OpenSUSE Linux Rants

Not original, but classic, nonetheless

1) No known species of reindeer can fly, but there are 300,000 species of organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (defined as persons under 18) in the world; However, since Santa doesn’t appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload down to 15% of the original total - 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average census rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s only 91.8 million homes. One presumes that there is at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west. This works out to 822.6 visits per second. That is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chiminey, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chiminey, get back into the sleigh, and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which we know to be false but will accept for the purpose of these calculations), we are talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus eating, etc. This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second. A conventional reindeer can run 15 miles per hour at the most.

4) The payload on the sleigh add another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-size set of Lego building blocks about two pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that flying reindeer exist (see point 1), can fly very quickly (see point 2), and can pull ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine, reindeer. We would need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparision, this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth II (Queen Elizabeth II the ship that is).

5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This would heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they would burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within .00426 seconds. Santa, meanwhile, would be subjected to forces 17,500 times greater than normal gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion, if Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he’s dead now.

OK, we’re live and out the door!!! I am so late for work that I’m going to do something that I absolutely hate, (send you somewhere else to read what I could put here, myself). Nonetheless, I can’t just do nothing.

Read the OpenSUSE Linux 11.1 release news from here. Lots of new features (over 230) and take a look at the screenshots.

Remember, don’t use the mirrors, we’re going for a 200TB download record!!!

If you are using ‘wget’, this directory may be a good place to start. If you need to throttle, you can use ‘–limit-rate=’ to do this. Also, you can use the ‘-c’ switch for resuming if your download gets dead. Ex:. command line:
wget -c –limit-rate=40960 http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/iso/openSUSE-11.1-DVD-i586.iso
This will limit your rate to about 40kbps. If your download gets interrupted, just hit the up arrow and then hit [ENTER], and you’re back in the saddle.

Tell everyone so that we can blow the doors off the 200TB goal!!!

Everyone who can make it, please come to the OpenSUSE Linux 11.1 Release Party in Provo with all your disk images.

I have to run to make sure I still have a job. Enjoy, everyone!

The gauntlet has been cast at our feet, fans of Linux and OpenSUSE. Robin brought to my attention a post by Martin Lasarsch where he says, “Let’s try to break the 200TB mark this time.” Apparently, last time, we achieved 163 TB.

So bag the mirrors for the first day or so. Hit http://download.opensuse.org directly when you go to download OpenSUSE 11.1. Totally scratch what I said before, then, about using mirrors. Don’t use them. If we are going for a record, tell all your friends, and let’s GO FOR THE RECORD, for the love of all that is holy.

Seriously, let’s have some ideas on how we can legitimately do this! Get the word out! Blog about it! You might even digg this story, copy it and put it on your own blog, or send it out to your entire buddy list on every social networking site you have, or email it to everyone you have in your email address book.

I mean, not that we want to get carried away. We’re just trying to break a record is all.

Wouldn’t it be sweet to have a really cool gallery of Linux wallpapers? Well, TBH, it IS pretty cool, because that’s the newest addition to OpenSUSE Linux Rants. We now have our own Linux Wallpaper Gallery.

The featured wallpaper for the day is:

Click for larger image.

No idea who made it, but it’s a really slick piece of artwork. Resize as necessary.

OK, so we’ve been chatting a bit about the upcoming release of OpenSUSE 11.1. If we throw an eyeball at the official OpenSUSE.org server, the newest thing available from the official OpenSUSE.org server is not a GM. When it is a GM, DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT FROM THAT SERVER. That only hogs bandwidth that they use to transfer it to the mirrors. Wait about 4 hours, and then pick your favorite mirror and pull it down from there.

But unless I get a personal email from Stephan Kulow or Andreas Jaeger or Michael Loeffler, stating otherwise, I’m reasonably sure that the OpenSUSE 11.1 GM is not publicly available, yet.

However, now you know how to check for yourself for sure when it has been released. But if I catch you downloading from there the minute they put it on there, so help me….

Tell you what, though, if you really want to get some wicked screenshots from how OpenSUSE 11.1 will look, hop on your nearest moped and head over to http://news.opensuse.org/. There are previews of tons of stuff related to OpenSUSE 11.1, including this:

Click for larger version

So we know the GM exists, but it’s the “Where’s Waldo?” element of it that still has my OCD in overdrive.

Quick little sidenote, OpenSUSE 11.1 GM is not available, and won’t be for a few more days. If you see a torrent of it, it’s likely a release candidate. If you actually see a real torrent that claims to be a GM, then I will consult my sources on whether this is possible. But as of yet, I wish people would not say that “OpenSUSE 11.1 has been released” when it actually hasn’t been.

The lesser-minded get confused when this happens. When the GM is available for download from the opensuse.org servers and mirrors, THEN it’s released.

Just to avoid confusion, they even have a counter:

I mean from what I can tell, that is still a positive number. By logical deduction, that means that the GM isn’t there, yet.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here, people. You’re just going to confuse some people and aggravate others when they find out they’ve waited 8 hours to download a release candidate from some torrent that was named GM.

Unless you are totally sure it’s the GM, then gimme the URL.

I have another Cinelerra animatic storyboarding assignment done. We had to convey a story to the audience that would persuade them to purchase our product. Mine went a little overboard, but everyone thought it was a hoot:

Click image to download Ogg Theora Video
Here’s a WMV if you don’t do Ogg Theora

There was a time when I would rather take a 2×4 full of rusty nails and jam it through my neck sideways than try and use Cinelerra, but the more obstinately I mercilessly force myself to keep using it, the cooler the stuff I am able to do. Now, don’t confuse that with me having delusions of talent. It’s just that I can find the cooler features of the program.

For what that’s worth, take a gander at the video, and see if you get the joke. Have a good one.

Woot, OpenSUSE 11.1 is almost here!

For all the Utah folks, or anyone who will be in Utah, or anyone who can get to Utah on or ab out December 18, you are cordially and enthusiastically invited to the OpenSUSE 11.1 release party that will be hosted at the Open Source Technology Center on the Novell campus.

Details:

December 18, 2008 @ 18:00
1800 South Novell Place, Provo, UT
Building A (Open Source Technology Center)
Looking for a sponsor for pizza. Please RSVP (just in case) - sshaw@decriptor.com

For people seeking directions, I’ll just grab them and the map from our OpenSUSE 11.0 Release Party this past June:

Click image for larger version

Image legend:
1. North-bounders coming in on I-15 take this exit (exit number 263, I believe).
2. South-bounders coming in on I-15 take this exit (exit number 263).
3. This is building A where the Open Source Technology Center (OSTC) is.

For those using Google Maps or Google Earth, see the address above.

Everyone come.

Leave a comment if you don’t get it so someone can explain it to you.

Great times.

If there’s one thing I love, it’s writing about Linux to help out new users. Perhaps the work that has given me the best return is “The Easiest Linux Guide You’ll Ever Read - an introduction to Linux for Windows users”. But return in terms of what? Well, here’s the total amount of money I made from writing this book: $0.00 USD. The greatest satisfaction for me was all of the feedback I got from people expressing appreciation. That’s what I love. Writing about Linux to help out new users.

So one thing that I really get a kick out of is when I see that Linux ebook posted on other sites, the most flattering of which is here on opensuse.org.

Well, this morning, I found another article on the Daily Artisan called “Open Source E-Books for Linux, which listed the Easiest Linux Guide. Stuff like that is nice to see.

I really need to get to work on a new one for the OpenSUSE 11 platform, huh?

I found this spectacular article on reasons to consider Linux in a down economy. Actually, they work in any economy. Take a look:

10. Value - Linux has value to a worldwide group of consumers. It runs most of the world’s mission critical websites and is the platform of choice for server virtualization.

9. Less Hardware Overhead - You can still run world class websites, applications, and services on a machine that is outdated by today’s standards. And you have the added bonus of being able to outrun those applications compared to their Windows counterparts.

8. Active Development - Linux is actively developed meaning that new hardware drivers are available as soon as a new device hits the market and improvements are being made on a daily basis to the kernel and supporting code. No need to wait two or three years for the next belated and bloated version from the other guys.

7. Choice - Linux gives you a choice to do things differently and better in your home, office, or data center. Having a choice is good for consumers because it means that vendors and programmers are trying to get your attention by creating quality products for you to use. Competition creates better products and services which is a boon to you and your budget.

6. Multiple Distributions - I’ve heard this one used as a negative part of a campaign by Microsoft claiming that there are too many Linux distributions. Balderdash! Having a system that meets any need from cell phones and wristwatches to supercomputers is just what we need to solve the problems at hand. Having only one distribution is like needing to build a house but finding only a screwdriver in your toolbox.

5. Open Source Model - The Open Source Development model helps everyone in the Linux community from end users to other developers all the way up to C-level executives. The way in which this model helps is that all development is open and source code is available for all to see and improve upon. You can create applications and alter the Operating System itself for any purpose.

4. Available Development Community - Want to contact the developers who created a particular application, protocol, or service? You can. You can submit bug reports, email them directly, and in some cases speak directly to them on the phone. You can even submit your own code that will be included in a major distribution. You have real input to Linux and Open Source software.

3. Unix Stability - Linux is based on Unix and shares its multi-tasking, multi-user, and stable kernel and filesystem structures. For mission-critical environments, you need this kind of stability. Stability means not only that you don’t have to reboot the machine for software installations, driver updates, or even network changes but also that you’ll enjoy uptimes measured in years not days.

2. Compatibility - The old argument was that Linux wasn’t compatible with Windows but through the magic of Samba (File and Printer sharing), Wine, and Cygwin; Linux and Windows are very interoperable and can share files, applications, and services.

1. Commercial Support - Another old complaint from the Redmond camp was that Linux is supported by a bunch of amateurs and part-timers. Red Hat, Novell, Xandros, IBM, HP, Dell, Canonical, and others have thrown their significant financial and human resources behind Linux. Linux has commercial support–even from Microsoft.

Read “10 Reasons To Choose Linux in a Bad Economy”

Linux is mind-blowingly versatile. There are versions that run digital meter maids in Canada, there’s a version that runs on the Space Shuttle, one that runs on an unmanned self-navigating Army vehicle, and so forth… The latest great news is that Linux runs on the iPhone. Enough twaddle, here’s what you came for, the video demonstration:

Linux rocks, baby.

Heh, if only. The fastest I’ve gotten a full Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP server running on OpenSUSE Linux was 37 minutes, and that includes adding all of the installation repositories. It was also installed without X, running in init level 3.

So, what are people’s records on getting a given LAMP stack up and running?