JMiahMan's Blog

The most important thing I can think of for a Linux Distribution is the install method. It can be the best distribution ever, but if you can't install it you can't use it. That is the current theme of our releases at EeePCLinuxOS. I think we have cutting edge distribution that's going to shake things up, but our installer has been lacking. This is about to change as our Beta 3 is drawing nigh. A simple project started not to long ago to revamp Make LiveUSB in PCLinuxOS. The current version that was released in PCLinuxOS 2008 MiniMe was semi-broke, but the idea has really stuck. So some great users started multiple projects at MyPCLinuxOS.com to continue on with the "install live" or "Poorman's install" method . Soon they found that their multiple projects were working againsnt each other and it would be more profitable to join forces, thus the gtk-live-installer was born. This is all well and good but what does that have to do with EeePCLinuxOS? We needed a EeePC specific installer so we couldn't use their installer out right, but we could easily modify it as it was written in bash and zenity. So one of our lead developers C-Chan took on the task and drew some attention from another user named Jdeisenberg. Jdeisenberg ended up being a teacher that knew all about bash programming and quickly became beneficial to the cause. Now we're in the final stages of testing what looks to be a awesome installer and we're also in the final stages of a new release. Stay Tuned.

There comes a time in every computer users life (at least mine) were you want more speed. I think of the TV Series "Home Improvement" and Tim Allen grunting more power. In my case I would like to see a better boot up time with one of my current projects EeePCLinuxOS. The default OS that is installed on the EeePC (AsusOS a Xandros derivitive) will boot in under 10 seconds. That type of performance I don't expect to obtain with EeePCLinuxOS but as of right now we're over a minute. The solution, drop the current init system (sysvinit) for a modified version of Asus's init system (finit). A Fellow here has blogged about his init system that is based off of the current Asus init system but improved. It's pretty simple and isn't a replacement that would take out sysvinit, but used and modified to work with EeePCLinuxOS it takes 20 seconds off our boot time. It's a pretty simple concept, load everything as the user interface (in our case KDM) is loading. So today I released a very ruff release of EeePCLinuxOS using the new init system. Hopefully with the fine help from the community we can squash some key shutdown and restart bugs and have it ready for the stable release of EeePCLinuxOS.

With the release of the EeePC and the announcements that other small devices will be released by multiple companies in the near future it seems the days of bragging “my laptop is Bigger then yours” is ending. It's just not the size of the laptop that's changing though. If you read Linux magazines (a nerd like me) you have surely heard about the “year of Linux”. Some people think that one of these years Linux will swoop down and steal away computers from unsuspecting Microsoft and the world will be happy. I don't think there will ever really be a swoop or for that matter a year. I do think that one day Linux will have quite a large market share, but this won't all happen at once. It will happen slowly. So what's my theory? Linux will pickup what Microsoft and Apple leave behind and start with a minimalistic environment, gain trust from users and grow from there. It's already started to happen. An example of this would be the EeePC. Some have installed Vista and Leopard on this little device but when you read there comments on it you'll find they both run slow and after most do the install they return to the original install or at least another version of Linux, which seems to run very well, even with 3D effects for those who choose to install some other then the default. 3D and GUI effects won't even work with Vista or Leopard installed on the device as the memory and hardware requirements are well above the EeePC's level. You could call my theory crazy if the EeePC was the only device running Linux, but it's not. You may have heard about the $200 Desktop PC at Wal-Mart that runs gOS a Ubuntu based distribution. Soon the same company is going to release a contender to the EeePC running the same gOS at sell it cheap (projected $400) at Wal-Mart also. Slowly Linux is creeping in and while we may not have the “year of Linux” I would say that these are the “years of Linux”. Expect to see more devices released for specific computing purposes ex. Web surfing, email, and word processing that are Linux based as the standards for hardware on the “Mainstream OS's” get higher and higher. Linux now has a desktop niche, the common Internet user, and I think it can fill that niche quite well. Only the years will tell.

You've made it to my blog. Maybe someday soon I'll have the time or the energy to post to it. Yeah!