Ubuntucat

I love this line from Preston Gralla’s latest bit of anti-Linux propaganda:

But when you try to install new software [in Linux], or upgrade existing software, you’ll be in for trouble. I won’t get down and dirty with the details here, but believe me, it’s not pretty.

Actually, I don’t believe you. Why should anyone? I find it quite pretty. I find it beautiful and simple.

Since Gralla doesn’t want to spend the time explaining to you the details of software installation in Linux, I will. I will get down and dirty with the details here.

I’ve been using Ubuntu for the past four years straight. When I want to install software, this is what I do:

• I click with my mouse on the Applications menu.
• Then I select with my mouse the menu item Add/Remove.
• I do a search in a little text search field (which I can click in with my mouse) for the software I want (or what the software does) and then some results come up in the search with little pictures and descriptions next to them.
• I pick the result I want and check with my mouse the little checkbox next to it.
• Then I click with my mouse the Apply button.

That’s it. Some pretty dirty details there. If you want to see screenshots of this “not pretty” process, you can visit my Ubuntu software installation page.

And the best part is that I don’t even have to worry about upgrading applications. Every six months when I upgrade Ubuntu, all my applications automatically get upgraded. How easy is that?

Gralla, welcome to 2009 (or actually even 2005). I don’t know why you’re still using Linux distributions from ten years ago. Do I make judgments on Windows based on my experiences with Windows ME?

Tickets for The Bonnie Hunt Show
My wife thinks it’s strange that I like The Bonnie Hunt Show, since its primary target demographic seems to be middle-aged white women (hint: none of those three descriptors apply to me). I’ve been a Bonnie Hunt fan for a long time, though—through Jerry Maguire, Return to Me, and Loggerheads. I love her smarts, sarcasm, and quick wit. She’s a bit like Mae West, but better-looking.

I don’t know how I first heard about The Bonnie Hunt show, but I think it’s great. Some shows are clearly better than others (I like Mail from You Guys, TV Courtroom Word of the Day, any puppy or dog appearances, and guests I’ve actually heard of).

Well, my wife kindly got me tickets for a show taping, and the experience was interesting.

So when you try to get tickets, they call and email you several times to confirm that you’re actually coming. The woman in charge of audience stuff is named Amanda, and she’s very professional and friendly. Unfortunately, the information the show sends (as PDFs attachments in an email) is a bit vague about how the check-in process works.

Checking In
In case any Bonnie Hunt Show fans stumble upon this, here is how it worked for us. There is a parking garage right around the corner from the Culver Studios at Ince. The parking garage is free for the first two hours and only $1 per hour after that. I’m not sure if this sign is always up or not, but at least before taping, there’s a big sign for the show pointing to gate 2 of Culver Studios where the check-in is.

We were told to check in no later than noon. We got there at 11:15-ish and waited in line for pretty much nothing to happen for a while. Eventually, they went down the line and asked for our names and IDs, while they handed us numbered hang-around-the-neck tags. My wife and I were 46 and 47, respectively. The staff have to wear Chicago Cubs paraphernalia. More waiting. A reminder that cell phones and cameras aren’t permitted. Some random form asking for our names and addresses. More waiting. At around 1:00, they finally let us in the pedestrian entrance of gate 2 and did a lame security check on us (I wasn’t smuggling anything in, but if I’d wanted to, I could have easily done so—the check isn’t very thorough at all).

Then we proceeded (in numerical order) to some very long benches right outside the studio. Bathrooms were available and a bunch of small TVs showing previous shows were on in the background. We brought books to read and just read them. This waiting period was quite a while, and they gave us a warning that we should use it to go to the bathroom, because once you’re in the studio, you’re not allowed to leave to go to the bathroom, and if you do, you can’t come back in.

For about an hour, we just sat there. Then they let us in after the last show finished taping. As we walked in, they gave us hot dogs and root beer.

Here’s my root beer (along with Jewel CDs they later gave us). Unfortunately, my wife couldn’t have the root beer for medical reasons, and I didn’t want the hot dog, because I’m vegetarian. So that gift was a nice gesture, but it didn’t really work for us. It was also an odd thing to give a bunch of people who were just told not to go to the bathroom for the next two hours or longer.

Taping the Show
The show has this guy who’s supposed to warm up the audience. Basically, he is some comedian who needs a day job. He cracks a few jokes and also tells people they need to laugh and clap at everything, and he’ll humiliate you in front of everyone else if you don’t. I was a little annoyed at this guy, even though I think he’s necessary. It would be nice to think that people would naturally appreciate what’s funny or clap out of common courtesy for things that are clap-worthy. But this is show business, and they’re taping a show for TV. They can’t have people in the audience frowning and leaning back in their chairs with their arms folded. They can’t have golf claps from only half the audience. That’s low energy. It makes the show look bad to home audiences.

The studio was a bit smaller and differently configured than I thought it would be. I always figured the performance area was on Bonnie’s right and that the band was closer to her. But in a clockwise fashion from noon to midnight, it goes Bonnie, folding chairs with Holly and others, big camera crane, audience, band, performance area, rug and stairs, then back to Bonnie.

I always knew that guests on shows were there just to pimp their stuff (latest movie, latest book, latest CD), but it becomes even more apparent when you’re on a show taping, because you see them in between takes, and this is definitely a job for them, too. They aren’t just hanging out. It’s a bit weird seeing Bonnie do multiple takes of things. Generally speaking, things run smoothly, but some production assistant must have messed up, because the URL on the cue card was wrong, and Bonnie ended up having to read it again. There weren’t too many extra takes, though, as she’s pretty good at using an impromptu joke to recover from a slip-up.

I thought Bonnie was hilarious, and my favorite moments were when the camera was off and she would just be joking around with the crew or with the audience (especially at the end of the show when she thanks almost everyone individually for coming). The band was a lot of fun, and they just played whatever. Randomly during breaks, they kept playing the beginning of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” They didn’t always do what Bonnie or the other staff wanted, but it all ended up working in the end.

The coolest job on the show (because a lot of the people look stressed, from the make-up artists and camera crew to the cue card holders and other PAs) was one this young woman had. She just walked around with a camera that had a huge lens and took random still shots of things. No one was directing her, telling her what to do or scolding her for messing up. She just did her own thing.

One thing I guess I should have known is that they don’t tape things in order. In fact, a taped show sometimes isn’t even one show. Most of our taping is going to end up in one show, and then another part apparently is going to air in another day’s show. It is certainly a stressful production, and a lot of the witty banter you’ll sometimes see on the aired shows is most likely a way to deal with stress than a reflection of a lighthearted, carefree approach to filming a TV show.

Jewel performed during our taping, and I was extremely impressed by her professionalism. She didn’t have to warm up or anything. She wasn’t a diva in any way. She just walked up and performed amazingly (with all her yodels and such) with no mistakes. When they asked her to do a second song, they weren’t sure what they wanted her to sing, and she was just like “I’ll sing anything. Whatever.” They requested a song, and she sang it. No fuss. Very professional.

As we left, I asked the band pianist when we would finally hear the whole “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” He laughed, but as we were walking out of the studio, I heard them playing it. That was nice. Attending a taping took a lot of the magic out of the show for me—in a good way, though. I definitely have a better appreciation for how hard the people involved in the show work, especially since I now know they have three tapings in one day (one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening).

I’m glad my wife got me those tickets and was willing to put up with a show she has absolutely no interest in. It was a fun experience.

A self-proclaimed analyst at CNET has predicted that Apple will recommend antivirus.

Apart from the fact that Apple already did recommend antivirus a few months ago (but has since removed that page), isn’t that quite obvious? Some prediction. Unfortunately, the reasoning for that recommendation makes me wonder what Jon Oltsik is analyzing. Here are the reasons he gives for Apple recommending antivirus, and they’re all pretty much baseless:

Macs users are a lucrative target. Mac owners tend to affluent and Net savvy [sic]. To the bad guys, this means identities to steal and broadband connections to exploit.

If Mac users tend to be net-savvy, then why are their machines being compromised? Why don’t they have mechanisms in place to protect themselves from identity theft? If Macs are currently such a great target for malware, why is there so little malware out there for Macs now?

Organized cybercrime is diversifying. Cybercriminals tend to work as a loose confederation with each group specializing in a certain task. There are malware writers, botnet owners, mules, etc. Some entrepreneurial bad guy is bound to see a green field market in Mac cybercrime, recruit Mac hackers, develop expertise, and market these capabilities. If there is an equivalent of a cybercrime venture capital firm, they are probably looking at business plans like this already.

Diversifying ways to compromise machines doesn’t mean you attack multiple platforms. That’s just more work for very little return.

Macs are growing in the enterprise. In many large firms, Macs make up about 5 percent of endpoints. If the bad guys infect these systems, they can troll the network looking for other vulnerabilities and juicy data at will.

How about if the bad guys infected the machines that make up 95% of endpoints? Wouldn’t that give them more “juicy data”?

Macs are fairly easy to hack. In March as part of a contest, security expert Charlie Miller won $5,000 for exploiting a hole in Safari in about 10 seconds. If he can do this in 10 seconds, how many techies can do it in an hour? This is a frightening thought to me.

Okay, now this is totally ridiculous. Charlie Miller didn’t just walk into that competition and find a hole in 10 seconds. He knew about that hole for over a year and then exploited it in 10 seconds (in his own words: “It was an exploit against Safari 4 and it also works on Safari 3. I actually found this bug before last year’s Pwn2Own but, at the time, it was harder to exploit”). There’s a big difference there.

And all operating systems have security holes. That’s why Microsoft, Apple, and even Linux distribution maintainers all issue regular updates and patches.

I don’t understand why people imagine that you either have an unprotected computer or you have antivirus. (Or they think that an operating system that ever has a security hole is necessarily as insecure as another operating system with security holes.) Antivirus and protection are not the same thing. They’re not even similar. Antivirus does not offer you any real security at all. Don’t believe me? Go ask all the Windows users infected with malware what antivirus they’re running. Odds are that almost all of them will have some kind of fancy schmancy “security” software installed… software that did nothing to protect them.

Mac OS X isn’t a model in the best security, but its defaults are certainly better than Windows’ defaults. No operating system is invincible, and that includes Mac OS X. But Mac users will be no more protected with antivirus software than they will be without it. Know what the latest security breaches were for Macs? Trojans. Do you know how useful antivirus is against gullible users installing pirated software? Not at all.

Trojans rely on social engineering, and no operating system “security” can stop that, because the security hole is the user, not the computer. If the user can be tricked into giving away her password or giving a bad program access to system files, then you can have all the proper permission level separation or “security” suites in the world, and they will all be for naught. Have NoScript installed? She’ll whitelist every site. Have an algorithm for guessing malware? It’ll give so many false positives that she’ll learn to ignore its warnings.

Why will Apple eventually recommend antivirus? Plain and simple—because antivirus software is the most successful placebo ever introduced to the mass populace. As Mac marketshare continues to grow, more and more trojans will pop up, and more and more gullible users will keep installing them, and Apple will finally have to admit that Macs are just computers and not magic. But instead of saying “Users are stupid and need education,” they’ll toe the party line and recommend people install useless antivirus software, just as Microsoft does now. At least then they can enter into lucrative business partnerships with antivirus software companies.

Break out the sheepskin condoms, people.

Recently, Clem (the lead developer on Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu) posted a blog entry asking that supporters of the Israeli government actions against Palestine refrain from using and donating to Linux Mint. He has since removed the entry from his blog.

A couple of years ago, there was an uproar in the Ubuntu community over a user-modified version of Ubuntu called Ubuntu Christian Edition, and similar outrage expressed over a couple supposedly racist versions of Ubuntu.

These incidents all bring up the question “If software freedom means anyone can modify the source and redistribute the software, does that really mean anyone?”

I certainly have my strong political opinions, but I don’t think I would ever post a blog saying racist, antifeminist, anti-Christian, conservative, warmongering homophobes are not welcome to use my Psychocats tutorials in order to get Ubuntu up and running.

Maybe it’s the Christian in me, but I feel that I’m meant to love everyone, especially those I disagree with. I believe Clem has good intentions. He is also probably misguided, though, in his actions and may end up alienating people from Linux Mint rather than making for any real change in Israel and Palestine.

I actually look back fondly on arguments I’ve had with other Ubuntu Forums members. As a feminist who subscribes to more progressive race and gender theories, I definitely was not in the majority in most politically-oriented discussions. Nevertheless, I felt a certain camaraderie with these folks because we all use Ubuntu together. Some are more conservative. Some are more liberal. Some like guns. Some abhor guns. Some are men. Some are women. Some are straight. Some are gay. Some are in the US. Some are in Europe. Some are in Asia. We’re of different ages and economic backgrounds. And that’s a good thing, I think.

Economic sanctions do sometimes have their place, but I think that Linux Mint not being used in Israel will hardly stop the violence. You have to be a country or a multibillion-dollar corporation to make that kind of difference with sanctions.

Clem, I’m definitely not pro-Israel (and I’m sad that some people mistake being against Zionism or the Israeli government for being anti-Semitic). I’m an American, and I can definitely understand people being opposed to US governmental actions without being anti-American-citizen. Hell, even a lot of Americans disagree with the US government (that’s one of the freedoms we’re supposed to be proud of as Americans). Still, I wish you would just welcome everyone back to Linux Mint with open arms. I don’t use Mint personally, but I do recommend it to a lot of new users.

I have to say I’m very impressed with Ubuntu’s latest 9.04 release (Jaunty Jackalope). I’ve used every single release of Ubuntu since 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog), and Jaunty is by far the best and most polished release. And a couple of the usability bugs I pointed out two years ago have since been fixed (restore from trash, image previews in upload dialogue). Even one of the top ten brainstorm ideas I supported was implemented (giving the proper instructions to repair an interrupted software installation).

We definitely need to go a step further, though, in the next release. I know right now Mark Shuttleworth is thinking about polishing notifications (and hopefully PulseAudio, too) and working a bit more on Ubuntu Netbook Remix and the Ayatana Project. Some of us end users just want a few things fixed, though.

Here’s my current list of top things I’d love to see in the next Ubuntu release (with links to the appropriate Brainstorm idea):

Idea #136: Add a tutorial slideshow to the installation process
I proposed this idea almost immediately after Brainstorm launched. It has none of the drawbacks of a pop-up “Welcome” video when you log in but has all of the benefits. The developers seemed to approve it at the time but deferred it until 8.10. Then when 8.10 came around, they deferred it until 9.04. Now that 9.04 has passed… well, let’s hope the tutorial slideshow makes it into 9.10.

Idea #400: Prevent applications from stealing focus
I can’t tell you how frustrating this is. I never want to be typing in one application and then have a background application start up and have some of my typing appear in one application and some in the other, especially if I’m typing a password. Focus stealing should be off by default and be able to be turned on for only those who want it.

Idea #2298: Automatic reparation of interrupted dpkg
They finally got it so that when your package manager is interrupted during software installation that you’ll correctly be instructed to use

to correct it instead of

How about ditching the commands altogether and just having a button that fixes the installation? Or just automatically fixing it the next time you launch the package manager?

Idea #4347: gksudo if I try to do an action I don’t have access to
If I’m an admin user who is able to sudo and gksudo, why would you say access is denied instead of allowing me to authenticate?

This isn’t a security issue, as I am already in the admin group, and I already have the sudo password.

Idea #7792: Use BitTorrent as primary protocol for apt-get
No reason not to do this. Puts less load on the servers. Faster downloads. Everyone’s happy.

Idea #8008: Provide a simple interface for labeling partitions and external drives
If I want to rename my thumb drive, why can’t I just F2 it? Do I have to install mtools and look up cryptic commands off the Wiki?

Idea #11107: Users and Groups should always make sure at least one user is in the admin group
By Users and Groups I mean the graphical menu item System > Administration > Users and Groups. If someone is the last admin, she shouldn’t be able to remove herself from the admin group via the GUI. If she knows what she’s doing and wants to do it from the command-line, that’s fine.

No one should have to reference this sudo fix because of an unchecked box.

Idea #15067: Publish and publicize a developers’ hardware list
The Ubuntu releases inevitably have bugs for certain users with certain hardware configurations. And there’s no way for the developers to test all hardware configurations. Well, what are the developers using? If they have no bugs when Ubuntu is released, I’d love to get the same hardware configurations they have.

Well, I won’t hold my breath on these. It took the Gnome devs about eight years to implement a restore from trash. Let’s see what happens.