It has an external power brick, probably like a netbook uses. Besides helping with cooling it means that use in different countries is easily handled through a different external power supply.

It has HDMI out, not VGA. Most of us have HDMI capable TVs and monitors, so this isn’t a big deal. The GPU is from ATI and supports hardware decoding of h.264/1080p video. That appears to be the end of video decoding support in hardware.

The different versions have or don’t have USB2 and 10/100 network ports. I guess they needed to cut costs somewhere.

Disk storage for the expensive model is via SDHC memory. There is not SATA or IDE interface. That means you will either use a fairly cheap SDHC or connect USB2 storage if you don’t use it as a purely network device.

Limited gaming.

What it is Missing

• No clock with a battery. This means some sort of network time server is needed. Not too big an issue, since NTP works well.
• No SATA/IDE mass storage support. USB2 or SDHC only.
• No video decoding in hardware
• A 700Mhz ARM CPU will probably struggle to decode HiDef video using software decoders. I have a 450Mhz ARM tablet and a 1GHz ARM tablet. The 1GHz ARM has problems with decoding in software any video over 600p. I believe that h.264 video decoding for any resolution up to 1080p will work, but 80% of my recorded TV is not in h.264, it is Divx or XVID or even MPEG2. I also have a few other formats from the early days of experimentation. Some are hardware based and usually do not playback on other devices without transcoding, I’m sorry to say.
• Transcoding, while it may be possible, will be 20x slower than a desktop x86 CPU handles. For example, while on travel last year, I accidentally brought a 1080i MPEG2 TV recording with me. The dual core Netbook I brought was not able to playback that resolution, so I kicked off a job to transcode it to 480p (DVD resolution). At home, that would be finished in about 50% the runtime of the program on a limited desktop. It ran for over 12 hours and was only 30% complete. On-device transcoding is not an option.
• 5.1 Audio is not listed as supported. That means no DTS or Dolby Digital audio. This is not a movie playback device without the great sound we’ve come to expect.
• RAM is fairly limited for a system today. The wikipedia article says 128MB and 256MB. For a desktop PC, this is fairly tight. It is below the recommended minimum for most Linux OSes like Ubuntu. I remember seeing that the RAM provided in both models would be doubled, so 256MB and 512MB would be expected for production models.
• No upgrades. The RAM, CPU, networking, USB, GPU are all soldered to the board. No upgrades. Expected for a device like this.
• No video DRM support, i.e. no Netflix. Since it runs Linux, no software DRM support is currently available either. With the future of Flash on Linux uncertain, it appears that HTML5 video is the only hope.

What Can We Do With It?

So with that stuff above known, what does this machine do well?

The best uses I see are:

• School deployments
  • $50 for PC instead of $1200 for a laptop from Apple – seems like a win to me.
• Office productivity workstation with a network connection.
  • LibreOffice will run slowly – 1 app at a time
  • Network storage will be desired
  • Normal web programs will probably run, except, maybe Flash
  • PDF Readers already exist
• Satellite workstations for home use
  • Guest bedroom PC
  • Kids limited-access PC
  • Kitchen or Den PC for quick information lookups
• Low end video playback device
  • It will handle h.264 content nicely
  • It may handle 480p or lower quality video using software decoders. Down converted audio will likely be necessary.
  • XBMC porting is underway
• Hobby PC for home automation
  • Smarthouse control for lights, doors, thermostats, etc.
  • Slow NAS device – limited by 10/100 network and USB2 storage
  • Dedicated Network security device (VPN, remote desktop, router, firewall) for the home.
  • Home or business PBX for VoIP. Perhaps Asterisk or FreeSwitch have been ported to ARM? PBXes rock.

A Gizmodo article on uses.

But Everyone Says It Will Make a Great Media Center PC!

Perhaps, but probably not.

• It is not x86 compatible, so only Linux-based media center software will even be possible.
• No recording should be expected. I’ve never seen any ARM-based TV recording software or USB drivers.
• Playback for h.264 recorded content should work, but much of our content is not h.264 yet.
• No 5.1 Audio – no DTS, no Dolby Digital audio
• No DRM – no netflix, no hulu
• The future of Adobe Flash is unknown for Linux. Adobe announced it would end Flash on Linux support last week.
• With a 700Mhz ARM CPU, it is more like a 2 yr old smartphone in performance

Folks are being extremely optimistic with the capabilities of this device. The work to port XBMC has just started. My only concern is for playback of video where software decoding is necessary. Based on experience with Linux on ARM, software video decoders and Atom-based XBMC deployments, I’d say SD resolution video should playback fine using software decoders. That would be 480p or lower resolutions.

My home is already overflowing with computers, as you might imagine. Do we really need another cheap device? The nerd says YES!

Summary

The Raspberry PC computer is not a general purpose, do anything PC, however, for specific needs where low processing power and low RAM is needed and being inexpensive matters most, it will fit into many homes, schools, and offices nicely.

Adobe Announces Plans To Abandon Flash On Linux

The Good

• No more Flash-based attacks to Linux
• No more Flash-based Ad Networks
• HTML5 will be required for Linux users
• One less Adobe software on our Linux systems

The Bad

• HTML5 will be required for Linux users
• Flash games are done

Now if we can only get Adobe to stop making Acrobat for Linux. We can still hope for next quarter.

According to an Ubuntu Developer on the Ubuntu Forums Canonical will make falling back to gnome2 easy in Ubuntu 12.04. He says it is almost exactly gnome2, not a watered down version. His words, not mine. Here’s how:

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

Now if we could only prevent all the other pre-installed bloat that is Ubuntu desktop. I guess that’s what Xubuntu and Lubuntu are all about, so we’re covered.

Lubuntu 12.04 Not an LTS

I also saw on the formus that Lubuntu 12.04 will not be under LTS. It will still have the normal 3 year desktop support. That is fine for most home desktop users. It just means that corporate users will probably skip Lubuntu for a different alternative.

GoDaddy and the US Secret Service are at it again, according to Ars. They took another web service domain down.

Here’s what that article says:

• JotForm had their DNS records redirected to NS1.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM – GoDaddy did this.

  the site had been suspended as part of an ongoing investigation

• US Secret Service was too busy to work with JotForm to resolve the issue – WHATEVER THE ISSUE WAS. JotForm contacted the agent in charger and offered:

  this is a matter of urgency, and we are ready to cooperate fully.

• US Secret Service is not saying whether a court order was involved. According to GoDaddy, they sometimes takes action to prevent further harm being caused by a website hosted on our servers without a court order.
• JotForm customers have decided to move their services to internal servers. Many have made nasty public comments, since their customer care/service apps were broken due to this action.

Since their domain was not working, JotForm created a new domain and send an email to all their customer to redirect to the new domain where everything worked. This is why DNS is not the appropriate level for SOPA and similar anti-piracy efforts to work. Creating a new domain and redirecting traffic is relatively easy, just a hassle for the people and business involved.

Later the DNS record was restored by GoDaddy. Nobody, not the US-SS or GoDaddy, contacted JotForm to let them know.

The Secret Service has also launched an internal review to “make sure all our policies and procedures were followed” in the matter.

I wonder how many customers and potential customers JotForm has lost due to this heavy handed action? A mulit-million USD Canadian company said:

“They have been very reliable. However because of what has happened now we will have to implement an internally hosted solution to guarantee this will not happen again and ensure we will not loose [sic] our data. I will now have to question purchasing any more services from US internet related providers.”

Nice move US-Government.

As most readers know, I’m not a fan of 3rd party hosted web services.

• Concerns with Software As A Service
• Centralized vs Federated Computer Services
• Computer Information Lawyers Need to Know
• Cloud Computing is Careless Computing
• Top 5 Clever Uses for the Cloud
• Understanding Software As A Service

Most of my prior articles do not point out that governments and Domain Registrars could collude to destroy a business too. I guess that’s a new risk.

Updated: June 2021

Transitioning from Windows or OSX to Linux can be difficult because the OSes have different philosophies. The idea that there needs to be a single app that does x+y+z+a+b+c isn’t how Linux/UNIX apps have been built historically. But that is the way that MS-Windows apps are built, so confusion reigns for recent converts.

In UNIX, tools are generally built to do 1 thing really well, then you chain those tools together do accomplish your desired, final, goal. That requires a thought shift and a tiny bit of mental exercise.

Another good article about how Linux is not Windows. Much to learn and many thought shifts are needed.

Today I needed to change my very long and complex gmail password connected to my Android tablet to something easier to type in. I intended to change the password for 10 minutes, then change it back. I needed it to be simple just long enough to get the android tablet connected to gmail, download a few apps, especially KeePassX for Android.

It has been many months, so I figured an update could be helpful.
I ended up not following the original plan for media center deployment.

Here are the highlights:

• Already had a KVM virtual server running on Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS x64
• Created a virtual machine to hold Windows7 x32 ultimate thanks MS for the free Ultimate license
  • Created a 40GB OS/apps HDD (virtual); it barely fit
  • Created a 50GB Data/TV HDD (virtual); this is a 2nd HDD container; easily resized
• Bought and installed the networked HD-Homerun HDHR3 (dual ClearQAM tuner); actually had this about 6 months earlier
• Switched to Limited Basic CableTV ($26/month); No CNN, TVGuide, FoxNews, ESPN, etc. That happened in 2010.

As I watch someone else using a shell on Linux or OSX, I’m amazed that they haven’t customized the most important command, ls, in any way. ls seems like a pretty easy command, but there are subtle things that you can ask it to do which will provide much more useful information for zero extra work.

Here are the Short Instructions

• Go here
• Download the file from whichever download site works – root-3.2.1-V3.7z was the name I saw. Yes, I’m scared to do this from some unknown place on the internet.
• Unzip the root-3.2.1-V3.7z file on your PC. Yes, I’m scared, but did this inside Linux (definitely did not use Adobe Acrobat)
• Read the Readme.pdf file and follow the instructions.

If you want to start from the beginning, the XDA-Dev thread is here. To me it didn’t really add any useful explanations. The README has everything.

Is This Very Bright?

No, it is really dumb. I want to root my Acer Android tablet to run a Debian Linux. Root is required to accomplish this.

FBI Warning for Megaupload

It was fun to see Megaupload’s download site redirected to an ICE and FBI warning. This file is completely legal. Anyone who wants to root their Android device is allowed to do it in the USA. Our tax dollars at work. Nice.