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The Ubuntu Ohio Team was recognized as an official Local Community team this evening! LoCos (Local Communities) "work together in regional teams to help advocate, promote, translate, develop and otherwise improve Ubuntu"

The Ubuntu Ohio team has been extremely active, and there are a lot of great plans being developed. Of particular interest to me is the New User Team, and the Face2Face support initiative. I don't know that I'll have the free time to participate as much as I want, but it's definitely something on which I'll be keeping an eye.

Many thanks to all the members of the Ubuntu Ohio team for their energy and commitment to the group. Special kudos to vorian for his passion and dedication.

I have long railed against the notion of "Search Engine Optimization". I consider it to be nothing more than scam artistry. To try to make one's living by luring legitimate search traffic to your shady business operation is a very slimy thing to do.

Today, I had a problem getting a workstation to obtain a DHCP address via DHCP relay to a different subnet while using a Symantec Ghost boot disk. I turned to Google, with the specific terms "ghost pxe boot dhcp relay".

I found nothing immediately useful, but kept paging through the results, hoping for some buried gem. On page 9 of my search results, I saw these (which have been obfuscated and unlinked to prevent additional Google Juice going their way):

Welcome to MORTGAGEBUYER.MOC
dedicated server free Pxe Boot server

Welcome to CHARLIECREATIONS.MOC
rackmount server what is a volume server free Pxe Boot server

Welcome to DRIVINGINSTRUCTION.MOC
in windows license servers on the network free Pxe Boot server free news

Welcome to MUSIC-DB.MOC
print server parallel netvigator smtp server free Pxe Boot server file server

Welcome to TRAFFICHITTER.MOC
... email address terminal server licensing port ghost 8.2 pxe server can see ... coast virtual private server providers free Pxe Boot server proxy server ...

Who really thinks that someone looking for Ghost PXE boot information is going to click on a link to a mortgage site? Or a driving instruction site? I know I've occasionally been misled by search results to click a spammer's clever link; but the links above are in no way confusing: they're blatantly false.

I hate Search Engine Optimization, and I have zero respect for those who pursue it. They make the internet harder to use for everyone in the short-sighted pursuit of their own venal goals.

I really like my MVix MX-760HD. It's been a great little media device for me, even if it does take me a really long time to rip our Monty Python collection to MP4 format! Next up, our Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVDs.

One of the reasons I was initially attracted to the MX-760HD was its use of GNU/Linux inside. It uses the uClinux kernel, which is designed specifically for embedded systems. I want to support companies that make use of GNU/Linux. I'm also interested in seeing what third-party developers can do with the hardware through use of the GNU/Linux operating system.

I'm not much of a hardware hacker, and I'm certainly not an embedded developer, but I admit to being intrigued by the notion of third-party firmware for the MX-760HD. The LinkSys WRT54G is a terrific example of the value of an open, hackable system: the third party firmware offerings turn this $70 device into something vastly more functional than what's provided by the default firmware. Most consumers won't need anything other than the default, but for those customers who are interested in more, it's available to them. This, to me, is the real value of Linux in appliance hardware: your customers can use your product for what they want.

I sent an enquiry to MVix USA's contact page asking for the source code the uClinux kernel they use. I'm interested in learning more about the hardware inside -- specifically the CPU and the network adapters. There's little I can do with this stuff myself, but a fellow COLUG member is an embedded developer, and I'd like to pick his brain about some of this.

I received a rather unhelpful reply from MVix USA's marketing department:

As per our contract with the development and manufacturing partners we do not have an authorization to release the firmware sourcecode under GPL. As you know, we are primarily the marketers and distributors of Mvix brand products and hence have to abide by the policies and contractual obligations of our manufacturing partners and developers.

Unfortunate, but I can't be too upset with the marketing staff not being familiar with the intricacies of the GNU GPL. I replied, expressing my disappointment, but heard nothing back.

A few days ago a gentleman named Rich K. from MVix USA sent me an email, hoping to capitalize on my zeal for the MX-760HD, asking how they might help me continue to advocate and evangalize their product. Normally, I'd be quite happy to do this. I took the opportunity to ask Rich for the GPL sources used in the MX-760HD:

I was _very_ excited to read about your use of Linux inside the MX-760HD, though I've been disappointed with my lack of success obtaining the source code to your kernel, as required by the GNU GPL license under which Linux is
distributed. I am sure _a lot_ of people would love to be able to hack on an MX-760HD in the same ways that they hack on Linksys WRT-54G routers. Small, functional Linux systems are very interesting to all sorts of users, and the more you enable us to use them in unique ways, the more units you're likely to sell.

Rich's reply was less than helpful:

We are the marketing, distribution and customer-support arm of our brand. As per our contract with our partners, we do not have adequate access to the source code, neither does our contractual obligations allow us for release of any codes. While we respect your suggestion, we regret that we cannot help. Our sincere apologies.

I replied, asking Rich for contact information for the development branch of MVix, or indeed of anyone who would be in a position to facilitate my request. I made it clear that I wasn't interested in any proprietary software or codecs -- I was only seeking that code that is governed by the terms of the GPL:

Can you please provide me with an email address or telephone number for your development folks? I'm not interested in any proprietary bits inside the MX-760HD: I'm solely interested in getting the kernel config files you've used, so that I can evaluate it.

I have not yet received a reply; and since it's been about 10 days since I sent it, I'm no longer expecting a reply.

I was willing to chalk up the initial refusal to provide source code as mostly ignorance of the issue. But Rich's reply suggests to me a slightly more intentional failure to comply with the license terms. Now, the MX-760HD is not manufacturer by MVix USA. Rather, it is manufactured by Unicorn Information Systems Co. Ltd. (Korea). I have just sent an email to Unicorn, asking them for the GPL licensed source to the Linux kernel used in the device. However, I am still of the opinion that MVix USA has an obligation to make the source code available to its customers. This is remarkably similar to the recent situation with MEPIS Linux's GPL non-compliance.

I'll be sure to post more details as they develop. If you're an MX-760HD owner, do please send a polite request to both MVix USA and Unicorn asking for the Linux source code. Feel free to share your results in the comments below.

When I started working at OSU, our department had three physical facilities connected by a single virtual LAN. The network performance was acceptable, most of the time, because most stations had only 100 megabit ethernet cards, and our uplink was as much (if not less).

Last October we opened our new building, and phased out two of the previous buildings. This left us with two buildings on our VLAN. Our new building has all brand-new HP ProCurve switches providing gigabit ethernet to every port, 10 gig fiber between floors, and a gig uplink to the campus network. The new computers for our student labs all have gig ethernet cards. Unfortunately, the link connecting our two buildings was only 100 megabit.

Our new building is used by all our public computer labs, plus all the faculty and staff. The network appliance providing our storage was in the other building. So all of our connections were being funneled through the 100 megabit connection, leading to extremely long login times, and occasional bursts of network latency. Last week my boss and I finally moved the filer and remaining servers from the old building into the new building. One would think this would make things significantly better for our network performance, and it did, but there was yet one piece that was still a significant bottleneck.

Prior to the move, we had a single /22 network for all our hosts. After the move, we acquired an additional /24 network (discontiguous from our primary pool). Our plan was to move all the student lab computers to the new /24, freeing up a large swath of IP addresses in our primary space. The campus network admins provisioned the new network for us, and configured routing on our upstream router. All worked as it needed to, but in a rather inefficient way: the /24 hosts need to connect to our filer in the /22 network, which means packets need to travel to the upstream router, and then immediately back into our network. The switch that connects our building to the upstream router is basically handling twice us much traffic as it might need to, as it sends packets up to the router and then immediately receives those packets again. Indeed, it was showing 100% utilization for most of the day today. I can only assume it's been at 100% utilization since we moved the filer into our building (and likely even before that).

Our switches can do layer 3 routing, so it seems kind of silly to send all the traffic up a hop to a router, only to come right back. Configuring our core switch to do the routing wasn't hard at all. Getting this configuration deployed throughout our building proved slightly more complicated. My first attempt to do so knocked all the student lab machines offline. I thought I could finalize the configurations quickly enough as to not cause too many problems, but a swelling body of irate students outside my office door convinced me otherwise. My boss was not thrilled with my enthusiasm. I aborted my plans, and set about preparing for a more graceful cut-over.

Around 5:40 PM tonight we made the switch. I executed a few commands on each of the affected switches, and then updated a few routes on our primary servers. With the exception of one minor -- and easily corrected -- oversight, everything worked great. Within moments the switch connecting us to our upstream router was reporting less than 20% utilization. Now that we're not hammering our upstream connection all day every day we'll be able to detect and react to abnormal traffic spikes. And most important to our student population, they're not all trying to share a single gigabit connection to our storage appliance!

I'm considering getting new computers for the twins. Tayler has my old Shuttle PC, a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 with 1GB RAM. Tyler has Carina's old 1.8 GHz Pentium 4, also with (I think) a gig of RAM. With the price of PCs these days, it seems almost silly not to buy new ones, and enjoy dual core processing.

I grudgingly permit the twins to use Windows XP on their desktops. They like to play the occassional game of Sims 2, or some other PC game, as well as a variety of web-based games. All of these web-based games use Flash, and most of them now use the new Flash 9. Alas, Flash 9 is only available in beta format for GNU/Linux, and my limited experience with it was less than stellar.

The kids' machines are currently dual-boot, with GNU/Linux installed on the off-chance I need to do some hefty computing on these boxes. The girls almost never boot into GNU/Linux, so the dual-boot is more a distraction for them than anything else. Any new machine(s) I purchase will be required to run GNU/Linux, though I'm willing to continue to permit Windows for the kids as needed.

I've been fiddling with VMware at work, and I've been eyeing Parallels (due largely to Bob's continuing advocacy of their product), which got me thinking about how I might use a virtual machine for the kids' computing environment. I could construct the kids' profiles such that when they log in, it immediately launches the VMware instance of their Windows image. I could give the kids administrator privileges inside their VMs, if I felt like it, without worrying about them trashing the system as a whole. The only (immediate) challenge is how to shut the computer off when the kids log out of the virtual machine (they're notorious for leaving their computers on unattended). Owen suggested I configure the hardware to hibernate when the power button is pressed. I wonder if that would work...

Tayler received a Palm handheld for Christmas from her biological father, and some of the support utilities require administrative privileges for full functionality (SplashPhoto being the worst offender, requiring admin rights for any functionality!) The SanDisk MP3 players I purchased for the twins for Christmas also seem to require admin privileges in order to load music onto them.

The virtual machine solution has a lot of appeal. It allows me to continue to use GNU/Linux on their computers, should I need it (Kino to crunch video of Christmas morning, for example). I can grant administrative privileges to the kids' virtual accounts, and it gives me some control over how to recover from any malware that might infest their computers. It allows me to provision specific amounts of resources to their use, leaving the computer(s) still usable to me via remote access.

I can't help but feel, though, that just maybe I'm over-engineering the solution.