Archive for September, 2007

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Digg.com Ubuntu popular headline analysis

Saturday, September 8th, 2007

I was curious what the most popular keywords were in the Ubuntu headlines, since it seemed like some of them seemed identical.
So I saved the top 10 pages of results for the search term Ubuntu, sorted by Most Diggs.
With all of the pages in a directory, I cut out the headlines and stripped the HTML with the following command:

$ cat *.html|grep news-body|sed -e 's/<[^<>]*>//g' > diggubuntuheadlines.txt

Now I have a list of each headline. Unfortunately, though, this also returns headlines from articles that just mention Ubuntu, so I killed the lines that didn’t have Ubuntu.

$ grep -i ubuntu diggubuntuheadlines.txt > diggubuntuheadlines2.txt

Now I want to pull out a list of unique words in the file, the number of occurences of each word, sorted by the most occurences descending. Thanks to this short perl script posted by planetscape, I have a solution.

I paste the contents into a file, change the first line to read /usr/bin/perl, save it, then chmod +x the file.

Next I pipe the contents of the file into the script, and save the output.

$ cat diggubuntuheadlines2.txt | ./countwords.pl > diggheadlinecount.txt

Well, I guess that’s enough foreplay, what’s the verdict?

117 ubuntu
25 to
22 linux
20 windows
19 a
14 in
14 dell
12 with
12 on
12 for
11 the
9 and
8 install
7 vista
7 of
7 how
6 your
6 you
6 from
5 released
5 pcs
5 out
5 new
5 is
5 guide
5 feisty
5 by
4 without
4 what
4 users
4 than
4 s
4 has
4 free
4 best
3 xp
3 video
3 ultimate
3 time
3 switching
3 should
3 running
3 run
3 over
3 os
3 official
3 mythtv
3 more
3 microsoft
3 media
3 logo
3 like
3 know
3 installing
3 get
3 fawn
3 fast
3 edition
3 edgy
3 dock
3 boot
3 based
3 as
3 anything
3 about
2 x
2 world
2 will
2 way
2 vs
2 vote
2 using
2 up
2 tutorial
2 top
2 this
2 there
2 t
2 support
2 studio
2 stickers
2 side
2 shuttleworth
2 review
2 read
2 powered
2 pic
2 pc
2 password
2 osx
2 online
2 one
2 officially
2 now
2 need
2 multimedia
2 mount
2 mce
2 mark
2 make
2 magazine
2 looks
2 look
2 laptop
2 it
2 installed
2 gifting
2 full
2 eye
2 ever
2 dual
2 distribution
2 desktop
2 days
2 core
2 completely
2 compiz
2 cheap
2 center
2 cd
2 candy
2 breezy
2 box
2 books
2 beryl
2 be
2 are
2 applications
2 almost
1 year
1 xps
1 xorg
1 xgl
1 write
1 writabable
1 wpics
1 would
1 working
1 wireless
1 winxp
1 wins
1 wine
1 why
1 whole
1 while
1 wga
1 wep
1 welcome
1 web
1 weapons
1 we
1 was
1 warranty
1 warcraft
1 want
1 wall
1 voted
1 vmware
1 virus
1 victorious
1 versus
1 validates
1 uses
1 user
1 useful
1 us
1 unmount
1 ui
1 ugly
1 tweaks
1 tweaking
1 tutorials
1 try
1 truth
1 triple
1 tricks
1 transparent
1 transform
1 today
1 tips
1 tier
1 thursday
1 thinks
1 things
1 their
1 ten
1 technical
1 tad
1 system
1 switches
1 switch
1 supported
1 super
1 sun
1 strip
1 story
1 still
1 sticker
1 steps
1 stable
1 squad
1 spread
1 spotted
1 spiffing
1 software
1 smoke
1 single
1 simple
1 shrink
1 shirt
1 shift
1 shell
1 server
1 searched
1 seamless
1 screwup
1 screenshots
1 screen
1 satanic
1 root
1 rom
1 rising
1 right
1 reviewit
1 repository
1 reported
1 release
1 redesign
1 really
1 readable
1 ran
1 ram
1 quietly
1 purchase
1 progress
1 products
1 preview
1 prettier
1 preinstalled
1 prebuilt
1 pre
1 posters
1 possibly
1 popularity
1 popular
1 pm
1 player
1 picture
1 physics
1 photoshop
1 performance
1 perfectly
1 partition
1 part
1 parliament
1 or
1 onto
1 office
1 offers
1 offering
1 ntfs
1 nrg
1 notebooks
1 not
1 non
1 next
1 network
1 n
1 mod
1 million
1 might
1 mdf
1 mcgee
1 mcdonalds
1 marketplace
1 manufacturers
1 makes
1 macbook
1 mac
1 looking
1 links
1 lifehacker
1 life
1 less
1 just
1 issue
1 iso
1 introducing
1 internet
1 interface
1 instlux
1 installer
1 installation
1 insane
1 inaccurate
1 impressed
1 immediately
1 images
1 image
1 if
1 i
1 hungry
1 howto
1 house
1 hours
1 hot
1 holy
1 hippo
1 heron
1 hell
1 hardy
1 happen
1 guy
1 gui
1 growing
1 great
1 gnu
1 gnome
1 glass
1 girl
1 getting
1 gets
1 genuine
1 fusion
1 french
1 forces
1 followup
1 fixed
1 first
1 firefox
1 finally
1 few
1 father
1 faster
1 fantastic
1 extended
1 explains
1 explained
1 expensive
1 expect
1 existing
1 excellent
1 exactly
1 everything
1 everyone
1 engine
1 embargo
1 eft
1 easyubuntu
1 easy
1 easier
1 dvddecrypter
1 dvd
1 dualview
1 drops
1 drivers
1 download
1 door
1 doesn
1 does
1 do
1 disturbing
1 distributing
1 dismissed
1 diggers
1 demo
1 debian
1 customs
1 customization
1 cst
1 cs
1 cracking
1 could
1 converts
1 controls
1 confirmed
1 conf
1 computers
1 complete
1 comparison
1 community
1 commercial
1 coming
1 com
1 colors
1 click
1 cleartext
1 cleaning
1 circle
1 choose
1 card
1 canonical
1 building
1 build
1 bug
1 booting
1 black
1 bittorrent
1 billboard
1 better
1 been
1 beautiful
1 basics
1 badger
1 awesome
1 award
1 available
1 at
1 artwork
1 arrives
1 arrived
1 april
1 apps
1 any
1 an
1 american
1 amd
1 amazing
1 alumni
1 after
1 advantages
1 administrator

No surprises here, but it may be helpful when you go to write your next Digg headline. :)

Until next time

-LightningCrash

Posted in digg, headlines, ubuntu | No Comments »

10 ways Linux can breath life into your old PCs

Friday, September 7th, 2007

Yesterday, I was trying to figure out what to do with a spare Athlon XP 1600+ box that I have. I wrote down some of my ideas and threw in some others I’ve used in the past. If you’re looking for ways to reuse that old PC, just peruse this list.

  1. MythTV:

    2. If you haven’t at least heard about MythTV, you’re missing out. For the uninitiated, you should probably try out Knoppmyth. You can spec out hardware a few ways with this, but for run of the mill SDTV, you can get by with older hardware via the use of hardware encoding/decoding. A Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350 can handle the encode and decode operations just fine, even on slow hardware. Look at the EPIA C3 boxes for proof. a 1GHz C3 seems to be about the floating point equivalent of a Pentium III 500. You just need enough CPU power to write to/from the disk, and you’re set. A Hauppauge PVR-350 and a 500GB SATA drive should set you back about $250, and then you’re on your way to your own home-brew DVR!

  2. Firewall:

    3. You can use just about any computer you want for a Linux-based firewall. I use an old Pentium II 233 with 128MB of RAM and a 4.3GB hard drive. It works great. You’ll need two network cards in the unit, but those are easy to come by. For a software selection, I highly recommend IPCop. Before I set up my IPCop router, I handily froze 4 variants of consumer grade Cable/DSL routers. I set up the IPCop router at home and I have been trouble free ever since.

  3. Photo Frame:

    4. Ok, so this may not be the most electric-bill-friendly use of older hardware, but it works. Install any version of Linux that will run on the box, load up your pictures in a directory, and point your screensaver to that directory. I have a Dell GX110 connected to a 17″ LCD just for this purpose and it never fails to start conversations (usually due to the crazy photos I’ve taken throughout the years.) Set up a Samba share and let your spouse/roommates drag some photos over, too. It can also serve double duty with some other tasks in this list.

  4. CNC Controller:

    5. The only real requirement for this is that your computer have 192MB of RAM in it. That’s the minimum requirement to install Xubuntu. The folks at LinuxCNC.org have given the world a great little CNC package for Linux. You need not be limited there, you can do other sorts of Linux-powered work with an old PC. This is a prime example. He’s using DOS to run his BASIC programs, but there are plenty of BASIC interpreters for Linux, too!

  5. Classic Game Console:

    6. You can run Linux and ZSNES on just about anything, but you’ll probably want something with at least USB ports on it. Pick up a couple of cheap USB game controllers, grab some NES ROMs, fire up ZSNES and you’ll be playing Street Fighter 2 in no time! Not to mention all of the other emulators you can find. The MAME project will let you run your favorite arcade games, as well. This doubles up well with a MythTV box

  6. Home Server:

    7. So you’ve been eyeballing Windows Home Server for a while and want one of those fancy HP boxes with the 4 hard drives? Save yourself the trouble. You can build a Linux box that will do that and more, including BitTorrent downloads, FTP, NFS, Windows Shares, print serving, iSCSI, whatever you want. A Linux home server is really a how-to in itself, and I think bit-tech.net did a fine job of explaining it, so I’ll just leave it to them.

  7. Kitchen Computer:

    8. If you’re planning on actually browsing the web with this computer, you will probably want at least a 1GHz processor, just to preserve your sanity. However, a computer in your kitchen can really be handy whenever you’re cooking. You can look up recipes, or just kill time while you’re waiting for the food to finish cooking. Aged laptops work well for this purpose as you can keep more of your precious counter real-estate. Xubuntu, Ubuntu or Fedora Core would be fine for these.

  8. Mp3 JukeBox:

    9. If you’re a party kind of person, this would be perfect for you. Have a computer where your party crowd could pick out and queue up the music that they want to hear from your personal collection.
    LinuxDevices had a great article on setting up a Music Server, go have a look here.

  9. Webcam Feed:

    10. Any computer with a USB port and a network card could qualify for this one. Tired of your neighbor relieving himself in your lawn? Well, put that computer next to your window and follow this guide.

  10. Asterisk Home PBX:

    11. Admittedly, this isn’t for the faint of heart. You have to be ready to tinker for hours and hours and hours to want to do this. Still, there’s no easier way to get an Asterisk PBX up and running than with Trixbox. You can go all VoIP, you can go hybrid VoIP/Telco, or even all Telco. Asterisk is very flexible and has many very cool features for the tinkerer at heart. Just don’t forget to take your blood pressure medicine.

Oh, and I still haven’t decided what to use the old PC for. Then again, there’s always the option of tax-deductable donation to a charity!

Posted in cnc, firewall, linux, mame, mythtv, webcam | 2 Comments »

Linux and the most-wanted Windows applications, pt1

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

Earlier this week I asked on my local LAN party’s forums, “Windows users: What would it take for you to make the jump to Linux?” I got a lot of good commentary and many well thought-out answers, you can read it here.

But there’s a problem. Nobody really asks these questions on a larger scale. I set out on Google to find a list of the top requested Windows applications for Linux. Surprisingly, nobody has really asked this question in the past. That is, except for Novell. In 2006, Novell hosted a survey asking what Windows applications Linux users wanted. You can read the published results at Linux.com here.

The list isn’t all too surprising, most of the big-ticket applications are listed:

  1. QuickBooks
  2. AutoCAD
  3. Photoshop
  4. iTunes
  5. Dreamweaver
  6. Visio
  7. Lotus Notes
  8. Quicken
  9. Macromedia Studio
  10. Act!

Nothing unexpected here, although you can tell this survey ended up with more business respondents than home users. Although with iTunes at number 4, you can tell that the home users still made a big showing.

So, where do these applications stand right now in Linux? Do they work via WINE? Are there any plans for a Linux port? I want to know these things. First, I want to focus on the applications that aren’t typical business/profession oriented software.
Which, arguably, only make up 3 items:

  • Photoshop
  • iTunes
  • Quicken

These are important pieces of software for many people. I don’t know why more focus isn’t put onto 100% support for these products, but it seems to fall by the wayside. A number of editors and writers come up with these catchy headlines for Linux as a whole, like “Is 2007 the year of the Linux desktop?” but they miss the boat. Until a user can install these applications as easy in Linux as they can in Windows, it will never be the year of the Linux desktop. These three just have to work and work well, period.

So I guess we’ll go through the list one at a time. I’ll start with Quicken.

Quicken
Is it possible to make Quicken run under Linux? The short answer is maybe. See this thread here. We’re still miles away from just popping in the CD and installing, though. This is a big hangup for would-be users who have jobs and pay taxes. Not so much of a hangup for Ed and Elaine Brown, though.
What do people do when they have 10 years of Quicken data and are faced with the temptation of Linux? They stay right where they are, in a Windows environment.

iTunes
Doesn’t work. From scouring the internet, I’ve yet to see anyone get a fully functional iTunes installation operational via WINE. While your iPod may work with a WINE install of iTunes 4.0, you still can’t buy anything from the iTunes store, and just for another kick in the pants, the iPhone requires iTunes 7, which isn’t even close to useable in WINE. It’s just not there under Linux.
Luckily, though, there is an alternative which even the most devout iTunes users end up liking if they have to: Amarok. Here‘s a post on how to switch from iTunes to Amarok.
It’s little consolation. If you have an iPhone, you’re going to end up booting OS X or Windows anyway.

Photoshop
From my research thus far, it looks like none of the Photoshop CS releases work properly in WINE right now. It seems that Photoshop 7 works rather well, which would be fine if you’re content with the best that 2002 has to offer. It seems that Photoshop CS has a bronze support rating from the WINE apps db, which means it works with some gotchas. CS2 and CS3 appear to be right out, though.

What to do
So you wish these applications worked, and you want to know if you can do something to help?
Fortunately, you can help contribute to the process in the following ways.

  • Register for the WINE App Database and contribute your results in getting these applications to work.
  • Vote for your favorite applications at the WINE App Database
  • Donate to WINE (down the page and to the right) via PayPal and tell them to get these apps working ASAP.
  • Write Apple, Adobe, and Intuit and voice your desire for a native Linux port of these applications.

As it stands, there are only two paths for full support: Native Applications for Linux, and 100% WINE compatibility.

Part 2 of this series will cover the other 7 apps in the list. Part 3 of this series will involve me personally testing every one of these Top 10 applications that I can get my hands on, and reporting my findings.

See you on the next go-around!

Posted in linux, windows, wine | 1 Comment »

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