One reason to use Linux Mint over Ubuntu

This post will make heated arguments no matter what, so let me go ahead and shove the disclaimer in your face: I do not favor either Linux Mint or Ubuntu. If anything, I had more experience using Ubuntu than Mint, but I acknowledge both distros as great. That said, let's move on.

I recently went back into distro-hopping, getting to test several LiveCDs unknown to me before. The motivation was that my friend requested my help to fix his computer, and I decided to try new tools for the job. In previous distress calls, I carried with me two Rescue media: a USB drive containing Ubuntu 11.10 and a CD containing the latest KNOPPIX release (6.7 I think). I've always used the Ubuntu USB unless the Computer couldn't boot from it. It's faster, snappier and is overall simpler. However, with the recent popularity boost of Linux Mint shaking the Distrowatch hierarchy, I decided to finally bite the bullet and make a LiveUSB. And while I was at it, I also downloaded Fedora 16 and GhostBSD.

Here is the short answer:

Don't trust anyone who says "basically"

Basically, the title of this post means that basically the people who say "basically" are basically douchebags, because, basically, the word "basically" doesn't mean anything, basically.

Everyone should have a Hacking Machine

My computing experience and opinions have changed slowly, but drastically over time. I resist change for as long as I can, but when it comes, the change is immensely radical. Many people (including me) condemn this "dive straight in" attitude, as it's bound for frustration and sometimes irreversible damage to the computers. In fact, I have gone through these two problems a more than a couple of times already. The difficulty of reverting determinate situations with Linux is probably one of the reasons many people are hesitant to try it at first. Sure, the LiveCD is one way of playing it safe, but has limitations on speed and extensibility. So what is the best solution to try new things without fear, you ask? Simple, use a hacking machine.

Gaming in Linux: how to get the best of it

The title of this post is a paradox itself. If you're a Linux user, you already know that. If you're not, let's just say that the procedure to play a popular game in Linux is usually something like the following:

• Think about some game not too heavy for the box you own (even when you ran Windows);
• Look said game up on WineHQ's AppDB section;
• Pray it's rated Platinum (or at least Gold, for mercy);
• Torrent said game (unless you actually have a CD of it);
• Install said game and play it, only to find out a few side glitches that were not there with Windows;

This is the standard procedure with most of the games I've ran, or currently run. Most of them (which were AppDB checked beforehand) ran seamlessly, and only two presented glitches that had to be tweaked out. So, though I know that gaming in Linux is a lost cause by definition, I find that the Wine workarounds have worked pretty damn well so far. And that is to say:

I am pretty damn satisfied with Desktop Linux as it is at the moment - and gaming IS included in my satisfaction rating.

What... do you want more explanations? Well, I guess I do owe them in this case... It'll also help you to understand how to get the best Gaming experience in your Linux box.

Transformers 3 is a disgrace.

Trilogies tend to start off as the shit, and end up shitty. Lord of the Rings was like that, and so were the Spiderman movies. Sometimes this happens because producers pack as much awesomeness as they can for the first one (since they don't know if they will make a sequel) that the latter come out watered down in comparison. This trend is not limited to movies, though. Many video games also suffer from that, just look at Valve Software's Half Life series:

Linux Mint PWND Ubuntu!

Ladies and Gentlemen, it has happened. Behold the new most popular Linux distribution ever, Linux Mint:

Oh yes, they can! Source: Distrowatch

I wasn't planning to post anything for a while, but this caught me completely off guard...
Teaches you a lesson, Shuttleworth! Mint has turned its back on you much like you did with Debian.
Find out about them here.

UPDATE: Regardless whether you think that Distrowatch is an accurate measurement on how popular a Linux Distribution is or not, all I have to say is the following; Since Linux is completely open and Log-free ,I see no better other way to know how many people out there are using whatever distro. Wanna count all the forums? Go ahead, but I won't hold my breath.

UPDATE (Feb): Turns out that Joey Sneddon solved the mystery. Short answer: Ubuntu still rules, Linux Mint is still just a fad, etc... Go get a life.

Nov 2011 by K. Zimmermann
Contact me.

Stop making Dubstep progressively retarded

I hate to watch things that are good decay and become crappy. It seems to be a trendy thing in life, unfortunately. Two day-old pizza is sure as shit not as good as fresh pizza. 90s rap is an order of magnitude superior to 2000s rap. Dating and socializing was ten times more honest before the boom of the internet. We are faced with no other choice except to swallow these shitty things, and live on with our opinions shoved up our anuses. I still have faith in the ones that are past their glorious days, but are day after day becoming closer to a blob of poo, and I try my best to support them. One of such things is Dubstep.

How to install a program from source in Linux

Installing software in Linux is not the nightmare that Linux virgins tend to believe. There are package managers, repositories and precompiled binaries that make this task much easier. So much easier and cleaner that in fact, you must always refer to these methods FIRST before even thinking about installing from the source code.

There are only two "last stands" situations in which I would install from source:

How to win any argument against a Mac or Windows user

The last thing the Internet needs is more flame wars. It looks like everything that has a comment box is flaming just waiting to happen. I figured that it's about damn time that someone steps in to save the Internet, and that no one else is better suited for the job than myself. So, in order to stop the web from collapsing over its own fanboyism, I will teach you all how to dismantle and eliminate any flame war that you may face from now on. After reading this article, you too will be able to properly neutralize and serve any Mac or Windows fanboy you may face. Why I didn't mention Linux, you ask? Because, obviously, there is no such thing as a Linux fanboy.

Linus Torvalds is a douche.

Linus Torvalds is a douche. There, I said it. And in doing so, I did what 20 million other people were too much of a pussy to do. The number one tabboo in the Linux world has just been stomped on, and by no less than a devoted Linux user himself. Linus Torvalds may be seen as a hero by many, mostly wet-pussied fanboys who still think that the ultimate goal in life is to become a Virtual Che Guevara and ditch "Micro$oft." However, I've seen, heard and read enough about him to conclude that despite his contributions, Linus Torvalds is an arrogant and narrow-minded prick.

I've found the PC equivalent of the beer world!

La cerveza mas fina, eh? If you wanna spend the cash, absolutely. However, smart guys like to get the most for their bucks, so when they see that six-pack tagged at $14, they look around a little bit to find the cheaper alternatives that will do the job just as well. This approach works well for most of the things in life, like clothes, cars, computers and fast food chains. When it comes to beer, however, there is a little problem: most of them suck (assuming you are in the US). But cry no more, gents, for I've found the perfect alternatives for this overpriced, tasty, AppleMacBook-like Beer.

Real men use the GNOME Shell

Contrary to what all you pussy-whipped old-fashioned Linux users say, the GNOME Shell kicks ass. It pwns everything including compiz, GNOME 2, KDE 4, Chuck Norris and God Himself. So, if you are too much a pussy to try something new, or think that the real deal in computing will remain within a desktop with a bottom launcher bar and floating windows, here is my advice to you...

Quit fighting piracy already...

Piracy has been around long before that time of the dipshittery of Johnny Depp and the Disney studios, and started with a noble purpose: to promote fairness among society. And ever since piracy has been around, pig-headed high-society pricks have done everything in order to fight it. Except that piracy is still alive and very popular today, which means one thing: they failed. So here's my suggestion to corporations dealing with Digital Media and Software:

GET THE FUCKING CLUE ALREADY, AND QUIT FIGHTING PIRACY.

Competition with Linux is futile

So I turned my attention the other day to my YouTube homepage and found out an interesting video within my suggestions. It dealt with Microsoft not surprisingly bashing on Linux once more, only with an extra spin of F.U.D. on it. It wasn't like the old-fashioned Mac-PC wars, in which all you do is point things that suck on the other and it's up to the viewer to make the judgement. In this particular case, Microsoft took a pretty cheap approach. They called it their "training program" to supposedly educate completely neutral people into biased robots that despise and will kill anything about Linux. The training consisted of completely unbiased quizzes such as:

Linux upgrades and updates(sic) are easy. [Right or Wrong?] Answer: WRONG

I won't mention anything further, because this is explicit enough bullshit. You can see the thread with screenshots of the quiz right here. Though I did not give any further shit about Microsoft's FUD policy, it did leave me with one thought: why is Microsoft trying to compete with Linux? Aren't they still the number one computer software developer in the world? What exactly is this competition about, then? A quick look through several computer stores is enough to assert me that all PCs sold in the mass market run an Operating System called "Windows." Isn't that called a monopoly? Maybe Microsoft doesn't like to hear that some guys in a South African company came up with an Operating System that happens to be just as usable, only for free. Oh no, the impossible has just happened! Launch the emergency countermeasures, release our top secret shit to the public!

Three Cheers for the Late Steve Jobs

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has passed away on this Wednesday Oct 5th, 2011, victim of cancer. If by now you're still too much a moron to think it's a hoax, kindly check this link and proceed to bang your head fifteen times on the closest wall. Actually I, too, thought of it as a hoax, but it lasted for only 15min. The media debunks most of the contemporary bullshit.

I think this is the part in which I unravel my ranting and give out my flammable opinions on whether the man was a hero or villain. But there is the whole rest of the internet for that. So I will make it different, short and sweet.

"Why Teachers will never make it" or "Education is not all there's to it"

A year before my own High School graduation, we received yearbooks with the wills written by all the then seniors. Taking apart the bullshit, the cliche and the falsehood that everyone wrote about loving the school, teachers and student body, I found an interesting quote on my good friend's will:

[...] TO THE TEACHERS: The world needs more of you. Keep up the good work! [...]

Let's bring out our critical eyes here - smartass statement or truthful opinion of his part? In several ways, this is true.

In Court: GNU/Linux Community v. Ubuntu

So here's the article that everyone wanted, yet nobody made. It's like one of the greatest taboos in Linux. The huge elephant standing right in the middle of the living room that yet nobody dares to move. Gather around, children, for today I will share my thoughts on how is Ubuntu viewed by the Linux community. Is it flamed or loved? Will the GNU project twist their noses and finally embrace it or once and for all forsaken it?

Computers suck and you should smash yours right now

Got a computer? Wanna know how to make the best of it? It's simpler than you'd think. Just look around the room for a bat/hammer or similar blunt object,aim square in the middle and smash its shit to ruins! Bonus points for a laptop/netbook/whateverthefuckitis; all it takes is throwing outta the window or into the floor, preferably of concrete.

The surprising catchiness of this title hints one thing I've concluded lately, after thorough surfing and time wasted in the internet: computers are, without exception, useless. Surprised? Pay close attention to the explanation, grasshopper, and you shall be enlightened too.

Languages are like fingers, but Attitude is the Hand.

Every non-american or non-british elementary school student has been told about the importance of learning English to succeed in their careers. Learn English, do Business and stuff your guts with munny. The problem is that this was true maybe ten years ago. Today it's like English is already basic, the real money is in learning one of other 5 languages that only one or two countries speak, and putting all your eggs in that basket. Italian, German, Chinese, Arabic... the list goes on. But even if you mastered all of them, if you don't have English to begin with, guess what? You lost the game and will work at McDonald's until you die.

As a bilingual student myself trying to turn trilingual, it's no surprise that I've been hammered on with such ideals. "Go do your English homework, boy." "You finished? Off to practice the Japanese vocabulary you go, then!"

One reason why Wikipedia sucks...

I will summarize this entire post in one word: SATURATION.

That's it. If you came here just out of curiosity due to the catchy title, you are now free to go back to your surfing.

Still reading? I guess I have to do some justification of my part. While I am a strong supporter Wikipedia and its open content initiatives, there is still one big issue in there that I cannot get over. HINT: The lines above were a protest in respect to it.

Tibia is a great Game if you're a retard!

It is widely said that big things come in small packages. You probably heard it in some perfume store talk, as a means to justify paying a humble fortune for a volume of perfume smaller than a shot glass. Or maybe you said it yourself when your girlfriend complained about the size of the chocolate box you gave her. The only problem is that this sentence is a cowardish way of getting away with anything you wish. Oh, so the work I've done is way beyond the minimum? Can't fire me - big things come in small packages, yo! Fuck that.

Back in early 2000's, MMORPGs started to bloom. Everyone was into Ragnarok, looking for free servers, leveling their characters for big war events and recently-released Warcraft 3 was tiptoeing towards becoming an RPG itself. There was actually a wide range of games to choose from for the first time ever, like a golden age of MMORPGaming. Good ol' days.

And then there was Tibia, the oddball,

The internet still is the fairest place in the world

    The internet has done a great job connecting virtually every single individual on the planet with or without their consent. While this same fact spawns some millions of realistic blog entries on why this represents a security threat to both user and government levels, many people still fail to recognize why and how the internet is still playing for the good guys, even after all its zillion flaws are considered.

    Despite the fair leveling of communication means and common access to knowledge proported by the internet, people (mostly bloggers, stupid reporters and newly conceived netizens) still point out the same damn insignificant bad points of the internet. They regard minor, unnecessary things such as "trolling" as a major issue that needs immediate repair. I'm pissed beyond belief everytime that an internet argument is given so much attention that it ends up at the TV screens of some minor channel, that regards it as one of the "dangers" of the internet. Wow. So, nothing to worry about sexual predators lurking around chat rooms, huh? And those scammers, sending phishing e-mails and all, they're pretty inoffensive, right?

One thing that (still) sucks about Linux

One of the harder things in life is to be able to criticize what you love. But everybody is to do that at some point in their lives, so I figured out it'd be sooner or later that I'd get do do it. So here I am doing this critique of one aspect that still sucks big time in most of the Linux distributions today: names.

Five of the world's useless, yet successful things

Ok, so Apple came out with the brand-new iPad2, and not surprisingly was greeted and hurrah-ed by waves of blind pilgrims that mindlessly embraced the gadget as a descendent of the gods itself. Talk about crowd manipulation!


Then each and every one of these puppets naturally unboxed their devices, activated, agreed in the iTunes EULA to sell their souls to Steve the Savior and rushed to their neighbors to show off what they got. Only to be met by a cold and resounding "So what?"

I am in serious doubt and not even Linux can help me.

Oh noes. Looks like it's that time of the week again!

Happy friday, fellas. Unfortunately, I could not allocate much time for blogging today and today's post is like an expensive restaurant's cupcake: short and sweet. The reasons are various, and this time I'll not punch you for citing lack of inspiration.

With the end of internship approaching, it's natural that you feel accomplished, thank-godding about it since a phase of life has passed by quite literally. It also means that you can go back to the standard wake-piss-eat-websurf-fap-nap routine that you missed during all these months. But how about later on?

I have been trying to think about how is this internship going to help me with my professional shit. For sure that is the one thing that matters! And I am yet to answer such question... my bright mind hasn't come with an explanation, neither has google's and now I'm starting to feel even more hopeless because not even the Linux Manual pages have an answer for me:

Oh man...

Tell you what, I'll go to the bar with a couple of chaps and make sure I discuss the above topic very thoroughly. With a couple of beers to follow. And a couple of shots too. Pretty sure that'll do it!

Peace out

Internships are some serious shit

I read somewhere last semester about the common disappointment and disheartenment of college students who venture themselves into their first Internships, just to find out that it's not what they thought, it's boring and if that's what real work looks like, that they might as well drop the major and do something else.

The article pointed out a couple of interns for whom the above happened not to be true and how much their "alternative" uber-hipster internships rocked. The first sentence was something like "So when you hear 'internship,' what do you think? A bunch of college students pretending to be busy going around making coffee for their bosses? Think again! [...]"

The sad thing about this thesis statement is that it's true. You know it too. Think about an intern in an office, his/her third day into the shift. I statistically know that 95% of you projected the following image in your mind:

The remaining 5% are what I call retarded daydreamers.

I have a rebuttal to the given statistic, though. After two months of thorough work in this tiny, yet cozy and delightful office, I've experienced enough to believe that my internship was beyond the standard model, and indeed I did more than just coffee to my supervisors. Don't take just my word for it, I'll let you see it for yourself. This is my desktop (the windows one, viewed from KNOPPIX). Outside the 'x' boundary are anything other than spreadsheet documents. Inside the 'x' boundary there is a 50-page excel file authored by me, containing all the budget of the company.

Quality over quantity, bitch!

Oooh yeeeah... all your budget are belong to me. Internship is serious shit and haters better step the fuck out. Of course, you may think that every single thing other than that single omnipotent spreadsheet is not exactly work-related. In my defense, I'll say that even in my impossibly busy internship one would require some passtime. Jeez, what's so bad about a binary file downloaded from a not so known source in the internet? Quit bitching already (talking to you, IT buddy!)
My download folder is not even that messy...

Seriously, what COULD be wrong?

Yea. Work's hard, and so is life. And an internship is between those two, slightly upshifted. Now let me post this entry already and flame some vegetarian forums.

Until further notice, I'm chilling in Linux

You may recall from last week that I drifted away from the corporate desktop and booted into the Knoppix GNU/Linux system during the lazy friday afternoon, deliberately hacking my way through the company's IT.

Well, pilgrim, today's post ain't much different - actually, it's more of an enhancement. Clocking in today precisely at 0855, it didn't take much to notice that the AM half of the shift would be not much other than spreadsheeting some stuff and then back to timewasting. As a co-worker wisely said (in portuguese) and I quote:

There was a man applying for a job who had a discrete disability: due to an accident, he had his testicles amputated. Nothing really that could affect work performance though, so the employer read through his CV and they promptly shook hands. When asked about the workshift, the employer then said:
'We start at 7AM, but I'll ask you to clock in by 9. Cause you know... from 7 to 9 nobody really does anything except scratch their balls.'

 Touche.

I looked no further, picked up my loyal KNOPPIX CD and didn't even bother to look for windows. Linux en masse! And guess what... I successfully spent a whole day without the need to reboot, or to boot into Windows to do work. Don't get me wrong though, I did do work. Just that the things I had to do were easily accessible from my mobile-portable-magnificent-free operating system.
In fact, I can do almost anything for my internship from KNOPPIX. Office work, internet consultation... so many things that it becomes easier to count how many things I can't do:

-Use task-specific nobody-knows (engineering) software designed for windows, and for which I wouldn't even bother to try WINE on it.

-Access two of fifteen directories within the office intranet because it requires windows authentication.

-Use Flash, because it's proprietary and optional in GNU/Linux

That's it. Everything else unlisted above is doable from my KNOPPIX CD. Got PWN? And my tipical work schedule consists of spreadsheets and budgeting, so I'm on grounds that are more than native to my system.

So, as stated above, until further notice I'll be chilling in my LXDE+Compiz desktop, going around all the firewall and accessing whatever site pleases me without fear of harming the company. Hell, I can even call the University of Miami and talk to a hot, procrastinating Calling Canes student employee girl for free through VoIP.

Go ahead and see for yourself the magic: www.knoppix.net

Linux PWNS and Friday is for Shitfacing (once more)

Hallo, I'm blogging this from KNOPPIX 6.4 since I got fed up with XP and there was no real work left to be done today. Or... I got bored and decided to try hacking a little within the office. You choose - or not, it's Friday anyway, who cares...

You may recall how last week I tried to explain my IT department coworker how open source programs can (when given the proper resources and popularity) outperform proprietary MS programs, but still failed to convince him. Well, today's post kind of builds on top of that.

As stated last week, friday is for shitfacing. This is not my own conclusion, everything during this day explicitly points out towards getting shitfaced. All you need to do is observe a little more. For example, today no more than four people sat down and spent more than 5 minutes in my office. These four people include a department supervisor and two Interns - who have to fill the workload in order to attain the credit. Productivity en masse, huh?

On the light of the above, and having finished all the spreadsheets by 11:30AM - that including offering to help a brother to download youtube videos and converting mp4 files - I had no other choice rather than these:

1.Grab a coffee. No, two. No, three and a cookie.

2.Blog

3.Look through files in my bag, reach out for some CDs, find out an old KNOPPIX GNU/Linux disk and without hesitation put it on the drive to boot.

Flawless Victory. KNOPPIX boots up and detects all my hardware. Not only I'm in full control of my computer, I'm also in control of his, hers, and their computers because they're all linked together in the office through a shitty windows server. You read it right, new operating system comes in completely out of the blue and the corporate server embraces it like his wife. Be thankful, people, that I'm a whitehat!

So as I'm writing this, I'm also chatting through Pidgin, looking for torrents and Facebooking at will. Proxies? To hell with them! KNOPPIX pwns everyone, your Mother included. Also, Compiz-Fusion has been enabled by default and now everyone knows that my desktop rocks. I guess even IT guy wouldn't have expected that. And guess what, he can't do SHIT about it. He can't because I'm doing ALL of these from two temporary storage things, namely CD and RAM. Yeah, babe, no hard disk storage needed, I could hack all the afternoon and still when I went home all my traces would be vanished...

So bottom line is... Happy Shit-Faced Friday once more! And if you're interested in fighting the corporates and becoming more secure (computer-wise) today, use LINUX. Yeap, if you don't believe me, see what people at www.distrowatch.com have to say...

Get drunk, happy and have a nice weekend folks.

If you wanna find more about KNOPPIX, here's a screenshot:

 simply beautiful. Get it here: http://www.knoppix.org/

Also mentioned in the post were:
Pidgin (Internet Messenger): http://www.pidgin.im/
Compiz-Fusion (window manager for X11 system) http://www.compiz.org/

K. Zimmermann

Happy Shit-face Friday!

It's holy-day today, and so you get another post.
Fridays are good for two things:

1.Bitching about the work
2.Practicing math by calculating the time till getting out.
3.(EXTRA, BITCHES!) Getting shitfaced and earning the accomplishment of interesting things in spite of your lame ass week

Nuff said. So, in the light of the above you can guess what I'll be doing!

Have a crazy great weekend!

Your IT guy is shit, and so is mine.

One of the greatest aspects of the information age and technological innovation today is the concept of the  'cloud.' The cloud allows you, me and everyone else to change work into network so we all can work as one big mind in the office. If you cannot access or work in the cloud, then I can only presume that you don't belong in the very room you are working right now. - IT guy next door

These more-or-less verbatim words were spoken to me by the IT guy at my job yesterday. He was probably trying to instruct me on how to cooperate with the guidelines of office Internet usage, or failing to. And I was feeling lucky as hell that he doesn't happen to be my boss (actually he's his own, as no one else takes on the IT department since they actually have a life) and I can blame him for the work not done due to technical incapacitation.
Now, the above quotation might startle you to ask me to what proportions was the shit that I did in order to receive such lecture, and I will save you your stinking precious time. The lecture quoted above came after I called said IT guy because I could not open some documents stored in a shared folder of my department. He came in, proceeded to try to open said files exactly like I did and then stopped, thinking for a second or two.
Then, very cleverly, he switched to the desktop and thoroughly analyzed every single icon there shown, gathering information to formulate his frustrated and incredibly intelligent rant on me:

"There. See? Look how much stuff you've installed here. Don't you know how dangerous blindly downloading things can be? No wonder every other computer here is able to open files when yours can't!"

Ok, so I ain't no Pope, Samaritan or deity, as though no one knew. I download things, obviously! I download things when and where I'm allowed to, thats the beauty of the world wide web! But let one thing be clear:

I download, but I don't screw things up.

You heard it right, Mr My-wife-is-my-PC, even people under 21 are aware and follow a certain ethics code.  That is especially true when it involves money, health, sex or getting a day's pay for free because your work is crippled by the incompetence of the tech department. You may be asking now what was there in the desktop to raise such anger in the poor geeky nerdy man's heart. I'll let you see for yourself*:

 *Missing in the picture are: Mozilla Thunderbird and a couple of spreadsheets

So what's so horrible and threatening in this desktop, besides the menacingly boring blue wallpaper? Did I happen to get hacked through one of the pictures or spreadsheets? Oh noes! Bad, bad intern!

IT guy then says that the shit I threw in the fan was the couple of non-microsoft programs I installed, seen in the right side. WHAT.

Non-Microsoft is meant to be read "Non-retarded" and "superior" simultaneously. For example, when you have a new computer just hooked up to the internet, what do you do? Download firefox! The only reason why OpenSource is still unpopular is because the average computer using monkey is too lazy to find it.

But no, IT guy - emphasis on IT - will not understand such fact - he's a robot! And so the opening lecture is stated, followed by me forced to uninstall all the freedom good programs. Facepalm. Reminds me of the "wrong password" screen that linux shows when you supposedly failed to probe into your boss's account;

I have, however, just to piss him off reinstalled Opera and put a dummy Firefox Icon since then. What... I know for a fact that I can't bear using IE7.