EasyLinuxGuide Blog

In my last blog article I talked about how much progress the major distros have made lately in terms of creating much smoother and more usable interfaces for the general new Linux user. One major downfall remained for some though – the ability to make the upgrade process smooth. After all, for those switching from Windows versions only have to do so every several years and even when given the opportunity (XP to Vista), many users may opt to just stick to what they have. In the Linux world, things are much different. The inherent quality of Linux is dependent on the improvement of applications and core system components. I am not saying that an outdated system cannot function well, however; one of the major benefits of using Linux is the free access to regular package updates and core component enhancements. So, it is very important that even the most basic Linux user has easy access to this benefit. My last blog entry outlined the importance of this very feature.

I received some responses to my article and decided that I could look into the distros that I had listed under the CD/DVD method in more detail to see where they stood. This article is about Mandriva.

As a disclaimer, Mandrake/Mandriva and I historically did not get along well. Back in the days when the defacto easy distro race was between Red Hat and Mandrake, I always managed to get Red Hat to work very well, but I could never get Mandrake (then) to work properly. I knew people who swore by it, but it was never a good fit for me. I don’t have any bias toward Mandrake/Mandriva these days though as I don’t use it regularly on any of my boxes.

Due to my inactivity with Mandriva, I feel quite apt to evaluate it from a newbie perspective which is ideal for the type of experiment I am conducting – What it is like for a newbie to upgrade Mandriva to the latest version?

I have to also admit that I was given some tips via email on certain commands and such so I may appear a bit more familiar with things than my inexperience with Mandriva realistically would have elicited.

On to the test….

The first thing I did (upon recommendation) was download Mandriva 2008.0 Live CD for Gnome and the aim was upgrade it to Mandriva 2008.1. The point of this test is not to evaluate Mandriva as a distro, but I will make some comments along the way about my observations.

I managed to install Mandriva to my system and generally speaking the install went well. There is a very convenient Install button the desktop which was nice to see as that seems to be quite a friendly method. I was also impressed that not only did the live cd recognize that I had an Nvidia graphics card, but it also loaded the driver for me. So far, so good. I set up custom partitioning as I typically do. I recall feeling a bit off about the partitioning wizard though. Unfortunately I did not do any screenshots, but it seemed a bit too quick on formatting without double checking with the user on whether that was really what they wanted. A confirmation would help, I think. I can’t really dwell on it though since I didn’t take any screenshots of that scenario. The install went well otherwise and was done in about 5-10 mins on my AMD XP 3800 with 4GB memory. One thing that really bothered me was that I was forced to install a bootloader. I was given the option to install to the mbr or any other partition I wanted, but there was no option to bypass installing a bootloader. Maybe this was added to the 2008.1 installer? I added Mandriva to my bootloader on a different distro and was able to boot up fine.

Upon booting up for the first time I had to go through the paces of a first time boot configuration wizard. I have seen this before with other distros so it was no big deal. There was a small part about registering with Mandriva which made me feel like it was a bit commercial but there was an option to skip it so that was short lived.

When I arrived at the desktop, I was surprised to see some really odds things which I will list here (click on the text in each line for corresponding screenshots):

• Only 1GB of my 4GB of Memory was recognized (high memory support enabled in kernel by default?)
• Fonts were set at 60 DPI (I changed them to 96 and things were much better)
• Nvidia Driver was running but maybe my monitor detection didn’t work so well as my 22″ LCD had a max resolution of 1024×768. I ended up editing the xorg.conf file to get 1680×1050.
• The special Mandriva Gnome menu had some major redundancies here and here.

And onto the upgrade procedure. I didn’t see any pop up in the Gnome toolbar or anywhere in the menu indicating how to move to the next version. It was recommended to me to use the easyrpmi website to upgrade my version. I proceeded to (text is linked to screenshots again):

(keep in mind that I needed to use the “old” easyurpmi website since I was using 2008.0 or older)

• Pick the version of Mandriva I was using
• Select the Mirrors and Repositories I wanted
• Copy and Paste the output provided by the website into a root terminal

I was already feeling that this was quite the laborious process compared to other methods, but I continued on, undaunted and determined to give a fair evaluation.

I opened a terminal and became the almighty root user and copied the information as instructed. It went through some terminal lines and then stopped after only updating 2 additional packages – one of which was urpmi. I decided that I was going to try the same command again. This time it wanted to update 216 packages – now we’re getting somewhere. I let all of the packages update and rebooted for good measure and was disappointed when I didn’t see any evidence of being at the aim of 2008.1. So, I made sure my updates were completely done but that didn’t make any difference:

• My kernel was old
• My Firefox version was old
• My Gnome version was old
• My Nvidia driver was outdated
• My release was still at 2008.0

Easily, I am no expert at Mandriva, but I have been using Linux for several years (although anyone who reads this article only would think I’m a newbie for sure), however; the idea for this test was for a new user to the distro to be able to upgrade to the next version. I wasn’t able to do it so that doesn’t bode well for total neophtyes in my opinion. I know that I could have missed some steps or done some things wrong, there is no doubt about that, however; the point is that I should be able to do this upgrade notwithstanding or at least that was my hope. Any distro with rolling release cycles (although perhaps more difficult to set up, will automatically update you to the next version and while they may not do so in a 100% problem fashion all the time, I find them generally very stable). Ubuntu, for example, that has Update Manager which is a built in upgrade system and alerts you to moving to the next available version (not just package updates).

Mandriva could really use a step up in this department if it wants to capture more new users, but of course, that all depends on the intentions of the powers that be at Mandriva. If that is not the goal, then so be it, but it would be a great feature to add nonetheless.

The good news is that Mandriva is almost there. They have a graphical update tool that integrates nicely into the Gnome toolbar (green circular checkmark beside the volume speaker icon) and also some decent output of what is available for updating. The part that is missing is how to get to the next version.

I sincerely hope this is something that gets added to the Mandriva distribution as it will make it more accessible to more users.

I noticed that there was a new version of OpenSUSE released today, version 11 actually. Admittedly, it took me a long time to find my main distro of choice (Arch) and I can be picky, however; in looking at some of the new releases lately, I am reminded of something that really bothers me about the upgrade process. I’m referring not to just updating packages but upgrading the core components of the operating system and moving to the next official version.

I’m going to classify three categories here. The first is the rolling release cycle which basically renders a new ISO of the latest version which is only really useful to new installs because the distro gets automatically updated to the latest version through the package manager on an ongoing basis so there is no need for anything else.  The second is the distro specific upgrade tool. The third is the cd/dvd method. I know I will miss quite a few derivatives and such but you get the point.

Here are the categories…

Rolling Release

Arch
Gentoo
Slackware?
Others?

Upgrade Tool

Debian (dist-upgrade)
Ubuntu (GUI upgrade tool)

CD/DVD Method

Fedora?
SuSE?
Mandriva?

As far as I last checked, these were correct. I personally prefer the rolling release cycle method, but I do really appreciate that Debian and Ubuntu have their respective methods. I keep an Ubuntu install around on a backup box just to stay acclimated with how it is progressing and I do like it very much overall. I just prefer Arch as it seems to have less interference of built in system tools which is to my liking.

However, if memory serves me correctly, Fedora, SuSE and Mandriva all use the CD/DVD method. I know that Fedora can be upgraded through Yum but it is almost expected to have broken packages that need to be manually removed before the upgrade.

Maybe it’s just me but I find it unacceptable that any major Linux distro would expect someone to have to download a CD/DVD in order to upgrade. With today’s fast internet speeds and powerful systems, having the option and the convenience of issuing a few simple terminal commands (apt-get dist-upgrade, pacman -Syu etc) seems like a requisite feature. While I do think it is a good idea to release a CD/DVD (for dial up users etc), each major distro should have a built in option that is expected to work well to get the user to the next release version. I look at some of these major distros and really appreciate the work they put into not only making their product better, but also fixing bugs in desktop environments and keep getting blocked by this absence of a proper upgrade method when I think about the potential they could have to be on one of my backup boxes for more than just a testing stint or perhaps on one of my customer’s machines. I have installed Ubuntu for several customers and find it easy to upgrade and maintain. I could even log in remotely and do the upgrade process for them or even walk them through the literal handful of button clicks to do it themselves. Then I think about what it would be like if that was not an option and the CD/DVD method was the only safe way to upgrade. I would need to download it and burn it myself and then go over to their place and run the install and sit and wait for it to make sure everything went well. I am talking about doing this sort of thing for Linux neophytes.

Of course there is the supposition that there aren’t any decisive deal-breakers between the majors anymore which is why I can pick on something like an upgrade process. All of them basically use a fairly new kernel, new desktop environments and offer the user the choice when installing. They all seem to have access to using a variety of different file systems (not that a lot of people seem to care about that much anymore except for expert users). All have done well to make a large amount of major packages available to their users and each comes with a decent set of GUI configuration tools. I suppose I could mention that some come with all of the codecs needed to play mp3’s and videos, but that is more of a legal issue so I am giving it a mulligan.  There really isn’t much that distinguishes each of the majors from one another anymore other than say the distro artwork, the installer (seems all of them are easy enough these days) and perhaps which parent company with which it is associated. It seems to me that with all of the effort put into making a complete distro, an easy upgrade process should come as a staple item.

On a positive note, my personal litmus test for determining the quality of a distro is whether I believe I could use it long term if my precious Arch was no longer available. I am happy to say that I have no intention of doing any distro hopping for my main boxes. I’ve been running Arch solid without a reinstall for around 5 years amidst many hardware changes. However, I do feel like I would have a nice choice between some really well polished distros out there if my selection was limited. All things considered, since each seems to be on a fairly level playing field, the one that would win out would be one with an easy way to upgrade. In the course of using Ubuntu on a backup box, I’ve noticed that not only was I able to upgrade from each major release to the next, but I was also able to run through all of the alpha testing which was great (much fewer issues with the alpha releases than I expected by the way).

For any major out there — please remove your deal-breaker if you are only offering your users the CD/DVD method for upgrading. Give the users a proper, tested choice to upgrade via the internet.

OK, I’m done.

Just yesterday the newest version of Mozilla’s Firefox was released. After many beta releases, it was released to the masses at 10AM PDT or for me 1PM EST. Many people pledged from all over the world to download this final release and help Mozilla set a Guiness World Record for most software downloads in 24 hours. The amount of pledges was roughly 1.6 million and the results garnered more than that. The plethora of downloads (more than an average of 9,000 per minute). Keep in mind that this only includes main Windows and Mac users as typically Linux users would receive an updated package via their chosen distro’s package manager. I have been using Firefox 3 since the 2nd beta which does seem faster and more stable.

One of the major advantages of using Firefox is the accessibility to a variety of great add-ons. One of the major disadvantages is that some of these add-ons don’t get updated as frequently as you may like. Here are the add-ons I used and results of upgrading:

FireFTP is an FTP client built into FireFox. There was only a development version that was compatible with FF3 until a new release on June 17th. I like using this built in plugin as it provides the basic but necessary features. It would have been nice to have a proper release during the earlier FF3 betas, but at least the developer came through once the official FF3 came out.

AdBlock Plus is a great plugin that not only can block ads and flash content but also consequently makes web browsing faster due to not loading unnecessary garbage. This is one of the best plugins available and perhaps even a necessity. If I recall correctly, this plugin was available during the beta stages as well.

TabMix Plus became a quick favorite of mine after I realized that Tabbrowser Preferences was a dead product as it hadn’t been updated since October of 2006. It was a great plugin that offered the ability to open a new tab using your homepage instead of just a blank page. This was really the main option I wanted. Unfortunately, since it has not been updated, it is no longer compatible with FF3. I ended up finding TabMix Plus when I was looking through the add-on page for Tabbrowser Preferences. I’ve come to like TabMix Plus better in many ways. It has numerous more options and does of course include the homepage new tab option. Right now it seems only a development build is available, but at least it works fine with FF3. You can download the development build here.

Download StatusBar is something I’ve been using for quite a while. It is a highly configurable download bar that appears in the bottom left of the FF window and shows you progress of your downloads. It is quite handy and a lot more elegant and less clunky than the separate download window that FF provides. This add-on works fine with FF3.

Overall, I’m a bit disappointed in some ways with the lack of development of some of the plugins, but one has to remember that these are hobbiest projects sometimes so therefore there cannot be expecations placed on the developers to get these updated. It would be nice to have a smoother upgrade including all of the previous add-ons but it is nice to find ones that are equivalent or even better such as the case for me.

Either way, find a way to upgrade to FF3 and find comparable or better plugins as the upgrade to FF3 is worth it.

Chuck Liddell was supposed to main event this PPV but injured himself and was unable to compete. There are mixed opinions of Matt Hughes but it is undeniable that he steps up when needed to save the day for the UFC. He took a rematch against GSP on short notice and accepted the main event for UFC 85 – ‘Bedlam" on short notice as well. If that wasn’t enough, Hughes was gracious about allowing this fight against Thiago Alves to continue even though Thiago weighed in at 174 lbs (4 lbs over the 170 lb limit).

In the main event, Alves looked ripped and bigger than Hughes and it showed as he seemed more powerful in the match. In fact, Hughes looked overmatched in just about every category of this fight. Hughes was scarcely ever able to get Alves to the ground and when it happened, Hughes wasn’t able to punish Alves at all. It was Hughes who looked beaten and battered. After the fight which ended in the second round with running knee into Hughes head, Alves asked Dana White for a title fight during his interview with Joe Rogan. Alves didn’t get down on his knees but he made it clear that was he ready to take on the winner of GSP vs. Fitch.

There were a lot of unhappy fans due to what many considered a premature stoppage in the first round. Vera looked more like his old self landing knees, kicks and punches and working his Muay Thai but ended up getting mounted by Werdum and eating several unanswered punches right before the first round was set to end. Granted, Vera was in an awkward position, however; he was intelligently defending himself in my opinion. He had his hands actively covering up and there were only 15 seconds in the round when referee Dan Miragliotta called an end to the matchup. Vera immediately was distraught and frustrated by the stoppage saying he was fine to fight. The crown in London at the o2 Arena chorussed in boos obviously appalled at the result. Joe Rogan even admitted that he felt the stoppage was premature. The really interesting part about this conclusion was the fact that Miragliotta officiated the Kimbo Slice vs James Thompson fight where Thompson had Slice mounted in the second round for well over a minute and threw over 70 unanswered punches and elbows yet Miragliotta allowed that fight to continue. This seems incredibly inconsistent. It’s very unfortunate for Vera as he looked quite good in this performance and this fight was meant to get him back on track, but instead, this will take him farther away from the title shot he wants. Perhaps it’s a good time to move to light heavyweight? The main thing is that the heavyweight division is somewhat weak with Arlovski, Sylvia and Couture gone which may keep Vera in that class.

The only other fight I want to comment on is Michael "The Count" Bisping vs Jason Day. Bisping moved down to middleweight and fought Charles McCarthy (Captain Miserable as some call him) and sent him into retirement at a relatively young age of 27. This was Bispings second time out at middleweight and he took on Jason Day who looked great in his first UFC appearance, dismantling the very skilled Alan "The Talent" Belcher. With that said, Bisping looked to be in great shape, came in with a lot of energy and swarmed Day the entire fight and came out with a dominating first round victory. After seeing this, I would really like to see Rich Franklin vs Michael Bisping. Bisping was very impressive in this victory.

Overall, it wasn’t a favorite card of mine. There were a lot of problems with injuries in terms of the main event so it didn’t end up being the original matchups many were anticipating, but it was fairly entertaining nonetheless. The Vera fight was nothing short of a rip off in my opinion in terms of the premature stoppage. While it is the job of the referee to protect the fighters, these guys train very hard and it is their livelihood on the line when they are competing. It’s a tough job, but it’s important to give a guy a chance to come back in a fight. Dan Miragliotta at times looks like an amateur compared to the likes of Yves Lavigne or even Herb Dean. While Miragliotta may be ‘big’, he is also no ‘big’ John McCarthy.  The UFC needs to sort this guy out and do it fast.

There is a lot to discuss about this first broadcast of an EliteXC event on network television courtesy of CBS. I will discuss the fights, the fans and the sport in general.

The first fight was between Brett “The Grim” Rogers and Jon Murphy. This fight took only 61 seconds before Murphy was caught with a haymaker and the fight was stopped. Rogers is on a knockout win streak and seems poised for a shot at Kimbo Slice.

Smokin Joe Villasenor managed to dismantle Phil Baroni about a minute and a half into the fight. Baroni, who is know for his ripped physique and entertaining ring entrances and trash talking, is now at 10-10 and clearly very disappointed with the outcome of the fight. Baroni was very emotional at the post fight press conference when speaking about the unswerving support of legend Mark ‘The Hammer” Coleman. It is unclear what will happen with Baroni from here.

In the only women’s fight of the night, Gina Carano managed to outlast Kaitlyn Young to earn a victory. It was pretty clear as the fight grew longer that Carano was too powerful for Young. Carano weighed in at 144.5 lbs for this fight which was more than the 140 lb limit. This is something that is commonplace for Carano as she has been over the weight limit for her last 4 fights. This means that either Carano has not learned how to cut enough weight yet or perhaps that there needs to be some leeway with weight classes for women. Perhaps upping the current weight class to 150 lbs or perhaps creating a different division would be a good idea. Like men, not all women are meant to be in the same weight category and forcing them to do so can result in unhealthy and unfit fighters as they would be so dehydrated from cutting weight that it would affect their performance in the right and their health. Also, if the women really want to be taken seriously, they need to fight full 5 minute rounds. Otherwise, it will be the classic argument of not playing on the same field.

In my opinion the best fight of the night was between Scott “Hands of Steel” Smith and “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler. There was some drama with this fight as at times fans were heard booing the action which probably irritated any true fans as the action was fast paced and both competitors clearly came to put on a good show. To the casual fans – these are professional athletes that train full time, you will not see them swinging wildly 100% of the time. There is a lot of technique that goes into the performance. The excitement lies in the  impending result, not in the actual one haymaker that may flatten an opponent. The eagerness is in knowing that these guys have the capacity and talent to make this happen.
This fight ended part way through the third round when Smith was accidentally poked in the eye by Lawler. Lawler immediately acknowledged it and apologized. The rules state that Smith gets up to 5 minutes to recover. During this time, a doctor came into examine Smith upon which she was told by Smith on two occasions that he could not see out of the affected eye. If Smith wanted the fight to continue, this was a huge mistake. This is where the rules perhaps some adjustment or clarifying. Smith felt that although he could not see properly, he would have the full 5 minutes and then make a determination at that point. Smith clearly did not expect the fight to be stopped. One of two things needs to happen to make this situation right in the future: 1) Smith needs to keep his mouth shut when talking to the Dr. who is bound by the rules to make a decision on the fight should Smith give any self-diagnosis that would result in the fight being stopped, or 2) The Dr. needs to consider anything mentioned by the fighter initially as a tentative assessment and offer re-evaluation after the full 5 minutes unless the fighter clearly states that he cannot continue. As disappointing this result was to many fans (including myself at the time), a rematch is almost a guarantee. Overall, I am glad with the outcome because I have seen way too many fights where someone gets poked in the eye and then does not fight the same afterwards and loses. The fans generally consider this result as gospel, however; I always wonder if things would have been different if the eye poke never took place. A rematch gives fans the opportunity to see truly who the better fighter will be. So, while I do believe that the rules need to be amended, it will end up better overall for the sport in the end.
A side note for this fight is that I believed that it should have been the main event. It was a title fight and both competitors are at the top of their game and proven fighters.

Lastly the main event was between Kimbo Slice and James “The Colossus” Thompson. I don’t have much to say about this one. Kimbo ended up winning due to referee stoppage in the third round. I do believe that it was a very even fight overall until then. As per MMA rules, the fight should have been stopped at the end of the second round due to Thompson delivering numerous unanswered and undefended elbows and punches while on top of Kimbo. This scene lasted for well over a minute with no referee intervention.
Ironically, the fight did end with Kimbo punching Thompson’s massive cauliflower ear resulting in blood squirting and followed up by further haymakers causing the referee to call the fight over. Thompson was so disgusted with the decision to stop the fight that he put his hand in the face of the referee in frustration. Mauro Ranallo, one of the announcers, mentioned Thompson’s cauliflower ear on numerous occasions while commentating the fight. This will definitely go down in controversy but EliteXC still has the Kimbo hype intact so they should be happy about that.

Overall, it was a good showing. The main points were that the fans require further education, the women’s division needs some adjustments and more events to come will help dictate whether CBS will consider this a good investment.