Posts tagged: OPEN SOURCE

A step-by-step guide from real life.

In July, I switched from OS X to Ubuntu as my workday environment. For three years my personal MacBook Air had been pulling double duty, personal computer plus workstation at my job (each role with its respective user on the box). When the combined demands for disk space exceeded the 250GB SSD, I took that as a sign that it was time for a change. I work outside my office enough that an external HD wasn’t a practical solution, and a USB key is too slow.

So, I requested a Windows laptop from the company stash. Step one: wipe Windows off it. Step two: install Ubuntu 14.04.

Here are some highlights and hopefully useful details about the switch and the new setup.

Recently I switched my work environment from OS X to Ubuntu (a post on that project is in the works).

For years I’ve been using the standard Apple Keychain app, which has several points in its favor: it’s included with the OS, it integrates well with a lot of applications, and is not trying to “freemium” me into a paid tier. However, it’s OS X only, which meant I had to find something new.

It will surprise few that I have not yet given Apple $10 for the privilege of upgrading my iPod touch (“iPt”) firmware from 1.1.5 to 2.x.

Update: A month after posting this, I took the plunge. Version 2.2 came with some nice little improvements. I still miss my shell, but at least I have an SSH app!

At first, I resisted out of attachment to the open source software I had installed via Cydia – with no supported “upgrade” process per se, I would have had to reinstall all my packages manually. Then I saw that my core uses of the iPt (email, web browsing, audio, calendar, contacts) all used the Apple software, so I leaned toward the upgrade.

I just filed a ticket with the Google AppEngine project requesting the source to GoogleAppEngineLauncher, with the idea that this would make a very cool Django developer’s aid on OS X – much like Locomotive for Rails. Anybody else interested in this should go star it:

I’m doing a small experiment in open source distribution.

I have a site, toolbot.com, which formerly was a collection of miscellaneous PHP scripts that I had assembled over the years for specific tasks – package tracking, dummy text generation, link shortening, etc. Those tools are now offline. The original cause of their disappearance was a MySQL failure, but that really just provided an opportunity for me to make a break with that pile of old code.

From a post at Rogue Amoeba:

• Allow applications to be installed at the user’s discretion, not Apple’s
• Allow applications to run in background on iPhone
• Allow access to root user on iPhone
• A MediaPicker API for accessing the iPod music files is needed
• Add option to allow iPhone applications to access entire filesystem
• Allow iPhone applications to access the host computer when docking
• Permit Voice over IP on the cellular network
• Allow iPhone applications to access the docking port

Funny, it reads more like a list of demands! I’m +1 on it all though.