I upgraded my Webserver/Mail server from Ubuntu 7.04 to 8.04 LTS today. Everything went pretty smoothly… love the simple upgrade method. I will be posting a method to get SMTP Auth working with this version, after I figure out which packages and method I want to use to get this going.

First off, Jeff Atwood’ s post on WordPress performance is flawed at best in my opinion. He is running on a system that many would consider non-standard. So at the very least, comparative numbers would have been appreciated. Perhaps Windows 2008 in VM running WP may be fast. Yet lets get some Linux numbers with Apache to verify, or BSD. Maybe this is an issue with Windows and PHP, or Cache issues isolated to the system he is on. Claiming that an entire publishing system is slow, or sloppy in coding style is harsh with no more supporting data or insight. In addition, calling a system sloppy that takes into account the various systems that could run the software, in various configurations (such as shared hosting with no write permissions for cache), is sloppy itself.

Yet this got me thinking. Why do I use and prefer what happen to be Open Source options, such as PHP? Personally it is more complicated than simply saying its free (which is nice), or that its the philosophy. While those may be important features, for me the largest reason is cross platform viability and lack of vendor lock in. I have heard many stories of old about elaborate systems being coded specifically for systems such as the AS400, and others. And that in the future, upgrading the system to something more current or cheaper was out of the question because of the enormous investment in money and time for the software that was specific to the platform. And moving would either require new software, or a very expensive code overhaul or recode.

So in the case of PHP, not only is the system available to most if not all major platforms, but I can even code in a style that further allows for this. By using features such as PDO, I can even make the database server independent. So even though systems such as MySQL may be open source, you never know if that may change. Or at least have conflicts with corporate interests such as Sun.

What got me thinking about this was some of the comments mentioning .NET, and I started to wonder why I was so against the .NET platform. I think the reliance on Microsoft and the Windows OS is what most puts me off. And even the OS solutions such as Mono are reliant upon Microsoft. And their open source attitude is one of contempt. So when I develop, I like the think neutral. Something that proprietary systems do not allow.

I have used Linux off and on for years. Yet due to my “forced” use of Windows to either run work related apps or programs that I felt for various reasons I could not be without, I am still very n00bish when it comes to the OS. I know my way around fine, and I am actually not afraid of command line. I use Linux as my webserver, and it doesnt have X or any other graphical interface installed.

Yet when it comes down to it, I admit I have a softspot for GUIs. Perhaps this is because I feel that more information can be converyed in a simple and effecient manner, or that they are quicker (although most of the time they are not). So when I have the choice to use a GUI, I use it more than the terminal. Now that I think about it, I should also probably blame my Windows roots. Habits die hard.

So as my last post conveyed, I installed Linux again. Frankly I am tired of Vista. Let me preface that first… I actually do not think that poorly of Vista. There is a lot of bad press about the OS, and a lot of very passionate people of each side voicing opinions. I used the OS for 8 months or so. When I first got it on my new laptop, I installed XP again due to my feeling that it was sooo slow. After a week I wanted to give it a more honest try, and did a clean install. Was much better that time around. Every OS has its issues, and Vista is not alone in that. But… to the people who are Mac fanboys or Linux fanboys, pretending that your champion OS does not have issues either is being fanatical or ignorant.

So, why did I get tired of it? One reason more than any other (such as printer drivers being a pain, like the HP ColorLaser 1300 that would work on one VIsta comp but not another… or without lots of tears. or programs having issues, or security annoyances), was the slooooow copy speeds. I wasted so much time copying files within the computer itself, to network drives, even USB attached drives. I started thinking the other day, when it is so bad that I actually plan on not using my VIsta computer to send a large file and instead think of ways to use an XP computer… its gone to far.

I came up with a list of the applications I currently use, which have changed to more opensource apps as time has gone on. I always have liked opensource, but recently I have switched not because they were free, or the freedom they have. But because I thought they were actually better applications than the commercial alternatives I had. Since I figured I could use 95% of my software natively on Linux, and the rest I could probably get to run with Wine… I decided to give Linux on my Laptop another try.

I have tried Linux on my laptop more than once. Fedora, SuSe, and Ubuntu. Fedora and Ubuntu never liked Wireless, and SuSe annoyed me. I like KDE but I just felt like I was never getting stuff done and spending more time goofing with the OS. As much of a geek as I am, I like to hack what I want. I would rather spend my time coding some web app than wasting hours trying to get a driver to run or the OS to do what I want. I am not a driver developer nor want to be. Some things should just work. And that sums up the reason why time after time I got rid of Linux. I use it on a desktop and never switched. Yet for a laptop where one of the main goals is wireless, I just found it unacceptable.

That brings me to my current state. Fresh install of Ubuntu 8.04 (Beta, but final version in less than a week). And again, more wireless issues. What I find frustrating is that google searches and forums queries, all give a multitude of ways to accomplish a single task. There are 3 GUIs to control Wireless settings. There are 2 or more different drivers that I “can” use for a single card. And no one seems to agree on the best method. The Ubuntu docs themselves list more than one approach. Can we not just agree on one method? Can we not just get ONE GUI that can just work? And not be buggy, or unfinished???

Linux is an OS built on good networking. So why is it so horrible at doing what the other major OSes can just do? And easily non the less. Wireless has been around for years! Come on already, if the masses are to uptake Linux (a dream at this point?) things like this cannot be.

I did find a seemingly good doc in the Ubuntu Forums that lists the steps to get Wireless working on my exact Laptop. Yet it is not updated for 8.04 yet… ugh. So I guess no wireless for me till then. Cause after spending two hours yet again trying to get wireless to work, im done for now. Or, maybe tomorrow I will find another method. Cause even though it looks good, it is still accomplishing a task that should be semi-instant through a maze of steps and command line hoopla.

Trying to install Ubuntu? Or any other Linux Distro?

If you get something such as:
buffer I/O error on device sr0 (And some block numbers)…

Try re-burning the ISO onto a new disc. If you have another computer, try that first. If not, slow down the burn speed to something like 4x 8x or 12x. The error is a corruption error and can come from a bad CD Drive, possibly your HD, or the CD media itself. Luckily in my case, it was just the CD. Although I did use another computer to burn a new image.

Got to find out what the issue was with the other comp now…

I recently started using NetBeans IDE 6.01 to code my PHP. In truth, I am working on an OpenOffice plugin for Calc, so I wanted to use the OOo plugin for NetBeans. After finding out that NetBeans has a PHP plugin, I tried it out. Initially liking it, I am going to switch from Aptana for a while to see how it goes.

Only complaint after using it for about 6 hours today, is that I wish I could modify the settings of the plugin more than it allows. For instance, changing how the code is displayed is hardcoded in. I have yet to play around with this, but my feeling is that the support will still be below what Aptana offered. With Aptana, I could change the colors for each item, such as one for functions, one for strings, one for variables, etc. This is something that I have grown very accustomed too.

I do like the server features in Netbeans. When I run the project, it will upload each file that has changed to the server I have set. I really like the project display, listing all the files in my project in a way that is clean and easy to navigate.