The Linux Experiment

It’s easy. Simply throw “-o Acquire::http::Dl-Limit=X” in your apt-get command where X is the kb/s you wish to limit it to. So for example let’s say that you want to limit an apt-get upgrade command to roughly 50kb/s of bandwidth. Simply issue the following command:

sudo apt-get -o Acquire::http::Dl-Limit=50 upgrade

Simple right?

Just a quick update on my experience running the pre-release version of Ubuntu (this time upgraded to Ubuntu 12.10 Beta 1!). Not a whole lot new to report – Beta 1 is basically the same as Alpha 3 but with the addition of an option to connect to a Remote Server directly from the login screen. Unfortunately the bugs that I have filed so far have yet to be resolved, but I’m still hopeful someone has a chance to correct them prior to release.

It is already almost the end of September which means there are only a couple more weeks before the official 12.10 launch. From what I’ve seen so far this upgrade will be a pretty small, evolutionary update to the already good 12.04 release.

Previous posts in this series:

• Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 (Report #2)
• Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 (Report #1)
• Test driving the new Ubuntu (12.10)

Once again I’ve compiled some charts to show what the major, full desktop distributions look like while running on limited hardware. Just like before I’ve decided to re-run my previous tests this time using the following distributions:

• Fedora 17 (GNOME)
• Fedora 17 (KDE)
• Kubuntu 12.04 (KDE)
• Linux Mint 13 (Cinnamon)
• Linux Mint 13 (KDE)
• Linux Mint 13 (Mate)
• Linux Mint 13 (Xfce)
• Mageia (GNOME)
• Mageia (KDE)
• OpenSUSE 12.2 (GNOME)
• OpenSUSE 12.2 (KDE)
• Ubuntu 12.04 (Unity)
• Xubuntu 12.04 (Xfce)

I will be testing all of this within VirtualBox on ‘machines’ with the following specifications:

• Total RAM: 512MB
• Hard drive: 8GB
• CPU type: x86 with PAE/NX
• Graphics: 3D Acceleration enabled

The tests were all done using VirtualBox 4.1.22, and I did not install VirtualBox tools (although some distributions may have shipped with them). I also left the screen resolution at the default (whatever the distribution chose) and accepted the installation defaults. All tests were run between September 3rd, 2012 and September 14th, 2012 so your results may not be identical.

Results

Following in the tradition of my previous posts I have once again gone through the effort to bring you nothing but the most state of the art in picture graphs for your enjoyment.

Things to know before looking at the graphs

First off if your distribution of choice didn’t appear in the list above its probably not reasonably possible to installed (i.e. I don’t have hours to compile Gentoo) or I didn’t feel it was mainstream enough (pretty much anything with LXDE). Secondly there may be some distributions that don’t appear on all of the graphs, for example Mandriva (now replaced by Mageia). Finally I did not include Debian this time around because it is still at the same version as last time. As always feel free to run your own tests.

First boot memory (RAM) usage

This test was measured on the first startup after finishing a fresh install.

Memory (RAM) usage after updates

This test was performed after all updates were installed and a reboot was performed.

Memory (RAM) usage change after updates

The net growth or decline in RAM usage after applying all of the updates.

Install size after updates

The hard drive space used by the distribution after applying all of the updates.

Conclusion

As before I’m going to leave you to drawing your own conclusions.

Running an alpha version of an operating system, Linux or otherwise, is quite a different experience. It means, for instance, that you are not allowed to complain when minor things have bugs or simply don’t work – it is all par for the course, after all this is alpha software. That doesn’t mean however that when you do run into problems that it doesn’t still suck.

I ran into one of these problems earlier today while trying to connect via SSH to a remote computer within Nautilus. It seems that this release of the software is currently broken resulting in the following error message every time I try and browse my remote server’s directories:

The second really annoying issue I ran into was GIMP no longer showing menu items in Ubuntu’s global appmenu. This was especially infuriating because, prior to installing some updates today, it had worked perfectly fine in the past. I even had to hunt down a sub-par paint (GNU Paint) application just to crop the above screenshot.

Hopefully my annoying experiences, and subsequent bug filings, will prevent other users from experiencing the same pains when 12.10 is finally released to all. Here’s hoping anyway…

Update: It turns out that it wasn’t just the GIMP that wasn’t displaying menu items, no applications are. Off to file another bug…

Previous posts in this series:

• Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 (Report #1)
• Test driving the new Ubuntu (12.10)

Well it’s been a little while since I made the mistake (joking) of installing Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3. Here is what I’ve learned so far.

1. My laptop really does not like the open source ATI graphics driver – and there are no proprietary drivers for this release yet. It’s not that the driver doesn’t perform well enough graphically, its just that it causes my card to give off more heat than the proprietary driver. This in turn causes my laptop’s fan to run non-stop and drains my battery at a considerable rate.
   
2. Ubuntu has changed the way they do updates in this release. Instead of the old Update Manager there is a new application (maybe just a re-skinning of the old) that is much more refined and really quite simple. Interestingly enough the old hardware drivers application is also now gone, instead it is merged into the update manager. Overall I’m neutral on both changes.
   

   Updates are quite frequent when running an alpha release

3. There is a new Online Accounts application (part of the system settings) included in this release. This application seems to work like an extension of the GNOME keyring – saving passwords for your various online accounts (go figure). I haven’t really had a chance to play around with it too much yet but it seems to work well enough.
   

That’s it for now. I’m off to file a bug over this open source driver that is currently melting my computer. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

Call it crazy but I’ve decided to actually install an Ubuntu Alpha release, specifically Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3. Why would anyone in their right mind install an operating system that is bound to be full of bugs and likely destroy all of my data? My reasons are twofold:

1. I regularly use Ubuntu or Ubuntu derivatives and would like to help in the process of making them better
2. There are still a few quirks with my particular laptop that I would like to help iron out once and for all, hopefully correcting them in a more universal sense for Linux as a whole

So join me over the next few posts as I relate my most recent experiences running… shall we say, less than production code.

Five new Listener Feedback podcast episodes have been released in case you missed them:

• Episode 11: Chasing Eidolon – Chasing Eidolon (Pop Punk)
• Episode 12: Christopher Squier – Beneath the Ashes (Indie Rock, Bar Rock)
• Episode 13: Drop-Zone – Drop-Zone’s The Red Album MixTape CA V1 (Rap, Hip-hop, Mixtape)
• Episode 14: Tenpenny Joke – Ambush On All Sides (Rock, Punk)
• Episode 15: Trick Seventeen – Spot On (Pop Punk)

And as always you can grab the MP3 or Ogg version of this Creative Commons podcast.

Ever wanted your computer to be on when you need it but automatically put itself to sleep (suspended) when you don’t? Or maybe you just wanted to create a really elaborate alarm clock?

I stumbled across this very useful command a while back but only recently created a script that I now run to control when my computer is suspended and when it is awake.

#!/bin/sh
t=`date –date “17:00″ +%s`
sudo /bin/true
sudo rtcwake -u -t $t -m on &
sleep 2
sudo pm-suspend

This creates a variable, t above, with an assigned time and then runs the command rtcwake to tell the computer to automatically wake itself up at that time. In the above example I’m telling the computer that it should wake itself up automatically at 17:00 (5pm). It then sleeps for 2 seconds (just to let the rtcwake command finish what it is doing) and runs pm-suspend which actually puts the computer to sleep. When run the computer will put itself right to sleep and then wake up at whatever time you specify.

For the final piece of the puzzle, I’ve scheduled this script to run daily (when I want the PC to actually go to sleep) and the rest is taken care of for me. As an example, say you use your PC from 5pm to midnight but the rest of the time you are sleeping or at work. Simply schedule the above script to run at midnight and when you get home from work it will be already up and running and waiting for you.

I should note that your computer must have compatible hardware to make advanced power management features like suspend and wake work so, as with everything, your mileage may vary.

This post originally appeared on my personal website here.

A new episode of the Listener Feedback podcast has been released. This episode features the folk rock artist Bill Borman with his Creative Commons album In Our Dreams We’re Flying. Download it here.

A new episode of the Listener Feedback podcast has been released. This episode features the German rock band DirtyOldSpice with their Creative Commons album Follow The Traveler. Download it here.