VirtualBox on Gutsy

I got into a limited flamewar with one of the commenters on this blog a few months ago when I commented on the fact virtualization features added to Gutsy were of little use to the common desktop Ubuntu user.  I can’t find the specific thread back again to admit defeat: I was flat wrong, virtualization is GREAT, even for simple users like myself (ie not a developper).

I installed VirtualBox to run XP and Office so I could use my main Ubuntu box to check Word docs (with all of the nice features like Track Chnages) and large Excel models and shoot them back to my colleagues.  I tried OO but that did not work, esp. with regards to presentation.

VirtualBox is simple to install and runs XP really nicely.  The hardest part is to understand the virtualization concepts (guest, host…) and make sure you do enable USB, sound AND install guest additions.  If you are in search of the right how-to, I would suggest the VirtualBox article in the French Ubuntu Documentation center which, as usual, is fantastic.

It is incredible, actually: XP is easier to run and administer when virtualized on Linux than on its own.   I have access to more graphical options (size of screen) than when it was installed in dual boot on the Ubuntu box which I am writing this post on.  VB can manage the XP disk size dynamically meaning there is little downside to giving XP quite a bit of room as it will be used only when needed….  Finally, XP does not have to be rebooted, as you only load a snapshot of the OS state, meaning it takes about 30 second to launch VirtualBox and start working! Amazing.  It remains to be seen whether it is truly stable or whether I have to “reboot” XP every other day.

I have found the only downside to be those pesky activation processes XP and Office throws at you: I won those copies but MSFT seems to think I need to waste half an hour with support on the phone, just to make sure I did not steal them.

Has anyone out there had a better experience (speed, stability…) with VMWare or QEMU? Should I try them on for size as well?

Wikipedia and the Fallacy of Intentions

Wikipedia is running into strange issues: more slashdot here.

To summarize, a clique within Wikipedia is behaving like despots and risking destroying the whole effort.

This actually is a good proof point for the fallacy of intentions: Wikipedia is great, and these guys have done a great job of bringing Jimbo’s vision to life.  But the fact that you have “non-selfish” intentions (if that exists) does not mean that what you are doing is good.  Durova may have the best of intentions and act like an on-line Stalin.

That’s why businesses exist.  That’s why Wikipedia would probably be better as a for-profit organization that more people (stockholders, employees, board members, community members…) could do something about it than a group of “believers” who really know what should be done and screw up like this.

Finally, legal, DRM-free music off the web

Amazon does not let you buy DRM-free MP3s off their web site if you live in Europe, so no Steve Adey for me.

Deutsche Gramophon just opened their own perfect little shop on the web, though, and they do allow lowly Europeans to get their fill of classical music, DRM-free and ripped to a decent 320.  The only peeve I have is that I am more of an Ogg guy: MP3s, at that rate, tend to sound just as good but are way larger, but that’s OK.

Albums are cheap, too, with old issues priced around EUR10.  I finally got my hands back on Levine’s Carmina Burana, which I had on tape 20 years ago and hadn’t been able to purchase on CD.  I don’t think it was truly OOP, it’s just that I hadn’t been able to track it down again.  Well, I can hear Anderson’s voice in all her crystalline beauty back again!

This has to work.  There is no other way for the music business.  Will the pirates respect that and not flood P2P sites with DG’s back catalog?  In the case of classical music, yes, I believe it should work.  For rock, I remain skeptical.

Silicon Valley and Tinsel Town

I tend to refrain from negative posts because I generally do not find them very interesting, but I do need to get something off my chest.

When I was a VC, I had to interact quite a bit with Silicon Valley (VCs, bankers and entrepreneurs alike), whether as a source of ideas, news, deals, money, you name it.  I of course travelled there quite a few times and loved the weather, the geography and the sense of it being the center of my beloved industry, IT.

Something always bothered me though: as an avowed European player, I always felt quite a bit of haughtiness on the part of the SV people I met.  It was not xenophobia, people in Silicon Valley are *very* open to people from outside the US.  It went deeper than that: if you weren’t part of the Valley scene, you were a bit player and could not understand things as well as people who lived and worked somewhere between SF and San Jose (Jim, Andy, yes, I am talking about you).

I worked out of the Boston office of a large VC fund for a while and it was the same, the difference being that the East Coast VCs actually felt they were better than SV, themselves.

I think this arrogance is exploding on the blog scene, and I think the worst offender is the celebrated Marc Andreessen.  His blog is interesting and Marc is indisputably an industry luminary but sometimes he just goes on and explain how Tinsel Town should be rebuilt on the Silicon Valley image, thus showing to the rest of the world how Silicon Valley has become Hollywood: the same insularity, the same belief they have cracked the code and are the Masters of the Universe whose model can be used to solve all of the World’s problems.  Doesn’t that also remind you of Wall Street in the 80s?

If you want to have a feel where this might lead (beyond the groupthink), read Indecent Exposure : A True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street.

HTML rendering in Thunderbird

I generally like Thunderbird, but I think their HTML rendering sucks on Ubuntu: it is way slower than on Windows, and I find myself waiting for pages to display, over and over again.  How come?  I thought it used the same rendering engine as Firefox, which is decent on Gutsy.

I hate HTML email as much as the other guy, but it really can’t be helped.

Let’s wait for 3.0 and see.

Very cheap notebooks

I am getting awfully interested in the awfully cheap sub-notebook segment of the OLPC, Classmate and Asus eee.  As far as I am concerned, the latter is my current choice for the Xmas season, if only because it is indeed shipping.

A couple of thoughts:

* these laptops are so limited in proc power, it seems only Linux can deliver a nice user experience on them.  OK, you can install XP but it sucks on a real laptop so how bad can it get on these toys?

* Could these machines help make 20XX the year of Linux on the desktop?

If you can read French, the ultimate eee blog is here.  This guy knows his sh*t.

Compiz-Fusion on Ubuntu Gutsy

Looks like Compiz-Fusion is pretty stable, now: I have been able to get it to work on three out of the four computers at home running Ubuntu. The fourth one I did not even try as it is a bottom of the barrel, gOS worthy machine.

It is really cool: most of the effects are nice, but not exactly useful. That should not prevent you from using them: eye candy is important! Some are really, really good and save you lots of time (like transparent windows, so you can check what’s behind).

The ultimate guide to what you can do with CF is here: my hat off to Forlong for the clarity of his explanations.

Office 2003 on Ubuntu thru CrossOver

Just tried it today.  The install went fine and Word works on Linux.  It is strange that you have to launch it via a command and not through a click but whatever.  Will report how it goes, it should be interesting to see if PowerPoint behaves nicely.

I couldn’t resist

From xkcd:

A special request

Could This Mortal Coil please record a cover of Steve Adey‘s Mississippi?  The song is screaming to be rethought using IWR‘s famed reinterpretation skills.