Operational Disaster

My return to blogging did not turn out to be a real return, evidently! Here is an update after several months, again!

Operational Disaster

An unprecedented, peculiar and curious sequence of quick events took place in the middle of March. I was investigating the possible use of VirtualBox image as a distribution mechanism for my organic synthesis planning product. My scientist created a CentOS 6.4 image with the program and its dependencies, and shared it. I made a copy of it, and imported the same into VirtualBox in my Windows 8 computer. It worked well, as intended. Thus far, the experiment was successful!

To ease testing the program in the VirtualBox environment, I mounted my primary data virtual disk in the CentOS image. The testing itself was successful. It appeared as if this mechanism was proving to be technologically sound and convenient as well.

Disaster Strikes!

Some more testing later, I decided to re-test the entire procedure. I removed the CentOS image from VirtualBox. However, it complained of an existing image when I tried to import the appliance the next time. Since the old image was no longer needed, I asked VirtualBox to delete it from the disk. It did so!

I ran through the procedure again, with the same initial success. I was quite satisfied with this approach. Then, exactly as before, I tried mounting my primary data virtual disk in this new CentOS image. Navigating to the drive where it was located, I was astonished to not find it there! Concerned, I opened Windows explorer, and navigated to the said drive. Indeed, the .vmdk file was gone!

What Had Happened?

As of the time that I deleted the CentOS image, the mounted external virtual disk had an entry in its /etc/fstab. So, when VirtualBox deleted the image, it deleted the mounted disk's file as well! VirtualBox claims that mounted disks that are used by other images are not deleted. How did this deletion happen, then?

The answer is straight-forward: the mounted disk was not used by any other VirtualBox image! It was the home partition of another Linux image, but that was a VMware image! So, VirtualBox was indeed true to its promise. But, my data was lost!

More Disaster!

I was distressed at having lost my home partition in this unforeseen manner. The lost virtual disk was my primary data drive. The host Windows home folder did not have anything of consequence, except in the Downloads folder. Fortunately, I had a backup from January. It was stored in a separate NTFS drive in the laptop, as well as an external USB disk.

So, losing no time, I proceeded to restore the contents from that backup. It was an encrypted backup. Since I always name my top-level folders with a common prefix, I asked for the files to be restored to my Windows home folder. Towards the very end of the unpacking exercise, something went wrong, and the system froze! I gave it several minutes to recover, but to no avail. There was no disk activity; no sign of life; even the Caps Lock key stopped responding after a while. I waited patiently ... with my fingers crossed, for over half-an-hour. The computer had really frozen!

Disappointed, I switched the power off. With considerable trepidation, I switched it on a few seconds later. Truly enough, the system froze while booting! I felt really let down. I tried restarting the computer a few times, with the same inevitable result — the login screen wouldn't appear. My entire Windows had become unusable! Two strokes in a row.

Rescue Attempt

I used my wife's computer to read about rescuing Windows. There was a Windows rescue partition (drive) in the hard disk. I tried to restore Windows using that rescue partition, following the instructions that I found in Microsoft's Web site. Alas! My earlier impulse upgrade to Windows 8 haunted me unpleasantly there. The rescue image was that of Windows 7, which came pre-installed with the HP hardware. When I attempted a rescue, it kept informing me that I had a more recent version of Windows installed, and that it couldn't rescue it!

For an hour, or so, I was quite dumbstruck. But then, life has to go on, of course! I contemplated possible courses of action. And finally chose what I knew best.

Go The Linux Way!

I burned Kubuntu 12.04 LTS to a DVD, and booted into the Live image. After making sure that all essential hardware worked as expected, I installed it to the hard disk as the only operating system. During the installation, I opted for the proprietary firmware for the Broadcom 4313GN wireless card, etc., to be downloaded and installed. Everything went smoothly. The only irritating aspect was the download of over a dozen English language packs! Readers will remember that I was irritated by this in my old Debian (virtual) installation too.

Upon re-booting, I found – as expected – a few hundreds of updates. Accordingly, I allowed the system to update. Next, from the Kubuntu PPA, I upgraded KDE to 4.10.1. After verifying that the system was working properly, I restored the backup from the external USB disk. It Just Worked!

Laptop Power Management

Initially, the laptop battery powered the system for only about 2 hours. Windows (both 7 and 8) used to last between 4 and 5 hours on a single charge. I read several articles and blog posts on what all improve battery life in Linux. None of them improved the situation measurably! powertop showed a baseline discharge rate of over 23W when idling. That was disappointing!

My HP laptop has an integrated Intel 4000 HD graphics card and an nVidia GEFORCE 630M discrete graphics card. I realised that I had to try Bumblebee. Following the instructions in one of the Ubuntu fora, I installed Bumblebee. I installed the primus configuration rather than the optimus one.

Having read a few bad things about Bumblebee, I had a trepidation similar to that I had when I re-booted the frozen Windows system. Fortunately, though, Kubuntu booted normally, and to my great relief, Bumblebee worked. powertop showed a new baseline consumption rate of a little over 10W when idling! Now I get the same 4-5 hours of battery life on a single charge!

What Do I Not Like?

The power management is a little too eager. It puts the wireless interface to sleep every few minutes. For it to wake up takes several seconds upon next use. I have to keep staring at the screen until then, sometimes a little impatiently. These days, though, I use powertop to put the Broadcom 4313GN wireless card into bad state so that it is not put to sleep so aggressively.

What Do I Miss?

All of this is fine, of course, but do I miss anything? What I miss most is Google Drive native application. I usually do not sign on-line petitions, but I did sign the one at Drive4Linux. I was disappointed to find only about 1,500 signatures. Nevertheless, I signed it, and requested my G+ contacts to follow suit if they use Linux and Google Drive.

Other than the above, I have not felt any notable inconvenience or loss of functionality, so far! Thus, after a break of about five years, I have returned to running Linux natively in my primary computer!!

Return to blogging!

After several months of silence, here I return to blogging! A few quick updates are in order, in no particular order.

Trivia

• When the battery of my MacBook Pro began failing in May, I purchased a relatively low-end HP Pavilion dv6 7040TX pre-installed with Windows 7. I mostly like it. It generates very little heat. By contrast, the MacBook Pro is a mini heater for the winter. Another noticeable feature is battery life: I am getting about five hours of development time per charge. The only downside is the low screen resolution, which is 1366x768. In practice, though, it has proved to be adequate for my development needs.
• It was a rare occasion when I surprised myself by impulsively upgrading the HP computer to Windows 8! My unfamiliarity with Windows was amply proved by the numerous devices and driver difficulties I encountered upon upgrading. Reading a related Microsoft Knowledge Base article revealed that there was an important step that I missed. [For the curious, we are supposed to uninstall and re-install the devices when upgrading in-place.]
• VMware Player now offers OpenGL-based 3D support for Linux guests. Upon upgrading to the new version of Player, I realised promptly that Debian Wheezy had a problem that prevented it from recognising and utilising 3D devices. It appears as if Sid has this problem as well, since my experimental Aptosid image failed to turn on desktop effects.
• Thus, I now run Linux Mint 14 KDE. [Of course, it is KDE!] It has been quite stable for my daily development needs (several Emacs windows, Eclipse 3.7 and several Konsole windows and tabs). This is in stark contrast to the frustrating experience with the Cinnamon version, which I downloaded first, mistaking it to be the KDE version. This demonstrates — yet again — why choice is so important, and why it underlies the philosophy of free and open source software!

Largely distracted months

I went through several months of non-work distractions. I am glad that those are nearing their respective conclusions. Not being able to concentrate on work can be really frustrating. More so if one's To Do list is long.

Experiments with languages

During these largely unproductive months, I studied a few languages, peripherally. Here is a summary.

Haskell

I had briefly looked at Haskell, in 2000. It looked so different, I promptly left it. Having gained a little more of functional thinking in the meantime, I decided to take another look at it. A good motivation was Hughes' influential paper "Why Functional Programming Matters". Some Haskell features are straight-forward: type classes, pattern matching, guards in functions, list comprehensions, etc. Some others are deep: higher-order functions, currying, lazy evaluation, etc. A few others go even deeper: functors, applicatives, monads, etc. Haskell demands considerable time and effort — not only the language proper, but the tool chain too. The syntax is layout-sensitive, and I could not even find a decent major mode for Emacs. The package tool called cabal repeatedly left my Haskell environment in an unstable state. Tooling is certainly a problem for the beginner, but otherwise, Haskell is a profound language that makes your thinking better!

Dart

Dart is a curious mix of the semantics of Smalltalk, the syntax of Java and JavaScript, and memory-isolated threads that communicate by sending messages. Added into this curious mix is a compile-time type system that does not affect the run-time object types! Mind you, Dart is strongly-typed. Even though there is a compile-time type system, it is optional and is primarily intended for better tooling, and the language itself is dynamically-typed. The types are carried by the objects, but the variables themselves are untyped. Dart's biggest promise is the ability to write scalable Web applications using a single language on both the server side and the client. The server side seems to present no problems, but the Web programming community is divided in its opinion on Dart's client side promise. The contention arises because Dart has its own virtual machine. Using the VM requires the user to install it as a plug-in in her browser. For those who do not want to use the VM, Dart comes with a cross-compiler that outputs equivalent JavaScript code.

D

I had known of the existence of D for several years, even through I never looked at it in detail. Reading a little about the history of D, I realised that it underwent a rather tumultuous adolescence. With D2, it appears to have entered adulthood. The motivation to look at D was an MSDN Channel 9 video of a presentation by Andre Alexandrescu. D was designed to be a better C++. Several of the design decisions behind it can be better appreciated if we hold that premise in mind. It has a simplified, more uniform syntax, garbage collection, a decent standard library and easier generics. It maintains the ability to directly call a C function in an external library, immediately making a vast set of C libraries accessible. Scoped errors and compile-time function evaluation are examples of D's interesting features. Another notable feature is the partitioning of the language features into safe, trusted and unsafe subsets, with the ability to verify that a module is completely safe, etc. D has good performance that is reasonable compared to that of C++.

Others

I also looked briefly at Erlang and Clojure. However, I did not spend enough time on them to be able to form an opinion.

Linux distribution chosen!

I had promised to post an update towards the end of January. I did not. However, even the casual reader may have noticed my recent posts related to Debian Wheezy. Those must have served as hints. So, Debian Wheezy it is! I have finally settled on Debian Wheezy with KDE.

Perhaps apt's mechanisms suit my thinking. yum is very powerful, yet the rpm family could not win me over. In fact, at one point, I went close to going back to Arch Linux. However, it is often too cutting-edge — even for a development system.

At the same time, GUI played a non-trivial role in my decision. It also explains why Ubuntu – with its Unity desktop – did not survive in my computer. I felt GNOME to be too restrictive. Some people think that KDE has too many knobs and switches; that it is daunting. Again, perhaps its mechanisms suit my thinking.

With the decision made, I have removed the ISO files of well over a dozen distributions and the VMware images of about half-a-dozen. Peace!

Debian Wheezy : updating Java alternatives

Debian Wheezy (or even Sid) defaults to Java 6. Originally, my computer had openjdk-6-jdk. I wanted to utilise the newer features in Java 7 such as higher performance and lower memory footprint, and try the Fork-Join framework. Accordingly, I installed openjdk-7-jdk. It updated the Debian alternatives for Java to point to the newer version. So far, so good!

Dependencies can upset the apple cart

Then, I installed Eclipse using apt-get. The version of Eclipse installed is 3.7.1, which is fine. However, it pulls in Java 6 as a dependency. I somehow did not pay attention to that. As the installation completed, I noticed several messages informing me that the alternatives for Java were being reset to Java 6. I bit my lip hard! I think that apt-get should explicitly warn the user if an installation downgrades a package, or more, due to dependencies.

Simple remedy

Fortunately, a simple remedy is possible. But before we begin, we should check the priorities with which both versions are installed. To check the same, issue the following command in a terminal.

> update-alternatives --display javac

# You should see something like the following.
javac - auto mode
  link currently points to /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/javac
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/javac - priority 1061
  slave javac.1.gz: /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/man/man1/javac.1.gz
/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/javac - priority 100
Current 'best' version is '/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/javac'.

Please note the numbers at the end of the full paths of javac. So, both Java 6 and Java 7 are installed, but Java 6 has a higher priority — 1061 to 100. It is, therefore, considered the best version. We can check where /etc/alternatives/javac points, too, for confirmation.

The remedy to apply itself utilises update-alternatives. In order to take care of all the important JDK components in one shot, I collected the commands into a shell script.

> cat up-java-alt.sh

#!/usr/bin/env sh
#
# Update Debian alternatives for Java.

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/java java \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/java 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/appletviewer appletviewer \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/appletviewer 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/apt apt \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/apt 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/extcheck extcheck \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/extcheck 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/idlj idlj \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/idlj 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jar jar \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jar 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jarsigner jarsigner \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jarsigner 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/javac javac \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/javac 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/javadoc javadoc \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/javadoc 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/javah javah \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/javah 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/javap javap \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/javap 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jconsole jconsole \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jconsole 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jdb jdb \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jdb 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jhat jhat \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jhat 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jinfo jinfo \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jinfo 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jmap jmap \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jmap 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jps jps \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jps 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jrunscript jrunscript \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jrunscript 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jsadebugd jsadebugd \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jsadebugd 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jstack jstack \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jstack 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jstat jstat \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jstat 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/jstatd jstatd \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/jstatd 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/native2ascii native2ascii \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/native2ascii 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/rmic rmic \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/rmic 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/schemagen schemagen \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/schemagen 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/serialver serialver \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/serialver 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/wsgen wsgen \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/wsgen 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/wsimport wsimport \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/wsimport 1100

update-alternatives --install \
        /usr/bin/xjc xjc \
    /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/xjc 1100

Please note that we used a priority value of 1100, so that we can assign Java 7 a higher priority than that of Java 6. Now, we run the above script, and check again the alternatives status, and where /etc/alternatives/javac points.

> update-alternatives --display javac

# You should see something like the following.
javac - auto mode
  link currently points to /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/javac
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/bin/javac - priority 1061
  slave javac.1.gz: /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/man/man1/javac.1.gz
/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/javac - priority 1100
Current 'best' version is '/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/bin/javac'.

Enjoy Java 7 again! Don't forget to change the default JVM path in Eclipse, though.

What about the man pages installed as slaves? That part is left as an exercise :-)

Debian Wheezy : Removing unused locales and translations

Removing Locales

Debian includes several locales and translations in its default installation. Typically, we need very few of them, mostly just one! Here is how I removed unused locales and translations from my Debian Wheezy installation. This should apply to Sid too, but I have not verified it. The following steps should be executed as root.

• Issue the command locale -a -v to see a full list of the locales currently installed. Should this list already match your requirement, you can skip the remainder of this section.
• Edit (or create) the file /etc/default/locale. Include the entries for your desired locale. My file looks as follows.

#  File generated by update-locale
LANG=en_IN
LANGUAGE="en_IN:en"

• Remove all the files in the directory /usr/lib/locale.
• Now, regenerate the locales based on your default configuration.

Here is the sequence of steps.

> locale -a -v
# Review the current locales.

> vi /etc/default/locale
# Edit the contents to suit your requirement, and save the file.

> cd /usr/lib/locale
> rm -fr *

> locale-gen

Removing Translations

Unneeded translations consume disk space, network bandwidth (when updating or upgrading), and can potentially make glibc larger. To remove unused translations, execute the following steps as root.

> cd /etc/apt/apt.conf.d
> touch 99translations

# Edit the file to match the following content.
> cat 99translations
Acquire::Languages "none";

# We have to remove already indexed translations.
> cd /var/lib/apt/lists
> rm -f *Translation*

If you want to be sure, you can reboot the system. Now, when you apt-get update or apt-get upgrade, you should no longer have unused translations checked for, updated or downloaded.

Debian Wheezy : Running in VMware Fusion 4.1

Note: The following applies to Debian Sid as well.

Here is some information on how I could get Debian Wheezy to run successfully in VMware Fusion 4.1.

The installation itself was uneventful. Once Wheezy installed, I proceeded to unpack VMware Tools, and run the installation script. However, the version of VMware Tools that comes with VMware Fusion 4.1 does not work properly with kernel 3.2.x.

After a few failed attempts at patching the code and trying again, I uninstalled VMware Tools. I decided to try open-vm-tools instead.

Here is the sequence of steps that I executed (as root, of course).

• apt-get update
• apt-get install build-essential
• apt-get install open-vm-tools

You will see some errors about modules not being available. It is normal. Please ignore them, and proceed.

• apt-get install open-vm-dkms

The above should install dkms itself as a dependency. By the way, dkms is a system that can install dynamically loadable kernel modules. The above package contains the source code of the Open VM Tools kernel modules.

• cd /usr/src
• ls

You should see a directory for open-vm-tools. Please note the version number, which is the part after open-vm-tools-. Now, issue the command

• dkms install open-vm-tools/<version>

where you should substitute the version number that you found out above. That installs the necessary kernel modules. It is necessary to create an appropriate entry in /etc/fstab for your host Mac's share. An example entry is shown here.

.host:/mac    /mnt/hgfs/mac    vmhgfs    defaults    0  1

For X automatic re-sizing and copy-and-paste between OS X and Wheezy, you have to install one last package.

• apt-get install open-vm-toolbox

That is it. Now, reboot the virtual image, and enjoy your Debian Wheezy with better host integration!

Linux distribution trials have not ended :-(

Following up on my August post regarding Linux distribution trials, I could not – in fact – continue with CentOS. There are two important reasons.

• yum is a really fragile tool for package management. Not only could I not understand what wrong I had done to break it, following its instructions on how a sane package database state could be recovered just never worked! And, then, it kept complaining endlessly about Update Manager keeping the database locked, while Update Manager kept complaining endlessly that a different package management tool was keeping the database locked. I followed resolution suggestions from about a dozen Web sites, with no success whatsoever. Even deleting the entire package database did not help! This paints such a sorry picture of Linux!
• CentOS makes it really difficult to install a broad set of essential 32-bit libraries. Firstly, they are not available by default in the 64-bit repositories under a single compat-kind of title. At least, I could not find one easily. Hence, I had to let a 32-bit software such as Skype or TeamViewer fail once for each dependency, then figure out which package provided that library, and then install its .i386/.i686 version. This is tedious at best.

Consequently, I moved on. My current experiment is with openSUSE 12.1 KDE spin. I have returned to openSUSE after almost five years. I do not remember if zypper was the default package management tool back then. After going through the man pages, and a few trials, I got used to it. I tried to break it in one or two small ways, but it has withstood so far!

The OS itself has been quite stable in these several weeks of use. I disabled nepomuk and strigi, and left KDE notifications on. The CPU usage when idle is good (<= 1.5%), KDE has been very responsive and stable, and to top it all, openSUSE 12.1 came with Go r60.3 in the repositories!

I have moved one of my developers to it. In its default configuration, openSUSE does not allow non-root users to connect to a wireless network. That is the only complaint that I have received yet. I resolved it by making my trusted wireless network a system connection.

Thus, life looks good so far! I shall update the status some time towards the end of January 2012 again.

No more Apple products!

No more Apple products! I have made that decision after a careful examination of several incidents.

For the record, I have a MacBook Pro 15" and an iPod Touch (second generation) for my wife, and a MacBook Pro 17" for myself. Now, I think that I should not have purchased them in the first place.

Why did I buy them, then?

I bought the iPod Touch because I thought that it would be useful for quick e-mail checks and responses. That it could carry my music was secondary; more like tertiary, since I browsed the Internet using it much more than I listened to the music in it.

When I first bought the 15" MacBook Pro, my primary operating system for well over a decade had been Linux. I purchased a Mac Mini for cross-browser compatibility testing at work. I was bewitched by the cuteness of the user interface, even though I was at variance with some of its UX concepts. When I discovered the command line and the POSIX layer beneath the UI, though, it appeared as if my wishes were answered. So, I went ahead and ordered the MacBook Pro.

The first alarm bells did ring when I placed the order. The price was unreasonably high. Worse, the India prices were at close to a 60% premium over the corresponding US prices. But the charm worked, and I parted with the money.

When the computer did arrive, I was unhappy to see that it came with US power socket pins and no Indian pin adapter. I had to purchase an adapter myself.

Over a period, my usage of the iPod Touch decreased (more about this later), and I gave it to my wife so she could use it for listening to music.

Trouble strikes

A few months later, the battery of the MacBook Pro failed rapidly. After trying unsuccessfully to de-hysterisize it by draining it fully, I realized that it was to no avail. I went to the local Apple reseller. The genius there examined my computer, and declared that the battery was dead and needed to be replaced. And, with a rueful countenance, he further declared that it had just run out of warranty. I was perplexed. I showed the system diagnostics to him, pointing out that the battery had gone through only 310 recharge cycles. With a superior smile, he advised me that the typical life of laptop batteries was only 300 cycles! I was now disappointed. With an effort at being civil, I told him that the computer in context was my fourth or fifth, and that I had enough experience to know that laptop batteries do not die so fast. He simply ignored me, and asked me if I wanted a new battery or not. By now, I was enraged. However, I had no choice. So, I paid a ridiculously high price - the Apple premium - for a new battery.

What about the other MacBook Pro?

Technically, I did not purchase it. One of my collaborators - who lives in Toronto, Canada - did. His primary operating had been Linux, too, for an even longer period. When I assured him that he could continue to run his familiar shell and gcc in MacOS X, he took the plunge. He purchased a 17" MacBook Pro. However, starting with an unfamiliar interface, the default user interface and behavior of Finder, and inability to easily install new packages (compared to yum install package), his ride was rough.

After some research, I suggested macports to him. However, he ran into nuisances when some libraries installed through that (as dependencies) began conflicting with those installed by Xcode. After a while, he gave up, and simply shipped it to me. And, he did it without warning me!

Trouble strikes, again!

Two days before the 17" computer arrived, I had gone to the local Apple reseller, and purchased an OS upgrade for my 15" computer, from Leopard to Snow Leopard.

My gentle collaborator forgot sending the power adapter when he sent the 17" computer. So, I needed to purchase one if I wanted to use the computer. Reluctantly, I went to the Apple reseller, again. Once again did I have to pay the Apple premium, this time for the power adapter. I opened the pack, and this time, I found that it had UK power socket pins! That was ridiculous! I asked the reseller why I was given an adapter with UK pins. He shrugged, and replied that others simply purchased an additional converter. And that he could sell me one if I wished to buy it! I was getting indignant.

Nevertheless, I showed him the Snow Leopard upgrade that I had purchased two days earlier. It was new and unopened. I asked him to take it back, and give me a family pack instead, since I now had two computers to upgrade. He flatly refused. I raised the matter to the store manager, urging him to be reasonable. He seconded his genius, and said that it was against Apple policies. If I wished to upgrade the second computer, I had to purchase another single upgrade copy. I was livid!

Meanwhile, why did I stop using the iPod Touch?

The biggest reason was that I could not watch technology talks in it. Why? Because it cannot play Flash content. Another problem was that its Exchange ActiveSync did not allow me to install a self-signed certificate, barring me from accessing my corporate e-mail in it.

Conclusions

• Apple products are needlessly expensive. And, on the top, there is no guarantee that its expensive hardware is as durable as much less expensive hardware from other vendors.
• Apple is an arrogant company. It has no respect for its customers. It has sold equipment to me, in India, with US and UK power socket pins, forcing me to spend additional money on adapters/converters.
• Apple's policies work against its customers. They did not exchange the brand new, unopened Snow Leopard upgrade pack for a family pack.

I am not going to purchase another Apple product! Not until a time all of the above changes. Today, I spend almost all of my time on the computer inside a Linux VMWare Fusion image. And, yes, I have not upgraded the MacOS.

Linux distribution trials end, hopefully!

I have used several Linux distributions over the last 16-17 years. For many years, my primary Linux distribution was SuSE/openSUSE. Since 2007, it has mostly been Ubuntu. Starting with the release 10.10, though, Ubuntu's (in)stability had become increasingly concerning. Release 11.04 only made matters worse. Window borders were erratic in their display, transitions between workspaces was jarring, the feel was sluggish, and an update even rendered the system unable to restart!

Initially, I thought that Ubuntu's Unity was playing tricks. It perhaps interfered with standard GNOME in such ways as to complicate GDM, power management, etc. However, I could not invest the time needed to investigate the problems. Then, I tried Linux Mint 11. It sure did not have Ubuntu's Unity, but had (almost) all the other problems that Ubuntu 11.04 had.

For the first time, I then tried Arch Linux. I was impressed! It is a small, fast, no-nonsense distribution, and has excellent documentation — the best that I have seen for any Linux distribution at all. Added to that, it is a rolling distribution! We, of course, have to allow that it is meant for people who are rather technically advanced. My team thought it was too much of a hassle to even set up a `working' development machine.

Two weeks ago, I tried CentOS 6. My previous trial of CentOS was with version 5.4. Its power management was so terrible that my laptop used to drain out in about 1.5 hours. It used to last over 3 hours otherwise.

This time, though, it is Just Good! I installed the so-called `Minimal Desktop' flavor. In these two weeks of exclusive use, it has demonstrated itself to be very stable, fast and predictable. I am very impressed! All going well, I will be switching my team to CentOS 6, as well, in the coming week or so!