This family’s loss breaks my heart. They are friends of ours, and live in our neighborhood. Here is the obituary:

“Shelbi Kay Elwell 2002 ~ 2008 Our little princess, Shelbi Kay Elwell, age six, passed away from a sudden illness on Dec. 30, 2008.Shelbi was born to her loving parents, Rian and MeLea Elwell on Feb. 26, 2002. Shelbi loved princesses, Barbies, playing with her cousins, her brothers, and her many friends. She was a happy and fun loving little girl. She shared hugs and kisses with her family. She attended Pony Express Elementary School where she was in the first grade. Survived by her parents, her brothers, Cameron, Nathan and Carter, grandparents, Brad and Debra Sheppard, Ted and Roxene Kresser, Jack and Marsha Elwell, great grandparents, Grant and Karen Stubbs, RueLeen Sheppard, Susan Elwell, Frankie Barney, aunts, uncles, and many cousins. Funeral services will be held Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009 at 11 a.m. at the Eagle Mountain East Stake Center, 4506 E. Pony Express Parkway, Eagle Mountain, Utah. Viewings Friday evening from 6-8 p.m. at the church and Saturday 9:30-10:45 a.m. prior to the funeral. Burial, American Fork Cemetery.”

I went to the viewing on Saturday morning, and to her funeral. She was a beautiful little angel of a child.

If you can, please donate to help them with the mounting hospital, funeral, and burial costs. To make a contribution, go into any Zion’s bank branch, and state that you would like to make a donation to the account under the name of Shelbi Kay Elwell. You will then be able to make your contribution.

Here is the original obituary

Another way you can help is to post this same message on your blog or website, or send it to those in your address book. If you do, please include the information about her donation account. Let’s all help the Elwells as they work through their grief during this difficult time.

Not original, but classic, nonetheless

Why Santa Can’t Exist

1) No known species of reindeer can fly, but there are 300,000 species of organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (defined as persons under 18) in the world; However, since Santa doesn’t appear to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces the workload down to 15% of the original total - 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average census rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s only 91.8 million homes. One presumes that there is at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west. This works out to 822.6 visits per second. That is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chiminey, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chiminey, get back into the sleigh, and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which we know to be false but will accept for the purpose of these calculations), we are talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus eating, etc. This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second. A conventional reindeer can run 15 miles per hour at the most.

4) The payload on the sleigh add another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-size set of Lego building blocks about two pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that flying reindeer exist (see point 1), can fly very quickly (see point 2), and can pull ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine, reindeer. We would need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparision, this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth II (Queen Elizabeth II the ship that is).

5) 353,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This would heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they would burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within .00426 seconds. Santa, meanwhile, would be subjected to forces 17,500 times greater than normal gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion, if Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he’s dead now.

OK, we’re live and out the door!!! I am so late for work that I’m going to do something that I absolutely hate, (send you somewhere else to read what I could put here, myself). Nonetheless, I can’t just do nothing.

Read the OpenSUSE Linux 11.1 release news from here. Lots of new features (over 230) and take a look at the screenshots.

Remember, don’t use the mirrors, we’re going for a 200TB download record!!!

If you are using ‘wget’, this directory may be a good place to start. If you need to throttle, you can use ‘–limit-rate=’ to do this. Also, you can use the ‘-c’ switch for resuming if your download gets dead. Ex:. command line:
wget -c –limit-rate=40960 http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/iso/openSUSE-11.1-DVD-i586.iso
This will limit your rate to about 40kbps. If your download gets interrupted, just hit the up arrow and then hit [ENTER], and you’re back in the saddle.

Tell everyone so that we can blow the doors off the 200TB goal!!!

Everyone who can make it, please come to the OpenSUSE Linux 11.1 Release Party in Provo with all your disk images.

I have to run to make sure I still have a job. Enjoy, everyone!

The gauntlet has been cast at our feet, fans of Linux and OpenSUSE. Robin brought to my attention a post by Martin Lasarsch where he says, “Let’s try to break the 200TB mark this time.” Apparently, last time, we achieved 163 TB.

So bag the mirrors for the first day or so. Hit http://download.opensuse.org directly when you go to download OpenSUSE 11.1. Totally scratch what I said before, then, about using mirrors. Don’t use them. If we are going for a record, tell all your friends, and let’s GO FOR THE RECORD, for the love of all that is holy.

Seriously, let’s have some ideas on how we can legitimately do this! Get the word out! Blog about it! You might even digg this story, copy it and put it on your own blog, or send it out to your entire buddy list on every social networking site you have, or email it to everyone you have in your email address book.

I mean, not that we want to get carried away. We’re just trying to break a record is all.

Wouldn’t it be sweet to have a really cool gallery of Linux wallpapers? Well, TBH, it IS pretty cool, because that’s the newest addition to OpenSUSE Linux Rants. We now have our own Linux Wallpaper Gallery.

The featured wallpaper for the day is:

Click for larger image.

No idea who made it, but it’s a really slick piece of artwork. Resize as necessary.

OK, so we’ve been chatting a bit about the upcoming release of OpenSUSE 11.1. If we throw an eyeball at the official OpenSUSE.org server, the newest thing available from the official OpenSUSE.org server is not a GM. When it is a GM, DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT FROM THAT SERVER. That only hogs bandwidth that they use to transfer it to the mirrors. Wait about 4 hours, and then pick your favorite mirror and pull it down from there.

But unless I get a personal email from Stephan Kulow or Andreas Jaeger or Michael Loeffler, stating otherwise, I’m reasonably sure that the OpenSUSE 11.1 GM is not publicly available, yet.

However, now you know how to check for yourself for sure when it has been released. But if I catch you downloading from there the minute they put it on there, so help me….

Tell you what, though, if you really want to get some wicked screenshots from how OpenSUSE 11.1 will look, hop on your nearest moped and head over to http://news.opensuse.org/. There are previews of tons of stuff related to OpenSUSE 11.1, including this:

Click for larger version

So we know the GM exists, but it’s the “Where’s Waldo?” element of it that still has my OCD in overdrive.

Quick little sidenote, OpenSUSE 11.1 GM is not available, and won’t be for a few more days. If you see a torrent of it, it’s likely a release candidate. If you actually see a real torrent that claims to be a GM, then I will consult my sources on whether this is possible. But as of yet, I wish people would not say that “OpenSUSE 11.1 has been released” when it actually hasn’t been.

The lesser-minded get confused when this happens. When the GM is available for download from the opensuse.org servers and mirrors, THEN it’s released.

Just to avoid confusion, they even have a counter:

I mean from what I can tell, that is still a positive number. By logical deduction, that means that the GM isn’t there, yet.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here, people. You’re just going to confuse some people and aggravate others when they find out they’ve waited 8 hours to download a release candidate from some torrent that was named GM.

Unless you are totally sure it’s the GM, then gimme the URL.

I have another Cinelerra animatic storyboarding assignment done. We had to convey a story to the audience that would persuade them to purchase our product. Mine went a little overboard, but everyone thought it was a hoot:

Click image to download Ogg Theora Video
Here’s a WMV if you don’t do Ogg Theora

There was a time when I would rather take a 2×4 full of rusty nails and jam it through my neck sideways than try and use Cinelerra, but the more obstinately I mercilessly force myself to keep using it, the cooler the stuff I am able to do. Now, don’t confuse that with me having delusions of talent. It’s just that I can find the cooler features of the program.

For what that’s worth, take a gander at the video, and see if you get the joke. Have a good one.

Woot, OpenSUSE 11.1 is almost here!

For all the Utah folks, or anyone who will be in Utah, or anyone who can get to Utah on or ab out December 18, you are cordially and enthusiastically invited to the OpenSUSE 11.1 release party that will be hosted at the Open Source Technology Center on the Novell campus.

Details:

December 18, 2008 @ 18:00
1800 South Novell Place, Provo, UT
Building A (Open Source Technology Center)
Looking for a sponsor for pizza. Please RSVP (just in case) - sshaw@decriptor.com

For people seeking directions, I’ll just grab them and the map from our OpenSUSE 11.0 Release Party this past June:

Click image for larger version

Image legend:
1. North-bounders coming in on I-15 take this exit (exit number 263, I believe).
2. South-bounders coming in on I-15 take this exit (exit number 263).
3. This is building A where the Open Source Technology Center (OSTC) is.

For those using Google Maps or Google Earth, see the address above.

Everyone come.

Leave a comment if you don’t get it so someone can explain it to you.

Great times.

If there’s one thing I love, it’s writing about Linux to help out new users. Perhaps the work that has given me the best return is “The Easiest Linux Guide You’ll Ever Read - an introduction to Linux for Windows users”. But return in terms of what? Well, here’s the total amount of money I made from writing this book: $0.00 USD. The greatest satisfaction for me was all of the feedback I got from people expressing appreciation. That’s what I love. Writing about Linux to help out new users.

So one thing that I really get a kick out of is when I see that Linux ebook posted on other sites, the most flattering of which is here on opensuse.org.

Well, this morning, I found another article on the Daily Artisan called “Open Source E-Books for Linux, which listed the Easiest Linux Guide. Stuff like that is nice to see.

I really need to get to work on a new one for the OpenSUSE 11 platform, huh?

I found this spectacular article on reasons to consider Linux in a down economy. Actually, they work in any economy. Take a look:

10. Value - Linux has value to a worldwide group of consumers. It runs most of the world’s mission critical websites and is the platform of choice for server virtualization.

9. Less Hardware Overhead - You can still run world class websites, applications, and services on a machine that is outdated by today’s standards. And you have the added bonus of being able to outrun those applications compared to their Windows counterparts.

8. Active Development - Linux is actively developed meaning that new hardware drivers are available as soon as a new device hits the market and improvements are being made on a daily basis to the kernel and supporting code. No need to wait two or three years for the next belated and bloated version from the other guys.

7. Choice - Linux gives you a choice to do things differently and better in your home, office, or data center. Having a choice is good for consumers because it means that vendors and programmers are trying to get your attention by creating quality products for you to use. Competition creates better products and services which is a boon to you and your budget.

6. Multiple Distributions - I’ve heard this one used as a negative part of a campaign by Microsoft claiming that there are too many Linux distributions. Balderdash! Having a system that meets any need from cell phones and wristwatches to supercomputers is just what we need to solve the problems at hand. Having only one distribution is like needing to build a house but finding only a screwdriver in your toolbox.

5. Open Source Model - The Open Source Development model helps everyone in the Linux community from end users to other developers all the way up to C-level executives. The way in which this model helps is that all development is open and source code is available for all to see and improve upon. You can create applications and alter the Operating System itself for any purpose.

4. Available Development Community - Want to contact the developers who created a particular application, protocol, or service? You can. You can submit bug reports, email them directly, and in some cases speak directly to them on the phone. You can even submit your own code that will be included in a major distribution. You have real input to Linux and Open Source software.

3. Unix Stability - Linux is based on Unix and shares its multi-tasking, multi-user, and stable kernel and filesystem structures. For mission-critical environments, you need this kind of stability. Stability means not only that you don’t have to reboot the machine for software installations, driver updates, or even network changes but also that you’ll enjoy uptimes measured in years not days.

2. Compatibility - The old argument was that Linux wasn’t compatible with Windows but through the magic of Samba (File and Printer sharing), Wine, and Cygwin; Linux and Windows are very interoperable and can share files, applications, and services.

1. Commercial Support - Another old complaint from the Redmond camp was that Linux is supported by a bunch of amateurs and part-timers. Red Hat, Novell, Xandros, IBM, HP, Dell, Canonical, and others have thrown their significant financial and human resources behind Linux. Linux has commercial support–even from Microsoft.

Read “10 Reasons To Choose Linux in a Bad Economy”

Linux is mind-blowingly versatile. There are versions that run digital meter maids in Canada, there’s a version that runs on the Space Shuttle, one that runs on an unmanned self-navigating Army vehicle, and so forth… The latest great news is that Linux runs on the iPhone. Enough twaddle, here’s what you came for, the video demonstration:

iPhone Linux Demonstration Video from planetbeing on Vimeo

Linux rocks, baby.

Heh, if only. The fastest I’ve gotten a full Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP server running on OpenSUSE Linux was 37 minutes, and that includes adding all of the installation repositories. It was also installed without X, running in init level 3.

So, what are people’s records on getting a given LAMP stack up and running?

Red Hat has set an example for us this Christmas season. Plans were made for a no-holds-barred holiday party. Instead, they decided to donate funds, food, and even coats. They are donating enough money to pay for 800,000 meals at the chosen food bank, Feeding America (formerly known as America’s Second Harvest). Economic troubles, resulting in fewer philanthropic donations, created a need. Red Hat rose to the occasion. Hats off to them for setting a great example for the rest of us. What a miracle and blessing it would be for many of other corporations followed in their footsteps.

Excerpts:

“She (DeLisa Alexander) declined to say how much money Red Hat will donate, but it’s enough to pay for about 800,000 meals at food banks run by Feeding America. In the Triangle, the group runs the Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina and the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle.”

“Red Hat workers also are organizing canned food drives and other efforts in conjunction with the food bank donation. In Raleigh, executives will give cash for every 500 cans collected, Alexander said. Again, she declined to name a dollar amount. The company’s Dallas office is organizing a coat drive.”

Read the rest of the story: Red Hat Chooses Food Bank Over Festivities

OpenSUSE has another beta out. This time it’s beta 5. Here are the announcements, both written by Joe Brockmeier, from the OpenSUSE news room:

Greetings, openSUSE fans! We have another development release ready for your testing pleasure. openSUSE 11.1 beta 5 is now available for immediate download and testing.

You may have noticed that we were scheduled to release RC 1 today. However, as Stephan Kulow mentioned on openSUSE-Factory list on Tuesday, we have several blocker bugs and 11 P1 bugs still present. While we’re ready to do another release today, we decided that it wasn’t ready to be called a release candidate. This shouldn’t push back the final release, but it will mean that we will only plan to have one release candidate.

With just a little more than a month before the public release on December 18th, there’s still plenty to do. So, roll up your sleeves and start downloading!

Call for Testing

We all want openSUSE 11.1 to be the best release yet, and we need your help to get there. This release is ready for widespread testing, and we’re encouraging everyone to download and test the beta releases.  Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know about any bugs or other issues that you find. Remember that this is a beta release, and is not suitable for use on production systems. Though many openSUSE users can and do use the Factory distribution and/or beta release for day-to-day work we want to stress that it’s entirely possible that you will encounter serious bugs.

See openSUSE.org/Testing for more information on testing.

To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the #openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.

What’s changed since beta 4?

Major changes in this release include:

• More 11.1 branding is now in place.
• Upgrade to PackageKit 0.3.9
• Integration of Smolt finished
• More translations!
• Linux kernel updated to 2.6.27.5
• KDE 4.1.3
• Xfce 4.4.3
• Many updated packages, including: Amarok, Banshee, Blender, Digikam, Bazaar, Frozen Bubble, The GIMP, LyX, and Wine.

See the Factory News page for changes in the Factory distribution between release announcements. DistroWatch also carries an expanded list of packages being shipped in the Factory distribution.

OpenOffice.org 3.0 is shaping up nicely for 11.1. Petr Mladek has sent in the following new and remaining bugs for OpenOffice.org:

+ OOo does not start in KDE when OpenOffice_org-gnome is installed (bnc#442678)
+ Pyuno components are still not registered
+ Mono integration is not correctly installed
+ Localized strings are not updated from extra sources
+ The user configuration includes symlinks to /usr/share/ooo3 instead of real files. This may be a feature, but it might also cause problems in the future
+ Missing OOo-sdk compat stuff (bnc#428403)
+ Suse-puzzler.xls works only partly; e.h. “Sneaky Peak” or “About” works but the “Shuffle” does nothing. Also, you can’t move the puzzle pieces with a mouse.

These bugs are being worked on for RC1.

Media and Download

11.1 beta 5 can be found at http://software.opensuse.org/developer. You can find mirrors that have beta 5 images here:

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1-Beta5/iso/

This release does include PPC media, so users with PowerPC machines have the opportunity to test beta 5 on those as well.

Most Annoying Bugs

While many bugs have been eliminated since the last beta, we still have a few remaining (and new) bugs that testers should be aware of:

Selecting KDE 3.5 also installs KDE4 workspace and defaults to KDE4. Workaround: Choose KDE3 desktop at login manager.
Installation via network on Pegasos2 and Efika is not possible since the initial image does not contain the network drivers (they are available after installation)

Bug #439126: Hibernation does not work with 32-bit PAE kernels.
Bug #432980: On some Intel chipsets (945GM) display can’t wake from sleep.
Bug #444127: kupdateapplet shows error when license is requested
Bug #437735: printers are not installed
Bug #444519: the i586 DVD does not contain any i686 glibc

Future Release Announcements

Note to openSUSE contributors: If you have any changes or features to call out for future release announcements, please send an email to Zonker with any information that should be in that announcement. (Preferably at least two days before the scheduled release.

 

 

And here’s the announcement from the mailing list:

Greetings, openSUSE fans! We have another development release ready
for your testing pleasure. openSUSE 11.1 beta 5 is now available for
immediate download and testing.

You may have noticed that we were scheduled to release RC 1 today.
However, as Stephan Kulow mentioned on openSUSE-Factory list [1] on
Tuesday, we have several blocker bugs and 11 P1 bugs still present.
While we’re ready to do another release today, we decided that it

wasn’t ready to be called a release candidate. This shouldn’t push
back the final release, but it will mean that we will only plan to
have one release candidate.

With just a little more than a month [2] before the public release on
December 18th, there’s still plenty to do. So, roll up your sleeves
and start downloading!

Call for Testing
================

We all want openSUSE 11.1 to be the best release yet, and we need your
help to get there. This release is ready for widespread testing, and
we’re encouraging everyone to download and test the beta releases.
Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know
about any bugs or other issues that you find. Remember that this is a
beta release, and is not suitable for use on production systems.
Though many openSUSE users can and do use the Factory distribution
and/or beta release for day-to-day work we want to stress that it’s

entirely possible that you will encounter serious bugs.

See openSUSE.org/Testing for more information on testing.

To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you
subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the
#openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.

What’s changed since beta 4?
============================

Major changes in this release include:

* More 11.1 branding is now in place.
* Upgrade to PackageKit 0.3.9.
* KDE4: NetworkManager and power management Plasmoids now available
* Integration of Smolt finished
* More translations! [3]
* Linux kernel updated to 2.6.27.5
* KDE 4.1.3

* Xfce 4.4.3
* Many updated packages, including: Amarok, Banshee, Blender, Digikam,
Bazaar, Frozen Bubble, The GIMP, LyX, and Wine.

See the Factory News page for changes in the Factory distribution
between release announcements. [4] DistroWatch also carries an
expanded list of packages being shipped in the Factory distribution.
[5]

OpenOffice.org 3.0 is shaping up nicely for 11.1. Petr Mladek has sent

in the following new and remaining bugs for OpenOffice.org:

+ OOo does not start in KDE when OpenOffice_org-gnome is installed (bnc#442678)
+ Pyuno components are still not registered
+ Mono integration is not correctly installed
+ Localized strings are not updated from extra sources
+ The user configuration includes symlinks to /usr/share/ooo3 instead
of real files. This may be a feature, but it might also cause problems
in the future

+ Missing OOo-sdk compat stuff (bnc#428403)
+ Suse-puzzler.xls works only partly; e.h. “Sneaky Peak” or “About”
works but the “Shuffle” does nothing. Also, you can’t move the puzzle
pieces with a mouse.

These bugs are being worked on for RC1.

Media and Download
==================

11.1 beta 5 can be found at http://software.opensuse.org/developer.
You can find mirrors that have beta 5 images here:

http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1-Beta5/iso/

This release does include PPC media, so users with PowerPC machines
have the opportunity to test beta 5 on those as well.

Most Annoying Bugs

==================

While many bugs have been eliminated since the last beta, we still
have a few remaining (and new) bugs that testers should be aware of:

Selecting KDE 3.5 also installs KDE4 workspace and defaults to KDE4.
Workaround: Choose KDE3 desktop at login manager.
Installation via network on Pegasos2 and Efika is not possible since
the initial image does not contain the network drivers (they are
available after installation)

Bug #439126: Hibernation does not work with 32-bit PAE kernels.
Bug #432980: On some Intel chipsets (945GM) display can’t wake from sleep.
Bug #444127: kupdateapplet shows error when license is requested
Bug #437735: printers are not installed
Bug #444519: the i586 DVD does not contain any i686 glibc

Future Release Announcements
============================

Note to openSUSE contributors: If you have any changes or features to

call out for future release announcements, please send an email to
Zonker (zonker@xxxxxxxxxxxx) with any information that should be in
that announcement. (Preferably at least two days before the scheduled
release.

[1] http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2008-11/msg00402.html
[2] http://en.opensuse.org/Roadmap
[3] http://i18n.opensuse.org/stats/trunk/toplist.php

[4] http://en.opensuse.org/Factory/News
[5] http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=suse

Have a lot of fun!
–
Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier
openSUSE Community Manager
jzb@xxxxxxxxxx

http://zonker.opensuse.org/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/

So there you have it. Grab the DVD via bittorrent and take a look!

For awhile now, I’ve thought that Novell should offer a way for people to migrate to their enterprise products. Well, according to their press release, “Novell Announces New Program to Aid Transition to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server,” apparently, they’ve caught the vision. It’s nice to see that they’re actually maneuvering and strategizing. For a long time, it seemed like they were just kind of slowly dying off. But with their actions of recent years, such as buying SuSE, their partnership with Microsoft (not that I approve of this, of course), and now their latest move, it seems that they’re serious about business. From the press release:

“The new program is in response to growing customer demand for help as they make the strategic decision to transition their data center Linux infrastructure from existing third-party distributions, such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS, to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Many times, customers who want to move between platforms are constrained by factors such as IT resource limitations, application migration scheduling and training costs, which means they need time to make an orderly transition. In response to these challenges, Novell is providing technical support for a customer’s existing Linux environment and is also delivering training and tools to ensure the transition to the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform is smooth and successful.”

That seems like a strong move on their part, and shows their dedication to helping potential customers.