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How I dumped Windows for Linux - Day 1

Simon Pickstock — 1210605714

Linux has been getting a lot of press over the past six months, particularly populist distributions such as Ubuntu. Dell has installed Ubuntu onto its Linux PCs and laptops, and let’s not forget the phenomenally successful Eee PC from Asus, which runs the Xandros distro.

The open source OS is also starting to make some headway on mobile phones in the form of the Google-backed Android and rival LiMo. It all shows how accessible Linux has become.

A Windows guy meets Linux

I’ve been using the Windows OS ever since version 3.0. So I’ve got some intimate knowledge of the problems and foibles you run into when trying to install hardware and software. I also own a MacBook running OS X, so I know how intuitive Apple's OS is in comparison.

I'm intrigued to see if 2008 is really the year when Linux is ready for prime-time.

Over the last few years I’ve dabbled with Linux now and then, but I’ve always found that there were too many problems for me to cope with, particularly when it came to hardware drivers. However, Linux has made great strides on this front, so I was interested to see whether a distro like Ubuntu can let me do everything that I do in Windows and OS X.

Installing Ubuntu is actually pretty easy, although if you want to preserve your Windows partition and dual-boot, you need to take a few precautions. First you need to download the CD image then burn that image to disc, using something like Nero.

Change your PC’s BIOS to boot from CD, pop the disc in the drive and boot from the newly-created Ubuntu CD. This will load up a live session. In other words, everything is running from the CD, and memory, nothing has yet been installed.

It gives you a good opportunity to have a play around and get used to how Ubuntu Linux works. To install to your hard drive, simply double-click on the install icon on the desktop and follow the wizard.

First steps with Ubuntu

One of the main problems with Microsoft's Windows OS is that virtually everything on your motherboard, and anything you want to install, requires an appropriate driver. This used to be the case with Linux, but like Apple’s OS X, a large number of drivers are now built into the Linux kernel.

For instance, once you install Windows, you normally need to install all the motherboard drivers. When I installed Ubuntu, this wasn’t necessary.

Even more impressively, Ubuntu detected my wireless USB stick. All it required was the WPA password and it connected straight to the Internet. In Windows, a specific driver is needed.

The next device I tried was my Canon Pixma IP4300 Printer, which again needs drivers in Windows. In Ubuntu, however, it was immediately detected and ready to use. To be fair, the output was pretty basic, and a dedicated driver can be installed.

External USB hard drives formatted to FAT32, were detected and mounted straightaway. But to read and write to NTFS drives, I had to install the Fuse plugin. My digital camera, once the ID was set as a 'mass storage device' in its menus, was also detected and accessible. A Bluetooth dongle was also recognised and worked without any fiddling, enabling me to transfer photos from my phone across to the Ubuntu environment in a matter of minutes.

So far I’m impressed. Setting up Ubuntu has been easier than Windows XP or Vista, and I’ve had to install far fewer drivers. Over the next four days, I’ll find out how Ubuntu copes with a range of everyday tasks, from Internet shopping to productivity and playing games.

Microsoft offers low-cost XP for emerging markets

Patrick Goss — 1210582500

Microsoft has announced that it will cut the price of its XP operating system for ultra-low cost PCs that are built for emerging markets.

Although it has yet to confirm that XP will be handed a stay of execution for PC manufacturers, the OS will remain for the ultra-portable market and for projects that are trying to build ULCPCs for the likes of India and China.

Linux

Currently Microsoft is competing with the likes of Linux, which is freeware, but the prospect of $16 XP could lure manufacturers into plumping for the tried and tested software from the Redmond company.

The pricing is actually $26 dollars, but companies can potentially get a $10 rebate.

Currently the offer only stands if the screen size of the PC is less than 10.2 inches with a HDD of less than 80Gbytes, with Microsoft keen to ensure that their lower cost option doesn’t impinge on the sales of their flagship OS Vista.

Weekend round-up

Patrick Goss — 1210578480

It’s been a busy old weekend in the world of tech, but as usual we have scouted round to bring you the most vital (and quirky) stories from over the weekend.

Firstly, late on Friday Microsoft confirmed it would be appealing against the massive fine it has been hit with by the European Union for defying sanctions imposed after the anti-trust rulings.

The EU decided to hand Microsoft a whopping £680 million fine after deciding the Redmond company was guilty of not providing key code to rival software manufacturers.

Microsoft are seeking ‘clarity from the court’ in their appeal.

You’ve been iFramed

The most famous Mac thief was probably the Hamburgler, but running a close second is the fellow who got away with a lady’s MacBook only to be caught by the woman’s ingenuity.

Using her remote access to the Mac, the victim took a photo of the thief from her laptop and gave it to the police.

If it wasn’t for those pesky iKids…

Facebook ordered to out Fake Dean profile kids

Cyber-bullying of teachers is becoming an increasingly common problem, but in America, one educator who found himself on the wrong end of a fake Facebook profile has gone to court to get the social networking site to reveal the culprits.

The profile, which has since been removed, contained "pictures and messages inappropriate for a Dean of Students to send to a student."

Facebook have been ordered to retain the details of those that created the profile pending further investigation from the courts.

That's it for now, but stay tuned to TechRadar for the rest of the day's news as it breaks or grab a feed here - get it while it's hot.

Windows XP SP3 delayed again

Patrick Goss — 1209541557

Windows XP service pack 3 is not quite as delayed as the next Duke Nukem game but it’s getting there, with the announcement of yet another hold up on the Redmond-based company’s forums.

The long-awaited SP3 was released to limited partners last week, but hopes that it would become available for the public on the web were ended by a curt update on the Microsoft TechNet forum.

Best possible experience

“In the last few days, we have uncovered a compatibility issue between Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS) and both Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1). In order to make sure customers have the best possible experience, we have decided to delay releasing Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) to the web,” read the post.

“To help protect customers, we plan to put filtering in place shortly to prevent Windows Update from offering both service packs to systems running Microsoft Dynamics RMS. Once filtering is in place, we expect to release Windows XP SP3 to the web.”

“We are also testing a fix, and will make it available once that process is complete. Once they have installed the fix, Microsoft Dynamics RMS customers should be able to run both service packs.

“Until then, we advise Microsoft Dynamics RMS customers to not install either service pack. Microsoft Dynamics RMS customers running Windows XP SP3 or Windows Vista SP1 should contact Microsoft Customer Support Services for additional information.”

Interesting times

XP, it is fair to say, is living in interesting times, with the discussion over whether to extend support for the popular operating system beyond its June ‘death’ date raging.

Companies such as Lenovo and Dell have already found loopholes in their contracts to keep selling XP beyond this date and sub-notebooks will continue to use the less CPU intensive OS with Microsoft’s blessing.

Dell's sneaky trick keeps Windows XP alive

Don Reisinger — 1209438861

Dell and Lenovo announced on Monday that they will be using "downgrade rights" to keep offering Windows XP beyond the 30 June cut-off date imposed by Microsoft.

According to the companies, Windows Vista Ultimate and Business edition are the only versions of Windows that carry the downgrade rights, which allow anyone running either operating system to legally downgrade to Windows XP Professional if they find Vista unbearable.

And because Dell and Lenovo only support factory-installed operating systems, they will offer to perform the installation for customers.

XP gets another stay

"Customers may continue to get Windows XP Professional by exercising downgrade rights that come with Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate licenses," Dell wrote on the company's site.

"Dell has the ability to exercise 'Windows Vista downgrade rights' on your behalf in the factory if your business is still reliant upon Windows XP and you'd prefer to have Windows XP Professional preinstalled on your PCs."

Microsoft has yet to comment on the decision by Dell and Lenovo, but the company can't be happy that more XP installations will find their way into the wild when it's frantically trying to make Vista more appealing.

Microsoft's profits fall

Patrick Goss — 1209115529

There won’t be many happy faces at Redmond at the moment after Microsoft’s quarterly financial results showed an 11% drop in profit amid flat sales.

Although CEO Steve Ballmer has insisted that a well publicised takeover bid for Yahoo will not see a raised offer, the traditional stronghold of Microsoft’s success, namely software, have not performed up to expectations in the early part of 2008.

Ebullient

Inevitably, Microsoft (MSFT, NASDAQ) remained publicly ebullient in the face of the disappointing performance, insisting that the release of Server 2008 and the increased sales of both Xbox 360 consoles and their portable music player Zune shows that its business is broadening.

“The breadth of our product offerings and our ability to provide solutions across a range of customer and partner needs paid off again this quarter. The third quarter also kicked off the largest enterprise platform launch in our company history, which highlights Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer of Microsoft.

“These new products strengthen our ability to help business customers and partners save money, optimize their people, processes and technology, and position IT as a strategic asset for their businesses.”

Balmer reiterates Windows XP thoughts

Patrick Goss — 1209050818

He hinted that Windows XP wasn’t necessarily about to become defunct at the MVP conference earlier in the week, and now Steve Ballmer has underlined that the OS could be given a stay of execution.

Ballmer told a press conference in Mons, Belgium that Microsoft is still listening to its customers.

End-of-life

“XP will hit an end-of-life,” he insisted. “We have announced one. If customer feedback varies we can always wake up smarter but right now we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments."

Of course, this falls some way short of actually saying that XP’s life will be extended beyond the June date that Microsoft held as the time when it would stop supporting the popular Operating System.

Popular

Although its original incarnation was far from secure, the arrival of Service Pack 2 fixed many of the issues, and the OS became the most popular on the planet.

Microsoft’s successor to XP – Vista – was launched with much fanfare last year, but has been far from popular.

Windows XP SP3 date confirmed

Patrick Goss — 1208849667

As expected, Windows XP service pack 3 has been released to manufacturers, with Microsoft confirming that the update will be available to the general public online from April 29.

The arrival of SP3 has already been widely leaked, but Microsoft is yet to firm up the date in which the update will be rolled out to those who use auto-updates rather than manually downloading the patch.

Summer lovin'

Currently this is still slated as ‘early summer’ with a June date widely anticipated.

SP3 will bring a whole host of updates and patches – many of which are already available as separate patches.

SP3 RTM ok?

Posting on the official forum, Chris Keroak - the Release Manager of SO3 said; "...we are happy to announce that Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) has released to manufacturing (RTM). Windows XP SP3 bits are now working their way through our manufacturing channels to be available to OEM and Enterprise customers.

"We are also in the final stages of preparing for release to the web (i.e. you!) on April 29th, via Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center. Online documentation for Windows XP SP3, such as Microsoft Knowledge Base articles and the Microsoft TechNet Windows XP TechCenter, will be updated then.

"For customers who use Windows XP at home, Windows XP SP3 Automatic Update distribution for users at home will begin in early summer."

Interesting times

It is another chapter to an interesting few weeks for XP – not least because of the continued speculation that its continued popularity has earned it a stay of execution.

Microsoft has already confirmed that the OS will remain available for the burgeoning sub-notebook market, but Steve Ballmer’s statement that the company are still listening to advice on the matter has raised hopes that XP will go on

Ballmer hints at XP stay of execution

Patrick Goss — 1208766244

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has dropped the broadest hint yet that the company may do a U-turn on its plans to scrap Windows XP this summer, admitting that Windows Vista is a ‘work in progress’.

With well publicised campaigns calling for Microsoft to extend the ‘death’ date of 30 June, the Redmond company has already confirmed that XP will remain available for the burgeoning sub-notebook category which needs a less CPU intensive OS.

Vistapathy

However, the summer date has remained for desktops, despite the widespread apathy towards XP’s replacement, Windows Vista.

Ballmer – talking to the Most Valuable Professionals (MVP) conference in Seattle – opened by labelling Vista a work in progress. He then professed that Microsoft was still open to feedback on how long XP would be available.

"Windows Vista; a work in progress. A very important piece of work, and I think we did a lot of things right, and I think we have a lot of things we need to learn from," said Ballmer. He went on to say: "...we have some customers - a lot of customers - using Vista. A lot of customers. And we have a lot of customers that are choosing to stay with Windows XP.

Options

"And as long as those are both important options, we will be sensitive and we will listen and we will hear that. I got a piece of mail from a customer the other day that talked about not being able to get XP anymore. We responded, XP is still available.

"And I know we're going to continue to get feedback from people on how long XP should be available. We've got some opinions on that, we've expressed our views... I'm always interested in hearing from you on these and other issues. So the desktop business, it's our heart, it's our soul, we continue to drive forward from this foundation."

So has the popular XP won a stay of execution? Watch this space.

Firefox and Safari updates arrive

1208436033

Both Mozilla and Apple have released patches to their browsers with Firefox users being urged to move onto version 2.0.0.14 and Safari browsers 3.1.1.

Mozilla and Apple have been forced to patch for security reasons, with Mozilla looking to plug a Javascript vulnerability in its Garbage Collector function.

Apple

Meanwhile, Apple have moved to tighten things up in Safari 3.1.1 – with different fixes necessary for both PC and Mac versions of the popular browser.

The Mac fix plugs WebKit vulnerabilities – one of which came to light at the Pwn2Own contest in which the MacBook Air was the first to fall foul of the hackers.

For Vista and XP Safari users the patch not only includes these fixes but some other Windows specific problems.