Talks on Open Source at Microsoft in Sydney

Steven Edouard, Felix Rieseberg and Rita Zhang will speak on "Open source at Microsoft" at the Sydney Linux User Group (SLUG) meeting, 6pm 23 October 2015 in Sydney. The SLUG meetings are free and always entertaining (it is worth attending, just to see the venue: Google Sydney HQ). While in Sydney, Steven, Felix  and Rita are also speaking at the .NET user group, Docker Meetup and Muru-D.

"As you may (or may not) know, nowadays Microsoft is a big supporter of open source, so much so, that Microsoft has become one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel.
In this talk we'll discuss how we 'do' open source at Microsoft, including some projects we've partnered with such as Docker, Deis, Flynn, Cloud Foundry, Ember.js and a variety of others. We'll show off some of the open source integrations we've done and how you can leverage some of this open work in your own projects. Join our San Francisco-based open source engineering team for this interesting discussion on our new direction and learn more about open source at Microsoft."

Linux File Systems

Greetings from the Sydney Linux User Group meeting in the Cylon Conference Room at Google Australia, where Sergey Guzenkov is speaking on "The Plethora of Choice: Choosing linux file systems and distributions for home and enterprise". I will be giving a short talk after on my "Low Cost Linux Laptop for Learning". 

Reuse or Recycle Your Old Computer

I will be speaking at Google Sydney on "Reuse or Recycle Your Old Computer", during the Sydney Linux User Group meeting,  6pm 28 March 2014. This is free to attend, but please RSVP.

Reuse or Recycle Your Old Computer

Computers and mobile devices become obsolete much quicker than other consumer products, such as refrigerators and cars. Electronic equipment can contain toxic and valuable materials which should not be simply put into landfill. Before you buy a new computer, tablet or phone, look at the options of what to do with the old one.

Tom is the author of the free ebook "ICT Sustainability: Assessment and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future" and teaches an on-line course in ICT sustainability which started at the Australian National University in mid-February.

What is e-waste

Electronic waste "e-waste": material from unwanted electrical or electronic devices.

1.  Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal (1989) limits the movement hazardous waste between nations. 
2.  Criteria for the export and import of used electronic equipment  assumes that e-waste is hazardous, until shown otherwise.

See: Materials Use in"ICT Sustainability:Assessment and Strategies for a Low Carbon Future" Tom Worthington, 2013.

National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme

• National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme (NTCRS): paid for by an industry levy
• Recycling Drop Off Points free for the public, across Australia
• Drop-off in Sydney at shops and council depots.
• 41,000 tonnes of Old TVs and Computers Recycled in Australia Last Year
• 30% of old TVs and computers recycled: "National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme - Outcomes 2012-13".
• About two million devices

Reuse or Recycle?

The NTCRS and services such as MobileMuster are strictly for recycling, not reuse. The equipment is broken up into its constituent materials (plastic, metal, glass) and these are melted down for making new items. For Reuse the equipment (or parts) refurbished and used again (often by charities).

Options for E-waste Plastic

The New Zealand Government has issued reports of two studies it commissioned on how to dealing with plastic which contains Brominated flame retardant (BFR) chemicals. These plastics have been commonly used in computers and other electronic devices. The chemicals are banned under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). The result is e-waste which is difficult to dispose of.

Backup and Erase Media Before Recycling or Reusing

Before recycling or reusing your computer, backup any useful information and then erase the media.

TAD’s Computer Support Service (CSS)

Technical Aid to the Disabled (TAD) accepts donations of relatively new computers for their TAD Computer Support Service.

Computers are refurbished by volunteers, upgraded to new Windows OS and provided to those on a disability or a Centrelink card at a modest cost.

Upgrade Really Old Computers to Linux 

• Microsoft is ending technical assistance for Windows XP, 8 April 2014 and advise "Very few older computers will be able to run Windows 8.1"
• Last year I upgraded four old PCs from Windows 98 and XP to  Mint Linux (Version 15) "Mate". This worked fine and provides a Windows-like interface.

Reuse or Recycle?

• Second hand computers are not classified as e-waste (as long as they work).
• Refurbishing a computer will extend its life.
• But will the computer use significantly more electricity than a new one?

See also: Labels: e-waste, ICT Sustainability

Installing Linux on a HP Pavilion DM1-4108AU

The screen broke on my trusty Kogan Agora and it was not feasible to repair. So I looked around for a similar unit: a low cost laptop with a screen between 11 and 12 inches, which is suitable for running Linux. I chose the HP Pavilion DM1-4108AU from JB HI-FI for $368. This has only 2GB of RAM and a 320 GB hard disk, the disk is upgradable but the RAM is not (there is a HP Pavilion dm1-4210us with 4GM RAM and a 500 GB disk). It has Windows 7 and so was selling a bit cheaper than the newer Windows 8 models. Linux can be installed, with WiFi needing an extra driver and the laptop is good apart from the shiny screen.

The HP Pavilion DM1-4108AU looks a lot more expensive than it costs, with a black and silver case (the silver highlights look like aluminum, but are painted plastic). My Kogan Agora looks down-market in comparison with a lot of plastic and screws, but has survived a fall onto a stone floor and is much easier to upgrade the hardware due to all the screws.

The case over the LCD screen on the HP is a little too flexible for my liking but the biggest problem is the shiny LCD screen and surround, making it more subject to reflections than the Kogan (but most small laptops now seem to have this problem). The HP's keypad is very good and it has a good range of ports (three USB, HDMI and VGA video), which is one reason I did not buy a Chromebook.

After reviewing J.A. Watson's excellent article about installing Linux on a similar HP model ("HP Pavilion dm1-4310e: Swapping Windows 8 for Linux"), I decided to try Mint Linux. This worked well, apart from the problem with WiFi, which Watson had noted. I also tried OpenSuSe Linux, which was equally impressive. To remove Linux and install another version I found the video "How to Safely Uninstall Linux with Windows Dual Boot" by Britecto be useful.

Ubuntu, came with a proprietary driver for the Broadcom WFi hardware BCM43103. I had been avoiding Ubuntu as I don't like the Unity interface (but you can install Gnome in ubuntu). Unfortunately even with the driver I still could not get WiFi to work.

Then I tried Puppy Linux. This was because of a comment on the Puppy Linux Discussion Forum saying that WiFi was slow on the HP DM1-4108 au, but at least it worked ("Wireless hp dm1-4108au Slow"). Normally I would not try such an unusual Linux version, but I was getting desperate. Puppy Linux is designed for running on old hardware and has been criticised for lack of security and applications. It runs fast but the installation process is not as polished as Mint, Ubuntu and OpenSuse.

The "Precise" version of Puppy is designed to be compatible with Ubuntu packages, to address the application issue. The Puppy ISO file downloaded very slowly (70kbps) and was not available from a local mirror site as it is so new (17 December 2012). This reminded me of the old days of dial-up modems, where software downloads could take much of a day. Unfortunately the Precise version did not work and so I tried "Slacko Puppy 5.4 final".

One curious problem I had was that I could not get the usual utility to write the Puppy ISO file to a USB drive. So I ended up using "Linux Live" on Windows 7. The WiFi worked, but was so slow as to be unusable. This showed me the WiFi could work, if I could get a suitable driver, so I went back to Mint Linux, as looked at how to load the correct driver for the Broadcom. The posting " Possible fix for wireless: BCM4313 (14e4:4727) on hp dm1 laptop with Ubuntu 11.10" suggested the wl driver not "brcmsmac":

Then save the file. Reboot, and then go into Ubuntu Software Centre again - search "bcm" and reinstall bcmwl-kernel-source and then broadcom-sta-source and broadcom-sta-common. ...

I then had Mint Linux working with the WiFi. While all this involved downloading many Linux distribution files, it had to be kept in perspective. I did spend a lot of time waiting for various Linuxes to boot. But I spent even more time waiting for Windows 7 to download updates and install them.

The Mint Linux ISO installation file is about 1 GB compares to about 300 MB for most others. But Mint comes with many extra packages which you have to download separately with other Linux distributions. It is still not without problems. It is odd that I still have to search the web to find out how to make the text large enough to read on a small screen for Linux and various packages. Given that there will be more people with poor eyesight as the population gets older, this is something open source developers need to address. Here I am not talking about special magnifier applications, just one place I can set the font size larger and have each application adjust accordingly.

I doubled the Resolution Dots Per Inch  in Appearance > Fonts > Details (making the text twice as large). But this did not make the text large enough to read in received email in Thunderbird, or on web pages in Firefox.

One catch with the HP DM1 computers is that they come with one of two different processors: Intel or AMD. The DM1-4108AU has the AMD processor and according to the "HP Pavilion dm1 Entertainment PC: Maintenance and Service Guide" (page 2) and has two RAM slots, whereas the Intel has only one. See "How to upgrade a dm1-4108au memory to 4Gig?" along with the showing how to get the back off the computer to install more RAM.

Using Free Linux Software for Teaching Online at Australia's Leading University

The Sydney Linux Users Group (SLUG) were short a speaker for their monthly meeting, so I volunteered with "Linux Software for Teaching Online at Australia's Leading University". SLUG meetings are always interesting, with a wide range of speakers (not just me) and have the bonus of being held at Google Sydney: 6pm for 6:30pm, Friday, 30 November 2012.

Using Free Linux Software for Teaching Online at Australia's Leading University

Speaker: Tom Worthington, Adjunct Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University 

Tom talks about how he used Linux and other free open source software for creating and running an award winning online course at the Australian National University. See also: "A Green Computing Professional Education Course Online with Moodle"

Linux Allows for Using Low Cost Hardware

Use a 11.6 Inch sub-notebook computer which cost less than $500.

Switched off new "Unity" Ubuntu interface for "classic".

Upgraded with a  60 GB Solid State Disk (SSD).

Use a USB wireless modem.

In the home and university offices have desktop screen, keyboard and mouse.

Free Open Source Office Software on the Laptop

1. LibreOffice suite for word processing and spreadsheet
2. Mozilla Thunderbird for email
3. Calibre for creating ebooks
4. Slidy for web based presentations

Free Software on University Servers

Moodle Learning Management System.

Free in the Cloud

• HTML Tidy to fix HTML errors
• Achecker for web accessibility
• Wikipedia for reference purposes

Some Tips

1. Use HTML in place of PDF and WP
2. Create text in LibreOffice with default format,
3. Export course content as HTML to Moodle,
4. Export as HTML to Calibre to create eBooks,
5. Use Moodle to communicate with students, not email.

Example: Course Notes Via The Web

1. eBook exported from Moodle
2. Published to web, ePub eBook and POD paperback
3. Notes in Moodle most popular with students and simpler to maintain

E-learning in Sumatra

Simple HTML course materials allows translation into Indonesian: " Sustainable Development Through Green ICT: The Role of Education and the Business Sector".

Huawei Deuce U8520 Dual SIM Android Smart Phone at Sydney Linux User Group

I have volinteered to give a lightening talk about the Huawei Deuce U8520 Dual SIM Android Smart Phone at Sydney Linux User Group Sydney Linux User Group (SLUG), Friday, 30 September 2011, 6pm at Google's Sydney's office. Here is a summary of what I want to say:

Huawei Deuce U8520 Dual SIM Android Smart Phone

1. Under $249 from AllPhones
2. 3.2 Inch touch screen, Android 2.2.2, 160 MB RAM, 2GB Flash card, QCT MSM7x27 processor
3. User Manual on the FCC web site.

Dual SIM

1. Dual SIM both active at the same time: one 3G one 2G
   
2. Have used it with a Virgin Broadband postpaid SIM (3G) and my Vodafone postpaid SIM (2G) at same time.
3. Catch is that using one SIM cuts off access to the other.

Good Points

1. Reasonable price,
2. Dual SIM,
3. Touch screen is very good,
4. Generic Google Android,
5. Usual smart phone features.

Problems

1. Smart phone functions work fine, but phone call audio quality is poor.
2. Battery only lasts 12 hours.
3. Unexplained activation of phone flattened battery in under six hours.
   

Suggested Solution

1. Convert into a Flip Phone with 3D Printing to improve call quality and prevent inadvertent activation flattening battery.
   

Linux Laptop Good for Presentations

The Sydney Linux User Group meets on the last Friday of each month at Google's Sydney headquarters. Last night there was no keynote speakers, instead six lightning talks. These are five minute talks, requiring the speaker to get to the point quickly, not spending time on who they are or fiddling with slides. I decided to give an update on my Kogan Agora Laptop. As I had my laptop plugged in at the podium, all the other speakers used it for their presentations.

This highlighted one of the features of this Linux laptop: it is very good for presentations. Since purchasing the unit several months ago I have been at events where the presenter was unable to get their laptop to work with the video projector. I simply plug in my Kogan Agora and a perfect picture comes up on the screen and on the laptop. When I commented on this at the SLUG meeting, one of the experts said this was due to the very good Linux support for the Intel graphics chip in the Kogan.

At a previous SLUG meeting I had criticized the Koag for its short battery life, at under three hours. However, installing the Power Manager Inhibit Applet appears to have had the side-effect of turning on the power saving features, extending the battery life to almost four hours.

Other speakers at the meeting (availabel in a video of the six lightening talks) were:

1. How to create an ebook - Marghanita
2. Update on my Kogan laptop - Tom
3. Building an satellite tracking system - Bruce
4. PyCon AU conference program - Tim
5. Prey, finding stolen laptop and Modeling your house - Patrick
6. SpiderOak and other Drop box alternatives - Sridhar

If a Linux, open source or general IT enthusiast, or if you are visiting Sydney and want to see the inside of the Google building, then a SLUG meeting is worth attending. If you can't make it to Sydney, the meetings are streamed live. The next meeting is 26 August 2011, so why not volunteer to speak?