A $550 Mac Mini Linux Clone is DOA

 Linux, Products  Comments Off on A $550 Mac Mini Linux Clone is DOA
Feb 092015
 

Would you pay $550 for a Mac Mini clone running Linux?

I certainly would not.

When I hear of a Linux desktop, a Pavlovian trigger in my brain brings up pictures of tons of free software and cheap hardware costing no more than $99-$129.

Paying anything more for a Linux consumer desktop, even if it comes in a cute little box, is utter folly in my not so humble opinion.

To me, Linux is the last bastion against the soul crushing creed of barbaric capitalism championed by the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Uber.

And to associate Linux with overpriced hardware breaks my heart. 🙁

Black Lab BriQ Rev 4 Linux MiniBlack Lab BriQ Mini rev4

Pricey Affair

So when news came my way of the Black Lab BriQ rev4 Linux Mini desktop computer for $550 ($650 with 3-year warranty), I fell off my chair.

What in the world is wrong with these people, I asked myself not sotto voce but loud enough to rattle neighbors in my townhome row.

PC-opensystems, the North Carolina company behind the cute BriQ rev 4 and the Black Lab Linux distribution running on the box, is pitching the “Mac mini” type PC as a “very affordable system” for use in offices, dorm rooms, living rooms or as a gaming PC.

If $550 is considered affordable for a Linux desktop (mind you now, it’s without a monitor), I guess my dictionary of value and comprehension must be a lot outdated. Because it makes just no sense to me.

Now if you’re curious about the Linux mini’s specs, it’s powered by a Intel Celeron 1.5Ghz processor (not the fastest of chips) and comes with 16GB RAM, 500GB hard disk, wireless keyboard and mouse, 6 USB slots (2 USB 3.0 and 4 USB 2.0) and integrated WiFi 802.11 N and Bluetooth.

The system runs on the Black Lab Linux distro, which offers a choice of KDE or GNOME desktops

For comparison purposes, HP’s Windows 8.1 Pavilion Mini desktop (Model 300-020: Intel Pentium 3558U dual core, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, wireless keyboard and mouse, integrated WiFi and Bluetooth) is $320. The higher end HP Pavilion Mini Model 300-030 (dual core Intel i3 processor, 4GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, wireless keyboard and mouse, integrated WiFi and Bluetooth) sells for $450.

When the real Mac Mini is going for $499 (albeit, with lesser specs than the Black Lab BriQ rev 4) and Windows Minis for $450 or less, for the life of me I can’t see people paying $550 for an imitator running Linux.

Although I desperately want Linux to conquer the consumer desktop, I doubt the Black Lab BriQ Linux Mini rev4 will create any ripples given its $550 price tag.

Related Content:
Black Lab Lunux Consumer Hardware
HP Pavilion Mini Desktop Model 300-020

Snappy Ubuntu Core Mates with Raspberry Pi 2

 Linux, Products  Comments Off on Snappy Ubuntu Core Mates with Raspberry Pi 2
Feb 022015
 

Raspberry Pi enthusiasts keen on uniting Linux with their spanking new quad-core Pi 2 toy will be pleased to know that Snappy Ubuntu Core will run on it.

The new $35 Raspberry Pi 2 single board computer is a drool worthy device for developers, innovators and hackers who no longer have to fret about resource constraints.

$35 Raspberry Pi 2 with Snappy Ubuntu CoreRaspberry Pi 2 – A Steal at $35

“Ubuntu has been a key missing piece on our operating system support for the Raspberry Pi. We are looking forward to seeing what new things people are able to do with Snappy Ubuntu Core on the Raspberry Pi 2,” says Eben Upton, Founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Still in beta, Snappy Ubuntu Core offers a minimal server image for clouds and devices. In the Snappy iteration of Ubuntu, the OS and application files are kept completely separate, as a set of distinct read-only images enhancing overall security and stability.

Just in case you’ve arrived lately from Mars, Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that you can hook up to a regular monitor or TV. The cool little marvel works with a standard keyboard and mouse and whatever you can do on a PC (browse the net, watch videos, play games etc) you should be able to do without sweat on the Raspberry Pi 2.

Until today, the Raspberry Pi device was constrained by the processor and memory. But with a quad-core processor and 1GB memory, a lot more can be accomplished with it now.

Raspberry Pi 2 Features:
* 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU (~6x performance)
* 1GB LPDDR2 SDRAM (2x memory)
* Compatibility with Raspberry Pi 1

Raspberry Pi 2 is available at element14 and RS Components. I’ll pick up a unit when it hits Amazon.com in the U.S.

Avoid Dependency Hell with Gdebi

 Command Line, Linux  Comments Off on Avoid Dependency Hell with Gdebi
Jan 312015
 

If you’re running a Debian-based Linux system, I suggest you keep gdebi in mind.

While Debian has a humungous collection of packages that runs into tens of thousands, there are occasions when a particular software you want might not be part of the default distribution.

Under such circumstances what do you do?

You either fuggedaboudit or you download the program to your computer and install it via dpkg -i, all the while praying for a miracle that you won’t run into dependency issues with your local.deb package.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo dpkg -i local.deb

But if you run into dependency issues with the program, you are back to square one because the dpkg command does not address dependency problems of your local.deb package.

Use gdebi

A better option to install local.deb packages without worrying about dependency issues is to use gdebi.

An extremely useful tool, gdebi allows you to install local.deb packages without worrying about resolving and installing the necessary dependencies.

Since gdebi is not installed by default with most distributions including LinuxMint 17, you’ll have to install it on your own.

How to Install gdebi

Installing gdebi is child’s play if you know how to type. 😉

Look how simple it is:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install gdebi

On distros like LinuxMint, you have the option to install gdebi via the Software Manager.

Once you have gdebi installed, it’s no sweat. Continue reading »

How to Add EPEL Repository to CentOS

 Command Line, Linux  Comments Off on How to Add EPEL Repository to CentOS
Jan 312015
 

So you’ve installed CentOS on your computer and have it up and running without any issues.

Good job!

Now we can move to another key step in your CentOS learning adventure – Adding more repositories.

For purposes of this post, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve installed the older CentOS 6.6 or the newer CentOS 7.0.

What is a Repository?

As a newbie, you might be forgiven for wondering what the heck a repository is in Linux.

Think of a repository as a central location from where you can download software packages to your system.

Why are repositories important?

When you first install a Linux distribution (CentOS, RedHat, Oracle Linux, Scientific Linux etc), you usually get only a limited set of packages with it. But later you might feel the need for a software package that might not available in the CentOS base repository. So you look to third party repositories for the packages you want.

A repository often contains thousands of software packages ranging from browsers to RSS readers to text editors to more complex stuff like IDEs (integrated development environments).

The beauty of Linux is its flexibility, which lets you add or delete any package you want later.

When you download a package from a repository using commands like yum install package_name (for RedHat, CentOS and Fedora systems) or apt-get install package_name (for Debian, Ubuntu and LinuxMint systems), they are downloaded from a repository and you get dependency resolution automatically. Dependencies are other programs that must be installed for your desired package to work properly.

So when you install the Libre Office package from a repository, you also automatically get other software components that are required for Libre Office to work well.

Bear in mind that packages and repositories are distribution specific.

For instance, the popular EPEL repository is meant for users running Fedora, CentOS or Red Hat and not for those who have deployed Debian, Ubuntu or LinuxMint on their servers or desktop computers. Ditto with packages. Those meant for Debian and its derivatives will not work on CentOS, RedHat or Fedora and vice versa.

Good as the base CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux repositories are, they are not comprehensive. As a matter of fact, no single repository is ever comprehensive enough.

So there arises the need to install other repositories like EPEL (an acronym for Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux), IUS, ELRepo, ATrpms etc.

Before you go about installing other repositories, first check what’s installed on your computer with yum repolist all.

The below command should provide a list of all repositories (both enabled and disabled) on your CentOS system:

michael@centos-guru ~]# yum repolist all

Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, refresh-packagekit, security
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* base: ftp.osuosl.org
* extras: mirror.cc.columbia.edu
* updates: mirror.es.its.nyu.edu
repo id repo name status
base CentOS-6 – Base 6,518
extras CentOS-6 – Extras 36
updates CentOS-6 – Updates 565
repolist: 7,119

Now that you know what repositories are available on your computer you can install whichever repository you want.

Let’s install EPEL, a well supported repository for CentOS, Fedora and RedHat Linux distributions

Responsibility for maintaining EPEL rests with the Fedora Special Interest Group.

How to Install EPEL

Installing EPEL repository on a CentOS or RedHat desktop or server is easy when you follow the below steps.

EPEL on CentOS 6.6

Before installing the EPEL repository, make sure you’re on root and then run the below commands (depending on whether you’re running 32-bit or 64-bit CentOS and the version):

For 32-bit CentOS 6.x Systems

$ wget http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh epel-release-6*.rpm

Continue reading »

MintBox Mini Not a Good Buy

 Linux, Products  Comments Off on MintBox Mini Not a Good Buy
Jan 272015
 

MintBox Mini - Pricey LinuxMint Computer

Some people live in a fool’s paradise, a ra ra island inaccessible to the rest of us fortunate elements inhabiting the mainland of sanity.

Or at least so I thought when I heard Israeli hardware outfit CompuLab and LinuxMint (the folks behind the eponymous Linux distribution) had come together to offer a MintBox Mini computer for $295 in the second quarter of 2015.

MintBox Mini is to be peddled through Amazon.com in the U.S. and Europe.

LinuxMint will get an unspecified share of the sale proceeds.

Just in case you didn’t know, LinuxMint is currently enjoying its 15 minutes of fame, i.e. it’s the most popular Linux distribution  (according to Distrowatch.com).

After using LinuxMint for eight months (both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions) and enduring frequent painful freezes that drove me nuts, my judgment is that this Linux distro is still not as robust as one would wish it to be.

MintBox Mini will debut with Linux Mint 17.1 MATE 64-bit pre-installed (although Cinnamon is a far more popular desktop than MATE). On first boot, users must pick a username, password and location.

Pricey, Pricey

Now why in God’s name would you want to pay $300 for a MintBox Mini computer (4GB RAM, a measly 64GB SSD) when you can get a better Linux PC for a third of the cost.

I’m, of course, assuming you have all your marbles intact and possess a keen desire to get value for your money.

Here are some huge downers with the MintBox Mini – No monitor. No keyboard. No mouse. No HDMI to VGA adapter.

No, there’s no Bluetooth support either in the MintBox Mini. Continue reading »

What Packages are Installed on My Linux System?

 Command Line, Linux  Comments Off on What Packages are Installed on My Linux System?
Jan 062015
 

It’s always good to keep an inventory of what packages are installed on your Linux server or desktop.

Unfortunately there’s no single command here that does the trick on all Linux systems.

Different Linux distributions require you to type different commands to display installed packages.

Let’s take a deko at commands for a bunch of key distributions.

RedHat, CentOS & Fedora

For RPM based distributions like RedHat and CentOS, run the below command to get a list of installed packages:

$ rpm -qa

Alternatively, you could run:

yum list installed

If you want to save the output to a text file for later reference or printing, issue either of the below commands.

$ rpm -qa > Installed_Packages.txt

or

$ yum list installed > Installed_Packages.txt

My recommendation is to run the commands frequently (say once a month) and keep a copy of the output with the dates saved in the file.

Debian, Ubuntu & Linux Mint

Since a lot of folks these days are running Linux Mint or Ubuntu on their desktops, let’s see the appropriate command for these Apptitude distributions.

$ dpkg -l

If you want to save the output to a file, run the below command:

$ dpkg -l > Installed_Packages-Jan-5-2015.txt

Arch Linux & Manjaro

While Linux Mint is the clearly the flavor of the season on the desktop side, Arch Linux is not without its fan base, particularly among experienced users.

By the way, Arch Linux and Manjaro are Pacman based distributions.

$ pacman -Q

To retrieve a list of the files installed by a package, here’s what you need to run:

$ pacman -Ql package_name

OpenBSD & FreeBSD

Here’s the command to get the list of packages installed on your FreeBSD system:

Pkg is the package management tool for both FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

$ pkg info

For older versions of FreeBSD (i.e. pre 10.x), use the below command:

$ pkg_info

OpenBSD

$ pkg_info

If you’re looking for the list of programs (not packages) installed on your system, try:

$ compgen -c

I’ve tested compgen –c on Linux Mint 17.1 and CentOS 7. It worked fine on both.

As always, be sure to check the man pages for each of these distribution for the variety of options.

Related Installed Packages Information:
FreeBSD PkgPrimer
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