* An automatic file system check (fsck) of the root filesystem failed.  A manual fsck must be performed, then the system restarted. The fsck should be performed in maintenance mode with the root filesystem mounted in read-only mode.

So, basically, my main filesystem was broken somehow.  Adding insult to injury, of course, was the fact that the thing that was shown as causing the problem was S01E02 of Firefly, which I was considering watching soon.  Great. On a strange note, the other place that was giving me trouble was on /etc/acpi/suspend.d/10-thinkpad-standby-led.sh. As for the problem itself,  I know why it happened, of course–this server only goes down when the power goes out and I would imagine that the file reference didn’t get correctly written to the journal before the server crashed. So, after multiple “Multiply-claimed block(s) in inode: x: xxxx xxx” errors, it finally told me to reboot.  After doing so, it fscked the disk again and then had me reboot AGAIN.  Awesome.  That finally let it work though, so I can’t complain.  Now to get a new CMOS battery…

Getting Adobe AIR for Ubuntu 8.10 couldn’t be easier.  Visit the Adobe AIR download page and it’ll automatically detect your system type from your browser’s settings.  The file is a .bin file which means you don’t have to compile it.  Assuming you download it with firefox, simply fire up your terminal, change to your download directory (probably ~/Desktop) and issue

nuke@nuke-laptop:~/Desktop$ chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin 
nuke@nuke-laptop:~/Desktop$ sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Note: I was getting a very nondescript error when I ran that command saying that Adobe AIR couldn’t be installed and, of course, that was about all of the information I got.  I found out it was because I had the Adobe AIR 1.1 beta installed, which I needed to uninstall.  If you get that, simply run the following command (on Ubuntu):

nuke@nuke-laptop:~/Desktop$ sudo dpkg -r adobeair-enu

and you’ll be fine. If you’re still having problems,definitely look at Adobe’s short FAQ on AIR 1.5.  It will give you a few things to try.  I also had to uninstall my previous AIR stuff with the following commands:

nuke@nuke-laptop:~$ rm .appdata/ -rf
nuke@nuke-laptop:~$ rm .adobe/AIR/ -rf
nuke@nuke-laptop:~$ rm .macromedia/Flash_Player/www.macromedia.com/bin/air* -rf

Then, to get things working, I had to go to the Flash Player download site and download the newest version of Flash!  Also, for anything else that I had installed for AIR (such as twhirl) I had to go in and manually remove it from Ubuntu’s package system.  Now, with most AIR apps, they name the package $appname.air.123o1u4831414323 or somesuch.  However, with twhirl, it installs it as de.makesoft.twhirl.0ea062bc275e7ed1e6ec3762effd73c7158adf33.1 (at least for me) so I had to run

nuke@nuke-laptop:~$ sudo dpkg -r de.makesoft.twhirl.0ea062bc275e7ed1e6ec3762effd73c7158adf33.1

That let me reinstall twhirl. If you can’t find that exact app but have the same problem, try autocompleting (tab) in the terminal after you type “de.makesoft”.  After all of that work, it was working great.  Finally!

After a bit of searching, though, I’ve found a nice updated program called Back in Time.  I really like a lot of the features it supports.  It’s written in python and uses rsync and diff to do its magic.  One of the nice features of Back in Time is that it only updates files that have been updated since the last backup.  This doesn’t seem like that huge of a thing, but it does it well.  The only problem I’ve found is that the it won’t accept symlinks that link to outside of its directories–you’ll have to manually include that directory to be included.  Other than that, it’s great!  Check it out.

At the start of the article, RMS starts off by setting the scene by portraying the “unethical system of restrictions that Microsoft, like many other software companies, imposes on its customers.“  Really?  I am sorry but, in the end, Microsoft is a business and it is licensed to do what it feels best helps out Microsoft.  I dislike a lot of what they do, but they are a business.  That’s how they are supposed to work.  Why is RMS not attacking other industries, like the food industry?  Coca-Cola is, after all, ‘closed source’ and we are all dependant on them to keep making Coca-Cola for us to be able to drink it.  RMS is simply attacking the easiest target in this argument over Free Software.  Why not attack Apple every time they release their latest iPod or iMac?  I would imagine the main reason is that it is much harder to attack a company like Apple that doesn’t have the same instant dislike that Microsoft seems to invoke in most people.

RMS also attacks Bill Gates quite a bit in this article, even though he claims that Gates “doesn’t matter.”  His fourth paragraph is almost exclusively an attack on Bill Gates.

Gates’ philanthropy for health care for poor countries has won some people’s good opinion. The LA Times reported that his foundation spends five to 10% of its money annually and invests the rest, sometimes in companies it suggests cause environmental degradation and illness in the same poor countries.

I am incredulous that RMS is attacking what Bill Gates is doing with his foundation.  If Gates is investing the majority of his money (at this point) into companies that are researching ways to solve problems that are common in the developing world, isn’t that a personal decision that Gates must make?  Why is that a bad decision?  I don’t understand why RMS is aggravated with Gates over Gates’ personal foundation.

Of course, RMS also attacks many other things.  He makes a horrible summary of a letter that Gates wrote during a time when all of his software was being heavily pirated.  Why should Gates not dislike piracy?  He is a software manufacturer and, according to some, the person solely responsible for selling software for money instead of bundled with a machine.  Gates has that right, just as RMS had the right to develop emacs and license it under the GPL.  That’s a choice that has both good and bad sides.  Also, RMS isn’t fooling anyone by calling DRM “Digital Restrictions Management.”  Really, he isn’t.  In fact, going to google and typing in “define:drm” brings up only one instance of the word ‘restriction’ and no definitions that include the word in the abbreviation.

RMS needs to wake up and realize that most users don’t care about the fact that Microsoft and their products are closed source.  They don’t care.  They don’t even know what the hell closed source even means.  All that they know is that ‘Linux’ sounds funny, ‘GNU/Linux’ sounds even funnier, and they are familiar with Windows.  Maybe one day Linux will win the ‘war’ of Operating Systems and will have Microsoft-like dominance.  I, personally, welcome the day.  I enjoy Linux and the benefits of it, but I do not hate everyone who likes Windows (or OS X, Solaris, etc).  If Microsoft and their products are really that inferior, then people will move over and then Windows will become less popular.  If not then the Open-Source community has no one to blame but themselves.

A modern beginner-oriented Linux distribution such as Ubuntu is considerably easier to use than a Mac.

Now, I am a huge Linux guy.  I love my T61 Thinkpad running Ubuntu (formerly Gutsy, now Hardy).  I’ve had the laptop for almost a year exactly and have had Ubuntu on it ever since the first Ubuntu 7.10 RC releases and couldn’t be happier.  It gives me, a very very cranky power user, exactly what I want.  That being said, I just don’t agree that it is easier to use for new users than OS X.  In fact, I think they both are horrible for new users.

Part of the problem is that we must first define what a ‘new’ user is.  Clearly it is very hard to imagine anyone in the US, let alone most of the developed world, that has never had any contact with a normal desktop computer.  So, for the purposes of this post, I’m going to assume that a ‘new user’ is a normal person who has used their (Windows) computer for browsing the internet, managing email, writing Word/Excel documents, and maybe downloading pictures from their camera.  Unfortunately, that is all many people use their computer for.  Many of us who are very computer-savvy forget that some things are just confusing because those who are less informed don’t fully understand the technology.  If a novice user sees a pop-up that says they have spyware and they can “GET RID OF IT BY CLICKING HERE!” then they’re going to do it because that sounds scary.  They’re not going to know that a random pop-up ad has no chance of finding spyware, they’re just going to know that someone is telling them that their computer is messed up and, as a result, they’re going to attempt to fix it.  All of this adds to the problem of usability.
1. The Desktop:The problem with the Ubuntu Desktop, compared to the OS X desktop, is that it is very sparse as shipped.  This is great for Linux diehards, but for someone who wants to use Linux like Windows they’re going to initially be confused.  Why would they look up to the top bar when they’re always used to going to the bottom-left and clicking the start button?  At least OS X keeps their bar on the bottom.  On top of that, at least the Mac starts with certain applications initially on the screen.  Ubuntu doesn’t give you anything like that.

2. Installing New Software: I’ll give Matthew this point.  Ubuntu is definitely better in this regard.  The .dmg format is slightly confusing for new users.  At least .deb seems to work fairly well–if you double click the file then Ubuntu handles it very well.

3. Compiling from Source:  I don’t think that this is really a consideration that should be taken with new users.  There’s no reason they would need to compile things and, if they did, they aren’t new users.  Hell, even trying to get people to understand what the hell ‘compiling’ source meant would be confusing–and we’re not even going to start working on what they would have to do to get all of the dependencies for various software.

4. Out of the box functionality:  I agree with Matthew that it’s a slightly unfair comparison because of the different situations.  For instance, Ubuntu on old/weird hardware is going to be a completely different experience than getting it pre-installed on a new Dell machine.  Of course, the same can be said of OS X as a ‘hackintosh’ instead of on native apple hardware.  For that reason, I’ll let this point go.

5. Greater range of pre-installed applications: This is true although I’d argue some of them don’t meet the quality/polish of Mac OS X.

6. Better support of third party media players:  Maybe this is just me being me, but people have iPods.  iPods outnumber everything else, last time I checked.  I know that when I tried Amarok a few months ago, probably around January, that it wouldn’t do many of the things that I wanted it to do (album art on my 5.5G iPod, it split up podcasts into multiple injuries, various other things).  iTunes works, plain and simple.

I love Ubuntu and wouldn’t want to use OS X, but I don’t think it’s (yet) fair to say that Linux is easier for a completely new user than OS X.